Amelia turned from her inspection of a half-rotted crate, intending to scold her sister. The words died in her mouth, instead turning into a shrill scream that made Marjory almost leap out of her skin.
“Oh, do forgive me,” said the man in the doorway, smiling pleasantly. “I did not mean to scare you.”
“I… I…” Amelia stammered, cold dread coiling in her gut.
The man was huge, his broad shoulders filling the doorway, and his head almost brushed the frame. As a tall woman, she was used to finding herself at eye level with most men, but not with this one.
He had a broad chest to match, and a square, grim face, not unhandsome but certainly somewhat lopsided. His nose was long and pointed, with a decided kink in the bridge. Furious greenish eyes glittered from under heavy black brows, and overlong dark hair hung around his forehead and temples. He smiled under her scrutiny, revealing white, sharp teeth in a truly wolfish smile.
Amelia swallowed.
We are in a great deal of trouble.
“Please, don’t let me interrupt,” the man said blithely. “Do continue with your robbing of my clubhouse.”
CHAPTER 2
The two intruders looked suitably terrified. Stephen decided not to make any sudden movements, lest they drop dead from fright.
Well, the younger of the two—the bespectacled girl—might well drop dead from fright. Not so much the older. She met his gaze with a fierceness he suspected she did not intend. Tall for a woman, pretty, with rich red-gold hair and large brown eyes, she was the sort of woman he might once have approached in a ballroom.
That was then, of course, and this was now. In their current predicament, the women were trespassing, at the very least.
“Robbing?” the older woman managed to squeak.
She straightened her spine, squaring her narrow shoulders. She seemed to be dragging herself to her full height.
With an ordinary-sized fellow, that might have been impressive, since she was surely only one or two inches shy of six feet tall. For Stephen, however, it was merely amusing.
“Yes, robbing,” he responded coolly. “What else would you call it? I heard a disturbance, wandered back here, and what do I find? That you have smashed the lock off the window and crawled inside, and are now going through my possessions.”
“I did not smash the lock!” the bespectacled girl cried. “It was already mostly broken. It only required a little shove to open.”
“Marjory!” hissed the woman. “Pay her no mind, sir. We truly did not intend to trespass. The truth is rather ridiculous, but here it is. My sister accidentally dropped a notebook through the window. She was peering, rather nosily, and I daresay this serves her right for her curiosity. I climbed in to retrieve it, and the dust made me cough, and she thought I was choking…” She was babbling.
Stephen held up a hand to forestall any further chatter and took one step forward.
The color drained from her face. She flinched, as though wanting to step back, but did not allow herself to do so.
Clever,he thought, slightly pleased for some reason.Never back away. It displays weakness. A hard lesson to learn.
“So, where is the notebook in question?” he asked, meeting the woman’s gaze and holding it.
He noticed her eyes were curious. They were brown, a fairly ordinary color, but there was a translucency to them that made them appear amber, even gold, in certain lighting. He tilted his head and took a step forward to appreciate them better, and this time the woman leaned back warily.
“Forgive me,” he responded, leaning back. “Guests are a rarity.”
“Well, which are we? Guests, or robbers?”
He hadn’t expected that retort and let out a short laugh.
“You might be both. The notebook, then. Where is it?”
“We were searching. I believe it has slipped underneath something. The only place I have not searched is around that chest of drawers,” the woman responded, lifting her chin.
She watched him carefully, like a deer at the water’s edge might regard a wolf.
“Well then, by all means,” Stephen murmured, gesturing. “It seems that this notebook is the crux of your story. We shall use it to confirm whether you are telling the truth.”
