Harry stood up. “Leave? Where will you go?” she cried with distress.
Hilary was holding her hand so tightly now it was painful. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I put all of you at risk by staying here. This ruse, as you call it, has grown onerous to you all. I can no longer ask you to lie and deceive people for my benefit.”
“If you think you’re going to set their minds at ease by going off and disappearing,” Wiley said, “you’re dead wrong.” Roger glared at him. “I couldn’t resist,” Wiley said with a shrug. “But all puns aside, she’s still wrong. She’ll only worry the lot of you more.”
“He’s right, Eleanor,” Roger said. “That’s no solution. And then Enderby wins again, doesn’t he?”
“If I come forward, perhaps the authorities will be more concerned with whomever Enderby buried in my name,” Eleanor suggested, desperate for a solution.
Hilary sighed beside her. “It would seem the body had already degenerated quite a bit by the time it was found,” he told her sadly. “It was identified by clothing and general appearance, like hair color, and also by location.” He gave her an admiring look. “I assume you left some misleading clues as to your destination.”
She nodded. “I did. Where did they find it?”
“Near Twyford,” he told her. “And so there can be no proof of foul play on his part.”
“Do you think he genuinely believes the dead woman to be Eleanor?” Roger asked. Eleanor held her breath.
“No.” At Hilary’s response her shoulders slumped. “But I will continue my investigation, Eleanor, and I will get to the bottom of it. Never fear.”
“Ellie,” Harry said. Eleanor looked up at her. “I still say we are all overreacting. The thing to do here is to avoid a scandal. And that starts with you two. Do you think you can do that?”
Eleanor looked at Hilary. He looked as bleak as she felt. “Yes,” she said, but her heart was breaking. She wished she had the freedom to jump headlong into a scandal with Hilary. How wonderful that would be. Hilary kissed the back of her hand, but unlike Eleanor, he made no promises.
* * *
The evening was quite subdued after dinner, and it was only a short time later that Wiley left. “I don’t really know how to do this sort of supper thing yet,” he commented. “Gives me a bit of a headache, really. Off to the pub.”
“We are off to bed,” Roger suddenly announced after Wiley’s departure, taking Harry’s arm and dragging her to the door. “Good night.”
“We’re what?” Harry asked in bewilderment.
“Come along.” Roger gave Hilary and Eleanor a hard stare and then he closed the door.
Eleanor stared after them in shock. “Well. What do you suppose that was all about?”
Hilary slid off his chair and came to sit next to Eleanor on the dark-green velvet sofa. “Do you need me to open a window?” he asked.
She shook her head. “No. I’m much better about that now.” She smiled. “As long as a room has windows, that is.”
Without warning, he grabbed her and lowered her back down over his lap, one arm wrapped around her, holding her to his chest. “I think this is Roger’s way of giving us some privacy.”
“But I thought we weren’t to see one another anymore,” she protested, even as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“No. You are not to sneak out in the middle of the night to come to my house, and we are not to act scandalously in public. There is a great difference.”
Eleanor gasped. “Oh, do you think so? Because that would be lovely.”
“What would?” he asked, smelling her hair and nuzzling her neck just under her ear.
“Not having to stop seeing you,” she murmured, arching her neck to give him better access.
“Like seeing me, do you?” he said softly with a little nip on her earlobe.
“For now,” she prevaricated. “How much time do you think Roger will give us?”
“All night,” Hilary said, reaching down and inching her skirt up. “I plan to ravish you, you know. I missed you last night.”
Eleanor hiked her skirt up and grabbed his hand, placing it exactly where she wanted it. She gave a breathy little moan. “I missed you, too.”
“We are perilously close to making declarations,” Hilary whispered in her ear while he rubbed her sex with delicious intent.
