Elise frowned. “You speak as if you are certain we will not be alone.”
His eyes held hers. “We will not be alone.”
It was not merely confidence, it was information. Elise’s pulse quickened. “Your men?”
He hesitated only an instant, which was somehow worse than evasion. “Men are here who can help.”
“That is not an answer,” Elise said.
“It is the safest one,” he replied quietly. “The fewer people who can be compelled to speak, the better.”
‘Compelled’. Elise felt the word like ice. She thought of Holt’s hands. She thought of the torch at her door and the note that had threatened to burn her world down. She thought of Blake, battered into silence, and began to tremble with the reality of her situation.
Mr. Leigh watched her face as if reading what she tried to keep hidden. “You did right to send the girls away,” he said again, softer now. “You have done everything you can. Let the rest be mine.”
Elise’s temper stirred again at the implication that she might surrender control. “This is not your house,” she said.
“No,” he agreed, “but it is your life.”
Then—without any flourish, without any gallantry—he stepped closer, not enough to crowd her, only enough that his voice did not carry. “Elise,” he said, using her name as if he had earned it, “you are not alone tonight. Not truly. Men are close. If anyone comes near the house, they will be taken before they touch your door.”
The certainty of it sent a shiver down her spine. Yet fatigue dulled her senses and fear honed other instincts: the instinct to accept help when it came, because pride could not keep one alive.
“How close are they?” she asked, hating that she needed to ask.
“Close enough,” he said.
Elise stared at him, trying to reconcile the man before her—the one who spoke of men and taking and gates as if he had done it a hundred times—with the man he had claimed to be. She could not.
“Will you not tell me what you are?” she whispered.
A faint shadow crossed his eyes. “Not tonight.”
It was an infuriating answer. It was also—she knew with bitter clarity—probably the only sensible one.
Elise turned away, because if she kept looking at his face she might see something in it that would undo her entirely: concern, perhaps, or that disquieting tenderness he occasionally let slip when he thought himself hidden.
Cook appeared from the kitchen doorway as if she had been stationed there, wiping her hands on her apron, her expression severe enough to frighten a regiment.
“He is back, then,” Cook observed, looking Mr. Leigh up and down as though assessing his usefulness.
“He is,” Elise replied, “and he insists I retire to sleep.”
Cook’s eyes narrowed. “As well he should. You look like a ghost.”
Elise felt a reluctant flicker of amusement. Cook had always been unimpressed by delicacy.
Then, abruptly, Elise closed her eyes for a moment, because if she did not she might actually weep. How absurd—how humiliating—to find herself nearly undone by the simple fact of being ordered to rest.
Mr. Leigh watched her with that steady, infuriating gaze of his. “Two hours,” he said. “Three if you can. I will wake you before we go.”
“Promise you will not leave me,” Elise begged, feeling like a child.
“Yes,” he said. “We will set out early, before there is proper light. We must be in place at the wharf well before Holt arrives. If we are late, we will lose the advantage.”
Elise nodded once, stiffly. “Very well.”
She turned toward the stairs, then stopped and looked back at him. “If I sleep—if I close my eyes—and you…”
