Page 60 of How the Earl Entices

He grimaced. He deserved that jab, yet he also found it alluring. Only Grace could make him want her more by attempting to drive him away.

He reached for her bag and searched it, checking every inch. “Perhaps you haven’t been around enough sullied men,” he mumbled, frowning into the bag.

“Perhaps you haven’t been around enough unsoiled women.”

“Dear God, why would I want that?” At that moment, there was only one woman who concerned him, and it was all he could do to shut out the images of her naked body bathing in the warm, soapy water and focus on the task at hand. “After all, half the women in Europe are simply holding their breaths as they wait for me to wash their backs.”

He barely registered the splash of water behind him or her reply to that as he ran his fingertips over the inside of the bag. Then he felt it—a tear. Only a small rip in the lining, but its straight line was a purposeful cut, not the kind gotten through wear or accident. He carefully reached beneath the lining, and his fingertips brushed over something small and hard. He pulled out the hidden object and held it up.

A gold ring, decorated with rubies and diamonds. It shimmered brightly even in the dim lamplight, leaving no doubt that it was real.

He held it up toward the lamp and read the faint inscription on the inside of the tiny band…To S, Love always D.

Was it a leftover memento from her previous life? Had to be.She was beautiful, but living under the pretense of being a fisherman’s widow wouldn’t have brought her anywhere near the kind of man who could afford to give her a bauble like this. Neither was she the kind of woman who sold her intimacies. Had to be from her gentleman husband then, who had to beD.S…her initial?

Fresh frustration spiked inside him. If a few letters were the only clues he had, he would never be able to piece together her identity.

Love always.His chest constricted at that, but he refused to consider why. It couldn’t be jealousy. Not of a dead man.

No, it was betrayal. She’d misled him by implying that she hadn’t loved her husband. Butthis—keeping a ring like this was an act of love.

“You make it very difficult to trust you, Spalding,” a soft voice said from behind him.

He froze. Caught.Christ.Rapidly trying to think of any viable excuse for what he’d done, he turned to face her—

And lost his breath.

She stood in front of the screen, wearing only a large towel wrapped around her, with her toffee hair falling loose around her bare shoulders and down her back. Her skin was pink from the hot water, with jasmine-scented droplets still clinging to her bare arms and legs. She reminded him of that Botticelli painting of Venus being born from the sea, with all of nature begging to be allowed to worship at her feet.

But it was her gaze that arrested him. She looked at him not in anger, but with acute disappointment.

He’d rather have had her rage. It would have been less biting.

“When you didn’t answer, I thought you’d left to dress.” She lowered her gaze to the bed and the clothes he’d gone through, and her disappointment deepened. “If you wanted to search my things, you could have simply asked. I would have let you.”

Damnation.He gritted his teeth.She wouldnotmake him feel guilty about being cautious. Not with everything he was up against. His survival depended on tonight’s search going perfectly, and he wouldn’t let it be jeopardized because a former society miss refused to divulge her name.

“I did ask,” he countered. “But you refused to tell me who you are.”

“I told you that I would tell you later.”

“You said when we reached London. We’re in London now.” He pinned a narrowed gaze on her. “Who are you?”

She paused, as if she might surrender her name after all. But then she shook her head, as obstinate as ever in keeping her secrets. “You wanted me to trust you, and this is how you repay me. By showing no trust in me.” She held out her hand. “Give me my ring, please.”

Her refusal to answer even now stoked his anger, and he stalked toward her, forcing her to retreat. The hand that had been outstretched now clutched at the towel to keep her covered from his eyes. Oddly, that only aggravated him more.

“I’m supposed to trust a woman with my life when she refuses to tell me her name?” he shot back, backing her up against the wall. He held up the ring in front of her and demanded, “Who’s D?”

“My late husband.” She snatched the ring away and drew her hand around it in a tight fist, as if afraid he might try to take it back by force.

“That’s not what I meant.”

She countered defiantly, “I know.”

With a frustrated growl, his patience snapping, he leaned in and trapped her between the wall and his body.

Her eyes blazed, which only drew him closer, until her softness pressed along the front of his hard body. She shuddered at the contact with a soft little gasp that parted her lips in sensuous invitation. One he couldn’t help staring at, and longing to accept.