Chapter 3

I have never known anyone like the Duke of Argyll. He's clever, witty, and he manages to make me feel like I'm the only lady in an entire room. He consumes my waking and sleeping thoughts.

~Aa

I t had taken Cadogan less than a handful minutes to know one important fact about Lady Raina Goodheart: the chit was going to be trouble.

If he let her.

Not because, with the lady's enormous breasts and trim waist that flared to generously curved hips, the ice-blonde beauty had a body made for bedding. No, if Cadogan were the type of man ruled by his cock, Lady Raina would have been his empress. For him, however, lust was nothing more than a physical need—no different than eating and drinking—to be slaked.

No, it'd been that less than impressive performance she'd put on for the duke, and more about the ease with which Argyll believed her, and the effortless way in which she'd steered the gentleman out of his own office.

"That was quite a show, my lady," he drawled.

Lady Raina cocked her head, and that slight tip sent her glittering tiara sliding. "Mr. Cadogan?"

He kept his voice quiet when he spoke. "His Grace's announcement didn't come as any kind of surprise to you."

Her generous mouth moved several times before any words came out. "I'm afraid, I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Cadogan."

He sent an eyebrow shooting up. "Don't you?"

"I do not ." Lady Raina managed to somehow stiffen her already painfully looking straight spine.

"Hmm. I see."

A fiery sparkle lit the lady's eyes, and in an impressive display of strength, she held his gaze. He'd give her a three count. A lady with her spirit wouldn't be able to resist his challenge.

One-two—

"What exactly is it you think you see, Mr. Cadogan?"

He opened his mouth to reply, but she proved all too happy to answer for him.

"That I somehow knew about being assigned a bodyguard before this meeting."

She absolutely had. "No?"

The lady shook her head so hard; her tiara came tumbling forward. She caught the sparkling piece and set it down haphazardly upon the side table near to her.

Cadogan fought a sudden and unexpected urge to laugh. He'd always loved—and still did—the thrill of complex assignments. For him, beautiful liars were the easiest—and most pleasurable —to read. Shockingly—or, maybe the better choice, appallingly —Cadogan found himself enjoying Lady Raina's especially inferior acting.

Alas, like all other bad liars, his charge couldn't sit with silence.

"How could I have known, Mr. Cadogan?"

Oh, because the duke was lax and underestimated her.

Only when it appeared she'd truly finished did Cadogan address the artless miss.

"Are you finished, my lady?"

"Yes." Lady Raina gave another uneven nod. "Yes, I believe I am."

She darted the delicate tip of her tongue out and traced the seam of her crimson cupid's bow lips. In any other woman, that glide of pink flesh over her moist mouth would have been a deliberate gesture and a bold invitation. From this one? There wasn't a worthwhile bit of artifice in her virginal body.

Strangely, his cock stirred anyway.

"When I noted His Grace's announcement didn't come as a surprise," he said evenly, "I didn't refer to my hire but rather to the conflict between His Grace and the Duke of Craven."

Lady Raina blinked slowly; the languid up-and-down glide of her lengthy blonde lashes accentuated the biggest eyes he'd ever seen; a dozen shades of blues and greens, like the sky and sea had struggled for supremacy and ultimately came together as one.

"Oh," she said weakly. "Indeed?"

Indeed. Those enormous eyes could be as big a problem for a man as the lady's lush mouth.

He nodded.

A warning bell chimed in his mind. He'd said something here, done something, that'd lowered the lady's defenses and led her to reveal this softer, more vulnerable side of her. Though that goal practically defined his career, in this particular case, this assignment, watching over this lady, represented a potential problem.

As always, his patience and silence were awarded.

"Very well." Lady Raina stole a quick peek at the heavy oak panel that stood between them and the duke. She lowered her voice to a ridiculously loud whisper. "I may have known His Grace intended to bring someone into the household to serve as my bodyguard."

" May have?"

His mischievous charge nodded. "I did know," she mouthed.

"You don't say." Only a lifetime of service to the Crown allowed him to deliver that with a straight face.

She couldn't have appeared prouder at her profession had she earned a spot in the Queen's court.

His ears pricked up at a noticeable note he detected.

"And you don't believe you're in need of protection, my lady?"

Lady Raina shook her head. "I believe, given my brother's business, he sees threats all around."

There were threats all around.

In just five minutes alone with Lady Raina, Cadogan: one, understood just why the innocent chit needed looking after and two, why Argyll wanted to pass that onerous task on to another. With her naivete, the only thing which had kept her from peril, thus far, were the fortunate circumstances of her birth. Otherwise, she'd have been raped, dead, or worse long before now.

She dampened her lips again, and this time, it took everything he could to keep from staring at that seductive sweep of her tongue and imagining all manner of uses he had for that innocent mouth.

