When he trailed off, Rosie slowly straightened, staring down at the top of his head. Returning to…her?
She remembered the pleasure she’d taken from him that morning, the way he’d trusted her to protect him last night. Should she feel ashamed, or proud?
“It’s a bill from a tailor,” Bull announced, his fingers brushing over the sodden paper. “I can make out the prices and services, but no’ the name of the clothier.”
Shaking herself, Rosie peered at the bill. “Our attacker was a tailor?”
“Perhaps.” Bull’s index finger tapped the middle of the paper as he read, “My lord will please remit…That’s all I can make out.”
“I suppose we should be pleased he did not have time to send it, because it is our only clue to our mysterious blackmailer’s identity.”
Humming thoughtfully, Bull straightened. “We’ll allow it to dry slowly, and perhaps we’ll be able to make out more of it tomorrow. For now, though…” He pressed a fist to his mouth to cover his yawn. “Bed? I will take the sofa.”
“The bed is big,” she objected, but he just smiled ruefully and dropped a brief kiss to her lips.
“Aye, that it is, but I dinnae trust myself with such a tempting bedmate.”
That kiss hadn’t been enough, and Rosie found herself swaying toward him. “And what if…what if your bedmate does not mind being tempting?”
Something flashed in his stormy eyes—something fierce and feral, all at once—before he winced and turned away. “Then I will have to be twice as strong.”
Rosie fell asleep that night alone, huddled beneath the blankets and fully clothed, worried he had some inkling of what she’d accidentally done that morning and was offended by it. By her. By her lust for him.
The next day was very much the same, except they both spent the morning in the taproom playing cards with the locals, Bull holding the briefcase containing Allie’s painting in his lap. Since there were so many people around them they didn’t wager stories, but she still enjoyed seeing him in his element as the snow continued to come down. The mysterious bill was dried, but offered no more hints as to their attacker’s identity.
And Bull slept on the sofa again, so she fell asleep feeling…not cold. Hollow.
He’d kissed her easily enough, but was that merely a role? Now they were alone, did he notwantto touch her? Or was it as he’d said, and he didn’t trust himself not to be tempted, even if she very much wanted to tempt him?
She squeezed her eyes shut, praying for sleep, and wondering if she needed to take drastic action and seduce a man she was falling in love with.
On the third day they awoke to sunshine. The trains were finally running. Their cozy little interlude was over.
Rosie oversaw the packing of their trunks while Bull arranged for transport to the station, and soon they were back on the train, trundling across the snow-blanketed Highlands. Then they did it all in reverse, and hired a carriage—enclosed, thank fookdiggle—to take them toward Endymion.
“It’s strange,” she began as they settled against the squabs, both of them with their legs tucked beneath heavy blankets to mitigate the chill inside the carriage. “Coming back here as a detective and actress.”
Bull snorted. “Actress?”
“Well, I have always been the daughter of a Duke,” Rosie pointed out, watching Bull flipping a small blade absentmindedly as he stared out of the window. “And that was all anyone ever saw me as. But now I am more.”
“Ye’ll always be more,” came the quiet reply.
Heat flickered up her spine as she hoped?—
“More than me, certainly.”
Rosie blinked. “What do you mean by that?”
And there was an expression on the man’s face she had never seen before. At least, never fully noticed. Now she saw Bull look so discomforted, so clearly out of his depths, Rosie realized shehadseen it once or twice; so fleeting that it had been impossible to catch hold of.
“Ye’re a lady. A clever, well-educated daughter of a Duke,” Bull said finally, not quite meeting her gaze. “I’m a bastard.”
“Bull, just because your parents were not married?—”
“Ye ken what I mean. A bastard in all the ways.” He grinned but there was no mirth on his face. “I can work hard and work well, but I’ll never be—ye’ll always be…”
His voice trailed into silence as Rosie stared.
