Otherwise Engaged

by Amanda Quick

  Benedict assisted her into the carriage. He liked the feel of her delicate, elegantly gloved fingers resting trustfully in his hand, he realized.

  “There is no knowing the answer to that question yet,” he said. “As Logan pointed out, that list is merely a starting point. The sooner we conclude this visit to my uncle, the sooner we can come back here and see what your sister and Logan have discovered.”

  Amity stepped quickly into the shadowed interior. When she twitched the cloak and the green skirts of her gown out of the way, he caught a glimpse of her dainty high-heeled boots. The prospect of being alone with her in the intimate confines of the carriage heated his blood.

  With an effort he suppressed the stirring hunger and spoke to the driver.

  “Ashwick Square, please.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Benedict climbed up into the cab, sat down across from Amity and pulled the door closed. The lamps were turned down low. The soft light gleamed on Amity’s hair and created inviting shadows. He wondered if she knew how tantalizing she looked sitting there in the warm darkness. It was, he reflected, extremely unfortunate that they were on the way to Ashwick Square and what would no doubt be a lengthy interview. He would have preferred some other destination tonight—any other destination—provided it would give him some privacy with Amity. Also a bed, he thought. A bed would certainly be nice.

  It had been far too long since that kiss on board the Northern Star. The memory of the embrace had sustained him for the past few weeks. But now that he was with her again memories were no longer sufficient to quell the urgent, reckless need that she aroused in him.

  “Did you miss me these past weeks, Amity?” he asked.

  Because he had to know, he thought. He had to know that their time together had been important to her, not just a passing flirtation. He realized that everything inside him had gone still waiting for the answer.

  She looked at him, flustered. He knew he had caught her off guard.

  “I was naturally concerned about your well-being,” she said.

  “I missed you.”

  She stared at him. In the shadows it was impossible to read her expression.

  “Did you?” she asked.

  Her voice was as unreadable as her eyes.

  “While I was away from you I frequently thought about our time together on the ship,” he said. “I enjoyed it very much.” He paused. “Well, perhaps not those first few days when I was recovering from a gunshot wound. But aside from that—”

  “I found our time together quite pleasant, as well,” she said quickly. “After I was assured that your wound would not become infected, of course.”

  “I recovered from my wound because of you. I will never forget that.”

  She clasped her gloved hands together very tightly and gave him a sharp, decidedly cross look.

  “I do wish you would stop saying that,” she said. “Really, sir, things are bad enough as they are. If it’s all the same to you, I would prefer that you don’t add your sense of gratitude to the list of things I have to worry about. I’ve got enough on my plate as it is.”

  Her flash of anger stunned him.

  “You fault me for feeling grateful?” he asked.

  “Yes. No. Oh, never mind.” She unlinked her fingers and waved the entire matter aside with a single, sweeping motion of one hand. “There is no point trying to explain things. At the moment we are caught up together in this tangle and we must contrive to get through it.” She sighed. “We do seem to be making a habit of jumping from one complicated situation to another, don’t we?”

  “Yes.”

  She cleared her throat. “I do apologize for sticking you with this temporary engagement of ours. It was quite generous of you to suggest it, to say nothing of your determination to protect me from the Bridegroom. If you feel that you owe me anything at all for my assistance on St. Clare—which you don’t, I hasten to add—then rest assured you have repaid the debt. Assuming there was a debt. Which there was not.”

  Anger slammed through him. A chill gripped his insides. He leaned forward and flattened both hands on the seat cushion behind her head, caging her.

  “Let me make one thing very clear,” he said. “I do not want your gratitude, just as you aren’t keen on mine.”

  There was a short, startled silence. But she made no move to escape him. Instead, she watched him closely for a moment and then she gave him a misty smile.

  “I suppose we had better cease thanking each other for past and current favors or we shall both grow increasingly irritable and out of sorts,” she said. “That would not be helpful for our investigation. Strong emotions always cloud one’s thinking.”

  He suddenly felt warm again.

  “We are agreed, on that one point,” he said. “There will be no more expressions of gratitude. But I’m not so sure that I can promise not to experience some strong emotions when it comes to you. Every time I remember that kiss the last night on board, for example, I am unable to focus on anything else.”

  “Benedict,” she whispered. She sounded breathless.

  “Please tell me that you remember it, too.”

  Her lips parted. For a moment she appeared bereft of speech. But he was not surprised when she recovered with relative speed. This was Amity, after all. She was never at a loss for words for long.

  “I think of it often,” she assured him. “But I was not certain that you would also contemplate it from time to time.”

  “I have relived that kiss every day and every night for the past month and a half. And every time I recall it, I want nothing more than to repeat the experience.”

  Her eyes were as warm and sultry as the tropical nights in the Caribbean. She did not move.

  “I have absolutely no objection to a second kiss,” she said.

  “I cannot tell you how I have longed to hear you say that.”

  With his hands still planted on either side of her head he leaned forward and brushed his mouth across hers. She parted her lips a little.

  “Benedict,” she whispered.

