The Deepest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  The game was afoot. Spencer and Whitehall had been right. Archer swore under his breath as he looked out into the cold morning light of winter. Meredith Woolcott had addled his brains for the last time.

  Having seen Hamilton bundled into a hansom cab as promised, Archer walked down to Mayfair, ignoring one of Crockford’s footmen who insisted that he take a conveyance. Pushing a fistful of coins into the man’s hand, he took the side exit, two stairs at a time, inhaling the frost-tinged morning air. The last place he wanted to go was home, only to silence and the specter of Lady Meredith Woolcott and her fate which, increasingly, he held in his hands.

  Contrary to the footman’s grim exhortations, the walk through Soho did not put him in the way of footpads or cutthroats but merely his own bleak thoughts. A lucid clarity had settled around him, the effect of having spent thirty-six hours without sleep, hardly a first in his experience. Days and nights had blurred oftentimes enough on The Brigand, courtesy of inhospitable seas, unrelenting in their demand for attention. It wasn’t a bad plan to keep in practice. The last time he’d stayed up four days in succession was in the port of Alexandria, while he and Rushford lay in wait to head off an ambush set up by the Emir Damietta. Archer allowed himself the ghost of a smile. Whitehall had been pleased when they’d pulled that rabbit out of a hat.

  Whitehall—and its insatiable appetite for information. He recalled Spencer’s self-satisfied mien, when he’d learned about the attack on Meredith in Rashid. More evidence that Faron still lived and would not relent until he had Lady Woolcott in his grasp. His gut tightened at what he’d read in the second dossier that Spencer had readily supplied. And at the scene on The Brigand that Rushford had recalled.

  Meredith Woolcott was my first love. And I hers.

  It was impossible. Repulsive. Archer felt his stomach twist.

  I do not wear this mask without reason.... There are wounds that go far beyond the superficialities of the skin and inward to the mind and spirit.

  Faron’s words. And his confession that he had set fire to the nursery in which Rowena and Julia had slept as mere babes. Archer recalled the copper cylinder, the child’s kaleidoscope he had recovered from the dead Arab. More proof, if they were looking for it, that Faron still lived. Who else would have kept and sent such a horrific memento?

  Archer kept walking, pulling up his collar against a rising wind. What was their story, he wondered, and how had it created the evil that followed in their wake still? It had been difficult to read the dossier, to envision Meredith as a young girl, the daughter of a scholar, the second son of a minor English baron who had been sent out to make his own way in the world. The young Christian Woolcott had found himself a position in France, at Claire de Lune, the august chateau of one of the oldest, most powerful families in France. His daughter and the young Comte Montagu had studied together, laughed together, grown up together, exploring the lush green of the countryside as their young love blossomed.

  Archer wanted nothing more than to stanch the bleeding images that unspooled in his mind. Calm clarity had just dissolved into a hot burning tide. His muscles were tense, his pulse pounding, a deep dissatisfaction welling from his core. He turned down the narrow lane to find himself passing the West London Boxing Club, where in a few hours those who had not found surfeit in the clubs such as Crockford’s or White’s would find their satisfaction in the arena. He himself preferred The Brigand and a few weeks at sea. There was no better way to clear a man’s blood of ill humors. The Brigand was currently moored at his country estate on the Channel, its constrained living quarters far more hospitable to his bleak mood than the baronial pile up the hill that had been in his family for centuries. For a moment, he considered abandoning it all, riding to the coast and disappearing into the horizon for a few months. Spencer would be disappointed but not surprised.

  He couldn’t do it. Simply disappear. Despite the fact that he felt a stranger in his own skin, beset by the images of a tall, red-haired woman with shadowed gray eyes. How this had happened he would never know. Bloody, bloody inconvenient. He rolled his shoulders, trying to restore a measure of familiar calm, to narrow his options and focus his anger. He stopped mid-stride. If Faron would be flushed from whatever sinkhole or grave he now made his own, he would be there waiting for him. Archer unclenched his fists, suddenly at ease with his decision.

