Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,35

wasn’t wrong. But blast him for being correct anyway. She had only herself to blame for this misstep. “I’m not going to allow you to distract me any more than you already have from my plans, Tynan. Now, where were we?”

“With all the details you were firing off about your venture, it’s hard to recall.”

“Names.” Faye circled that single word at the top center of her page. “I need names. And crimes and…”

He shot her another deliberate look, and she braced for more of his teasing. “Very well. Which crimes would you care to begin with, Faye? Attempted murder? Theft? Bribery? Forgery? Murder? Kidnapping?”

Kidnapping.

Attempted murder.

Murder.

Unable to meet his stone-cold expression, Faye dropped her gaze to the open page and stared blankly at the words there.

Hearing those acts of evil spoken aloud, and knowing her family was responsible for those very crimes, left her with a hole in her chest.

“Come, come, Faye,” he urged with a deserved frostiness to his crisp tones. “Given how prepared you are, I trust you already have a plan as to who you intend to target with your writings.”

Actually, she hadn’t. Naïvely, foolishly… or mayhap it was merely cowardice that had prevented her from settling upon the course her investigation would take.

Tynan stretched a hand across the table and rested those long digits upon hers, and she stared at that large palm covering her fingers. His touch was rough, his skin callused and primal in its realness and vitality. This was a hand that had done actual work and was strong enough to silence. And yet, there was also a tenderness and warmth that brought her stare reluctantly up to his. She braced for more of his usual mockery and cynicism, but the solemnness in those dark depths sucked all the air from her.

“What’s it going to be, love?” he asked quietly.

What was it going to be? His gaze locked with hers, and she couldn’t sort out so much as her name in this instant.

In the end, she was spared from answering.

A rapping echoed at the back kitchen door, and Faye and Tynan both looked up.

Reality came blaring back to the present. Someone was here. “Oh, hell,” she whispered.

She felt the color leave her cheeks. Surely she’d not been discovered. It was too soon for her brother to have returned. Or worse, what if it was someone who’d come for Tynan? All the warnings he’d given, ones that had come from a man with too many enemies, whispered forward. “A-are you expecting someone?”

“Do you think I’m expecting company, love?” he muttered sotto voce, his gaze on that scarred oak panel.

“No,” she whispered. “I think you’re one who’d rather not deal with most people.” Faye included herself among those ranks. But then, there was Finn, whom he seemed all too patient with.

He gave her an odd look. “It was a rhetorical question,” he whispered.

“Oh,” she blurted.

Touching a fingertip to his mouth, Tynan stood and then pointed across the room.

She followed that gesture over to the tall cupboard and then back to Tynan.

“Now,” he mouthed.

Faye’s lips moved, and then what he was suggesting hit her. “You want me to hide in a cabinet.”

Knock, knock, knock.

Faye jumped up so quickly her chair scraped with a damning loudness along the earthen floor.

Crossing over, Tynan lowered his mouth close to her ear. “Yes. Just like I want you to close your damned mouth lest you make any more of a racket than you already have.” With that, he took her lightly by the arm and steered her over to the walnut kitchen dresser.

Knock, knock, knock.

That pounding at the door grew more incessant.

“Get in,” he repeated. This time, however, Faye was already dropping to her knees and clambering inside. Tynan pushed the doors shut, and blackness immediately engulfed her.

There came a faint, muffled murmuring, and then a moment later, the panels opened, and light streamed in, briefly blinding. “What?”

“Shh,” he ordered, and bending down, he stuffed her skirts inside. “You ladies with your damned skirts.”

“Yes, breeches would certainly be more—”

Tynan shoved the doors shut once more.

“—beneficial,” she finished, alone in the dark.

Drawing her knees close to her chest, she blinked wildly in an attempt to adjust her eyes to the darkness. She kept herself completely still and strained to pick up on what was happening on the other side of the cupboard. Stealthy as he was, Faye couldn’t even make out Tynan’s footfalls, and certainly not over the steady thump of her pulse in her ears. Sweat moistened her palms, and she