  He took his hands away from the seat cushion and shifted to sit beside her. Very deliberately he pulled her into his arms.

  She came to him with a tiny, half-stifled gasp and a sweet enthusiasm that was more than gratifying—it reassured him as no words could have done. Her heated response made it clear that she had not forgotten the passion that had flared between them that last night.

  “I was so worried about you these past weeks,” she said against his mouth.

  He groaned. “As it turns out, I am the one who had cause to worry. All that time away from you I told myself that at least you were safe here in London. Little did I know.”

  He took her mouth, savoring the warmth and softness he found there. She was shivering ever so slightly. He knew it was not because she was cold. An answering shudder of need swept through him. The world and the night narrowed until all that mattered was what was happening in the intimate sphere of reality that existed inside the carriage. But he was also aware that his time with Amity tonight was limited. They would arrive at their destination too soon.

  “I wish we were back on the Northern Star,” he said against her throat. “I would give anything to have the entire night with you.”

  “I dearly miss the freedom I know when I travel abroad,” she said. She speared her fingers through his hair. “I vow, London is worse than any corset. It constricts and binds and confines until it is difficult to breathe.”

  “You were meant to be out in the world, not trapped in the prison that is London Society.”

  “Yes,” she said. She sounded pleased that he understood. “I am, indeed, a woman of the world. I cannot live my life by Society’s rules.”

  He breathed in her unique, intoxicating scent and then took her earlobe gently between his teeth. She gripped his s
houlders and kissed his throat. The low-burning fire that had been smoldering inside him for weeks flashed into flames.

  He took her mouth again, savoring the taste of her, and slipped one hand inside her cloak. He wrapped his fingers around her sleek rib cage and edged upward, seeking the soft weight of her breast. But all he could feel was the rigid armor of the stays that shaped the bodice of her gown.

  “Damnation,” he muttered. “You did not wear clothes like this when you were on board the ship.”

  “Of course not.” She laughed and pressed her face against his shoulder. “When I travel I wear practical gowns. However, my sister’s dressmaker insisted on the stays in this dress.”

  “She may as well have appointed herself your invisible chaperone.”

  “Dressmakers can be astonishingly tyrannical, especially those who are known for being fashionable. They have reputations to uphold and Penny tells me one defies them at one’s peril.”

  “I admit a man’s tailor can be equally dictatorial.” He cupped her face in his hands. “I do not think that either of us was intended to live by Society’s rules.”

  The sweet laughter faded from her eyes.

  “Nevertheless, we seem to be bound by them,” she said. “It is because of those rules that you find yourself engaged to me.”

  He smiled slowly. “The thing about rules is that they are made to be broken. And very often they even provide a means to do just that.”

  “You are starting to sound like an engineer again.”

  “It strikes me that the very rule that has made it necessary for us to announce our engagement is the same one that allows us certain liberties that we would not otherwise enjoy—at least not without paying a price.”

  She started to smile again. “For example?”

  “For example, you could not be alone with me in this carriage without enduring severe damage to your reputation if it were not for the fact that we are engaged to be married.”

  “Ah, yes, I understand.”

  In the shadowy light she had the look of a woman capable of casting a spell on a man. He touched the corner of her mouth with his thumb.

  “I think that you have put one on me,” he said. The words sounded hoarse.

  “Put what on you?”

  He traced the outline of her lips with the pad of his thumb. “An enchantment, a spell.”

  Amusement gleamed in her eyes. “You are a man of the modern age, Mr. Stanbridge, an engineer. I’m sure you are well aware that there is no such thing as magic. All can be explained with science and mathematics.”

  “Before I met you I would have agreed with that statement. But no longer.”

  He kissed her again before she could say anything else. The swaying of the carriage caused her to lean more heavily into him. Desire fired his senses. He let the flames burn until he could think of nothing else except the need to claim Amity in the most elemental way.

  He had just found the first concealed hook at the front of her gown when the cab rattled to a halt. Reality reasserted itself with electrifying force. He eased aside the nearest curtain and stifled a groan.

  “It appears we have arrived,” he said. Far too soon, he thought.

  “Good heavens.” Amity straightened away from him as if scorched by his touch. “Whatever were we thinking? We are on very important business tonight. We should not have allowed ourselves to be distracted.”

  He watched, bemused, as she attempted to put herself to rights. She looked adorable, he thought. Her clothing was delightfully tousled and a few tendrils of hair had slipped free of the pins. There was an enticing fullness about her just-kissed lips. He liked the look, he concluded. But most of all he liked knowing that he was the man who had put that expression on her face.

  “How is my hair?” she asked. She raised one hand and found the stray locks. Hastily she attempted to re-anchor them. “Oh, dear, what will your uncle think?”

  “Knowing Uncle Cornelius, he is unlikely to take any notice of the state of your hair. He is concerned only with the matter of finding the Russian spy.”

  Benedict opened the door to reveal a street that was rapidly filling with fog. The lamps at the front door of Cornelius’s small town house glared in the mist, but they did little to illuminate the surroundings.

