by Lauren Royal
Lily deliberately smiled, a smile she suspected would have done Rose proud. “My lord, I’m certain that your son, as your heir, would have assisted you in the tasks of running your estate—”
“Of course he did. He was never a man to shirk his duties.” Lord Hawkridge’s eyes swung toward Rand, as though to say he was one to shirk.
Lily felt her hackles rise. Rand had had no choice but to make his own life—not if he’d wished to survive. And though his life would be changing now, he certainly deserved time to grow accustomed to the idea.
Besides, she could see no need to rush. Lord Hawkridge appeared almost indecently healthy for a man of his age, not that he was elderly to begin with. Fifty-two, Rand had said. And for all they knew, he could live to be a hundred and two.
She forced her lips to remain curved in that smile. “Did Alban do that sort of work with you here in this study?”
“Of course not. I told you, there’s nothing of Alban’s in here. He converted part of the library into a study for himself.” With that, he looked down and scribbled something on one of the papers in front of him.
“Converted part of the library,” Rand muttered as they trooped upstairs. “I suppose his own three rooms weren’t large enough.”
Their footsteps sounded muffled on the woven rush matting that covered the floor of the long gallery. Gilt-framed family portraits lined the lengthy chamber, hung on dark, gilt-trimmed panel walls. Noticing one in particular, Lily stopped.
The painting showed a younger Lord Hawkridge standing behind his seated lady, who held a white kitten on her lap. Her blue eyes looked kind, and Lily liked her on sight. The marquess’s eyes looked…happy, she decided in surprise.
He must have been very much in love.
Lady Hawkridge wore a lovely pink dress and the beautiful diamond pendant Rand now had in his pocket. “I see your mother did love that necklace,” Lily said with a soft smile.
Rand nodded. “Maybe this picture is why I still remember it.”
Beside that portrait, another young man gazed from a canvas, a man Lily guessed to be Alban. He resembled Rand, except his hair was darker, his expression cooler. His eyes, however, of indeterminate color, looked so cold as to make his smile seem warm in comparison.
There was, of course, no portrait of Rand.
“Professors do not rate paintings,” Rand said dryly beside her, apparently reading her mind.
She looked back to the picture of his parents. She could almost see the woman’s graceful fingers stroking the silky, purring cat. “She looks very loving,” she said of his mother.
“She was. The only love I ever received.”
“Not the only,” Lily said quietly, and Rand squeezed her around the shoulders.
Kit had gone ahead through the library and into a small room beyond, where a massive desk took up most of the space. Upon entering, Rand immediately moved behind the desk and began opening drawers.
Kit was already pulling books off the shelves. “These are deep,” he said. “There’s another row of books behind the first.” He gestured to the opposite wall. “Lily, you can start over there, and we’ll meet in the mid—”
She was heading over to do as he suggested when she heard his indrawn breath. She swung back. “Have you found them?”
“I think so.”
Behind the books he’d removed sat a long row of multicolored spines, none of them marked with titles. As he drew one out and opened it, a grin spread on his face.
“Yes, this is a journal. An older one, from 1664. Now we just need the most recent.”
Her heart racing with renewed hope, Lily pulled out another and flipped open the cover. “I cannot read it.”
“It’s in code,” Rand told her, standing over her shoulder.
“Oh, right.” The dates, at least, weren’t encrypted. She turned pages, noting this one ran from mid-1668 to early 1669. “And you got in trouble for breaking the codes.”
“Did he ever,” Kit confirmed with a wry grin.
“When I translate the latest journal,” Rand said, “it will get us out of trouble. Let’s find it.”
But though thirty-odd journals crowded the shelf, none of them were the most recent. They looked behind the books on all the other shelves, floor to ceiling, but there were no more journals to be found.
An hour later, when they’d closed the last cover of the last book in the small room, Lily dropped onto a chair. “What now?”
Rand’s jaw set. “We search the rest of the house.”
“It’s gigantic! And one small journal could be anywhere…if it even exists.”
