Free My Lady Quicksilver by Bec McMaster

said.
    No doubt he could smell her nervousness, read it in the still lines of her body. But he misconstrued the reason behind it.
    Opening her eyes, she noticed her breath fogging the glass. “I know.” She wouldn’t allow him to hurt her. Taking a slow breath, her corset digging into her ribs, Rosalind pasted a smile on her lips. “It’s the carriage. I’m not fond of small spaces. Not for too long anyway.”
    His penetrating gaze bore into her. “Don’t touch your hands. Don’t lock you up.” A slow nod. “I shall remember.”
    Finally the carriage eased to a halt. The door jerked open and Rosalind could barely contain herself. She wanted to get out with a desperation that bordered on anxiety. The walls were pressing in on her.
    Garrett appeared, surprised to find her in the doorway so suddenly. He offered his arm in reflex, that insincere smile edging over his lips. A dangerously handsome man but far too pretty for her tastes. No her tastes ran darker, or so it seemed.
    Rosalind ignored his arm and stepped down, pleased to be free of the carriage. The lack of its constraint lightened her soul. Her skirts spilled around her and she straightened them.
    Garrett looked down beneath his lashes, as if considering his arm. He’d made it clear he considered this a hunt and she the prey. Every affront only seemed to heighten his intensity, though it merely frustrated her.
    “She doesn’t like being touched.” Lynch alighted with dangerous grace. “On the hands anyway.”
    Their eyes met. Was it her imagination, or was there actually a play of amusement around the hard line of his lips? A softening perhaps or hint of smoldering warmth in those glacial eyes?
    “Of course.” Garrett stepped aside with a smile that almost gleamed.
    One punch with her metal hand and all those pretty white teeth would be scattered across the cobbles. Rosalind smiled at the thought and he smiled back, no doubt thinking he was winning her over.
    The warmth faded out of Lynch as if it had never been there.
    “Come.” Lynch snapped his fingers and strode toward the house. “Stop trying to seduce my secretary, Garrett, and get your mind on the job. Mrs. Marberry, if you would kindly do what I’m paying you to do. Feminine wiles are almost as teeth-grating as the vapors.”
    No softening there.
    Rosalind stared after him with narrowed eyes, then grabbed her skirts in her fist and scurried after him. “You haven’t paid me anything yet. And believe me, I have no interest in plying my ‘feminine wiles.’”
    He stopped abruptly at the front door of a large mansion, well lit from within. Rosalind nearly ran into him. Turning, he said, “Garrett likes women, Mrs. Marberry. Don’t think you’ll be the only one.”
    “Why thank you, Sir Jasper.” She fluttered her eyelashes at him, goaded into sarcasm. “I hadn’t figured that out at all.”
    Lynch’s eyes narrowed. “You’re mocking me.”
    “You’re mistaking me for a fool.”
    Another hot glare that unnerved her. “I dislike women who think they’re smarter than I am.”
    “I don’t think I’m smarter.” To her own credit she didn’t emphasize the word “think.” “And it seems you dislike women in general.”
    “That’s not true. I simply find little use for them.”
    This time she could feel her cheeks heating. “Beyond the obvious.”
    His gaze traced her mouth. “Mrs. Marberry. This is precisely what I wished to avoid with my men.”
    “I thought it was Rosa? Now I am Mrs. Marberry?”
    A long, steady look. “You are always Mrs. Marberry. To me. For convenience sake, you are Rosa.”
    She looked around. “And we’re alone, Sir Jasper.” On the stoop of a Georgian town house, the wind whipping his great cloak around her in a cocoon of intimacy. Rosalind took a shallow breath. But this was what she wanted, she decided—to discover the man’s weakness. And it seemed, from the way he was looking at her, that he did find some use for women. Or perhaps for