He leaned an arm over her head and wiggled the fingers of his free hand in her face. “Come now, I need an expert’s opinion. What will Lady Ambrosia think?”
At the mention of the lady, she looked away from him, some of the color leeching from her cheeks and the edges of her lips wilting.
He regretted his words immediately, for the mention of the lady had snapped them both out of the strange spell that had fallen over them.
He suddenly realized that he’d trapped her against the door. He stepped away abruptly, his stomach bottoming out. What was he doing? He was meant to be seducing Lady Ambrosia, but instead he was engaging in this…this…
He didn’t even know what to call it, whatever it was that was going on between him and his secretary. But it felt very much like a flirtation. Or a seduction, if he had to call a spade a spade.
No, no, he’d not let himself be so distracted by her. He barely knew who she was at all. But, damn it, he did want her—that much he could admit to himself. And now that he’d admitted it, he hardly knew what to do with his desire. Except deny it.
The silence and stillness of the room grew and stretched between them until he felt his heart would burst under the strain.
She finally slipped open the door, and he noticed that she looked very near tears. He suddenly felt sick to his stomach.
“I’ll just fetch Coombes, shall I?” she said quietly.
After she left, Julian simply stood in the middle of the room, dripping bathwater on the floor and staring at the door, stunned.
He had been trying to seduce her, hadn’t he? And he had a feeling if he’d never brought up the subject of Lady Ambrosia, Fawkes would have let him succeed. Instead, he’d brought her to tears. He didn’t know how he felt about that, though the nausea in his stomach had yet to fade.
When Coombes finally stumbled back into the room, having obviously taken a detour through Pilby’s pantry, Fawkes was not with him, and Julian’s nausea grew worse.
He decided he wouldn’t be retiring after all. After Coombes dressed him, he went to his workshop and tried very hard not to think about his secretary for the rest of the night.
He did not succeed.
Chapter Seventeen
The Explosion
Davina had been treated to a number of unconventional awakenings since she had arrived at the castle: drunkards hiding from rapacious houseguests, rain pelting her face as she floated in the clouds, etcetera, etcetera. But she had yet to experience the unique joy of waking up to an explosion.
As she shot up out of bed, the walls still trembling around her from the force of the blast, she wondered what had taken so long. There had been no mishaps since her second day at the castle, though from the way Coombes had described his tenure here, she’d braced herself for the inevitable. It had finally happened, and she didn’t think it coincidence that it had occurred when Sir Wesley was visiting.
But just as the reverberations settled down around her, the shrieking began. It was either a banshee or the viscountess, and it was much too desperate a sound for Davina to ignore. She fervently hoped Hirst and her brother hadn’t managed to blow up anything other than the workshop. It wouldn’t do to find Lady Highbottom in pieces somewhere.
She sighed, pulled on her jacket and spectacles, and rushed out of her room.
As she drew closer to the source, the acrid smell of burning hit her nostrils, and she could hear the sounds of a small commotion beneath the shrieks: the scurrying of servants’ feet, Pilby’s stern voice barking out instructions, and even the blustering, half-coherent baritone of Lord Highbottom.
She skidded to a stop at the door of the viscount’s chambers, a small crowd of the castle’s denizens, most still in their nightdresses and caps, gathered outside in the smoke-filled corridor.
She covered her nose at the stench that greeted her inside the room—something a bit stronger than mere smoke. The haze finally cleared enough for her to see the charred and smoldering remains of the bedclothes and curtains surrounding the four-poster bed.
The source of the eyewatering smell lay on the mattress as well. Someone had obviously tried to douse the flames with the contents of the chamberpot. The effort had been a success, if a bit…messy.
Davina tried not to retch and averted her eyes from the scene of the crime. She located the wailing viscountess, who lay stretched upon a divan in a flimsy negligée that barely concealed crucial parts of her anatomy, her head in Lady Ambrosia’s lap.
