by Candace Camp
Gradually the house began to settle down. She heard the duchess’s voice as she went down the hallway to her room, accompanied by a lower murmur that Megan identified as the duke. Later, there was the sound of the servants as they went about their late evening chores of turning down beds and helping the ladies of the house out of their difficult garments. Megan was sure that Thisbe and her husband had long since gone to bed, as they were in the habit of retiring early. Finally, a great deal later, she heard the sound of a heavy tread.
Theo, she thought, returning from his evening. Hurrying to the door, she opened it a crack and peered out. The hall sconces had been turned down to their lowest, casting much of the corridor into shadow. She slipped out into the hallway and edged around the corner to look toward the family’s bedrooms. She was quick enough to catch a glimpse of Theo’s back as he went into his room and closed the door behind him.
She continued to wait. It was good that Theo was home; now she would not have to worry about him returning to the house while she was in the collection room. Megan resumed her seat in her chair, a book open and unread on her lap as she forced herself to be patient until the hands of the clock drew close to midnight.
Surely everyone was in bed now. The only ones whom she had not heard were Reed and Anna, but she thought that they must be in their chamber. As Anna had mentioned the other day, they were still accustomed to country hours. Megan had noticed that the couple was usually up when she and the twins ate breakfast.
Slipping out of her shoes, she walked in her stocking feet across the room and opened the door. She paused, listening for the faintest sound, and finally, when she heard none, she stepped out into the hallway. She slid around the corner and looked down the hallway. All the doors were closed, and no sound issued from any of the rooms. She looked the other direction. Everything was quiet and dark.
Taking a deep breath, she moved down the hallway to the servants’ staircase, which lay farther away from the occupied rooms. She was not worried about the servants hearing her, as they retired early and slept soundly after their labors, tucked away on the top floor.
Downstairs, she eased along the dimly lit hallway to the door of the duke’s study. The door was closed, and she turned the knob and pulled it open. It stuck for a moment, then came open with a pop. Megan froze, her heart in her throat.
The house was silent. No one on the floor above could have heard the sound of the door, she reminded herself. It had simply sounded inordinately loud to her ears. She pulled the door open and looked inside the dark room. In the faint stream of light from the hallway, she could make out the dark shapes of the furniture.
She had not been inside the duke’s study, and she looked around the door for a light. She found a wall sconce beside the door, and felt around it for the key-shaped handle that turned the gas light on. Finally she found it and turned it cautiously, bringing up a pale yellow glow.
Megan stopped when there was enough light to see her way across to the wide walnut desk. The twins had not said specifically where their father kept the key in his study, but the likeliest place was the desk, so she planned to start there. She moved quickly, sliding open the top right drawer. When she saw no keys, she moved to the left top drawer.
Several keys lay in a shallow tray in the drawer. Fortunately, there were tags attached to each, and she sorted through them quickly, discarding those that read Workroom or Cabinet.” She stopped at the tag that read C Room. Picking it up, she closed the drawer and straightened up.
Theo Moreland was standing in the doorway.
A shriek escaped Megan’s throat, quickly cut off as she clapped her hand over her mouth. She stared at Theo, her brain as frozen as her muscles.
How long had he been there? What had he seen?
“Sorry,” Theo said. “I did not mean to startle you. I was in the library, and I heard a noise in here.”
“I—that’s all right. I—I just didn’t expect to see anyone.” Her fingers curled tightly around the key, hiding it in her palm. If he had not seen her take the thing from the drawer, perhaps she could get out of this without being fired from her job—or worse. The room seemed suddenly very dark and far away from everyone else.
“I am sure not,” Theo replied sardonically. “Since you are in my father’s study.”
“I—I was looking for a book to read,” Megan explained. “I could not sleep.”
Theo came into the room, walking around the desk to stand in front of her. He glanced at the bookshelves filled with tomes that lined one wall of the study.
“I think you would have better luck looking in the library,” he commented mildly. “Unless, of course, you are desirous of reading about Ionic columns or Mycenaean art or the layout of the Temple of Hephaestus.”
Megan realized that her excuse was foolish, but it had been the first thing that had sprung into her head. She would simply have to brazen her way out.
“I was looking for something to put me to sleep,” she pointed out with some asperity. She gestured with her empty hand toward the book that lay open on the desk beside her. “I thought this one looked as if it would do the trick.”
As Theo glanced toward the open tome, she slipped the key into the pocket of her skirt.
“It certainly looks it,” Theo agreed easily, adding, “Though I, of course, would find it difficult, as I’m no longer proficient in Greek.”
Megan hid her dismay as she took another look at the book and saw that its pages were covered with indecipherable Greek letters.
“Yes,” she agreed with a casual air. “I decided it would require too much effort to enable me to sleep. Although a text on Hellenic art and architecture might be just the thing.”
“No doubt you are right.”
Megan was certain now that a smile was tugging at the corners of his lips. They were exceedingly well-shaped lips, she thought, and she remembered what they had felt like brushing against her hand.
