“Midnight,” Simon answered without hesitation, not realizing he had stepped directly into her friend’s little trap.
“Oh!” Jo exclaimed. “I had not realized that the two of you had become so acquainted with one another.”
Belle groaned.
Simon scowled in Jo’s direction. “I heard a noise and went to investigate or is that not the purpose of it all?”
Belle released her breath slowly.
“It was your brother that visited you,” Derek Shaw stated with such a certainty that everyone stilled.
Belle’s lips parted.
How had he known?
She held his gaze though she refused to reply to his statement, instead only tilting her head to the side. Everyone watched her with growing expectancy. Her friends would never push her for an answer, but St. Aldwyn did study Westfield withnarrowed eyes.
Belle sighed. “Why would you believe it was my brother?”
Derek’s lips twitched upward, an uncomfortable sight. “Your brother is the only one you would trust, besides us, with your life. And your life is at stake here, Lady Belle. Make no mistake.”
His deduction seemed simple enough, but something warned Belle it was anything but.
Hands clapped from somewhere in the garden and two tall figures emerged from behind a large tree, their faces grim.
Oh no.
“Well done, Shaw. It appears your power of deduction is as sharp as ever.”
Derek clenched his jaw.
Belle’s gaze flickered from one Shaw to the other and then to Quinn before settling on Bradford, who watched her with such an intense gaze, she flushed. She wanted to run and fling herself into his embrace, but refrained from acting on the impulse, instead keeping a cool, indifferent, albeit red-faced, exterior.
“Belle,” he murmured softly, a slight hitch in his voice.
She searched his face, but for that slight hitch, there was no indication of any emotion reflected there. Lines had formed in the corner of his eyes, lines that hadn’t been there when she last saw him. She glanced away without a word, but only after she’d committed every one of those new lines on his angular face to memory, for she did not know when he disappeared this time, when or if she would see him again.
To the group, it was clear they were siblings, what with their matching blond hair and stormy blue eyes.
“Well, aren’t you two a sight for sore eyes,” St. Aldwyn drawled, appearing bored.
“And here you are attending a tea party hosted by my sister, how the mighty hath fallen,” Bradford shot back.
“I, at least, was invited.”
Belle sighed. It was not her tea party. “I’m hardly allowed to leave my own home. A compromise had to be made.”
“Good,” both her brothers echoed simultaneously.
“So you would have us stand back and stop attempting to capture the notoriously foul-breathed De Roux?” Derek’s voice cracked through the air.
Belle’s eyes swung to him in astonishment. Had there been a touch humor in his voice? And when had he heard her many references to the man’s breath? But more shockingly, had he actually resorted to name calling?
“We have the situation well in hand,” Bradford stated, “You are, however, welcome to join us on our terms, but I would prefer that from here on out my sister and her,” he glanced at Jo, “ladyfriends not be included.”
The women gasped in outrage and St. Aldwyn clamped a hand over his wife’s mouth when she would have replied.
Quinn held up a placating hand. “De Roux is a cunning bastard, not to mention dangerous. We cannot in good conscience include ladies on this mission. Besides, you already have your hands full protecting yourselves.”
