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“You are so beautiful when you are angry.”
“Oh no!” she waved her finger at him. “You will not succeed in deflecting my attention. Is that what you have been doing all week? Following Signor DeGuerra? I know you cannot answer, you are bound to silence. I still think you are wrong about him.”
“That is not what the evidence suggests.”
“What evidence? He has an accent. He was at a masque with hundreds of others where he may or may not have heard and remembered a piece of music. Oh, and he has a scar on his hand. That does not amount to much.”
“Not yet. We are also unable to establish where he was when the crimes occurred. There is nothing to rule him out but much to cast suspicion.”
Lucinda began to pace the room again. She always solved a problem better if she kept moving. “You are still wrong. I know it. If you accused him of making other men cuckolds, that I would believe, but De Guerra is a man who loves and admires women. The man who raped your sister and my friends, he is no lover of women. He only loves to humiliate and overpower them. We need to look further and dig deeper to find our rapist.”
McCrae nudged her arm to stop her from pacing. “Lucinda. There is no we. My uncle does not want you to be involved in this any further.”
“So that is why you cut me off? It was on your uncle’s orders.”
“I did not cut you off.”
“Oh really?” Her foot started tapping again.
“It is for your own safety. It is too dangerous for a woman to be involved.”
She looked at him and shook her head in disgust. “Why do I not believe you? Perhaps because your uncle could not care less about my safety. He was happy to make me his spy and put me in danger when it suited him. No. There is more to this. I was not born yesterday. This will be about your politics. That is all your uncle cares about. He does not care about the victims, his own niece, and your sister. Order me to stop all you like, but I will not rest until my friends have justice.”
“Lucinda. You must know this is not my choice.”
“It never is. It was not your choice to woo me, and yet you were happy to take advantage. Well at least if I am taken off this mission, it means the courtship is over.” She waited for him to tell her she was wrong, tapping her foot as the seconds trickled by. Of course he could not. Everything she accused him of was true, much as it pained her. “Please open the door I wish to go home.” She turned and walked toward the door.
“Lucinda! Please. Believe me. I meant every word I said. I want to marry you. As soon as this business is concluded, I shall persuade my uncle to let me renew our courtship.”
And he thought she was the naive one. She shook her head sadly. “Even if I did believe you, your uncle would never agree to it. You are the heir to a lord and will marry some fine lady. Your uncle will never allow you to marry the daughter of a lowly swordmaster no matter what he says when it suits his purpose. That is not how the world works.” She took his chin in her hand and turned his head to face her. His eyes confirmed the truth of what she said. While she held his chin, he bent his head to claim her mouth. The kiss was so genuine and tender it made the pain in her heart almost unbearable. He might mean what he said when he claimed to want her but wanting and having are two very different states of being; one is full of possibility and the other is full of pain.
“Do not speak to me again,” she said. “I could not bear it. I would much prefer that you avoid me. Is that too much to ask?”
“If that is your wish, I will respect it. We should leave separately from here.”
“You go first. I need some time to compose myself.”
Tersely he nodded, pressing his lips together and clasping the hilt of his sword as he did whenever he struggled with some powerful feeling. She turned away as he left the room and strode over to face the crimson curtains. The memory of their previous passion stung like alcohol splashed onto a wound. She slumped to the floor and buried her face in her hands, trying not to think, not to feel, only to breathe and survive. She rested one hand behind her, leaning on the paneled door for support, when suddenly there was a click, and the secret door sprang open. She hauled herself to her feet and stepped onto the spiral staircase. Sometimes when you least expected it, fate showed the way forward, and in the grander scheme of life, who was she to poke fate in the eye?
