I Adored a Lord by Katharine Ashe Page B

Grace’s.”
    â€œBut in this instance I am most sincere.”
    â€œI am not in the habit of forgiving.”
    â€œPerhaps you might make an exception this time.”
    â€œI don’t know why I should.”
    â€œConsider my injuries.” The dent deepened anew. “Perhaps I am already sufficiently punished.”
    She tried not to smile. “I won’t apologize for that.”
    â€œI never expected you to. Now may we put this unfortunate episode behind us and instead pretend to be two ­people who happened to become acquainted over spilled champagne?”
    â€œWhy should we pretend that?”
    â€œIt’s either that or the pitchfork.” His dark eyes glimmered.
    â€œAll right. But don’t do it again.”
    â€œKiss you in a stable or defend you from tabbies?”
    The heat was back in her face. “Either.”
    â€œI believe I can promise that.” He bowed again. “Good night, madam.” He walked away.
    Ravenna stared at his back but her cheeks still burned. She dragged her attention to the floor. Nothing there could make her feel peculiarly hot or unsteady as his shoulders and dark hair and the muscular lengths of his legs did.
    Where her gaze alit, a blot of dark liquid pooled about the pointed toe of a suit of armor. She crouched and studied the leak. It was not black but dark crimson and congealed. Blood. Undeniably, blood. Far too much blood for a mouse that might have gotten trapped in the armored foot, or even a cat. She sniffed. The scent that came to her was ripe like animal death yet unfamiliar, an odd oniony morbidity. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled.
    She stood and peered at the suit’s visor. The steel looked impenetrable, with a tiny slit over the eyes that was lost in shadow now, one of those old helmets from which she could not imagine how a knight would be able to see. She reached up and pried open the visor.
    She jolted back. The visor clanked shut. But she’d seen enough to make her hot skin turn clammy.
    â€œA student of medieval arms, are you, Miss Caulfield?” Lord Vitor’s voice echoed from the opposite end of the gallery. “And here I’d thought you preferred farm tools.”
    â€œThere is a dead man inside this suit.”
    He moved to her quite swiftly, no evidence of the injury she’d dealt him now in his gait.
    â€œI saw the blood on the floor from the foot,” she said as he came beside her. He lifted the visor, then lowered it and looked down at her. His sapphire eyes were no longer warm and laughing.
    â€œI pray you, go now, Miss Caulfield,” he said.
    â€œNo.”
    â€œGo now.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œGo. A lady should not see this.”
    â€œI’m not a lady. And I have seen dead bodies before.” That made her stomach tight. Beast’s grave was the freshest. She had laid him atop his favorite old blanket and wrapped the wool about him, then she had watered the dirt with her tears.
    â€œGo.”
    â€œI wonder who he is. That gold tooth wasn’t come by cheaply, so he’s certainly not a servant.”
    â€œHe was a man of more vanity than means.”
    She looked away from the corpse to the nobleman beside her and her stomach did a little jerk. He was so alive. It struck her as odd that she would think this, that she would notice a man’s aliveness. She had never done so before, even when confronted by death. But there was a depth of warm vitality to Lord Vitor Courtenay that shone in his eyes and the manner in which he stood with easy confidence.
    â€œHow do you know that?” she said.
    â€œHis name is Oliver Walsh. I have known him many years but I did not know he was to be a guest here.”
    â€œOh. I’m sorry.” She looked at the suit of armor again. “I suppose he became trapped in there and suffocated, though of course that wouldn’t explain the blood. We must—­”
    Lord Vitor grasped