His answer gave her a slight jolt of alarm.

"I do not like the word /seduction/," he said. "It suggests weakness on the part of the seduced and cold calculation on the part of the seducer.

It suggests an inequality of desire and need. It suggests a puppet and a puppeteer. I have never admired male seducers because they exploit women and make of them only playthings for their beds. I have never met a female seducer, though I am very familiar with the story of the sirens."

"Did you not meet one last evening, Lord Merton?" she asked him.

He smiled at her.

"I met a lady," he said, "who /called/ herself that. You, in fact. I would prefer to think that in your loneliness – pardon me, your /aloneness/ – you looked for someone for whom you could feel the comfort of an attraction, and you found me. You did not seduce me, Cassandra.

You were open and bold about the attraction you felt, something I have not encountered in any of the ladies of my acquaintance, who usually employ a whole arsenal of more subtle wiles if they are interested in capturing my attention. I appreciated your openness. I felt an equal attraction to you. I would have asked you to dance with me even if you had not collided with me just before the waltz began. I do not suppose I would have also invited you to share a bed with me quite so soon if you had not made it very clear that it was what /you/ wanted, but our mutual attraction might have led us here eventually."

He had misunderstood entirely. Which was just as well. /Our mutual attraction/.

"Yes," he said, "I do want to sleep with you again and again into the future. But I must ask some questions first."

She raised her eyebrows and regarded him haughtily.

"Indeed?" she said. She had somehow lost control over this business conference. She was supposed to be doing the talking, he the listening.

"Tell me about Lord Paget's death," he said. He was leaning forward, his arms draped over his knees. His blue eyes were looking very intensely at her.

"He died," she said, smiling scornfully. "What more is to be said? You want me to tell you that his skull was cleaved in two with an axe, Lord Merton? It was not. It was a bullet that killed him – a bullet through the heart."

He was still looking very directly at her.

"Did you kill him?" he asked.

She pursed her lips and looked back into his eyes.

"Yes," she said.

She did not realize he had been holding his breath until he expelled it audibly.

"I might have found it difficult to wield an axe," she said, "but a pistol was a weapon I was quite capable of using. I used one. I shot him through the heart with it. And I have never regretted it. I have not for one moment mourned him."

His head had dropped so that he was looking down at the floor and she was gazing at the top of his head. She thought his eyes might be closed.

The fingers of both his hands curled into his palms. He did not speak for a long time.

"Why?" he asked at last.

"Because," she said, and smiled though he was not looking at her.

"Perhaps because I felt like doing so."

She ought to have said no to his original question. Was she trying to drive him away and sabotage her carefully laid plans? She could not have chosen a better way.

There was another loud silence. When he spoke again, his voice was scarcely audible.

"Did he abuse you?" he asked.

"Yes," she said. "He did."

He lifted his head at last and looked intently at her again with troubled eyes, a frown between his brows.

"I am sorry," he said.

"Why?" she asked him, her lip curling. "Could you have done anything to prevent it but failed to do so, Lord Merton?"

"I am sorry," he said, "that so many men are brutes simply because they are physically stronger than women. Was it bad enough, then, that you had no alternative but to kill him?"

But he answered his own question before she could do so.

"It must have been. Why were you not arrested?"

"I shot him in the library," she said, "late in the evening. There were no witnesses, and by the time a number of people gathered there, drawn by the noise, there was no knowing who had done it. There was and is no proof that I did. Anyone could have. Anyone at all. The house was full of servants and other residents. The library window was open to the whole world beyond. No one can prove anything except that he died of a bullet wound."

"And except," he said, "that you have confessed to me."

"And to no one else besides you," she said. "You will fear from this moment on that when you are asleep one night I will kill you too in order to keep you silent."

"I am not a tattler," he said, "and I am not afraid. You must not be either."

"I do not fear you," she said. "A gentleman does not reveal a lady's secrets, and I believe you /are/ a gentleman. And I do not fear you would ever abuse me. If you did, I would not kill you. Why would I when I can simply walk away from you as I could not from a husband? A widow has power, Lord Merton. She is free."

Except that she was not. Her lack of money set her in thrall. And somehow this conversation was not proceeding at all as she had planned it in her mind. Then she had been able to control his answers as well as her questions. She was not sure there was a way of bringing it back under her control.

"I will be happy," he said, "to be your lover. I will treat you kindly.

I promise you that. And when it is over, you will simply tell me and I will go."

"But the trouble is, Lord Merton," she said, "that I cannot afford a liaison that is simply an affaire de coeur."

It was not at all as she had intended to say it. But it was too late now. The words were out, and his gaze had sharpened further on her.

"Cannot /afford/?" he said.

"A man who succeeds to his father's title and property and fortune," she said, "is almost always going to consider his surviving stepmother an encumbrance. But most such men honor their obligations nonetheless. The present Lord Paget did not."

"Your husband left no provision for you in his will?" he said, frowning.

"Or in your marriage contract?"

"Certainly he did," she said. "Do you think I would have killed him if I had known I would be left destitute, Lord Merton? I was to have the dower house at Carmel for my use during my lifetime, and the house in town here. I was to have a money settlement, all my personal jewelry, and a comfortable pension for life."

He was still frowning.

"Can Paget legally withhold any of those things from you?" he asked.

"He cannot," she said. "Neither can I legally kill a man. His father, in fact. It was a stalemate, Lord Merton, but he resolved it. He would not pursue prosecution against me if I just simply went away empty-handed."

"And that is what you did?" he asked her. "Simply went away? Even though there was no evidence against you?"

"Evidence, Lord Merton," she said, "can very easily be trumped up against someone one does not like."

He stared at her for a few moments before closing his eyes and lowering his head again.

Seduction by a lady of questionable reputation followed by a business agreement by a courtesan – an /expensive/ courtesan, an /irresistible/ courtesan. And he would come to heel like a well-trained puppy because his appetite would have been aroused but not fully sated. He would be panting with lust for her.

That had been the plan. It had been clear in her head, and it had seemed perfectly reasonable. She had not expected it to be at all difficult to implement.

The plan had gone quite awry, however.

She began swinging her foot slowly again. She looked at his tousled golden blond curls with as much scorn as she could muster. She waited for him to get up and go away. She almost hastened him on his way by telling him to leave.

She did not fear what he would say to others after he had left. He /was/ a gentleman, she believed. Besides, he would not wish openly to admit to anyone that he had been lured into the bed of a notorious murderer.

He lifted his head again, and it seemed to her as his eyes met hers in the growing light of day that he was paler than he had been, that his eyes were bluer. And very intense.

"You have nothing?" he asked her.

She raised her eyebrows.

"I have enough," she lied. "But if you are to be my lover, Lord Merton, you are also to be my protector. You will pay me for services rendered.

You will pay me as you would the most celebrated of courtesans. Very well indeed, that is. And I will render services that will be ten times more satisfying than any courtesan would offer. Tonight was a mere pale sampling."

It sounded like a foolish boast. She almost expected him to laugh at her.

"You were not attracted to me at all, were you?" he said. "You came uninvited to Meg's ball in order to find a protector."

She smiled at him – and her slipper finally fell off her foot and landed on the floor with a soft thump.

"A lady does, Lord Merton," she said, her voice low, "what a lady must." /Go/, she told him silently. /Please go. Go away and never let me have to see you again/.

There was rather a lengthy silence during which they continued to stare at each other. She would not look away, she decided. Neither would she say anything more before he did. She certainly would not jerk to her feet and rush inside her dressing room and slam the door and press her body back against it until he had gone.

"I will pay you weekly, Lady Paget," he said at last, "in advance.