“Yes, now if only I could get her to make use of her lady’s maid and stop braiding her hair.” His voice was dry, but his eyes were riveted to his wife.
Aileen tilted her head to the side. “Methinks she looks nice with a braid.”
“She always looks nice, even in trousers and a flannel shirt, with her hair free and tangled, and her cheeks sunburned from a day of sailing.”
A smile split Aileen’s lips. She’d done more smiling in the few minutes Rebekah and Gilbert had been back than she had in… well, that probably didn’t bear thinking about. “Ye love her.”
“Unequivocally.”
Leave it to Gilbert Sinclair to use a fancy word like that to describe his love for his wife.
Gilbert turned his eyes on her then, and gone was the tenderness. In its place was an assessing gaze that belonged to the inventor-turned-businessman whose wealthy family she’d once worked for. “Have you truly been well? I have a feeling what you told Rebekah isn’t the whole of it.”
How was she supposed to answer that? She looked away from him, but doing so didn’t stop the flood of memories from last summer. Pain and fear and uncertainty bombarded her until she could hardly draw a lungful of the thick air surrounding them.
“Aileen?” Gilbert stepped closer.
She took a panicked step back, then pushed the air from her lungs and clamped her teeth down on her tongue. The sharp bite of pain cleared her mind. She was being ridiculous. Gilbert Sinclair, of all people, wasn’t going to hurt her.
“Aye.” She forced the word out, because it seemed the right thing to say, even if so many things in her life were wrong. “Aye, I’ve been…” She hugged herself, and a strange coldness invaded her despite the muggy heat. “Doing better.”
She couldn’t quite claim she’d been well, but she was certainly better today than she’d been at this time last summer. That counted for something, didn’t it?
“But I need to go. I’m late for work.” It was true, never mind she’d tell a blatant lie if that’s what it took to get her away from this conversation. She moved to step around Gilbert.
“Aileen!” Rebekah’s voice echoed down the street. “Wait a minute. Isaac needs to talk to you.”
She pressed her eyes shut. She did need to tell the sheriff she was sorry for waking him so early and causing a commotion about nothing, but she’d have been better off telling him that after she’d baked him a batch of cookies.
She turned around to face the twins, their auburn hair, hazel eyes, and fair skin declaring their blood relation to all the world.
The sheriff’s eyes were full of questions, of course, but at least these questions would be easier to answer than the one he’d asked last winter—the one where he’d asked to court her.
The only trouble was, ever since she’d refused him, he’d taken to looking at her in that soft way he had, the way thatshowed too many of his thoughts, the way that held too much concern.
The way that made her feel heartless for refusing him.
But she wasn’t being heartless, she was being smart and sensible. So why did she feel like wrapping her arms around her middle and huddling into herself whenever he was near? Either that, or reaching out to smooth the unruly tuft of auburn hair that always hung down over his forehead.
Sheriff Cummings pulled out his notepad and pencil, the stray tuft of auburn hair bobbing in its usual awkward place. “Miss Brogan, tell me again what you saw last night.”
“You saw something unusual? What?” Rebekah’s gaze moved between her and the sheriff.
“Nothing.” She curled her fingers into her palm lest they reach up on their own and smooth away the hair from the sheriff’s brow. “I’m sure it was nothing now. I’m really sorry to have disturbed you and Mr. Ranulfson so early in the morn, especially since it was all for naught.”
“But you did see something in the alley, correct?” The sheriff raised his head from his notepad. “You told me a noise woke you.”
At least he was keeping things official rather than asking her on another walk. “Aye, ’tis as I told you earlier. I saw men moving crates on handcarts. I thought they were going to and from the bank, but I was wrong, and ’tis sorry, I am, for waking you.”
“You said one of the crates broke?” The sheriff stopped his writing and moved his clear hazel gaze to hers.
Did he realize how pretty his eyes were? How they swirled brown and green together into a color that looked like the richly plowed fields of Ireland mixed with the greenest pasture? She looked away. “Aye, just behind me window. I didn’t look before I went for ye, so ye might find something if ye search the alley.”
“And what time did you see the men?” He started writing again.
“Three, mayhap four.” It had seemed like an eternity as she’d waited for the sky to lighten. “I thought of coming to get ye sooner, but last time ye said to wait until I thought things were safe.”
“Last time?” Rebekah crossed her arms over her chest and stepped in front of her brother. “What happened last time?”
