He chased after her. “That better be all he stole from her, or I’ll hunt thesalauddown myself.”
“Precisely how Lord Heatherbrook reacted,” she called over her shoulder. “How well do you thinkthatwas received by a young woman in love?”
“But to kill him for it?” Gavin reached for her, curved his hands around her shoulders, turned her toward his niece. “Look at her. She’s flying a kite. Just like us.” He plucked the spool from her hands. “Admit it…Nancy hasn’t been acting guilty.”
But as soon as he said this, he remembered the scene on the staircase.
Miss Pemberton cocked a speculative brow. “Hasn’t she?” She paused, lifted a hand to his chest. “Susan saw her,” she murmured. “That night. Creeping into her room.”
He slid away from her touch. “Not a single one of us was abed as we claimed. It proves nothing.”
Then again, he’d seen her tempting fate at the top of the stairs…but surely that was an innocent farce, and just as easily explained.
Miss Pemberton stepped closer, placed her fingers against his forearm. “I overheard her the next day. Talking to the girls. She said if anyone should ask where she’d been, they were to claim she’d been in the nursery all evening.”
Gavin tugged on the twine, jerking the kite against the breeze. “She was just scared.”
Miss Pemberton inclined her head. “Of what?”
“I don’t know! But I don’t think she’s a killer.” He released more twine. The kite dipped and fell, causing him to run several yards before the wind once again whipped it skyward. When he stopped running, Miss Pemberton was still at his side. “Neither is Rose,” he informed her. “Rose looks at me like she thinksIdid it, for God’s sake.”
“Does she?” Miss Pemberton asked softly. “Or is she trying to deflect suspicion from herself or her daughter?”
“None of your speculation is helping,” he snapped. She flinched, but didn’t move away. “Why don’t you go find out who really offed the blighter and be done with it? I saw you touch the Stanton chit a moment ago. I assume it wasn’t her.”
Anger flashed across her face. “What do you expect me to do—skip from kite to kite, touching all the fliers?”
Gavin unwound more twine. “If it works, yes. Tell them I made you do it. They think I’m mad anyway.” He tugged on the kite. “And unless we uncover the true villain, the crime will no doubt be pinned on me.”
“It’s unfair,” Miss Pemberton muttered after she tired of scowling at him. “Virtually everyone here has motive.”
“Perhaps, but I’m the only acknowledged killer.”
“Stop it.” She shoved him. She actuallyshovedhim.
He held up his hands in surrender only to have the spool of twine tumble to the grass. He scooped it back up and adjusted the line before the kite had a chance to fall. “Stop what?”
“Referring to yourself as a killer.” She glared at him for a long moment before turning away. “It’s not helping.”
He shrugged and turned to the sky. “What should I say instead?”
“What did you say to me during the picnic? When I caught your eye. You were mouthing something I couldn’t make out.”
“You didn’t—Oh. Nothing.”
Her eyes narrowed. “What?”
“Nothing.” If she hadn’t caught it then, there was no way he’d admit now that he’d mouthed,Save me from the Stanton chit.
Miss Pemberton bumped her shoulder into his. “It had to have been something, or you wouldn’t have been trying to tell it to me.”
“I told you.” He grinned at her. “I’m a madman.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m beginning to believe it.”
“Is that why you’re so eager to leave me?” he asked, then immediately turned his attention to the dips and whirls of the orange kite. Devil take it, what kind of question wasthat?
Several heartbeats passed before she responded with, “Escaping my stepfather is my primary goal.”
