“I honestly don’t know.”
“You can come in, if you’d like.” Grabbing the chair she’d sat in while Evie repaired her hair, she turned it to face the bed and then retrieved what remained of her slab of chocolate. “It’s not as fancy as your office, but there’s someplace to sit, and sweets.”
“I’d hardly describe my office as fancy,” Kincaid said with a snort.
“It’s better than it was. Come on,” she coaxed, waving the chocolate at him. “I’d like to clear the air between us, and there are things we need to discuss.”
His expression wary, he took one step into the room, then another, before he stopped short.
“All the way. You can sit here,” she said, gesturing at the chair. “And close the door. Mrs. Holden, three doors down, is notorious for eavesdropping.”
“I really don’t think—” he began tersely.
“Oh for heaven’s sake. I won’tbite.”
The mattress creaked as she rested on the corner. After a moment’s hesitation, Kincaid reluctantly nudged the door shut, but did not sit.
“Chocolate?” she offered, cracking off a piece.
“No, thank you. Miss Thorncroft—”
“I was very angry with you, Kincaid.” She met his gaze without blinking. “For what you said, and what you did.”
His shoulders tensed. “I understand, and as I said, I am—”
“Fortunately for you, it’s not in my nature to stay angry for long.”
Goodness, but he was handsome. Standing there, all flustered and flushed. He hadn’t bothered to change his clothes since the last time she’d seen him, and there was a hole torn in his trousers as well as a dirt stain on his shirt. At least he’d cleaned the cut above his brow and on his chin. They weren’t deep, and they wouldn’t scar. But they did give him an air of reckless danger that she foundverybecoming.
“Why did you leave?” she asked. “You said you had no excuse or reason, but I know that isn’t true. You were upset by what I shared with you. About my personal feelings.”
“Yes,” he said without further explanation.
“Why? And this time, I deserve an answer. It’s the least you can do for what you did.” She bit off a piece of chocolate and waited while it melted on her tongue.
Kincaid ran a hand over his mouth. “I…”
“It is all right,” she said softly. “You can tell me.”
He sat in the chair. Heavily, she noted, as if he carried an enormous, invisible weight. Removing his spectacles, he slid them into the front pocket of his vest and massaged the bridge of his nose. “I was still working for Scotland Yard when I met her. I’d just been made an inspector, and given my own division. I had two dozen men under my command, which meant I could delegate the smaller cases and pursue the larger ones myself. Lord Townsend was such a case. Someone was stealing from him. A servant, he suspected. Though he had no proof. Over the course of my investigation, I stayed at his country estate. That was where his wife and I first struck up a…rapport, I suppose you could call it.”
Joanna’s eyes widened ever-so-slightly, but she didn’t interject. This was Kincaid’s story to tell, and having waited this long, she wasn’t going to risk giving him a reason to stop telling it.
“Lady Townsend told me things about her marriage. At the time, I believed they were true.” Kincaid’s hand dropped from his face. He spread his knees apart and rested his elbows upon them, his eyes on the floor between his feet as he continued to speak in the low, impersonal tone of someone recalling the weather. “She implied that her husband was cruel. That he shouted unnecessarily, and drank too much, and struck her where he was certain no one would see the bruises. All lies,” Kincaid sat flatly as he straightened in his chair. “But I did not realize that at the time, and I…I developed feelings for her. I wanted to protect her.”
Of course he had, Joanna thought. Because that was what Kincaid did. He protected people. And shame on this Lady Townsend for taking advantage of his giving nature. For using what came naturally to him and twisting it into something perverse.
“We began an affair.” He met Joanna’s gaze and then looked quickly away as a cord of muscle stood out in his neck. “I am not proud of it. I knew she was married. That she was not mine to have. But we made plans to run away together. I was going to leave Scotland Yard. She was going to leave her husband. We were to meet at dawn. I already had a private coach arranged to take us to Edinburgh.”
“But she didn’t meet you,” Joanna said, unable to keep her silence any longer.
“No, she did not.” He closed his eyes, and her heart ached at the raw pain she saw flash across his countenance. “I waited in the rain for hours. When I finally came to terms with the fact that she was not coming, I returned to Scotland Yard. Where I promptly found myself arrested and thrown in a cell.”
“For what?” she said indignantly.
“Lady Townsend told her husband about the affair, and implied that I had…forced it on her.”
“But that’s not what happened!” she cried, aghast that a woman would lie about something so serious.
