He’d almost kissed Isabella twice. In the coach. Behind Hestia. Both times she’d run, and he’d been left… simmering. Like a pot of water over a flame. Her ghost roamed these halls with him. Hadn’t he seen her everywhere, after all? Before he’d known her name. Her fake name. She’d darted about as if she belonged, as if every room and hallway was her right. She’d done so quietly, face tilted down, avoiding prying eyes. She’d never avoided his. He’d always seen her, the little quiet mouse of a maid.
And now he knew she was no mouse.
The second floor was quiet. Only one family resided here currently, and they often were out all night long. Balls and parties. They were likely headed back to Hestia now from the same ball Aunt Lavina had attended. They’d sleep till noon, then request a repast, and—
Was that door open? Perhaps one of the maids was cleaning. But she should be done so close to the family’s return. They were never to enter the rooms with the guests present unless requested.
With a firm palm to the heavy wood, he opened the door wider. A top hat had been thrown on top of the bed, and a man in a greatcoat leaned over an open trunk. Something off…
Hell. Swinging beneath the hem of the many-caped greatcoat—blue silk skirts. And above the coat’s collar, an elaborate mass of curls and pearls, braids and ribbon.
Isabella.
She’d not noticed him yet, and she was mumbling something he couldn’t quite make out. On quiet feet, he grabbed her hat off the bed and set it on his head, tilted over one eye. Leaning against a bed post and crossing his arms over his chest, he cleared his throat. She screamed, a tiny yelp, muffled behind her palm as she whirled around, her other hand flying to her heart.
He pushed the brim of the hat up with his index finger.
She gasped, rushing forward. “You!” Her gaze swung to the open doorway, then back to him. Was she contemplating escape?
She’d find it impossible.
“Me.” He bent and picked her up. Her gasp seemed to suck all the oxygen from the room as he threw her over his shoulder. She beat on his back, but only a time or two as he asked, “Was the trunk locked?”
“No, you brute. Put me down.”
He closed the trunk instead, exited the room, and locked the door with the key he always kept in the small waistcoat pocket.
All the while she wriggled, poking at him, knocking her ear in hiselbow, introducing her knee to wherever it could reach. As he carried her down the hallway, she hissed, “This is insupportable. Release me now.”
He did, inside of a large linen closet near the servants’ staircase. He joined her there, keeping the door open a crack so a sliver of candlelight seeped in, slicing a barrier between them.
He removed the hat and plopped it onto her head. “You are a thief, I see.”
“I’m not! I was looking for something that belongs to me!” She backed as far away from him as she could, pressing against the floor to ceiling shelves that held pile after pile of pristine white linens.
“One of my guests is a thief, then?” He couldn’t have that. A single rumor about theft in any establishment like Hestia could permanently damage its reputation. No one wanted to stay where they and their belongings were not safe.
The hat was too big for her. He saw that even in the shadowy dark of the closet. It fell over her eyes, and she shoved it back to scowl at him in the dim light.
He stepped closer to her. “If there is a thief about Hestia, you will let me know, and I will confront him personally and ban him from the premises. I will recover, as best as I can, whatever items he pilfered, and—”
“No”—she sighed—“it’s not that.”
“What is it, then?”
She tried to step around him.
He blocked her path.
She stepped to the other side.
He moved with her. “I’m not releasing you until I understand what has brought you here dressed as a man.”
Her hands balled into tiny fists. She turned her back to him, her arms rigid at her sides. “I started coming here to collect information. About a man. My friend’s husband. I wanted her to know everything there was to know, everything that might be hidden from her. That’s what I’m after now, too. Information that could impact a potential marriage.”
Her neck curved, soft and… soft? Yes, like velvet beneath his fingertips. When had that happened? When had he conquered the two steps between them to place his hand, oh-so-lightly on her vulnerable nape? Goose bumps erupted across her skin, and he tried to rub them out with the pad of his thumb. Her shoulders did not rise and fall. She’d stopped breathing. He cupped her neck, wrapping his hand gently around it so his top finger flirted with her earlobe.
Another question—why was he here, seeking warmth from such a rigid little thing?
