“Earls do not marry ladies like me, Conall. You know it was well as I do.”
“Ladies like you?”
She rolled her eyes. “You cannot pretend to not know that I am ruined.”
“Gossip.” He dismissed it.
“And yet.”
“I won’t have anyone denigrating you,” he said. “Not even you.”
She smiled at him. She had to.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re really rather sweet, aren’t you?”
“Leave off.”
She was almost certain his ears were turning red. Adorable.
Conall caught sight of Lady Louisa, still spying through the glass. Holly had joined her, in her new dress, sans raspberry jam. “Well then, we’ll have to be convincing, won’t we?”
Conall raised her hand to his lips. She wasn’t wearing gloves as she’d been about to eat breakfast. His mouth was warm, barely grazing her skin. Goosebumps snuck up her arm. He looked up at her and she felt his faint smirk against her knuckles. He knew exactly was he was doing.
She snatched her hand back, fighting a blush. “I believe you promised me crumpets, sir.”
“I believe I did.” He offered his arm. “A feast before battle is traditional, after all.”
As her skin tingled, she hoped not to have to battle herself alongside the real enemy.
If goosebumps could have laughed, they would have laughed right at her.
Loudly.
The last timePersephone had been on the roof of the Culpepper country house was when she was eleven and Henry was ten. They had evaded his tutor and a battalion of nursemaids in order to hang over the balustrade and throw raisins down on the guests arriving for a winter ball. They’d managed to elude capture until a raisin had struck an elderly man in the eye. He’d been so incensed he’d hit the guest standing next to him with his cane. That man had landed in a pile of snow, shrieking. At the time it had been entirely worth the scolding.
“The terrace is over here,” Persephone said, leading Conall to the scrolled stone edge. “I didn’t even know Lady Culpepper kept pots up here. Only Henry and I ever bothered to climb all those stairs on a regular basis.”
Conall walked to the edge and looked down. “None of the balconies line up right so it has to have been from here. It’s quite a distance.” His jaw hardened as he noted the angle of the roof and the terrace below. “This was no jest. Nor an accident, not with the weight of the urn. It wasn’t windy enough by far and I’ve never heard of a squirrel big enough to move something like that.”
Persephone stepped up beside him, looking over the edge. She had just enough time to take in the guests still eating their breakfasts, the footmen carting away shards of clay and clumps of potted dirt before vertigo gripped her. Her knees went watery, her stomach wobbled. Conall’s big hand caught her around the waist. “I’ve got you.”
She wanted to lean into the heat of him, the strength of his arms. She didn’t allow herself to give in. It would set a bad precedent. And if he grew concerned that she might forget their engagement was a sham, the humiliation would do her in far more effectively than any traitor. Never mind the urn, she’d jump.
“This seems like an awful lot of trouble,” she said, dubiously instead. “To create an accident that doesn’t look terribly accidental after even the briefest investigation.”
“As you can see, no one else is investigating.”
“True.” She turned her head. “That’s the other reason you announced our engagement,” she accused. “You want to draw the fire onto yourself.”
He didn’t look sorry in the least. “The traitor might be getting desperate.
She swallowed. “I gather that’s not a good thing.”
“It might well be,” Conall said. “It could mean we’re closer than we think.”
“Closer to a murderer,” Persephone said blandly. “Splendid.”