Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,16
empty wood tub sat beside a rickety-looking pine table and equally questionable pine chairs.
“Now,” she began, “I feel it is important that we agree upon the terms of what I’m ask—”
“Lower your hood,” he said bluntly, cutting into her demands and control of the situation.
She bristled at that insolence and boldness. “I absolutely will not.”
“Do you really think we’re going to have dealings without me ever actually seeing you, Lady X?”
Faye hesitated. Yes, he had a point there. And then his continued form of address registered. She frowned. “My name is Mrs. X.”
Mr. Wylie snorted. “Aye, and mine is His Lord and Savior.”
With his dark reputation, and the place she’d just helped free him from, it was more likely he was the dark angel himself.
He folded his arms. “You’re not Mrs. X or Lady X. I always know who I’m dealing with, or I don’t have dealings with them, and that goes for you. Come on now, love. Off with it and out with it.”
It wasn’t the first time he’d used that throwaway endearment, and yet, this was the first time his well-bred tones slipped, revealing a hint of East London and adding a further layer of mystery to Mr. Wylie.
Faye warred with herself, going back and forth, her fingers creeping up and then falling back, and then before reason could win out, she caught the edges of her hood and slowly lowered it.
Mr. Wylie gave her a blank, up-and-down glance. “I don’t know you, and you’re a miss. Certainly not a ‘Mrs.’.”
“No,” she concurred. “We’ve never had dealings with each other.” Until now.
“A child,” he said flatly. “I don’t have dealings with children.”
His words had an air of finality, and it was the first time, even since he’d walked off to a different address than the one he’d provided her, that she felt she was really losing Mr. Wylie and his cooperation. “I’m not a child,” she said on a rush. “I am nearly twenty years of age. I’m a woman.”
He hooded his lashes. “What’s your name, love?”
This time, that endearment contained the proper traces of the King’s English, and in that moment, she discovered that slight deviation of before marked a slip in his control. When he had a fine grip on his speech, he’d full mastery of a situation. “Faye.”
“Faye…?”
She hesitated. “Faye Poplar.”
“Ah, of the kidnapping Poplars,” he said casually and then proceeded to fetch a bucket of boiling water from the stove and fill the bath.
As he worked, she watched him.
So even this man had heard of her. Faye curled her toes so tight into the soles of her boots, her arches stung. Then, should that really surprise her, given the work he did and the extent of her family’s crimes? The mockery and condemnation she’d come to confront and accept, however, didn’t appear this time. “That is why I’ve come.” She made herself continue as he fetched another pot of water and added it to his rapidly filling bath.
“I can’t help you.”
“You don’t even know what I want, Mr.—”
“Revenge against the rightful lord?”
She frowned. “You’d be better served actually hearing a person out rather than forming hasty conclusions, Mr… What is your given name?”
He finished pouring his latest bucket, and still half bent over the tub, he looked up, his cobalt eyes hooded by those gloriously long lashes. “Wylie,” he said tightly. “That is the only name you need or will receive.” He returned the bucket to the stove and reached for another.
“No.” After all, he was now in possession of her name, and there was something uneven in their exchange that he should have that intimate information about her and she not have the same from him. “Given our relationship will become a close one, I expect we should dispense with formalities and refer to each other by our Christian names.” Furthermore, thinking of him solely by that name he was known for as warden of Newgate made him… less approachable.
“Ours will be a close relationship, kitten?” he purred.
He was trying to distract her.
“Your name?” she repeated more firmly.
For a moment, she expected he’d withhold that, and in truth, she had no way to force it from him. Ultimately, the decision fell to him as to whether or not he’d allow that closeness.
“Tynan.”
“Tynan,” she echoed, unable to keep herself from murmuring those two syllables aloud.
It was a name that meant “dark,” and there couldn’t be one that suited a man such as him more in appearance. In deed.