  He got out of the cab and turned to assist Amity. She took his hand, collected her skirts, and allowed him to help her down from the carriage. She pulled up the hood of her cloak and surveyed the unlit windows. “It does not appear that there is anyone at home.”

  “Cornelius lives alone except for his old butler, Palmer,” Benedict explained. “My uncle never married. As I said, he is completely dedicated to his work for the Crown.”

  “You told me that he is elderly. Perhaps he fell asleep.”

  “I doubt it. He sleeps very little and even less since this affair of the solar weapon began. In any event, he is expecting us. If he has nodded off, he will not mind if we awaken him. In fact, he will be annoyed if we leave without speaking to him.”

  The fog muffled the quiet neighborhood that had long ago settled down for the night. An uneasy sensation feathered the back of Benedict’s neck. He looked around, searching the mist to make certain that there was no one else about. There were no mysterious footfalls in the shadows. An eerie silence gripped the scene. Nevertheless—or perhaps for that very reason—he reached inside his coat and took out the revolver.

  He looked at the coachman.

  “Wait for us, please.”

  “Aye, sir.” The coachman hunkered down on his box and removed a flask from his coat pocket.

  Amity glanced down at the gun in Benedict’s hand. “You did not have a weapon with you on St. Clare.”

  “Let’s just say I learned my lesson on that damned island. I picked this up in California.”

  He guided Amity up the front steps and raised the door knocker. He rapped twice.

  But there were no footsteps in the hall. The lights did not come up in the transom window over the door.

  He banged the knocker again, harder.

  Amity looked at him. In the glary light her hooded face was etched with concern. “There is something amiss, isn’t there?”

  “Things are not as usual, that is certain.”

  Without a word she reached inside her cloak. When her hand reappeared Benedict saw that she gripped the tessen.

  He tried the knob. It did not turn.

  “Palmer is always very careful when it comes to locking up the house for the night,” Benedict said. “But Cornelius gave me a key a few years ago.”

  He took the key ring out of the pocket of his coat.

  “Perhaps you should summon a constable before you go inside,” Amity said.

  “Believe me when I tell you that my uncle will not appreciate it if we draw that sort of attention to this house,” Benedict said.

  He inserted the key into the lock and opened the door. The front hall was filled with shadows. Nothing and no one stirred in the darkness.

  Gun at the ready, Benedict moved into the hall and turned up the lamps. There was no pounding drumbeat of fleeing footsteps. No one leaped out of the shadows. No one challenged them from the top of the stairs.

  He led the way along the hall, turning up lamps as he moved toward the room at the far end.

  Cornelius was in the study, lying motionless on the carpet. The door of the large, heavy safe in the corner stood open.

  “Cornelius,” Benedict said.

  He went down on one knee beside the old man and felt for a pulse. Relief washed through him when he found one.

  Twelve

  Whoever he is, the bastard has the notebook.” Cornelius gingerly touched the bandage Amity had just finished placing on his head. He winced. “My apologies for the ungentlemanly language, Miss Doncaster. I fear I am not at my best at the moment.” />
  “I assure you, I have heard far worse language in my travels,” Amity said. “And as for your condition, we can only be grateful that the intruder did not murder you. Fortunately, the injury looks quite shallow, although I imagine it does not feel that way. As for all the blood, I’m afraid head wounds tend to bleed profusely but you will heal. The carpet may be beyond repair, however.”

  She surveyed her handiwork, satisfied that she had done her best to clean and disinfect the wound given the limited resources in the household. A bowl of blood-stained water sat on the small table next to Cornelius’s chair. She had bathed the injury thoroughly and then doused it with what she suspected was some very expensive brandy that Benedict had discovered in a nearby decanter.

  She and Cornelius were alone in the study. Benedict had disappeared outside into the garden to take a look around. The cluttered room was redolent of old pipe smoke and leather-bound books.

  “Thank you for the doctoring, my dear,” Cornelius said.

  “You are entirely welcome.” She smiled. “The bandage will do for now but you might want to summon a real doctor to take a look at the injury in the morning, I trust you know a skilled physician, one who holds modern views on the importance of cleanliness. Meanwhile, you must stay quiet for the next few days. I am more concerned about a concussion than I am about the cut in your scalp.”

  “I doubt that I will feel like going anywhere for some time,” Cornelius said. He peered up at Amity. “So you’re the lady globetrotter who saved my nephew’s life on that island in the Caribbean.”

  “I happened to be in the vicinity so of course I did what I could.”

  “I am in your debt, my dear.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, sir. You don’t owe me anything.”

  “Yes, I do. It was my fault Benedict was on that damned island in the first place. I knew he wasn’t experienced in that sort of work. He’s an engineer, not a professional spy.”

  Amity smiled. “So he keeps reminding me.”

  “Thing is, he was the only person I knew whom I trusted and who was capable of judging the true value of Alden Cork’s invention. And it’s a damn good thing I did send Ben because I very much doubt that any of my so-called professional agents would have understood that the real secret of the weapon is Foxcroft’s solar engine and battery system.”