“My only sister,” he managed to counter after he’d subdued his initial surprise. “And far from my favorite if you’ve come here to pester me.”
Placing his hands on her shoulders, he set her away from him. While he loved Sarah, he was also wary of her. She may have been six years his junior, but that didn’t stop her from taking on the role of a mother hen. Except he was no wayward chick to be brought back into the nest. Nor did he want to drag her into his nest of demons, which was why he’d made it a point to keep his distance. Yet here she was, all the same.
“Pester you?” Sarah’s eyes, hazel like their father’s and filled with feigned innocence, widened. “I’d never dream of doing such a thing.” Then she shook her head sadly as her gaze traveled from his unkempt hair all the way down to his bare feet. “It’s clear that I’ve arrived just in time. You look a fright, Sterling, and you smell even worse. Haven’t they water here at Hawkridge? You there”–she pointed at a maid, who stopped dead in her tracks–“have a bath prepared. Extra hot, extra soap. Then I want clothes laid out. Clean ones.” She touched Sterling’s rough cheek and clucked her tongue. “Where on earth is your valet?”
Swatting her arm aside, he pinched the bridge of his nose where a dull throb had already settled in. “I left him in London.”
“That much is apparent. A bath, clean clothes,andhave a barber called,” Sarah told the maid before her gaze shifted back to Sterling. In the depths of those hazel eyes there was exasperation, but also worry. “Won’t you walk with me? I’ve been in a carriage for an hour, and should like to stretch my legs.”
“I was just getting ready to take a nap,” he grumbled.
“A nap? It’s not yet noon. Come along. Some sunlight will do your complexion good. You’re as pale as a newborn babe.” Linking their arms, she pulled him–still grumbling–outside and onto a flagstone path that led to the rear gardens where fragrant smelling roses were beginning to wilt as the nights grew cooler and the days shorter.
“What are you doing here, Sarah?” he asked.
“Can a sister not visit her brother without an ulterior motive?”
“Some can, I’m sure. But you’re not one of them.”
“No, I am not,” she said, the corners of her lips twitching. Halting in front of a fountain that sprayed a steady stream of water in a graceful arc, she pivoted to face him and took both of his hands in hers. “But Iamworried about you, Sterling. I’ve been worried, for quite some time.”
As the throb behind his eyes turned into a pounding, Sterling gritted his teeth and looked past her at a green wall of shrubbery. “You needn’t concern yourself with me. You’ve a wedding to plan, and the Season to participate in. Isn’t your plate full enough?”
“I’ve heard the rumors about your mistress.”
His gaze cut to hers. “Young ladies shouldn’t talk of such things.”
“Don’t tell me you are going to start playing the part of chaperonenow. I know what a mistress is, and what they’re for. I also know that you didn’t kill yours and put her body in a trunk and ship it to America.”
He snorted. “Is that what they’re saying? Last I heard I disposed of the body by feeding it to sharks. Or maybe it was crocodiles. I can’t remember.”
It was morbid, to talk of his mistress in such a way. But then, their entire relationship had been morbid from the moment he’d stolen her away from some hapless lord who didn’t know his cock from a carrot. All fighting and fucking, with nothing in between. A carnal, animalistic partnership that had suited both their needs perfectly.
He had wanted a way to drown out the demons. She’d wanted a little pain with her pleasure, which he’d happily provided. Along with money, of course. Eloise had always been a greedy little strumpet, and never bothered to hide it.
Now she was gone, taken in the dead of the night after one of their infamous arguments, and while he knew thathehadn’t killed her, someone most likely had. And in a gruesome manner, if the amount of blood he’d found was any indication.
Yet since her disappearance, he’d been nagged by an unsubstantiated hunch that there was something more to the story. Something that he’d hoped Kincaid’s investigation would uncover. Something that would reveal Eloise was actually still alive, and had–for reasons unknown–staged her own death. Which was why he could make light of it. In a dark, twisted way. Because there was a part of him that didn’t believe–didn’tfeel–as if she were dead.
A stupid assumption. So stupid that he hadn’t even bothered to mention it to Kincaid. But how else to explain the timing of it all, and the fact that nothing had been taken from the house, which ruled out a robbery? No jewelry, no furs. None of those bloody crystal swans with rubies for eyes that she’d insisted he buy her whenever they were out and about town. Nothing of value…except for Eloise. Even then, there’d been no note. No threatening letter. No ransom. She’d simply vanished…leaving him as the prime suspect for a murder he hadn’t committed.
Or maybe he had.
Maybe his mind was so far gone, so rotted and filled with filth, that hehadkilled her.
Just like he’d killed Sebastian.
“I don’t know why anyone would believe such absurd conjecture,” Sarah scoffed, and Sterling might have smiled if his mouth didn’t feel so heavy. His baby sister, always coming to his defense. Even when there was nothing left to defend. “Sharks and crocodiles. How ridiculous.”
“People like the ridiculous. It distracts them from how small and meaningless their own lives are.”
“That’s a dark way of seeing the world.”
“The world is a dark place.”
She squeezed his hands. “Sterling, I know that you blame yourself for what happened to Sebastian. But it–”
“If you’re going to tell me it wasn’t my fault,” he interrupted, “save your breath.”
