The use of his alias, even here, struck him with a strange sensation—half relief, half irritation. He resented the fact she did not know the real him. It was a reminder that he was not to imagine intimacy merely because he had carried a wounded man through her corridors.
“The truth,” he said.
Her mouth tightened. “You are asking me to confide in a man who arrived here with an alias and an evasive manner.”
“Yes,” he answered, because anything softer would be false. She did not know just how much of an alias he used. Would she hate him if she knew he was now Singleton?
She turned her gaze briefly to the scattered papers… to the disordered bed… to the gaping drawers.
Then she looked back at him, and something shifted. She had made a decision.
“Very well,” she said. “Not here, though.”
He inclined his head at once. “As you wish.”
She gathered papers as if her hands demanded occupation. He understood that instinct. Men did it, too—polishing weapons, folding maps, arranging useless objects—anything to keep the body from betraying what the mind must not reveal.
“We will go to the kitchen,” she said.
“The kitchen?” he repeated, surprised.
“It is the only part of this house no man dares linger,” she replied, and he heard the edge of grim humour. “Cook would drive him out with a ladle.”
Edmund felt a corner of his mouth twitch—an involuntary expression of amusement that faded almost as soon as it had come. In the midst of danger, Elise’s ability to be wry was… disarming.
He stepped aside to let her pass. Without thinking, he positioned himself between her and the stair. He caught himself too late, realizing the movement was instinctive and habitual—a soldier’s response.
She noticed. Her eyes snapped to him, and though she did not comment, he felt the silent acknowledgement.
Yet when she passed him, close enough that her cloak brushed his sleeve, he felt the smallest jolt—an awareness that was altogether unhelpful. The warmth of her, even through wool; the faint scent of clean linen and winter air; the reality of her body beside him, not as the widow or the suspect, but as a living woman… all were inconvenient and dangerous.
They moved through the side passages, away from the girls’ bedrooms. By the time they reached the kitchen, Cook had already been told enough to be furious.
“Elise!” Cook exclaimed—using her name with the blunt ownership of a woman who had long ceased to stand upon ceremony in her own domain. “Someone has been in your rooms. Sophie says?—”
Elise lifted a hand. “Cook, the girls are quite safe. I have the matter in hand.”
Cook’s eyes narrowed to slits. “In hand? Men don’t go rummaging through a lady’s drawers for sport.”
“I had expected you and Sophie to leave as well.”
“I would never!” Then Cook’s gaze swung to Edmund—as fierce as a lion. “And what do you say to it, sir?”
“I intend to help,” Edmund replied.
Cook sniffed, and for a moment Edmund wondered whether he was being evaluated the way any cook evaluated meat at market—assessing the cut for flaws and signs of putrefaction.
“Tell me what you have need of,” Cook said at last, turning back to Elise.
“I need you to remain with Blake,” Elise said quietly.
At the name, Cook’s indignation shaped into alarm. “The sailor? You brought him here?” Cook pursed her lips. “And you expect me to sit quietly by while the house is turned upside down?”
Elise’s voice remained steady. “I expect you to do what you always do when you see someone is hurt.”
Cook held her gaze a long moment—then exhaled through her nose.
“Aye,” she said. “Very well. Mark my words, if anyone comes sniffing round, I shall tell ’em I’ve a pot of boiling water and no patience.”
