man or taking such delight in a peculiar woman giving her a nickname.” Her voice had dropped until only he could hear her, a soft rebuke. “You’re good at one piece but not the other.”
He took a sip of tea, his eyebrows shooting over the rim of the cup. “Am I? Do tell. What am I missing on the wooing front? Or better yet, let’s discuss the part I’m good at.”
Delaney pushed her eggs around her plate, dodging his wicked half-smile. Dodging the intense urge to sweep his hair from his brow and give it a neat tuck behind his ear. With his overlong tresses and hooded amber eyes, full lips, the shallow dent in his cheek, not deep enough to call a dimple but there, he looked like a poet, not a soldier. Though she didn’t doubt for one moment that he had it in him to fight. “You know the part you’re good at. It’s splashed across the gossip rags much like sunlight is splashed across our feet.” She stabbed her fork in a piece of sausage. “It’s not helpful, this expertise, as you can’t share it with the girl. Not yet. You’re left to prop yourself up with charm, which I fear you lack.”
Sebastian set his teacup aside and leaned back in his chair, the wood creaking with the movement. “I think we should change the subject, Temple. I haven’t shared my expertise in close to a year, and something about the hint of lemon clinging to your skin is beginning to trouble me.”
She turned to him with a smirk that felt shaky at the edges. “Exactly, Tremont.” Delaney tapped her fork against his cuff, her trembling contained to her knees, not her fingers. “Tell Kitty she smells heavenly. That her eyes sparkle. That her voice sounds like the call of, oh, I don’t know, some lovely English bird. I assume you had to do none of this with the opera singer.”
Sebastian leaned in, bracing his elbows on the table and linking his fingers, his patience trickling away. “I want to know what you’re hiding, and I want to know it now.”
Delaney swallowed, placing her fork by her plate. If he thought she was going to give in that easily… “If you win the race, you get two questions. Wasn’t that the wager?”
Eyes downcast, she heard rather than witnessed him yank his hand through his hair. That was a sensual image she wasn’t strong enough to take in and remain unaffected. Not with the man sitting so close, looking so perplexed. So concerned. Concern for her. When no one, except her twin, had given a fig about her since her father’s passing three years ago.
She was used to taking care of herself.
“We’re just playing a game, Temple. I can’t say why I’m cooperating. I only see that I am. And you, we know why. You’re desperate. But it can only go on for so long, this dancing around the truth. I have people in the supernatural world I find myself in who depend on me. People I’d protect, and have, with my life. Who would do the same for my children. You’ve stepped in, a threat and someone in need, all in one troublesome bundle. When I tell you I will find out what you’re hiding, I want you to understand the end result is known.”
Delaney looked at him then, her hands going into tight fists in her lap. “I don’t need you. Or this League of yours. I memorize things. That’s it. Nothing like starting fires or reading minds or touching objects and seeing the past.”
“Your talent is why someone is blackmailing you. Causing you to venture into Seven Dials alone. Asking for information about the occult. About the chronology. We know. Everyone at this table knows you sneaked into Julian’s home three months ago to take a look at it.”
Delaney’s lips parted in astonishment. She was desperate to tell someone. He wanted to know why they’d run? About her gift? Her blackmailer? Her past? Her secrets? Fine. She would tell him everything and see what he thought of her then.
They reached at the same time, hands bumping in the narrow space between their plates. A tremor raced through her fingers and down her body as an image of the Duke of Ashcroft bending to capture her lips beneath his flashed through her mind. Shaken, the door to her attic blew open, a flood of bright light spilling out to blind her. Heat dusted her cheeks