Diana fought the impulse to lower her chin, instead keeping it raised. “Accessible to what? Strangling?” A dark glint sparked in his eye, and a half-curled smile appeared on his lips. She had been right. “You have thought of strangling me?”

He chuckled but not in a surprised way. He removed his hand from her face and placed it behind his back, then took one step away from her. “No, Diana. Strangling is not at all what I had in mind,” he said with his eyes still at her throat. She swallowed and turned to sit down at her desk. She had work to do, and she would need to do it whether Lord Bryant was here or not.

Lord Bryant took his seat on the inside corner of her desk. Diana kept her head lowered over her work, but from the corner of her eye, she saw him pick up a pen from her desk and hold it softly between two fingers. He then waved it up and down in a slow, smooth movement. The pen became like a string waving in the air. How did he do that? No matter, she wouldn’t give him the pleasure of asking.

Work. She needed to work. What was the good of imploring Lord Bryant to help her if it didn’t actually equate to getting more work done? He set the pen down and hopped off her desk. Finally, a bit of space between them. Lord Bryant strode to the door. Was he leaving already? He couldn’t handle more than a minute of being ignored?

That sounded accurate.

She watched Lord Bryant through her lowered eyelashes as, instead of leaving, he removed his jacket. Underneath his plain, black jacket was a deep-green velvet waistcoat. Lighter green vines were embroidered on it, drawing attention to his narrow waist and broad chest. Her pen froze in her hand—not that she had actually been writing anything, but now the pretense was gone. He hung the jacket on the coatrack by the door before his hand went to his cravat.

She gave up the charade and looked up. “Are you undressing in my place of business?”

His black cravat stayed mostly in place, but with only a few tugs, it would follow his jacket and end up on her coatrack. “I’m only making myself comfortable. I haven’t had the best morning.”

“How comfortable are you planning on making yourself?”

“Only about as comfortable as I was when you visited me in my study.”

Oh dear. Although he was fully clothed at that time, his open neck and the V of his chest was an image she wouldn’t soon forget. She didn’t need a reminder of it. “Please leave your cravat in place. How would you get home with a ruined cravat?”

“In my carriage.”

“But your footman . . .”

“If my footman was shocked by a hastily tied cravat, he wouldn’t be my footman.”

Diana pushed away the images of what exactly he could mean by that. “Still, if you wouldn’t mind leaving it on, it would make it easier for me to do my work without worrying that a legitimate investor would come in and get the wrong idea.”