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His brow furrowed. “Never marry—why not?”
The words unable to breach her lips, she lifted her left arm, still covered from fingertips to her upper arm in that blasted glove.
“Your arm? The scars?”
She nodded, her voice catching. “I am damaged. Unmarriageable. That is what my grandfather said.”
“Your grandfather—”
“Only spoke a truth most are too polite to say out loud. But it is a truth nonetheless.”
“Truth only bears weight if it is believed. Me—I believe a different truth. That you are marriageable. What else would this be? What else could this be?” His fingertips curled against her scalp and his throat tightened. “Tell me this was not a mistake.”
“That is just it. I don’t ken what this is.” Her hands moved from the death grip they had on his shoulders to wrap around his neck. “My body reacts, and my mind goes right along for the journey. I don’t ken why it is that I seem to lose all sense around you, Reiner.”
He exhaled a long breath. “And that is why I wasn’t sure what I would meet here—as all common sense appears to elude me as well when it comes to you.”
“So it is that we do not trust each other?” she asked.
As much as he didn’t want to, he unthreaded his fingers from her hair and lifted her body off of his. He took a step backward and her skirts fell down between them. Turning to the side, he watched her out of the corner of his eye as he pulled his trousers into place and buttoned them. “You have to understand, Sloane, there was one before you—six months ago.”
“One what?”
“One sent to ruin me.” He sighed and walked away from her, stopping at the table to refill a tumbler of brandy. He took a long sip, letting it roll slowly on his tongue before looking to her. “There was a woman before you. She was sent by Falsted to ruin me. A mistress that plied her trade very well—had me fooled until the day I caught her searching my room.”
“Lord Falsted sent her? She was there for the book?”
His eyebrow cocked at her. He hadn’t mentioned the book. Not yet. “She was. It didn’t take much cajoling to get her to admit to her true purpose for being at Wolfbridge. She was an actress and a whore. Nothing more.” He shook his head, then swallowed the rest of the dram. “I am still coming to acceptance of the fact that you were not just another harlot sent to steal from me.”
Her back still splayed against the wall of the room, her head snapped back and thunked against the plaster. “You think this is a farce—what we just did? What I let you do?”
A flush filled her cheeks to flaming. Fury or indignation or guilt—he wasn’t sure.
Best to tread lightly. “Truthfully, yes, it is still in my mind. The possibility that you are trying to bamboozle me and you will stop at nothing to see me ruined.”
Her palm flat on her belly, her lips pulled inward for a long moment. She shook her head, her look going to the ceiling. With a deep exhale, she looked at him. “An honest answer. One I do not think I can begrudge you. Not if there was another similar to me. But I…”
He waited in silence, waited for her to continue.
“I would never trade my body for vengeance, Reiner. Never. There are levels I would stoop to—but that—that is unthinkable.”
“Is it?”
“Yes.”
“I understand what you lost, but revenge is a slippery slope, Sloane. You compromise on one moral. Then another. Then another. Pieces of you are lost bit by bit until you lose all perspective and are praying you are still on the side of right.”
“What do you ken of it?”
“Enough.”
She pushed herself from the wall and smoothed the front of her skirts as she walked over to him. He poured a fresh dram in the tumbler and set it in front of her on the table.
She didn’t take it, her blue eyes intent on him. “What is the book for? Why is it so important?”
“So you do have it?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