“It exists,” Rand forced through gritted teeth. “My brother didn’t record his deeds for twenty-four years and then suddenly stop.”
Lily felt as though her emotions were on a swing. Down and then up. Up and then down. Dejection settled in for now. “It could take days. We could still be searching when the priest shows up to marry you.”
“Lily.” Rand came over and took her face in both hands, raising it for a soft kiss. “We will find it, and when the priest comes, he will be marrying us.” He looked to Kit. “We may as well start here in the main library.”
That lofty, two-story chamber was easily eight times the size of Alban’s study. Lily took one look at the endless shelves and felt like weeping.
This would never do. She had to regain her spirits, had to do her share of this enormous task. Rand wasn’t giving up, and she couldn’t, either.
But after the excitement of the discovery and the disappointment that had followed, she couldn’t face starting over just yet. “I’m going to check on Rex,” she told the other two. “I’ll be right back.”
Downstairs, she hugged the huge mastiff around his neck, tightly, as though she could draw strength from his big, warm body. After all, he’d survived a harrowing ordeal and, from the looks of it, come out none the worse for wear. When he licked a slobbery path across her face, she laughed. “All right, then. I’m going to find that journal.”
Feeling immeasurably better, she rose, then froze, staring at the dog. “I wonder…” she whispered, then took off at a run, heading back to the library.
SIXTY-FOUR
ETTA IN TOW, Margery ran into Bennett’s study and smiled when he bolted up from his desk. “What are you doing here?” he gasped.
They met halfway, his mouth divine on hers, the kiss wild despite her old nurse’s presence. Her fingers twined into his long dark hair, and his arms went around her to clutch her close. When he finally came up for air, she was breathless. “I told you I’d come to you again, didn’t I?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“I’ve been combing the countryside for witnesses. Rand had promised to do that, but then he took off for Oxford and has yet to return.” She ran her hands up and down Bennett’s back, frantic to touch him, to feel the muscles beneath his thin shirt, to convince herself he was here, he was real, he wouldn’t die, that somehow they’d end up together. “I cannot just sit in my uncle’s house and pray anymore. I have to do something. I have to find someone who saw Alban come after you.”
His hands clenched on her waist. “I feel so helpless, stuck here in this prison. All I can do is write letters.” His gaze flicked to the papers littering his desk. “Letters and more letters,” he said, looking back to her, his green eyes laced with despair. “But I know no one with influence greater than the marquess’s. No one who can save me.”
“Did you get my letter? The one where I explained Uncle William’s promise to spare your life if I marry Rand?”
The look in his eyes—misery—told her he had. “Do you suppose you could come to love him?” he asked, his voice so harsh she pictured each word being forced through his throat.
“Not like this. He’s my brother—”
“Then you cannot do it. I won’t allow you to sacrifice your life for mine. You’ll be unhappy all your days.”
“Not as unhappy as I’d be if you were dead.” She wasn’t goin
g to let him argue this point. “I’m going back out—I just stopped here to tell you what I’m doing. If God has heard my prayers, I’ll find someone able to vouch for your innocence. Either way, I’ll be back tonight.”
“Tonight?” She saw his shoulders tense. “Margery, no,” he said in a lower tone, darting a look at Etta. “We cannot take that risk. We lost our heads once, and look what happened. I ruined you, and now I can’t even—”
“You didn’t ruin me,” she cried.
Eyes widening in alarm, he cast another mortified glance at her old nurse.
“It’s all right, Bennett, she knows everything. Now, stop saying that you ruined me, because we both know the truth—if anything, I’m the one who ruined you.”
Margery had never thought of herself as a person driven by lust. Until she met Bennett. If meeting Bennett had turned her world upside down, their one night together had realigned it in the most perfect, awe-inspiring form imaginable. Though she felt remorse for her weakness and for tempting him to share in it, in truth, she couldn’t quite bring herself to regret that night. Not anymore. Because if the worst came to pass, it was all she’d have left of him: the memory of one precious night, and the piece of him now growing inside her.