Lady Ambrosia, clearly not a natural caretaker, held a handkerchief up to her nose while fanning her friend’s face, her expression growing incrementally more exasperated with each one of the viscountess’ shrieks.
Davina spied Lord Highbottom next, sprawled on the floor next to a pile of broken glass under a shattered casement window. His usually ruddy face was drained of color, his personal valet hovering over him looking completely out of his depth.
Lady Highbottom caught sight of her, and her wailing increased in decibels and frequency. Her hands immediately latched on to Davina’s forearm and pulled her close. Lady Ambrosia immediately took the opportunity to extricate herself, leaving Davina to bear the brunt of the viscountess’ outburst.
If Davina hadn’t resented Ambrosia before, she certainly did now.
The viscountess pulled her down onto the divan next to her and buried her sobs into the lapel of Leon’s jacket with a theatricality that would have been more suited to Drury Lane.
“What happened?” Davina finally demanded, clutching one of Leon’s handkerchiefs under her nose to block out the smell and trying not to drown in the viscountess’ clutches.
“It was horrible…horrible, Mr. Fawkes!” Lady Highbottom wailed, jerking the handkerchief out of Davina’s hand and wiping her nose. “I thought for certain I would perish. It was God’s judgment rained down on me at last!”
“Bollocks,” Lord Highbottom slurred, waving away any attempts by his valet to help him to his feet. “It weren’t no divine judgment. It were one of our host’s infernal devices. Flew through the window and right between us as we…er…” the viscount broke off at this, a bit of pink finally reasserting itself in his cheeks, “…as we slept.”
“We were making love,” Lady Highbottom corrected without an ounce of shame, oblivious to the way Highbottom’s face went from pink to scarlet. “I was just climbing on top…”
Highbottom began to choke, and it wasn’t from the smoke.
“…when that devilish thing flew at us.”
The viscountess pointed toward the bed, and Davina reluctantly looked for said thing amidst all of the other…things atop the ruined mattress. She spotted it quickly, thank hell, at the center of the worst of the charring.
It looked very familiar, like the crankshaft of an engine she’d been watching Hirst rebuild for the past week. She wasn’t in the least bit surprised to find it there, nor would she have been surprised to learn that it was in fact possessed by some devil, since this was the second time she’d seen the thing travel an impossibly far distance.
Newton’s second law indeed.
“I was taking your advice, you see,” Lady Highbottom continued mournfully, turning her watery eyes back to Davina.
“My advice, my lady?” She did not like where this was heading at all.
“To reconcile with Highbottom. In the marital bed,” the viscountess elucidated, much to the entire room’s discomfort.
The viscount groaned.
“I advised you on this?” she choked out.
“You did,” the lady insisted, “after Mr. Hirst rejected me.”
Davina was impressed the viscountess’ memory stretched so far back.
“Hirst, I say! Rejecting a fine filly like you!” Highbottom blustered indignantly, his high color now thoroughly restored.
Lady Highbottom rolled her eyes at her husband. “I told you this ages ago, Stanley. You were just too drunk to remember.”
He conceded the point with a constipated grimace.
The viscoun
tess turned back to Davina. “And then you rejected me…”
“What!” Highbottom squawked, glancing at Davina in disbelief. “You tried it on…with this…this fribble?”
The viscountess waved away her husband’s bluster once more. “I told you this too, Stanley, but you were still too drunk to listen!” she hissed.
The viscount conceded the point once more.
Davina wished she’d never gotten out of bed.
“The one time I tried to bed my husband in years, and we are nearly brained and burned alive in our beds!” Lady Highbottom concluded, oblivious to everyone’s pained expression. “What am I to make of this?”
“I’ll tell you what I make of it,” Highbottom muttered. “I’ll never bed my wife again. It’s a danger to my health.”
Lady Highbottom let out an ear-splitting wail at this and buried her head in Davina’s lapel once more. Davina swatted away the viscountess’ hand, which had used the distraction to wander perilously close to her arse.
