Page 16 of A Story of Love

“Call them whatever you like; that is how I earn my living.”

“I wouldn’t be so proud to admit that if I were you.”

“I don’t care what you’d do if you were me,” she shot back. “Trust me when I say that you do not have a clue as to how you’d go on in life if you were a woman.” She gave the room around her a scathing glance. “Do you think that you would enjoy earning your crust on your back—or your knees—like the women you employ? Do you really believe they like servicing you and your associates?”

“I find it fascinating that you can’t seem to stop talking about me and the women who service me, Miss Fontenot.”

Again, her cheeks darkened, but she ignored his taunt. “Why are you staying so close to the waterfront? What sort of activities require a lord’s presence at a brothel?”

“Why is Parker hounding me?” he countered. “I’ve been gone for more than a decade and a half. I am old, stale news. Is there nobody else in England on which he can focus his salacious imaginings?”

“I’m not at liberty to—”

“Bollocks!” he shouted, any amusement he’d been feeling vanishing. “What does he want from me, Miss Fontenot? Tell me now, or you will join Parker on my list of people who’ve sorely displeased me. That list is a short one, by the way, so I will have plenty of time to devote to making you very, very sorry you ever met me.”

***

The room rang with Lord Severn’s threat, making Lori accept that the man across from her had been prodded beyond endurance.

So much for his reputation as a cold, emotionless rake. Something told her that the rage he was now exhibiting so openly was not new, but something that always simmered just below the surface of his civilized façade.

Given his occupation these past sixteen years—that of privateer—Lord Severn should have brought to mind a pirate. Instead, Lori visualized him sheathed head to toe in metal and mounted on a giant black charger. A warrior knight from a bygone era: implacable, relentless, and unstoppable.

And—right now—furious. At her.

Lori moistened her dry lips as she contemplated what to say. What could it hurt to tell him the truth? At least some of it.

David would not agree!

That was true, but Lori wasn’t sure she agreed with all David Parker’s actions, either.

She cleared her throat and said, “Mr. Parker received an anonymous letter indicating that your brother didn’t k-kill himself.” The last words were scarcely a whisper as Lord Severn’s huge hands fisted at his sides. If she’d thought him angry before she had been sorely mistaken. The very air around them crackled, like the atmosphere during an electrical storm, causing the small hairs on her arms and neck to stand on end.

He dropped his voice so low that she could barely hear it. “Are you actually admitting to poking your nose into my dead brother’s suicide?”

Well, when he put it in those words, it did sound rather appalling.

And cruel.

All the moisture drained from her mouth at the danger glittering in his eyes, which seemed to have lost any hint of blue and were the steely gray of a winter sky.

“Peop—” her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “People deserve to know the truth.” Even to her own ears it was a pathetic excuse, so she wasn’t surprised when he gave a disbelieving snort. “And you should want to know it too,” she added desperately. “If somebody was responsible for his demise then they should be brought to justice.”

“You are spying on me in a whorehouse because you want justice?”

Lori’s face flamed at his derisive laughter—which she most certainly deserved—and she recoiled from his obvious abhorrence.

“You don’t give a damn about justice. You just want to rake up the muck and see what shit floats to the surface. You just want to sell newspapers.”

“No—that’s not true,” she said, almost as horrified by his vulgarity as she was by his accusation.

“It might not be true for you—although I have my doubts on that—but I know it’s true for Parker. The bastard hated me before I slapped him with that defamation suit and he hates me even more after I won.” He stood and closed the short distance between his chair and the chaise with one stride, towering over her.

Lori craned her neck and stared up at him. She wanted to stand but he’d not left enough room to ensure she could do so without their bodies touching.

He pointed a finger at her. “I told you at Avington’s betrothal ball—when you had the temerity to accuse me of stealing and selling children into prostitution—that I would not tolerate any more of your prying.” He cocked his head. “Or did I dream that conversation with you, Miss Fontenot?”

Lori scooted back on the chaise, away from him, or at least she tried to, but there was nowhere to go. “Um, no, we—”