Page 37 of A Rogue at Stonecliffe

Annabeth felt the same stab of curiosity, the insistent hunger to know about Sloane and Verity. It was foolish. It made no difference. Yet somehow she couldn’t stop herself from saying, “You and Sloane seem to know each other well.”

“Yes,” Verity said, fondness in her voice. “We worked together a good deal.”

“Were you, um, more than—when you said you were together, did you mean—” She stopped, unable to complete her sentence.

“Are you asking if we were ever in a...romantic relationship?” Verity asked with a suggestive raise of her eyebrow.

Annabeth blushed and nodded her head. “I’m sorry, that’s too personal. I shouldn’t—”

“No, we weren’t,” Verity said. “That’s not to say I didn’t think about it once or twice early on—he’s a very good-looking man—but he was obviously still in love with you. He talked about you enough. And I have never had much interest in men that are interested in someone else. It’s not a good idea, anyway, to get too attached to someone in the network. We were friends and colleagues, that’s all. He saved my life once, and another time I broke him out of jail.”

“You did?” Annabeth’s eyes widened. “How?”

Verity looked up soulfully at an invisible person, clasping her hands together prayerfully beneath her chin. “Oh, sir, please, he’s my brother. I can’t bear not to see him...one last time.” She dabbed artistically at her eye and sniffed. Relaxing, she grinned. “It sounds better in French.”

Annabeth couldn’t help but laugh. “You’re very good at getting people to like you.”

“I don’t think your man would agree.” The idea didn’t seem to bother Verity much.

“Sloane’s not my—oh. Nathan? To be fair, he probably would like you more if you weren’t rude to him.”

“Me? Rude?” Verity retorted, sauciness on full display.

“Most people like Nathan.”

“He’s a very agreeable man,” Verity admitted. “Too agreeable, really.”

“How can one be too agreeable?” Annabeth asked.

Verity scoffed in response.

“Well, he’s certainly not Sloane,” Annabeth said. “Which is a good thing.”

“Is it?”

Annabeth didn’t have an answer.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SLOANE ARRIVED AT Lady Lockwood’s house the next morning so early that Annabeth was still at breakfast. The butler had tried to announce him, but Sloane had followed on the man’s heels in his usual manner, so that he was in the doorway of the dining room before Cartwell could get his name.

“I’m sorry, miss,” the butler said, with a disapproving look at Sloane, “but he would not wait in the entry.”

“It’s all right, Cartwell. You may go.” Annabeth rose to face Sloane. “I see that your manners haven’t improved over the years.”

“Probably not,” Sloane agreed. He glanced around. “Have I managed to catch you without all your retinue?”

“Grandmother rarely appears before eleven, and of course Nathan, being a gentleman, calls on us at an appropriate time in the afternoon.”

“Ooh—direct shot.” Sloane winced and laid a hand against his chest, a glimmer of amusement in his eyes. And for a moment, he looked so much like the boy Annabeth had known that it made her throat tighten.

She turned away to conceal her expression, and went to the teapot on the sideboard. “Would you like a cup of tea?”

There was a moment of hesitation, then he said, “Yes, thank you. That would be nice.” He sat down across the table from her.

“Breakfast?” Annabeth asked, going back to her seat and stretching across the table to set the cup in front of him, carefully avoiding getting too close. The glint in his eye told her he knew exactly what she was doing.

“I’m not going to attack you, you know. You needn’t stay three feet away from me.”