With a quick breath of relief, she tucked her knife onto a table just inside the drawing room and strode to a chair across from him.
Leonard’s eyes immediately went to her cheek. “What happened?” he asked, his words almost said in awe or astonishment. First, his mouth fell open as if shocked, but then that quickly turned to frustration—his mouth snapping shut and his brow furrowing.
Instead of answering his question, she asked one of her own. “What do you want?” She had given him his freedom, and she really didn’t want to sit here and be scolded—even if she deserved it.
He ran his tongue across his teeth beneath his lip, his hands clasped together between his knees. The bruising on his face had changed colors, but it was still very apparent.
“Why do you assume I want something?” he asked.
Her jaw ticked to the side. “You would not be here if you didn’t need something.”
“I think,” he continued, “you mean to ask, why am I here?”
“They are the same.”
“No, they are not.”
She removed her gloves and tossed them on the cushion. “Very well. Why are you here?”
“To talk.”
She scoffed and rolled her eyes. “How droll.”
His eyes fixed on her cheek, and she realized why he looked so concerned.
“It is nothing,” she said, waving it off. “Just a case of mistaken identity.”
“Someone hit you, didn’t they?” His words were accusatory, a bite of anger to them.
“Not hit, exactly,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “More of a slap.”
Rubbing his mouth, Leonard gave his head a hard shake. “That is the same.”
“Just as you insist ‘what do you want’ and ‘why are you here’ are not the same, I insist a hit and a slap are not the same.”
He pursed his lips, as if holding back a litany of words. “Fine,” he acquiesced. “Then who slapped you?”
“Pratt. But it was nothing. A simple mistake.”
Leonard said nothing, only watching her.
“Now you. Why are you here?”
“I have to ask you some things.”
She moved her gloves from one side of the chair to the other, if only to give her hands something to do. She hated how they trembled. It had been a tiring evening, to say nothing of the last few days. “It is late. Do not keep me waiting.”
His eyes trailed over her before flicking back to her face. “Were you ever married?”
Her head jerked. Why would he even think to ask her that?
Leonard waited, his gaze expectant.
But why lie anymore? He already knew the truth about the ring. What would one more admission hurt? “No,” she said, looking at the fire in the mantel. Wilson must have lit it for Leonard. She really should stop hiring inadequate workers, ones who let men into her home while she was gone. But she believedeveryone deserved a second chance in life. “I was never married. I received my inheritance from a widow named Mrs. Garvey.”
She saw his head shake in her periphery as she watched the flames dance and snap.
“Why would you lie about that?”
