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Still balancing on his heels, he looked up at Lawrence. “What did you find with her?”
“Just this jacket—her other glove was wrapped with it, though it’s much shorter.” Lawrence held up a bundle of items. “And this dagger from a sheath at her calf and her reticule strapped about her waist.”
Reiner motioned for them. Lawrence handed him the items. He set the jacket on the ground, first looking inside the reticule. Coins, nothing else. He set it onto her jacket.
The knife he flipped around in his hand. Not ordinary. He ran the blade across his thumb. Honed sharp. The handle caught a shard of light from the moon, gold flashing. He squinted in the darkness. The smooth onyx handle was inlaid with strands of gold—a vine weaving, climbing toward the hilt.
This woman was no ordinary thief. She was of money, if nothing else. Her clothes, her coin, the smell of citrus and lavender lifting from her hair. Possibly even of a titled family.
But what would she be doing attempting to sneak into his home? On a vine of all things.
A shot of rage ran down his spine.
Lord Falsted.
The man would stoop to send just such a woman after him. After his secrets.
“Bring her to the Rose room.”
“But, your grace, that is far too close to your chambers,” Colton said. “There is still a room in the south wing available.”
“I’ll not have a possibly hazardous unknown locked into a room near the rest of our guests. Not until I know who she is and what she came here for.”
“I can set her in the cellars.”
“That is assuming she is here to do harm, Colton. We don’t know what her business is here. She comes from money, judging by her dress. And if she is an innocent and connected to one of my guests—possibly injured or left for dead here, then I’ll not have her waking in the cold dank of the undercrofts.”
“But, your grace—”
“I can lock the door on the Rose room. We can lock the shutters.” Reiner stood, looking at Colton. “She’ll not escape the room if her intentions here are as we suspect.”
Colton nodded. “As you wish, your grace.” He motioned for Lawrence to pick up the woman.
Reiner turned, walking back the way he came.
He had a party to get back to.
{ Chapter 2 }
Reiner held the cup of water in his right hand, staring down at the young woman lying in the middle of the tester bed in the Rose room.
The night and day had come and gone and she hadn’t roused. There hadn’t been even a flutter of her lashes, but her breathing had remained steady.
His anger had not.
If this was what he suspected—and likely he was correct—that she’d been sent by Lord Falsted, then he planned to drag every modicum of information about who she was and what she was sent to do from her.
No matter what it took.
Her horse had been found just beyond the tree line this morning. The fine creature and the saddle just gave evidence to the fact that she had wealth behind her. Whose wealth was the current mystery. Not one of his guests made any mention that they were expecting a young woman to join them, nor did any act particularly guilty—as if they had just attacked an innocent woman and dumped her body behind the castle.
It would be exactly like Falsted to send a woman such as this to him to ruin him. The man’s suspicions of Reiner knew no bounds. To his face, Falsted was nothing but congenial and accommodating. But Reiner knew the depths of the man’s distrust.
In the dwindling evening rays of daylight streaming in through the slats of the locked shutters across the windows, he could see the woman’s features plainly.
Blond hair with a slight curl to it. Rogue red strands weaved in with the deep honey color. Her bone structure delicate, her straight, perfectly proportioned nose tipped up a notch at the end, lending impishness to her face. Dark lashes fell long against her smooth white skin while her high cheekbones lent an air of grace to her face. Her flawless complexion was interrupted only by a feathery dusting of freckles across the bridge of her nose and the rather large bruised lump just above her left temple.
His look travelled down the length of her. Not short, not tall, she was proportioned well with nice curves along her svelte body. His gaze paused at the creamy skin rising above the bodice of her dress. Her breasts were tight against the dark fabric, rising up from her ribcage, perfect mounds to cup.
