“Oh, the house was shut up,” she said apologetically. “They were in Bath for the winter. There wasn’t a soul here except the caretaker.”
“Was he here regularly?”
“Off and on, my lady. To air the rooms and be sure nothing leaked. But Mrs. Kincaid? No, I’ve never heard the name.”
My heart sank. “I thank you.”
She curtsied and closed the door gently, as though worried she might bruise my disappointment.
I stood on the steps for a long moment, staring at the elegant blue door. Someone had used this house. Someone had lured Alice Brent here with promises of better wages. Someone had walked her inside and ensured she never walked out whole again.
And now the house was innocent once more. Polished. Respectable. As though nothing wicked had passed through its walls.
Weston hurried forward. “My lady? Are you well?”
“Yes,” I said, stepping down. “No. I don’t know.”
He opened the carriage door, but before I could move, something caught my eye—a figure standing just beyond the edge of the narrow lane, half in shadow, half in sun. Too still to be a passerby.
Steele.
He leaned against a wrought-iron fence, arms folded, his gaze fixed on me with an expression that could have cut through granite—equal parts fury, relief, and something far more perilous.
I lifted a hand toward Weston, signaling him to wait, and then turned slowly toward Steele.
“You followed me.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, pushing away from the fence.
“How did you know where I’d gone?”
“Honeycutt. He overheard you give the coachman directions.”
I opened my mouth to protest—but the words withered. Because he was not wrong. Because I had frightened him. Because deep down I had known he would come.
Steele stopped before me, his expression controlled, but his voice threaded with tension. “You should not be here alone.”
“I’m not,” I said. “I brought Weston.” I nodded toward the footman.
His jaw tightened. “He’s not a shield against whatever happened inside that house.”
“That’s what we agreed upon, Steele. Don’t change the terms.”
“You’re right. I apologize.”
I looked back at the silent façade of Riversgate. The polished brass, the neatly drawn curtains, the peaceful street. None of it told the truth.
“I had to see it,” I whispered. “I had to know.”
Steele exhaled, long and low. “Then let us discuss it. But not standing in the middle of Chelsea.”
He gestured toward his carriage, his hand hovering near the small of my back—never touching, yet guiding all the same.
“Come,” he said.
For once, I did not argue.
Chapter
