She oughtn’t to be here, she knew. Her presence might upend everything. But fatigue had made her more restless than usual and she could not keep away, though she doubted her ability to sit still long enough to catch a spy. She was frightened. Frightened for Tristan. Frightened of what failure tonight might mean for them both.
What of success, though? What would it look like? Each of them going their separate ways, their separate dreams still firmly grasped, unaltered by what was really, when all was said and done, nothing more than a few days trapped under the same roof by a bit of rain?
Well, more than a bit of rain…
Water moved ships. It wore away mountains. Surely, it could soften a stony heart, too?
If it had not been fear she’d glimpsed that morning in Tristan’s eyes, then what was it?
As her wandering steps wove among the groupings of furniture—sofas, tables, high-backed chairs—she considered where she might best secret herself. Then a warm hand grasped her ankle.
She did not scream. Three silent breaths left her lightheaded but proved insufficient to slow her frantic pulse.
“Erica?” Tristan’s voice. He hadn’t left after all. With a sharp tug he brought her to her knees beside him. “What are you doing here?” His whisper was laced with a mix of fear and fury.
The sun had set, leaving no light by which to read his expression. “No one saw me leave my room,” she whispered back. “And I—I needed to be here. I had to know.”
She expected him to argue. Instead, she could hear the sound of his coat sliding against the fabric of the sofa as he settled back into his hiding place. “Sit with me,” he murmured, and in the darkness, she let his hands guide her to the floor beside him, shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. She had not realized she was cold until she felt the heat of his body against hers, and she turned toward him like a heliotrope following the sun.
He lowered his head to hers and his breath puffed across her lips when he spoke, more sensation than sound. “If I kiss you now, Erica, all our plans will be for naught.”
“Why?”
“Because I won’t be able to stop at kisses.”
A whimper of longing rose in her throat at his words.
“Shh…”
Only a fraction of an inch separated their lips. The effort required to close the gap was far less than the effort required to keep herself still. To cede control to him once again.
Her reward—and a dubious reward it seemed to be—was to feel him slip his hand into his coat, then search for her hand and press a folded square of paper into her palm.
“What’s this?”
“A coded missive.”
Had there been some misunderstanding? “Then what’s on the desk?”
“New orders from my commanding officer.”
“Forged?”
“Real.”
“But—I don’t understand—”
“We have much to discuss.” His hand circled hers and squeezed, and the stiff paper crumpled and curved into her palm as she curled her fingers more tightly around it, as if she could absorb its contents that way. “Later.”
She nodded, and the scrub of her hair against the silk damask of the sofa must have been sufficient to convey her assent, for he said nothing more. She freed a hand to tuck the note into her bodice, but as soon as she was done, he laced his fingers through hers and rested their joined hands on his hard thigh. After last night’s intimacies, it should have been the merest nothing. Yet it was…something. Something extraordinary. And when his thumb stroked idly across her palm, a sound rose again in her throat. Had it escaped, it would have sounded much like the last, needy and hungry.
But what she needed, what she hungered for, was them—not just the joining of their bodies, but the joining of their souls, the clasp of support and reassurance that would always be there, whenever, wherever one of them needed it, together or apart, public or private, weak or strong. She returned the pressure of his fingers. He was nothing she’d ever wanted and everything she’d ever needed, and she would be a fool to let him go.
That knowledge, the certainty that she was his and she would find a way to make him hers, made it somewhat easier to release his hand when, an eternity later, the door creaked open and clicked shut again and his arm went rigid with anticipation. They were about to catch the spy in the act.
Despite the darkness, she squeezed her eyes shut, the better to concentrate on sounds. The carpet was too think to register a single footfall, but wasn’t that the rustle and scrape of paper across the polished desktop? And a little gasp of surprise—a woman’s voice, surely—when the library door opened once more?
A man’s voice this time, though only a whisper. “Have you got it? Good.”
Erica swore she could hear Tristan’s heartbeat as he leaned closer and spoke into her ear. “Pilkington.”
