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Nathaniel brushed both of his hands through his hair, some locks falling from the tie at the back of his head.
“Yes, he was a burglar,” said Poppy. “He saw the boxes with our new pretty bonnets and thought we’d be easy targets.”
Nathaniel shook his head in quiet fury. He saw some logic in that, but the image of the dead flowers sent to Calliope asking her to stop digging hadn’t left his mind.
“Well,” said Calliope quietly, looking at her feet. “He actually wasn’t a burglar.”
“What?” Nathaniel barked.
“What?” the girls echoed.
Nathaniel absolutely hated the glint of excitement and intrigue in their eyes. Why weren’t they afraid like he was? How could they not know what men like that could do to women? That it wasn’t a game to play. That they could lie in pools of blood, with their chests and hearts unmoving.
Forever gone.
“He wasn’t a burglar,” said Calliope.
“How do you know?” asked Hazel. “I thought he followed us to the alley with his knife to steal your purse.”
“Well, no regular burglar would do that during the daylight on the busiest street in London. He was dressed like a working man, which was clearly camouflage. A true thug desperate enough to rob ladies next to a busy street would be dressed much worse. And then his knife… It was too sharp, too new. I think he didn’t want money.”
Her blue eyes met with his, and he saw exactly what she was thinking. It was someone connected to those flowers. Someone connected to Spencer’s disappearance.
“It was because you didn’t stay away!” he roared. “I told you to stay away from your damned investigation and you didn’t. And now you endangered my sisters, my dog—and you endangered yourself! All of you”—he moved his arm in a large circle indicating all four females—“are forbidden from taking a single step out of this house. A single step!”
Calliope almost shrank visibly from the power of his voice.
“What investigation?” asked Poppy in a small, but terribly curious voice.
Ignoring her, Calliope raised her eyebrow and straightened her back. “Perhaps. In fact, I think you’re right. But, as you also could see, I could defend us. I had a plan. I know boxing. I would have dealt with him.”
“She really did have him, brother,” said Violet proudly. “We were perfectly safe with her.”
The growl that tore from Nathaniel’s throat surprised even him. With a force he should not have applied, he clutched his hand around Calliope’s elbow and dragged her from the drawing room up the stairs onto the first floor and into the first door he could find.
“You are the most infuriating female I’ve ever met!” he declared. “Do you see the danger you are? Not just you, but my girls? Can you now please stay away from all this and let me deal with it—if not for your own sake, then for my sisters’?”
Calliope crossed her arms over her chest. “I definitely agree about keeping your sisters away, but I will not be stopped, Nathaniel. And if anything, you should stay away from Bartholomew, as well. He really didn’t want you and me to see that ledger. And that ring…” She shook her head. “Something is very wrong about him.”
He scoffed. “If there was something very wrong, he wouldn’t have given me the ledger.”
Ah, the joy of seeing that shock on her face was almost as good as a climax. “He did?” she asked. “Well, where is it?”
He stared at her. “I will give it to you.”
Suddenly, he noticed three vases with yellow irises stood in the room. Three paintings with Mediterranean seascapes hung on the walls. “Is this your bedchamber?” he murmured.
“Yes,” she said, suddenly sheepish.
It was beautiful. The walls still needed fresh paint, but somehow, she’d gotten new curtains hung in a mossy green, the color of autumn. And the rug on the floor was woven with red and orange and yellows. He could see how pretty this room would be once Calliope finished with it.
He could imagine how grand this whole house could look from her touch, from her very presence.
He stared at the bed. They were alone. He had the papers. He remembered the taste of her lips last night when he’d kissed her, the wonderful feel of her small body in his arms.
“I will bring you the ledger,” he said, taking one step closer to her. “Do you remember that you said you would let me bed you once I do that?”
Her face flushed so deep a red he could light a fire from it.
