The voice was no longer smooth; there was a cutting edge to it, lacerating to June’s ear.
“I wanted you to lend me a sovereign.”
It was the literal truth. But the unguarded words slipped from her before she could shape or control them. Almost before they were uttered she realized their bitter unwisdom.
“You can have a sovereign—if that’s all you want.” His tone grew light again. “But it’s only fair and reasonable that you should earn it first.”
Strive as she would, she was not able to keep a faint dew of tears from filming her eyes.
“No need to take off more than your bodice, if that’s what’s troubling you.”
With her shoulders on fire, she could not take off her bodice, even had she wished to do so.
She sat inert while he continued to stand before her. The thread of will she still had, fully concentrated though it was on getting away from him, was now unequal to the ugly challenge of his voice and eyes.
“Let me go,” she half whimpered.
Suddenly, in her own despite, her defences had begun palpably to fail. The blunder was fatal—if the cry of nature overdriven can be called a blunder. His eyes pinned hers. Trembling under the spell of their hard cunning she began to perceive that it was now a case of the serpent and the bird.