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“But you still don’t trust me.”
“I am trying, Reiner. I am trying to place all of this. Not but an hour ago I still thought you were the man that killed my brother. I was still trying to reconcile the reality of how I feel about you with the reality of how I should feel about you.”
His eyebrow quirked. “How should you feel about me?”
“I should hate you, through and through. Stop at nothing to destroy you.”
“But what is it you truly feel?”
“The opposite of that. And then you appear out of nowhere and tell me you’re not the abhorrent man I thought you were. That maybe what I was truly feeling wasn’t tainted. That it was right—that it could be right. So much so that I needed your body in mine.” She sighed, resigned, then grabbed the glass and took a sip of the brandy. “And I don’t yet ken what to think about any of it.”
For how easy it had been to find her—to follow her from Wolfbridge, as she hadn’t been careful at all—she wanted him to find her. Wanted it from the moment she left, whether she would admit to it or not.
He would have to chance it—the truth.
“The book…there is treason in it. Evidence of a smuggling scheme like this country has never seen. Who the sellers are. Who the buyers are. Where things are moved to and from. Persons smuggled in and out of France during the war. The gangs involved. What is stolen. Coining. It involves people from the lowest dockhands to the most high-bred peers. From London to the Highlands, this operation is insidious and has brutal tentacles that reach across the land.”
Her jaw dropped. “You’re a smuggler?”
“No. Make no mistake about that. After I discovered the scheme’s existence, I was encouraged by the crown to infiltrate it. I have the resources. The connections. I have been in the perfect position to gather evidence—to gather the names that need to be gathered. I am incredibly close to discovering the last peer that is involved—that man that directs the whole operation.” His voice hardened. “And once I have him, all of them will pay for their crimes.”
Her head snapped back. “You’re angry—viciously angry. What is it you’re not telling me?”
Of course she would drag this out of him. She was too observant not to.
He inhaled a seething breath. “You remember my sister’s midwife did not make it to Wolfbridge in time to save my sister?”
Sloane nodded.
“She was on the journey north when she was killed.”
Her hand flew to her throat. “Killed?”
“It was one of the smuggling gangs. The midwife had taken a mail coach to get to Wolfbridge in the quickest possible way, but the coach was stopped in Huntingdonshire. The smugglers were after counterfeit silver coins on board and apparently there was struggle. They killed everyone in the coach.”
He had to unclench his fists before he continued. “So I went after the bastards, and what I discovered when I did was one guilty man after the next. Each one leads to another. The number of deaths by their hands are untold—and each death they need to pay for. On top of that list, I put Corentine.”
Sloane sank onto the chair by her legs, her eyes glossed over. For a long breath, she didn’t move, didn’t speak. She shook her head and then looked up at him. “You’re saying all of this to get the book back.”
A flash of boiling indignation swept through his veins, heating his skin. “I’m not here for the damn book, Sloane. I’m here for you. Keep the blasted book, and if I’m a smuggler, I’ll be brought down eventually. With or without the book.”
“I’ve just been told something so very different about the book, Reiner. And you’ve told me none of this—none of this until now.” Her fingers went to her forehead, rubbing. “How can I trust what you’re saying?”
His look sliced into her. “I walk out of here.”
“You what?”
“I walk out of here. And this time, I walk fast. I leave the book with you so you can do what you will with it. Can you say that about Lord Falsted? Do you even know he’s in the book? That he’s an integral part of the scheme? What would he do in this situation—snatch the book from you the moment it was within his reach? Then what? What would he do with you? Discard you—kill you now that your purpose was served? You’re being used, Sloane, why can’t you see that?”
“I—” She shook her head, cutting off her own words. Her hands flustered, she stood. “I think my body may be playing tricks upon my mind and I don’t ken what I believe anymore, Reiner.”
He stepped in, closing the distance between them. “I have every reason not to, Sloane, but I believe what’s in front of me. Whatever blasted thing this is that has happened between us. I believe in that over what you thought to do to me.”
He leaned in, his lips landing on her neck, his tongue caressing circles against the fine cords of muscle. “I believe in our bodies colliding. I believe the moments when we are pressed into each other possess the rightest thing I’ve ever felt in my life.” He pulled up slightly, his look searching her eyes. “I believe for all the suspicion still laced in your canny blue eyes, you want to believe me. And are trying desperately to do so.”
She held his look for an extended, quavering breath.
But then she jerked a step backward, empty air filling the space between them. “I don’t ken, Reiner. I want, I want to believe you—I just”—she spun from him and moved to the door—“I just need a moment of fresh air. I need to think.”
