“Hmm…” Lane draped the cloak over the chair. “I am wondering if perhaps the killer approached your coachman disguised as Lady Archer.”
Miranda’s head snapped up. “Rather odd for a man to do.”
“It is at that. And perhaps I am mistaken. However, I cannot think it was you, dear sister, who murdered your coachman.”
“Well, that is gracious of you, Winston.”
Lane gave Miranda a small, apologetic smile. “No stone can remain unturned. Even if it means checking the alibi of one’s sister-in-law.”
Lane snapped his notebook shut and then stood. “This has been a trying time for all. I should let you get your rest.” He gave Miranda a kind look before addressing Archer. “Just one more thing, my lord.” He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a West Moon Club coin. “Another coin was found with the body.” World-weary eyes pinned him. “Care to speculate as to its meaning?”
Archer faced Lane head on. “No.” Speculation wasn’t needed. It was another invitation to Cavern Hall. And his doom.
As soon as Winston left, Archer went to the window to stare out of it. Sunshine lit over his broad shoulders and caught the rounded curves of his mask, making it gleam. It shut Miranda out most effectively.
She rose and stood beside him. “You knew we could not be considered suspects in this crime.”
He kept his eyes on the window. Tension crackled about him like a storm. “Yes.”
“So you purposely laid blame at your feet to force Winston to reveal what the police thought.”
He turned to look at her. “Is there a point to this line of inquiry?”
“Not really. Only that I find your tactics without conscience and… admirable. Well played.”
He twitched in surprise. “I am shocked, Lady Archer,” he teased in a low voice. “Winston Lane is, after all, your brother-in-law.”
“He is also CID. I cannot think them our friends in this. Not quite yet. That Winston was here to question us tells me as much.”
Beside her, Archer sighed and wrenched off his mask as though wearing it was getting more intolerable by the moment. She turned to survey him.
“Sir Percival’s valet said Percival called the coin a guide. Why?”
Archer’s head fell to the window as he sighed. “Because it is. We each received one. Each set of bumps upon the moon face makes up symbols that work with a cipher, thus revealing the location of the meeting place.” He glanced at her. “It doesn’t mean anything, Miranda. Only another breadcrumb to lead your good brother to my door.”
“But why you?” When he did not answer, her hand curled into a fist. “Evading CID is one thing. Hiding from me is another, Archer.”
He made a sound of annoyance. “Hiding… how very dramatic.”
Miranda’s fist thumped on the windowpane. “Moon’s members are being systematically killed.” The truth was lurking in his eyes, though he did an admirable job of trying to hide it. “But you remain untouched. Why?”
He glared at her. “I wouldn’t say untouched.”
Miranda waved her hand in irritation. “I remember that day in the museum quite clearly—”
“As do I.” Archer set his hands on his trim hips and glared at her. “One tends to remember when one’s wife is nearly murdered.”
Wife. The word gave her pause. At times she nearly forgot what they were to each other. Partners until death. But she could not let sentimentality rule the moment.
“My point being,” she said, “that you did not appear at all surprised when you first laid eyes on the fiend. On the contrary, you appeared to recognize him.”
“What I recognized,” he retorted rather nastily, “was myself. I knew then that the killer meant to appear as me.”
“He could have killed you at the museum, but he did not. It was an easy kill.”
“I am not so easily dispatched,” Archer muttered, turning his head slightly away. Her line of thinking must have been hitting near the mark because no pithy remarks were forthcoming.
“You are quite remarkably strong and agile,” she admitted, eyeing his impressive frame. The speed she’d seen last night was magnificent. “But not indestructible.”
“No.” He spread his arms wide. “One of your little verbal barbs would do me in, I’m sure.” He glanced as his chest at though checking for injury.
“Jest all you like,” she said, strolling around him, caging him in; she’d have the truth from him yet. “It won’t do you any good.”
He paced as well, his boots thudding over the carpet, until they circled each other like two great cats taking the other’s measure. “I am positively shivering with fear,” he said with a smile.
