“Indeed.” That was Charles at his drawling worst. In the circumstances, pure provocation.
She heard an odd sound—wondered for one instant if Charles was throttling Nicholas—then realized it was Nicholas clearing his throat again.
“Ah…you mentioned you and Penny had an understanding. Am I to take it that there’ll soon be talk of a wedding?”
Behind her door, she screwed her eyes shut and swore at Nicholas. How dare he? She wasn’t his responsibility; he had no right to ask such questions, and definitely no right to prod Charles’s far-too-active conscience to life. Damn, damn, damn!
“Actually…” Charles’s drawl was getting even more dangerously pronounced. “That’s not the sort of understanding Penny and I have. Regardless, as far as I can see, whatever our understanding might be, it’s no concern of yours.”
Yes—precisely! She held her breath, listened as hard as she could. Given the tone of Charles’s last words, Nicholas would have to be witless to do anything other than climb down off his high horse and retreat.
“I see.” The words were clipped. After a moment, Nicholas added, “In that case, I’ll…no doubt see you in the morning.”
Charles said nothing; a moment later, she heard his footsteps, soft for such a large man, returning to her room.
Relief swept her; straightening and stepping back from the door, she uttered a heartfelt prayer. The last thing—the very last thing—she needed at this point was for Charles to decide that he had to marry her out of some misplaced notion of propriety.
He stopped outside her door; she heard the key slide in, turn, then he opened the door. He saw her, stepped inside, closed the door, and locked it once more. Then he turned to her; his gaze traveled her face. She drew herself up, folded her arms beneath her breasts, thankfully concealed behind the robe she’d hastily donned, and narrowed her eyes at him.
His only response was to raise a faintly resigned brow.
“Why did you lock me in?”
He cocked his head, still watching her face. “I would have thought that was obvious—so he couldn’t easily return to attack you if he slipped past me.”
“And so I couldn’t follow you.”
His lips twisted; he looked away and moved past her to the bed. “That, too.”
With a swirl of her robe, she followed him. “What if he’d come back and picked the lock—he did the first time, why not again?”
Sitting on the bed and reaching for his boots, he glanced at her. “I credited you with having enough sense to scream. I would have heard you.”
Faintly mollified—why she wasn’t sure—she humphed. She wasn’t going to even attempt to explain the sudden fear for him that had assailed her. He was used to plunging headlong into danger; she’d told herself that. But she’d never before had to stand by and wait while he did it. “Did you see who it was?”
He shook his head. “I didn’t get any clear view of him, not even height or build. He was fast. When I got downstairs the front doors were wide-open—he went through like a hare and headed straight for the shrubbery.”
“Where was Nicholas?”
He told her. “At least, that’s where he said he was.”
“Well…” She suddenly felt cold. Shrugging out of her robe, she slipped back under the covers, tugging them up to her throat, snuggling back into the lingering warmth. “We do know he hasn’t been sleeping well.”
“Indeed.” Charles had seen her shiver and followed her progress. “What we don’t know is whether he’s so on edge he decided to do something about you, and left the doors open to create a plausible story of how someone broke into the house and attacked you while you slept. He didn’t know until just now that I’ve been staying every night.”
Setting aside his boots, he stood, stripped off his breeches, then crawled over the bed to slump beside her. He looked down at her for a moment, but couldn’t read her wide eyes. Reaching for the covers, he tugged them from her grip, lifted them, and joined her beneath.
He drew her into his arms and she came. He settled her head on his shoulder; she draped one arm across his chest, spread her hand over his heart.
They didn’t immediately fall asleep, yet despite the appearance of the intruder—something they’d both almost expected and so weren’t as surprised as they might have been—there was a sense of peace between them. As if simply being together created a haven of safety and security, a connection of such fundamental rightness no intruder could shatter it.
That rightness closed around them, cocooning them. She fell asleep first. Reassured, he followed suit.
