Bewitched by the Bluestocking

by Eaton, Jillian

  James yawned.

  “Regardless, I am not going to make the same mistake again,” Kincaid said fervently. Standing up from behind his desk, he crossed to the window. His townhouse was only four blocks from the river. On a clear day, if he stood in the attic and squinted just right, he could make out the towering mast of a massive sailing vessel as it edged its way towards London Bridge.

  As a police officer, he’d spent more time at the harbor than anywhere else in the city. It was a crowded, rat-infested den of crime that stank to the high heavens of fish and rot. He couldn’t begin to count the number of bloated bodies he’d hauled out of the water. He’d loathed that part of the job the most. The senseless loss. The stomach-twisting violence. The mindless destruction of life and limb.

  Kincaid had never imagined how mindlessly cruel people could be to each other before he became a peeler. Maybe that was why, three years into the madness and the muck, he’d found himself drawn to Lady Lavinia.

  Lady Lavinia, with her enchanting laugh and sweet aura of innocence. She’d been a beacon of hope in the dismal abyss of endless depravity. A chance to breathe clean, fresh air after suffocating in the stench of moral decay.

  If only he’d known how unscrupulous she really was. Instead, he had been blind to her spider’s web until it was too late. Until the harder he struggled, the more entangled he became. And when it was finally over, when the smoke had cleared and the damage had been done, he had vowed to himself he would never again risk his heart for a client.

  Or a client’s wife.

  Kincaid jumped, startled out of his thoughts when James nudged his leg.

  “What do you want?” he asked sourly, still annoyed by the cat’s betrayal. If a man didn’t have the loyalty of his own pet, what did he have? An ungrateful mouth to feed, that’s what. “I know you liked Miss Thorncroft. I did, too.”

  It was true, he realized with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He had liked Joanna. As far as first impressions went, the fearless, red-haired American had made an indelible one. Why else would he still be in his office going over their conversation hours after she’d left? Perhaps because even though she was gone, her scent still remained.

  Violets. Joanna had smelled of rain and violets. Not the sort that grew in pretty, potted plants in shop windows, but the sort that sprawled across the Highlands in a wild tangle of purple petals and glossy, green leaves.

  At his feet, James gave a plaintive meow.

  “I told you not to look at me like that,” Kincaid said gruffly, even as he scooped the cat up and gave him a scratch behind his ear. “This isn’t going to be like it was. I’ve gone down that road once, and have no intention of traveling that way again. Not that you’d know anything about it. You weren’t even born yet, you scrawny bastard.”

  His ill-fated affair with Lavinia had ended well before some arse dropped two kittens on his doorstep. While most would have given the scrawny, flea-infested little buggers away (if not drowned them outright), Kincaid had always had a soft spot in his heart for the weak and the vulnerable. Besides, he’d desperately needed the company. And while James in particular had tested his patience over the years, he didn’t regret taking them in and giving them a home.

  Today being the exception.

  Both man and cat turned their attention to the door when a firm knock sounded on the other side of it. A quick glimpse at the longcase clock in the corner and Kincaid mumbled a curse. He’d allowed himself to become so distracted by Joanna that he had forgotten he was expecting a visitor.

  “Come in,” he called out, his deep baritone carrying easily across the office. A second’s pause, and then the door swung inward to reveal a well-dressed gentleman with black hair just long enough to touch the collar of his jacket, intelligent, gray eyes, and the large, bulky build of a boxer.

  Despite his size, Sterling Nottingham, Duke of Hanover, moved lightly on his feet as he walked into the office. A grin lit up his face when he saw Kincaid and the two men were quick to embrace, their hands slapping loudly on each other’s backs before they pulled apart.

  “Kincaid. As I live and breathe. How long has it been?”

  “Too long.” Kincaid had met Sterling—as he preferred to be called by his closest acquaintances—when he’d still been just a constable. The duke’s sister had been kidnapped by highwaymen and was being held for ransom. Sterling had immediately paid what they were asking, but when his sister wasn’t delivered as promised, he turned to Scotland Yard (as it was better known now) for help. Thankfully, the story had a happy ending, with Kincaid and Sterling striking up a friendship despite their differences in class and fortune.