“Aren’t you,” she murmured, and Archer scowled. “What is your true affliction, Archer? How did you survive that tumble from the coach with nary a scratch?”
His mouth thinned. “I could ask the same of you. Your fall was infinitely worse, yet here you are…”—his eyes raked over her and a small shiver took hold of her belly—“unmarred.”
“Pure luck.”
“Luck,” he repeated. “You see? Not so mysterious.” His voice was a caress. She swallowed with difficulty.
“How… how did he get away the second time?”
“I failed to give chase.” His attention was on her lips now. She did not like the look at all, for she knew he aimed to distract her. That he was doing an excellent job only aggravated her further.
“Why?”
“You were stuck in a runaway coach.” He did not lift his eyes from her lips. “I thought it more pressing to save you.”
His dark head seemed to move ever closer. “Have I told you that your mouth is quite lovely?” His lids lowered a fraction. “Lovely and plump.”
Most assuredly trying to distract her. A wash of warmth invaded her limbs. “Perhaps you can write a sonnet about it later. But there is the one question that puts it all into place.” Her eyes held his as she leaned in, crowding him. “Are you immortal?”
The air in the room seemed to vanish with his sharp inhalation. Archer stared at her, shock and horror mingling in his eyes. After a pregnant silence he spoke, his voice thick and rusty. “That’s what Mckinnon told you?”
She refused to be shamed. “The valet said Sir Percival had the coin since 1814. All the other members are old men. No more deflections, Archer. Is it true?”
He whirled away and stalked to the tall windows overlooking the south lawn.
Tears clogged her throat and burned her eyes, but she would not let them fall. “I thought I could accept the distance our secrets put between us. But not if doing so threatens our very lives. This is too important.” Her heart ached as she watched his shoulders move under the force of his unsteady breath. “Let me in, Archer,” she whispered.
Slowly, he turned to gaze at her with troubled eyes. “Miri…”
Something in his eyes turned her cold. Suddenly it all seemed clear, his strength, his speed. Stranger things…And if it is true, was there someone out there intent upon cannibalizing him?
Her stomach rolled as her mind spun with images of Archer cut open, his flesh devoured by an unseen monster, and she pressed her middle, holding down her panic. “It is a nightmare,” she whispered, fingers numb and cold.
Archer straightened with a sharp breath. An odd smile pulled at his lips. “Does this look like the work of immortality?” He gestured casually toward the bruises blooming yellow and blue along his jaw and cheekbone. “Or the torn flesh that you yourself stitched together?”
The mocking in his tone was unmistakable. Nor did she blame him. She could scarcely wrap her head around the idea. She steeled herself as he walked with purpose to her side. “Come.” He took her arm in hand. “You like stories? I have a grand one.”
They marched through the house, her skirts rustling loudly as she struggled to keep up. Expectation and anxiety had her pulse pounding. They did not slow until they were well away from the house, headed back to the graveyard.
<
br /> Archer led her to a set of weathered headstones, not far from where John’s fresh earthen grave lay. “Benjamin Archer, Third Baron Archer of Umberslade, died in eighteen fifteen,” Archer said, pointing to the grave that bore his ancestor’s name. “I am not that man.” He took a breath, and his body grew stiffer. “Simply a fool who ignored certain destruction and survived.”
Dead leaves danced underfoot as they stood in silence. Goose bumps lifted on her skin where the cold wind hit it.
Archer stirred. “You are chilled.” He touched her elbow.
“I don’t believe you.” Miranda’s words flicked through the air like a whip, and he flinched.
“They searched to eradicate death,” she pressed. “Perhaps your grandfather failed, Archer. But you are here, a man who is now deformed by some grand experiment. And the worst of it is you won’t tell me what it was.” She stepped away from his explosive silence. “If you will not let me in to help, then I will find someone who will.”
Archer caught her wrist and wrenched her against him so fast her head spun. “Mckinnon, you mean?”
