“Stop staring at those,” Vale snapped.
“How can I not?” Selina asked, glancing up at her. Vale had been increasingly annoyed with her as they traveled. She couldn’t blame her partner, really, but she also couldn’t change what she felt. “My brother gave me these.”
“And he could have afforded to give you emeralds,” Vale growled. “Pearls. Rubies as fine as those in the bracelet that wife of his wore. Instead he gave you something with half the value.”
Selina shook her head. “Not half the value to me.”
Vale threw up her hands. “Come, we’ll go to the finer inn down the lane to sample their fare. Food will put you to rights. I’ve heard they’ll have music tonight, too.”
“No,” Selina said, turning her face away from her friend. “I’m not hungry and I don’t need any entertainment. You go. Enjoy yourself if you can.”
Vale pursed her lips. “Fine. I’ll be gone a few hours. I hope in that time you’ll reconsider your life and remember who you really are.”
She flounced out then, leaving Selina to ponder those words, she supposed. What Vale didn’t understand was that she’d been doing just that for days and had come to the realization that her life had been very…empty before she went to Roseford. Derrick had changed that. Derrick had changed everything. But it was ruined now. It had to be.
There was a knock at her door, and she started. She hadn’t asked for anything to be sent up for her. But then, perhaps it was Vale, back to force Selina to her will. She trudged to her feet and called out, “I don’t want to go to the entertainment, I swear to you I just need—”
She threw the door open and her words caught in her throat. It wasn’t Vale there waiting for her—it was Derrick. A scruffy-faced Derrick who looked like he hadn’t shaved since she last saw him. A messy-haired, wild-eyed Derrick who clasped her wrist and yanked her against him before he dropped his mouth to hers and kissed her.
She melted, only vaguely aware that he was pushing her into the room, closing the door behind himself, locking it. Trapping her, she supposed, but it didn’t matter. If it meant being with him, she’d take trapped for all eternity.
But at last he released her and stepped back, panting as he stared down at her and she up at him. “I found you,” he whispered.
She nodded. “Yes. You found me, though I have no idea how. Except that you are very good at what you do. And I expect you’ll be returning me to London for all the trouble I deserve.”
He reached out and she froze, watching his hand extend toward hers. Only he didn’t take it. Instead, he slipped the cameo earrings from her hand. She flinched as he stared at them, another lie revealed.
“They’re pretty,” he said.
“Yes,” she agreed.
He continued to hold the earrings, even as he folded his arms. Her lover, her love, he was gone. This was an investigator come to call on her. A man bent on truth and reconciliation. On crime and punishment. Justice, or some version thereof.
“You need to stop lying to me,” he said.
She caught her breath, looking up at that handsome face that had drawn her toward him for weeks. Looking up into those eyes she had fallen in love with, eyes that could read her soul like no one else had ever been able to do. And she nodded because she didn’t want to lie anymore. Not to him. No matter what.
He looked relieved that she didn’t argue and he touched her cheek, perhaps as a reward. She leaned into his warm, rough palm, memorizing the weight of every finger on her skin.
“You’re the Fox.”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I wasn’t lying when I admitted it three nights ago. I am the Faceless Fox.”
His lips pursed as he turned away from her and paced across the room. He set her earrings down on the table and stood at the window, staring out at the busy street below without speaking for what felt like an eternity. She waited, because what else could she do? She was owed no demands. She could ask him no questions after all her lies.
“Tell me everything,” he ordered, and faced her at last, his gaze narrowed. “Don’t lie to me. If you can.”
Her breath caught. “Derrick—”
“Now,” he interrupted.
She let out her breath slowly, trying to calm her racing heart, her fluttering body. She needed to have her faculties for this, the final confrontation and whatever would come next. He was owed her calm, not some display of hysteria that would require him to comfort or worry.
She lifted her chin. “What I told you about my family, that was true. They didn’t want me and they did offer me enormous freedom, perhaps in the hopes I’d disappear and they would no longer have any responsibility at all.”
Derrick’s jaw set, just as it had when she first told him about her past. But he said nothing.
“I used the freedom as any young person would, I suppose. I ran positively wild. I drank too much, I gamed too much, I learned about pleasure.”
