by Mia Marlowe
It was important not to lie directly. Even the best of liars had little tells that gave them away.
“Would you care to join me in a drink to find out?”
Griffin stood at the ferry’s prow, leaning into the wind, as if he could make the little steamer go faster by sheer strength of will. After that brief moment of sun following the duel, clouds had swallowed up the sky and now threatened rain. The ferry’s two-man crew was snug in the wheelhouse to the rear of the craft. Theodore and Northrop had descended with the rest of the ferry passengers to the salon below to make the short trip in relative comfort.
There could be no comfort for Griffin. Not as long as Emmaline was in danger.
A ship’s bell sounded on the starboard side and Griffin turned to survey the other traffic on the broad river. A merchantman was making its way up the Thames under full sail, pulling even with the ferry and overtaking it in the favorable tide and stiff breeze.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “The Rebecca Goodspeed.”
Finally, the ship on which he’d pinned so much of his hopes had come in. Riding low in the water, her hold was filled to the brim with trade goods that would guarantee his estate’s solvency for years to come. He could set Ted up in whatever endeavor he pleased, give Louisa the Season she deserved, and keep his mother and retainers in comfort.
Even more important, he could marry Emmaline and send her father to that sanatorium to regain his health. And keep the old man out of trouble.
But he had to find Emma first.
He turned at the sound of footsteps, thinking Ted or Northrop had come to join him, but found a monstrously big fellow advancing on him instead.
“You shouldn’t oughta have followed ’is lordship,” the man said. He grasped Griffin’s collar and tried to throw him over the rail into the churning sludge of the Thames below.
It was difficult to fight back with his arm in a sling, so Griffin slipped out of it and wrapped the length of cloth around the big man’s neck. His ruddy face turned an alarming shade of purple, but he clawed at the cloth and managed to tear it off his neck.
The men separated, circling for best position. Once more Griffin found himself with his back to the rail. The man charged him. This time, Griffin bent forward and used the man’s own momentum to heft his attacker at the last moment. He tossed him over his back, over the rail and into the water. The man sputtered to the surface, then disappeared beneath the ferry’s keel.
“Devon!” Theodore came running toward him, with Northrop at his heels. “We heard sounds of a scuffle. Are you all right?”
“Bugger,” Northrop said. “You’re bleeding again.”
“Could be worse. I could be swimming.” Devon looked into the murky water. “It must have been the fellow Baxter caught trying to burgle us a while back. Big chap. Hope he misses the paddle wheel.”
“That’s charitable,” Northrop said.
“No, it’s practical,” Griffin said, grim-faced. “A fellow that big could gum up the works and leave us dead in the water. And since his attack proves we’re on the right track, we haven’t a moment to lose.”
Kingsley’s smile stretched unpleasantly across his face. “You may be common, but you are also uncommonly entertaining, Miss Farnsworth. Very well.” He dropped two lumps of brown sugar into each of the cups and stirred. “What shall we drink to? Our health, perhaps?”
“Sounds good to me.” She forced a slight smile and lifted her cup to touch rims with his. Then she brought the cup to her mouth without hesitation and tipped it so the liquid lapped at her lips.
“No, wait!” he said and set down his cup.
She peered over the rim at him, straining against the urge to do the same. He mustn’t think her the least anxious about the contents or in any hurry to remove the cup from her lips.
“We’ll switch cups,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she asked, letting her brow wrinkle slightly in what she hoped was convincing, though surreptitious, evidence of worry.
He took the cup from her and gave her his. She stared down at the innocuous tea before her and bit her lower lip.
“You don’t want that one, do you? Yes, I’m sure,” he said with a laugh. He raised his cup and drained it in one gulp. “Now it’s your turn.”
She hesitantly reached for the tea.
“Don’t be shy. Drink up.”
She let her hand tremble a bit as she lifted the cup to her mouth.
“Careful. Don’t want to waste a drop. Drink. Drink. What are you waiting for?” He spoke faster and his voice had gone up at least half an octave in pitch. His pupils widened to engulf his irises. “Come now, I drank, didn’t I?”