“If I must.”
“You’ll see me dead first!”
She slapped at him with her free arm. “I believe that is someone’s point, you ape!”
He snatched her flailing arm, as his other arm cinched about her waist. When she stilled, he let one hand go. The wide expanse of his palm flattened against her back, hedging her closer, until her breasts flattened against him. “Feel my heart,” he prompted thickly. Beneath her clenched fist, it pounded a fierce rhythm. “Believe me when I say that it is all too human, and just as weak.”
He clasped her neck and brought her near until their noses touched. “You may choose to believe what you want.” His lips brushed against hers as he spoke. “But if you think discovering these secrets and unmasking a killer will stop this madness, then you are a fool.”
She closed her eyes. The rough grain along his chin grazed her jaw, his hot breath drowning her senses. “You have one option left to you.” His voice dropped to a whisper as the arms about her squeezed tight, quashing her resistance. “That is to trust your lying ape of a husband to see you safe.”
It would be so easy to relent, to melt into him and be coddled. Part of her wanted to, with the desperation of a child. Yet where would that leave him? She wrenched her head back to glare at him. “You cannot expect me to—”
His lips crushed hers, a bruising force that pushed tender flesh against hard teeth. She whimpered as his hands clutched her head with unmoving strength, and his lips nipped and sucked for one sharp moment. Then she was free, stumbling back without an anchor to steady her.
Archer’s chest heaved as he glared in dark fury. “I cannot see you die!” he shouted. Startled crows scattered from the trees in a flurry of wings and wild caws.
He spun round with a flap of coattails and strode over the lawn, boot heels crunching upon the freezing soil. She flinched as his final words boomed out like cannon fire over the emptiness.
“I will not!”
Chapter Twenty-seven
My lord?”
Archer started with a sharp breath. He hadn’t heard Gilroy enter the library. The man stood slightly away from the desk, the silver mail tray in his hand.
“Mail, is it?” he asked, surprised at how weary his voice sounded as he took the letters.
The butler hesitated. His eyes were rheumy nowadays. Archer looked away from them. He did not think he could watch Gilroy fade as well.
“Is there something you wanted, Gilroy?”
Gilroy’s thin mouth compressed. Yes, there was something he wanted very badly to say. That was obvious. Only years of training prevented the man from speaking plainly. Gilroy drew himself up full.
“Lady Archer has declined dinner,” he said without a hint of reproach. Which only made Archer’s transgression more clear. “Shall I set up for one? Or perhaps bring a tray in here?”
The leaden weight in Archer’s stomach intensified. Miri no longer wanted to eat with him. He ached. In every muscle, in his heart, it hurt to breathe now. Yet she still inflamed him. Her honeyed scent, the way she lifted that one amber brow when he said something she did not agree with, made him want.
Archer scrubbed a hand over his jaw. Gilroy was still waiting for a reply.
“I find myself not entirely hungry either. Let the staff have it.”
“Very well, my lord.”
Archer did not look up from his desk as Gilroy left but slowly thumbed through his mail, if only for something to keep his hands occupied. A thin missive stopped him. Although it had been years, he knew that handwriting quite well.
His fingers were clumsy, tearing open the envelope in haste. Something inside him already knew what the note would say.
It can be done.
–L
His eyes went to the lunar calendar lying on the desk. Two days left until the new moon met the winter solstice. This night and one day, really. All that he had left to spend with Miranda. He raised his head, listening intently. Miri. He could just hear the soft steady sound of her breathing, the faint rustle of her dress when she moved. Archer rose from his desk. It was cowardly and selfish, but he needed her like he needed air.
She was in the salon, sitting unseeing before the backgammon board. A pang grasped Archer’s heart at the sight. Candlelight highlighted the creamy curves of her cheeks, setting her rosy hair aglow. For one precious moment, he could not breathe. His vision blurred, and he blinked hard.
“Miri.”
