Her parting remark cleared up any remaining confusion, or it should have. “He’ll finish up, miss, when you go down for lunch. The baron wasn’t aware that these doors were without locks. Didn’t think of it myself, either. Nothing wrong with that, of course, if a wife were installed, but with a guest, well, you understand . . .”

Larissa understood perfectly, the need for a lock on each of the two bathroom doors. What she didn’t understand was why they were being installed now, after the fact, as it were. And at the baron’s request, obviously.

The lack of locks was most likely why she had been unable to get to sleep last night to begin with. She realized that now. She’d tried to lock the doors as soon as she had retired to her room last night. That she couldn’t must have added to her unease at being in a strange house—with very good reason as it turned out.

But with the baron installing locks, she had to wonder what really happened last night. She had assumed it was he who had entered her room, but she hadn’t opened her eyes, not once, to make sure. And then it occurred to her, who else it could have been.

One of those new servants that hadn’t proven themselves yet. The baron had been worried enough about them to have her lock up her jewelry. One of them could well have been trying to rob her last night, but didn’t leave in time when she showed up for bed. The thieving maid could have hid in the dressing room until she was asleep, then tried to sneak out.

Fear could have frozen the thief in her room—or she realized Larissa wasn’t asleep. She hadn’t moved, after all, not once, in her pretense. The maid could have been waiting in an agony of fear for Larissa to make some kind of sleep sound to assure her she wasn’t awake, yet she never did. And opening the outer door to the hall would have brought in some light. Had she been awake, she most certainly would have started screaming, or so the thief could have thought.

It was a perfectly viable explanation, much more realistic, really, than that the baron had stood there for hours by her bed, watching her sleep as she had thought. And the thief had finally given up with that sigh she had heard and gone back into the dressing room to hide the rest of the night, because Larissa never did stir enough to let her think she could escape without her notice.