His irreverent comment surprised a smile out of me.
Gage waited for me near the doorway, and I glanced over my shoulder one last time to find Will already nodding off to sleep. I turned back to see Donovan seated to the side of the door in a straight ladder-back chair. His placement had enabled him to listen to every word of our conversation. Although there was nothing outwardly wrong with his presence or the chair’s positioning, it bothered me nonetheless, perhaps merely because I had been unaware of it.
Donovan rose to his feet as we passed and I could feel his eyes tracking me across the room, but when I peeked in his direction they were carefully directed elsewhere.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Thank you,” I told Gage begrudgingly as we turned onto the corridor that would lead us back to the staircase and the main part of the house.
He glanced down at me in question.
“For not directing Will’s and my conversation where you wanted it to go.” Which is what I’d fully expected him to do.
He turned his face forward again, hiding his eyes from me. “I thought it best to allow it to wander where it would.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “His admission didn’t mean anything, you know. Just because he accepted your accompanying me on my visits as necessary doesn’t mean he’s truly dangerous to me, or anyone else.”
“I know,” he said.
I glanced up at him, expecting to receive another lecture on Will’s potential for violence and my not taking chances, but he surprised me.
“In fact, I’m actually heartened by the fact that he’s so wary of himself, contrary as that may seem.” He stopped before the locked door and turned to look down at me, catching my frown. “A man who was more certain of himself, even as he lapses into these trances, would be far more dangerous. Simply the fact that he has contemplated what he might be capable of when he’s not in his right mind says a great deal in his favor.”
I pondered his words.
“Now, that does not mean I believe it’s safe for you to visit him alone,” he hastened to add before the argument could even enter my head. “But . . .” He pursed his lips, not seeming eager to continue. ”I’m less uneasy.”
I nodded, knowing that I shouldn’t push but accept his admission as the peace offering it was. I stared down at the toes of my slippers peeking out from the hem of my dress. “He seemed genuinely distressed by the possibility he might be capable of harming someone.”
Gage was quiet for so long that I looked up to see if he was listening. His eyes were trained on me with a strange intensity. “Yes, he does,” he finally admitted.
I tilted my head, trying to read his inscrutable gaze. “But I don’t think he has. I believe if he thought he had, or found some kind of evidence to suggest he had, he would admit it. To someone.”
He sighed and fingered the key in his hand. “You may be right. But what if he doesn’t know?” I opened my mouth to protest, but he pressed on, determined to make his point. “What if someone covered for him?”
I frowned, understanding what he was hinting at, and not liking that I had to consider it.
“You can’t tell me that Michael wouldn’t do just about anything to protect his brother.”
“But he’s the one who mentioned his worries over the missing girl and Sloane’s claims that he murdered someone at the asylum. Why admit what he did if he wants to protect his brother?”
“Maybe he feels guilty. Maybe he doesn’t know for sure his brother did anything wrong. Perhaps he covered up more than just the fact that his brother escaped the manor a few times unescorted. Michael wants to know the truth, but he’s not ready to condemn his brother yet.”
I scowled at him. “That’s an awful lot of supposition.”
“You’re right,” he admitted easily enough. “But the point I’m trying to make is that, while I believe William Dalmay is being honest, at least as much as his mental state has made him capable of, I think Michael has been deliberately misleading. And I think he has more yet to reveal.”
Gage’s pale eyes had gone hard, and I had to look away. I was forced to admit I held the same worries about Michael, and it was more than a little unsettling to find that a man I thought I could trust was turning out to be so unreliable. But it had happened before, and in far more difficult circumstances.
Gage unlocked the door and guided me through.