No. “I’m certain you’re eager to be going,” she muttered and retreated back toward the staircase.
She didn’t run up the stairs, but it was a very near thing. Like she had with the animal trophies in her uncle’s study, she could feel his dark eyes chasing her up every step. Whit could cook his own breakfast after all, she decided as she reached the landing and hurried toward her room.
Unable to stop herself, she glanced back over her shoulder to be certain he wasn’t following her.
And ran head first into a solid wall of shirt and muscle.
She yelped and threw her arms out, even as she was steadied by two strong hands.
“Mirabelle,” Whit said over her head. “Easy. What is it?”
She pressed a hand to her heart, willing it to return to a natural rhythm. “Nothing. It’s nothing. It’s ridiculous.”
Whit’s grip tightened on her arms. “Tell me.”
She shook her head and laughed nervous l y. She’d overreacted terribly. The man hadn’t done anything worse than take a small and essentially harmless liberty. “I’m being foolish. Mr. Hartsinger frightened me, that’s all. There’s something so sinister about the man’s appearance. I met him in the foyer—”
He used his grip to push her behind him. “Go to your room. Lock the door.”
“But—”
“Now.”
She grabbed him before he could leave. “He didn’t hurt me, Whit. He didn’t even try. Honestly,” she insisted and pulled him around to face her. “He frightens me just by being. And you can’t very well demand satisfaction for that.”
He gave her a hard searching look before nodding. “Stay in your room, anyway. I’ll have breakfast brought up.”
She waited until she saw the violence fade from his eyes before releasing him and stepping up to give him a soft kiss. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For coming to my defense.”
A line formed across his brow as he lifted a hand to trail his finger down her cheek, much as Mr. Hartsinger had. But her skin didn’t crawl as it had in the foyer, it lit up as it had in her room.
She pressed closer to him. “Perhaps you could bring me breakfast.”
The line of worry cleared as he smiled. “Perhaps I could.”
Whit brought her breakfast, as promised, but he didn’t stay as she had hoped. His participation was required for the second day of the hunt. He couldn’t avoid joining the others for two days running. It made her exceedingly nervous, the idea of him being in close proximity to a pack of armed idiots, but when she mentioned as much, he merely grinned, gave her an annoyingly chaste peck on the cheek and promised to return to her in one piece.
He was just smug enough, and therefore irritating enough, that she was a little bit happy to see the back of him as he walked down the hall.
She spent the early hours of the afternoon, after the others had left, once again ensconced in the attic. She dug and sifted through decades worth of odds and ends, and it occurred to her that her uncle must not have been the first master of that house with an aversion to tossing anything out.
Heavens, why would anyone want to keep a fifty-year-old wig and accompanying box of wig powder? She pulled the overly elaborate coif out of a trunk and marveled at the sheer size and weight of it. It must have been tremendously uncomfortable to wear.
“I remember my mother owning something similar to that.”
Though she immediately recognized the voice behind her as Whit’s, she couldn’t stop herself from starting and dropping the wig.
“For pity’s sake, Whit,” she admonished with a hand against her thrumming heart. “What the devil are you doing back here?”
“Delighted to see you too, darling,” he returned and leaned down to press a quick kiss to her lips. “Even though you’re not in your room.”
Her blood warmed at the contact. “I never promised to stay in my room for the whole day, and you’re supposed to be hunting with the others.”
“As far as they know, I still am. I wandered off.”
“You wandered off,” she echoed.
“I informed the group that, like the good baron, I prefer to hunt alone.”
“Oh,” she smiled at him. “That was rather clever of you.”
“Wasn’t it just?” His eyes scanned the mess she’d made unpacking the trunks. “Have you found anything?”
She brushed off her gown and rose. “No.”
“Let’s try your uncle’s room, then.”
“But Mr. Cunningham—” she began.
“Is fast asleep, snoring like a tremendous lion. I knocked on his door just to see if it would disturb him. It didn’t.” He took her hand, leading her out of the room. “I want this done and you safely back at Haldon.”
“What if he should wake?” she asked as they made their way downstairs.
“Then we hide, or we run. It’s not more than a twenty-foot drop out the window.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “Are you trying to frighten me into not going?”