Unraveled (Turner, #3)

He made an embarrassed motion with his hand. “Pray don’t say anything at all.” He set his hand on her shoulder, and let it slide down her side.

She let out a shaky breath. He’d satisfied her, and not just physically. He’d filled that part of her that yearned for danger. He didn’t talk of affection, but beneath the gruff exterior, he was tender. And he didn’t need to say he cared to make her understand.

She’d worried about not being able to pay him back for his forbearance in the matter of the Patron. But this… Her left hand couldn’t repay her right. There was nothing of commerce to their arrangement any longer. He’d done something that she suspected was deeply, deeply contrary to his own nature. And he’d done it to let her know that he accepted her. All of her.

Falling in love with a man who’d declared the relationship to be a month long, who’d warned her he would never love her, was all kinds of reckless. He wouldn’t even share a night with her after intercourse; he was never going to share her life. And yet he made her feel safer and more in peril all at once.

It was dangerous to entrust him with anything besides the month he’d asked for. But then, her tastes ran to danger. Perhaps that was why she tossed her heart his way without a protest.

“You did that for me,” she said, as he handed her out of the carriage.

“If you think I put you up against a wall and had you without my own self-interest being engaged, you’ve a great deal to learn about men.” He opened her front door.

He made it sound almost vulgar. But he’d thought about her. About what she wanted. What she needed. It wasn’t the act itself that made her heart feel so tender; it was the care he’d put into it. As if she were somehow precious to him.

“It wouldn’t mean the same thing if you did it here,” she said.

“We can test that.”

She swatted at his hand. “Don’t. Don’t try to make something sweet and beautiful into something tawdry.”

Silence. Then: “There’s nothing tawdry about you, Miranda.” He paused, just that tiny amount. “Darling.” His arms came around her in the dark. It was an embrace—one without heat or want, just care. Affection. Love, even if he wouldn’t say it, and wouldn’t want it said. She wrapped her arms around him, holding him close. She held that fluttering sense of new emotion close as well.

She loved him. How could she not?

And then she heard a rustle down the hall. The parlor door opened, and a small head poked out from behind it.

“Miranda?” The voice was rough with sleep, but shaking with terror.

“Robbie.” She let go of Smite. “Robbie, what are you doing here?”

He stepped out into the dim light of the entry and looked up at her. He had dark circles under his eyes. “Miranda,” he said, “I think someone is trying to kill me.”





Chapter Seventeen




“KILL YOU?” MIRANDA SAID. “What makes you think that?”

Robbie hunched. The bony points of his shoulders jutted out beneath his coat, an eloquent statement of his discomfort. But as eloquent as his expression was, it still was not an answer to her question.

“Robbie, please,” she said. “I want to help. Just talk to me.” And consider using actual words.

Beside her, Smite gave her a short shake of his head, and a look. She was probably doing everything wrong again—and here she’d thought, over the last two Sabbaths when he’d visited, that they were getting beyond that—but at least Robbie had come to her when he needed help. That counted for something, did it not?

Smite rang the bell, and when the maid came, he called for a blanket, a glass of warm milk, and a plate of sweet biscuits. While he did so, Miranda bustled them all back into the parlor to sit by the fire.

The maid didn’t ask what Robbie was doing there. It occurred to Miranda, rather belatedly, that she didn’t need to explain herself to the servants. The woman came back in short order with a tray.

Smite gestured. “Those ones, with the sugar on top—they’re quite good.”

Robbie needed no further encouragement. He reached out and took one in each hand. Before she could protest—or even convince him to chew—he’d inhaled first one, and then the other, and was eyeing the still-full plate with zeal.

“Hard to gather thoughts on an empty stomach,” Smite said. “Don’t worry about how you say things, or what order you tell the story in. If I don’t understand something, I’ll ask questions. Just tell us what you know.”

He was watching Robbie carefully. It was easy to forget that he did this sort of thing on a regular basis: asked questions, and tried to piece together what had happened. She hadn’t imagined that Smite was the sort of person who could put anyone at ease. But Robbie slouched into the cushions of the sofa and took another biscuit.

“I want you to think back. When was the first time you realized that something might be amiss?”

“This afternoon, when—no.” Robbie stopped. “Mid-morning, Mr. Allen said his ring had gone missing.”

“What sort of ring was it?”

Robbie frowned. “Gold?”