She considered that. “None that I know of. Lucy was not the most amenable of housemaids, but I still cannot imagine a scenario whereby someone would go to the trouble of trailing her from London. As for beaus, she was not what anyone would call popular.”
She licked her lips and voiced the question she was not entirely sure she wanted answered. “Do you not think it more likely that she was killed by the same men who accosted me?”
A muscle ticked, rapid-fire, in his jaw. “I don’t know. I mean to find them, however, and ask them that very question.”
“Oh. I don’t think…Sterling, I don’t think that’s wise, do you? You could get hurt.”
A sudden, roguish smile curved his lips and warmed his dark eyes. “Why, Annabelle, are you concerned for my welfare?”
Yes.She did not speak the word aloud. However, she feared her expression might have given her away because his smile faded, and his expression turned guarded.
“I suppose this delays your departure further, as now you’ll need to send for anactualchaperone?”
She sent him a confident smile. “Rest assured, I sent for an actual chaperone, sir.” The perfect chaperone.
He did not appear convinced. “If you say so.”
“I do. But…” She twined and untwined her fingers. “Perhaps, given all that’s occurred, you now see the merit in what I broached this morning.”
His expression went from dubious to stony. “You refer to your inane suggestion that you return home to London, on your own, fortified by a set of widow’s weeds? Forget it, Annabelle,especiallynow.”
“Sir, if it’s the inconvenience of purchasing a ticket—”
He surged from his seat, eyes blazing. “A bloody ticket, madam? Are you mad? I can afford a ticket.”
She blinked up at him. Then, unwilling to crane her neck to look at him, shot to her own feet.
The end result was that they stood far too close, and she was still forced to tilt her head back to meet his eye, but at least they were on equal footing.
“AmImad? What about you? Did you, or did you not, make it plain as the nose on your face that you wished me to leave Stoneford Castle, all but accusing me of setting out to entrap you into a marriage born of scandal?”
He glared down at her, but did not refute her claim. How could he?
She spread her arms wide. “And now, now that I am offering to do the thingyourequested, you callmemad?”
“It isn’t safe,” he said through his teeth. “Someone murdered your maid.”
Some of the steam went out of her at that. “Are you saying…are you saying you fear for my life if I travel alone?”
“Yes.”
She scrunched her brows, trying to make sense of his words. “But this morning,” she began again, scrubbing her hands on her skirts, “when you summarily dismissed my suggestion, you knew nothing of Lucy’s death. What reason did you have, then?”
Chapter 22
Sterling replayed Annabelle’s question, her perfectly reasonable question demanding to know why, earlier today, he’d rejected her offer to return to London. His response at the time had been swift, decisive, and rational.
The notion of her traveling cross-country armed with nothing more than a flimsy disguisewasludicrous and a recipe for scandal.
But that had not been his sole reason for keeping her here. Not that he’d admitted as much to himself, even in the privacy of his own thoughts.
The truth was, already this morning, it had been far too late for her to leave the castle as if nothing untoward had occurred. Regardless of the fact no one, aside from the two of them, had witnessed their folly, thingshadprogressed too far.Thingsthat, if he discovered had occurred between a gentleman and his sister, would have him demanding an offer of marriage from the gentleman involved.
He could not escape the certainty that Annabelle deserved no less.
The passionate embrace on the rooftop they’d shared had compromised her. Period. Kissing her in the kiln today only cemented an already clear-cut situation.
The bottom line was, his decision was made. All that was left now was for him to work out how best to proceed, and, of course, to inform Annabelle.
