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He turned fully toward his niece. “We are done for the evening. Could you please retire to your rooms?”
Vicky’s hand waved toward the cleared area of the floor. “But I would like to try the dance again, now that I’ve seen it done properly. I know Miss Sloane could teach me now.”
“She will have to do it another evening.” His cool voice held no room for disobedience.
With an exaggerated sigh that dragged out as only a nine-year-old could accomplish, Vicky stood from the bench and stomped across the room and out the door.
Sloane started to follow Vicky, but Reiner stepped in front of her, shaking his head and pointing to the floor next to her feet. A silent order. She was not to move.
Reiner went to the door of the library and closed it.
He turned around and strode across the room to her. Stopping far too close, he glared down at her. “There is no such thing as a private conversation with my niece. I need to know every word everyone says to her, and you, of all people, are not immune to that.”
Sloane looked up at him, meeting his glare with her own. “You sound like a tyrant.”
“I sound like an uncle that swore no harm would ever come to his niece.” The vehemence in the rumble of his voice made her pause.
Pause and take a step back. Her look fell to the smooth wooden planks of the floor between them. She had to remember he believed she was there to harm him—that she was an enemy.
But she couldn’t possibly be there to harm Vicky.
Could she?
What in the blasted world could have happened to her to make her want to harm him or his niece?
But she knew herself. Knew what she was and was not capable of doing, no matter what had happened to her in the void of the past weeks or months. Steady, her gaze rose to him. “I would never harm that girl, Reiner. She’s an innocent.”
“Yes, and there’s no better way to harm me than through her.”
She shook her head. “I don’t ken what has made you so spiteful that you distrust everyone—to the extent that you would keep me—another innocent—captive here. And for what? Out of fear of what I could possibly do to you? You found me—I have no idea what I’m doing here or how I got here—and you won’t help me figure it out. You want answers, Reiner, well, I want them as well. I want them more than you do.” Her voice started to shake. “But if there is one thing that I ken about myself, it’s that I would never hurt an innocent child. Never. That you would even insinuate it sends a rage through my belly.”
His hand flipped up in the air. “What would you like me to do, Sloane? While there are things you don’t remember, there are clearly things that you do recall and are refusing to tell me. The fact that you have brothers? That your grandfather is a marquess?”
Vicky must have told him that fact, for she’d kept her mouth clamped tight against him learning the slightest thing about her. Her arms clamped in front of her chest. “And I could say the exact same of you. You are refusing to tell me anything that would help me solve the mystery of why I’m here.”
He inclined his head slightly, pinning her with his brown eyes that swirled in the crossroads between cold and warm. “Yes, so how about I propose a deal?”
Her eyes narrowed at him. “A deal consisting of what?”
“For every piece of information you give me, I give you one back of equal importance.”
Her jaw shifted back and forth as she tried to read him. Tried to discern if the man was even worthy of the trust it would take for a deal like that.
A deep breath, and she exhaled it in a long sigh. “I will agree.” She held up her hand. “As long as we agree first upon the questions that equate importance.”
“Agreed.” He nodded. “Your grandfather is a marquess—I want to know his name.”
“And I want to ken exactly where I am right now—by the accents of everyone in this castle, I cannot imagine we are in Scotland?”
He pierced her with his stark amber-hued eyes. “You’ll answer mine if I answer yours?”
She nodded.
“You’re in England at Wolfbridge Castle in Lincolnshire, thirty miles northeast of Lincoln.”
She stumbled a step backward, her arm clasping across her belly. Lincolnshire? What was she doing weeks away from Vinehill—from her home?
“The—the nearest village?” She managed to mumble the words out.