But who was his accomplice? Opening her eyes, she discovered that all was not in total darkness. The man had left the door ajar, allowing light from the corridor to leak into the room. She leaned away from Tristan in hopes of peering around the edge of the sofa, but he caught her hand again and would not let her move.
“I expected to have to handle matters myself, this time,” Pilkington said, an edge of annoyance in his voice. “I feared you would not get word of the delivery of that letter. Now, give it to me.”
Who was she, the woman who, from the sound of things, was still scrabbling to gather the papers strewn across the desk? Who on earth did Pilkington imagine might have failed to hear the rumors that had swept through Hawesdale Chase like fire? One of the lower servants, perhaps, though he did not strike her as the sort of person who entrusted important matters to scullery maids.
“Give it to me,” Pilkington repeated, his voice rising above a whisper for the first time.
“No. Not this time.”
Erica very nearly cried out, for Tristan had squeezed her hand to the breaking point at those words. That voice, though…rough and shrill with fright…almost familiar…
“Hold!” Tristan shouted, dragging Erica to her feet beside him before releasing her. Remington appeared in the doorway with a lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other. Pilkington threw up one arm to shield himself from the light, and behind him, cowering in the shadow of his body, stood…
Lady Viviane?
“For God’s sake, don’t shoot Vivi,” Tristan ordered hoarsely as he vaulted over the sofa and landed only a few feet from an astonished Lord Easton, and rather too close to Remington’s line of fire for Erica’s comfort.
“Don’t shoot anyone,” Erica said, hurrying forward.
“I won’t,” Remington ground out, his eyes fixed on Pilkington. “Yet.”
“That’s right,” Tristan agreed. Cold resolve settled over him, until all that was left was a stone statue of man, something that might break but would never, never bend. “Not until I find out what the hell is going on.”
Viviane’s face was a mask of pure terror and tears streamed down her cheeks. Erica stepped to her side and would have pulled the papers from her shaking hands, but the girl would not, or could not, relent. “I’m sorry, Tris,” she sobbed.
But his eyes were only for Pilkington. “So help me God, if you’ve hurt my sister…”
Remington came forward, his stride smooth, his hand steady, his aim unwavering, even when he bent to deposit the lantern on a low table. “I’d say you’ve got two minutes at most, Your Grace, before we have an audience.”
“I’m not sure I care.” And with remarkable speed, like the strike of asp, he drew back his fist and punched Lord Easton in the face. Pilkington, whose entire attention had been focused on the pistol in Remy’s hand, hit the carpet with a thud. Bewildered, Erica watched as Remington handed his gun to Tristan, knelt to search the unconscious man’s pockets, and finally tied Lord Easton’s wrists with his own cravat.
Meanwhile, Tristan came closer to his sister, and when her eyes shifted nervously toward the pistol in his hand, Erica stepped nimbly between them. At the movement, something snapped inside him and some of the tension eased from his body. His complexion warmed and his eyes showed fear. Carefully, he laid the pistol on the desktop and extended an empty hand. “Oh, God, Vivi. No. It’s all right. Tell me you’re all right.”
She snuffled loudly, and Erica turned just in time to catch her as she fainted. The papers she’d been clutching fluttered to the floor. Together, she and Tristan carried the girl to the sofa.
“Burn those,” Tristan ordered Remington, and when he’d completed his other tasks, Remy did not hesitate to gather up the fallen pages, open the little glass door on one side of the lantern, and touch them to the flame.
“But—” Erica exclaimed as Remington strode to the fireplace and dropped the burning letter onto the hearth.
“I know what it said,” Tristan said, bending over his sister’s pale, still form.
Viviane moaned and blinked and in a moment was struggling to sit up. Erica sat beside her and wrapped one arm around her thin shoulders while Tristan knelt at their feet. “He—he p-p-promised—”
“Promised what?” Erica prompted when Tristan couldn’t seem to form words.
