“I’ll get you back to the house first,” he said.
They did not speak again until they had reached Buckley Hall. He ushered her safely inside, then went to the stables. Minutes later, as he rode out with two of his men, he caught sight of her at an upstairs window, looking out.
The sight touched off that strange feeling again. Boyish dreams. A woman waiting in the tower, keeping watch.
Or a siren. Myths, after all, did not only speak of princesses. The siren always appeared in the traveler’s path, waiting to distract him from his destination. The myths never spoke of where the siren took him, though.
Perhaps she took him somewhere better. He could believe it. A woman like Lilah, strong and composed and unshakable in danger, could be a destination in herself—not for Lord Palmer, of course. But for some other man . . . a fortunate man, free to choose his own path. A man whom a viscount could envy.
CHAPTER NINE
“I hope you’ve finished your own preparations,” Catherine Everleigh said. She was pacing her sitting room as the maids packed her clothing. “I intend to leave at daybreak, not a minute later. You will not make me miss the first train.”
Lilah looked over the assorted luggage. So many clothes! A housemaid was folding away a fine silver gown that Lilah had never seen. Perhaps Miss Everleigh meant to wear it in London.
The trip came at a very fine time. Lilah still wasn’t sure what to think of the gunshot yesterday. A hunter, Palmer had said. A very clumsy one. But his manner had suggested otherwise. He’d hustled her back to the house in a grim silence that had caused gooseflesh to rise on her skin. For hours afterward, she had paced by the window, not relaxing until she saw him return.
Of course it had been a hunter. The countryside held no particular dangers. Stray rams—but Palmer had shown himself well able to wrestle with them. And why should she worry for him anyway?
London would clear her head, she hoped. “I’m already packed,” she told Miss Everleigh. They did not even intend to stay overnight. What did she need, but her reticule and hat and pocket money?
“Good.” Catherine smoothed down her lace cuffs. It seemed the telegram from her brother had pulled her from bed. She wore a ruffled silk bed robe in shades of sherbet and marigold, an oddly sunny choice for a woman made of ice. “I can’t imagine what Peter is thinking. To let that idiot take his enamels from the warehouse! I don’t care if he brought an entire army with him. They are the center of the Russian collection. Without them, we’ll have to cancel the auction—and never once, in fifty years, have we done so. It shan’t be some Slavic princeling who breaks that record!”
“I’m sure you’ll manage to reason with him, miss.” Lilah pitied the poor client who thought to cross her.
“Reason!” Miss Everleigh snorted. “These foreign princes have no grasp of logic. He signed a contract with us! Does he think English law will bend to suit his whims? The threat of a lawsuit will teach him better.”
The maids exchanged a speaking look. Lilah gathered that Miss Everleigh had been fuming for some time. She offered them an apologetic grimace.
Miss Everleigh caught it. “And you. Feeling cheeky, I see!”
“No, miss, never.”
“I hope you’re not expecting a holiday in town. While I meet with this rube, you will deliver the tapestries to Mr. Batten. Demand a full accounting of what it will take to restore them.”
Lilah could not imagine having to demand anything of Batten. A stooped little gnome who haunted the workshop in Everleigh’s basement, he was infamous for chattering. A girl had to devise desperate excuses to break away from him. “I will bring you a most thorough report, miss.”
“Good.” Miss Everleigh bent down and buckled a bag shut with barely leashed violence. “Well, to your bed, then. No dillydallying! We’ve a long day ahead—I mean to return on the evening train.”
Lilah bid her a properly chastened farewell, but once in the hallway, her spirit rose like clouds. An entire day in London! She would catch up with her fellow hostesses, learn what mischief the girls had gotten up to. The business with Mr. Batten wouldn’t take more than half the day. Afterward she would stroll through Covent Garden market, taking in the sights, and remembering what it meant to go where she pleased, without Catherine Everleigh hanging over her shoulder.
