Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,40

to admire the ease with which she went about laying siege to the remaining time and asserting her rights within their tenuous arrangement.

As Faye readied her materials, Tynan crossed to the open chair. Picking up the oak seating, he proceeded to carry it around the table.

Faye’s jaw went slack. “What are you doing?” she demanded when he positioned that seat beside her.

“I think it should be fairly clear,” he said. “I’m sitting.”

Faye shot a hand out, slapping it over the seat in question. “What is wrong with the other chair you were in?” She didn’t give him a chance to respond. “Nothing. You are fine enough,” She waggled her pen across the table. “Over there.”

Tynan smiled. “I’ve decided I prefer being here.” He gave an exaggerated point at the kitchen chair she was so determined to retain control over.

The lady ground her teeth. “You’re just trying to unnerve me and…” Her eyes widened. “You are deliberately wasting my time once more.” Faye promptly yanked her hand back. “When will I ever learn?” she muttered to herself.

Curiously enough, this rearrangement of the chairs had nothing to do with stalling or getting the upper hand to whittle down their time together. Nay. Rather, it had more to do with the fact that he wished to be near her.

It was, however, a good deal better for the lady to believe the former.

“All right, love.” He steepled his fingers and drummed their tips together. “Where do you want to begin?”

“I’ve had time to think on it, and… I should like to first focus my attentions on those lords and ladies whose crimes involved… children.”

Criminals like those in Faye’s own family. He opened his mouth to make a clever quip about her having all the contacts and details she needed to start on that very subject, but something held him back, freezing the words on his lips.

Perhaps it was the strain at the corners of her eyes that radiated a blend of sadness and shame. Or the brittleness Faye wore on those lips she pressed firmly together.

Tynan scrubbed at his right temple.

Being locked away had weakened him. There was nothing else for it.

He needed to get this over with, not just this one meeting, but this entire arrangement he’d pledged.

“You aren’t going to find a single lord or lady who’d be in any way cooperative with what you intend to do, Faye,” he said.

Faye fiddled with her pencil; staring down at the scrap as though it contained all the answers to all the questions she sought.

Hope filled him.

Mayhap he’d reached her, after all. Mayhap she’d finally seen reason.

“Let us begin with the Lost Lords,” she murmured, and dashed a heading upon her empty page.

Tynan released a growl of frustration. “The nobility would sooner cut you and protect their secrets than reveal anything they in fact know.” And those most powerful of people invariably did know much. Their names might be pristine, but invisible upon their lily-white hands was the stain of sins and scandal. “The people outside their world? Those are the ones who’ll gladly spill, if there is something to be gained for it.”

Scratch, scratch, scratch.

She wasn’t hearing his attempt to reason with her.

Head bent, her shoulders hunched as if in concentration, she let her pencil fly over the page, filling up the rapidly filling sheet with details she’d gathered at some point on the Lost Lords.

As she wrote, Tynan’s gaze drifted to the crooked set to her mouth, the way she caught the corner of her lip between her teeth and scrunched her brow. There was an endearing way to her when she worked. And he’d sooner willingly walk a path to the gallows and toss the rope around his own neck than admit that.

Because he didn’t think innocence was endearing. He alternated between doubting whether people were truly capable of that sentiment and detesting the possibility that it was a very real weakness that afflicted people.

That rhythmic tap, tap, tap of her pencil came to a stop, and Faye glanced up.

Tynan jerked his gaze down to her small leather book and made a show of studying it in a bid to cover up the fact that he’d been so singularly fascinated by her as to have found himself blatantly staring, unable to look away.

“The Lost Lords,” she said, tapping the tip of her pencil upon the heading she’d made. “What do you know of those linked to the disappearances of those children? My mother?” she went on to clarify. “She never took