"May I confide in you?" she asked in that lyrical way of hers.

The lady didn't wait for an answer. "My brother expected I would be annoyed at being saddled with a bodyguard."

"And you're not."

She shook her head. "Are you familiar with Lady Diana Verney or her husband, Mr. Marksman?"

The speed with which she changed topics, it was a wonder he didn't wrench a neck muscle. "Should I?"

"He is a bodyguard, too. Or he was."

"I'm not a bodyguard," he said flatly. "I'm your bodyguard."

Her face scrunched up. "Do those not mean the same thing?"

"They don't."

"I see." The slight uptilt at the end of her statement indicated she did not.

Nor did he expect her to, this sheltered woman who openly conversed with him like they were bosom friends.

As for Cadogan? In all his thirty-one years, he'd suffered neither friend nor family and was privileged to not find himself weakened by actually caring about anyone.

Lady Raina drifted closer. She stared so long, had Cadogan been another man, he'd have shifted under that unswerving focus. With the intensity in which she peered at Cadogan, the only thing she needed was a microscope.

"Tell me," she tentatively put forward.

He was being interviewed by the lady.

For what purpose? To what end?

"Yes," he gently encouraged her to finish her question.

"Do you believe it possible for us to possibly become friends, Mr. Cadogan?"

Of anything she might have asked, that'd certainly not been the question he'd expected.

What the hell reply did he give for that?

Friends.

My God, he'd not believed there to be a soul as unsullied and snowy white as this chit—until this very instant.

He'd have laughed—if the wholesome beauty's expectations for him—for them—hadn't been so alarming. For all the various sorts of women Cadogan had experience with, virgins were not included in those ranks.

His work hadn't required it. His commitment to bachelorhood dictated it.

Without careful navigation on Cadogan's part, what'd promised to be an agonizingly dull assignment, threatened to become a hornet's nest.

"Perhaps we might sit and talk, Lady Raina?" He motioned them over to the seating Argyll had indicated earlier.

The duke's sister went with a ladylike artlessness and claimed a spot on the sofa. Folding her hands primly on her lap, she smiled up at Cadogan with a candor he'd not even known before now people were capable of.

Each person was driven by their own wants. Everyone had motives; no persons were the same. Argyll: wanted his sister safe and didn't want to see to the chore himself. Given Lady Raina didn't fear for her safety meant some other reason accounted for her barely concealed anticipation at his being here.

Now, to find out why .

"It is important for me to understand your expectations for our arrangement," Cadogan said when he'd taken the chair nearest hers.

Lady Raina eyed him a moment. "And that matters, Mr. Cadogan?" she finally asked. " My expectations?"

"Absolutely."

Those sea-green pools of her irises softened. "Why?"

Most people wouldn't have put much thought into the lady's inquiry. For Cadogan, every word a person uttered revealed something deeper into what they thought. How they felt. What they cared about.

As such, he took care before answering. "Given your question, I take it you're not accustomed to people asking your opinion?"

" Given my brother's standing, Mr. Cadogan," she said softly, "do you truly believe anyone in my circle asks , let alone, cares ?"

"No," he answered sincerely.

Cadogan wasn't any different. He had a job to do, and when he finished, he'd get the information he sought.

Cadogan gentled his voice. "I expect you find that frustrating." He said the right things, because he knew the right things to say.

She snorted. "Infuriating, frustrating." Lady Raina waved her long, graceful, fingers. "You may take your pick."

"What if we agree to settle on both?"

Lady Raina's laugh, the sultry, husky sound of her mirth, filled the office, and the air and hit Cadogan with an uncomfortable stab of lust.

Bloody hell. The sooner he disabused the lady of her aspirations for their relationship, the better they'd both be.

Her expression turned solemn once more. "We're very similar, Mr. Cadogan."

They were about as similar as a doe and a dragon.

"Are we?" he said non-committal.

"You don't think so," she noted, proving accurate at least one assertion.

Her eyes twinkled like a thousand stars; the gold flecks within those pools, mesmerized.

She put a different question to Cadogan. "Whom do you answer to, Mr. Cadogan?"

Cursing himself for being distracted by nothing more than a pair of pretty eyes, he gave his head an indecipherable shake and focused on his back and forth with the lady.

"I don't answer to any man," he answered truthfully. There'd been a time he'd served the king, but no more. "Only to myself."

A smile, both sad and somehow still beautiful, formed on her lips. "But that isn't really true, is it?"

He frowned. Had she been an adversarial viper, he'd have believed she intentionally sought to nettle him.

"Granted, you certainly enjoy far more freedoms than I do," she allowed. "But you answer to my brother."

The pitch of her voice changed ever so slightly enough that whether she knew it or not, had transformed her words into a question.

