Free To Tempt a Saint by Kate Moore Page A

took the seat he indicated near a welcome fire. Norwood remained standing and cast a prompting look at her husband.
    “May I take your cloak, wife?” came the baritone Cleo could feel in the pit of her stomach.
    “Of course,” she said, rising, and loosening the tie, “husband.” She felt the brief touch of his hands on her shoulders as the cloak slipped away. Just enough to set a little flutter going in her. She settled back in her chair, facing the lawyer, whose gaze had fixed on Charlie’s knife.
    Cleo put it on the pretty cherrywood table next to her chair. “It’s a pig-sticking knife. My brother recommends that I be prepared to defend myself in London.”
    She caught a quick gleam of amusement in Norwood’s eyes before a more businesslike expression took over. “Let’s hope, Lady Jones, that the laws of England remain strong enough to protect a woman in your circumstances.” He settled himself on the sofa and rested his hands on his broad knees. “Xander asked me to explain how the case stands at the moment. We want everything aboveboard, an open book, so to speak. Shouldn’t want you going about town blind to your situation.”
    “Is there a situation?” Xander . The nickname distracted her, imperious, but out of the ordinary. It suited him. He stood with one elbow on his marble mantel looking on with cool detachment. It was the third personal detail she knew of him. He didn’t like peppermints, he kissed like a man who knew what he was about, and most surprising of all, there were people in his life who called him by an affectionate nickname.
    “Well, yes and no,” Norwood was saying. “All the documents are in order. Been examined by the bank’s own barrister. No fault to find with the paperwork.”
    Cleo braced herself. There was a something else, a difficulty that required a barrister’s involvement, and that could not be good.
    “One of your trustees . . .”
    “My Uncle March?” She could feel Xander watching her. She hadn’t been entirely open with him. He didn’t know March, and Cleo hadn’t confided her opinion of her uncle. He probably thought he could marry a discarded heiress without anyone’s raising the least objection. After all, even her uncle had found only one taker when he had sought to arrange a marriage for her.
    “Has Uncle March made trouble about our papers?” She believed she had escaped March’s reach by marrying.
    “As I advised Xander when he first came to me about your marriage, it would not be surprising for your trustees to question a man’s intentions.” Sharp blue eyes focused on Cleo. Norwood might be genial, but he would catch any hesitation or concealment. “So I must ask you some awkward questions.”
    “Certainly. We would not want my uncle to doubt the sanctity of our union.” She looked to Xander, who wasn’t exactly playing the doting bridegroom.
    Norwood settled a pair of glasses on his nose and pulled the small writing desk into his wide lap. “Now, when Mr. Tucker married you, did he omit from absent-mindedness or uneasiness any of the necessary elements of the rite?”
    “Not to my knowledge. I’ve not been married before, but I assume he read all the necessary parts.”
    Norwood’s pen scratched away. “Is it your wish to be married to Sir Alexander Jones? And do you consider yourself married to him?”
    “It is, and I do.” She was aware of him as always. Unmoving, unspeaking, he managed to distract her by holding up the blasted mantel. The turn of his body and the cock of one hip exposed his flat belly and the muscled line of one leg.
    “And who was present at your nuptials?”
    Cleo pulled her gaze and her thoughts back to Norwood. “Just family.”
    Norwood gave her a quick, sharp glance, his snowy brows contracted in a worried peak above his glasses.
    “My brother, and my . . . husband’s brother. And Mr. Tucker.”
    “And your brother is how old?”
    “Thirteen.”
    “A minor.” Norwood made a note. Cleo was