When the butler finished his story, he held out the object he’d found.
It was a single white glove.
Now, standing before Haven and her gloveless hand, he was unable to deny the fire of his outrage. He couldn’t trust his voice, so he simply held out the glove, and waited for her to claim it. When she stared at the silken snare with a look of shock on her face, he knew she’d been caught.
The heat of his anger exploded.
“I can see you know this is yours,” he bit out.
She didn’t take her gaze from the glove. “Is it?”
Bitter fury nipped at his heels, but he forced calm into his voice and clarity into his mind. “Come now, Miss Edwards, you cannot deny this is your glove, the glove you are currently missing.” He didn’t want to believe she could do something so heinous, but the evidence couldn’t be refuted. “From where were you coming when we met in the hallway? You looked out of breath and agitated.”
She pursed her lips, jutted out her perky little chin, and leveled her eyes at him.
“Isn’t it strange that, again, I find myself in the middle of an inquisition in this room?” She lifted her arms and did a half spin to indicate the whole of the study. He tried to ignore the way her chest heaved upward when she stretched her arms over her head. Her luscious bosom nearly spilled from her bodice.Visions of her breasts tumbling from her dress into his eager hands flooded his mind, and he groaned.
His anger quickly turning to ardor, he retorted, “Not strange at all considering this is the room where I carry out most estate business, and crimes of vandalism against my propertyareestate business—so is the thorough questioning of a suspected thief.” His arched words of crimes and business lessened his desire a bit, but they didn’t squelch the heat entirely.
Damn it.
She placed her hands on her hips, and strode toward him.
Peeling his mind from thoughts of her shapely hips, his gaze caught on the creamy, naked flesh of her left hand, the place where her gloveshouldhave been, but wasn’t. The ugly truth was it had been on the floor of the Great Gallery beneath a destroyed portrait. He welcomed the rising outrage, more than ready to rid his body and mind of the urge to touch her. Taste her. Hear her groan against him.
Within mere seconds, she stood before him, and the fiery green gems of her eyes did something unwelcome to his insides. The heat of desire thickened between them. Much like his cock.
Damn it, again.
Haven wantedto punch him so hard his ancestors and descendants would feel it. The urge to do something physical with him wasn’t a new one, but he frustrated the hell out of her. How could he make her feel like the most beautiful, desirable being on earth, and then like the lowliest of common criminals all within the space of an evening?
She took a deep, fortifying breath to stave off the urge to stomp her foot and bellow in anger.
She had nothing to lose with the truth.
“I don’t know for sure if it’s my glove.” She glared when he opened his mouth to respond. “I don’t know if it’s my glove because my glove went missing from the table outside the powder room.” She couldn’t reign in the nervous energy and building sexual tension. She paced. “They bunched around my knuckles, and I didn’t want to get them wet, so I took them off, and put them on the table beside the door. I finished up in maybe ten minutes, but when I came out into the corridor, my glove was gone.”
His disbelief in her statement was written on his stormy face. “So what you’re saying is someone stole your glove, destroyed a portrait, and left your glove in an attempt to implicate you in a crime?”
“I don’t know,” she ground out. “It sounds crazy when you say it out loud, but Idoknow I didn’t destroy any painting, so what other explanation is there?”
“Miss Edwards, who could possibly want to incriminate you? What motive would they have? You’re from 208 years into the future, and haven’t been here more than four days. Who’ve you met who’d dislike you enough to do that?”
She stopped pacing.
No one came to mind.
He ran his fingers through his hair, and blew a heavy breath.
“Why should I believe you?”
It felt like he slapped her.
Rage roiled.
“You make it sound like I landed here, and then made it my mission to lie, steal, and destroy my way through your family. I didn’t ask to be here. I didn’t ask to be left here without answers. I didn’t ask to be stuffed into itchy dresses. I didn’t ask to spendevery day without my best friends, unable to get a message to them to tell them I’m all right.” Her voice caught. “They must be dying of worry.”
A soft sob interrupted her tirade.
