by CJ Archer
He acknowledged her conviction with a short nod. "Very well."
Those two simple words lightened the weight she'd been carrying on her shoulders ever since she accepted his commission. It was almost an agreement that he would never employ her again. But it was too soon to know for certain, too soon to ask, and part of her dared not for fear of the answer. But it was something. If she could obtain a proper agreement from him when this was all over then her secret would be safe and she would be free of Sir Oswyn and free of the treachery that threatened her career. Once she cured Redcliff. Hope made her momentarily light-headed.
"Tell me," she said, gathering herself, "how thoroughly did you question Mr. Redcliff over the death of Cottesloe?"
"As soon as he returned to London, I questioned him myself. But Redcliff is a clever man and the best spy I have. He only ever confides exactly what he wants me to know and nothing more."
You should try kissing him. Redcliff may not have divulged any secrets to her, national or otherwise, after their kisses but he'd certainly let his guard down. He'd been aroused and an aroused man often said or did things he later regretted.
Perhaps Redcliff regretted their kisses. She certainly did.
"And what did he confide to you, Sir Oswyn?"
He leaned back and stretched out his leg. "Would it surprise you to hear that he admitted to killing Cottesloe?"
She gasped. "Admitted it? But...do you believe him?"
"I'm not sure. When questioned about the incident, he couldn't remember it. He only knew he committed the crime because he dreamt about it."
"He did suffer a hard blow to the base of his skull. That sort of injury can cause one to forget, particularly the incident that led to the injury. Physicians are not quite sure why it occurs, but it's not uncommon. Perhaps Mr. Redcliff truly can't remember, except through his dreams."
"Perhaps."
It all began to make sense—the opium addiction and the reasons why Sir Oswyn wanted Redcliff to stop smoking it. "I know you believe he's taking the opium to help him forget," she said. "Or at least, help him suppress the dreams that will trigger his memory. That's why I'm here, isn't it? To cure him of his addiction so that he can dream properly again. Dreams and nightmares are powerful. They can trigger memories that have been buried, essentially forgotten." The horror of what that implied struck her like a hammer to her stomach. It was awful. So awful even Sir Oswyn had begun to fidget and didn't meet her gaze.
"You see the problem," he said with unnerving quiet.
"I do," she whispered. "Mr. Redcliff doesn't want to remember that night in Berne because he believes deep down that he did something despicable." Her words were barely above a whisper. "He doesn't want to remember it, not even in his dreams." But if he had already dreamt about the incident...did that mean he really did kill Cottesloe?
"Redcliff is essentially a good man," he said, more to himself than to Georgiana. As if he was trying to convince himself.
Bile rose to her throat. She wanted to be sick. She shook her head, over and over, but there was nothing to say. She couldn't defend Redcliff, even though she wanted to, even though she couldn't believe he'd kill his own friend. But she hardly knew him and he'd not proven himself the most honorable of men so far.
"Do you believe he did it?" she asked.
"I don't know." He rubbed his chin. "I don't know. If only the body could be found..."
"What will you do now?" she asked in a voice she hardly recognized as her own.
"We continue as we have been. We wait until Redcliff dreams again and remembers that night more clearly. There's still the possibility it wasn't him."
"And if he doesn't remember?"
"He will. His dreams will reveal the truth when he stops the opium." He reached for the walking stick leaning against the edge of his desk. His hand wrapped around the ivory serpent's head and he pushed himself up with great effort. He came around to her side of the desk, his gait awkward and stiff, and held out his hand. She took it and rose. But instead of letting her go, he held her with a tight grip and pinned her with his squinting glare. "That, Miss Appleby, is your job. I do not expect failure. Not from you. Not after that unfortunate incident."
She wrenched her hand free. The incident he referred to had been a failure on a catastrophic scale. She would never repeat it again. Never. "I can only do my best."
"Let's hope that is enough."
Sir Oswyn led her to the door but didn't open it. "You must do everything in your womanly powers to stop him, Miss Appleby. I employed you because I thought Redcliff would respond to you."