If she’d had any idea that the lady would transfer her affections onto her that first night at the castle, Davina might have chosen to catch the mail coach to London instead. As daft as she appeared to be, Lady Highbottom was shockingly tenacious when it came to getting what she wanted—or perhaps not so shockingly. The only one in the castle Davina could be certain the viscountess hadn’t attempted to seduce at some point was Lady Ambrosia.
Well, mostly certain.
“I need a drink,” the viscount muttered, watching his wife’s display with disgust.
With impeccable timing, Pilby made his entrance, holding a silver tray laden with a decanter full of the viscount’s favorite claret. The viscount took the decanter gratefully and began to drink straight from it, ignoring the wineglass Pilby was offering.
Pilby’s mouth twitched down at the viscount’s crudity, and he met Davina’s eyes across the room. His face may have been completely inscrutable—and he was studiously avoiding looking beneath the viscountess’ chin—but she could tell from his dancing eyes that he was rather enjoying the Highbottoms’ predicament. They might have had titles, but they had worn out their welcome long ago.
There was a slight commotion at the door, and Davina turned just in time to see Hirst and her brother enter the room. They simultaneously cringed in disgust as the smell hit them.
“What happened here?” Hirst demanded over the viscountess’ sobs. He was still clean-shaven, and had obviously been dressed by Coombes’ hand, since he was actually wearing a tied cravat and an unwrinkled jacket. Only the black eye betrayed his gentlemanly appearance, but she found she didn’t mind it. It was her mark, after all.
Davina’s heart did not lurch at that thought. Or at the memory of the evening before, when he’d been so naked and so…close. So close, as if he’d meant to kiss her…
“Your infernal machine exploded!” Kildale accused, having somehow wormed his way into the room to stand next to his daughter. The sight of Kildale’s hairy legs displayed beneath his dressing gown was one Davina could have happily gone a lifetime without witnessing. “It could have killed us all!”
Hirst shot the marquess a look that said that he wished that it had killed him at least. “Thank you for stating the obvious, my lord,” he said dryly, as if addressing an imbecile. “I was there when it exploded, but I wasn’t quite sure what had happened until your explanation.”
Davina thought it best to interrupt them before another attempted murder, for it didn’t look like Kildale cared if he had witnesses at the moment.
“It looks as if part of the engine flew through the window and set the bed on fire,” Davina said, indicating the part in question.
Both newcomers followed her gesture back to the bed and grimaced at what they found waiting for them.
“Good God,” Sir Wesley cried, appalled, covering his nose with his sleeve. “That weren’t in the engine.”
“I see someone thought it a wise idea to extinguish the flames with the chamber pot,” Hirst said.
“Worked, didn’t it?” Highbottom muttered over the rim of the half-drunk decanter.
“It certainly did,” Hirst said mildly. His expression was too serious to be trusted, however, his eyes twinkling even more than Pilby’s. He glanced toward his butler. “It looks as if you have everything well in hand, Pilby.”
Pilby’s brow lifted as he stood over the viscount. “Shall you be wanting your…part back, sir?”
Hirst glanced at the bed, then quickly away again, his nose wrinkling in disgust. “Toss it all in the dustbin. I believe I shall have my blacksmith recast it, Pilby.”
“I dearly hope so, sir,” Pilby said dryly.
With that, Hirst made a hasty exit with her brother in tow.
Davina was not about to let them get away so unscathed, however. She may have found the Highbottoms’ ignominious end secretly amusing, but she had to admit the marquess had been right. Someone could have been seriously hurt.
She ordered Lady Ambrosia to fetch the viscountess’ laudanum, and Ambrosia seemed so shocked that anyone would have the gall to address her in such a manner that she complied immediately. Once Lady Ambrosia had managed to divert the viscountess’ attention with her favorite panacea, Davina untangled herself from the lady’s grasping hands and followed after Hirst and Sir Wesley.
By the time she managed to make her way to the workshop, Hirst was standing over the remains of the engine, and Sir Wesley nowhere to be found. It was hard to make out much of anything in the mangled, blackened wreckage, and her heart sank at all of that work wasted. He didn’t look overly upset about it, though. Just thoughtful.
