The Unexpected Wife - Jess Michaels Page 0,59

her face, memorizing the bow of her lips, remembering how she tasted and felt in his arms. He skimmed through the images and sounds and feelings of every moment they had spent together since they met. And he nodded.

“It isn’t that I’m so very good at it naturally,” he said softly. “But that you have captured my attention so singularly that I cannot help but mark every tiny change in you. I see the way your hands clench in your lap, the way your cheek twitches ever so slightly and how your lips turn down just so. You’re troubled, and you don’t want to tell me why. But I want to hear it, Celeste. It’s the only way we can solve the problem.”

“She told me she didn’t kill Erasmus,” Celeste said. Then she folded her arms and arched a brow. “And I’m sure you will think me the biggest fool…but I believe her.”

Chapter 16

Owen hadn’t responded to her declaration, and Celeste shifted in her seat with increasing discomfort. Of course he would think her a fool now. Of course he would push her and her observations aside. She hated it, even if she’d known all along that it was how men treated women. Even ones who pretended respect and kindness always turned out this way in the end.

Still, she’d had to say it, hadn’t she? Had to defend Pippa in some way.

She lifted her chin. “My intuition may not be evidence, but I do trust it,” she continued. “I know what I saw and heard and felt.”

He wrinkled his brow. “Do you think I’m going to argue with you?”

She opened and shut her mouth as she gaped at him. Had she misread his reaction? “Well…yes.”

“I have no intention of doing so,” he assured her. “Had I no faith in you and your ability to understand and follow your instincts, I would never have asked for your help.” He folded his arms, which made his chest flex against his jacket a fraction. She tried not to focus on that. “May I ask some further questions?”

She blinked. “Er, yes. Of course. This is your case, after all.”

“What made you believe her?”

She pursed her lips as she replayed every interaction with Pippa since the beginning. Especially the conversation that very morning. “When we spoke of the murder, Pippa was so horrified by the idea. That Erasmus might have suffered in his last moments gave her no pleasure. Unlike me, she loved the man once, that was clear. She mourns him on some level, or what she believed him to once be.”

“But she was angry with him,” Owen said.

“Very much so,” Celeste agreed. “She is good at metering it, but it is there. Angry as she might be at his actions, though, she also didn’t seem to be bent on harming him for them.”

“She had no reason to tell you she wanted to defend someone else he’d harmed. If she were the culprit, I would think she’d try to avoid that at all costs. Perhaps even push blame.”

“Yes. She in no way tried to deny her emotions. Or that she might have wished Montgomery came to grief as atonement for his behavior at some point. But when it came to his murder, she was very clear. She would not and could not do something so terrible, Owen.”

He was examining her very closely now. As if she were the evidence he had to parse out. Then he nodded. “Sometimes those feelings that come deep within our soul are important. I have certainly put suspects lower on my list because I had a sense they could do no wrong, and vice versa. If you believe Phillipa, I accept that. She must remain on the list, but I will not put all my resources into the effort. There are better paths.”

She blinked. “So you…believe me?”

“Of course. I said as much, didn’t I?”

She couldn’t move for a moment—she was struck silent by that simple acknowledgment of her value as a partner and a person. When was the last time she’d felt such a thing? Years, perhaps. All the way back to when Harriet was her governess, probably, and had told her she was capable of so much more than what she had experienced most of her life.

And now this man sat across from her in a narrow carriage and gifted her with the same belief. The same acknowledgment. She couldn’t stop herself from launching herself across the carriage and into his arms. He caught her with a gasp