“You can’t seriously mean to keep me with you for the entire day!”
Charles turned his head, simply looked at her, then faced forward and walked on, towing her behind him up the bank to the folly. He’d given up even the pretense of leaving; this morning, he’d quit her room only to go and change, then had gone straight down to breakfast—just in case Nicholas had not got his message last night.
From the shuttered but wary look on Nicholas’s face when he’d joined him at the table, Nicholas had, indeed, got the salient facts quite clear.
Unlike certain others.
She huffed out an exasperated breath. “And anyway, why here?”
“Because I need to think, and I’d just as soon keep Nicholas under observation while I do.” They reached the folly. He didn’t pause but towed her up the steps and along to the chaise with the best view, then faced her and released her hand.
Eyes narrowing, she glared at him, then, with a swish of her skirts, sat. He sat beside her.
“Very well,” she said. “If you must think, then think about this—why did whoever it was come to my room last night? Are we sure it was the murderer?”
He stared across the lawns to the house, screened by the intervening trees. “Why would some man come to your room at…what was it? Two in the morning?”
“Just before. Hmm…but even if he is the murderer, why?”
“That’s what I need to think about.” He’d left her discussing household matters with Mrs. Figgs and had gone to speak with Canter and the grooms. “I sent a message to Dennis Gibbs this morning, asking him to get the Gallants to keep their ears and eyes open regarding our five ‘visitors to the district.’ I spoke with Norris, too. Needless to say he was horrified.”
“Mmm…but I still can’t see why this person, whoever he is, would have any interest in me, not to the extent of breaking into the house and coming to attack me in my room. Anyway, how did he know which room was mine? Had he searched all of them?”
A scenario was taking shape in his mind. “I don’t think that’s how it happened. If we develop our theory of revenge…then I think he, whoever ‘he’ is, was watching the house, possibly with a view to making a move on Nicholas, and he saw Nicholas go out, leaving the front door unbolted. He must have thanked his stars, but then he was faced with two options. He could follow Nicholas and do away with him, or he could enter the house and do away with you—and leave suspicion hanging over Nicholas’s head.”
“But why me?”
“Two reasons. First, you’re Granville’s sister—he might well see you as Granville’s surrogate for revenge. He’s punished Gimby—the next on his list would be Granville before Nicholas. On top of that, he’d reason that Nicholas would know your death was, if not directly, then indirectly on his head. As a first attack on Nicholas, attacking you would do nicely.”
“You mean this man views me as a pawn?”
Her incipient outrage had his lips quirking. He closed one hand over hers. “Strangely, some men would see it that way.”
She sniffed, but left her hand under his. After a moment, she asked, “How did he know which room was mine?”
Charles thought back. “The open window. If he’d circled the house, that would have marked that room as the most likely. Once he got to the door and found it locked, he’d have been sure.”
She shivered.
He looked at her. �
�He won’t come back—I can take an oath on that. He knows I’ll be there, and it’s no part of his plans to get caught.”
Penny considered, then nodded, feeling rather better, not least because it seemed Charles planned to spend all forseeable nights with her. That was reassuring, and…she wasn’t sure what the lightening of her heart meant.
They sat for a while, thoughts rambling, then saw an open carriage come rolling up the drive.
“That’s Lady Carmody.”
They watched as her ladyship was handed out and went inside. Ten minutes later, Nicholas escorted her back to her carriage. He stood watching it roll away, then returned to the house.
“A dinner or, horrors, a musicale?”
She laughed. “Not a musicale—she hates music.”
“One point in her favor.” Charles stirred, stretched. “I hope she’s already called at the Abbey.”
“Why?”
“Because I think we should ride over there.”
She remembered. “And check if Dalziel has discovered anything and sent word.”
Together they rose and headed back to the house.
“I’ll speak to Norris—we can leave Nicholas under his eye. I’m sure Nicholas will have understood the significance of last night’s intruder—given his behavior to date, he’ll most likely remain inside, in safety.”