As she passed the stairs, a dim, strange noise caught her attention—a shrieking scrape, abruptly cut off. Intrigued, she took hold of the banister and listened more intently. Could it be the ghost? The maids had told her about him. They claimed to hear him every night, rattling a saber down some secret route through the west wing.
With her mood so lively, a ghost hunt seemed more appealing than attempting to sleep. She started down the stairs, heading for the noise.
The sound led her through the empty, glass-walled orangerie. A light flickered ahead. She heard the murmur of low voices, masculine, hushed and tense. She stepped around the corner, into a small room where five men sat sharpening knives and cleaning guns. Good heavens!
She retreated immediately, but it was too late—the largest brute had spotted her. She heard him say something. Palmer appeared from around the corner.
“Can’t sleep?” he asked, his pleasant tone a jarring counterpoint to the giant knife in his hand. In his other hand he held a strop—a heavy length of leather that would make a weapon in its own right.
“I thought I heard . . .” A ghost? He would laugh at her. “Never mind. I’ll leave you to it.”
“Wait. If you can’t sleep, you might as well help.”
As she turned back, she noticed how her candle shook. She gripped it harder. Surely there was some unremarkable explanation for this scene. Something other than where her mind led. A hunter, indeed. This looked like a hunting party of its own. “Help with what?” she asked.
He combed his free hand through his shaggy hair. He looked very piratical in those shirtsleeves. “I assume you know how to sharpen a knife, as well as to throw it?”
“Yes, but . . .” Thoughts of the Russian correspondence had not troubled her in days. But now it came to mind. Wedded to the stray gunshot, it sent a shiver through her. “I would not like to disturb you.”
“Disturb us in what?” He glanced back toward the assembly. “You’ve met the assayers, haven’t you?” He gestured her to follow him back around the corner.
“No, I haven’t met them,” she said faintly. They had risen to their feet, the better to display their assembled muscle. Their nods and bows looked suspiciously unpracticed.
“Ah. Well, that’s my oversight.” Palmer sounded quite amiable for a man laboring over weaponry at half past eleven. “Here are Mr. Jones, Mr. Stowe, Mr. Potter, and Mr. Penn. Gentlemen—Miss Marshall.” To Lilah he said, “Now you’ve taken note of them, you’ll no doubt see them prowling about the estate, canvassing for improvements. The land is next to go, once I’ve cleared the house of junk.”
“Junk, is it? Don’t use that word with Miss Everleigh.” And for her own part, she would believe these were assayers when pigs started to fly. Two of them sported the oversized knuckles found on brawlers. She recognized them—they had ridden out with Palmer yesterday, after he had brought her back to the house.
“One of several things I don’t intend to use with her,” he said. “But you, Lilah . . .” He offered her a lopsided smile, and held out his knife.
No point in fleeing. If this was indeed something nefarious, she’d already seen it in full. She set down her candle and took the dagger by its hilt. “Have you a whetstone?”
“Several.” He pulled out a chair at the small table. The other men excused themselves with polite mumbles. They took their weapons with them, she noted.
She dragged the whetstone closer, then set the blade against it. They’d been working for some time; the air smelled burned, sharp with fresh metal shavings, and . . . was that a hint of black powder?
Palmer was surveying the gun rack. No jacket tonight. No waistcoat, either. She’d never i
magined that shirtsleeves and suspenders could complement a man so well. Generally it took a drunkard to go abroad without his clothing. But Palmer did not sport a drunkard’s belly. His shirt clung lovingly to a flat abdomen and lean waist. His trousers, thus cinched, cupped his round, high bottom. A very muscular bottom. When he crouched to retrieve a screwdriver, she could almost detect the flex of his—
As he rose, she yanked her attention to the blade in her hand. He straddled the stool across from her and began to disassemble the rifle. “Fine technique you have,” he said.
She’d learned it on her father’s knee. Lily had learned it there. Lilah Marshall should not have known the first thing about it. “A curious tale. I learned the skill quite by accident—”
“Can you clean a rifle, too?”
