“How did you—?”
“I sent some men to check the inns in the city yesterday while we were at the festival. I guessed they would find your trunks in one of them.”
Her eyes narrowed. “You were looking for my trunks so you could search them, weren’t you?”
“Of course! I expected to find two or three more arsenals.”
His humor gave her pause, and he was just short of laughing again. Teasing? Him?
He even added, “I know, too thoughtful and considerate of me, eh, to think you might like a change of clothes—especially when I liked you wearing mine.”
She actually managed not to blush, she wasn’t sure how. “You found no weapons,” she mumbled.
“No—I didn’t find your guardian, Poppie, either.”
She raised a brow. “Did you really think you would?”
“I had hoped.”
“I told you he doesn’t know who hired him to kill me—yet. Why can’t you leave him alone to do what he does best, protect me.”
“Because he has the answers that you don’t have.”
What did that mean? But Christoph was already heading around the bed toward the door, and she felt a degree of panic rising that he was going to leave her alone and defenseless once more.
“Wait. I need another weap—”
She didn’t even get to finish, he swung around so fast. But it wasn’t annoyance in his expression when he said, “I am your weapon. You won’t be left again beyond my sight or hearing.” Then he grinned as his eyes touched briefly on his bed. “My ‘duty’ has never been this pleasant before.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
IT WAS A GOOD thing she dashed out of the bed to find the robe Christoph had tossed aside last night. She barely got it belted before he returned with Boris, the two of them carrying one of her heavy trunks into the room. They left to get the other two. She didn’t move. Bringing her clothes into his bedroom couldn’t have made it more clear that she’d be sleeping there from now on—and why Christoph suddenly considered his duty so pleasant.
But there wouldn’t be a repeat of what had happened last night. He had claimed she had needed comforting, had even called it a natural urge after what had happened to her. She conceded he might be right. But the trauma was over and she had more fortitude than to succumb again to something that improper. Sharing a room would be—difficult—but it didn’t mean they’d be sharing a bed, too. He’d just have to bring in a cot or make use of the little sofa in the corner, or she would.
With the last trunk set down against the wall, Christoph waved Boris out of the room and began opening them himself. The locks were broken, reminding her that he’d already searched through her belongings.
“Get dressed,” he said. “You have a visitor.”
Her eyes flared. “My fa—?”
“No. A child. He came here early this morning asking for you. My men told him to come back later today. They weren’t going to disturb me on a matter they didn’t deem important.”
“I wish your guards wouldn’t make judgments that concern me. I should have been woken.”
“You were in my quarters. The judgment was correct and concerned me, not you. Anyone has to go through me to get to you.”
She blushed over that reminder. Did everyone know where she was spending her nights?
“But I wouldn’t have woken you even if they told me sooner,” he added. “You needed the extra sleep.”
“But Henry came back?”
He raised a brow. “The boy you traveled with? You said he was an orphan. This boy claims to have a mother who will beat him if he doesn’t come home with the gold he was promised for giving you a message. Which is it? Town urchin with an angry mother, or your orphan?”
“I haven’t a clue,” she admitted, then actually laughed. “Henry would be my guess. He must have thought that tale would get him in to see me sooner. But why don’t you leave so I can dress and then we’ll both know.”
He closed the door behind him. She dressed quickly in a high-necked, lavender day dress that looked deep purple in the dim lamplight that Christoph must have relit that morning. It had to be Henry wanting to see her, even with that improvised tale, but why so soon? She’d just spoken to Poppie yesterday, albeit far too briefly. Had he already discovered something else?