He began pacing and wringing his hands. Whatever it was that had been in his cup acted with amazing swiftness, though he seemed unaware his behavior bordered on frantic.
Emma decided it wouldn’t do to give him time to notice. She took a small sip of the Earl Grey and swallowed with deliberateness.
“Again. Again. Again.” His eyes darted around the room as if he couldn’t keep them focused on her.
She finished the contents and set the cup down.
He plopped down in the chair across from her and then almost immediately rose again. “How do you feel?”
She pressed her lips tightly together for a moment. “No longer thirsty.”
He slammed a fist on the table. “No!”
She flinched at his sudden violence. His head jerked several times as if he had a bit in his mouth and an invisible hand were controlling his movements. He sucked in a deep breath and slid into the chair again. His fingers drummed the tabletop.
“How do you feel?” he repeated. “Any palpi-palpi-palpitations? Shortness of b-breath?”
“I feel . . . fine,” she said, allowing her shoulders to relax. “Stronger. As if I could fly.”
“Good. Good. Oh, yes. That’s as it should be. Yes, indeed as it ever shall be. W-world without end. Amen, and all that r-rot.” He cackled out a laugh and then leaned forward to study her face.
She forced herself to meet his gaze.
“Your eyes, they’re brighter. By gum, you’re absolutely positively glowing. There’s a light behind your eyes that’s absoltively, posiltutely ethereal-ereal.” He leaned down and rested both elbows on the table, cupping his face in his palms. “I wonder how it looks from the other side. Pop out your eye, why don’t you, and give me a peek.”
Emma’s jaw dropped.
“You should see your face.” He giggled like a twelve-year-old girl. “Never mind. I believe it’s time, yes it’s time, I said it was didn’t I, for me to join you.”
He turned back to his stone pot and ladled out another cupful of the dark draught. He cursed when his hand shook convulsively and a tablespoon or so splashed on the cupboard shelf.
If one dose of the stuff disoriented him this much, Emmaline didn’t want to be present when he consumed a second batch. She bent down and worked at the knots restraining her ankles, while Lord Kingsley drained another cupful of the Tetisheri potion.
She yanked the rope from around her ankle and stood just as he turned around.
“Oh, you’ve slipped your bonds,” he said with an idiot’s grin on his face. “No matter. I’d have had to untie you in any case.”
“Of course, you would,” she said trying to maintain a reasonable tone with him. With any luck, the potion had rendered him suggestible. “Since you’re going to let me go now.”
He made a rude spluttering noise. “Not a chance, ducks. Unless it’s off the roof.”
“What?”
“You said you felt you could fly,” he said. “Me, too. Let’s go up to the widow’s walk and test it out, shall we?”
His head jerked to the side and he seemed to continue the conversation with someone Emmaline couldn’t see. “Yes, we shall. Because I said so, that’s why!”
His gaze swung back around and fastened itself on her. “And since I’m always a gentleman, when it’s time to leap
off the roof . . .” He dipped in a low bow. “It’ll be ladies first.”
Why on earth was she fighting him? She struggled so on the stairs, he’d finally had to slap her and throw her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of wheat.
Or Egyptian rye, he thought with a grin. That’s what the grain was supposed to be after all. The splendiferous, glorious secret ingredient that made him strong as an ox.
Now that he thought on it, he could probably have carted an ox up the winding staircase, through the attic, and out over the rain runnel that divided the butterfly roof that capped his four-story town house. Of course, the way Miss Farnsworth screamed and pounded his back and carried on, an ox might have been less trouble.
His butler Farley had appeared briefly to investigate the unholy racket the woman was making, but when Kingsley snarled at him—quite ferociously—Farley had retreated back down the stairs, his eyes swollen to the size of dinner plates.
“Yes, they were too that big,” he said to the scarlet imp bouncing on Miss Farnsworth’s heels. “I am not exaggerating in the slightest.”