She turned, stiffening at his unexpected appearance. “Yes, Archer?”
He swallowed past the thickness in his throat and nodded toward the board. “Play a game with me?”
He was letting her beat him, Miranda was sure. The man barely paid mind to the game but sat in silence, gray eyes glittering from behind the black silk mask, watching her every move.
She looked up from the game board to find him watching still.
“You’re staring,” she murmured and moved her piece along the board.
“Yes. You look beautiful.”
Heat rose in her cheeks. She could only be thankful for the mellowing glow of candlelight to hide it. “You told me you cared not for how I looked.”
Archer leaned slightly forward in his chair. “I am an ass, Miri. You well know it. A boorish, unpardonable ass.”
She had to smile. “So long as you know it.” Her voice did not work properly. She offered him the cup and dice but he did not take them. He moved an inch closer, and his large frame enveloped the small gaming table.
“I know that your beauty renders me senseless.” Archer’s well-formed mouth broke into a smile. “I look upon you, and pure stupidity flies from my mouth. The sight of you in that golden dress makes my toes numb. I want to send Monsieur Falle roses, I’m so grateful.”
She laughed, and he did too, a rich unguarded laugh that made her insides flip. “You see?” he said. “Pure, unmitigated stupidity.”
The corners of his eyes crinkled in mirth, and she laughed again. “Then I shall save you from yourself,” she said. “I am appeased. Speak no more of my beauty and spare yourself further humiliation.”
She touched his hand lightly. The smile on his lips wavered and fell. His eyes went to her hand on his, and a shuddering sigh passed over his long frame. Miranda drew back as though burned, but he continued to blink down at his hand resting upon the game board.
“Archer, what is it?” Her fingers curled closed. “Are you ill?” she whispered as the flat planes of his chest rose and fell.
“Ill?” he choked out with a sudden laugh. His gaze reached as far as her lips before he froze again, and his mouth trembled. He looked off into the fire. “Is need an illness?” he muttered as though to himself. “I suppose it is.”
“Archer,” she said sharply, for his strange attitude began to nettle her. Her insides fluttered, sensing the coming of a storm.
As though breaking from a tether, his head sna
pped up, and the breath left her body as she saw what was laid bare in his eyes.
“Miri.”
One word, only her name, and yet it told her all she need know, of his pain, his desire. Of what he was asking. She pushed away from the table, not knowing where she was going, only that she needed to move.
“We’ve both done so well at keeping our distance, haven’t we?” she said as he stood and stalked her. But she wanted him, so much so that her arms shook with the need to hold him.
He tried to touch her cheek, and she shifted away. “And are you happy?” he asked softly.
Happy? Perhaps. Satisfied? No. Tears burned behind her eyes, and she took an unsteady breath. “Why now, Archer?”
Need tightened his mouth and left his expression raw. “Because today I truly realized that I could lose you in an instant.” He took a small step toward her. “That life was not a long road that stretched before me, but here and now. And the thought of spending one more day, one more breath without knowing the feel of you in my arms has become too much to bear.”
Suddenly his hand was cupping the back of her neck, pulling her to him, his mouth soft and warm upon hers. She nearly groaned from the pleasure of it.
“I want you, Miri,” he whispered into her mouth. He pushed her against the door, the starched linen of his shirt crushing into her bodice as his tongue delved between her lips.
She moaned and clutched his lapels as he kissed her with deep, slow kisses that made her knees weaken.
“Beyond reason, I want you…” His free hand skimmed her waist, easing down to her hip. “You want me too.”
“Yes.” Beyond reason.
Again he stroked her, softening his kiss, and she sighed and tugged at his jacket to feel the hard muscles shifting beneath.
He pulled away a fraction. “The lights.”
Miranda broke the kiss, and he looked back, pleading for understanding. A spark of anger ignited in her breast. “You want me,” she whispered, a lump rising in her throat. “Yet you will not reveal yourself to me.”
He flinched and averted his eyes. “No.”
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