Page 51 of The Hidden Heart

“I don’t know. I am not even sure about his size. It was so dark, and he had something over his face. I think he was slighter than I, shorter, but not a great deal.”

“That description would rule out Mr. Cobb.”

Cleybourne nodded. “I don’t think it was he, although otherwise he would certainly be my first suspect. But, as I said, it is all supposition. I cannot be sure.” He bent down to close the cabinet. “Why were you down here?”

“Oh. I heard a noise. It awakened me. I wasn’t sure what it had been, so I looked out into the hall and saw someone slipping furtively down the stairs. Apparently that was you.”

“Yes. I couldn’t go to sleep. I kept hearing noises—doors opening and closing. I swear, I think half the people in this house were slipping in and out of their rooms tonight. Finally I went out in the hall to investigate, and I saw a light downstairs. I was curious, so I extinguished my candle and went downstairs. He must have heard me because by the time I reached my study, the light had been doused. I saw him crouched here by the safe, and I charged at him. We struggled, but he got away…and the rest you saw.”

“Who do you think it was?”

“I don’t know. Baxter and the other servants checked all the rooms. He just reported to me when I came back down here. Everyone was in his or her room. They saw no wet and discarded clothes lying about. Whoever it was got rid of them somehow or hid them well enough that the servants didn’t see them.” Cleybourne grimaced. “It’s a damnable thing. I am certain that it must be someone in this house, but I have no idea who.”

“It seems particularly odd—given the other intruder.”

“Yes. Too coincidental. I would think it was the same person, but I was sure that was Vesey, trying to take Gabriela away from here. Why would he break into my study? What could he hope to find in there?”

“I don’t know. Perhaps he might think that if he took the papers making you Gabriela’s guardian…”

“But it would still be in the original will, which has already been filed and read.”

“Yes. I cannot see how it would do him any good. Besides, he has always seemed like too much of a coward to break into one room, let alone two. I would not have thought he had the courage to do it.”

“Neither would I. And I warned him after the first incident. I told him what I would do if he tried anything else. It does not seem like him to have crossed me in the face of a clear warning. He is a fool, but he has a good sense of self-preservation.”

“I would have thought so. But perhaps he is desperate enough to try anything. The General did tell me that he would put nothing past him, no matter how despicable. And he told me once that Vesey was on his last legs financially. He said he owes a great deal of money.”

“So I have heard. He would not care about his creditors, but he is an inveterate gambler. He would be very eager to pay whatever gambling debts he had, else he would be cut off from his games. His is an expensive lifestyle, and Lady Vesey is as profligate as he—and she lost what she thought would keep her in clothes and jewels when she lost Devin last summer.”

“Well, I suppose there is nothing more that we can do about it tonight,” Jessica said reluctantly. She looked at him. “I ought to clean that wound, you know.”

He cast her an amused glance. “Are you a doctor, then, as well, Miss Maitland?”

“No, but I have tended a few cuts and bruises in my time—both as a governess and as a soldier’s daughter.”

“All right. I will admit your expertise,” he said with a faint smile. “Baxter brought a tray of things to apply to it, but I wanted to check things out down here first. The dressings are upstairs.”

He turned out the lamp, and they went upstairs, using the candle Jessica had brought with her. Cleybourne strode down the hall to his door and opened it. Jessica, beside him, hesitated for an instant. She had rarely been inside any man’s bedroom—certainly no one’s besides her father’s or the General’s. It seemed far too intimate a place to be alone with a man.

Cleybourne lit the lamp on the table beside the door. Jessica squared her shoulders and walked into the room. There was nothing wrong with her being here to tend to his cut, she told herself; she refused to be missish about such a silly thing.

Baxter had left the tray of bandages and pots of ointment on a low table beside a chair. Cleybourne walked over to it and sat down so that she could reach the cut. Jessica wet a cloth in his washbasin and squeezed it out, then began to wipe away the crusted blood on his face.

It made her feel strangely breathless to stand this close to him. She looked at his cheek, where she was washing away the blood, refusing to look into his eyes, but she knew he was watching her. She put a hand under his chin to steady his head as she dabbed at the blood, and her fingers trembled slightly at the brush of his stubble-roughed skin on her fingertips.

She cast about quickly in her mind for something to say, some subject to take her mind off the fact of her touching him. “What if it were not Vesey? Why would any of the others have broken into your study?”

“To steal something, I would presume. It seems the most likely reason.”

“But they could not run away with what they stole,” Jessica pointed out. “The snow is too deep outside. They must have known they would get caught.”

“It makes little sense. Perhaps they were looking for something very small. But what? And none of them were here before. Only Vesey. The whole thing makes no sense.”

Jessica rinsed out the washrag in the basin, then began to clean the cut itself. Cleybourne flinched and let out a sharp, short noise. “That is a wound, you know, not a spot of dirt.”

“I am aware of that,” Jessica retorted acidly. She added a little hesitantly, “I am sorry I hurt you.”

The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Don’t tell me you are having pangs of guilt.”