“Ah,” he said, nodding sympathetically, continuing to bunch up fabric in his fist, “but why did you oversleep, hm? I wonder.”
“Because I was up late,” she lied, feeling the curve of his lips and the glint of his teeth against the nape of her neck. “Because my routine was disrupted.”
“Oh, I think you like a good disruption, Miss Casper,” he whispered. “Shall I keep you up late again some night soon?”
“Roland!” she hissed, the word losing all edge as it dissolved into a little sigh as he nibbled and tasted his way down to her shoulder. She sagged against him, ceding defeat, and dropped her head back into his shoulder, flicking her eyes up to meet his. “I suppose you slept just fine.”
“You’ll never know,” he said. “Because you didn’t wear the key to my secrets.”
“Oho, and now I’m not entitled to any at all?” She chuckled, looping an arm up around his head and pulling him down to drop a kiss on her lips. “That seems a step backward from last night.”
“Hm,” he said, considering, dropping his fisted fabric in favor of stroking her now exposed throat. “Perhaps we trade. One for one.”
“I have no secrets,” she told him, laughing. “I am an open book.”
“Are you talking me out of giving you a bargain?” he returned, amused. “How about this? Why do you live with your grandparents when your parents and brother are right down the road?”
She gave a short, bemused little smile. “Because they are old and needed help and because my grandfather proposed it once Ibecame old enough to become his apprentice. Now me? Is Sybil your actual sister?”
“No,” he replied, looking thoughtful. “At least, I do not think so. It seems unlikely to me that Aristotle fathered more than one accidental offspring. Plus, she has dark hair and her mother’s is fair, but all brothel-born children consider each other siblings, just to be safe.”
“Seems sensible,” she agreed, nodding.
“Now me?” he asked needlessly, his fingers stroking down the column of her throat and over the hum of her heartbeat. “If I had not come to my senses, would you be letting Dr. Ravi corner you in this storeroom?”
“Roland!” she said, her eyes flying open from a brief moment of sensual indulgence. “Really?!”
“You have no secrets,” he reminded her with a grin. “You are an open book.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, not moving from his shoulder. “I do not know,” she answered honestly. “He is very handsome.”
“Ravishing,” he agreed, making them both break into stifled giggles.
She opened her mouth, her next question forming on the tip of her tongue, when she was interrupted by a bang from the main foyer and a loud, pompous male voice announcing, “Inspection!”
She groaned immediately, shutting her eyes again and letting her body go completely slack in protest against Roland’s. “Not again,” she moaned. “Not today.”
He was silent but his body had tensed, his arms going a bit stiff against her skin.
She straightened, leaning down to grip her new bottle of witch hazel around the neck and kick the cabinet shut, sighing. When she turned to face him, she was surprised at how stormy his expression had gotten.
“Roland, it’s been happening for months,” she reminded him. “It’s just another stanza of the same old song.”
“Is it?” he said, moving to push the door open. “I suppose we shall see.”
CHAPTER 21
The first person Roland’s eyes fell upon after exiting the storeroom was, to his surprise, not the inspector, but Reverend Matthew Everly, looking exceedingly harried, rumpled, and dusty, even for Matthew himself, who had a reputation for being all three.
“Reed!” he called out as soon as he spotted him, marching across the floor, a look of wide-eyed urgency on his face. “Your vandals have found my church!”
“Oh, God,” said Mae, wrinkling her nose. “Is that what that smell is?”
Matthew frowned, running a hand over his frizzy brown curls and looking down at the spattering of telltale brown flecks on his cassock. “I’m afraid so. I’m not the only one they got.”
“Rosalind?” Mae said, covering her mouth.
“Vix,” Matthew replied with a frown. “She put the fear of God into them in a way I’ve never managed in all my years behind a pulpit. I imagine she’s following behind me a ways, afterAmbrose wrangled her into the parish washroom. I know she intended to come here.”