"I already told you," he repeated evenly, "I don't answer to anyone except myself."

She peered even more intently at him.

Lady Raina was looking for something—what exactly that was, remained to be seen.

"What about your clients," she persisted. "If you are in any way successful, which given the duke hired you, you are likely the best, you must also find yourself many times, answering to people whom you'd be all too happy to send to the Devil but find yourself having to hold your tongue instead."

Bemused, he stared at Argyll's sister.

"That's what you are asking?" he asked gently. "Or is it what you are wondering? Whether I'll do whatever my client says?"

Which he would—as long as the directives pertained to the assignment and didn't break his two rules: no rape. No murdering children.

"Lady Raina, are you questioning whether my loyalty is to you or your brother?"

Shock sent the lady's eyebrows up. But, wearing a pleased smile, Lady Raina nodded.

"And that is why you ask about the possibility of our becoming friends?"

The duke's sister seemed to hear his deliberate detachedness. She went quiet and stayed quiet.

"It…appears, Lady Raina, you aren't exactly understanding what His Grace hired me to do."

"I believe we've already gone over this, Mr. Cadogan."

Oh, without a doubt, the lady thought she knew.

"If anyone who shouldn't go near you, does, and puts you in any harm, my lady, I'm to kill them," he said bluntly. "That's what I'll do." That's what he did, and he did so as naturally as other men took meals, drank, and breathed.

The pretty color slipped from her high, pointed cheeks, leaving her vibrant, unblemished skin a sickly, ashen hue.

"This would be a good time for me to make several other things clear, my lady," he began. The sooner he disabused her or any fanciful imaginings she had for their time together the better they'd both be. "First, His Grace hired me for your protection. That is my assignment; to keep you safe. You are a job to me, and nothing more," he said, without inflection.

Had he not been studying her so closely, he would have missed the way she flinched, but he did see.

It does not matter. It does not…

Cadogan made himself plow ahead in the same straightforward way. "Also, to clarify, I am not your friend. We never will be. I'm not here as some confidante you can talk to about your hopes and dreams and wishes or gossip."

He'd not issued the statement to intentionally hurt but rather to lay out facts about their relationship as long as he resided here, so she didn't get herself hurt. But as pain filled her eyes, damn if he didn't feel like he'd kicked her kitten.

Cadogan gritted his teeth, bloody annoyed at himself for caring either way.

"This arrangement is nothing more than a business one, Lady Raina. I'll exist in the shadows, so much so you'll forget your brother assigned me to watch after you."

"If only I could be so lucky," she fumed under her breath.

He cupped a hand around his ear. "What was that?" He cocked a brow but continued. "As for the rules—"

Her gasp cut across his prepared speech. "Rules?" she sputtered. " Rules ?" Her voice climbed several octaves.

"Yes, as in, an accepted principle or instruction that states the way things are or should be done, and tells you what you are allowed or are not allowed to —"

"I know what a rule is!" she shouted.

"—do," he finished.

If looks could kill, she could have hoisted Cadogan's lifeless body around for all his living enemies to spit upon.

But the fire in the innocent chit's eyes blazed to life once more, and that profound misery faded, and he preferred her this way. After all, he didn't want to destroy her spirit.

"I know what a rule is, Mr. Cadogan," she repeated, more calmly but still seething.

"One: I'll have your daily plans turned in for me the night before. In them, you'll include the places you intend to visit, when you'll do so, the people you intend to see. Everything . The hours you'll sleep. When you get up. I want your every routine laid out, and I want no deviation from what you submit."

"And would you also have me include those details of when I have my menses?" she spat.

His brows shot up at her unexpected mettle. He swiftly masked his surprise and regained his footing.

"Two, you are not to go anywhere alone. Three, I'm to accompany you at all times."

A fiery anger blazed from her eyes. "Is there anything else , Mr. Cadogan?"

He inclined his head. "That is all. As long as you obey me, Raina, I trust we'll get on just fine."

With the regal bearing of a queen, the spirited beauty sailed to her feet.

Cadogan stood.

Holding his gaze, Lady Raina tipped her chin up. "People are not automatons, Mr. Cadogan. A living, human being cannot exist with an unbending schedule that doesn't allow for spontaneity. No one can live like that."

"My life is ordered exactly that way," he said. "And as long as I'm charged with your care, you will do the same. Are we clear?"

Her eyes glittered. " Abundantly so," she said.

Lady Raina sank into a curtsy. Cadogan dropped a bow.

And with that, she sailed from the room.

Cadogan rolled his shoulders. In terms of his meeting with Lady Raina, it hadn't begun as he'd expected, but it'd certainly concluded as planned.

The parameters had been set.

Soon enough, he'd be done with this nothing assignment and on his way to killing the first—and last—person to triumph over him.