Page 49 of The Forsaken

“What trouble did you get yourself into, Andy?”

She exploded. “I didn’t—”

Andromena tracked Edgar’s smug grin without turning; she reined her temper in. “I was nearly killed crossing New Bond Street—”

“You should have a care with complex tasks like crossing the road,” Edgar baited her.

To keep from screaming, Andromena smiled at him. The viscount was bloody fortunate they weren’t near a street now, for she’d have pushed him into traffic.

The earl frowned. “Who would hurt my lass?”

“Lord Kerr.”

The earl tsk’ed the same tsk he did for cousins quarreling over spillikens. “Tried to kill my niece, Kerr? That’s in bad form.”

But apparently not in bad enough form for the earl to show the viscount the door.

“My apologies, my lord,” Edgar said, with a sober set to his infuriatingly handsome features that she didn’t believe for a moment. “I tried—and with success—to save your niece from certain peril. Apparently, I’m more imposing than a carriage and horse.” He fisted a hand. “I have already promised not to intervene in the future.”

His whitened knuckles gave her pause.

“Ah, it’s all cleared up then. Lord Kerr promised he won’t interfere in the future.” Her uncle thumped the taller, bigger, broader, more everything gentleman between his shoulders. Never mind, the earl was nearly half a foot shorter than the young lad.

“He is already interfering, Uncle.” Andromena felt inclined to point out that important detail.

The earl’s high, balding brow sprang several new creases.

“My work, Uncle.”

“Ladies don’t work, m’dear.”

Andromena pointedly tapped a broken half of her pencil on her open page. Naturally, the earl couldn’t pick up on a clue if it was written into her pad—which it was. His blank stare persisted.

“The recordings, Uncle,” Andromena said calmly.

“Ahh, that’s right. Now, I recall.”

The slight pause before he’d spoken cast doubt on that.

But then, her uncle was singing her praises. “There isn’t a finer artist than my Andy.” And he was beaming like a proud papa, and throwing an arm around Andromena’s shoulders, as her own father used to do. “She’s begun cataloging my collection—her idea.” And she was no longer annoyed with her uncle or irritated with Lord Kerr, because she was equally heavy-hearted with the loss of her late father and touched by the earl’s devotion. She didn’t deserve his love or his loyalty or—the guilt and misery kept coming.

“I’ve got someone stealing from me, and Andromena said, “Why don’t I make a visual archive of all your pieces, not just a list, as I have several pages that have gone missing…”

Now she was going to cry, because she, at the behest of some blackmailing blackguard, was being made to continue stealing from the earl. And everyone thought the earl’s losses were merely the imaginations of an absent-minded old man.

Edgar’s unexpected praise pierced her misery. “What a resourceful lady.” He ruined it with his next breath. “For one who struggles crossing streets.”

She shifted from sadness and anger to pure rage, ready to strike him again. She cursed his mocking, sinful smile and his dark, devilish eyes.

Because even though her uncle, in his pride for his family, carried on with his laudations, as clueless as Silly Billy at Almack’s to Edgar’s mockery, Andromena was not. Despite the aspersions Edgar cast on her intelligence, any chance he could, the fact was, she did possess an artist’s eye, and few details escaped her.

“The pair of you are both clever as they come,” her uncle said. “You’ll work together well.”

Andromena and Edgar snorted.

They glared at each other; eyes narrowed in open challenge.

They were so absorbed in defiantly staring each other down it took a moment to realize what her uncle said.