“He t-told me you were in danger. He said everything I c-could tell him would help to keep you safe.”
Tristan’s throat worked. “How long?”
“M-m-months and months. Since right after Papa and Percy died. I didn’t know m-m-much, tried to remember what I’d heard them say, about where you were and what you might be doing. When your t-t-trunks came, I f-found a couple of letters, but I couldn’t b-b-break the code, and I—” Her teeth chattered in earnest then and she broke off.
“Shh,” he murmured as he rose and came to sit on her other side. When he wrapped his arms around her, he caught Erica in his embrace too. Their eyes met over Viviane’s dark head, and she could see by his distracted gaze he was trying to piece together the information that had been stolen, how much damage had been done.
They were still seated that way when the others began to arrive, Lady Lydgate leading the way in a violently purple silk wrapper, both her husband and her lover at her heels. The duchess came next and flew to her daughter; Tristan surrendered his place to her and went immediately to the door to speak to Whitby. The captain turned but was too late to prevent the next arrivals from seeing into the room. Caroline shrieked, Lady Easton fainted, and the commotion made Pilkington stir at last.
Erica caught herself instinctively counting off the room’s occupants. Who was missing? Ah, the vicar and his wife. A nervous hiccup of laughter burst from her as she imagined Mrs. Newsome barring their chamber door to keep her husband from indulging in the sin of gossip.
Lord Beresford and Sir Thomas carried Lady Easton to the sofa on the opposite side of the room, and Caroline knelt on the floor and chafed her mother’s hands while Lady Lydgate plied her with a makeshift fan that Erica feared might in fact be one of the late duke’s priceless medieval manuscripts.
Then Captain Whitby stepped to the center of the room, surveyed the chaos around him, and said, “I owe Miss Burke an apology. I was the one who told the duke she was a spy. I was wrong. She had no hand in any of this.”
“Except,” Remington pointed out, one hip propped against the desk and the pistol pointed once more at Pilkington, “for unmasking the real villain.”
Whitby nodded. “I owe you an apology too, Raynham, for—”
Though she wasn’t quite sure how it happened, the next moment Tristan was hugging him and Whitby returned the gesture, two friends reunited after a long and difficult journey. “That’s Major Laurens to you,” Tristan said gruffly when they broke apart. “But if anyone other than this man”—he jerked his chin in Pilkington’s direction—“is to take a share of the blame, it must be me. Captain Whitby warned me there was trouble at Hawesdale.” His gaze darted around the room, pausing longest over the odd collection of his sister, his stepmother, and Erica. “I didn’t want to hear it.”
“My father couldn’t possibly be a spy,” Caroline cried, in the sort of voice one uses when trying to convince one’s self as much as others.
“No,” Vivi declared, her own voice firm again. “He’s a traitor. He started in at Percy’s funeral, trying to get information from me. He told me I would be helping Tris…” She glanced toward her mother and said, more quietly, “I’m ashamed to admit how much I told.”
At Whitby’s hiss of indrawn breath, Tristan said sharply, “She believed she was doing it to keep me safe.”
But it couldn’t have done, of course, and every shocked face in the room seemed to know it. Every detail Viviane had gleaned and passed along to another would only have put her brother in greater danger.
From the floor came a groggy mumble. “The girl lies,” Pilkington rasped out, having roused himself enough to struggle against his bonds and attempt to rise. Remington pushed him back down with the toe of one boot. “I say,” his prisoner protested, “I’ll not have this fellow—”
“Oh, do shut up, Easton.” His wife, whom no one had realized was awake, sat up with her daughter’s assistance. As she spoke, she held one hand to her temple, her eyes narrowed against the beam of Remington’s lantern as if the light gave her pain, though the room was actually quite dim. “Can’t you see no one believes you?”
Caroline, who had been looking from one parent to the other with a frown notched between her delicate brows, gasped. “Mama?”
“Why did you do it?” the lady demanded of her husband in a surprisingly firm voice.