“Oh, dear, none of that,” she whispered back, her hips moving with abandon under the ministrations of his skilled hand. “But if you insist, I am mad for you.” It was the closest she had come to admitting her feelings, and her stomach flipped at how vulnerable she was making herself. She thrust aside her misgivings and pressed her breasts to his chest, a sound of profound frustration coming from her at the restrictions their clothes placed on them. Her reward was a kiss, one of Hilary’s kisses, a wild, intense, passionate kiss full of hunger and need. She felt the same way, and he was so right. It could only be expressed like this, in a kiss of such magnitude she felt as if she’d explode from the feelings coursing through her.
Hilary broke the kiss and let go of her to reach for his cravat. She helped him remove it, and kissed the neck they exposed. “Are you averse to a tumble on the drawing room sofa?” he asked breathlessly.
“Not at all,” she told him, changing her position to straddle his legs. “It is very sturdy.”
“Good,” he said with a laugh. “It wouldn’t do for the sofa to collapse, endangering you.”
“And bringing the entire house down around our ears,” she muttered.
“I assume you mean the occupants, and not the house itself,” Hilary said, pausing as he tried to remove his tight jacket without dislodging her. “I am an ardent lover, to be sure, but hardly that powerful.”
She laughed in delight at his joke, her heart much lighter than it had been just a few short minutes ago. “Yes, the occupants, my ardent lover. You are too full of yourself by half.”
“I am too full of myself by whole,” he murmured, kissing her shoulder. “And so shall you be, lover mine.”
“Hilary,” she admonished halfheartedly at his crude comment.
“Admit it,” he told her, as his kisses moved to her cheek and the corner of her smile. “You like it when I talk like that.”
“I admit no such thing,” she said on a shaky sigh as his hand covered her breast. “But I will admit I am empty and aching.”
“Eleanor,” he said appreciatively, squeezing her breast. “You say the most lovely things.”
“I like that we talk,” she said suddenly, the thought popping into her head and out her mouth before she could censor it.
“We both talk quite a bit,” Hilary agreed. “But as we are both erudite and extremely intelligent, everything we say is worth listening to. Now lift up so I can do this properly.”
She did as he asked, her hands on his shoulders. “I meant that we talk when we’re about to be intimate.”
“We are intimate right now,” he assured her. “I don’t roll around on drawing room sofas with women whom I am not intimate with.”
“With whom I am not intimate,” she corrected. She caught her breath as she felt his fingers seeking entrance.
“I find myself completely uninterested in a grammar discussion right now,” he said with a groan. “Good God, woman, I’m desperate to touch you.”
She moved against his hand with an embarrassing, breathy little moan. “I confess, I’ve been desperate since yesterday. You have turned me into the worst sort of wanton strumpet.”
“Good,” he whispered. He tilted her head down with a hand on the back of her head so their lips touched. “Less work for me,” he said against her mouth, and then he kissed her again.
She clung to him, so grateful that they could still have this, even if it was furtive and rushed and rather desperate. She wrapped her arms tightly around his shoulders, her hands buried in his hair, and she let him pleasure her. It was selfish and crude, and felt so divine. It was only minutes before the rapture took h
er, and flung her into that special place where all that mattered was her and Hilary and the things they did to each other. And when Hilary made her fly, she knew she couldn’t give this up. She wouldn’t.
She dozed briefly, her head on his shoulder, his hands running up and down her back. She woke when he moved under her. He stood up, holding her in his arms, her legs wrapped around him. “Where are we going?” she asked sleepily.
“Your room,” he said softly. “I’m too old to sleep sitting on a sofa with a woman draped on top of me.”
That woke her up. “You’re leaving?” She hadn’t meant to sound so pathetic, but it seemed to please him.
“No. We are simply going to sleep in your bed. We are not done by half.”
She blinked at him, sure she’d misunderstood. “What? How is that supposed to be avoiding a scandal?”
Hilary shrugged. “Roger can simply tell people I’ve moved into a guest room. We’ll say my house is infested with rats.”
She laughed. “Hilary, no one will believe that.” Hope sprang to life in her breast. Could it work?
“Perhaps not, but it gives the appearance of respectability. The majority will refuse to believe that Roger allows me to ravish his demure sister-in-law under his roof. Our more carnal pleasures will be tacitly approved by your brother-in-law, God love him.”
