Page 13 of Who’s That Earl

From somewhere, she mustered the wherewithal to pull herself free of his touch and to sit more upright. “I’m fine,” she insisted, shaking the wool from her head. “Just stood up too quickly, that’s all.”

Obligingly, he took a step backward. “I’ll ring for Mrs. Murdoch, then, shall I?” He crossed the room to the bell rope before she could protest.

“Wait.” The last thing she needed was Agnes to fuss over her. She managed to get to her feet, one hand gripping the back of the chair to ensure she stayed there this time. The effort earned her a frown. “The dogs are with Agnes—Mrs. Murdoch. The bell will only set them off again. And the other servants will already be abed.”

“Well, then, is it to be that wretched sofa for me tonight?” he asked with a wink.

Was it her imagination, or was his brogue getting stronger yet?

“Better that than the cushions on the hearth,” she tossed back, drawing strength from his teasing as she flicked her gaze toward the dogs’ beds, then back to him.

But he was looking past her, at the door that led to her chamber, almost as if he knew exactly what lay behind it. She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised if his skill set included intimate knowledge of the floor plan of Dunnock Castle—or, more likely, an uncanny ability to scout out ladies’ bedrooms.

When his gaze focused once more on her, the current that passed between them was undiminished by the breadth of the room. As strong and as unmistakable as it had been when it shot across the Tenchley assembly seven years ago. Her pulse kicked up a notch. The heat of his gaze was doing strange things to her insides, and she dug her fingers more firmly into the supple leather of the chair.

It wasn’t difficult to picture him as a strapping Highlander in a kilt, with his claymore drawn and upraised...standing watch at the foot of her bed...or closer still… “I suppose a guard might come in handy if the fiend who wrote that letter decides to show his face,” she whispered.

He appeared to weigh her words—both spoken and unspoken, if she weren’t mistaken. “Aye, lass. That it might.” His voice was low, warmer even than his eyes, though at this distance, his expression was unreadable. “So, time to rouse the dogs.” He jerked the tasseled cord of the bell pull, then gave a surprisingly crisp bow, a reminder that he was still a soldier, for all that nonsense about beachcombing. “I’ll meet Mrs. Murdoch below. Good night, Mrs. Higginbotham.” With those words, he turned and left, as confident of his destination as if he owned the place.

Relief—for that was what she chose to call it—coursed through her. She’d been spared the consequences of her own foolishness. Really, to have almost fainted! After all, she wasn’t a frail Robin Ratliff heroine in need of protection. And Mr. Sutherland wasn’t her hero.

Probably not the villain of the piece, either, though he’d been dishonest about why he’d invaded Dunnock, her sanctuary. If she wanted her peace and privacy back, she was going to have to establish firm boundaries. Keep her guard up, not lower it, as shock had led her to do tonight.

That’s all you need to know, he’d said.

“Oh, no, it isn’t.”

She spoke aloud in the empty room, a retort unworthy of Robin Ratliff’s notoriously wicked wit. But it would have to do.

With a sigh, she sank back into the chair. Her arms and legs were as weak as if she’d been battling quicksand, fighting even as she was being sucked, inexorably, back into the morass of her past.

Tomorrow, she meant to find out whether Mr. Sutherland had come to throw her a lifeline or push her under.

Chapter 5

In the fine medieval tradition, the circular staircase of the south tower had been designed and built to delay, if not prevent, an invasion. The tight spiral wound upward on the left, preventing a right-handed warrior from ascending with his sword raised. The steps were so narrow they could only be climbed single file. And it was impossible for the person at the bottom to see what defenses might await him at the top.

So when Thomas met Mrs. Murdoch a dozen or so steps from the bottom of the staircase, the elderly housekeeper had little warning of his descent, and Athena and Aphrodite, who had been trotting at her heels, went wild. The staircase funneled the cacophony of their shrill barking and Mrs. Murdoch’s exclamations upward, nearly deafening him. They stood for a moment at an impasse, the housekeeper too startled to move and Thomas unable to go past her.

If the stairwell had been wider than the breadth of his shoulders, or the step on which he stood were deeper than half the sole of his boot, he would’ve turned around and gone back up. It had taken all his strength of will to say good night to Jane and walk out of that room. Tonight, a new image of her had been seared onto his memory: pale, trembling, almost overcome—and he’d very nearly gathered her into his arms and promised to keep her safe forever. But she didn’t trust him, any more than her dogs did.

And with reason.

Seven years ago, he’d left Sussex without even an opportunity to explain. No wonder she’d given him a cool greeting. To reappear in her life, as abruptly as he’d left it? And then not even able to be honest with her about what he’d been doing in the intervening years, or why he’d come here tonight?

It had been harder to lie to her than he’d expected. Difficult, but necessary. He didn’t know what threats or problems the castle held. He didn’t even know her, certainly not the woman she’d become. To tell her, or anyone, the truth—that he’d spent the better part of the last decade serving as a spy and had now inherited an earldom he didn’t want—was to close a chapter of his life forever.

And he’d come dangerously close to doing it anyway.

“Whisht, lassies, whisht,” Agnes was pleading, struggling to lay her hands on the dogs without losing her balance. When he eventually thought to press himself flat against the curved outer wall, the dogs skated past, clinging to the turn, their brown and white bodies low and wary. “Och, sir, I’m dead sorry,” the housekeeper declared when the echoes of their barking had subsided. “’Twas the bell that set ’em off tae start, but they’ve always been dead skittish around men.”

“Mrs. Higginbotham will be glad to see them, I think.” More comforted by their presence than by his, at least. “She said you’d been kind enough to prepare a room for me, Mrs. Murdoch.”

“Aye, that’s so, Mr.—”

“Sutherland.”

Her wrinkled face creased in a broad grin. “Ah, I thought I heard a wee bit of the Scots in your voice.”