A shrill voice sounded from the corridor, and Georgina shoved the stockings back under the bed before pushing to her feet.
Robert heard a low rumbling murmur and an unmistakable Highland accent, and then Ian Cameron was standing in the doorway, looking rather large and rather foreboding and rather angry. That notch between his eyebrows was back, and his jaw was clenched so tightly a muscle jumped in his cheek.
The gray of his eyes was like glass shards.
“What are ye doing in my room?” he asked, voice seething with something dark and angry.
He certainly wasn’t cold now.
Chapter Four
Robert glanced around for exits. But Cameron was blocking the only viable one. He could fling himself out the window, but he might die from the fall…
He tried to determine which risk had the better odds of survival, a fall from two or three stories or a confrontation with the nearly six-foot, muscle-bound, angry Scotsman in front of him.
“I’ll just see to Mr. and Mrs. Worthington,” Georgina said, slipping past Cameron.
She was leaving him? With Cameron? The bloody little traitor!
Before she left, she gave a pointed look to Robert, but he had no idea what she was trying to say—he was too focused on how Cameron seemed to suck out every spare inch of oxygen from a room when he was mad.
Robert knew Cameron’s anger wasn’t unwarranted. He knew he’d trespassed. He knew it was an abuse of his authority, even if he hadn’t felt like he’d had any other choice.
Still, he found himself strangely fascinated by this side of the other man. How could he run so cold and then burn so hot? What did it take to light that spark? Trespassing in his private domain, yes, but what else? What else would push him over?
Georgina shut the door behind them.
“What is this?” Cameron growled.
Robert was a little less fascinated by his anger when he was shut in a room with him. “There has been an incident. The Worthingtons have noticed some of their possessions missing.”
“Missing?” Cameron caught on quickly, a hard light burning in his eyes. For all his taciturn act, he wasn’t a stupid man. “And ye think ye might find them here?”
“We did,” Robert said.
“What?”
He folded his arms over his chest. He wouldn’t let Cameron intimidate him. People tended to think of Robert as a kind man, and some people associated kindness with weakness. But it wasn’t true. If someone pushed him, he would push back. “Look under the bed.”
Cameron studied him suspiciously but finally crouched by the bed. He stiffened, face blank, at what he saw when he peered beneath it. Then he drew out a pair of red silk stockings and threw them on the bed like they might be a viper ready to strike.
“Is this some sort of joke?”
“No. Did you take them?”
“No.”
He seemed sincere. He seemed shocked that he’d even be accused of such a thing.
“Well, I wouldn’t have thought stealing women’s undergarments was a pastime of yours, but one never can tell.”
Cameron’s hands clenched, and Robert wondered if he was contemplating strangling him.
But he couldn’t.
Ian Cameron was at Robert’s mercy, and he knew it, and Robert could tell he hated it.
A jolt went through Robert. A savage, biting satisfaction. Robert knew this was not an appropriate reaction to have. He was, possibly, a horrible person.
Or maybe Cameron should have been nicer to him. All of those olive branches he’d tried to extend after Cameron had taken up residence at Llynmore, all of those jests, met with nothing but a blank stare, all of the man’s indifferent remarks that somehow still cut with condescension.
Robert was being petty. But Ian Cameron was a coldhearted bastard. Robert could allow himself this small moment of pettiness, couldn’t he?
“Red doesn’t suit you, though. Clashes with that hair. I would have chosen green, if I were you.”
Cameron made a harsh noise in the back of his throat. It was the most reaction he’d ever had from Cameron when he’d made a quip. Robert felt his mouth curve.
“This isna a laughing matter.”
“No?” He moved closer to the other man, feeling like he was baiting a bear, but unable to stop himself. When he was within an arm’s length of him, he reached out, a little stunned by his own nerve, and brushed a piece of imaginary lint from Cameron’s shoulder, pulse quickening at the feeling of hard bone and heat beneath his palm.
“There’s nothing wrong with having a taste for fine silk things, Cameron. But stealing them, on the other hand…stealing I can’t condone.”
When Cameron’s hand closed around his forearm in a tight, painful grip, Robert wasn’t even surprised. He almost welcomed it. The force of Cameron’s grip pushed him backward a step, and the backs of his knees hit the bed.
He imagined falling and dragging Cameron with him. He felt Cameron’s hand around his arm like a branding iron. Lust shot through him, fast as quicksilver.
“I didna steal,” Cameron growled, so close that his hot breath fanned across Robert’s mouth. Robert’s lips parted, and for an instant, they breathed the same breath. “I’m not a thief.”
His eyes went to the stockings on the bed and then back to Cameron. “It doesn’t look that way.”
“Townsend.”
That was all he had to say. Robert’s last name. And it wasn’t even said with any particular pleading…it sounded more obstinate than anything else. But the initial rush of power he’d felt dwindled down to a piercing guilt.
What was he doing?
Cameron was a step away from being accused of theft and Robert was toying with him? Maybe Robert thought Cameron deserved to be taken down a peg, but this just felt vindictive, and he’d never thought of himself as a vindictive person.
Trust Cameron to be the one to bring out that undiscovered side of himself. And trust him to make Robert feel guilty for it the very next second. Why couldn’t he be attracted to someone who didn’t make him feel so many contradictory things?
Robert sighed heavily. “I know this isn’t a laughing matter.”
Cameron searched his face. When he found whatever he was looking for, he let go of Robert’s arm, and Robert sat on the bed, already missing the pressure and the heat. He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.
“Stealing is a serious offense. If I tell the Worthingtons what we found,” he continued, “they’ll no doubt expect your immediate dismissal, at the very least.”
“If?”
Robert lifted an eyebrow.
“You said if.”
“I haven’t decided what to do yet. There were other missing items, and we didn’t find those.”
“I didn’t steal the stockings.”
Robert was inclined to believe him, but he wished he could be sure. He wished Theo were here—he could take charge, make the tough decisions. Robert could smooth over the tension with quips. That was what he did. That was how he worked.
He felt useless otherwise. Awkward. Like he was putting on a coat that was too big for him.
But he needed to start acting like he knew what he was doing and hope the lie turned to truth. He thought about the kinds of things a constable might ask—not Constable Whitley, though, who always asked the wrong things. He straightened, questions and possible motives running through his mind.
“Does anyone have reason to want to ruin you? Anyone at Llynmore?”
“No. But someone must, if they put those in my room.” He nodded at the stockings warily, as if just looking at them was a grievance of the worst sort.
“Maybe they simply didn’t appreciate your genial personality?”
The look Cameron shot him would have cut glass. Robert smiled mildly in return. He wasn’t one to be deliberately cruel, but he wasn’t past needling him a bit. It wasn’t like he didn’t deserve it.
“I’ll take these.” Robert said, folding the stockings and slipping them into his waistcoat. “We need to find out who’s behind this treachery and recover the other missing items. There are only so many people in the house…it shouldn’t be impossible to narrow down the culprits.”