Page 9 of Kiss a Rake at Midnight

Four

SEVERAL TENSION-FILLED SECONDS LATER

“Yes. I’mSiobhanKenney. I’m not married.” She licked her dry lips before giving a weary sigh and plucking at the coverlet, the only outward sign of her nerves. “I regret that I deceived you.”

Swallowing, she gazed longingly at the water pitcher on a table near the window.

Hell’s clanging bells.

Fletcherstomped across the room, poured her a glass, and then tromped to the bed, where he thrust the water toward her. “Here.”

“Thank you,” she managed hoarsely.

Shedrank the entire glass before sinking back onto the pillows, her translucent eyelids closed. Her pulse beat a frantic rhythm at the juncture of her delicate throat and collarbone.

Fromfear or illness?

Didit matter?

Fletcherremoved the tumbler from her limp hand.

Sheslowly opened her eyes, despair and defeat darkening them to navy blue.

Despitehis anger, pity tried to rear her head.

Fletcherruthlessly tamped the unwanted emotion down.

Hewas the victim here, not Siobhan. Although, if he were perfectly fair, she might be a victim of her circumstances. Nevertheless, that didn’t give her the right to lie.

“DidI hear correctly? My brother and sister are here?”

Soshe had been awake.

Hegave a terse nod. “They are.”

“Could you please stop looming over me?” She stared up at him, not nearly as intimidated or remorseful as she ought to have been. “I feel like you’re an enraged panther about to spring, and I haven’t the strength to defend myself.”

Guiltpoked his ribs, and the tenderheartedness incensed him all the more. Nevertheless, he stepped backward two paces.

Shestared at some point across the room.

“Have you ever been hungry, Mr. Westbrook?”

Hepulled his eyebrows together.

“Have you ever wondered where your next meal will come from?” she asked, cutting him a brief glance before training her attention across the chamber again. She idly toyed with the sheet’s edge. “If you’ll have a place to live the next day? Or if your siblings will starve because your parents did not come home one day, and you still don’t know what happened to them?”

Fletchermentally ticked off each question with a silent “No.”

Shesounded as if she’d gargled glass, so rough and hoarse was her lilting accent. Fletcher didn’t doubt that emotion and grief also clogged her throat.

Now, at least, he knew why she and her siblings were alone. He made a mental note to ask Torrian and perhaps also Lucius to look into her parents’ disappearance.

“Have you tried to find a respectable position in an unfamiliar city, and the only job offered was to become a harlot?” she asked, though every word obviously pained her.

Fletchersuspected she bloody well knew the answers before she posed the questions.

Heshook his head, still not trusting himself to speak or to give her the satisfaction of being right.