Firmly she pulled her mind away from such errant thoughts. She could not understand why he should be amused. One would think that he would be angry at catching one of the family’s employees in such a compromising position. The notion that he was laughing at her raised her ire.
“I’m sorry. I fail to see what is amusing,” she told him in her frostiest tone, raising an eyebrow for emphasis.
“I am generally amused at life, I’m afraid,” Theo commented. “I have been told many times that my outlook is not sufficiently serious.”
He took a step closer to her. He was only a foot away from her now, far too close for comfort, and Megan had to tilt her head back to look up at him.
“I—I had better get back to my room,” she said.
“You know,” Theo said, just as if she had not spoken, “there are those who would regard your presence in the duke’s study at this time of night as somewhat suspicious.”
“Suspicious?” Megan asked, drawing herself up and giving him her haughtiest look. “Suspicious in what way, I might ask?”
“Indeed you might.” His lips curved upward as he gazed down into Megan’s face. He put his hands on her arms and slid them up, sending tingles shooting through her. “There are a number of nefarious activities in which you could be engaged. If, of course, you were not such an honest person.”
“Are you impugning my character, sir?” Megan snapped back, indignation coming to her rescue. “Tell me, what ‘nefarious’ thing do you think I am doing, standing here in a room full of books and scholarly papers? Do you suspect that I am going to steal your father’s correspondence? Or perhaps abscond with his research?” She gestured toward the duke’s desk, piled with papers and books.
“I don’t know,” he responded, his eyes lighting in a way that set her heart tripping in its beat. “I think, perhaps, you are guilty of ensnaring me.”
Theo reached up and grazed his forefinger along the line of her jaw. Heat flowered low in her abdomen, unfurling and stretching out. Her breath was suddenly unsteady, and Megan could not look away from his face.
She knew she ought to protest, ought to step back and break the contact. But something kept her rooted to the spot.
His other hand came up, cupping her face. Megan looked at him, knowing that he was about to kiss her, but still she could not move away. Indeed, deep down inside her, she knew that she did not want to move away.
He bent and kissed her, his lips grazing hers gently, almost teasingly…once, then twice, then settling into a long, deep kiss. Megan shuddered as yearning and excitement exploded within her.
She had never felt anything quite like this before. Her senses were bombarded with the taste and scent and feel of this man. She felt achingly soft and yielding inside, and something so hot and sweet that it made her want to moan was pulsing between her legs. Almost without volition, her arms went around Theo’s neck, and she clung to him tightly as desire thundered through her. His arm curled around her back, holding her to him like a band of iron as his mouth plundered hers.
Megan was enveloped by his heat. She could scarcely breathe. But she made no move to break away. She wanted nothing but to feel more of the passions raging through her.
Theo raised his head and for an instant looked down into her eyes. Then, with a little groan, he kissed her again. His arm tightened around her, pulling her up and into his hard body. His other hand slipped down her side, his thumb caressing the curve of her breast. Megan started at the unexpected touch, the heat between her legs expanding.
His hand was slow upon her body, moving downward and curving around to her back, gliding over her buttocks and onto her leg. Megan trembled under his fingertips, amazed and aroused. His hand slipped back up the side of her leg, caressing her, and he closed his fist in her skirts.
Megan swallowed a moan. She felt as if she might melt into him. She wanted to have his hands all over her body, stroking her as he had stroked her back and leg. Her breasts were full and aching, the nipples taut, and she was aware of a shameless desire to rub her body against him.
He pulled his mouth away from hers and buried his face in her neck. “Sweet heaven! Ah, Megan…”
His breath was harsh and panting. The brush of it against the tender flesh of her neck sent another twisting thread of heat through her loins.
“I—I’m sorry,” he said haltingly.
He held her tightly for another instant, then let go abruptly and took a step back. Megan felt the loss of his heat and strength almost like a pain through her, and she tightened her hands into fists, her fingernails digging into her palms, to keep herself from reaching out to draw him back.
She struggled to bring her thoughts together, to pull herself back to reality. Whatever was she doing? She had been standing here in Theo Moreland’s arms, kissing him like a wanton!
Megan’s hand went up to her mouth in dismay. Her lips felt tender and moist, kiss-bruised. Heat flooded her cheeks. She looked at Theo. His face was soft and slack with desire, his eyes bright.
“I—” he began.
Megan threw up her hand in a halting gesture. “No! No, please! Don’t speak of it. I am—oh, this is awful!”
She was appalled at what she had done. This man had killed her brother; she had hated him for years. He was the last person in the world she would ever have thought she would kiss. Yet she had just fallen into his arms as if she had no morals. And even less sense!
“I can’t—you must not—” she began. “This can’t have happened!”
Megan whirled and ran from the room.
Theo stood looking after her, his chest still rising and falling rapidly. He felt dazed and shattered, as if he’d just been picked up by a whirlwind. Desire choked him, lying heavy and hard in his loins. He hadn’t expected their kiss to shake him like this.
With a sigh, he opened his hand and looked down at the key that lay nestled in his palm.
Now what the devil was the twins’ tutor doing trying to steal the key to his father’s collection room? And what the bloody hell was he going to do about it?
