of prosciutto that Belle had been craving lately. Piling them into my arms, I ascended the stairs to the first floor. Peeking my head into our darkened bedroom, I was greeted by a sleepy smile.
Belle lay curled on her side, a blanket half wrapped around her legs. “Did they solve the case?”
“I think it’s likely going to prove to be a cold case,” I said, striding over as she reached to turn on a lamp on the nightstand.
She pushed up in bed, crossing her legs under her and pulled the blanket up to her neck, shivering. “I guess a house this old has history.”
“I wish the history wasn’t in our wine cellar,” I grumbled, opening the package of cheese for her. “We can pop into the village for a bite. I’m sure the pub’s open.”
“This is fine,” she said, picking a grape from its stem. “I’m not that hungry.”
“You’re not that hungry?” I repeated, sure I’d heard her wrong.
She threw a grape at me, and it bounced off my nose. “You make me sound like a pig.”
“No!” I jumped in, afraid this would spiral into a hormone-drenched misunderstanding. “You just had a swim earlier, and we never got dinner.”
“I guess…” Her blue eyes darted to me before returning to study the meager spread I’d scrounged together. “It just spooked me and then with everything else, I’m too anxious to be hungry.”
“Well, the spoils of our archeological digs will be removed tomorrow,” I informed her, “and the wine cellar is getting done on time.”
“What? How? It was already behind and now they have to wait for someone to come and take away bones.” She shivered again and I realized it—and the blanket—had nothing to do with her being cold. She was genuinely frightened.
I moved closer to her, and she relaxed some. “They’re going to work over the weekend to catch up on the wine cellar, and we’re going to London until it’s finished. The whole thing. I’m not coming back here until every last hammer has been removed from this bloody place.”
She dropped the blanket, a wide smile carving across her lips. We’d made it all of it two nights in Sussex before going back to London for at least a week—if not more—and she couldn’t be more pleased. “Really? I need to call Edward and Clara and—”
“Done,” I stopped her. “I texted them as soon as I made the arrangements with Benjamin. I need to meet with some business associates anyway.”
“Business associates?” She cocked an eyebrow. “What about friends?”
“I don’t have friends,” I said brusquely.
“Yes, you do.”
“I have your friends who happen to usually need me to do something for them.” I leaned over and kissed her forehead. “That makes us business associates.”
“What about Georgia?” she pressed.
“Don’t let Georgia catch you calling her a friend,” I advised. In truth, Georgia Kincaid was more than a friend to me, but not in the typical way. The bond we shared was more like those between a brother and sister. We’d both grown up under the thumb of a sinister sociopath, so like most families, our bond hinged largely on shared traumatic experiences.
“Are you going to talk to Alexander?” she asked quietly.
We’d been tiptoeing around the topic for weeks. Although we had seen our inner circle a number of times since we bought Thornham, things had shifted between all of us. Alexander, a man I butted heads with as much as I’d grown to respect him, had become increasingly insular after his wife had nearly died in a thwarted kidnapping. I couldn’t blame him for being protective of her, but I hadn’t been ready to swear fealty to him either. I had my own wife and child to worry about now. I knew he understood that, but it left our ends at odds with one another.
“Maybe I should invite Nora,” Belle said, chewing another grape. “Get a chance to know her a little better.”
“Who?” I asked, still half caught in my own thoughts.
“Nora. The last girl we interviewed,” she said, screwing up her face. “I know you didn’t forget her. She’s gorgeous.”
I tilted my head, sorting through my memories of today. There were a lot of them. “The last one? She seemed nice. I don’t remember her being particularly pretty. What was her name again?”
I didn’t remember. I wasn’t just saying that to appease my very pregnant wife.
“No-ra,” Belle said with a roll of her eyes that made me think about spanking her attitude right out of her. “And don’t tell me you