“Seducing me with ill intent? Not the sort of ill intent you intended, of course.” In her eyes were both laughter and uncertainty.
“Ravenna.” He allowed himself the pleasure of tasting the word. It intoxicated.
Her gaze dropped, as though for a moment she felt the intoxication too. Then it came up bright to his. “I will not require you to apologize again.” She offered him a little grin of impenitence. “But I do like to see you contrite.”
“You mistake it. I am only contrite that I did not succeed in making you enjoy that moment in the stable.”
Her eyes sparked. “For that admission, I will demand an apology every hour forthwith.”
“You won’t have it.”
“Why not?”
Because absolution for confessing a sin required true penitence. Vitor was neither contrite nor penitent. He wanted her to not only enjoy his touch but to welcome it.
“Why do you believe Anders does not intend ill toward you?” he said.
“I considered that he might be trying to cajole me into trusting him. But I honestly don’t believe he’s intelligent enough to plan in that manner.” She paused. “Are you?”
“I thought you had already decided that I am not the murderer.”
“You just sidestepped telling me why you are at Chevriot. And the guard that you said you had placed upon me is inconstant at best. I am beginning not to trust you.”
“I will have words with the guard.” He stepped close to her. “You must trust me. You can.”
She averted her shoulder, skittish, as though preparing to move away. “Why are you here? Unless you are wearing a truly spectacular disguise, you are not the father of an eligible maiden or an eligible maiden yourself. Are you?”
That she could jest about her wariness gave him hope.
“For ten years I lived at the court of Prince Raynaldo, Sebastiao’s father, as an intimate of the family. Matters of state require Raynaldo’s presence at home now. He asked me to attend this gathering in his absence.”
“To wait upon the prince?”
“To ensure that he chooses a bride.”
“Do you have a favorite yet?” Reticence still clung to her voice. She lifted a hand and tucked an errant lock behind her ear, then she drew the corner of her bottom lip between her teeth. “For him?”
Vitor forced his attention to her eyes. “Any one of them that did not murder and castrate a man will do.”
“Hm. I see you have high standards. The prince knows you are investigating the murder independent of Monsieur Sepic, doesn’t he?”
“He does.”
“And he trusts you with this?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“During the war I did similar work.”
She was silent for several moments. “I think we should catalogue the suspects and assess the motivation of each individually. Monsieur Sepic has not yet outlined this obvious course of action, so we may as well suggest it to him. Then we might begin striking from the list those who are unlikely candidates.”
Her curiosity seemed infinite, and yet she would not ask him more about himself. “When he returns in the afternoon, then.”
She nodded and moved away from him. Then she paused and looked back. “No sign of Mademoiselle Dijon’s dog on your ride?”
“None.” After a visit to the hermitage to bring Denis a bottle, he had ridden the paths that descended and ascended to the castle, then along the river that had tried to swallow her. Except along the paths that Sepic had traveled from the village to the castle, Ashdod’s hooves had broken smooth snow. No stranger had been on the mountain since the last snowfall. “Only the hermit.”
“The hermit?”
“The friar that lives in the hermitage beneath the mountain peak.”
Her starlit eyes went wide. “A hermit lives on the mountain? Really? Are there any other bits of information that you wish to share with me now? Or does your grace not imagine I deserve to know details that could be relevant to this mystery?”
“I am hiding nothing from you,” except that when her eyes took on that distance they held now, it stirred an ache beneath his ribs. “Father Denis has lived there for three decades. He is better known to the prince’s family than anyone. And as I am not a duke, ‘my lord’ will do, if you must. Or Vitor.” He wanted to hear her say his name.
“I mustn’t.” Her eyes remained aloof.
“Why did you put a dog in my bed?”
“I thought you might need company.” Offering a quick smile, she turned away again. He watched her go and the ache inside him thickened.
Martin Anders? She thought him an imbecile, but had she accepted his interest? Had she allowed him close? And what of the other men? Which of them in addition to Wesley and Anders saw her as a potential conquest?
With anger simmering beneath his skin like it hadn’t in two and a half years, Vitor went to the drawing room. He was not a murderer, but if any other man in the castle touched her, he might very well become one.
Chapter 9
Armor, of a Sort
While Ravenna penned a list of the suspects and the mayor thoughtfully stroked his ginger moustaches, Lord Vitor sat with all evidence of disinterest in a chair across the chamber and watched her. He said very little and only when Monsieur Sepic directly questioned him. But he did not disagree when she set the final list of suspects on the table.
“Martin and Cecilia Anders,” she read, “Juliana Abraccia, Arielle Dijon, Prince Sebastiao, and Ann Feathers. All have long dark hair and all are not particularly large. I briefly considered the scullery maid too. But when the cook washed her hair—while she shrieked in terror, never having endured such a thing before—it turned out to be blond beneath all the filth. That is life below stairs, of course.” She grinned, but found her lips wobbling. Lord Vitor did not blink a long lash. “So there you have the suspects, Monsieur Sepic. As well as me, of course.”
To that Lord Vitor offered her a tolerant stare. The mayor peered at her with a confounded air, which seemed the only manner in which he generally peered, so Ravenna did not credit it with much significance.
“We must ask each of them to write a sample letter and compare their hands to the writing on the note found in his pocket,” she suggested when the mayor’s silence continued.
“Hm. Peut-être.” He stroked his moustache quicker. “Mais.” He looked over to the nobleman. “Have you wondered why a man who is not a knight would don a suit of armor at ten o’clock of the night?”
“Or, perhaps, why a murderer might dress a dead man in a suit of armor?” Lord Vitor drawled. The drawl must be pure affectation. The man who had dived into a frozen river, then carried her without faltering through snow all the way back to the house, didn’t seem the drawling sort. But he seemed to want Sepic to believe he was. “Will you perhaps study the armor more thoroughly, monsieur?” he said with the same indolent air.
“Ah, oui. Excellent suggestion, monseigneur. I will bring the blacksmith from the village to assist me.”
“Do you know anything about medieval armor?” she whispered to the nobleman as they left the room.
“Enough.”
“An investigation seems in order, but before Sepic and his blacksmith can muddle any evidence we might find.”
“Tonight, then, while the others are engaged in entertainments,” he said, looking down at her with those midnight eyes that muddled her.