Seducing an Angel by Mary Balogh

will want me equally as much and for at least as long, Lord Merton. Or do I not need to employ further seduction? Do you already want it?”
    His answer gave her a slight jolt of alarm.
    “I do not like the word seduction ,” he said. “It suggests weakness on the part of the seduced and cold calculation on the part of the seducer. It suggests an inequality of desire and need. It suggests a puppet and a puppeteer. I have never admired male seducers because they exploit women and make of them only playthings for their beds. I have never met a female seducer, though I am very familiar with the story of the sirens.”
    “Did you not meet one last evening, Lord Merton?” she asked him.
    He smiled at her.
    “I met a lady,” he said, “who called herself that. You, in fact. I would prefer to think that in your loneliness—pardon me, your aloneness —you looked for someone for whom you could feel the comfort of an attraction, and you found me. You did not seduce me, Cassandra. You were open and bold about the attraction you felt, something I have not encountered in any of the ladies of my acquaintance, who usually employ a whole arsenal of more subtle wiles if they are interested in capturing my attention. I appreciated your openness. I felt an equal attraction to you. I would have asked you to dance with me even if you had not collided with me just before the waltz began. I do not suppose I would have also invited you to share a bed with me quite so soon if you had not made it very clear that it was what you wanted, but our mutual attraction might have led us here eventually.”
    He had misunderstood entirely. Which was just as well.
    Our mutual attraction .
    “Yes,” he said, “I do want to sleep with you again and again into the future. But I must ask some questions first.”
    She raised her eyebrows and regarded him haughtily.
    “Indeed?” she said. She had somehow lost control over this business conference. She was supposed to be doing the talking, he the listening.
    “Tell me about Lord Paget’s death,” he said. He was leaning forward, his arms draped over his knees. His blue eyes were looking very intensely at her.
    “He died,” she said, smiling scornfully. “What more is to be said? You want me to tell you that his skull was cleaved in two with an axe, Lord Merton? It was not. It was a bullet that killed him—a bullet through the heart.”
    He was still looking very directly at her.
    “Did you kill him?” he asked.
    She pursed her lips and looked back into his eyes.
    “Yes,” she said.
    She did not realize he had been holding his breath until he expelled it audibly.
    “I might have found it difficult to wield an axe,” she said, “but a pistol was a weapon I was quite capable of using. I used one. I shot him through the heart with it. And I have never regretted it. I have not for one moment mourned him.”
    His head had dropped so that he was looking down at the floor and she was gazing at the top of his head. She thought his eyes might be closed. The fingers of both his hands curled into his palms. He did not speak for a long time.
    “Why?” he asked at last.
    “Because,” she said, and smiled though he was not looking at her. “Perhaps because I felt like doing so.”
    She ought to have said no to his original question. Was she trying to drive him away and sabotage her carefully laid plans? She could not have chosen a better way.
    There was another loud silence. When he spoke again, his voice was scarcely audible.
    “Did he abuse you?” he asked.
    “Yes,” she said. “He did.”
    He lifted his head at last and looked intently at her again with troubled eyes, a frown between his brows.
    “I am sorry,” he said.
    “Why?” she asked him, her lip curling. “Could you have done anything to prevent it but failed to do so, Lord Merton?”
    “I am sorry,” he said, “that so many men are brutes simply because they are physically stronger than women. Was it bad enough, then, that you