“What a fucking mess,” she mumbles, and I can’t help but agree. “Tell him and do it soon.”
“I will,” I agree. “Tonight. I just needed to wrap my head around it and there wasn’t time to do that with him barging in and wanting to know what we were doing. I panicked.”
“I could tell,” she says drolly.
“You’re the best sister-in-law ever,” I tell her.
“I know,” she agrees. “And I’m going to be the best auntie in the whole world.”
“Obviously,” I agree.
“Now you get some rest and wrap that pretty little head around your news,” she says, tapping me on the forehead. “I’m going to go hunt down a snack.”
“I think I’m going to go back to the library,” I tell her. “I think I could actually read a book now and the idea of food sounds disgusting.”
“And you doubted that you were pregnant,” she says as she kisses my cheek and heads out.
“Wel, what do you think?” I ask my kitty. “Fancy a nap in the library?”
He just purrs into my cheek so I take that as a yes and carry him down the hallway to the library. But the weirdest thing happens when I step into the historic room. Leo bristles in my arms and starts growling and hissing. He jumps off my shoulder and it’s the strangest thing. He’s literally never behaved like this at all. I turn around to see what’s got him so spun up and when I do, I shriek.
“Shush!” Maeve snaps. “You do no’ want them to hear us.”
She looks terrible. Like she’s been living who knows where for over a month. Honestly, she has to have been pretty resourceful to have lasted this long without being discovered.
I hold my hands out in front of me in alook at how innocent and kind I amkind of way.
“You don’t want to do this,” I say quietly. “We can get you out of here safely without being noticed. Just let me go and I’ll help you.”
“You idiot,” she snaps. “I’m trying to help you, but we have to go.”
“You’re trying to help me?” I ask confused. “But they’ll kill you.”
“Darlin’ girl, I was already dead when they had me pretending to be a dead woman to scare you,” she says. “But we have to go, now.”
“Okay,” I say. “Okay. I believe you. Let’s go.”
“Thank God,” she says as she turns to the door and a shot is fired through it.
Chapter 24
The Battlements
Rhys
Ihead back to my office with a smile on my face and my dog at my side. I have to admit that when Stella brought this dog home, I thought this is going to be my life, where my bride brings home every mangey mutt she can get her hands on. Hell, she even asked to turn the orangery into a bird habitat. I can’t decide if my father would have loved her or hated her, but I guess it doesn’t matter. He’s dead and she’s mine.
My wife is a lot of wonderful things and a terrible liar. And my sister is even worse.A new lip gloss, my arse.Those two were finding out what I’ve suspected for a few days now—Stella is pregnant.
A heavy knock falls on my office door.
“Come in,” I call out.
Leo enters with a heavy face and my heart immediatelyclenches. “Is it Stella?” I ask.
“What?” he asks. Then he realizes how he must have scared me.
We’ve been waiting for the other shoe to drop. No one knows yet that the earl and Stella’s murderous uncle are dead. We were hoping to shake a few more rats loose from their nests but with that comes the knowledge that my wife is not necessarily safe here.