Page 70 of Exiled Heir

“Is it true? Keith left on his own two feet? He’s somewhere in the city, safe?”

She knew. Theyallknew.

“He sold out House Bartlett. He was questioned, but Cade didn’t hurt him.” That at least was true, even if it let them make their own assumptions about what had happened.

“Sure, the little ice prince won’t get his hands dirty,” one of the servants muttered. “Why should he, now that he has a dog to do it for him?”

Another servant hushed him but then looked at me. “He didn’t care that Keith was selling his secrets for so long. Why did he care now?”

“He doesn’t care about anything. Not unless it’s how we didn’t press his shirts right. When his parents got killed, I heard he didn’t even cry. Didn’t do anything different. Demanded breakfast the next day like nothing had happened,” the first servant muttered. He stalked off, throwing a dark glare at me.

Siobhan was still staring at the floor, her face pale. I waited to see if she would say anything else, but she just waved at the servants, gesturing for them to get back to work. She raised her chin slowly, as though it took effort, her eyes catching mine.

“Don’t mind them. They don’t mean it,” Siobhan said. “Keith had been here the longest. Most of them see him as an older brother. His loss will be felt.”

I nodded, then turned to follow Cade back up the stairs. The hallway was empty, the doors silent. It was still unnerving, this entire enormous house for one man.

At the door to Cade’s room, I took a moment to breathe. I was doing the right thing. I had to keep telling myself that. Whether I liked it or not, my future was tied up with Cade’s.

I opened the door.

“What took you so long?” Cade asked as soon as I shut the door behind me.

“The servants think you killed him,” I said.

Cade stiffened, standing in the middle of his enormous bedroom, looking like nothing more than a small boy who had been slapped. “They think I would do that?”

“It seems like a lot of people have the wrong impression about you,” I said.

“And what impression is that?” Cade’s words were measured, cold, as calculated as they thought he was. “That I go around murdering servants?”

“That you don’t feel anything,” I corrected. “That you are House Bartlett’s ice prince. The Jennings think you don’t care their daughter died, and the way you reacted when Isaac brought her up, I can’t blame them. Why do you want people to think you don’t care about anything but yourself?”

Cade dragged in a breath, his hands wrapping around his elbows. In his dark shirt with his pale skin, he looked ephemeral, like something out of a fairy tale. When his eyes caught mine, I was reminded of drowning again.

I could get lost in those eyes.

“Who knows why minor families or servants think anything. Keith thought it was a good idea to sell me out to someone who killed him.” Cade turned away, heading to the wall and slapping his hand against it. It opened, revealing the empty terrarium.

He stared at it for a few heartbeats. Even all the way across the room, I could hear his heart speed up. He turned, staring at my covered throat with a half second of longing. Shaking his head, he raised his hand, pressing it more gently against the wall until it shut.

“The missing money,” I said. “I need you to tell me the details.”

Cade turned, the expression on his face perplexed. “What?”

“There’s too many details I don’t know. The money. It’s clearly a big deal, and it threw you off-balance. I need to know everything.” I tried to keep my voice reasonable, make it a fact rather than the slow simmer of annoyance that was boiling over in my chest. “It had to do with Declan, didn’t it?”

“No,” Cade snapped. “Even if it did, I wouldneverdiscuss house finances with outsiders.”

I stared at him, feeling every muscle of the wolf that wanted to burst through my skin. But I still couldn’t shift, so it simmered there under the surface.

“I am not astranger. For all intents and purposes, I am your consort.” I strode close to him, sniffing. I smelled the woods on his clothes, the sweet pine trees, loamy dirt. There was a hint of sweat from our trek all the way out into the forest, salty and delectable.

Underneath that was the acid scent of fear, so subtle that it would be easy to miss. And even further down, even deeper than that, I smelled his arousal, the come that still lingered on his skin.

“You aren’t my consort. I don’t owe you anything. I am simply your employer, and I don’t pay you to ask questions I don’t want to answer.” He raised his chin, his head tilted at an angle. I couldn’t ignore the smirk that curved in the corner of his lips.

“I’m deeper in this than either of us wanted. Without me, you never would have found out about Keith.” My fingers twitched. I wanted to bury them in his soft hair again.