Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,21

an octave.

Tynan inclined his head. “I believe you have the right of it.” He gestured to the seats at the table. “Now, if you’d care to sit so that we might work through the amount for which I’m willing to lend my services?”

“The amount you’re willing to…?”

He smirked. “Nothing is free, love. Let that be a lesson to you in the Rookeries.” He softened that lecture with a wink.

The lady went absolutely motionless, and then throwing her arms up, she released an exasperated cry and proceeded to pace. “You’d speak to me about nothing being free? Why… why…” she sputtered. Her pale white cheeks flooded with color that highlighted the sharp planes of her face and made her… if not pretty, certainly fascinating to stare upon. “You… scoundrel!”

Even if she was hurling insults at him.

“You are ungrateful and insufferable and boorish.”

A good many insults, at that.

She looked him up and down. “And your humor is peculiar.”

Now, that would be the first time such a charge had been leveled at him. No one before her—and likely after her—would ever dare accuse him of having any sense of humor. “Are you—?”

She stopped quickly and jammed a finger in his chest. “No, I am most certainly not finished.”

Tynan kept his features deadpan. “I was going to ask whether you had any other choice words you’d like to add to your cataloging.”

Muttering several additional choice insults under her breath, Faye increased her stride, her pacing frenetic. As she spoke more to herself this time, his ears picked up traces of… curses. Rather inventive curses, at that. Not for the first time, his curiosity was stirred by his rescuer. “Tell me where a proper kitten like you knows about all the ways a sod can find himself buggered?”

She missed a step. An innocent blush filled her cheeks; one that also defied the woman who’d kissed him on the streets and who ordered him about with a far greater ease and command than the warden who’d replaced him. “I am still talking, Mr. Wylie,” she snapped, and sadly enough, she let his curiosity go unassuaged.

Her black skirts whipped angrily about her ankles, sending them brushing against his legs every time she stalked off. “You’re inconsiderate. Boorish.” She paused in her seemingly unending tirade and slanted another black look his way. “Did I say thankless?”

Tynan steepled his palms together, like the priests who’d come to pray among the derelicts in the Rookeries. “I believe you covered that somewhere prior to ‘insufferable’ and ‘boorish,’ but somewhere after the insult of ‘scoundrel.’” He puzzled his brow. “Though I should mention that, for one who has such a clever repertoire of insults, I’d have expected you would have launched your attack with something more inventive than ‘scoundrel.’”

The corners of the lady’s mouth twitched.

“And I’d like to also point out that ‘thankless’ and ‘ungrateful’ are redundant.” He gave her another wink.

“Well, it required overemphasizing,” she snapped. Her eyes formed dangerous little slits, and even with the more than a foot between them in height and the many stone more in weight he had upon her, he backed up a step, knowing the peril posed by eyes that glimmered like hers. He thought better of it and then added another step between them.

“That is right, Tynan Wylie,” she gritted out, advancing with a boldness that even his jaded self was hard-pressed to not admire. “You had best be concerned.”

Living the life he had, growing up in the Rookeries and then serving as king of London’s most notorious prison, he’d come across so many sorts of people that he’d ceased to be surprised or impressed. Until now.

His intrigue with the fearless and most unlikely warrior before him was peculiar enough to stir his interest once more. She’d also earned enough appreciation that he set aside his teasing.

Letting his taunting grin fall, he let his arms drop. “Nothing is free, Faye,” he said solemnly. “Everything comes with a price. You wished for my services. You seek to enlist me in your work”—dangerous, foolhardy work, at that—“without attempting to ask for my cooperation. You may have gotten me out of Newgate, but you’d put me on the line in a different way.” He drifted over to her and lowered his head so he could better meet her gaze. “If I do what you ask, I’m facing danger all the same.”

Something shifted in her eyes. Her slightly uneven teeth caught her lower lip, inadvertently bringing Tynan’s attention to her mouth as she troubled that plump, crimson