  London suited his mood in all its winter pallor, the bare branches of the hedges interchangeable with the wrought-iron fences that cordoned off handsome town houses on the main square of Mayfair. They looked down their noses at passersby, tall and proud, dominating one of the most exclusive areas of the city. Turning down one of the mews, Archer walked another hundred paces before turning into the kitchen entrance of a town house. Letting himself in with a key, he moved silently through the servants’ entrance, its inhabitants still slumbering. Copper pans danced overhead as he moved with easy familiarity through the house. He stopped at the entrance of the breakfast room, an apple-green confection of watered silk wallpaper and velvet curtains as dainty as the woman who sat, her golden curls catching a shaft of morning sun, on a chaise longue, book on her lap and a cup of coffee at her elbow. The Countess Blenheim was considered by the ton to be a remarkably pretty widow, Archer knew.

  Looking up, Camille was startled and then made as if to throw her book at him. “Good lord, Richard. You have given me a start! I will never understand how you move so silently. You’re not the smallest man in Christendom, after all. You know you might have used the front door.”

  He strode into the room to drop a kiss upon her head. The familiar aroma of vanilla and roses enveloped him.

  “It’s been a while,” she murmured, looping her arms around his neck, the book falling to the floor.

  “My apologies,” he said, gently removing her hands from his shoulders. “I have been awash in business since Cairo. As for the front entrance, I know that you’d prefer I did not alert your butler.” He crossed the room, shrugged out of his jacket with long familiarity, and sat down.

  Camille made a moue of disappointment. “I have missed you sorely. Your discretion least of all.” She took the sting from the reproof by smiling, showing her small, pearly teeth.

  “I find that difficult to believe,” Archer returned with a grin, a measure of his customary good humor returning in her presence. “When have men not beaten down your door for a moment of your company?”

  “You flatterer,” she said, drawing the chiffon wisp of a dressing gown more closely around her body. She watched him cast about for a servant. “You are looking for coffee, no doubt.” Turning to ring a bell at her side, she moved with the confident knowledge that her household was as well run as a ship in Her Majesty’s Navy. Short moments later a maid in a mobcap appeared with the requisite urn.

  It was a moment’s reprieve, when the truth took a backseat to less pressing concerns. Their conversation then took a desultory turn, Camille exclaiming over the demands of the social season, the ongoing renovations to the east wing of her country estate and any other subject that neatly avoided the true reason for Archer’s long-delayed visit.

  Archer listened to her lilting voice, asking few questions, merely enjoying her easy presence as fatigue finally settled into his bones. He leaned forward in his chair, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand, and interrupted the flow of words. “It’s wonderful to see you again, Camille, but enough of this chatter. I’m really more interested in learning how you fare.” He noticed for the first time that she looked tired this morning, faint purple shadows under her soft blue eyes. It never occurred to him that she missed him; that was not the nature of their affaire. He thought of the women who had populated his world over the years with a twinge of guilt. They had all been easy and undemanding of him. Mere afterthoughts in his life. As he preferred.

  The golden-haired widow fell silent, then swung her legs, her feet encased in dainty silk slippers, from the chaise to sit facing him. “I should know by now that you are not one for small tal
k. And yet what have I been doing this past hour?” Ordinarily, he would have swept her in his arms without a word, satisfying both their carnal appetites as only he could. They had made love in every room of her Mayfair town house over the past two years, a welcome shock after the studiously genteel affections of Camille’s late husband. A generous lover, inventive, inexhaustible and unselfish, Archer had been a revelation and, as such, would be sorely missed in her life. Camille was nothing if not intuitive and she realized that something had changed.

  “So tell me of this Cairo business, if you can,” she said lightly, sensing that it was not business he wanted to discuss. It never was with Archer. He skimmed the surface of life as lightly as his much vaunted yacht, never cutting too deeply.

  “There’s not much I can say. The weather was overly warm. The sights inspiring.”

  “I know what a lover of antiquities you are.” The tone was ironic.

