Secrets of Sloane House(37)

He waved her comment off impatiently. “What else?”

She didn’t know what he meant. More importantly, she didn’t want to know. Hoping she was only imagining trouble where there was none, she took another step down, moving to the side as she did. “Please let me by.”

But instead of moving to the side, the footman stood straighter, looking as immovable as one of the city’s tall skyscrapers. “In a minute.” His smile was a bit cooler than it had been a few days before, his eyes a bit more calculating. “Perhaps I need a favor before I move.”

Watching as he inhaled, then blew out another whiff of smoke, she blinked, suddenly nervous. “I’m sure I don’t know what sort of favor I could possibly grant you.”

A flash of humor appeared in his eyes. “I can think of all sorts of things.”

Her pulse quickened. “I don’t know what you mean.” Suddenly worried about being alone with him, at his mercy, she cleared her throat. “I must go. Cook is looking for me. She’ll give me the worst jobs if I’m late.”

A hand stretched out. Wrapped itself around her forearm. “Don’t worry,” he murmured. “I’ll let you go. In just a moment.” He leaned forward, bringing with him the aura of tobacco and a deep masculine scent tinged with a faint hint of lime. “You’ve been a busy girl, haven’t you?” he whispered. “First, I seen you talking in the hall with Mr. Douglass himself. Then, just a few days ago, all sorts of people watched you sit on the bench in the park with none other than Mr. Armstrong. The two of you looked so cozy too.”

Yet again, Rosalind wished she had been more circumspect. And though she ached to remove her arm from his grasp and retreat, she began to wonder if he was the one who had done something to her sister. Perhaps this was a pattern of his? “Why have you been watching me?”

“It’s hard not to watch you and wonder. After all, very few women in your situation take so many chances.” He exhaled a last bit of smoke before snuffing the end of the cigarette under the toe of a well-polished shoe.

Then his eyes narrowed. “So . . . what I want to know, what I am so very curious about, is why you are meeting with all these men. Why are they seeking you out? What are they offering you, Rosalind?” Then his lips curved upward. “And what does it take to make you say yes?”

She was shocked. And frightened. And . . . and late! “They are offering me nothing. And furthermore, my conversations are certainly none of your business.”

“They could be. Or do I have it all wrong?”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Of course you do. You must. All I am saying is that there’s no need to set your sights up to men so high above your station. You know you mean nothing to them, after all.” He leaned closer. “If you’re a lonely girl, you only have to look right here.”

“You shouldn’t be speaking of such things.”

“Why? No matter what you might tell yourself in the dark, or in those gentlemen’s company, you’re no lady, Rosalind.”

“Let me pass.”

“In a moment,” he said again. “You still haven’t told me why you were talking to Mr. Armstrong. Or did he just happen to see a maid and decide to pass time talking about the weather?” Jerome’s eyebrows waggled. “Does he do this a lot now?”

She hated the leer. Hated that they’d been seen and now were being talked about.

Hated that she knew without a doubt that she was going to have to see Mr. Armstrong again. Even if it compromised her reputation, she couldn’t dare to not use all of his influence and contacts to uncover what had happened to her sister.

That reminder made her voice harder. “Let me pass.”

“Not yet. I still have no answers,” he said softly. “Everyone is wondering what he did to break down some of those chilly walls of yours and actually give a man the time of day. What did he do? Or is it that he is wealthy?”

“It was nothing.” She was frightened now. Jerome was not backing off, which meant that she was at his mercy for however long he wished to speak.

Frantically, she prayed for the sound of another pair of footsteps on the stairwell or the echo of voices from the servants’ hall. But only silence surrounded them. No one would hear her if she cried out. No one would know how terrified she’d become.

Using the last of her willpower, she said, “Cook is going to be wondering what happened to me. I really must be on my way. Now.”

But he ignored her pleas yet again. “You mustn’t act so shocked. It’s not like things like this don’t happen all the time.”