Free Tall, Dark and Disreputable by Deb Marlowe Page A

the part?’
    She laughed. Impulsively, she reached out and loosened his respectable stock. Tilting her head, she ran a considering gaze down the front of him and then reached out and undid the top button of his waistcoat. ‘Now you do.’
    She glanced up and her smile faded. Mateo stared and it was not laughter she saw now in his eyes. His smile had faded, taking those tiny, irresistible lines with it, and leaving something intense and speculative that heated her from the inside.
    She dropped her hands away from him. ‘Thank you for bringing me along.’
    ‘It is nothing.’
    ‘No,’she said firmly. ‘It’s not.’But it would be better if he did not know just how grateful she felt. ‘I know that you wish to do the talking, but I do have some questions I’d like Mr Rankin to answer. I was curious about a few things before, but his treatment of us only sharpens my curiosity.’
    ‘Yes?’ He looked suddenly alert. ‘What questions do you have?’
    Portia breathed deep. ‘I’d like to know exactly when J.T. lost ownership of the house. Why did the new owner not take possession immediately? Or why not after J.T. ’s death, when every other gamester he’d borrowed from or lost to made claims against the estate? He’s been dead for nearly fifteen months. Why wait until now?’
    Mateo shrugged. ‘Perhaps the new owner did not hear of your husband’s death right away.’
    She looked wry. ‘If he was in England, then he would have heard of J.T.’s death,’ she said scornfully.
    He sat straighter. Portia could see the questions in his eyes, but she was in no way prepared to answer them. Not here. Not now. She shook her head. ‘And it does not explain why he did not make his claim immediately upon winning.’
    Mateo sat back and allowed his gaze to return to the dingy window and the unceasing activity on North-brook Street. ‘You are right, I believe. There are too many questions here.’ He stared intently down the hallway where the clerk had gone. ‘Our decrepit friend has been gone a long time.’
    Portia stared as he abruptly rose from his seat.
    ‘Something is not right here,’ he said.
    She jumped to her feet and followed as he strode suddenly down the hall.
    Mateo tried to ignore his sense of foreboding. Likely this Rankin was only passed out from drink, or just the small sort of man who built himself up by irritating and belittling others. He prayed it was some such simple explanation and not a complication that would cause a delay and destroy his company’s best chance for the future.
    An ornate door on the left looked out of place in this dusty corridor. From behind it came the sound of small, frantic movements and the faint sound of cursing. Portia came up behind him as he reached it. He placed his handon the knob and cast her a faint look of enquiry. At her nod he pushed it open.
    Chaos reigned inside. They stood on the threshold of a small, comfortably appointed office, but comfort was clearly not on the itinerary today. Papers and files were strewn everywhere. The elderly clerk knelt on his knees at the bottom of a filing cabinet, searching frantically through its contents. From behind a richly carved desk piled high with scattered documents rang another loud curse.
    ‘Damn it all, but it must be here! Where the hell else would it be?’
    Mateo cleared his throat.
    The clerk jerked about. Up over the desk rose a set of sandy eyebrows and a pair of small, narrowed blue eyes.
    ‘Well, well, Mrs Tofton,’ Mateo mused. ‘It does appear that we have come at an inopportune time.’
    The piggish eyes were joined by the rest of the man. Mateo caught the scent of alcohol, noted the red, bloated face and ample belly and was reminded strongly of his sea-cook’s stories about Davy’s drunken sow.
    ‘Yes, yes—a most inconvenient time.’ He waved a dismissive hand and attempted an apologetic expression. ‘So sorry, but you’ll have to come back another day.’
    Mateo narrowed his gaze. ‘Oh, I do