* * *
MEGAN RAN DOWN THE HALL and up the main stairs, heedless of the noise she might make. She rushed into her room and closed the door behind her, leaning back against it as though to hold it against all intruders.
What in the name of all that was holy had she done? She could not understand how she could have been so lost to sense, so disloyal to her brother and family. Her heart twisted as she thought of how she had betrayed him, kissing the man who had killed him, and not just kissing him, but thoroughly enjoying it—indeed, not wanting it to end. A few more minutes, she thought miserably, and she would have been loosening her clothes to the man!
With a groan, Megan threw herself onto her bed, burying her face in the cool sheets. She lay there, berating herself, wishing she could cry…wishing she could stop the heat that still coursed through her veins and throbbed in her loins.
He had caught her by surprise, she told herself. And he was so devilishly handsome!
Megan had never considered herself weak. No other man’s blandishments had ever turned her head. Why, Timothy Doyle, who had the face of an angel and owned half the girls’ hearts in St. Anthony’s parish, had kissed her once when they were alone in her parlor, and she had felt little more than a pleasant tingling. She would have said that she was immune to seducers, and she had always held a certain contempt for women who were so weak they gave in to such men.
And then tonight, the man she hated most in the world had turned her into a trembling, quivering, helpless female, exactly the sort of woman she despised.
Megan knew that she had had no control over herself or the situation. Indeed, she had not even been the one who had called a halt to their kisses. It was Theo who had stopped!
With a sigh, she flopped over onto her back and stared up at the tester above her bed. As if the fact that she had kissed Theo Moreland was not bad enough, she had to face the fact that she had failed to do what she had set out to do. She had not gotten inside the duke’s collection room.
It was then that she remembered she still had the key to the room. With a little cry, she sat up. Her thoughts raced. She could still get into the room—she just had to find another time to do it. However, there was a definite risk in keeping the key. The duke was bound to want to get into the room sometime soon, and when he went to his desk, he would find the key gone.
She did not think that Theo would say anything to his father about finding Megan in his study. He didn’t know why she was there; she felt sure he had not seen her take the key from the desk, because he had said nothing about it. And he wouldn’t want to say anything to his mother or the kindly duke that would lead to their finding out that their son was in the habit of kissing the servants. But if Broughton told him that his key was missing from his desk, then Theo was likely to guess why she had been in his father’s study, and he would tell the duke. And she would very soon find herself out on the street, without having exposed Dennis’s killer.
Megan knew that the only way she could save herself was to put the key back into the desk where it belonged without the duke noticing. She probably should not even risk waiting until she had searched the room to do it.
She slipped her hand into her pocket, feeling for the key.
There was nothing there!
Megan paused, unwilling to believe. She stood up and dug into her pocket, pulling until it was completely turned inside out. On the chance that she had put it in the other pocket—though she was certain she had not—she searched the other pocket in her skirt and found it equally empty.
She had lost the key!
Megan let out a groan. Somehow it had slipped out of her pocket.
Anxiously, she backtracked over her path from the door to her bed, but she found no sign of a key. Just to make sure, she lit a candle and went over the same path, bending over to light the area with the candle’s glow. There was no glint of metal.
It was lost.
And she was in trouble.
CHAPTER 8
Theo was sitting on a bench at t
he edge of the garden, waiting for the twins to come barreling past, heading for Thisbe and Desmond’s workshop at the back of the property. He had noticed that they did so every afternoon. Thisbe had happily told him that their new tutor was letting her teach the boys science.
It made sense, he knew. Thisbe and her husband knew far more about chemistry, biology and physics than any tutor they could hire. But no tutor before had been willing to turn over even part of their job to someone else. What Theo wondered was whether Miss Henderson was wise enough not to let pride stand in the way of the boys’ education—or was using Thisbe’s willingness to help as a way to hide the fact that she was not a tutor.
Theo had found it difficult from the start to believe that the woman was actually a teacher. She was far too attractive, to begin with, and there was nothing in her demeanor that seemed like a governess. Why would a woman apply to teach two boys with the reputation that Con and Alex had? And why would an American travel to England to tutor children? Megan’s explanations were not completely implausible, but they had not been convincing, either.
Most of all, there was the bizarre fact that she was the woman whom he had seen in his dream years ago. The whole thing was completely inexplicable, and Theo would not have told anyone about it, sure that they would think he was crazy. Of course, he supposed, the strangeness of it did not preclude her being a tutor, but the more oddities that piled up, the less inclined he was to believe the story Miss Henderson had told. The fact that Reed’s wife, Anna, had had one of her premonitions that Megan was somehow dangerous had certainly done nothing to quiet his suspicions.
Last night, when he had found her in his father’s study, slipping a key from the duke’s desk into her pocket, his suspicions had solidified. He could think of no logical reason for the twins’ new tutor to be trying to sneak into his father’s collection room.
“Theo!” Alex’s cheerful voice roused Theo from his reverie, and he turned to see Alex and Con running out of the garden.
“Hello, boys,” he greeted them as they skidded to a halt beside him.