  They’d maintained contact over the years, occasionally exchanging a letter or meeting for a drink whenever their paths happened to cross. Sterling had even stuck by him when the rest of London turned their backs on him. But in all that time, Sterling had never reached out in a professional capacity, which was why Kincaid had been so surprised to receive a note from the duke requesting a private meeting.

  “Have a seat,” he said, pointing at the same chair Joanna had sat in just a few hours ago. Leaning back against his desk, he thumbed through his journal to an empty page. “I hope this has nothing to do with Sarah again.”

  “No, no.” Sterling shook his head as he settled his large body into the chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. His black leather Hessians were splattered with mud, indicating he’d walked rather than taken a carriage as would be expected of a duke. But then, Sterling had never fully come to terms with his title or the tragic event that led to him inheriting it.

  The younger of two sons, he should have been the spare. But when his brother was killed in an illegal duel, Sterling became Duke of Hanover.

  Most would have secretly celebrated such an accession.

  Sterling had been devastated.

  One night, when he was long into his cups, he’d confessed to Kincaid that the title felt like a bloody yoke around his neck. He’d never wanted to be burdened by all the responsibilities that came with such a lofty rank. But more than that, the title was a constant reminder that his brother should have been the duke. After all, Sterling was the one who had goaded him into the duel…never dreaming in his worst nightmares that Sebastian would actually go through with it. He carried the weight of that loss to this day, but was always quick to hide it behind an engaging grin or a quick jest.

  Were Kincaid not so attuned to the nuanced expressions of those around him, he might have thought as others did: that the Duke of Hanover was nothing more than a renowned rake, womanizer, and ne’er-do-well. But he knew a thing or two about facades, which was how he was able to see so clearly past Sterling’s.

  Sterling may have been a rake, and a womanizer, and all right, yes, a ne’er-do-well. But he was also a good man, and a good friend, and Kincaid would do whatever he could to help him.

  “Sarah is fine,” Sterling continued. “Better than fine, actually. She is engaged to be married.”

  “Please be sure to pass on my congratulations.”

  “I will.” The duke hesitated, then shook his head, a bemused smile twisting his lips. “I suppose there’s no way around it. I’ve come to you today because I have an…unusual problem I’d like your help in solving.”

  Intrigued, Kincaid reached for his pen. “What kind of unusual problem?”

  Sterling grimaced. “I’ve been accused of murdering my mistress.”

  “I’m sorry,” Kincaid said politely. “You’ve what?”

  “I didn’t do it.” His grimace deepening into a scowl, Sterling surged to his feet. “Do you have anything to drink that doesn’t have cat hair in it?”

  “I wouldn’t think that you did. And there’s a bottle of brandy in that cabinet there. Might as well pour two glasses.” Ordinarily, Kincaid would never share alcohol with a client, but there was nothing ordinary about a duke being accused of murder.

  Filling a glass to the brim and placing it on the edge of Kinc
aid’s desk, Sterling reserved the bottle for himself. He did not return to his seat, but rather went to the window, his gray gaze unreadable as he stared out through the glass at the dull, dreary sky beyond. “I didn’t do it,” he repeated before he tilted the brandy to his lips and indulged in a long, liberal swallow that had Kincaid’s brows rising. “Admittedly, Eloise and I had a tempestuous relationship at times, but I would never cause her physical harm.”

  Kincaid pressed the tip of his pen to parchment. “Eloise is…”

  “Was my mistress,” Sterling said darkly.

  “Can you describe her?” Part of being a good detective was knowing when to calm a client down and when to incite them. Given the rigidity of Sterling’s broad shoulders, it was clear what the duke required. And there was no better way to cut through tension than with talking.

  “Eloise was gorgeous, of course.” His tone wry, Sterling glanced back at Kincaid. “I’d never take up with anyone plain.”

