London's Most Wanted Rake Read Online Free PDF

offering your services to the Home Office?’ he joked.
    ‘I’ll pretend that’s a compliment, not a criticism.’ She was having none of it. A careless woman was too easily sucked into his easy flattery and then it was too late. Alina forced him straight to the chase. ‘What did you really come out here for?’
    ‘Fresh air and answers.’ Channing’s voice was sharp and quiet in the darkness as he, too, discarded any veneer of civility. The people they’d once been had been forged into new people who were harder, stronger, people who were built to last.
    Of course he’d want answers. He’d had a few hours to contemplate the situation. Now the questions would start as he tried to fill in the pieces.
    ‘I met Seymour,’ Channing began. ‘He doesn’t seem like your sort. Perhaps you might tell me what you need an introduction for.’
    She was not going to make it easy on him. ‘I’m the one paying your fee.’ Let him be reminded that for all his tricks and flattery, she was the one in charge here. She’d hired him, not the other way around.
    ‘I can terminate the contract at any point if I am not comfortable with the terms,’ Channing reminded her. ‘Perhaps you mean to lead me into nefarious crimes as an unwitting assistant.
    ‘Scandal? You? Hah!’ Alina snorted in a most unladylike fashion. What he posited was ridiculous, all things considered. ‘It won’t work, you know, you standing there posturing like a virgin with a reputation to protect. You’re Channing Deveril, the “luckiest” man in London; a new woman, a new bed, every night. You’re worried about scandals? You are a scandal.’
    ‘I will not blindly get you an introduction and find myself embroiled in scandal,’ Channing repeated calmly.
    She met him with silence. This would be a perfect opportunity for him to go back inside and in his manly pride feel he’d emerged from the encounter triumphant. But the dratted man didn’t take the chance.
    ‘If you won’t tell me about Seymour, why don’t you tell me about dinner?’ Channing said rather drily. ‘I should point out to you that Seymour noticed our little table game. From his response, it wasn’t clear he understood the game wasn’t for his benefit. Or was it? You clearly have his attention. Why do you need me to approach him?’
    Channing was a dog with a bone. This question wasn’t really about dinner. It was still about Seymour, just from a different angle. She gave a throaty laugh. ‘You should know, a lady never promotes herself to a gentleman on her own behalf. It would be too pushy by far.’
    ‘Yes, well, that being said, I must inform you that a lady also doesn’t stroke the stem of her wine glass as if it were a man’s phallus.’
    Her voice lit with dark humour. ‘Why, Channing Deveril, what a naughty mind you have! And to think you got all of that out of the way I held my wine glass. Along those lines, one might think you were cupping the underside of a woman’s breast the way you held yours.’
    ‘Maybe I was.’ Something hot and dangerous sparked between them. At some point in their exchange they’d turned towards one another, neither of them looking out over the expanse of garden any longer. The space between them was negligible. If she drew a deep enough breath, her breasts would brush the front of his dinner jacket. This was where she had to be careful. The line was so very close, so very easy to cross. If she crossed it, she’d have to be cautious—what was work, what was pleasure?
    For him it was always work. She would do best to remember it because she’d forgotten once to her detriment. This hot détente could not last. She glanced over his shoulder into the drawing room. ‘Shall we go in?’
    Channing turned his head to catch the scene through the doors. ‘Ah, is it bedtime already?’
    ‘What a rather clumsy segue for you. Usually you are more...’ She waved a hand to indicate she was looking for a word.
    ‘Suave? Debonair?’ Channing