For a long moment, he appeared to ignore the question. Then, with an awkward, resigned lift of one shoulder, he said, “Why do people do most things? We needed money.”
“I brought you a fortune—”
“You brought me half a fortune, long spent. The rest is to be Caroline’s. By law, I could not touch it, though we needed it desperately. I hoped, after she married, she might prove generous. In the meantime, however, I hardly knew where to turn. Then one night I ran into Lord Hawes in his club. He was in his cups and happened to let a few tidbits slip.”
“Percy?” Vivi gasped.
“I found his information…valuable. On that occasion, and others. When he died, I was frantic.” He paused, a distant look in his eyes. “We were in the carriage on the way to the late duke’s funeral when your mother sighed and said that it was a pity you couldn’t simply marry Hawes’s brother instead.”
“I surely wasn’t serious,” Lady Easton protested.
“I was.” His voice was flat. “And so were our creditors. Still, I knew such an arrangement would take time—time for Major Laurens to return, a period of mourning before a marriage could take place… Then I saw Lady Viviane, who seemed to know a surprising amount for a little girl.”
Tristan lunged forward; Captain Whitby held him back.
“Oh, dear child.” Lady Easton looked first at Lady Viviane and then toward her daughter. “Please believe I had no idea. Perhaps I might have been more clear-sighted if it weren’t for these headaches…”
“Headaches?” Tristan echoed. A pause. “Miss Pilkington, didn’t you tell me just this morning that your mother’s headaches have been steadily worsening since the spring?”
Caroline nodded. “Around the time of—” The flush of embarrassment warred with a sudden pallor, leaving her face splotched. “Oh.”
“Good God, Pilkington,” Tristan thundered. “Have you been poisoning your wife to keep her from finding out you’d turned traitor?”
Lord Easton shook his head sharply, though he groaned at the effort. “Not…poison, exactly.”
On Erica’s other side, the duchess lifted her hand to her mouth to stifle a cry, and across the room, Lady Lydgate stopped fanning. “I have a bottle of lau
danum in my room. I keep it for the toothache. Shall I fetch it for you, ma’am?” the baronet’s wife asked solicitously.
“No.” Every eye turned to Erica. “She needs to rid herself of whatever toxins she’s been ingesting. A tisane of red clover will help more. It grows wild, of course, but I believe I saw some potted in the conservatory.”
Caroline’s smile was weak, but genuine. “Thank you, Miss Burke.”
After that, the various groups around the room splintered into separate conversations, and with Vivi a warm, drowsy weight against her shoulder, Erica’s attention inevitably began to drift. Across the room, Captain Whitby was calling Miss Pilkington “Caro” and being slapped heartily on the back by Sir Thomas, while Lady Lydgate turned a cold shoulder to Lord Beresford and devoted her attention to the pallid but determined Lady Easton. Tristan and Remington discussed something with great animation, occasionally pulling Captain Whitby aside to join them. And the duchess did as she always did, organizing and comforting, though with tears in her eyes. Tea appeared, and more candles, and at some point, footmen who carted Lord Easton away, accompanied by Remington.
Before she quite knew what had happened or how much time had passed, Tristan was kneeling once more at her feet.
“Time for bed, Viv. We’ll deal with the rest in the morning,” he said to his stepmother, though he looked far from sleep himself.
“C-can you forgive me, Tris?” his sister asked with a yawn.
“There’s nothing to forgive.”
The duchess rose and went to the door. “She’ll sleep in my room tonight. I’ve already rung to have a bed made up.”
When Tristan bent to lift his sister in his arms, he fixed Erica with feverish eyes, long past fatigue. “Don’t forget the note, love,” he said, his voice low, more seductive than a whisper.
Suddenly Erica was alone again in the library, its book-covered walls illuminated by the flickering light of Remington’s abandoned lantern. A moment before, she had been considering whether it would be altogether too indecorous to curl up on the sofa and sleep right there. Now, however…
The Duke's Suspicion (Rogues and Rebels) Page 23