“Pity,” I mused. “I think he would make a proper villain.”
Brisbane quirked one glossy black brow at me. “Have you not yet learned that villainy is not written on the face, but the heart?”
I said nothing for a long moment, thinking of my husband’s murderer, and the sweet, gentle face I had loved. At length I cleared my throat and changed the subject.
“What of your expedition to Charlotte’s room? What did you find?”
Brisbane gave me a bland smile. “Nothing.”
“Let me amend that. What did youhopeto find?”
He paused, then looked at the fire. “I cannot say.” He glanced back at me. “You needn’t grind your teeth at me. I cannot say.”
“So be it. We will simply each of us have our secrets then.”
His eyes narrowed sharply. “Do not think of withholding anything from me. I am in deadly earnest, my lady. You were of use in the first investigation, I do not deny it. And I am keenly aware that his lordship has ordered your involvement this time. But do not think I mean to make you an equal partner in this. I work best alone.”
I blinked slowly at him, a trick I had learned from Portia. Most men find it devastatingly disarming.
“Have you something in your eye? A cinder perhaps?”
I sighed in disgust. “No. I am perfectly well.”
“And what did you discover in the lumber rooms? Did you search all of the bags?”
“Yes, captain,” I said, larding my voice with sarcasm. “And I found nothing in the other guests’ bags at all. They were empty as the tomb on Easter Sunday.” Quite deliberately I did not mention his bag. But then, he did not ask.
Brisbane quirked a brow at me in surprise. “It is not like you to blaspheme. Have you been gambling and keeping low company as well?”
“I have. I am toying with the notion of taking up hard drinking directly. Father has an excellent cellar.”
He stared at me a long moment, those astonishing black eyes searching mine. Finally, he shook his head. “You are up to something, but I cannot make out what and I do not have the time at present to compel you to speak.”
I snorted. “Compel me indeed! I think you know me better than that. I should like to see the man who couldcompelme to do anything I did not wish.” That little speech surprised even me. I had come far from the quiet little dormouse I had been before my husband’s death. Widowhood had been the making of me, I decided.
But before I could admire myself too thoroughly, Brisbane leaned forward in his chair, pinning me once again with his gaze, but softening it somehow, and in the process drawing me in until I could see myself reflected in the inky depths. There was something otherworldly about that gaze, something oblique and unspoken, and yet it held all the sensual promise of a courtesan’s smile.
“Do you not think I have other methods to compel you?” he murmured.
My corset felt suddenly too tight. My breath was coming far too quickly as I thought of what methods he might employ. Methods such as those he had used to such effect the previous night, perhaps? I felt dizzy at the prospect, and violet spots danced in front of my eyes. A dozen pictures flashed through my mind: Brisbane dragging me into his room in the low hours of the night, kissing me until I could not speak or think. I thought of my response to him, so unaffected, so impossible. I had always believed myself cold, unbreachable. And yet my defenses always fell to Brisbane, usually when he needed to breach them the most. How convenient for him, I thought bitterly.
My throat felt thick, and when I spoke, my voice was like honeyed whiskey. “Brisbane,” I said softly. Holding his gaze, I slid to my knees, coming to rest between his booted feet. I heard his breath catch, and a noise in the back of his throat that might have been a stifled groan.
I held up my own hand teasingly. “A question first, my lord.”
I dropped my hand to his boot top. It rested there a moment, my fingers just below the curve of his knee, before I slid it with deliberate, teasing slowness down the supple leather to his foot. He exhaled slowly through flared nostrils, his eyes never leaving mine.
Suddenly and without warning, I grabbed the boot hard and swung it up. He pulled back, swearing fluently in Gaelic, but I had caught him by surprise. I clamped onto the boot with both hands and held it.
“Your boots were wet last night when you dragged me into your room. That is why they were sitting on the hearth. And your greatcoat was draped over the armchair to dry. That is why you kissed me and then pretended to hear a ghost in the corridor. You thought I was coming to see you, and you could not afford for me to know what you had been about. You wanted to distract me so I would not realise you had been abroad in the night.”
He stopped cursing and lapsed into furious silence. I dropped the boot and resumed my chair, wiping my hands disdainfully on my skirts. The little skirmish had roused Florence and she sat up in her basket, weaving a little, but watching with interest, her ears pricked at a quizzical angle.
“I note you make no attempt to deny it. Very sensible.” I nodded toward his boots. “The watermarks are still present on the leather. You ought to have Aquinas tend to them before they are ruined, you know.”
Still he said nothing, the little muscle in his jaw twitching madly. Perhaps he thought to draw me out by his silence, to learn precisely what I knew by refusing to admit or deny anything himself.
Unfortunately, all that I knew I had already revealed.