Respond to her? What was he saying?
Then he winked and she was left in no doubt. He wanted her to seduce Redcliff.
Instead of allowing her shock and anger to show, she laughed. Sometimes the only way to treat outrageous people was to behave outrageously at a time when they would least expect it. It worked because Sir Oswyn laughed too. He must think they were of like mind on the issue.
"I can assure you," she said, "I will do whatever it takes to free Mr. Redcliff of the opium's hold. But not in the way you are suggesting." That way only led to disaster—she knew that from personal experience.
His smile faded. He was the one who looked shocked and angered. That only made Georgiana's smile widen. "Why not, if it works?" he demanded.
"Let me assure you, it does not."
"Ah." His eyebrows drew together as he made the connection.
She opened the door and left. She passed the clerk, seated at his desk surrounded by papers, packages and leather-bound books and walked through the dark, musty corridor to reach Downing Street outside. Once there, she breathed deeply, drawing the air into her lungs. It reeked of horse dung but it was better than the foulness of Sir Oswyn's office.
Of all the things to suggest! She'd been wrong—he did not see her as an equal, merely as a pawn to be moved at his whim. Well, she refused to play his game. It was an unwinnable one anyway if she employed his tactics.
She walked along Downing Street and turned left into Whitehall. She felt out of place amidst the gentlemen hurrying with bent heads between the Treasury, Admiralty and the other stately government buildings. As she headed towards the busy intersection of Charing Cross, the breeze tousled her hair like ghostly fingers. The same ghost that often walked with her—that of her single failure. Sometimes, when she let herself remember, her head filled with ideas on how she could have kept Lawrence alive. But she knew in her heart there was only one way she could have saved him.
She should not have succumbed to his advances.
She would not succumb to Alexander Redcliff. No matter how tempted she was.
CHAPTER 7
Georgiana was still fuming over Sir Oswyn's proposal—or was it a demand?—when she arrived at Redcliff's house. Thankfully she met only Worth on the way up to her room. The last thing she wanted to do was engage in a polite war with either Redcliff or his aunt, particularly after learning he thought he'd killed his friend. She needed more time to ponder that piece of shocking news. Philly, however, she could happily listen to all afternoon.
Once in her room she immediately removed her new pistol from her reticule and placed it in the wardrobe drawer beneath a shawl. She'd had the devil of a time convincing the proprietor of Manton's in Piccadilly to sell her the firearm, so convinced was he that a dangerous weapon should not be placed in the hands of a female. He'd only relinquished after Lord Northbridge urged him to reconsider or he'd take his custom elsewhere. It had been fortunate that the gentleman had been purchasing a new set of pistols at the gunmakers's at the same time.
Georgiana threw her reticule on the dressing table. It landed beside two boxes that hadn't been there when she left. One was a hat box, the other a smaller parcel tied with a pale green ribbon. There was no card on either.
She hesitated for a second, but only a second, and opened the parcel, carefully setting aside the pretty ribbon. She pushed back the paper to reveal a beautiful silver han
d-held mirror with a peacock design etched into the back and a silver rope twisted around the handle.
So Redcliff remembered the damage he'd wreaked the night before and wanted to replace the broken mirror. She wasn't sure whether to be alarmed by the exquisite gift or be thankful his memory hadn't been completely obliterated by the opium.
She put the mirror back in the wrapping and ran her finger along the peacock's feathers. Lovely. Such fine workmanship. It must have cost a great deal. The one he'd broken had a plain wooden handle with no embellishments. The silver one would be worth far more.
She couldn't possibly accept it. If Redcliff wanted to replace the broken mirror, he could do so with another of similar value. She re-wrapped the silver one and secured the paper with the ribbon.
Then she turned to the hat box and lifted the lid. Inside was a pretty bonnet trimmed with ribbons of the same shade as the one tying the other package. Clusters of tiny white flowers on the brim made it one of the prettiest bonnets she had ever seen.
