“Why are you telling me this?”
“They were—”
The entrance door crashed open. “Eleanor?” With light streaming in from behind him, Mr. Oswald stepped to the porch. His eyes slipped from Simon, to Miss Oswald, then back to Simon again. “I presume you are not compromising my innocent sister, Mr. Fancourt.”
“We were only discussing her relationship with Patrick Brownlow.”
Miss Oswald gasped, while her brother only leaned against the doorframe, arms folding over his chest. He grinned. “Pray, who is that?”
CHAPTER 16
Somewhere in the house, a longcase clock chimed twelve, the bell-like ring stirring Simon from sleep. He rolled over in bed. He willed himself back into slumber, but thoughts already attacked his mind.
Like the lies of Alexander Oswald. Why deny knowing Brownlow unless the business between them was wicked? Had Oswald been the one responsible for—
Something creaked outside Simon’s door.
Tension chilled in his stomach, as he sat up and strained to see in the darkness. He waited for the door to sling open, for a shot to fire into his room, but the silence stretched on.
Ripping off his downy coverlet, Simon lit the candlestick beside his bed and hurried to the door in his bare feet. He pulled it open.
The hall was empty, long, dark, quiet.
Perhaps it had been nothing.
As he closed himself back into his chamber, his foot scraped against something on the cold floorboards. A folded paper. Unease cut a jagged line through his chest, as he picked it up, smoothed it out, and read handwriting he’d seen only once before: “Which is the greatest sin: to murder thine own loved ones to keep the right, or to murder strangers with your silence?”
Simon balled it in his palm and raised his fist to the wall, shaking with the urge to whack his knuckles into something that would ease the rage.
Instead, he slung the note to the ground and stormed back into the hall. He must find Miss Whitmore’s chamber. Perhaps that was illogical. After all, she would certainly not be considered his loved one, by any account.
But the need to see her, to make certain she was undisturbed, was overpowering.
He located her door, found the knob in the dark, and resisted the knowledge he should knock. Instead, he slipped inside.
The blackness was thick and cool, the only light a silvery stream falling in from the window. The faint glow outlined her bed and an unmoving lump.
He approached. Without reason, his heartbeat thumped at the base of his throat—low and distinct, like his hammer pounding nails into the cabin wood back home. “Miss Whitmore.” He settled his hand on the side of her face.
She stirred, fingers slipping over his, doubtless a confused instinct. Then she jerked, shrinking back, a sound shrieking—
“Shhh.” He clamped his hand over her mouth. “It is me. Simon.” He should have said Mr. Fancourt. He would have to anyone else.
Her body relaxed, and he forced himself to move his hand from her lips. His skin tingled.
Strange, that.
Stranger still that he remained hovered over her, that his heartbeat still hammered like ten kinds of a fool.
“What are you doing in here?”
“I wanted to make certain you were well.”
“You had no such worries the first three days I was here.”
That struck him. Did she think he had not cared? Maybe he should have stayed close to her after the injury, but finding the driver had seemed so imperative. He was weary of life-and-death choices. He was weary of not being where he was needed. He was weary of arriving too late and of screams he could not stop and—
“Something has happened.” She pushed to a sitting position. “What is it?”