  “Rocks and more rocks.”

  They had never been at a loss for words before, their silences amicable and comfortable. But this morning, an unfamiliar tension pervaded the salon. It would not do to examine her feelings too closely, Camille thought, her mouth already dry with loss.

  “No need to prevaricate, Richard,” she interjected, wondering at her courage. “I know what you have really come to say.” She stopped to pour herself another cup of coffee, focusing on the spouting liquid as she spoke. “I am not entirely surprised. It is for the best.”

  If her confession surprised him, he didn’t show it. Instead, he reached over to touch her hand, hovering over the urn. “You are a beautiful, understanding woman, Camille.”

  She smiled pensively, pushing his hand away lightly. “We have had a good run, Richard. You and I. I could not have survived those first years after Matthew’s death without you.”

  He made a dismissive sound. “Of course, you could have,” he said leaning back into his chair. “But I could not have found another who is so understanding about my absences and peripatetic ways.”

  “I won’t scold but sometimes women deserve a little more than they ask for.” She frowned. “And I am not speaking of jewels and trinkets.” Smoothing down the folds of her dressing gown, she looked perplexed. “I can tell something is bothering you, darling. I know that you prefer to keep things light between us but now that there is no risk ...”

  Archer sipped his coffee. “Risk?” His brows shot up. “Of course. You avoid any real topic of worth for fear of getting too close to a woman. You use humor and distance and, lest I could ever forget, a veritable cache of amorous technique.”

  “I’ve never heard you complain before.”

  She smiled. “And I’m not complaining now. Merely telling you that now’s your chance, darling. You have nothing to lose. And dare I say it, nothing to fear. It’s over between us and yet I think I know you better than most. So why not tell me what’s troubling you?”

  His coffee cup half raised, Archer smiled. “Nothing is troubling me.”

  Camille shook her blond curls. “Sometimes you are a bloody damned idiot,” she said, her voice low and a little angry. “You helped me when I needed someone and now you reject the help I offer you. Do not hurt me this way.”

  Archer set down his coffee. “I would never hurt you, Camille.” The honesty in her eyes pained him as little else could. The ice beneath his feet was thin and he feared breaking through; he realized that he had made his way through London’s early morning in search of something he could scarcely name.

  “Then let me help you. Talk to me.” Camille’s expression softened. “What happened in Cairo? And I don’t mean whatever it was you got up to. Tell me what really happened. What has changed?” What has changed you, she really wanted to say.

  The coffee was suddenly bitter. “Nothing happened, Camille,” he lied, but he could not continue the lie in its entirety. “But you are quite right when you say that you know me better than many others. So perhaps you can tell me ...” He paused, taking another sip of his coffee, leaving the sentence unfinished.

  Camille put a hand to her forehead. “Tell you what? What you wish to hear or what you need to hear?”

  “You deserve the opportunity at the very least.”

  “Because you have decided that we are to part company? You believe that I should like to twist the knife a little bit, in revenge?” She shook her head, acknowledging that he did not realize she loved him. “I’d hoped you’d know me better, Richard.” Lord, he was a gorgeous man. Rumpled, tired, larger than life, sitting in her morning room, oozing that masculinity that she’d found irresistible from the start. Suddenly, she wanted nothing more than to stop the flow of words, to turn back the clock, saunter over to his chair and fall into his arms. She gave herself an inward shake. She’d known from the beginning that Lord Archer was not for her to keep. She’d realized it from the start, the moment she’d seen him from across the room at her best friend’s Lady Dorrington’s recital, those blue eyes in that rugged face ... dear God. She took a breath. “There is no easy way for me to say it.”

  He arched a brow. “Then say it straight out.”

  “It’s simply that you run away... . Oh, dear,” she said watching his face. “I don’t mean in the literal sense.”

  “I’ve never been accused of cowardice.” He smiled.

  “That’s not what I meant, Richard.”

  “Then what do you mean? Please go on. I need to hear this. And from you, a woman I respect deeply.”

