Page 38 of A Rogue at Stonecliffe

“Of course not. I know that.”

“Then it’s yourself you don’t trust around me?” He cocked an eyebrow.

“I’m not sure if you’re trying to flirt with me or annoy me, but I have no interest in bantering with you,” Annabeth said firmly. She looked straight into his eyes. “We are not what we used to be to each other, Sloane. We aren’t even friends. We simply have a common goal, and I suggest we stick to achieving that.”

He shrugged, his face devoid of expression. “Where is Verity?”

“I’ve no idea. I have not seen her this morning. Miss Cole and I are not bosom friends.”

“Mmm-hmm. I suppose not.” He paused, then said, “Don’t be too hard on her, Anna. I don’t think she ever meant any harm, and she’ll be protection for you when I’m not here.”

Annabeth started to point out that Verity had failed to keep out an intruder last night, but she stopped. The less Sloane knew about the break-in, the better. He would start haranguing her once again about leaving the city.

“Then let’s look at the boxes. I presume that’s why you’re here.” She stood up. “I’ll get them.”

Annabeth rather wondered where Verity had gone. Annabeth would have preferred not to be alone with Sloane, but she knew they would work better without Verity or Nathan there. The two of them would only add to the sniping, and Annabeth would worry about whether Nathan might be hurt or jealous.

She returned a few minutes later with her own three boxes from her father. Last night she had opened the secret drawer of the largest box and taken out the pressed flower that was her last remaining memento of Sloane’s, as well as all the other odds and ends she kept openly in the chest.

“This is the box that was in the trunk we removed from the rental house,” she told him, handing him the small puzzle box. “I’ve not opened it before. These two are mine.”

While Sloane set to work on the sliding pieces of the puzzle box, Annabeth opened the secret compartments of both the others. They were empty, as she already knew they were, and so was the puzzle box when Sloane shifted the various pieces in the correct order.

“Well, I didn’t really expect it to be in one of yours, otherwise you would have opened it long ago. Nor really in one that he had left where anyone might take it. The most likely place is one of Hunter’s secret storage places in his home.”

“Let’s go there,” Annabeth replied.

“Without a chaperone?” Sloane widened his eyes in mock horror. “Lady Lockwood would protest.”

“Then we’d better leave quickly, before she comes down, hadn’t we?” Despite her calm tone, Annabeth’s heart sped up. She wasn’t sure whether it was in panic or excitement.

He grinned and turned to go, reaching out to take her arm in the way he had in the past. His fingers were warm against her bare skin, the touch at once so familiar and so surprising that she sucked in a breath. Sloane glanced at her and hastily dropped his hand.

“I must change,” Annabeth said, stepping back abruptly, then hurried up to her room. There, she quickly changed into a walking dress of light green that complemented her eyes—not that that mattered. It was simply her favorite. Adding her newest hat and a pelisse of a slightly darker blue, she went back downstairs.

Outside, Sloane gave her a hand to step up into the hackney. It was a small vehicle with only a single bench seat. Sloane took up more space than Annabeth thought was warranted, but she wasn’t about to let him know that his closeness bothered her. She would be aloof. Cool. They were no longer anything to one another. She was not going to let him rattle her or stir her emotions.

Still, she found it a bit annoying that he made no more effort to talk on the trip than she did. One would think he might say something. He might explain himself and his actions, might even apologize for having deceived her. Not that anything he said would change what she thought of him. How she felt about him.

However, as soon as they left the carriage and stepped into what had once been her home, the past all around her, she could not hold her tongue any longer. “Why did you not tell me?”

“Not tell you what?” Sloane closed the door behind them, keeping his eyes on his hand as he turned the key in the lock.

“You know perfectly well what. Why did you not tell me that you were working for our government, not the French? That you weren’t a traitor.”

“I told you yesterday. It defeated the purpose if I told people,” he replied, still not looking at her.

“I thought I was something more to you than just ‘people.’” Her voice thickened.

Sloane turned to her then, his blue eyes bright with emotion. “Of course you were more to me. More to me than anyone else. I loved you. You must know that.”

“No, I don’t know that. I feel as though I never really knew you. If you hid such an important thing from me, what else did you hide? Which of your words were true? What vows did you mean?”

“I didn’t lie to you.” His eyes burned into hers, and he moved closer.

As it always had, Sloane’s gaze went all through Annabeth, dancing along her nerves and flooding her chest, making her forget what she wanted to say. He had always won their arguments because when he looked at her that way, she could think of nothing else.

But not anymore. She ignored the pulse that leaped in her and the breath that quickened—the remembered pain made that easier—and said, “Not telling me is the same as lying. Letting me wonder what I had done, why you turned away from me, examining everything we’d done and said for some clue to the answer—it was cruel.”