“I have nothing to hide.” Yet he looked away.
“Really? Because I had the strangest feeling that maybe you recognized the victim.” She watched him closely, and observed the slight jerk his body gave before he shot her a furious look.
“That’s ridiculous! Why would I know the dead harlot?”
“You tell me.”
“I have nothing to tell.”
“How about where you were last Sunday? Did you leave the castle?”
He remained silent.
“You know, it would be easy enough to find out, I suppose,” she mused. “I doubt if you walked. So someone from the stables must have seen you. Maybe even helped you.”
His mouth tightened. “What has this to do with you?”
“I’m assisting the Duke in this matter of the girl’s death,” she said in her most neutral tone. “So tell me . . . why did you leave the castle that night? Where did you go?”
“Who said I left?”
“You’re working too hard for it to be otherwise. Where did you go?”
He stared at her, saying nothing.
Kendra sighed. “Do you want the Duke to ask you these questions? It might be easier if you told me the truth, my Lord.”
He scowled. “To the village, if you must know. Harcourt and I went to the cockfight at the King’s Head.”
“Captain Harcourt left the castle as well?”
“I just said so, didn’t I?”
“You were together all night?”
Gabriel’s gaze slid past her, darkening. She didn’t have to turn around to know that Alec had joined them on the veranda.
“Gabriel.” Alec eyed his brother coldly. “You and Miss Donovan have been out here long enough. People have begun to talk.”
Gabriel stiffened. “I didn’t know you were so bloody concerned with propriety,” he sneered, slanting his gaze back to Kendra. “Miss Donovan isn’t. Miss Donovan has no sense whatsoever.”
“Go inside, Gabe. Go to your room. You’re disguised. Sleep it off.”
“Devil take it! Stop talking to me like that, like I’m some sort of half-wit.” Gabriel glared at his brother, but pivoted for the French doors. His gait was only slightly unsteady as he stalked through them.
Kendra’s mouth tightened as she looked at Alec. “You might not like it, but your brother fits the profile. You can’t ignore the evidence.”
Alec said nothing, just looked at her.
“He left the castle on the night of the murder,” she told him flatly. “He and Captain Harcourt. They went to a cockfight in the village.”
“Then they alibi each other.”
“Maybe. It has to be checked out.”
“I shall take care of my brother, Miss Donovan.”
“Dammit, you can’t look the other way.”
“You need to worry less about my brother’s actions and more about your own. You should never have come outside alone with a man who is not a relative. Have you no thought to your reputation at all?”
“Oh, please. I’ve been out here five minutes, tops.”
His expression was grim as he grabbed her upper arm to steer her back into the drawing room. “My dear, that is five minutes too long.”
28
Alec passed a sleepless night, which he blamed mostly on Kendra Donovan. Who the devil was she? And how dare she question his brother’s behavior?
You can’t ignore the evidence. You can’t look the other way.
Hell and damnation. At dawn, he gave up chasing sleep, and dressed himself in riding clothes. There was no sense wakening Ramsey, his valet. The castle was silent, with most everyone still abed as he slipped through the corridors and out the door, walking the path to the stables. There, a sleepy boy woke to saddle his Arabian, Chance. Alec spent the next two hours exercising the beast, galloping through meadows still slick with morning dew, while his mind circled the puzzle that was Kendra Donovan, as well as Gabriel’s erratic behavior.
By the time he returned to the stables, he was no closer to having any answers, but he felt clearheaded. With a determined stride, he went to his brother’s bedchamber and rapped on the door.
It opened, and Finch, Gabriel’s valet, stared out, dark-eyed and haughty. The haughtiness vanished as soon as he recognized Alec.
“My Lord. Good morning.” His voice was low and dignified. “I must inform you that Lord Gabriel has yet to awaken.”
“Not to worry, Finch.” He shouldered his way past the startled manservant into the darkened room. “I shall wake him.”
Alec glanced at his brother, who was sprawled on his stomach diagonally across the bed, his tousled dark head turned toward the wall. He crossed the room to the windows, and began removing the wooden shutters that kept the morning sun at bay.
“Get up, Gabriel. ’Tis already nine.”
Behind him, Gabriel shifted, burrowing into the pillows. Alec thought he heard a muffled groan.
“My Lord, perhaps if I’d—”
“Go have your breakfast, Finch. I’d like to speak with my brother.”