“What’s wrong?” she asked him, all traces of humor gone from her face.
He blinked. “What?”
“Something’s bothering you.”
He offered her a practiced smile, but then pushed his tongue into his cheek and looked away. Was he uncomfortable because she’d looked so deep? Or was this one of his ways of seducing women? Hit her with an adorable, boyish charm?
“What did Harry Gable want from you?” he asked her.
She wouldn’t lie to him. “He wanted me to laugh at your dancing in front of everyone.”
Instead of getting angry, he smiled at her, then started walking away.
“Why do you hate him?” she asked, following him. Will had told her the marquess and Harry hated each other. She knew why Harry Gable would hate the marquess, but what reason did the marquess have for hating Harry?
“The Gables didn’t tell you, then?”
“What really happened?”
“I commanded the forest animals to kill their father and maul their brother.”
She shook her head, then scoffed. “Surely no one believed that.”
“They all did,” he countered. “My mother had been rumored to be a witch; they thought I was the same.”
“I thought they burned witches at the stake.”
“Twice, they tried to burn her. Twice, she disappeared from her bindings—and two men on the council disappeared with her. When she returned alone days later, I saw her appear from the air, as you had. After that, the rest of the council was too afraid of her to approach her again. No one knew exactly what she had done or if she was in any way responsible for the disappearance of men who had tried to burn her. I think I know now.” He bowed his head and chuckled. Then he shook his head, as if it was all too difficult to relive.
“You think your mother took those men to the future?”
He nodded.
“You believe me then.”
“Yes.”
“So, your mother—were you there when they—”
“I was four and then five years the last time they tried.”
“I’m sorry you went through that. It must have been extremely difficult.”
He stopped and turned to look at her. She almost tripped over her feet. He didn’t move to catch her. She held herself up, though she wasn’t sure how she did while his eyes searched hers, probed like a soft breath, reaching…everywhere, until she felt utterly consumed by him. But as he assailed her senses, she saw him stripped of his own guard.
“It wasn’t,” he confessed softly and without concern, “extremely difficult.”
He was lying. It was part of his armor.
“How old were you when she disappeared for good?”
“Seven,” he said, pulling at his backward collar. “After she left, my father kept me locked behind the castle’s walls until I escaped to the Royal Army. I returned to find him and his new family living here, in the castle he’d given me. I took ownership of Dartmouth and moved in with them. When my father dies, I can throw the Cavendishes out.”
He sounded completely unaffected by speaking of his father’s death or of throwing out a mother and her son. But he didn’t look at her.
She followed him up the stairs and down the long corridor to one of the seven doors in the hall. She didn’t know where her chaperone, Sarah Gable was, or what was behind that door. Did she trust this stranger to follow him into his—he opened the door—dance studio?It was huge! Twice the size of hers at the school. The floor was made of wood and there were wooden horizontal bars around the perimeter. Perfect for someone studying ballet.
“It’s quiet here,” he said.