“I merely went off in search of a respite,” she said. Some of her normal composure was returning rapidly in the face of this stranger’s audacity. “You were the one sneaking around in the darkened hallways of…of my fiancé’s home.”
The word felt awkward on her tongue, like she’d taken too big of a spoonful of porridge.
His expression was impossible to read in the dim lighting, but she was nearly certain she’d felt him still at that word.
Her chin went up. The power had once again shifted back to her, and they both knew it.
“Fiancé,” he murmured. “So then you are…”
“Miss Delilah Clemmons,” she finished primly.
“Ah.”
She blinked, her eyes narrowing as though that might help her see past the candle’s glow to the shadowy figure behind it. His ‘ah’ said nothing…and everything. It was entirely too knowing for her liking. What does that mean? She itched to ask. But admitting to her curiosity would be handing over what little control she had, and that was unthinkable.
Her hands clasped neatly before her, she took a step toward the door. “Yes, well, now that we understand one another,” she started, pointedly ignoring the sound of her pounding heart.
“Do not leave just yet, Miss Clemmons.” His voice was low, soft…dangerous.
She should have been afraid. Distantly she was aware of this. And perhaps she was—just a bit—but more than that she was…
Well, she could not say what emotion had her pulse pounding and her breath finally coming in large gulps as though she’d finally found the oxygen in this house.
Perhaps she was…exhilarated.
She pursed her lips. Well, that would not do. She should definitely not be excited by this. “Is that an order?” she said. With a sniff she turned toward the door and reached for the handle. “I do not know who you think you are, sir, but—”
He moved so quickly she found herself blinking in surprise as the door clicked shut just as she’d opened it.
And now he was next to her. So close she could smell his scent—a mix of leather and cologne, and perhaps some sort of spirit. She could see his attire, too. Barely, but enough to make out the fine clothing of a gentleman. Despite the hulking width of his shoulders and his towering frame, he was a gentleman.
A guest.
A guest in her fiancé’s home. Soon to be her home.
She swallowed down the bitter taste in her mouth. One day soon she’d come to grips with her new reality. “If I scream, it will be your word against mine,” she said, once again delighted by how even her voice was.
No one would guess that her heart was fluttering in her chest like a butterfly.
Again—not out of fear. Which made some distant part of her brain wonder about her sanity. Being locked in a room with a giant stranger with a low growl for a voice…
She really ought to be afraid.
Funny, how knowing that did nothing to help this growing sense of…excitement.
Yes, there was no denying it now. She had the same surge of energy she used to get as a child before racing her mare across the meadows on the far edge of their country estate.
“Do not scream,” he said softly.
She peered up at the man, wishing she could see his eyes, but only catching glimpses of a nose, a jawline, a twist of his lips as his face flickered in and out of shadows. “I do wish you’d stop telling me what to do, Mister…” She trailed off, waiting for him to fill in the silence.
He did not.
His voice had that irritating note of amusement again when he next spoke. “And I wish you’d stop behaving like a bloody princess and listen to what I have to say.”
Her lips parted on a gasp at his language. “I will not—”
“Just listen,” he said, and this time it was his exasperation that got through to her.
After all, murderers and thieves weren’t exasperated, now were they? He could have gone into a rage, but all she’d gotten was a huff of irritation because she wasn’t fainting with fear.
And she never would, she decided as she crossed her arms and stared him down.
At least, she hoped she was staring him down. She aimed her gaze in the general direction of his eyes, anyway.
“I am here to protect you,” he said.
The words filled the air and hit her ears, but it took a heartbeat for them to register. When they did, she burst out in a laugh that startled her nearly as much as him. “Protect me?” she echoed, an alarming note of hysteria lacing her words. “From what? An intruder? A stranger in a dark room, perhaps?”
She heard his exhale again as she moved toward the door. Other than shoving her into the room, this man hadn’t touched her and she’d let that fact make her feel safe.
Safer than it ought.
One of his arms came around her waist and pulled her back away from the door like she weighed nothing.
Then, only then, did she finally think about screaming. In earnest, not just threatening to do it. The hand with the candle hovered before her, temporarily blinding her. She could feel his chest against her back, his breath against her temple as he muttered a curse she’d never heard before.
She should scream. She really ought to scream. “Just what do you think you are doing?”
It was not a scream. It wasn’t even as indignant as it ought to have been. It sounded like a prim and proper debutante asking about the weather.
She licked her lips and tried again. “Unhand me at once.”
There. Now she’d sounded like the princess he’d accused her of being before.
His husky chuckle sent a thrill down her spine. No, not a thrill. A chill. A chill of horror, obviously. There was no other explanation for it.
The silence that followed was amplified by the thudding of her heart. All she could hear was his breath, her heart, and very distantly—as though from another lifetime—the sound of music and laughter as
