What Price Love? Read Online Free PDF

faintly. “You have to allow us our secrets.”
    The distance between them was too great for him to be sure, but he thought her eyes snapped. For an instant, the outcome hung in the balance—whether she would retreat, or try some other, possibly more high-handed means of persuasion—but then she sighed again, lifted her reticule from her lap, and smoothly rose.
    Dillon rose, too, surprised by a very real impulse to do something to prolong her visit. But then rounding the desk, he drew close enough to see the expression in her eyes. There was temper there—an Irish temper to match her accent. It was presently leashed, but she was definitely irritated and annoyed with him.
    Because she hadn’t been able to bend him to her will.
    He felt his lips curve, saw annoyance coalesce and intensify in her eyes. She really ought to have known just by looking that he wasn’t likely to fall victim to her charms.
    Manifold and very real though they were.
    â€œThank you for your time, Mr. Caxton.” Her tone was cold, a shivery coolness, the most her soft brogue would allow. “I’ll inform my aunt that she’ll have to live with her questions unanswered.”
    â€œI’m sorry to have to disappoint an old lady, however…” He shrugged lightly. “Rules are rules, and there for a good reason.”
    He watched for her reaction, for some sign, however slight, of comprehension, but she merely raised her brows in patent disbelief and, with every indication of miffed disappointment, turned away.
    â€œI’ll see you to the front door.” He went with her to the door of his room, opened it.
    â€œNo need.” Briefly, she met his eyes as she swept past him. “I’m sure I can find my way.”
    â€œNevertheless.” He followed her into the corridor.
    The rigidity of her spine declared she was offended he hadn’t trusted her to go straight back to the front foyer if left to herself. But they both knew she wouldn’t have, that if he’d set her free she’d have roamed, trusting her beauty to extract her from any difficulty should she be caught where she shouldn’t be.
    She didn’t look back when she reached the foyer and sailed on toward the front doors. “Good-bye, Mr. Caxton.”
    The cool words drifted over her shoulder. Halting in the mouth of the corridor, he watched the doorman, still bedazzled, leap toswing open the door. She stepped through, disappearing into the bright sunshine; the doors swung shut, and he could see her no more.
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    H e returned to his office to find Barnaby peering out of the corner window.
    â€œSweeping away in a regal snit.” Turning from the window, Barnaby took the chair she’d vacated. “What did you make of that?”
    Dillon resumed his seat. “A very interesting performance. Or rather, a performance of great interest to me.”
    â€œIndeed. But how did you read it? Do you think the Irishman sent her?”
    Slumping back, his long legs stretched before him, fingers lightly drumming his desk, he considered it. “I don’t think so. For a start, she’s gentry at least, more likely aristocracy. That indefinable confidence was there. So I doubt she’s directly involved with the Irishman asking questions in hedge taverns. However, were you to ask me if the Irishman’s master sent her, that, I think, is a real possibility.”
    â€œBut why ask just to look at the register? Just a peek, she said.”
    Dillon met Barnaby’s gaze. “When she first encountered us and the doorman said one of us was Mr. Caxton, she hoped it was you. You saw her. How many males do you think would have remained immune to her persuasions, the persuasions she might have brought to bear?”
    â€œI wasn’t swayed.”
    â€œNo, but you were on guard the instant you heard she was interested in the register, and even more once she’d spoken. But she, and whoever sent