Free Behind the Marquess's Mask (The Lords of Whitehall Book 1) by Kristen McLean Page B

perhaps,” he said, straightening. He leaned forward to take his own teacup from the table. “But that is a subject best left to the gossipmongers.” Or to Matthews’s minions on Fleet Street, rather.
    “So you are ashamed?”
    “Ashamed? No.”
    He felt her studying him. “All the things you have done and you don’t feel at all ashamed of any of them?”
    “Am I to remember every one?” he asked, forcing himself to sip the tea. Then he set it back on the table, unable to stomach more.
    “How can you not?”
    What he remembered of those he had killed for Matthews were dates, descriptions, and circumstances. Precious few faces remained locked away in his mind. Before then, there were no faces. The war had been a blood bath swallowing up hundreds at a time. Remembering a single face was impossible.
    “After the first twenty or so, they all begin to blur together,” Grey muttered. “Even the new seems old.”
    “That sounds dreadfully tedious.”
    Kathryn’s bored tone had his mouth pulling into a rueful half-smile. “It is sometimes.”
    “Then why do it?”
    “After all this time, I am not sure I even remember how to be respectable. Eventually, I shall get what I have coming to me, and that will be the end of it.” He forced a chuckle. “This is not appropriate conversation for young ladies.” Even if he were speaking of the same sins she was.
    She brought the teacup to her lips. “What is appropriate?”
    “Plenty.” Grey draped an arm over the back of the settee as he settled into the cushions, his mind filling with all of what was inappropriate. The fact that she was asking him what constituted appropriate conversation drove him mad. Only Kathryn would ask a notorious rake and assassin such a thing.
    “Plenty of ordinary things, I suppose,” she said, strangely spiritless. “Safe. Constant. Dull.”
    “Not always. Perhaps you would come out with me in my phaeton this afternoon,” Grey suggested, grasping at the first appropriate activity that came to mind. “Hyde Park would be the perfect venue to expand on the subject.”
    He shifted in his seat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken an innocent woman tooling around Hyde Park, or any park, for that matter. He had never had to play this role before. If there were ever any seducing necessary, it had always been him sneaking in during the night to warm a widow’s bed in order to steal her secrets. He didn’t give a tinker’s damn what happened to the Machiavellian widows once he had gone.
    This was altogether different, though. There were risks, consequences. However, the park would be a perfect place to put her on display and see who took the bait.
    “I couldn’t be seen in a phaeton with a scandalous rake,” she contested.
    He put on an innocent face. “Would you believe me if I said I would reform for you?”
    “No,” she returned, causing him to grin. “It doesn’t allow for a chaperone. It only has two seats,” she reminded him as though he were simple, lifting up two fingers. “Weren’t you concerned about my evil plot to trap you into marriage just a moment ago?”
    “There will be scores of others traipsing about the grounds,” he said with a shrug. “Chaperones aplenty.”
    “I am afraid I must decline,” Kathryn returned firmly.
    “Lady Kathryn, I have just purchased a brand new phaeton,” Grey explained patiently. “She’s the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. If you refused in favor of the old cabriole barouche, think what it would do to my pride. The rickety thing is nearly three years old.”
    “Three years! You poor man,” she returned, wide eyed.
    Grey’s brow furrowed. “You are mocking me.”
    “I suppose you could lend us the phaeton,” Kathryn mused, “so my mother and I could go to Hyde Park.”
    “The barouche, it is,” he muttered. He stared pensively at his tea, and then his face puckered. “Did you say lend ? You grievously overestimate my gallantry if you think I would