“I know you’re here, Miss Atwood,” he whispered into the gloom before locking the door. “I saw you enter.”
Silence.
“Sybil?” Desperation forced him to use her given name. Oh, but he loved how it sounded. “Sybil. We shouldn’t be alone in here.”
The curtain twitched. The mere sight of her peering through the gap in the material sent blood racing through his body at a rapid rate.
“What the devil are you doing upstairs?” He kept his voice low. “We agreed you would remain with Mrs Cavanagh for the entire evening.”
She slipped out from behind the curtain, and he rather wished she hadn’t. The muscles in his abdomen clenched at the sight of that damned green silk clinging to every lush curve.
“I saw you mounting the stairs and wished to snatch a moment alone.” The silk swished as she moved towards him. “But you were engaged in a clinch with your mistress, and so I thought to wait in here.”
“I was not engaged in a clinch. And Mrs Sinclair is no longer my mistress.”
“So why did the widow look like you’d ravished her in the alcove?” Jealousy weaved through her tone.
“Newberry ravished her in a bedchamber.” Though it must have been a rather quick affair. Nothing like the long hours he’d spend lavishing Miss Atwood’s body. “He used the opportunity to question her about the journals, about Talbot, about us.”
Us.
The word settled in his chest, so warm, so damnably satisfying.
“Us?” She swallowed deeply, drawing his eye to that teasing pearl choker and the milky-white column of her throat. Lord, how he longed to settle his mouth there, longed to feel the rapid beat of her pulse against his lips.
“Mrs Sinclair believes I have cast her aside because I have set my cap elsewhere.” Her essence reached for him like sensual fingers in the dark, gripping his coat, pulling him forward, forcing him to close the gap between them. “That I’ve cast her aside because I want to bed you.”
“Me? What gave her that idea?”
Lucius couldn’t help but smile. He was to blame. Sometimes lust was hard to hide. “Not what, but who. Newberry must have mentioned our conversation at the auction. I defended your character far too quickly.”
She pursed her lips. “Only out of respect for my father.”
“Out of respect for you.” Respect was the only thing preventing him from speaking openly about his need for this woman.
Her emerald eyes twinkled in the darkness. “You were prowling around the dance floor like a wolf assessing his prey. Lord Newberry doesn’t know that you promised to protect me. He must have assumed you were jealous.”
Jealousy had flooded his body with bitter poison. “I sensed he made you uneasy.”
“Lord Newberry is an odious creature.” She shuddered. “Threatening women comes naturally to him. He did his utmost to frighten me.”
“Frighten you? How?” He made a mental note to pounce on the lord in the darkness. To teach him the true meaning of terror.
“He suggested someone might kidnap me from bed and lock me away in an asylum.”
“Kidnap you?” Suspicion flared. Perhaps Newberry hired the solemn-looking Scot to assist in his duplicity. “Kidnap you because you have an interest in your father’s books?”
The moment her gaze dropped to her slippers, he knew she’d given Newberry some provocation. “I said I had read my father’s journals. I said they contain more than scientific theories and practically accused him of deception and betrayal.”
What the devil?
“Have you lost your mind?” It took strength not to raise his voice and punch the air. He stepped closer, and she shuffled back against the row of bookcases. “If Newberry is guilty of a crime, you can be damn sure his next task will involve getting rid of you.”
“What is the point of firing a measly arrow at the castle walls? I thought it better to load the trebuchet and hurl a fireball over the battlements.”
“A fireball!” His mouth dropped open.
Miss Atwood smiled and tapped him under the chin. “There is sense in my madness. This way, we will force the villain to attack. It is far better than waiting like sitting ducks.”