She hesitated. “No, I’ve never handled one.”
He laid a screw on the table, then set to untwisting another. “I’d teach you to shoot,” he said, “but not on a Martini-Henry. The cartridge tends to jam.” He frowned. “And I’ve seen the recoil break a boy’s shoulder, come to think of it.”
“Heavens.”
“Service rifle,” he said with a shrug.
“I suppose that explains it.” The assayers had military bearings.
He looked up, brow lifting. “Explains what?”
Good Lord. “Nothing.”
His lips quirked. “You’re blushing. Now I’ll insist on the answer.”
She shook her head and scraped the whetstone harder. “Your assayers look very . . .”
“Competent?”
“Large,” she said carefully. “Do they usually operate in gangs?”
“You’ll have to ask them. I’ve little grasp of the profession.”
There was a fine evasion. She shot him a challenging look. In reply, she got a wide smile that told her nothing. He lifted his rifle by the buttstock and began to break it into pieces, his movements quick and confident.
Yes, he’d certainly been a soldier. But now he was a viscount. And viscounts did not usually assemble troops in their country homes.
For several minutes, she pondered this mystery at leisure, the only sounds the complaint of metal against stone, and the scraping of Palmer’s brush along the pieces of his rifle. Because her task required no special concentration, she began to count the weapons hanging from the rack. Some were hunting rifles. But the pistols were not for sport.
He noticed her survey. “I take it you haven’t been in the gun room before.”
“No, not yet. But Miss Everleigh will certainly want to look over the weaponry.”
“No point,” he said. “It’s mine, not the estate’s.”
“So you are a collector, after all.”
“But not a hoarder. I use the guns.”
“All of them?”
He sat back, flipping the gun by its stock. “Some of the rifles I used in the war. The pistols—the two nearest are also from my time in service.”
“And the rest?”
He gave her a crooked smile. “Perhaps I do hoard, after all.” His glance dropped to her work. “Looks about right.”
“Yes, I think so.” She held it out. “Have you another for me?”
He held the blade up to the light, angling it to inspect her handiwork. “Not a throwing dagger, this one.”
“No,” she said softly. “I believe they call that a machete.” Nick sometimes carried one, when his task—in his own words—required persuasion.
Palmer gave her a surprised glance. “Have you handled one?”
She scowled. “Of course not! What do you take me for?” And then, because she couldn’t resist: “I’d prefer a cutlass, anyway. A proper handle can be useful.”
His smile was slow and delighted. “You’d make an excellent strategist in Her Majesty’s ranks.”
She knew it was a compliment, but she wasn’t in the mood to be admired. “To say nothing of the assayers. I had no idea that they went armed to the teeth.”
“Yes, and Buckley Hall so short of undergrowth to chop. Why are you wandering the halls so late? Aren’t you bound for town on the morrow?”
A neat change of topic. “On the very first train.”
He took up a rag and polished the muzzle of the gun. “You’ll stick by her during your trip, of course.”
“Of course.”
“At every step.”
She bit her lip. “Every step won’t be possible. She plans to meet with a client.”
“Then you’ll wait outside the door. Eavesdrop, see what you can learn.”
She snorted. “That would make a fine scene. You needn’t fear competition—he’s trying to pull his property from the Russian auction. She’s out for his blood.”
His long lashes dropped, veiling his expression. “Nevertheless,” he said, rubbing hard at a spot on the muzzle. “They’ll be alone, and I don’t like that. See what you overhear.”
He took a curious interest in Miss Everleigh’s business, didn’t he? Frowning, she studied him. The lamp behind him limned his shaggy blond hair, creating the illusion of a halo. Had it not been for his scar, he might well have posed as an angel. An avenging angel, yes. He had the coloring for it, and the cheekbones, and the tall, powerful build.
The notion suddenly struck her as a black joke. He was the last thing from angelic. He was a liar—she knew it in her gut. He’d been lying to her from the start. “Unless your aim is to start a rival auction house, I can’t imagine why you’d care about her dealings with a client.” Or her business correspondence, on which Lilah reported so diligently each day.
