“Ah, Courtenay,” Sir Henry exclaimed. “What is your part in our little production? We older fellows have snatched up Capulet, Montague, and the prince, of course. But Anders here hasn’t yet decided if he prefers Paris or Mercutio. If you’re quick about it you can claim either. What will it be?”
“Tybalt,” he said, and came directly to her and Iona, bringing with him the fresh cold of the day, the pup pouncing upon each of his footsteps. He propped his hat beneath his arm and bowed. “Good afternoon, ladies,” he said with great elegance, despite the pup chewing on the costly leather toe of his boot that was speckled with moisture.
“Ye’ve chosen yer part poorly, my laird,” Lady Iona said brightly. “Ye ken ye’ll be dead afore the second act, dinna ye?”
“As I am not much of an actor, that should be to everybody’s benefit.” He smiled, then bent and scooped the dog into one hand and held it against his waistcoat as though it were another hat. “Miss Caulfield, may I beg a moment’s conversation with you?”
Iona popped up from her seat. “I’ll be aff, then.” She cast Ravenna a sparkling glance and went.
Lord Vitor dropped the puppy into Ravenna’s lap.
She tucked the cold, soft little bundle against her chest. It nipped at her sleeve. She settled it in her lap, and it laid its muzzle on her knee and promptly fell asleep.
“The groom said you went out with this one, and I see you have just come in. But he is entirely dry. How did he make do in the snow?”
“I carried it.” He sat down beside her, quite close but so that his knee did not brush hers. “You may have it back.”
“I cannot. He is yours now.”
“He is a pestilence.”
“And yet you carried him on your ride, presumably because he could not keep up with your horse’s pace? Your coat is ruined with fur.”
“Good of you to show concern. My valet will ring a peal over your head when he returns to the castle.”
She grinned and stroked the pup’s silky fur. “Is he very hard on you?”
“No more than . . . others.”
She looked up, surprising the shallow dent in the nobleman’s cheek as his attention rested on the pup.
“When you dismissed Lady Iona,” she said, “I imagined you wished to speak with me about the murder. But now you are smiling, so that cannot be the case. What are you thinking?”
“That I have never before been quite so jealous of a dog.”
Her hand froze.
“I see you have decided,” she said.
“What have I decided?”
“The footing to which we are returning.”
He smiled. “It seems so.” He glanced across the room. “You are still thick as thieves with Lady Iona, then.”
“I cannot see any reason not to be. Lord Whitebarrow is either a general philanderer, or he seeks Iona’s ruination to the benefit of his daughters. I have no heavy conscience for his sake.”
“Ah.”
“As for Lady Iona, what a woman chooses to do with her . . .” She stalled. Though she had assisted with births, including human births, and even had seen any number of animals mate—both domestic and wild—this was no easier to discuss with him now than it had been on the stairs to the tower parlor. “Her . . .”
He lifted a brow. “Virtue?”
“I don’t particularly like that word. It suggests that the only virtue a woman can possess is her maidenhood.”
“It does indeed.”
“What becomes of kindness, then? Or compassion? What about other virtues women possess? What of charity? Or constancy or—”
“Miss Caulfield.” His voice lowered. “If you wish us to remain on any footing of comfort to you, this is not the way to accomplish it.”
She could not quite look at him. “I will bear that in mind. What did you wish to tell me about your ride?”
“I discovered a path. I thought I had ridden every trail between the castle and the mountain’s peak and base, but it seems I had not until today. This one leads along the river for a quarter mile, then ascends steeply to the mountain’s apex.”
“You were able to follow it? In the snow and ice?”
“Ashdod was bred in the Pyrenees. These hills are no challenge to him.” He spoke without arrogance or even pride.
“You are peculiarly humble.”
“Peculiarly, hm?” He rubbed his jaw thoughtfully and something about the flex of his hand and the tightening of the scar between his fingers tugged at her insides. “That doesn’t sound flattering.”
“For a man of your station you are humble.”
“Would you prefer if I boasted of my privilege and spoke harshly to my inferiors, who are, after all, legion? Should I win your respect more securely then?”
He already had her respect, and she had yet to meet another man whose mere entrance into a room had other gentlemen straightening their spines and puffing out their chests, while the ladies batted their lashes and blushed. Even now Miss Abraccia and Lady Penelope both were casting him surreptitious glances.
“You should alienate me eternally by that,” she said.
“Then I shall refrain from behaving according to my rightful role in society.”
Across the room the poetical young Mr. Anders now sported Shakespearean hose and ballooning sleeves. He looked to Miss Abraccia, who still covertly watched Lord Vitor, and his brow turned stormy.
Ravenna wondered that if she were sitting across the room from Lord Vitor now would she also be staring. But masculine perfection in any species by nature drew females. “Were Mr. Anders’s boots soaked through again this morning?” she whispered.
“Monsieur Brazil informs me that they were.”
“What reason would he have to walk the path you found each morning, and how is he escaping the guards’ notice?”
“I suspect someone is paying the prince’s guards to look away when it suits.”
Her gaze darted to the guard stationed at the drawing room door. “Are they not loyal to him?”
“Not all. I spoke with the man who should have been near when Anders bothered you by your bedchamber that night. He suggested that you misrepresented the matter to me.”
“I did not.”
“I know that.”
She frowned. “How do you know that?”
“Because the single time you tried to lie to me it was written all over your face.”
“How do you know that I haven’t lied to you successfully and you simply don’t realize it?”
“If we were not in a drawing room filled with people, I would take your hand and show you.”
She could not respond and she did not want to understand him. “What of this path? What would take Mr. Anders out before dawn each morning? An assignation with a fellow conspirator, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.”
“When will Monsieur Sepic return?”
“Before dinner, I suspect. He plans to gather writing samples from all of us. Upon your advice.”
“Which you must have repeated to him. He would not have taken heed of it otherwise.”
“More significantly, the mayor enjoyed last night’s dinner tremendously. I believe he means to take advantage of this investigation to dine each evening in the castle.”
“I am the daughter of a country vicar and until recently a servant. I have no more right to be feasting in this company than he.” She looked up from the puppy in her lap to the chamber full of elegant people of rank and fortune, and met Lady Grace’s dull stare. In Grace’s hands dangled an old-fashioned neck ruff. She seemed to become aware of Ravenna’s attention, and she turned away.