Page 4 of A Story of Love

For a huge man, he moved like a cat and Lori yelped and staggered back when he turned on her. In her haste to get away from him, she tripped over one of the many rock features that bordered the pathway and would have fallen if his huge hands hadn’t closed around her upper arms and then jerked her upright.

“Thank you, my lord. Er, you can release me now,” she said when he did not let her go.

His hands tightened. “Tell me specifically how I am supposed to be involved, Miss Fontenot?” His jaw flexed and his pale eyes glittered coldly. “Or am I not allowed to know the charges being made against me?”

She swallowed. “You provide the capital to purchase the stolen children and then transport them on your ship. You brought the buyer and seller together. You were the one who—”

“That is all a lie,” he growled between clenched teeth.

How had Lori ever thought that Severn was icy and controlled? Right now, the air around him crackled with barely suppressed violence and the air itself was almost too hot to breathe.

“D-do you have any evidence of that?” she stammered.

A look of startlement passed over his starkly handsome features and then he gave a bark of unamused laughter. “I need to provide evidence of something that has never happened? How am I supposed to do that, Miss Fontenot?”

Lori perked up. “If you would allow me to come aboard your ship and—”

“No.”

“I would only ask them ab—”

“No.”

“It is not a case of your word against one other person’s,” she warned him. “We have several witnesses willing to attest to what you are doing.” Or so David had promised her.

His hands tightened painfully. “I want names.”

“I cannot—”

“How dare you threaten to wreck my life with lies and innuendo and refuse me the right to face my accusers?”

Lori opened her mouth.

“If you print a story accusing me of engaging in child slavery and prostitution you will be very, very sorry. And so will your weasel of an employer.” His arresting eyes lowered to her mouth, and he leaned so close that for one terrifying moment Lori thought he was going to kiss her. But then his gaze snapped back to her eyes. “Heed my warning, Miss Fontenot: Do not have anything to do with the printing of these lies.”

As suddenly as he’d grabbed her, he released her and stormed down the path, disappearing so quickly into the darkness that he might have been just another shadow.

Chapter 2

Lori woke up well past noon the day after the Avington betrothal ball. The weather was sunny and warm, and her employer had given her leave to take the day for herself, so she decided to enjoy a leisurely breakfast on the garden terrace.

She shared the house with Lady Winifred Sedgewick and normally ate her meals with Freddie, but her friend had already gone out by the time Lori woke up, so she nipped down to the kitchen and waited while Una, their cook, assembled a tray for her. Mrs. Brinkley, the housekeeper, disapproved of such casual manners, but there were only four servants, and Lori did not like to pull them from their duties to fetch and carry for her when she’d been the one to miss breakfast.

Armed with a pot of coffee and a plate heaped with bacon, eggs, and toast, she proceeded to the terrace, where her only companions were the resident pet turkeys, Mr. and Mrs. Vickers.

The birds had been scratching beneath the rose bushes when Lori came outside but they immediately and majestically drifted closer when they spied her tray of food.

Lori glanced around to make sure Mrs. Brinkley—who didn’t believe in giving fowl treats—wasn’t nearby before she tossed several small pieces of toast to the pair.

Mr. Vickers demonstrated his gratitude by fluffing up to three times his size and strutting to-and-fro for Lori’s entertainment. While the tom preened his less spectacular but wiser spouse speedily gobbled up the food. The turkeys lived in a large enclosure at the far end of the garden and were fed twice a day but never turned their beaks up at a little extra forage.

Lori poured herself a cup of strong black coffee and settled back in her chair before opening The Mercury, which she paid to have delivered every morning.

She had been awake until almost four o’clock helping David Parker, the owner and editor of The Mercury, pull the story about Lord Severn together. It was the first time an article of hers had made it to the front page. Not that David had given her any credit.

“This story isn’t really the fruit of your investigation, Lori. You only provided some of the fact checking,” he’d said when she asked why her name was nowhere to be seen. “I will be the one to stitch it all together into a coherent article.”

“But I am the one who discovered the smuggling ring and brought it to your attention,” Lori pointed out.