“Hilary St. John,” she whispered against his lips while she toyed with the hair on his nape. “You planned this from the start. You are incorrigible. I don’t even want to hear what Roger has to say about this over breakfast tomorrow.”
He smiled and she felt it through her lips. “Trust a Devil to think ahead, my dear. Am I to take that as a yes?” he asked, letting her go so her legs slipped down his hips and legs until her feet rested on the floor.
“Yes,” she told him, taking everything one moment at a time. She’d deal with Roger tomorrow. She’d deal with it all tomorrow. Tonight, she was thanking her lucky stars that she held a Devil in her arms.
* * *
“What the devil are you still doing here?” Roger demanded the next morning in the breakfast room. He scowled as he marched over and took his seat. Harry followed, her eyes wide, and slid into her seat at the other end of the table. Hilary and Eleanor sat on opposite sides of the table, in the middle. They had deemed that wisest. Eleanor had even worn her most demure gown, a white one with blue piping and a high neckline, though it was her least favorite.
“Rats,” Hilary said dramatically. “My house is infested. I’m afraid I shall have to seek shelter here, old man. Do be a friend, and let me stay until they get rid of them.”
Roger rested one arm on the table and began to drum his fingers. He regarded Hilary with a raised brow. “And how long will that take?” he asked tightly.
Hilary seemed to think about it for a second or two. “Time will tell, Roger. Who knows with rats?”
Roger closed his eyes briefly. “Yes,” he finally said, nodding, his voice dripping with sarcasm. “Once you get a rat in the house, who knows how long it will take to get him out?”
Chapter Thirteen
Two weeks later
“I say, Sir Hilary,” Mr. Goode grumbled, “can’t we discuss this in a more private setting?”
They were in the Templetons’ drawing room. Hil regarded him with a forbidding expression. At least he hoped it was. It was hard to be forbidding when the infant was crying upstairs, Harry was yelling at young Mercy, and Eleanor was sitting in front of the window reading, the sun hitting her curls and her smooth cheek, creating a mysterious shadow between her breasts, just visible over the unobjectionable neckline of her dark-blue day gown. Ah, it was the book creating the shadow.
“Sir Hilary?”
At Mr. Goode’s querulous voice, Hil came back to the present and realized he was staring at Eleanor. “What?” he barked.
“You summoned me,” Mr. Goode said with undisguised exasperation. “To discuss my inquiry?”
“Of course I did,” Hil said sharply. “The fact is, Mr. Goode, I can find no letters from the tsar among your grandmother’s things. If she did indeed possess them, then she destroyed them prior to her death. I’m sorry.”
“Perhaps the tsar had someone steal them,” Mr. Goode insisted.
At that bit of nonsense, Hil let loose an incredulous snort. “Hardly. Even if the letters existed, even if they had an affair, even if you are distantly related—”
“Distantly?” Mr. Goode exclaimed. “He’s my grandfather!”
“Be that as it may,” Hil continued, “you have no claim on the throne of Russia, nor a claim to his fortune. Your legal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Goode, were married at the time of your father’s birth and Mr. Goode claimed the child as his. There is no evidence, other than your grandmother’s story, to corroborate such an alliance. To bring accusations and unfounded rumor to the attention of the public would be seen as a nuisance not only by the tsar, but by the British authorities.” He adopted a very grave expression. “I fear you would end up in custody, Mr. Goode, were you to attempt to do so.”
“It’s bloody unfair,” he whined. “He owes me. Tupped my grandmother and left her breeding without a pence, while he goes off to be tsar. I should get something.”
“But you will not. Good afternoon, Mr. Goode.”
“Well, you’ve been absolutely useless,” Mr. Goode said unhappily, “and I will be sure to tell everyone so.”
“As long as you do so without mentioning the unfortunate scheme that brought you to me, go right ahead,” Hil told him. “It’s not as if you paid me for my assistance.” He waved at the footman. “See Mr. Goode out.”