But it wasn't the first time she had seen it.
She frowned, turned the bonnet around and around. Then she remembered—she had seen it at the milliner's in Bond Street the day before yesterday. The exact same one.
He'd followed her! She didn't believe in coincidences or lucky guesses. Nor did she believe in letting such a rotten act go unchecked.
She gathered up the hat box and re-packaged mirror and marched down to Redcliff's study. He bid her to enter on the first knock.
"Ah, you're back," he said, rising. "Did you like—?"
She slammed the hat box down on his desk sending a pen tumbling out of its inkstand onto a piece of paper. It left a nasty splotch all over his correspondence. Good! The other parcel she was more careful with and placed it on top of the box.
"Not to your taste?" he said idly.
"Not at all," she said, matching his tone. "The hat is too frivolous for a woman such as myself. Tight, didn't you call me?" He opened his mouth to speak but before he could she added, "And the mirror is much too fine. You'll certainly break more than the glass next time you rampage about my room."
He came around the desk and stood in front of her, so close she could feel his warm breath in her hair. With his finger, he traced the line of her jaw to her chin. A shudder cascaded down her spine and spread along her nerves. Why was it that whenever he got close, he wreaked havoc on her senses?
"Next time I come to your room, Miss Appleby, I will not be rampaging. I will be gentle, insistent and attentive. I will give you something I think you've been searching for. Something you need."
She stepped back with some difficulty. But once she severed the contact and removed herself from his powerful sphere, she found she could think much more clearly. "Fiddlesticks," she said. She pointed at the hat box. "You followed me. Why?"
He straightened, looked at the hat box, looked at her then shrugged. "I happened to be walking down Bond Street and saw you in the milliner's. I admit I stopped to watch. I couldn't help it. I was intrigued by the woman who'd blown into my life and turned it upside down."
If it was a lie then she couldn't detect it.
"You spent some time admiring that bonnet then left without purchasing it," he said. "Why?"
"It was too expensive. And not to my taste. I prefer a simpler, uncluttered style." She hoped he wouldn't detect her lie. It wasn't a bonnet she could wear near any of her patients, but it would look nice with some of the prettier dresses she'd left at home and wore around the village when she wasn't working. Indeed, the limited opportunities for wearing it was the very reason she couldn't justify the expense.
"I think it would suit you very well," he said. "That's why I bought it for you."
"Then you must return it. I don't want it.
He held his hand up to silence her protest. "You do want it, you just didn't want to pay the exorbitant price for it."
"Let me clarify, Mr. Redcliff, since you don't appear to understand. I don't want you to buy it for me. You are my patient. I am already being paid to help you. Although I thank you for the gifts, it is most improper and I cannot accept them. I want you to take them back."
He sat on the edge of his desk and stretched out his long legs, crossing them at the ankles. He crossed his arms too and regarded her as if he'd not heard a thing she said. "I doubt Sir Oswyn is paying you enough to cure someone as stubborn as me."
"Don't be so sure. He considers you a valuable asset."
Redcliff grimaced. "An asset he no longer possesses. But I suppose he is conveniently over-looking that fact."
Ignoring was more an appropriate word. Just like he was ignoring the fact that Redcliff believed he'd killed Cottesloe. Sir Oswyn may not be convinced of his spy's guilt but Georgiana was still undecided. Redcliff was certainly a dangerous and powerful man, however she'd seen no evidence of violence, unless the destruction of her room counted. But it was one thing to be angry, and quite another to resort to killing. She didn't want to jump to any conclusions until she had more information.
"Are we agreed you'll return the gifts?" she asked.
"I never said I'd return them. The hat is one thing, the mirror entirely another. I broke yours so I must replace it."
"Not with something so..."
"Beautiful?"
"Expensive. If you want to replace mine then you can give me a similar one. It had a plain wooden handle."
He sighed. "Very well. It's not worth the argument. Before you go, Miss Appleby," he said when she turned to leave, "I want to know if you're planning on removing my opium again while I'm out tonight. If so I thought I'd save you and Trent a search and tell you where it'll be hidden."
