“Turn around, slowly.”
I did as he asked. Opening my eyes to fearful slits, I kept my gaze on the pistol and his large, black-gloved hand. At that moment I wanted to know if and when he would pull the trigger more than who he was or what he looked like. He’d barely eased my pistol back enough to allow me room to turn. As soon as I did, he pressed the muzzle deeper into my breast, directly over my pounding heart.
When he didn’t shoot, when he didn’t say anything at all, I finally lifted my gaze and met his deadly green stare. Sean Killdaren was everything his portrait promised and more.
“Who are you?”
Swallowing a lump of pure fear, I found my voice. “Cassie Andrews. I’m…the new housemaid.”
“I don’t know how well you can see, but I assure you, I am not that stupid. You’re no more a housemaid than I am a street urchin. The truth.”
“’Tis the truth. I am Cassie Andrews, and I…I needed work. Hard times…my father lost his post.” I held up my blistered hands.
“Where are you from?”
“Oxford.” I cringed, realizing I should have lied.
“You’re educated. You can’t convince me that between this hell and Oxford there wasn’t a single teaching post.”
“I left home…there was a…scandal. I had to,” I said, desperate. Inferring that I was a fallen woman seemed the only plausible excuse for why an educated woman would seek employment as a housemaid so far from home. I took heart in that every word I’d said was essentially the truth. I considered Mary’s death a hidden scandal.
Bolstering myself with that, I met the fire of his gaze as he studied me. Dressed completely in black right down to the cape he wore, he was as dark as his midnight painting had portrayed him and just as dynamic. The cleft of his shadowed chin, the fullness of his mouth, the height and breadth of him in person loomed larger than life, even more so than the painting. Only the fire in his dragon green eyes gleamed brighter than his picture, and I noted a sharper, more sinister edge to him, as if he could very well be a vamp—
I mentally shook the ridiculous thought away.
“Why the pistol?”
I swallowed and shut my eyes. “Protection. The scandal.” Heat flooded my face.
“Look at me, lass.” He pressed his gloved fingers to my chin.
I met his gaze with trepidation. How could I so unashamedly lead another person to such untruths?
His thumb caressed my cheek and a different sensation besides that of fear, coiled inside of me. The unknown emotion gripped me just as strongly as my terror had, but left me wanting to know what his ungloved touch would feel like against my cheek.
Whatever he looked for, he must have found it in my gaze, for he lifted the pistol from my breast and stepped slightly back, releasing my chin. “You’ll not need a weapon in my home, so I will keep it safe for you for now. Before you go, I want to know why you were eavesdropping on my father and Sir Warwick.”
“I…got lost. I wanted a book to read.”
“And you thought making use of the library a servant’s right?”
I shook my head no and lowered my gaze, feeling the sting in his question, but then couldn’t stay silent. “Don’t you think servants thirst to know things?”
“Perhaps,” he said oddly. “The library is down the opposite corridor from here.”
I nodded, starting to back away from him.
“I’ll escort you.”
“That’s not necessary.”
“You know the way?” He lifted a brow, clearly questioning the validity of everything I’d just said. His gaze bore down on me, and I backed away faster even though he didn’t move.
“No. I just…don’t think I’ll be able to read after…this. I’d like to retire now.”
A ghost of a smile seemed to curve his lips, but it came and left so quickly that I thought I imagined it. I kept backing up until I felt the door behind me and found the doorknob. Opening it, I winced at the pain from my blisters. Just before I escaped, he spoke so softly I almost didn’t hear him. “Perhaps you’ll meet me there some night.”
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