Page 38 of The Sinner's Bargain

He led the way down the corridor to the grand stairs. It wasn’t the one I’d found that morning, but Lacroix was right about the doors being on that side. They were right at the base.

We turned left, the opposite direction from the dining room with a similar corridor lined with closed doors and chandeliers roped with gossamer threads of silver. That seemed to be the theme of the place. Dust. Mother would never have allowed such a display, especially when the house itself was a work of art. Someone, at some point, had put their heart and soul into creating a home unlike any other and it was being neglected and abused.

My heart ached for it. For the loss of such love.

“Miss Smith?”

My escort must have tried to get my attention a few times judging from the increase in the volume of his voice, but I’d been so lost in my own world that I hadn’t noticed him stop or that I had walked straight past him.

Cheeks warm, I stopped and hurried back to join him at a set of magnificent black, oak doors with elaborate, inlayed carvings in intricate patterns.

He didn’t seem upset as he rested a hand on the brass head of a lion and twisted.

The room opened and I couldn’t move. My feet stood rooted to the threshold, toes in, heels out, jaw somewhere between them as I basked in a sight I had to blink to believe.

“Oh!” I breathed, hands going to my mouth.

Warm, golden light spilled in blankets of comfort over a room lined with books. Books upon books. Books stuffed along every wall. Every floor. It went up to a full, second level guarded by black, iron bars and ladders of wood. They climbed to a ceiling crafted half with glass. Half with branches. Both twined in a dome that curved down and over the far side where one wall hung open over the forest to showcase a dance of green forest and fog, and rain.

At the center of the room, worn, but comfortable, a sitting area gathered around a marble fireplace, unlit, but clean.

I dared an unsteady step forward, eyes retracing every plump chair tucked into cozy corners. Every table piled with books. Every book waiting to be read.

It was during this haphazard euphoria that I finally noticed the solid structure of wood dominating the space beneath the window and the man seated behind it.

Watching me.

He wore the same top and pants from breakfast, but his hair was swept back and fastened at the back of his head. The absence of shadows and the thin veil of light coming through the windows, his scars were more pronounced. Unmistakable. They ran in harsh, jagged lines from temple down to a stubbornly chiseled jaw. It should have disfigured him. Mother would never have accepted such a deformity as something attractive, but it only intensified the raw power of him. The warning that this was not a gentle man, yet he’d been nothing else since my unexpected arrival.

I was staring. Again.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, trying to catch my breath. My hands flat over my pounding heart. “This is the most beautiful room I have ever seen. I think it’s my favorite so far.”

“Mine too.” Lacroix murmured. He motioned for me to take the leather back chair opposite the desk. “Did you fall?”

I stopped and stared at him a second. “I’m sorry?”

He gestured with the nod of his square jaw towards the patches of dust still clinging to my legs and top.

“No, I’m all right. Thank you.”

It was only then I saw the silver tray placed on my side of the table laden with a plate of cubed cheese, a hunk of green grapes, and a turkey sandwich. A cup of tea — green from the smell of it — and a bowl of sugar sat next to them.

My stomach gave a twist. A pang to remind me I hadn’t eaten since supper the night before last; Mother hadn’t wanted me bloated or gassy for when I met Jarrett. But almost forty-eight hours later, I was starving.

“It’s for you,” Lacroix said.

I forced my gaze away from temptation to focus on the man. His almost feline eyes stayed steady on me through the dark tendrils framing his artfully chiseled face, watchful in a way that was unnerving. With the light falling through the window behind him, he was a hulking shadow with only those golden orbs reflecting back at me. Between his sheer size and the aura of raw power that radiated off him, I couldn’t stop the shiver that coursed through me before I was reminded this man was best friends with a much bigger monster.

“Why?” I asked.

“Why?” he repeated.

“Why is it for me?”

His chair groaned as he settled back into it. “You didn’t eat at breakfast.”

I hadn’t realized he’d been watching me. The notion stiffened along my spine.

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