Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
As any gentleman would, Logan waited until the door clicked shut behind them before the words burst from his mouth.
“How dare you?” Haven’s look of utter shock did nothing to assuage his anger. “How dare you take my hospitality, sit down to eat at my dinner table, make merry with my friends and family, and still have the unfathomable gall to commit acts of vandalism against me?”
That seemed to snap her from her stupor. She drew up to her full height and ground out through clinched teeth, “What are you talking about?”
He swore. “Don’t deny it.”
Bile flooded his throat when he thought of how this evening had spiraled downward from the moment he stepped into the drawing room with her on his arm.
What a fool he’d been to feel anything but indifference for her.
After Miss Hughes’s performance, he wanted nothing more than to speak with Haven, hear her husky voice, see the hungry fire in her eyes, and taste the sweet, addicting heat of her lips.
Like an ardent schoolboy, he’d considered taking her into the garden to lavish her with attention under the glimmering stars.
But first, he had to escort his guests to the door.
Harry exclaimed that the evening had been a success, and Logan, though he hadn’t entirely agreed, nodded and thanked him for attending.
Lady Bleydon and Miss Hughes stopped to thank him, the former barely batting an eye, and the latter offering him a smile reminiscent of her brother’s. The twin Krogers were the last to offer their goodbyes.
Mr. Kroger’s cold eyes raked him when he thanked him for a pleasurable evening.
The sister’s eyes were just as cold, but her hand against his arm was not.
She’d gently touched him, and while that alone wasn’t a reason to balk, the waves of intent gave him pause. Harry had warned him of her desire to catch a wealthy husband, so Logan was inclined to be polite, but not so much it gave the impression of interest.
When it came to the Marriage Mart, flirting, or not flirting, was a complicated and diabolical orchestra.
Each person--scheming mothers, marriage-minded daughters, bachelors with pockets to let, and fathers with gambling debts--were musicians; skilled with their instruments, capable of weaving a symphony so complex, listeners were left dumbfounded.
He didn’t care for orchestral music, or flirting for that matter, so he ignored her intrusive limb, and bid her goodnight without drawing attention to it.
Once the Bleydon carriage disappeared down the drive, he turned to make his way back to the woman who’d haunted him all evening, but before he could, Connors approached, his usually animated face paled.
Alarm bells rang even before the butler spoke.
Logan listened while the older man explained that he’d been directing the maids to dust the gold inlaid portrait frames in the Grand Gallery.
When the servant’s dinner hour arrived, they left their work to dine.
When they returned to finish, they’d discovered one of the portraits had been cut to ribbons and left hanging in pieces.
Terrified one of his own subordinates committed the act, Connors looked for evidence of the culprit.
Long moments passed before he found something had fallen behind the table nearest the ruined portrait.
When the butler finished his story, he held out the object he’d found.
It was a single white glove.
Now, standing before Haven and her gloveless hand, he was unable to deny the fire of his outrage. He couldn’t trust his voice, so he simply held out the glove, and waited for her to claim it. When she stared at the silken snare with a look of shock on her face, he knew she’d been caught.
The heat of his anger exploded.
“I can see you know this is yours,” he bit out.
She didn’t take her gaze from the glove. “Is it?”
Bitter fury nipped at his heels, but he forced calm into his voice and clarity into his mind.
“Come now, Miss Edwards, you cannot deny this is your glove, the glove you are currently missing.” He didn’t want to believe she could do something so heinous, but the evidence couldn’t be refuted.
“From where were you coming when we met in the hallway? You looked out of breath and agitated.”
She pursed her lips, jutted out her perky little chin, and leveled her eyes at him.
“Isn’t it strange that, again, I find myself in the middle of an inquisition in this room?
” She lifted her arms and did a half spin to indicate the whole of the study.
He tried to ignore the way her chest heaved upward when she stretched her arms over her head.
Her luscious bosom nearly spilled from her bodice.
Visions of her breasts tumbling from her dress into his eager hands flooded his mind, and he groaned.
