The scent of Cecilia’s perfume made a muddle of his head, it was floral and citrus at the same time. Intoxicating and unbearably feminine. Stubbornly, he tried to shut it out of his perception. He also tried to ignore the feel of her soft body in such close proximity to his own. She supported him with a slender arm about his waist and he could feel her hip pressing into his. At once intimate and maddeningly remote. He wanted more of that touch and wanted to be far away from her at the same time.
“I am sorry to be such a burden to one of my guests,” he grunted as they climbed a set of stone steps just wide enough for the two of them.
“It is no trouble. I would not see you left stricken.”
“It flares up without warning. I can be perfectly fine, and then…”
“I noticed the way you were walking in the Great Hall and wondered,” Cecilia murmured.
Lionel looked at her. She was looking down, concentrating on the steps ahead. Her profile was lovely, an exercise in perfection. Tight with concentration as her features were, she looked both intelligent and intent. Her skin bore the olive shade of the Mediterranean. Arthur had jokingly claimed that the Sinclairs boasted a bloodline that stretched back to the Romano-British. In his sister, the sun-kissed skin tone was more pronounced than it had been in Arthur, leading Lionel to wonder if the jest did not have a basis in fact.
“You were watching me?” he said, directly.
“I saw you,” Cecilia corrected.
They reached the top of the steps and Lionel directed her to the left. A broad hallway led directly to the servant’s wing, concealed from the rest of the castle by tall, double doors. Servants were entering and leaving through those doors, laden with platters and trays of glasses, keeping his guests watered and fed.
“We should not get in their way. They have enough to do already,” Lionel grunted.
He pointed to a door halfway along the corridor and Cecilia helped him to the chamber beyond. It was tiled with a flagstone floor and small windows. Shelves covered two walls flanking the window, filled with sealed bottles and jugs of cider and beer. Crates sat beneath the window and Lionel gratefully sat on one. He thought about her words. She had seen him but had not been watching him. Seen him closely enough to note his gait and deduce that he still bore an injury. Did it remind her of Arthur? Did she blame him? It mattered not. Should not matter, because he should not care if she blamed him or not. But he found that he did care. He did not want to be badly thought of by this woman. It mattered to him how she saw him. It was utter foolishness but he could not shake the feeling.
“I… I was not responsible for your brother’s death,” he murmured finally.
Cecilia stepped back, hands clutching each other at her waist.
“I did not say that you were,” she said coldly.
It told Lionel all that he needed to know. The frost in her voice stabbed at him but he told himself that he should expect nothing less. Until Thorpe’s guilt was proven and the world knew what had really occurred that fateful day, Lionel had to carry the burden alone. Without proof, it would simply look as though he were squirming away from accountability.
“Forgive me, I thought that you must. That was the judgment of the coroner’s court, after all.”
“My brother was the victim of a terrible accident. That is what they said,” Cecilia replied tightly, “your gun killed him. It was not your fault but at the same time…”
“It was not,” Lionel blurted and immediately wanted the words back.
“It was not?” Cecilia asked, raising her eyebrow, “then whose?”
Lionel grimaced against a bayonet of pain in his leg, clutching at it.
“I cannot say. Better to leave things as they were. I am to blame. Forget that I spoke,” he muttered between gritted teeth.
Cecilia chewed her bottom lip, looking towards the door as though giving thought to leaving. Lionel suddenly wished that she would. The pain had weakened him, eroding his resolve. It was a most effective sapper, burrowing beneath his defenses to render them useless.
“I will not, Lionel. Because what you have said is so… odd. Ididblame you. It was your hunt and, I thought, your gun. If it was not, then please tell me the truth of it. I deserve that much.”
“I have,” Lionel finished brusquely.
He levered himself to his feet, locking his right knee against a sudden weakness that threatened to put him on the floor.
“I must get back to my guests. I will send for the maid who is your size and she will take care of you. If you wish a carriage to take you back to Hamilton Hall, I will provide it. Simply, ask Blackwood.”
He bowed his head to her, more to hide the pain on his face than from courtesy, and tried to move past her to the door. But she stepped in front of him. Lionel looked up into a face wracked with uncertainty, but eyes that were firm.
“I am sorry, Lionel, but I must insist,” she continued with only the tiniest waver in her voice.
“Insist?” Lionel asked quietly.
He could not recall the last time anyone had stood up to him in this way, let alone use a word likeinsist. The Dukedom of Thornhill was ancient and close to two royal dynasties. Even the likes of York and Wales looked upon his house as something close to equals. For this young woman from a middling family in both wealth and rank toinsist…