He finally looked up, noticing her presence.
She crossed her arms and tried to look stern, refusing to let her mind drift back to the evening before. “I should have known you and Sir Wesley would manage to explode something at the first opportunity,” she scolded. “The two of you together are an absolute menace. There should be laws against it.”
Hirst’s mouth curved in a small smirk, his eyes twinkling. “The look on Highbottom’s face was almost worth it, you have to admit. And the shite. Everywhere.”
Davina decided not to encourage him further by relating the full, sordid story of exactly what the couple had been doing prior to being assailed by flying bits of machinery.
“You could have killed someone,” she said chidingly.
Hirst waved away her concern. “Nothing was harmed but the bed.”
“And the window,” she pointed out.
“And the viscount’s eyebrows.”
She’d thought there had been something missing on Highbottom’s face.
She fought back a smile. “You need to be more careful.”
“I know,” Hirst admitted, seriously now, as he poked at the wreckage with a spanner, his brow furrowed in consternation. “But the thing is I was careful. It shouldn’t have exploded at all.”
“I suspect that’s not the first time you’ve said those words,” she said dryly.
“This time I mean it,” Hirst insisted. “There was no reason it shouldn’t have worked.”
“Wishful thinking?”
Hirst shook his head and began to carefully sift through the detritus. “No. I tested it just last night. The engine ran perfectly. All that I had left to do was draw up the design for the patent office.”
She felt a creeping sense of unease, the same sensation she’d felt the night of the involuntary balloon ride. “Well, then what are you saying?”
Hirst’s expression grew pensive. “I’m saying that perhaps it was tampered with.”
“Sabotage!” Davina said.
“It wouldn’t be the first time,” he said.
“Well, it seems to me fairly obvious who’s doing this.”
Hirst’s jaw flexed with tension, and he wouldn’t meet her eyes, but he knew exactly what she was thinking.
“It’s the second time in nearly as many days someone has tried to kill you,” she pressed.
�
��I believe you may be overreacting,” Hirst interjected coolly.
Davina scowled at Hirst. Really. “You just said someone sabotaged the engine.”
“I said it might have been sabotaged. And I was never in harm’s way.”
“Just like you were never in harm’s way when Kildale shoved you into the charlière.”
“Allegedly,” Hirst said.
“I saw it with my own eyes!” she cried.
“You saw someone,” he countered.
She could have throttled him. “I more than saw him. He coshed me on the head.” He winced at this. “You’ve as good as admitted it was Kildale. I don’t know why you’re trying to deny it now.”
Hirst glowered at her. “Even if it is, it changes nothing. I’ll be through with him soon enough.”
She certainly didn’t like the sound of that. “And if he does manage to kill you before then?” Davina demanded.
Hirst shrugged with infuriating nonchalance. “Let him try.”
Davina had to be missing something, for even though he was acting like one at the moment, Hirst was not a stupid man. It was as if she’d been given a novel to read with the first half of its pages torn away.
One thing was certain, however—there was bad blood between Hirst and Kildale, and Hirst seemed to think marrying the marquess’ daughter was going to give him some sort of victory over the other man. And he didn’t seem to care if he died in the attempt.
This was not the ordinary ambition of a cit to marry well, but something much darker. She should have known that Hirst could never be ordinary, even in this.
She wanted nothing more than to take Hirst by the shoulders and shake him until his good sense returned. This feud was not only ridiculous: it was dangerous. How could he value his life so little, when it had come to mean so much to her?
“What game are you playing with Kildale?” she demanded. “What quarrel is so important that you’d risk your life to win it?”
She’d finally hit a nerve, for he was visibly angry now. He stalked forward until they were nearly toe-to-toe. She had to crane her neck to meet his hard gaze, and she was breathless for an entirely different reason than the night before.
Miss Benwick Reforms a Rogue Page 19