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that
    were slightly protuberant, blinked at her, and blinked again. Then her gaze slid over Beth's
    shoulder and she shivered.
    "I'm sorry," the girl whispered miserably. "I have no liking for storms."
    Startled by this greeting, Beth stared at her. She followed the girl's gaze, noting that she
    looked not at the storm-darkened sky, but at Mr. Fairfax.
    Tipping her head, Beth studied the menacing sky, ash and pewter and, in places, almost
    black.
    "Well, it is not so very dark yet," she offered placatingly.
    The girl peered at her for an instant, her enormous, dark eyes flickering with an
    unsettling edge of fear.
    "Is she ready?" Mr. Fairfax asked in clipped tones.
    Thinking he spoke to her, Beth spun about, but she found his attention directed at the
    maid. Beside him was her canvas-covered trunk, sitting now on the gravel drive.
    "She is not ready, sir." The girl shook her head. "She will not come!"
    Mr. Fairfax made no effort to mask his displeasure. Two lines drew parallel furrows
    between his brows, and the corners of his mouth pulled taut. Sleek, long strands of dark
    hair fell across his brow, then whipped back, caught by the wind, making him look all the
    HIS WICKED SINS
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    more forbidding.
    In an instant, he leashed it, leashed the anger, the displeasure, and his expression turned
    cool, blank. He looked hard and cold, chiseled from marble, and again Beth thought of a
    panther in a cage, leashed by self-imposed bars.
    He was angry still. Beth knew it, though no emotion played across his features now.
    Why, he can lock himself away, as I do, she thought, surprised, the realization making
    her feel an affinity for him once more, as she had when they shared their thoughts about
    the gates that guarded the road to Burndale Academy.
    Then she wondered if he was any more adept at this feat than she, if the walls he erected
    were impregnable. Hers certainly were not. Though she was far better now than she had
    been as a child, there were yet days that her anxious thoughts burgeoned and grew and
    overcame her best intentions.
    "What has set her off this time?" Mr. Fairfax tapped his fingers against his thigh, a
    steady beat.
    The maid made a choked sound.
    "She had an awful afternoon, sir. Miss Percy could scarce settle her," she said, twisting
    the cloth of her apron with a desperate wringing motion.
    Beth wondered of whom they spoke.
    Letting go the now-wrinkled apron, the maid dropped her hands to her sides. The white
    cloth fell over her black skirt in creased disarray.
    "Miss Percy says 'tis the storm," she said.
    Griffin Fairfax pinned her with a hard stare, and his tone was silky soft. "Does she?"
    The girl's hands moved nervously over her apron, smoothing in small, jerky strokes as
    she stared down at the ground for so long that Beth thought she would not speak again. At
    last, she whispered, "Will you fetch her?"
    There was a terrible moment of silence, heavy with unease. Beth looked back and forth
    between the two, sensing there was some undercurrent of meaning to such an innocuous
    question. Mr. Fairfax looked hewn of stone, no trace of emotion to be read in his
    expression or posture.
    "No," he said, abrupt.
    Baffled by the peculiar exchange, and made wary by it, Beth wondered at the source of
    it. A memory came to her, of Mr. Fairfax offering her a ride and saying he was on his way
    to Burndale Academy, and now Beth understood that his errand must have been to fetch
    someone.
    Someone who—according to the maid—would not come.
    Mr. Fairfax looked at Beth then, his gaze fixed on her with focused intent, and her heart
    stuttered in her breast. Her breath came a little faster as he stared at her, his gaze
    inscrutable.
    To call him lovely seemed absurdity, but it was nothing more or less than truth. Despite
    the hard cast of his features, or perhaps because of it, his face was incredibly appealing,
    his form equally so. She would be a liar to pretend she did not notice. To pretend that the
    sight