  Camille held up both hands, palms out. “I appreciate your trust.”

  “And respect.”

  She took a deep breath. “Bluntly put, this rootlessness that you seem to prefer ... I do not quite understand it. But you cannot keep running away from people, from places, from those about whom you begin to care. You are nearly forty years of age, Richard. It is time.”

  “You make it sound as though I have a foot in the grave. That I should find myself some young miss and saddle her with a half-dozen babes.”

  She jerked out of the chaise, frustration marking her brow. “There you go. Deflecting the seriousness of the moment with some ridiculous attempt at humor.”

  He shrugged helplessly. “Very well then. I shall be perfectly serious. Time for what, precisely, Camille?”

  Taking another deep breath, she said, “To confront what you fear most. It’s that simple, my dear friend.” She had almost said dear lover. She took a sip of her now tepid coffee, looking away.

  Shoving a hand through his hair, Archer stared darkly at Camille. Unbidden, the image of Meredith shimmered before his mind’s eye. Fear. Abruptly, he shoved back his chair. “I should go,” he said, his voice gruff. “I have imposed upon you long enough. In every sense.” He picked up his jacket.

  The countess placed her cup carefully on the table and then stood, drawing herself up to her full, if diminutive height. She barely reached his shoulder. “I hope I have not offended you. That was not my intent.”

  “You could never offend me, Camille.”

  “We shall always be friends, I trust.”

  “Always.”

  Camille forced herself to meet his gaze. “Where will you go?” She knew how much he loathed the emptiness of his London town house.

  “That’s never a problem.”

  He thrust a hand through his hair. He’d a sudden fancy for a bottle of brandy and a biddable woman who would fuck him blind.

  Chapter 5

  The hansom cab rocked to a stop in front of Meredith’s hired town house off Belgravia Square. She shivered as the door opened and cold air flooded the interior, lashing the tip of her nose with an icy breeze. London in early December was a world away from Egypt.

  A footman materialized on the steps to hand her from the coach. A flurry of wet drops, almost snow, swirled about them, sticking to her lashes. She suddenly missed Montfort with a pang that took her breath away as she remembered how when she was chilled to the bone, a hot brick would instantly appear to warm her feet, courtesy of the sm
all staff of loyal servants that had seen to her care over the years.

  She clutched her leather-gloved hands together to warm them. Nostalgia would do her little good. What she needed was a ride in Hyde Park, to simply hire a mount for the afternoon and exercise until her nervous energy had been burned to a crisp, banishing the cold that had settled in the pit of her stomach since that afternoon in Rashid. Even now, her shoulder blades twitched and she glanced up and down the street. Despising the sensation of being watched, she tamped down the flame of fear that flickered to life. Before the incident at the abandoned fort, she had put the ever-present sense of heightened awareness behind her, but today she couldn’t escape or ignore it. Trepidation stalked her, and she forced herself to walk, not run up the steps of the town house.

  Once inside, Meredith took a deep breath. What a liar she was. Lying to herself and lying to Lord Richard Buckingham Archer. In her heart, she knew that those men at St. Julien had been sent by someone, a truth too bitter for her to swallow, and one she could not yet make herself digest. She had not been able to shake the ominous feeling that had come over her when she’d faced the third man in the group of Arabs that had descended upon her. There had been something wrong about the way he’d been looking at her. The dark emotions were made worse by the fact that she had killed him, an unholy secret she now shared with a man she could not permit herself to trust.

  Archer. Her stomach tightened. Her independence was what had kept Rowena and Julia safe; the last thing she needed or wanted was Lord Richard Archer sniffing about. His presence in her life was entirely suspect, causing her to wonder what his real interest in an aging spinster might be. Most humiliating, he had slipped away the self-protective blanket of numbness she’d enveloped herself in these past years, reawakening in her an appetite she had long ago forsworn. It had been many years since she’d had a man in her bed, and she would do anything to keep it that way; she would maintain a distance between them. Her response to him had been entirely inadvisable, the result of a highly tumultuous situation. Nothing more.