“I’ll change into my habit—I won’t be long.”
“No rush. We can let Filchett and Mrs. Slattery feed us—there’s no reason we need return here until dinnertime.”
CHAPTER 15
CONTRARY TO THEIR HOPES, THEY REACHED THE ABBEY TO find no communication from London awaiting them. Filchett and Mrs. Slattery were delighted to serve them luncheon. Cassius and Brutus were equally ecstatic to have Charles at home again, and even better, with company.
Lady Carmody had indeed called earlier and left an invitation to an afternoon tea party two days hence. Penny bullied Charles into accepting, pointing out that their five visitors could also be expected to attend; in this season with so many in town, those left were starved for entertainment.
In the early afternoon, they returned from walking along the ramparts with the dogs just as a rider clattered up to the front steps. A private courier, he brought the communiqué they’d been expecting. Charles took the packet, dismissed the man into Filchett’s care, and headed for his study. Penny followed; she leaned on the back of his chair and read the sheets over his shoulder.
He humphed, but let her. Unfortunately, Dalziel had little to report by way of hard facts. Like Charles, he saw Gimby’s death as confirming both the existence of some long-term treasonous conspiracy and its serious nature—people did not kill over a few vague descriptions of troops. The primary thrust of his letter, however, was to disabuse Charles of any notion that the traffic Gimby had facilitated had been incoming rather than outgoing. Dalziel had personally questioned his counterparts in every area; none knew of any source of French intelligence other than via the recognized routes under their purview.
A scribbled postscript acknowledged Charles’s subsequent report; Dalziel would see what he could turn up about the five visitors, but none rang any immediate bells.
Charles laid the sheets aside. Penny circled the desk and dropped into an armchair. They tossed comments back and forth, floated possibilities only to shoot them down. Their discussion waned into a companionable silence along with the afternoon. They had tea, then mounted and headed back to Wallingham.
Crossing the river at Lostwithiel, they glimpsed Fothergill striding away from the riverbank some way upstream. Charles held Domino back, studying Fothergill, then flicked his reins and caught up with Penny.
“Could it have been he, do you think?”
Charles shook his head. “I can’t say. That’s what I was thinking—I didn’t see enough to say anything at all.”
They returned to Wallingham to learn that nothing had occurred in their absence beyond Dennis Gibbs sending a message that he’d make sure not just the Gallants but their brethren along the coast were alerted. Gimby’s murder had clearly left the leader of the Gallants uneasy.
They dined with Nicholas. The knowledge that they were lovers clearly made him uneasy; he didn’t know how he should react to their relationship, but as they didn’t refer or allude to it in any way, he had no need to, and so the meal passed smoothly enough.
However, as the evening wore on and they sat in the drawing room and Penny exercised her fingers at the pianoforte, it became increasingly obvious that Nicholas’s attitude to Charles had undergone another transformation. She couldn’t fathom it; later, when Charles joined her in her bedchamber, she asked him what he thought.
He smiled cynically as he sat on the bed to pull off his boots. “Nicholas is not the murderer, ergo, it wasn’t he who came to your room. Both incidents have shaken him—he’s realized that he should be, and would be held to be, responsible for your safety.” The curve of Charles’s lips deepened. “Nicholas finds himself on the horns of a dilemma. He doesn’t like me, he doesn’t approve of my sharing your bed, but by heaven he’s thankful that by being here with you, I’ve taken one worry—one immediate and very real worry—from his plate.”
Lolling on the bed, idly unbuttoning the nightgown she’d recently buttoned up—Charles would have it off her in minutes anyway, a happening she wished to facilitate—she pondered Nicholas. “He is worried, isn’t he? I mean, it’s concern, anxiety, that type of feeling that’s driving him. You thought originally it was fear, but if he was afraid for himself, he’d run away, wouldn’t he? But he’s staying here, quite deliberately, because he’s extremely worried about something. But what?”
