Waves of emotion swooped through Delilah like attacking birds: fury and helplessness and nauseating betrayal and scorched pride.
She was afool.
Tristan was carefully considering how to answer, which was also terrifying.
“We have ascertained that you and Lady Derring are innocent of involvement in this matter.”
“You’ve...ascertained?” Delilah repeated. Her voice was raw with incredulity.
Her lips were numb.
There was a little silence.
“Yes.” His voice was hoarse. It contained the faintest apology. But only a little.
Her head went back in shock.
His purpose was Duty, after all.
“And I’m afraid I’m not at liberty to tell you the details of our presence here. Not yet. Not until we’ve completed what we set out to do.”
“Because we might still be suspects.” She said that with a certain bitter wonder.
“For your own safety. We believe the two of you and all other guests save the Gardners to be guiltless. Your husband was not, Lady Derring.”
Her hands began to rise to her face, desperately. No. She would not shield herself from this, and if what she felt showed on her face, she wanted Tristan to see it, too. If anything truly moved him at all.
She gave a soft, ironic laugh. It hurt, terribly, the laugh, as if every one of her vital organs was bruised.
“Oh, now I see. You’rethatCaptain Hardy.”
She heard him take a sharp breath.
“Always gets his man,” Lieutenant Massey whispered proudly.
“Or woman, too, I suppose,” Delilah said lightly, slowly. “Is that not so, Captain Hardy?”
She couldn’t read his expression. But she could feel tension in him, and in all the soldiers. Drawn back and back, like a trebuchet prepared to launch its ordnance. This was what they were born for.
“We’re under orders from the crown, Lady Derring, and as such I am the crown’s representative and responsible for all of these men here,” Tristan said. “And it is not hyperbole to say that it’s a matter of life and death.”
“So youareaware of the uses of the wordhyperbole. And just listen to how many words you’re using now, Captain Hardy. How many of the ones you said meant a thing?”
“All of them.” He said that evenly. As though it were an unadulterated truth, a commandment etched in stone.
She turned away.
She couldn’t bear to look at his hard, enigmatic soldier face.
He leaned forward a little.
“I will protect you with my life.”
He laid those words down slowly. As though he’d been asked to swear a vow.
She knew it was true. He’d already done it once, hadn’t he? Because she’d been just that foolish before: they’d let a strange man into the house at the wrong hour, and he’d attacked her.
ThatCaptain Hardy. That’s what that particular man had said. An odd numbness spread through her limbs.