She rounded on him. He was still perched on the edge of the desk, sitting as casually as if he were chatting with Lord Northbridge. "Am I to understand from that attempt at humor that you are not even going to try and abstain from opium tonight?"
"Tonight or any other night. I don't see any reason to."
She sighed. "You did hear me the other day when I said you could die from it."
"I heard you. And I told you I am not smoking enough that I would be as affected as your unfortunate patient."
She couldn't believe it! It was as if he didn't care, as if the loss of a life, his life, wasn't a great tragedy. "But what happens when you need more of it to get the same results? Do you think you will be so immune in a year's time, in five or ten? Do you think your body will continue to function as well as it does now? And what about your sister and aunts?"
His face darkened ominously. "This has nothing to do with them."
"Do you really think so?" She was angry, so very angry at him for his sheer stubbornness. He wasn't a stupid man and yet he was behaving like one. "What happens when you take so much to make you sleep that you cannot be woken in the morning? Or what if Phillippa sees you in one of your opium stupors?"
"She will not—."
"No? Are you so sure about that?"
"I'm warning you, Miss Appleby, don't lecture me." His voice was a distant rumble of thunder in the charged air of the study. If she'd not been bolstered by her own anger she would have run for cover before the storm broke.
"What will you do if Phillippa needs you one night? Or your aunt? She's elderly, she might fall and you'll not be able to help her." She was almost shouting at him. Her fingernails dug small grooves into her palms and her cheeks felt hot and tight.
But Redcliff merely sat there, his face growing darker and darker with each word. "Are you finished?" he snarled.
"No." She had to stop to catch her breath. She felt like she'd run up five flights of stairs. "I want to know if the nightmares are so bad that you would risk everything?"
A pulse jumped high in his jaw. His eyes, ice-cold, narrowed. "Now are you finished?"
She inclined her head. Swallowed. Perhaps she'd gone too far. Despite the kisses, their relationship was still one of patient and physician and she'd never spoken with such passion to any of her other patients be
fore. Not even Lawrence.
"Then you'd better go before I lose my temper," he said.
She didn't need to be warned twice. She left without looking back although she felt the graze of his glare down her spine. In her room she sat on the bed and let out a long breath. Well, that didn't quite go as planned. Never mind. She was still in one piece. And he'd not tried to kiss her.
But even after she ate the lunch the maid brought to her room some time later, Georgiana was still unsure if her conversation with Redcliff had been a success or not.
***
"There you are!" Phillippa raced down the stairs, jumped over the bottom two, and caught Georgiana's hands just as Worth shut the front door behind her. "I've been waiting and waiting for you to return. You've been gone such a long time and I was growing quite bored watching for you through the drawing room window." She threw her arms wide, taking Georgiana's arms with her since their hands were still linked, and regarded her severely. "You haven't been walking this entire time, have you?"
"I have. I needed to..." Cool my temper after listening to your stupid brother. "...get some air."
"But you could have got just as much air if you went riding or driving. Indeed, I'm sure you would have got more air. Especially if you went fast." Phillippa pulled Georgiana towards the stairs. "Come into the drawing room."
"Why?" Georgiana said, laughing at the girl's buoyancy. If she were a boat she'd be unsinkable.
"Because I'm so bored and I need someone to talk to."
"Is your aunt home?"
Phillippa paused her jaunty strides long enough to roll her eyes to the great overhead chandelier. "Yes, of course she is, that's why I need some interesting company. She's got some ladies with her but—."
"Oh, then I'd best not intrude." Georgiana extricated herself from Phillippa's grip.
"Don't be so silly. There's nothing else for you to do here. Alex isn't home so you can't pretend you have to tend to him." She slipped her hand inside Georgiana's gloved one and tugged. "Pleeeease. Aunt Harry won't mind, honestly. She used to include my governesses in everything the family did. Besides, it's not like Lady Crighton or Lady Twickenham would object to—."