Read The Suffragette Scandal (The Brothers Sinister) for Free Online

less likely to trust you than the reverse.”
    “Excellent,” he said cheerily. “I’m not a trustworthy man. I’ve lied to you a half-dozen times over the course of this conversation, and I’ll no doubt do it again. For instance, the name I was born with is not Edward Clark—although I have used that name regularly for the last six years or so, and I think of it as mine now. By all means, Miss Marshall, don’t trust me. But do work with me. On this, our interests are aligned. You don’t want to be ruined, and I’d rather your enemy not ruin you either.”
    “Why? You don’t give a damn about me.”
    His smile didn’t slip, but it grew just a touch darker. “You’re right,” he said. “But as it turns out, my indifference to you is overbalanced by my dislike of him.”
    Or—equally likely—he’d been tasked with charming her, learning her plans.
    “No, thank you.” She smoothed her skirts over her lap and met his gaze directly. “I’ll take my chances on my own. I do not need help from a self-professed liar who might betray me at any moment.”
    He sighed. “This would be far easier if you were less clever.” It sounded like a complaint, but he winked at her at the end. “Damn it, Miss Marshall, I’m trying to be a little honorable. But very well. Since I must.” He raised his eyes to her. “You need to work with me because I will betray you.”
    She sucked her breath in. “Pardon?”
    “How precarious is your position in society, Miss Marshall? You’re young, unmarried, and reasonably good-looking.” He said the last with no emotion, as if he were just reciting facts.
    He was. She had to remember that. No matter how flirtatious his tone, that was all she meant to him: a collection of facts.
    “I have two possible plans to foil my enemy. One is to work with you to defeat him. The other is to shut down your operations here so thoroughly that he doesn’t get the pleasure of doing it himself. A forged letter of credit sold to your enemy? A missive in your handwriting, written to a lover and indiscreetly left for someone else to find?” He shrugged. “It would take me half an afternoon to make your life utterly miserable and maybe a few days to make it impossible.”
    Her heart had begun to thud in a low, heavy rhythm. Strange, how the system of nerves could so overtake the mind, that a man sitting before her and speaking in such an easy tone could make her feel as if she were a hare faced by a pack of wolves. He looked at her with a small smile on his face. It seemed as if he could hear her pulse, and its thready beat was music to his ears.
    She wasn’t going to rabbit away. This was her business, her life, and she wasn’t about to let this man ruin it for her. She steepled her fingers, willing them not to tremble, and gave her best impression of a bored sigh. “So this is blackmail.”
    The smile Mr. Clark gave her felt like a weapon—one that he’d chosen carefully from his massive arsenal. It was the smile of a man who knew that he could charm and devastate, and he employed it with the precision of a master. He leaned forward. “Miss Marshall, I believe you are mispronouncing that word.”
    She looked over at him.
    “You should pronounce it like this: ‘Huzzah! Blackmail!’”
    Her eyebrows rose. “How extraordinary, Mr. Clark. I thought you didn’t use exclamation points.”
    “I don’t.” He smiled at her. “But you do, and there’s no need to be parsimonious.”
    “Huzzah.” Free met his gaze with a flat stare. “Crime! Right now, that crime is blackmail, but it won’t be blackmail much longer.”
    “No? How do you figure?”
    “With luck and a good quantity of arsenic…?” She gave him a smile of her own. “Soon it will be: ‘Huzzah! Murder!’ Now there’s a cause that deserves my exclamation points.”
    She’d meant to confound him. Instead, his smile tilted, and all that calculated charm disappeared in a wash of real laughter. He leaned back in his chair,