“I’m a jealous man,” he said mildly.
“Perhaps. Yet I don’t think you’ve any real interest in her—not romantically, at least.”
He looked up, knocking a lock of blond hair from his eyes. “Is that so?” he said coolly.
“If you did, why would you spend so much time flirting with me?”
He laid down the gun. “I haven’t flirted with you,” he said evenly. “At one point, I was going to make you come, but then you ran out. Is that why your temper’s so sour? Come around the table, and I’ll fix it for you.”
She flushed. Men did not use such language with decent women. “Do you mistake me for a whore as well as a fool?”
A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Both would be more convenient.”
She stood. Let them have it out, then. “But I already offered to become your whore. My body for the letters—and you turned me down, if you recall. You said I would get them back when she agreed to marry you. But that won’t ever happen, will it?”
He was very still. “That depends,” he said. “If you do as I instructed—”
“No.” She was tired of this deceit. “You want something else from her. I thought for a time I didn’t need to know what that was. Didn’t want to know. But now it seems I have no choice—for I need those letters. So tell me what you need to happen in order to give them to me. Be honest, and perhaps I can help you get it.”
“Fine,” he said quietly. “A new bargain.” He rose and came around the table. Only when his hand closed on hers did she realize that she had picked up the machete. He loosened it from her grip and set it aside, but did not let go of her hand. He yanked her fist to his chest, pressing it there so she felt the vibrations as he spoke. “We’ll renegotiate, shall we? Honesty. You start. Tell me who you are, Lilah Marshall. Where you learned to throw and sharpen a knife. What your true name is. And who keeps you so afraid that you would sell your body for three slips of paper.”
His gaze was merciless, drilling. She looked away. “There must be some other—”
“No. We start there: what happens if you don’t get back the letters. That, I would very much like to know. Tell me that. Tell me who. And in reply, I’ll be honest as well.”
“You ask for the one thing,” she said very softly, “that you know I will not give.”
“No. I merely demand honesty. Do the terms suit you?” He paused. “No, I didn’t think so.”
Frustration made her tremble. He seemed to sense it. His grip gentled. He lifted her hand to his mouth. “I can speak to one thing,” he murmured against her knuckles. “You’re no whore.” He kissed her pinky, then her ring finger. “If you were truly for sale, I would have bought you a hundred times by now. And I still would not be done with you.”
A shuddering breath slipped from her. Even now, at this moment, he could unsettle her so simply. Send her slipping sideways from fury into desire. “My secrets are boring,” she said. “Don’t you see? You’ve no need to know them! I’m a common thief, who answers to a very ordinary master. There is nothing—”
“No.” His grip suddenly crushed her. “That is where you’re wrong. You answer to me. And God help you, Lilah, but I am coming to enjoy it. Remember that, next time you want to ask me questions. I have as many for you. And I want the answers just as badly as you do.”
A cleared throat broke them apart. One of the assayers hesitated in the doorway, his glance politely averted. “Must speak to you a moment, m’lord.”
“Go,” Palmer said to her. “I will see you tomorrow evening, for your report.”
Everleigh’s Auction Rooms occupied the corner of a wide street not far from the market at Covent Garden. Its broad stone face gazed with curtained dignity upon the constant stream of traffic—which, at this afternoon hour, consisted mainly of farmers driving emptied carts led by oxen. At the top of the carpeted steps, two footmen lounged against the brass rail, idly watching the throng of quarrelsome young men who were sporting down the pavement.
“There will be other footmen posted during the auction,” Ashmore said. He stood beside Christian on the roof of a neighboring building, inspecting the scene through a battered field glass.
“Four at most.” Christian had taken careful note during the ball. “Two to handle the carriages, two at the door. What of the other entrances?”
“The footpath to the east is used by the employees. Not guarded, as far as I can tell. There’s also the alley in the rear, where cargo is received.”
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