The Deepest Sin Read Online Free PDF Page B

Archer.”
    He watched Meredith speculatively, neatly categorizing all the surface details of her life. Eighteen years earlier, she had escaped France, more precisely, escaped Faron, taking two little girls with her and protecting them from the threat that had overshadowed the rest of their lives. They had been kept all but under lock and key, for reasons Meredith had chosen to keep to herself.
    The silence between them lengthened. He tipped his head back to take in the night sky; the constellations were as thick as a forest of lights. A thin moonlight illuminated the fortress, limning them in a ghostly light. “Very well then. I shall attempt to keep to a sober mien and subject matter, although, I suppose you do not wish to speak of it—of sober matters,” he said. “I mean of the men this afternoon. And who may have sent them.”
    â€œThere is no need.” She paused.
    â€œI believe there is.”
    â€œHe is dead.” The words had the ring of finality. She glared at him, her eyes a cloudy gray, willing the wish a reality.
    Faron’s unspoken name wavered between them like a noose. She had been his lover, once. It was an image that Archer could not banish, and it settled firmly in the forefront of his mind. He acknowledged that he had trouble thinking around her, his responses suddenly a foreign country to him. He had never experienced even a frisson of jealousy in his life and now he’d rather put hot pokers in his eyes than imagine Meredith Woolcott with Montagu Faron.
    There was something seriously wrong. His first lover flashed in his mind, the young widow from Kent. That was the first and last time he had struggled with want, with need. In the intervening years, he had learned to control desire with the finesse of a master, long having played its strings. He studied Meredith’s pure profile, the slender nose, the sharp cheekbones above the wide mouth. Touching her, he knew from experience, was inevitable, sensing that she would not turn away with false innocence. She stared at him for a moment, flushing under his intense regard, and he knew exactly what she would look like after making love. The image of her, warm and tousled, made his mind go blank. The desert night faded away beneath a vision of flesh damp with exertion and desire fulfilled.
    Determined to break the mood, he reached for the leather bag. “Are you hungry?”
    She shook her head. “No, thank you.”
    â€œThen perhaps you should sleep.” Archer didn’t need to add that he would play the sentinel.
    â€œImpossible. I’m as tightly wound as piano wire at present.” She had killed a man but looked little the worse for it.
    â€œI’m not surprised. All the more reason you may wish to talk about it. The men who tried to attack you this afternoon. A mere coincidence, you believe?”
    â€œMurad may have taken a bribe. And led them here.”
    â€œThat’s one possibility.”
    She leaned her chin on her forearms, staring into the night, not answering him directly. “While we are discussing coincidences, Lord Archer, what of your presence here? You have yet to answer my question,” she said. “A mere coincidence?”
    What could he tell her? She would not be readily mollified, despite the fact that he’d rehearsed for such an eventuality. The woman was formidably intelligent, the daughter of one of England’s estimable scholars and a scholar in her own right. “I will be honest with you,” he lied evenly. “Lord Rushford, knowing my penchant for travel, asked that I keep watch over you, as a favor. He assumed that you would protest if you knew in advance.”
    She looked at him doubtfully.
    He continued regardless. “He asked that I accompany you, as a guide, if you will, on your travels. I haven’t been to Egypt in some time... .”
    â€œWithout informing me? For protection?” Her lips thinned. “I have been