Eleanor had been reading for the last several minutes without turning a page. Hil knew she’d been listening. “Well?” he asked her after the door closed.
She put down her book and gave him a smile. “Thank you. It’s for the best, you know. He only wanted money, and no good would come of the whole thing if you’d exhumed poor Mrs. Goode.”
“I agree,” he told her with a nod. “Which is why I chose that course of action. It had nothing to do with your desires.”
“Of course it didn’t,” she agreed, sitting back and reopening her book. “I never imagined that it did.” She gave him a little smile. “But thank you just the same.”
Roger burst into the drawing room. “Enough,” he told Hil firmly. “There are men building some sort of wall or something in the entry. And it’s my suppertime. I’ve had an awful day in court, and I demand my house back.”
“They are reconstructing a segment of wall from a recent crime,” Hil explained to him. “I am trying to determine the distance at which the killer stood when he fired his gun, based on the condition of both the wall and the bullet.”
Roger glared at him. “No one is going to fire any bullets in this house,” he said quite firmly. Then he held up a hand. “Don’t argue with me. I’m hungry.”
“And out of sorts, obviously,” Hil told him. “It’s for a presentation before the Royal Society next month,” Hil continued. “And I was not planning on firing the weapons in here. We would move it outside for that, of course. But it was cold and I didn’t want to ask the men to work outside. It can wait until tomorrow.” He got up and walked over to the door. “Thank you, lads,” he told the workmen. Wiley had recommended them. They stood and tipped their hats. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow. Go see Wiley for today’s wages. Good work.” They immediately headed back to the kitchen.
“Wiley is in the kitchen?” Roger asked tightly. “Dare I hope my supper is still there, as well?”
“I had to put him somewhere,” Hil said. “He’s become rather essential to my work, much to my surprise. He handles all the day-to-day issues that come up.”
“He’s your secretary,” Roger told him. “You both need to just admit it and move on.”
“Nonsense,” Hil said. “I do not need a secretary.” He called after the last worker, “Do send Wiley up when you’re done. And tell him to bring my schedule book.�
�� He refused to look at Roger as he said it.
“Roger,” Harry said from the top of the stairs. “Welcome home, darling.” She hurried down the steps with the baby in her arms, Mercy not far behind. Roger stepped over to wrap them all in a hug, a smile on his face.
Hil was hit with an unexpected pang of jealousy. He wanted Eleanor to do that. In his own home, he wanted her to hurry down the stairs as Harry had and greet him. The children were inconsequential. Well, not to Roger and Harry, but to Hil. He’d never really thought about them much to begin with. Hearing that Eleanor couldn’t have any had made no difference to him. He wanted Eleanor.
Suddenly her hand slipped through his arm and he jerked his head around to meet her gaze. “Are you through for the day?” she asked. She held up the book she’d been reading. It was a book on pistols. “I have some suggestions for your experiment.”
“I thought you were reading the book of poetry I bought you,” he said, surprised.
“You have bought me two, and I have read both, and will read them again and again,” she said with a smile. “Shakespeare and Robert Burns. Sir Hilary, you are a romantic at heart,” she teased. “But today I wanted to help with your project, so I stole a book from your stack over there.” She pointed to his makeshift desk, a table in the corner.
He wanted to hear her suggestions. It was a revelation. He’d never much cared for the opinions of others. They were rarely as well thought out as his, nor did they usually have an effect on his opinion.
“We can discuss it after dinner,” she said, kissing his cheek. “I’m famished.” She turned to Roger. “I had Cook make your favorite dish. I read in the paper that the Cummings case was not going well. You must tell us about it at dinner, Roger. Perhaps Hilary can help.”
“Oh, Eleanor, I don’t know what I’d do without you,” Harry said gratefully. “Theo is teething and wouldn’t let Nanny touch him. I’ve been with him all day and hardly gave a thought to anything else.”
Eleanor waved her hand in the air. “It was nothing,” she said. “I knew you were busy.”
Devil in My Arms: A Loveswept Historical Romance (The Saint's Devils) Page 14