“Lord Kingsley, you’re not well,” the infuriating woman said, as if he’d been talking to her in the first place. “Put me down and we’ll—”
He swung her down from his shoulder and dropped her near the front parapet. She landed on her backside with an “oof.” Her skirts hitched up, baring her legs to the knees.
She had well-turned ankles and comely calves.
His cock swelled at the sight and for a moment he lost track of why they’d come to the roof. The trio of chimney pots on the next house leaned over and made noises of disapproval that sounded remarkably like his stern old nanny. He shot them a glare and they straightened, pretending they hadn’t been hovering over him like a clutch of old biddies riding herd on debutantes at a ball.
The red imp that had ridden on Miss Farnsworth’s ankles was joined by three more little gargoyles bounding across the rooftops and leaping over the wrought iron railing that edged his parapet. He rather liked them and didn’t care if they spied on him so long as they didn’t try to argue.
“Lord Kingsley,” she said, tugging down her skirt. “We should call a physician for you.”
“I don’t need a doctor,” he said as fire began creeping through his veins. He rubbed his forearms, trying to extinguish the slow burn. Now he remembered why they were on the roof. “I need to see if you can fly.”
“No!” She wailed when he hauled her to her feet and started manhandling her toward the railing.
“Emma!” A voice came from the street below.
Kingsley leaned over the wrought iron and peered down. Damn. It was Devon. He was clambering out of a hansom with his brother Theodore and that wastrel Northrop in tow. The earl bounded to Kingsley’s front door and began pounding on it as if he’d tear it from the hinges.
“Such a fuss over nothing,” Kingsley said. “Fly down there and tell him to stop it, there’s a good girl.”
He lifted her over the rail and dropped her.
CHAPTER 34
Emma twisted and grasped at the wrought iron as she went airborne. She was able to wrap the fingers of one hand around a picket. The smooth metal slid down her palm till she came to an abrupt stop where it met the brick façade of Kingsley’s town house. She felt a sickening crunch at her wrist and her shoulder wrenched painfully, but she steeled herself not to let go.
“Hold on, Emma,” Griffin shouted from below her.
The sound of his voice gave her the strength to swing her other arm up and grab the bottom of a more substantial post topped with a spear-like finial. She hung suspended above the street, her cheek scraped against rough bricks, her skirts billowing in the breeze.
“Oh, Miss Farnsworth, I’m so disappointed,” Kingsley said from above her. “And you thought you could fly. You know what this proves, don’t you?”
She didn’t dare look up. She hardly dared breathe for fear of losing her grip, but she heard Kingsley scuffling around above her as if he were tussling with someone. It couldn’t be Griffin. She could still hear him bashing at the door below.
“Don’t rush me, I’ll tell her. I said I would, didn’t I? Get off, you demon spawn!” Kingsley’s voice rose to a hysterical pitch, then dropped to maddening calm as he knelt to peer through the rail at her. “You’re simply not worthy, my dear.”
A crackle of splintering wood reached her ears. Griffin had broken through. Hope shot through her like a second wind, but her palms were clammy. Her grip slipped by a hairbreadth.
“No! Not them,” Kingsley yelled and leaped suddenly to his feet. “There are hundreds of them. Thousands. They’re spewing out of the Dome of St. Paul’s and heading this way. You’ve got to fly, Emmaline. They’ll be on you in a moment.”
He knelt down again and tried to uncurl her fingers from around the post, bending back her nails and scratching at her skin. She pleaded with him to stop, but even when he kicked at her fingers, she wouldn’t let go.
“You’ve got to . . . I can’t stop them . . . there’s no help for it . . . they’re here!” He shrieked and leaped on top of the iron railing, balanced between earth and sky. “Save yourself!”
Then with an unholy wail, he propelled himself into space, arms windmilling as he fell. A dull thud cut off the scream abruptly. She made the mistake of looking down and saw Kingsley’s body splayed obscenely on the cobbles below.
