This could be no coincidence and didn’t bode well. The fact that Wick hadn’t shown for supper increased her concern. She decided to go look for him, make sure he was all right.
She headed up the grand stairwell toward the guest wing where Wick’s room was located just around the corner from Monique’s. She arrived and knocked on his door. No answer.
“Wick, it’s me, Violet,” she said softly. “Are you there?”
Still no reply.
Reaching into her reticule, she pulled out a scrap of parchment and a pencil stub and scribbled a hasty note against the wall. As she was about to slip the message under Wick’s door, her nape tingled. Her head whipped up, her gaze sweeping the empty hallway. There was no movement in the corridor save the flickering of the wall sconces.
She exhaled. Her overactive mind was playing tricks on her. Bending, she slid the paper beneath the door and hurried back to supper.
Chapter Ten
With simmering anger, Richard watched the door of the library open at three in the morning. She’d arrived exactly as her note had promised, the glow of her taper licking the paneled walls. She was wearing a frilly wrapper over her nightclothes, her hair a gleaming, luxuriant cascade down to her waist: perfect for the assignation she’d planned, he thought grimly.
He rose from a chair in the shadows. “Good evening, Miss Kent.”
She gasped, her candle wobbling precariously in its holder. “Carlisle.Gadzooks, you startled me. Wh-what are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing. But I don’t have to, do I?”
He held up the piece of paper between finger and thumb. The incriminating note he’d watched her slip under his brother’s door. He knew the brief message by heart, having read it over several times in furious disbelief.
W.,
Urgent that we meet. Library—three o’clock, whilst everyone’s abed.
V.
By God, over supper she’d been trifling with him, Richard—evenhecouldn’t mistake a foot running up his leg as flirtation—and the next minute she’d gone running after his brother! Rage seared his chest. The littletrollop. She was no different from the others. Well, if the shallow flirt thought she could play him like a puppet, she was in for a rude awakening.
Her eyes widened. “Why do you have the note I left for Wick?”
The coquette didn’t even bother to deny that she’d set up a lover’s tryst!
“Because I saw you put it there and retrieved it. Because I’m saving my brother from a world of trouble where you’re concerned,” he bit out.
“Hold it right there.” She slapped her candle down on a table and approached him. “Youstolethe note I left for Wick?”
God, why did she yank on his tether like no one else?
“I didn’t steal it, you brazen minx,” he said through gritted teeth. “I took what should never have been put there in the first place.”
“First of all, you haveno rightto take what is not yours. Second,”—her arms folded over the ruffled front of her wrapper, her eyes bright with anger—“why do you insist in interfering in my friendship with Wick?”
“Friendship? So that is what youmodernsorts call it?” he said scathingly.
“It’s what anyone who has more than a speck of pea gravel for a brain calls it. Gadzooks,” she burst out, “why must you plague me so? What have I ever done to you?”
“Other than pushing me into a fountain? Or running your foot up my leg during supper?”
That shut her up. For nearly an entire minute.
Huffing out a breath, she said, “Fine. I apologize. Both were accidents.” As if that half-arsed attempt at remorse wasn’t bad enough, she followed it up with a glower. “Now why did you follow me to Wick’s room?”
It was on his tongue to deny that he had. His pride made him balk at admitting that he’d gone after her for any reason. At the same time, he refused to stoop to her level—to play games.
Satisfy your honor, and be done with this madcap business.
