to say something, do something.
But he didn’t speak, didn’t reach for her, didn’t even sigh. He simply sat there, his body tensed, gazing at her.
She’d broken her promise to him. She’d sworn she wouldn’t venture outside the castle, then she’d done it anyway. Worse, she’d done it at night, and alone, utterly careless of her own safety.
Anything might have happened to her. It almost had happened.
“Gideon, I…I’m sorry I—”
Cecilia broke off with a gasp as he shot to his feet. She gazed up at him when he stopped beside her bed, her lower lip caught between her teeth. “I know I promised I wouldn’t—”
She broke off again, this time with a faint cry as he leaned down, and without any warning or so much as a by your leave, scooped her up into his arms, coverlet and all.
“Gideon!” She clutched at his coat to steady herself, the fine wool wet to the touch, damp all the way through to the silk lining and his heated skin beneath. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t answer. He strode across the room to the door that connected their bedchambers without a single word, and passed through it with her still in his arms. He didn’t stop until he reached his bed, then he lay her down and tugged his thick coverlet over her. “My bedchamber is warmer than yours. You’re staying here until you stop shaking with cold.”
Half-formed warnings, arguments, a protest that she shouldn’t be in his bedchamber, much less his bed, all rushed to Cecilia’s lips, but each of them died a withering death before she spoke them.
This was where she wanted to be, where she needed to be. Not because his bedchamber was warmer than hers, but because Gideon was here, and he was the warmest thing she’d ever known. Even if it was only for tonight, this was where she belonged. “Gideon, I—”
“Shhh.” He stirred the banked fire until it was blazing again, then turned back to her. “Are you warm enough?”
Cecilia nodded, eyes widening as he drew closer. His voice was gentle, but his lips were pressed into a stern line.
“You broke your promise to me, Cecilia. Why?” Gideon stopped halfway between the fireplace and the bed, waiting for her answer.
“I did, yes. I, ah…realized I’d left my sketchbook in the kitchen garden when I was out with Isabella the other day.” Cecilia swallowed. “I—it began to snow. I didn’t want it to be ruined, so I just nipped out to fetch it.”
“Your sketchbook,” Gideon repeated, searching her face.
“Yes. I’m sorry, Gideon. I should have waited until morning.” She was sorry, so sorry to lie to him, but there were so many unanswered questions still, so many mysteries as yet unsolved…
Cecilia peeked up at him from under her lashes, hesitating. She’d prodded and poked into every corner of this castle, searched his attics and quizzed his servants, but the one thing she hadn’t done was simply ask Gideon for the truth. “Gideon, why have you insisted Lady Cassandra’s bedchamber remain locked all these months?”
He blinked, surprised at the question. “Because of Isabella.”
“Isabella?” What did Isabella have to do with Lady Cassandra’s bedchamber?
Gideon blew out a breath. “A week after Cassandra died, Isabella woke in the night and crept into Cassandra’s bedchamber, searching for her. I found her there the next morning, huddled in Cassandra’s bed, shivering, with dried tears on her cheeks. It was…” He dragged a hand through his hair, his face pained. “Unbearable. After it happened a second time, I had the bedchamber doors locked.”
Cecilia gazed up at him, her throat working, and wondered why she hadn’t known it at once, when everything he was, everything he did, was for Isabella’s sake. “I…yes, I see.” She wanted to say more, to tell him everything then—her real reasons for venturing into the garden tonight, what she’d read in Cassandra’s diary, her suspicions about Cassandra’s death, but she bit her lip before any of these truths could spill out.
Because they weren’t truths. Not yet. They were suspicions only. She had no evidence, just her instincts and a half-dozen of the purple-tipped stalks she’d picked in the garden tonight, hidden in her apron pocket. There were too many uncertainties still, too many questions she had no answers to. She wouldn’t turn Gideon’s world upside down until she knew beyond a doubt that she was right.
“I asked you to remain inside the castle because I was concerned for your safety.” Gideon drew closer and pressed gentle fingers to her lips, hushing