  No, he wouldn’t. Because that might mean he would be forced to see past the superficiality of his lover’s physical appearance, and Kincaid knew that Sterling would rather eat rocks for the rest of his life than become engaged in a personal relationship. Which was also why he knew, deep in his gut, that the Duke of Hanover really was innocent. Not because they were friends, but because Sterling simply didn’t care enough about any other human being to bother with murdering them.

  Any genuine emotion Sterling had once possessed had disappeared when his brother was killed. What remained was a caricature of whom the ton wanted him to be: a devilish duke with a penchant for fast horses and beautiful women.

  Nothing more, nothing less.

  “Could you be more specific?” Kincaid asked, tapping his pen against the side of his jaw.

  “Silky black hair, straight as a pin. Big blue eyes. The nicest tits I’ve ever seen.”

  “Black hair, blue eyes, large breasts,” Kincaid muttered as he took notes. “Any distinguishing characteristics? A scar, or a birth mark…”

  “A freckle, here.” Sterling pointed to the middle of his collarbone. “She also had a slight accent. Her mother was a French courtesan, her father a British diplomat. She was brought to England when she was a girl, and raised in the country by governesses. When she was seventeen, she came to London and quickly made a name for herself on the stage. I’ll never forget her performance in Shakespeare’s Cleopatra.”

  “She sounds like she was a very talented young woman.”

  “She was,” the duke said wistfully. “The things she could do with her thighs—”

  “I’m sure were extraordinary,” Kincaid interrupted. “Why are you being accused of her murder?”

  Sterling’s expression shuttered. “Because the night she was killed, I was the last person to see her alive. And we argued. Screamed at each other, more like.”

  Kincaid’s pen stilled. “That’s not good.”

  “Well, not when you say it like that.”

  “What were you arguing about?”

  “Nothing important. I got caught up at the tables, and was nearly two hours late coming to see her. Had I been there when I was supposed to be, I doubt we’d have fought at all. Or maybe we would have.” Sterling gave a shrug. “It was our way of communicating. Foreplay, if you will.”

  “And after you were done fighting, you…”

  “Fucked,” the duke said bluntly. “Then I left.”

  “Did anyone see you leaving?”

  “It was late. The servants had all gone to bed.”

  Kincaid closed his journal and leaned back in his chair. “I’ll have to interview your driver. The staff. Your mates at the club. Anyone and everyone who can corroborate the events of that night as you’d told them to me.”

  “Then you’ll take my case?”

  “I will.”

  “And you believe we’ve a fair chance of proving my innocence?”

  Kincaid hesitated. “I do.”

  For the first time since he’d entered the office, Sterling’s mouth, always more prone to smirks than sneers, stretched in a grin. “I hope so. Lord knows I’m far too handsome to hang.”

  *

  After a long night of rain, the morning dawned bright and clear with nary a cloud in sight. Her waning spirits bolstered by the weather—and the knowledge that she was soon to be in Kincaid’s company again—Joanna carefully avoided a line of puddles on her way to her new place of employment.

  Tucked between two larger homes, the detective’s townhouse maintained a gruff sense of charm, not unlike its owner. White paint was beginning to peel off the brick exterior, but the flower boxes in the windows were blooming with color and the large slabs of slate leading up to the blue front door had been freshly swept of debris. While the chimney was a tad crooked and could have used some repair, the balcony jutting out from the second floor looked like a lovely place to sit on a warm summer’s evening and watch the sun set over the Thames.

  Letting herself through a metal gate that squeaked on its hinges, Joanna walked briskly—she had never perfected the art of small, ladylike steps—up to the front door and lifted the gold door knocker in the shape of a lion’s head. Three successive whacks and, from somewhere within the house, she heard Kincaid beckon her inside.

  Taking off her frock coat and bonnet, (“It’s London, you absolutely have to wear a hat,” Evie had chided when Joanna had tried to sneak out without one) she laid them neatly over her arm, then turned her focus to the foyer. It was the first room a client would see when they walked through the door. It should have radiated warmth and invitation. But despite Kincaid’s office being an eclectic hodgepodge of disorder, the rest of his house—and the foyer in particular—was cold and barren.

