She was trembling, her fingers gripped around a folded sheet of paper. Her upset was plain on every line on her face. For a moment, he felt empathy for that pain, but then he hardened himself to it. This woman had played a game with him. He was not about to forget it or forgive it. Certainly not until he understood it.

“Thomasina,” he said softly.

She spun around to face him. “Yes, I told you, my lord—”

She cut herself off and her hand lifted to cover her mouth as all the color drained from her cheeks. He let her stare at him a moment and then he nodded slowly.

“Yes, I know it’s you,” he said softly.

Her hand lowered and her lips parted. “You know. You knew?”

“Yes.” He kept his tone hard and she flinched a little from the weight of it.

Then she stepped closer. “Did you know on the terrace, when you tried to…” She looked around like there were spies in their midst. “When you tried to kiss me?” she whispered.

He arched a brow. “I was testing you.”

“Testing me!” she repeated, and for the first time since he’d met this woman months before, her voice raised and there was anger in it. “By nearly betraying my sister with me? That is your idea of a test?”

He couldn’t help but stare at her in her lit-up, angry glory. Her eyes were brighter than ever, her skin now pink instead of deathly pale, and that flush crept down her neck and into the lovely swell of her breasts. Her hands shook, rattling the letter she still held and she shoved them behind her back as she looked up at him.

“You—” She shook her head. He could see how uncomfortable she was at such hard and heavy emotion. At confrontation. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

He chuckled now, though he found very little humor in this situation. “You wish to talk to me about should and shouldn’t? Where is your sister, Thomasina? Why were you pretending to be Anne? You owe me those explanations.”

She stared at him and then at the letter in her hand. “Sh-sh-she…”

She trailed off and her knees buckled slightly. He stretched out a hand and caught her elbow, steadying her for a third time, just as moved by touching her as he had been previously.

She jerked away from him. “We must find Juliana, my lord. She’ll—she’ll know what to do.”

“Thomasina!” he snapped, his tone far sharper than perhaps she deserved, despite her reticence to tell him the truth.

She looked up at him. “Please!” she cried out. “Do not argue.”

He held her stare, exploring the pure panic, the abject terror on her face. Whatever she and Anne were up to, it was not going well. And there was a deep pit of dread in his stomach, for he knew whatever had been done would probably affect him and his plans, as well.

“Fine,” he ground out. “I will help you find her. But then I will need an explanation. From you.”