His anger quickly turning to ardor, he retorted, “Not strange at all considering this is the room where I carry out most estate business, and crimes of vandalism against my property are estate business—so is the thorough questioning of a suspected thief.” His arched words of crimes and business lessened his desire a bit, but they didn’t squelch the heat entirely.
Damn it.
She placed her hands on her hips, and strode toward him.
Peeling his mind from thoughts of her shapely hips, his gaze caught on the creamy, naked flesh of her left hand, the place where her glove should have been, but wasn’t.
The ugly truth was it had been on the floor of the Great Gallery beneath a destroyed portrait.
He welcomed the rising outrage, more than ready to rid his body and mind of the urge to touch her. Taste her. Hear her groan against him.
Within mere seconds, she stood before him, and the fiery green gems of her eyes did something unwelcome to his insides. The heat of desire thickened between them. Much like his cock.
Damn it, again.
Haven wanted to punch him so hard his ancestors and descendants would feel it.
The urge to do something physical with him wasn’t a new one, but he frustrated the hell out of her.
How could he make her feel like the most beautiful, desirable being on earth, and then like the lowliest of common criminals all within the space of an evening?
She took a deep, fortifying breath to stave off the urge to stomp her foot and bellow in anger.
She had nothing to lose with the truth.
“I don’t know for sure if it’s my glove.
” She glared when he opened his mouth to respond.
“I don’t know if it’s my glove because my glove went missing from the table outside the powder room.
” She couldn’t reign in the nervous energy and building sexual tension.
She paced. “They bunched around my knuckles, and I didn’t want to get them wet, so I took them off, and put them on the table beside the door.
I finished up in maybe ten minutes, but when I came out into the corridor, my glove was gone. ”
His disbelief in her statement was written on his stormy face. “So what you’re saying is someone stole your glove, destroyed a portrait, and left your glove in an attempt to implicate you in a crime?”
“I don’t know,” she ground out. “It sounds crazy when you say it out loud, but I do know I didn’t destroy any painting, so what other explanation is there?”
“Miss Edwards, who could possibly want to incriminate you? What motive would they have? You’re from 208 years into the future, and haven’t been here more than four days. Who’ve you met who’d dislike you enough to do that?”
She stopped pacing.
No one came to mind.
He ran his fingers through his hair, and blew a heavy breath.
“Why should I believe you?”
It felt like he slapped her.
Rage roiled.
“You make it sound like I landed here, and then made it my mission to lie, steal, and destroy my way through your family. I didn’t ask to be here.
I didn’t ask to be left here without answers.
I didn’t ask to be stuffed into itchy dresses.
I didn’t ask to spend every day without my best friends, unable to get a message to them to tell them I’m all right.
” Her voice caught. “They must be dying of worry.”
A soft sob interrupted her tirade.
She despised her own weakness.
Life had thrown her enough curveballs to fill a stadium, so why did this hurt so much?
Her lips trembling, she continued, “I didn’t ask to turn to jelly whenever you look at me.
I didn’t ask to eat strange foods that all taste like how beige looks.
I didn’t ask to be spied on and creeped out, or for someone to steal my glove, and try to frame me for ruining your precious portrait.
And I certainly didn’t ask you to grind me under your boot like an insignificant bug.
I didn’t ask for your anger or your suspicions or your pity when I say or do something wrong.
Mostly I didn’t ask for you to hate me.”
When the last words finished ringing in the near silence, she slumped into the closest chair, and buried her face in her hands.
For all the angry, painful words she’d blurted like an idiot, she only had pride left.
There was nothing in 1817 she could call her own other than the things she brought with her.
How could a dying cell phone, stinky workout clothes, and portable Bluetooth speakers help?
She’d shoved everything she owned into the back of an armoire, in the dark.
Forgotten.
Minutes ticked by in silence. Did he walk out of the room without saying anything?
He’d done it before.
Braving the world outside the warm, unrealistic safety of her cupped hands, she raised her head.
Her heart skipped a beat.
He was now standing just feet from her. He’d moved quite stealthily for a large man.
His hands rested at his sides, his head bent, jaw tight, lips pursed, and his black eyes peered down at her with a look of confusion so profound she would’ve laughed if the tension in the room weren’t so oppressive.