The Bride He Replaced novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Three Rings

I called Duncan before the last guest had left.

I had told him to stay out of it until I said, and I said it into the phone with Bea's tin on my knees.

"Come now," I said. "She was in the house."

He was on the porch in fourteen minutes, and he took the stairs two at a time without being asked.

The key was taped flat under the crib mattress, a small brass key on a loop of ribbon.

Duncan held it up and said nothing.

We carried the tin down to Bea's kitchen and set it on the yellow cloth.

Bea stood at the stove with her arms crossed, checking the room for anything else that was not hers.

"If it ticks," she said, "nobody opens it."

"It's a tin," said Duncan. "It doesn't tick."

"Camilla's been in my upstairs."

"I looked at the windows," he said. "They're all latched."

I held the tin steady, and he fitted the key into the lock.

It stuck.

He tried again, and the brass edge of the clasp caught the pad of my thumb and drew a line of blood.

"Ow."

"Hannah."

He took my hand before I had finished saying it, and walked me to the sink, and ran the cold tap over my thumb.

His fingers closed around my wrist.

Apart from one dance at the gala, he had not touched me in all that time.

I could feel his pulse going under my skin, fast and hard.

"You're racing," I said.

"I ran up the steps."

"You took them two at a time, with a perfectly good railing."

"I'm fit," he said.

He wasn't looking at the cut.

He was looking at the side of my face.

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