"You need have no fear. If you knew me better you would not ask that," Nancy answered with a smile. "You shall have the unsoftened truth, so far as it is mine to speak."
The duke motioned her to a seat by the fire and stood opposite to her, changing the candles on the shelf above to throw the light full upon her face as she sat before the fire.
"'Tis an awkward position you put me in," Nancy laughed.
"'Tis grace itself compared to the awkwardness of mine," the duke returned with a dry smile.
"The first thing I ever heard of you," she began, "was that you were known by common repute as the 'Lying Duke of the Highlands.'"
The duke bowed.
"I have heard from high and low that you have neither the code of a gentleman nor the common honesty of business affairs. It is even argued that you have not the moral perception to see your own lack in such matters."
The duke looked at her steadily for a moment again and his lips curled back into a smile.
"You are openly accused of thefts in India—of defrauding the ignorant natives of their lands."
The duke made a little outward motion with his hand, as though to intimate that these charges were already known to him.