the world. If only she’d had him at her side when that first letter had arrived.
Unfortunately, a thief couldn’t hire a Bow Street Runner to find the man who was blackmailing her. She almost snorted at the ludicrous idea.
She let her body relax a little more. Being held by a man was a foreign sensation, but it somehow felt completely natural, as if she’d curled up in his warm embrace a thousand times before. Such foolishness. This was a temporary truce, nothing more. When morning came, they would be enemies again. But just for a few hours she could pretend there would be no tomorrow.
“Sleep,” Harland murmured, and she felt the rumble of it pass from his chest into her back.
What else could she do? Emmy closed her eyes and let exhaustion overtake her.
Chapter 27.
It was almost dawn when she awoke. She lay on her side and watched the light change, from dove grey to pearl white and wished they could have stayed in the darkness forever.
Harland had released her at some point during the night. He was still asleep beside her, lying on his back, and his features became clearer with every passing minute. He was so handsome, it almost broke her heart. His hair was rumpled, his bare chest visible above the sheet that had fallen around his waist. She remembered the silky feel of that hair beneath her fingers.
Several small scars marred his skin, and she resisted the urge to reach out and trace them, to smooth her palms over the defined ridges of his muscles. He reminded her of the statue she’d seen in the British Museum. Not the gladiator—although he was similarly muscled—but the dying slave. His austere face was relaxed, his beautiful lips soft and dreadfully tempting. He looked powerful and yet strangely vulnerable, almost boyish.
Emmy sighed.
No more dreaming. It was time to face the new status quo.
Her exhalation roused him. His slate-blue eyes snapped to hers. For a moment she saw confusion and then incredulity in their depths, before recollection came to him and he went from asleep to fully alert in an instant. That ability must be the result of so many years as a soldier.
He sat up in a swift move and was off the bed and standing by the door before she could even blink. He reached down and picked up her shirt and breeches from where they’d fallen on the floor, and her skin heated at the reminder that she was completely naked beneath the sheet.
He tossed them to her, his face expressionless. “Get dressed. I’ll be waiting out there.”
As soon as he left, Emmy made use of the chamber pot and splashed her face with water she found in the wash jug. The cotton drying cloth smelled of him. One glance in the shaving mirror confirmed her worst fears; she barely recognized herself. Her hair was a tangled mess and her lips seemed fuller than usual. She ran her hands through her hair, then braided it in one long plait and used a thread of cotton pulled from the washcloth to secure the end.
Muscles she’d never noticed before in her stomach and thighs protested as she bent to put on her breeches, but once she was dressed, she felt better armed to face whatever was to come. She straightened her spine, opened the door, and strode into the lion’s den.
He’d taken up position in the chair behind the desk and gestured to the seat across the polished expanse of wood. Thankfully he’d donned a shirt; she doubted she’d have been able to think straight if she’d had his bare chest to distract her.
“Sit.”
Emmy sat.
He cleared his throat and levelled her with a piercing stare. “I believe we need to clarify our respective roles in this play, Miss Danvers.”
She winced at his return to formality but managed to match his tone. “Is it a farce? A comedy? A tragedy?”
“I haven’t decided yet.”
He placed his hands flat on the desk. She would not think of those hands on her body.
“Do you deny that you are the thief they call the Nightjar?”
She lifted one shoulder in an easy shrug and threw him an appeasing crumb. “That was my father.”
He frowned at her. She raised one brow. Battle lines had been drawn. Last night she’d been too panicked to think clearly, but this morning she wouldn’t go down without a fight.
“The only thing you can prove I’m guilty of is breaking into your bedroom,” she said calmly. “And that’s not much of