Which only meant one thing.
Someone had seen her leaving the library early this morning, disheveled and flushed from Rafe’s kisses. They must have also spied him leaving shortly after. She had hoped he would be able to avoid detection as she had believed she had, but now, it would appear she had been mistaken.
“Forgive me for my intrusion in the library, sir,” she rushed to say, hoping she might persuade him that nothing untoward had occurred. “I had been unable to sleep last night on account of some dreams which have been plaguing me, and I wandered from my room in search of something to read. Unfortunately, I fell asleep while reading. I would never have allowed the candles to burn for so long unattended. If you wish to remove the cost from my wages, I shall understand. As for Mr. Sutton, I can assure you that he was doing nothing more than being a gentleman, after having found me sleeping in the chair. He awoke me so that I might seek the comfort of my room instead. No propriety was breached.”
As the mad burst of words came to a halt, she became aware Mr. Jasper Sutton was looking at her with an odd expression on his face. The pity had been replaced by surprise.
He drummed his fingers idly on the surface of the desk behind which he sat, his inkwell and papers spread before him. “The library, Miss Wren?”
Her mouth went dry as a new, different wave of panic struck. “Is that not what you wished to speak with me about, Mr. Sutton?”
The movement of his fingers continued in a steady pattern. Tap tap tap tap. Tap tap tap tap. Aside from his fingertips on the desk, silence reigned. For an indeterminate span of time, Mr. Jasper Sutton did not answer, his searching hazel gaze—so like his brother’s—pinning her in place where she sat.
“You were in the library with Mr. Sutton,” he said slowly, rather than answering her question. “With Mr. Rafe Sutton, my brother?”
She swallowed a steadily rising knot of worry. “Yes, Mr. Rafe Sutton. Your brother, sir.”
Lord in heaven, had no one seen them? And had she just foolishly admitted to being alone with Rafe in the library desperately early this morning?
“He behaved in a gentlemanly fashion toward you, Miss Wren?” Mr. Sutton asked, frowning.
His manner was not usually so serious and stern. When she saw him with Anne and Elizabeth or with Lady Octavia, he was quite soft-spoken, given to smiling, not at all rigid. But there was a foreboding quality about him now, emanating from him, that filled her with dread.
“The perfect gentleman,” she responded, hating herself for the suddenly high-pitched nature of her voice. Almost a squeak, if she were honest with herself.
“I don’t suppose my brother and the word gentleman have ever gone along together before this little patter of ours,” Mr. Jasper Sutton said.
He did not believe her. And he was not wrong to cast doubt upon her tale. Rafe had been tender and gentle and sweet, but he had not been a gentleman in the expected sense of the word. A gentleman would never have kissed her in return, would never have held her close or pressed his lips to her throat.
But she was heartily glad he had not been a gentleman on this occasion, and that he had done all those things.
She shifted in her chair, desperately uncomfortable. “In this instance, it is quite suiting, I assure you.”
Yet another lie, but what was o
ne more in an endless swell of so many?
She thought of his lips moving along her cheek, traveling down her neck, closing over her nipple and sucking. When she had finally arrived back at her room, she had discovered a wet spot there, over her still aching nipple, from him. She had felt like a wanton, and yet she had also felt undeniably pleased.
“Hmm,” was all Jasper Sutton said, his fingers still methodically dropping atop the desk. “I shall take you at your word, Miss Wren. The library ain’t my reason for asking you here, however.”
He spoke very much like Rafe, she noted for the first time. Polished and intentional accents with the occasional rawness. Perhaps a bit more of it even than Rafe possessed. But she was less concerned with the comparison between the two brothers than she was with the true reason Mr. Jasper Sutton had summoned her to his study for an interview.
“If I may be so bold, Mr. Sutton, what was the reason?” she asked, worry lacing through her anew.
“Viscount Gregson,” he said.
A name, nothing more.
She froze, lips and heart and mind going numb.
“What of him?” she forced herself to ask.
“He claimed to have been…uniquely humiliated in your name,” Mr. Sutton said. “He came to The Sinner’s Palace in a rage.”
“How did he know I am in your employ?” she asked, startled by the notion that the viscount had found her with such ease.
If he had done so, then surely Cousin Bartholomew might as well, supposing he learned she was calling herself Persephone Wren and working as a governess.