“I don’t know.” Tossing his breeches over her dressing stool, Charles crawled, naked, onto the bed. His gaze had locked on her; he smiled, and reached for her, lifting her to him as he knelt in the center of the bed. “I don’t understand Nicholas.” He bent his head, kissed her lightly, gently tugged at her lower lip. “But I do understand you.”
He settled her straddling his thighs, slid his hands under her gown, and slowly raised it.
What followed proved his point. It was all she’d hoped for, all she’d ever dreamed of, and more. He seemed to know just what she’d like, just what her senses and her prediliction for challenge craved; more, he seemed devoted not just to giving but lavishing such delights on her, until she reeled with giddy pleasure. Until he drew her to him and possessed her, until she gave herself to him and gloried in the giving.
Yet at the height of the giddy whirl there came a point when they stood at the eye of desire’s storm, when in that instant’s fraught hiatus their eyes met, and something else touched her. A oneness, a sense of communion, of a sharing that went so much deeper than the reality of their skins, their nerves, their bodies. That through that shared glance struck to her core, entwined, and sank deep.
It was a moment of power so great she couldn’t breathe; nor could he. Then his lids fell, and his lips found hers; she clung to the kiss, felt desire rise, and let it whirl her away.
She told herself it was just physical, just some linkage she hadn’t noticed before. She was indulging, just as he was; there was nothing more.
Yet she remained conscious of that power, aware that it didn’t leave them, but flowered, burgeoned; its roots ran deep. It remained with them, within them, yet in the light of day, while she could still detect its shadow, it seemed perfectly normal, as if it were something that had always been there and she’d simply failed to notice.
The following morning began as the one before, with Charles leaving her room as she rang for Ellie—as if he were her husband. She noted the fact, attributed it to his arrogance, his male confidence where she was concerned. She took longer than usual to dress for the morning, but then had to return and change into her riding habit as soon as she’d finished with Figgs. If the morning had been a repeat of the one before, the day looked set to follow suit.
So it proved. They rode to the Abbey and rec
eived another communication from Dalziel. In it he confirmed that Mr. Arthur Swaley was known to have considerable business interests in tin mines; rumor had it he was down that way looking to further said interests. Mr. Julian Fothergill was going to be difficult to check up on, there being dozens of branches in that family’s tree, but at first glance there was nothing to set him apart. More on him in due course. Carmichael, too, was not a straightforward case; there were hints of debts in the past, but they’d yet to find anyone who knew enough to tell them anything useful. They would pursue Carmichael further. Mr. Yarrow did indeed hail from Derbyshire; there was no one in town who knew much about him. Dalziel had sent a man north to learn more.
Which left Gerond, who, on the face of it, was their most likely suspect. He had military training and was known to be strongly patriotic, however, all links they’d thus far unearthed led to the royalist camp rather than the revolutionary council or any of those bodies that had succeeded it. More information would be forthcoming as and when it was received.
Charles studied the letter for some minutes before folding it and placing it in a drawer.
Penny had been watching him. “What is it?”
He looked at her, then grimaced. “Dalziel’s hunting.”
“Hunting?”
“His hackles have risen, so to speak. He’s mobilizing people, calling in favors. He wouldn’t unless he was convinced the situation called for it.”
Tilting her head, she studied him. “You don’t think it does?”
His gaze had strayed from her; he brought it back and met her eyes. “No. I agree with him. I just wish I didn’t.”
Well-honed instincts, Charles had often thought, were a blessing; they were also a curse. When alert, as they now were, they rode him, nearly to distraction, more specifically to the point where he was once again toying with plans to get Penny out of the area, preferably to London.
Unfortunately, he couldn’t think of a single maneuver that would work. Or rather, kidnapping, transporting, and holding her in his house in London by main force might work, but it would irretrievably scupper his plans for the future. He knew her too well to imagine otherwise.
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