He did not allow himself to notice the line of her throat when she bent, or the determined set of her mouth, or the small, furious dignity with which she inhabited a room full of her father’s ghosts.
He did not allow himself to notice how the lamplight caught on stray strands of hair at her temple, turning them briefly to ink-gold, or how her courage was not loud, only inexorable.
And he certainly did not allow himself to wonder what it would feel like to have that steadiness turned on him, not as defiance, but as trust.
Then, as if summoned by her certainty, the window latch clicked.
Graham’s attention sharpened.
A careful scrape. The soft slide of wood.
Someone was already on the sill.
Damnit, had he been followed? It was far more likely that another simply had the same idea he’d had. He flicked his gaze to the woman for a heartbeat.
Eleanor turned toward the window, shoulders squared.
“You are not here by invitation,” she said. “If you have come for valuables, I fear you have mistaken the address.”
A man dropped into the room with the quiet economy of practice—dark coat, ordinary face, movements designed to be forgotten. He did not speak. He did not plead. He went straight for the desk.
His gaze flicked, quick and hungry, to the left-hand pile. To the slim volume.
Graham felt the cold certainty settle in his bones. They were here for the same reason.
Eleanor stood her ground, though her candle hand wavered—just slightly, and Graham knew at once it was deliberate.
Clever girl.
Not a tremble of fear, an invitation, staged for an opponent to misread. She reached toward the pile as if to surrender, but instead, she knocked a stack of papers askew.
The intruder moved.
Not fast.
Calculated.
He came around the desk as Graham stepped out of the shadow.
“Enough,” Graham said.
The intruder spun, a knife flashing in his fist.
Graham struck first.
It was not a brawl.
It was a precise attack.
Graham caught the knife arm, torqued the wrist, and drove the man into the corner of the desk. A ledger tumbled. The blade skittered across the floor with a sound too loud in a house of mourning.
Eleanor did not shriek. She stepped back, kept hold of her candle, and watched with the sharp attention of a woman memorizing details that might save her later.
The intruder tried to headbutt. Graham dipped his shoulder, took the impact on bone, and used the man’s momentum to wrench him down.
For a moment Graham had him—arm pinned, breath controlled, the man’s face turned toward the desk.
Ordinary. Forgettable. Except for a crescent scar at the temple, fresh as if recently reopened. He smelled of cheap tobacco. Snuff. The man’s eyes darted to Eleanor, then to the desk.
