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It was still an hour before the lavish dinner was to be served and she needed to get her husband alone before the meal or she wouldn’t be able to swallow a bite.
Lord Falsted stepped away from her husband, leaving Reiner chatting with the other man. Sloane pounced.
She excused herself from Lord Apton and weaved her way through the crush of people that were thick along the outskirts of the dance floor. Wolfbridge held a healthy number of people, but she would venture to guess there was more than double the amount of people in attendance this evening over the last.
She managed to avoid getting sucked into several conversations along her route and was stepping up to Reiner within two minutes.
He saw her approach—she’d seen his sidelong glances in her direction—yet his attention stayed on the gentleman next to him. Slightly shorter than Reiner, the man had ghastly white skin set below the darkest hair—the whole of it lending him the appearance of a serious illness, even though his body appeared robust and trim.
She looked from the stranger to her husband.
Nothing.
With a distinct clearing of her throat, she looked back to the stranger.
Reiner’s voice was tight as he motioned to the man. “Duchess, I present to you Lord Bockton. Lord Bockton, my wife.”
“Ah, so this is the Scottish beauty you wed this morning.” Lord Bockton bowed to Sloane. “I regret I only arrived this evening and missed the day’s festivities.”
Sloane smiled at the man. “We are just happy you have managed to delight us with your presence now, Lord Bockton.”
“I have heard much of your charm, your grace, and I see it has not been exaggerated.”
“My charm may suffer in a moment, Lord Bockton, as I must excuse myself and my husband from you as I need a private word with him.”
“Of course.” He inclined his head to Sloane, then turned to do the same to Reiner. “Your grace.”
Lord Bockton exited into the throng of people along the wall with the French doors that led to the gardens.
Reiner kept his stare secured onto the back of Lord Bockton’s pomade-thick hair.
“You aren’t even going to look at me?” Her gaze on their guests, she whispered the words through a benign smile plastered on her face.
“To be honest, I don’t know if I can, Sloane.” The words were cold. Callous.
“Well, you can follow me without looking at me.” She glanced up at him out of the corner of her eye. His jaw was set hard. So hard it was straining. Quivering. “So for our guests’ comfort, I suggest you do so now before I explode in front of the lot of them.”
Without waiting for a reply, she stepped around Reiner and exited through the wide south entrance and walked as fast as her feet would carry her up to her chamber. She stopped at the entrance, only to be yanked to the side as Reiner grabbed the back of her upper arm when he passed her.
“My room. It’s the farthest from ears.”
With his fingers digging into her arm, he walked them to the end of the hall, flinging open the door to his chambers and thrusting her into it.
His grasp gone, she stumbled a few steps before catching herself on the back of a plump wingback chair by the fireplace to her right.
She hadn’t been in this room since she rifled through it to steal the red ledger book. Her gaze landed on the secretary that sat next to the window. The one she had to pop the lock on to unlatch the false bottom in the third drawer down on the left side.
Reiner slammed the door closed and turned toward her, his chest heaving, the full fury he had been suppressing all day unleashed. “I’m a bloody fool in love, Sloane?”
She pushed herself from the wingback chair, straightening her spine, her head shaking. “You are what?”
The gold in his brown eyes swirled in the cold rage of a hundred converging hurricanes. “Vicky told me everything—she heard everything of your damned conversation with Falsted.”
The blood ran from her face, her cheeks tingling with loss of feeling. “She what?” Her head dropped forward, her mind in a flurry. “The shadow in the hall—it was her.” Her look whipped up to meet his piercing glare. “No, stop. It’s not what you think. Not at all.”
His hands curled into fists at his sides. “And just what exactly am I supposed to think, Sloane?”
She took a step toward him. “You’re supposed to trust me—that’s first.”
