Page 42 of It's All About the Duke
Marlena turned her attention back to Rath. “He’s not well trained. My fault, I have to admit. If you’ll stop showing him attention, I’m sure he’ll leave you alone and go find a grasshopper to chase or something to sniff in the grass.”
“I don’t mind a welcoming dog or a watchdog.”
“He’s certainly both,” she answered, always willing to talk about Tut. “I’m indebted to Justine for allowing me to accept him from a child on the street who was trying to give him away. He’s brought me immense pleasure since I’ve been in London.”
“That was kind of her.”
“Tell me,” Marlena said, “were you able to find some information for me?”
Nothing like getting right to the point of the matter. Rath couldn’t help himself. He had to grin. She was polite enough to ask and not assume what he held was for her.
“You were very specific in your note to me, Miss Fast.Any and all information, you directed.”
She moistened her lips nervously. “Yes, I believe I said that, but I hope it didn’t sound like a demand.”
It was on the tip of his tongue to deny it, but then he knew she’d want the truth, so he said, “It did.”
“I didn’t mean my words how you read them. It was a request.”
Her eyes were caressing his face, and Rath was taking in the way she was appealing to him. He didn’t mind her fighting spirit. It was fascinating and he even encouraged it, but he wanted her to look at him with her softer side, too.
He held up the papers. “And it was accomplished.”
“Thank you. That’s wonderful. I’m most grateful to you.”
Marlena held out her hand to him. Her eagerness to get the material intrigued him more than it should. He’d had no plans of getting wrapped up in his ward’s life until he met her. Now she was all he could think about. He had to know what her interest was in the famed Buckland and the unknown Wentfield.
Rath’s grip tightened on the pages he held by his side and his arm didn’t move. “I’m afraid I need more information from you before I can give you these, Miss Fast.”
It was slight but she lifted her chin and stiffened. “What do you mean?”
He rolled the sheets, pushed aside his cloak, and thenstuffed them into the side pocket of his coat. “To begin with,” he said without any hint of annoyance, “I’d like to know why you thought to use me as your researcher, and ask me to gather this information for you.”
“You’re my guardian,” she answered without equivocation.
He couldn’t argue with that. “But not your personal secretary.”
“No, of course not. I never thought—I mean it would be very difficult for me to do it myself. I needed your help.”
His stomach tightened. She needed him. That washed over him as soothing as watching the sun melt into the water in the late afternoon. But he couldn’t let those feelings disturb his inquiry.
“Why is that? All of this is available to anyone willing to look through old issues of newsprint, journals, and pamphlets.”
“Yes, that’s true, I’m sure. But rarely am I allowed to go anywhere without Justine.”
“So you wouldn’t want her to see this?” He touched his side where the papers were.
“I wouldn’t. Not because it’s something inappropriate. If I made her privy to the fact I wanted the articles on the men, she would want to know why.”
He could only assume that if she didn’t want Justine to know why she wanted the information, she probably wouldn’t want him to know, either. So why ask him to do it? That only made him more determined not to leave until he found out.
“It might not be a bad idea if she knows,” Rath added.
“I’m not sure she would have allowed me to go about getting the information even if I had told her why I needed it. She doesn’t always place value on the samethings I do. I thought to avoid any confrontation with her about this. Since you are my guardian, I decided to ask you to do it for me.”
She was unbelievable. “And you didn’t think I’d want to know why you required this?”
She pulled on the edges of her shawl and tightened it around her. “Not really. It was, as you said, a simple thing to get and maybe not even interesting to most.”
