“Look at this.” Francesca’s murmur rose in volume, breaking her reverie. “I’ve found where the Cavendish and Ramsay lines intersect.”
“What does it say?” Alexandra whispered, opening the door a little wider to overhear.
“Drat.” The book slammed shut, and Alexandra could picture the irritation tightening Francesca’s mouth. “Sir Cassius Ramsay is something like eleventh in line to the earldom. He’d have to murder half the haute ton to bloody get his hands on the Mont Claire title.”
“His mother…” Cecelia tsked. “What an awful woman. Her diaries seem to be mostly lurid and disgusting accounts of her vast affairs. She delighted in cuckholding her husband. I should not like to read further, but here, the year your family was killed, she mentions nothing of the massacre. In fact, she’s lamenting that her sons are on the Continent, which places them solidly out of the country and—”
“Wait a minute.” Francesca’s voice became agitated. “I’ve seen this name before. During my previous investigation.”
“Which name?” Cecelia’s skirts rustled closer to Francesca’s voice.
“Kenway. Lord Kenway. He’s only second in the line of succession after me—”
The shadows shifted once again, drawing Alexandra’s notice from the conversation. She slammed the door shut, trapping her friends inside. Squinting into the distance of the hall, she held her breath, certain she’d caught sight of a figure sliding into the darkness between the windows.
Just as she was about to open the door again, the character emerged into the silver shafts of moonlight cascading from the window nearest her. The sight of his satyr’s mask sent her heart diving toward her stomach in a sickening, desperate attempt to escape.
“Your Grace!” she gasped, secret and troubling parts of her clenching at his stealthy approach, even as her hand searched for her concealed weapon.
“Doctor,” he greeted her blithely, though she detected something ominous beneath the calm façade.
Fidgeting with her mask, she kept her voice loud enough for her friends trapped inside the chamber to overhear. “What are you doing here, Your Grace?”
“What am I doing here?” He signaled casually to the moonlit hall. “In my wing of the house? The wing I kept dark to dissuade any trespassers?”
She emitted a shrill sound that was meant to be a laugh but fell absurdly short. “Oh, is that where we are? I didn’t realize … I was just—”
“Snooping?”
“Exploring.” She gulped. She knew as well as he did there wasn’t much difference between the two.
“Well, you won’t find anything of interest in there.” He gestured to her hand still wrapped around the door latch. “That was my late mother’s chamber.”
She released the latch as though it had burned her. “Oh? I never met your mother.”
“Consider yourself fortunate.”
There was that banked fury again. The one forever lurking beneath the rasp of masculinity. At his rather distressing reply, Alexandra had to attempt three swallows around a dry, paralyzed tongue before she could speak again.
Her job was to distract him. To draw him away from the door so her friends could escape. And all she wanted to do was to lift the hem of her skirts and flee down the hall back toward the stairs.
Only one thing stopped her from doing just that. The knowledge that he’d catch her, this predator. She’d not make it past the first window before he pounced on her.
And God only knew what would happen next, once his instincts had been roused.
“You have such an impressive collection here.” She adopted an overbright tone, tripping toward the suit of armor gleaming in the moonlight. “Is this sixteenth-century Italian?” She fiddled with a pauldron that had tilted off kilter.
“Fifteenth-century Burgundian, actually.” He drifted closer to her. Close enough for the scent of whisky, leather oil, and bergamot to entice her to breathe deeply. “But why did I get the feeling you already knew that?”
The pauldron suddenly came off in her hand.
“Merde,” she cursed. Partly because of the mistake, and partly because he was right.
He reached around her, the hard disc of chest brushing her shoulder. She flinched away, and would have dropped the heavy metal armor had he not already grasped it.
If he noticed, he said nothing. “Cursing in French is so much less offensive, isn’t it?” he stated casually. “Though I rarely find it as satisfying.” He returned the pauldron to its original place, taking care to see it straightened, she noted.
“Have you seen Lady Francesca?”
The sound of her friend’s name on his lips knotted a small frown between her brows which she refused to examine. “Not for quite a moment, Your Grace.”
“Really? When I noted that you’d left together, I was certain I’d find a conclave of you drumming up some sort of mischief.”
She stepped to the side of him and around, so she was no longer cornered in the alcove. “We most distinctly did not leave together.” They’d made sure of it. Five-minute intervals to the moment. Well, ten for Cecelia.
He made a sound deep within his throat that could have been disbelief “My mistake. You wouldn’t happen to know where she is? I’d speak to her one last time before the reveal.”
Panic choked her, and she willed herself to remain calm.
Did he know? Was he toying with her like a cat was wont to do with a helpless bird? Did he hear them earlier and was merely allowing her to bury the three of them in a grave of lies?
Don’t bolt, she admonished herself. Stay calm. “Francesca?” That came out as a word, right? Not a squeak? “Where she is? At this moment?” She took one tiny backward step down the hall toward the beckoning light at the top of the stairs. “I—I could not say where she is, though I would wager she’s a bundle of nerves. Situations such as the one we find ourselves in tend to make one anxious, don’t they?”
“Evidently.” He glanced around, his mask taking on an almost lifelike cast, half in moonbeams, half in darkness. “Your friend never struck me as the sort to give in to bouts of nerves.”
She retreated one step more. “Yes, well … it’s impossible to decipher anyone’s true nature, is it not? The most charming smile could be cloaking a devious evil, and the bravest countenance can disguise a coward. We all wear something of a mask, don’t we?”
“Indeed.” The bleak note in his reply struck her. “What are you hiding behind yours, I wonder?” He reached out to smooth an errant dove feather.
Alexandra summoned every bit of her will to remain still. “Me? Oh, oodles of secrets, upon my word.”
“Care to share any of them?” He took a step closer, and she a simultaneous one in retreat. Why must he be so bedeviling? Why did his mere presence send her pulse fluttering like a bird trying to escape?
“Isn’t it the nature of secrets not to share?” she challenged.
“You make an excellent point. I’ll leave you to your secrets and ask you to share something else.”
A kiss? she wondered. Alarms in her head warred with a strange and discomfiting clench in her belly.