I Adored a Lord by Katharine Ashe

they were all in the drawing room, but moments later it disappeared. The theft benefitted the search for Walsh’s murderer: convinced that the dog had merely escaped into a crevice of the vast chateau, the guests had turned all efforts to finding it. Vitor had gone to the village as much to escape the pandemonium of the search as to avoid the woman standing before him now.
    â€œDo you truly think someone stole it?” she asked.
    â€œPerhaps.”
    Her brow remained knit. “Why are you here?”
    â€œAs a favor to Prince Raynaldo, to see Sebastiao suitably wed.”
    â€œNo. Why are you here ? Outside here now?”
    â€œTo study that.” Through her cloak he grasped her arm and turned her toward the chateau. She stiffened but did not draw away. She was a small thing but strong, he already knew, and not easily frightened. He suspected that if threatened she would fight him—­or anyone else—­before she called for help. But he liked to hold her. He liked to feel her in his hands. “Do you see how that stair descends on the exterior wall behind the trees?”
    â€œI think so. It’s covered in snow, isn’t it? I don’t see its top.”
    â€œIt begins in the northwest tower and continues around the corner to a platform rock on the bank of the river.”
    Disquiet settled upon her features. “The murderer might have escaped by boat?”
    â€œIt is possible. I have yet to study the platform, but at this distance I see little indication that anyone has used those stairs since it snowed.”
    â€œDesperation can make for daring acts. What are the chances that if we go down to the river we will find a person who, two nights ago, tried to leave by that stairway and slipped on the snow and fell to her death?”
    â€œLittle.”
    â€œAre you saying that because you believe it, or because you don’t want me to accompany you to investigate it?”
    â€œThe latter.”
    She whirled about and, like a fawn leaping through snow, headed across the road toward the slope down to the river, her cloak billowing out behind. He followed until she came to the trees where a person might be concealed, then he moved beside her. The sunlight’s glare upon the snow made searching the shadows difficult, and he remained close to her, the uncertain footing upon the slope justifying his grasp of her arm when she slipped. She darted him a glance and pulled free of his grasp. He continued close behind her.
    Denis’s words from the day before played in his mind like Matins chant: The devil liked to take female form to tempt a man. That was balderdash, of course. Vitor knew the truth of it. He wanted this woman because he could not have her, and because she was plainspoken and uniquely enchanting with her black hair tangling about her shoulders and her starlit eyes that retreated when she found him watching her. She made him hungry.
    At the base of the castle walls the bank cut sharply into the river, the snow forming a heavy ledge at the edge of the water that reflected the sky like a mirror. Vitor had navigated this deceptively still, broad silver ribbon in the past. It could sweep a man away before he could utter a word of protest. She plowed a path away from its glittering surface directly to the base of the stair that climbed the side of the chateau like a scar to the turret in its uppermost room. Submerged to her knees, she attempted the steps. She tried thrice and three times slipped. The third landed her on her behind.
    â€œFinished now?” he asked from a distance.
    â€œFor the time being.” She brushed off her cloak and studied the risers. “No one could climb down once the snow began. Do you really believe someone tried to leave via this route?”
    â€œI don’t. I do believe that someone made the attempt.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œIn the room at the top of the tower, the rug and floorboards near the door are soaked, and