Free Someone to Watch Over Me by Lisa Kleypas Page B

unapproachable. He was angry with her but she didn’t know why. The realization made her feel more lost and confused than before, if that was possible. He was all she had—she couldn’t bear for him to be cold to her.
    “You’re displeased,” she said. “What has happened? Have I done something wrong?”
    The questions seemed to soften him a little. Although he didn’t quite meet her eyes, he exhaled deeply, as if releasing some unpleasant pent-up emotion. “No,” he muttered with a quick shake of his head. “It’s nothing.”
    Perhaps he had learned something about her that he didn’t like, Vivien thought, and anxiety made her entire body tauten until all her muscles quivered.
    “I’m frightened,” she said, and brought her clenched hands down to her lap. “I keep trying to remember something, anything about myself. Nothing is familiar. Nothing makes sense. Andknowing that someone hates me enough to want me dead—”
    “For all he knows, you are dead.”
    “He?”
    “No woman could have possessed the strength to strangle you with her bare hands. Moreover, your personal history includes very few women. The great majority of your associates have been men.”
    “Oh.” Why wouldn’t he just tell her what needed to be said, instead of making her ask him questions? It was a form of torture, having to stare at his stony face and wonder what secrets of her past had brought her to this incredible situation. “You said…I might not like some of the things you would tell me about myself,” she prompted unsteadily.
    Reaching into his coat pocket, he extracted a small book bound in dark red leather. “Have a look at this,” he said curtly, placing the volume in her hands.
    “What is it?” she asked warily.
    He didn’t reply, only stared at her with a restless gaze that conveyed his impatience.
    Carefully she opened the book, discovering page after page of neat feminine script. There were lists, names, dates…It took a half minute of reading before she encountered a passage so explicit that she snapped the volume shut with a mortified gasp. Her shocked gaze lifted to his. “Why in heaven’s name would you show me such a thing?” She tried to hand the book back, but he did not move to take it. Casting the object to the floor, sheregarded it as if it were a coiled snake. “Whom does it belong to, and how does it pertain to me?”
    “It’s yours.”
    “ Mine? ” An icy feeling crept over her, and she pulled the length of cashmere more closely around herself. “You’re mistaken, Mr. Morgan.” Her voice was clipped and cool with outrage. “I didn’t write those things. I couldn’t have.”
    “How do you know that?”
    “Because I couldn’t!” Startled and offended, she gave him a look of rebuke.
    When he spoke, his voice was flat and quiet. “You’re a courtesan, Vivien. The most notorious one in London. You’ve garnered a fortune from your talent.”
    She felt her face turn stark white. Her heart pounded frantically in her chest. “It isn’t true,” she cried. “The book must belong to someone else.”
    “I found it in your terrace house, in your bedroom.”
    “Why would I…that is, why would any woman write such things?”
    “A tool for blackmail,” he suggested gently. “Or perhaps it was just the only way you could keep track.”
    Vivien left her chair as if she had been jolted out of it, letting the cashmere lap robe drop to the floor. Wincing as pain shot through her bound ankle, she hobbled backward a few steps, needing to put some distance between them. “I didn’t do any of the things in that book!”
    To her chagrin, Morgan’s gaze swept over her, and she realized that the firelight shone throughthe muslin, illuminating every detail of her body. Hastily she pulled handfuls of the loose gown in front of herself, clutching the folds to her midriff. “I’m not a prostitute”, she said vehemently. “If I were, I’m certain I would know it in some part of myself, but I