  There were no paintings on the white walls. No rugs on the oak floors. No benches to sit on. No magazines or books to read. What was a person supposed to occupy themselves with while they waited for their appointment? Stare at the cracks in the ceiling?

  “This won’t do,” she murmured as she opened a door to her left and peered into a larger room that was just as empty save a rectangular table and a single chair. “This won’t do at all.”

  Returning to the foyer, she opened another door and discovered the kitchen which led into a small parlor. The parlor, at least, had a sofa and footstool in front of the fireplace. But both were covered in a thin layer of dust, indicating they hadn’t been used in quite some time, which led her to assume Kincaid lived exclusively upstairs.

  She wondered what his bedchamber was like. A hapless mess like his office? Or was it as sterile and unwelcoming as the foyer? Did he neatly make his bed every day, or leave the sheets in a rumpled pile that smelled of him?

  Sandalwood and citrus, she recalled, her cheeks pinkening with another damnable blush as she unwittingly envisioned Kincaid’s long, lanky body sprawled from one end of the mattress to the other, his scowl lost to slumber as his chest rose and fell with each heavy breath.

  His scent was sandalwood and citrus.

  And she had absolutely no business imagining him in bed.

  After waiting for the redness in her cheeks to subside (any more blushing and she’d turn into Claire), and then waiting some more for Kincaid to come out of his office, Joanna made up her mind to go in. She knew the rules of polite society dictate she wait for an invitation, but she had a feeling she would be waiting for a very long while. And Joanna waited for no one, least of all a man.

  Even ones that made her tingle.

  Rapping her knuckles against the door to give fair warning of her impending entrance, she let herself into Kincaid’s office without bothering to wait for a reply and found him sitting behind his desk, his brow furrowed as he studied something he’d written in the leather journal she’d seen him carrying yesterday.

  “Miss Thorncroft.” Visibly startled by her appearance, he rose halfway out of his chair, amber eyes widening behind his spectacles. “I was…I was coming to let you in.”

  “Alas, here I am. Regrettab
ly, patience is not a virtue of mine.” She flashed him a smile as a peculiar fluttering filled her belly. If she didn’t know any better, she’d think she had swallowed a butterfly and the poor thing was flying around inside of her trying to find a way out. Make that twenty butterflies, she thought silently when Kincaid raked his fingers through his unruly hair and a brown curl tumbled across his brow.

  “Maybe not,” he said, “but it seems punctuality is. I wasn’t expecting you this early.”

  “You told me to return in the morning,” she pointed out, folding her hands behind her back after she’d hung her coat and bonnet on the hall tree shoved into the corner.

  “Yes, but I didn’t…” He glanced at the window, where the sun had barely crept above the horizon and the sky was still turning from orange to blue. “Never mind. I suppose it’s a good thing I am an early riser as well, or you might have walked in on me only half-dressed. Wait.” His tone turned slightly panicked while Joanna tried—and failed—not to picture Kincaid without his shirt on. “That’s not what I meant to say. I…do have a seat, Miss Thorncroft. Would you care for some, uh…coffee?”

  Her nose wrinkling at the sight of the cold, brown sludge sitting in a clear pot, Joanna gave a firm shake of her head. Sweeping her skirts to the side, she sank gracefully into the same chair she’d occupied the day prior. “This is exactly why you need a secretary, Kincaid.”

  “I will admit, the idea never occurred to me,” Kincaid revealed as he sat down at his desk. “But we did have one at Scotland Yard.” His gaze swept across Joanna and the corners of his mouth tightened imperceptibly. “A quiet, elderly widow who made the best sugar biscuits I’ve ever tasted.”

  It was clear by the flicker of disapproval in his eyes that Kincaid would have preferred a secretary who fit those qualifications. A doddering old grandmother type who patted him on the head and said things like, “There’s a good lad” and “Have another treat, my boy, you’re much too thin”.