Free Celeste Bradley - [The Liar's Club 02] by The Impostor Page B

sounded as though he were standing right beside her, murmuring into her ear.
    Then she took in his meaning. He could not truly see her, she was sure of it. How then had he known that she was female?
    “I can smell your scent, my flower,” he said with a chuckle, though she had not spoken the thought. “And I can just see your pale bit of a face.”
    The fellow shifted his stance, slowly moving his hands up and settling them into his pockets. With his form clearly in profile now, Clara could see that he was a fit fellow, tall and powerful.
    Oddly, that didn’t add to her unease. If he’d wanted to attack, surely he could have done so by now. As it was, he reminded her of a man trying to ease his wayinto acquaintance with a gentle wild thing.
    “Will you not come forward then, little one?” the fellow said softly after a moment. “I’d not meant to frighten anyone.”
    His deep voice eased her fear with his soothing tone. The knot of fear in her belly untied itself, but the strings still thrummed with tension. She felt dizzy, unsettled by him, although that could be the result of scarcely breathing for so long.
    “Why are you here?” she whispered.
    “Not to do you harm, I swear to ye.”
    “Well, you’re not here to clean the windows,” she retorted.
    He laughed softly, still maintaining his position. ‘True enough, my rose.”
    Rose?
“Why—why do you call me that?”
    “I smell roses on you.”
    The soap she’d used for her bath this eve. A tiny joke with herself, using rose soap when she would be playing Rose.
    The nightmare feeling was becoming more dreamlike by the moment. Here she stood, conversing with an undoubtedly dangerous stranger in a dark attic in the middle of the night.
    Hardly the place for a proper lady to be.
    She was not afraid of him, she realized, but was not startled by that, still caught up in the unreality of it all. She felt pulled to him, drawn by his attempts to reassure her. She wished the moon would come out from behind the clouds the better to see him, but the sky was impenetrable and the lamplight from the square was entirely inadequate. There was only the dimness and the man.
    As if he had her insides on a string, he pulled herwith his voice. “Will you not come closer, pretty rose? There’s no need to hide in the shadows.”
    She took one step, then another. He turned his head as if to listen to the gentle grating of her shoes upon the floor and she saw the dark mask wrapped round the top of his face.
    “A thief.” She froze once more. “You’re naught but a thief.”
    He said nothing for a moment, then nodded. “You could say that, but I’ve not come to steal from you.”
    “Not from me? How do you know I’m not the lady of the house, and will call down the law upon your head?”
    “You may be a princess in your own right, my rose, but you’re no fine lady, by your voice.”
    Clara realized that she’d kept Rose’s uncultured accents throughout the exchange, and blessed herself for unwitting cleverness. He thought her a simple chambermaid, and therefore of little consequence, as long as he could persuade her not to give alarm to the household.
    And truly, a thief in Wadsworth’s home was hardly a bad thing, was it? If anyone deserved a stiff robbing, it was the master.
    “No, I’m no princess, nor a lady fine.” She stepped closer once more, her curiosity overcoming the last of her fear. “And you’re no gentleman, but a common parlor thief.”
    “Nay, not common at all.” He chuckled. “Are you not afraid, then?”
    “No.” She truly wasn’t, though she was foolish to be so trusting. Still, aside from his teasing with the trunk he’d been nothing but respectful so far, though he had her quite alone. Which was more than she could say of the majority of Wadsworth’s guests. Many was the eveningshe took home a few bruises from fingers pinching in unmentionable places.
    “I ought to call out,” she mused aloud. “I ought to run for the stairs and