Her groin tingled with the sense of impending destruction. If her grip gave, she’d be next. Emmaline squeezed her eyes shut and focused every bit of strength into her fingers.
Someone was grappling through the bars, grasping her forearms and trying to uncurl her fingers. Panic clawed her belly. Whoever or whatever had chased Kingsley from the roof was trying to send her to her death as well.
“No, stop,” she begged.
“Emma, sweetheart, let go. I’ve got you.”
She looked up into Griffin’s handsome face, drawn with equal parts concern and determination. He had a firm hold on her forearms so she forced herself to release the iron and clutched at Griffin’s strong wrists. She scrabbled her feet against the brick, trying to help him pull her up, but there was little need. Griffin had her safely up and over the iron railing again by the time Theodore and Northrop pounded up the stairs and onto the rooftop behind him.
She sagged into his arms, burying her face in his chest. Oh, the smell of him, all warm and male and safe. Always safe.
“I’ve got you,” he repeated as if he scarcely believed it himself. “And I’ll never let you go.”
“You’d have to drive me away.” Emmaline squeezed him tightly. She’d never want for anything else as long as she could be near this man, listening to his great heart hammering beneath her ear.
“Griffin, what are you doing here?” Emmaline knuckled her eyes to make sure she wasn’t dreaming. His smiling face didn’t waiver. Dawn streaked in through the leaded window behind him, silhouetting his nude form with light and rendering him fair as an angel.
Except that his wicked grin wasn’t the least angelic.
“Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see the bride before the ceremony?”
“I couldn’t wait.” He threw back the covers and slid in beside her. “In a few hours, we’ll be married, but once the household wakes, you’ll be surrounded by women clucking over you.”
“They’ll only be clucking to make sure I’m dressed and pressed and decked out like a bride worthy of you.”
“A lot of bother for nothing.” He covered her mouth in a possessive kiss.
She wedged her arms between them and pushed on his chest. “Come now, a girl wants to impress her bridegroom.”
“You want to impress me? Take off that nightshift.”
Her lips curved in a feline smile. It would be some time before the upstairs maid came to her chamber to begin her wedding day toilette. Then after the ceremony in the Devonwood Park chapel, they’d be surrounded by family and well-wishers till well after midnight. Sh
e wouldn’t be alone with Griffin again for hours.
Emmaline wiggled out from under him and then pulled the nightshift off over her head.
“We’ve been so poisonously conventional for the past fortnight,” she said between fevered kisses. “Are you sure you want to ruin our streak of unusually good behavior?”
“Absolutely.”
After the death of Lord Kingsley, there’d been a brief inquiry by the Peelers. Once Emmaline showed them the reddish brown substance hidden inside the Tetisheri statue and Griffin produced the letter from Baxter’s nephew describing the adverse effects of ingesting it, the authorities were willing to accept their account and ruled his demise an unfortunate accident.
“St. Anthony’s fire, eh?” the constable said. “I’ve heard tell of the like. And it comes from tainted rye, you say. Makes a body want to swear off bread, indeed it does.”
The tale lost nothing in the telling once they returned to Devonwood Park. The house party guests were spell-bound in horrified fascination as Theodore and Northrop relayed the particulars. The early morning duel was never mentioned since everyone assumed Griffin had injured his arm during the course of Emmaline’s rescue.
And of course, the merry company of guests completely understood when her affection transferred to Lord Devonwood from Theodore. He had led the charge up to the roof and snatched her from the brink, after all.
“Yesterday, I overheard Lady Bentley nattering on about the fact that there may be another wedding in the family soon,” Emmaline said as Griffin kissed his way down her throat. His lips made her skin shiver with pleasure.
Griffin’s flat belly jiggled in a low chuckle. “It’s like to be at the point of a shotgun if Teddy gets caught with Lady Cressida in another game of Sardines.”
“No, it wasn’t—” Emma’s breath caught when his lips teased over a nipple without stopping to suckle it. “She meant Louisa and Lord Northrop.”