Free Clandestine by Julia Ross

Her blood thinned into water.
    He spun around, his gaze stark. “You must have far more faith in me than this, ma’am, if I’m to continue to search for your cousin.”
    Goose bumps rose on her arms. “You’ve already tried to find her?”
    â€œHow do you think I spent most of yesterday? Why do you suppose I was so late arriving here tonight, and thus had to enlist Ryder and Jack? I’ve done nothing but hunt for Rachel Mansard since you left me in the bookshop. I thought you’d have surmised as much.”
    Fear clenched in her stomach. “And you’ve discovered something terrible?”
    â€œNo! God! Nothing to immediately alarm you, or I should have broken the news right away.” He strode back across the room as if demons nipped at his boot heels. “I have every reason to believe that Miss Mansard is perfectly safe. She certainly wasn’t abducted. So, yes, perhaps I have been testing you. Why not? Why should I accept the unproven word of a stranger? However, you may rest assured that I’m absolutely convinced now of your honesty.”
    â€œSo you have been hiding something?”
    His gaze might devour shadows. “I simply hesitated to tell you how many of your assumptions about your cousin are misplaced.”
    The implications broke and scattered in her mind. “You mean to suggest that Rachel ran away voluntarily? Or even… eloped ? That’s impossible! Why would you even suggest such a thing? She feared and hated this admirer!”
    â€œI strongly suspect that the man she described doesn’t even exist.”
    â€œYou think she was lying to me?”
    He stopped again at the fireplace. Dried flowers shredded in his fingers to rain into the cold grate. “Devil take it, but I know of no way to soften this!”
    â€œI remember,” Sarah replied with rigid determination, “when Rachel and I were caught outside once in a summer squall. Black clouds ripped suddenly across the blue sky. Our picnic baskets bowled away. Our dresses flapped liked flags as we tried to hold on to our bonnets—until hail obliterated all of our gaiety. That’s how I feel right now, as if I were drenched once again in that icy downpour. You don’t need to spare my sensibilities, sir. I’m a widow in my mid-twenties. Please, tell me the truth!”
    His eyes darkened, as if Oberon, too, had just seen his bright kingdom swept away in a gale.
    â€œThen pray sit down, ma’am! I don’t believe that Miss Rachel Mansard is in any direct danger at the moment, but neither is she quite what you think.”

C HAPTER F OUR
    S HE DROPPED ONTO A SOFA AS IF HE HAD CUFFED HER, YET she looked up at him with unbending courage.
    â€œIn what way, sir? I think I can claim to know my own cousin. Please, tell me exactly what you believe you’ve discovered.”
    Guy paced back to the window. “Even if that might require me to tread the uncomfortable path between deception and unkindness?”
    â€œI need to hear everything, sir, whether or not you believe it is kind.”
    His veins thrummed with the triumphant intensity of hot male blood. He had touched her three times. The first through the medium of the orchid petals. The second just to remove her headdress. The third to allow his fingertips to caress her hot, naked skin and bright hair.
    He had needed to distract her before she stumbled too close to certain truths, but she had responded as a cat responds to the sun: torn between basking and seeking the cool of the dark, acutely tuned to sensation.
    Yet something about Sarah Callaway disturbed him far more deeply than that sensual recognition.
    Reflections wavered on the glass as if myriad candles floated outside in the darkness. Dancing, counterfeit flames. He would not lie to her, but he most certainly could not tell her the whole truth, even though he needed every scrap of information she could give him. It was going to be like