She swallowed hard. “I’ll stay in a guest chamber with Etta if you wish. Uncle William thinks we’re staying overnight in Windsor to order a wedding gown—as though I would care what I wore to wed Rand. Sackcloth would do.” She snorted. “For all his power, my uncle can be staggeringly blind to a woman’s wiles.”
“He’s a man,” Etta put in with a nod of her curly gray head. “His wife could outwit him just as easily. A crafty woman she was, although she loved him too well to play him the fool very often.”
Margery had seen a loving side of Uncle William in the past, but right now she found it hard to summon loyalty. “Am I wrong, Bennett, for going behind his back?”
She’d warred with herself for days. Perhaps Rand’s mother had been the crafty sort, but Margery had always prided herself on her honesty.
Until Bennett.
Now she was hiding a pregnancy and sneaking off to meet her lover, and she couldn’t find it in herself to feel guilt for either dishonest action. But she was also contemplating ruining two other lives to save Bennett’s, dooming both Rand and Lily to loveless futures…and that sparked enough guilt to make her dive under the bedcovers and never come out.
One of her hands left Bennett’s body and went to her own belly as she prayed her child wouldn’t suffer for the sins of its mother.
“No, you’re not wrong,” he murmured in answer to Margery’s earlier question. “Hawkridge is behaving unreasonably. He claims to love you, yet he plots to deprive your child of its father.”
One of his hands slipped from her waist to cover her fingers. She wished he could feel their child move, but even she hadn’t felt that yet. It was too early. Were it not for Etta having noticed the signs, she wouldn’t even know she was carrying a babe.
And yet she knew in her bones that Bennett’s child grew under her heart. And she could only be joyful for it.
“Uncle William doesn’t know I’m with child,” she said softly. “Because it wouldn’t make a difference. And should the unthinkable happen, I would want him to believe the child is Rand’s.”
The last word was said with a sob—a sob Bennett smothered with his mouth. Heedless of Etta watching, they both poured themselves into the kiss.
It wouldn’t be their last, Margery consoled herself when they finally parted. They still had tonight.
But what of all the many, many days and nights after that?
SIXTY-FIVE
“I HAVE AN idea!” Lily shouted as she burst back into the library. “Maybe Rex can find the journal.”
Up on a ladder, Rand turned to look down at her. “Rex? You mean Rex the dog, otherwise known as Attila?”
“Yes, Rex the dog. And no, I haven’t gone mad. Animals have a keen sense of smell, you know.”
Kit’s lips twitched. “I didn’t realize journals were smelly.”
Lily was so hopeful, she only laughed. “Alban’s would carry a specific scent. Come, let me show you what I mean.”
Rand and Kit exchanged a dubious glance but followed her out of the library.
On their way through the long gallery, Lily glared at Alban’s image. He wasn’t going to come between her and Rand and their happiness. Rex wouldn’t let her down.
Downstairs in the back parlor, Lord Hawkridge was examining the mastiff. When they walked in, he looked up from where he was kneeling—a very unlikely position for such a dignified gentleman.
Lily liked him the better for it. There was always hope for a man who loved animals.
He smiled, an expression that sat rather oddly on his face. “Attila appears to have fully recovered, Lady Lily. I’m very grateful. My thanks to you.”
“I would do my best for any living creature, but you’re quite welcome. He’s a special dog. In fact, I’m wondering if I might borrow him for a while.”
He rose to his feet. “Gratitude extends only so far, my lady. Attila lives here.”
Rand spoke up. “She doesn’t mean to take him away. Only to use him to help find the journal.”
“He’s a fighter, not a hunter.” A more skeptical look had never graced a man’s face. “And there’s no journal to be found.”
Rand crossed his arms, appearing ready to do battle, but Kit cleared his throat. “It’s a harmless enough request from one who has done you such a favor. Attila will stay in the house. The exercise will do him good after his ordeal.”
“Exercise is all he’ll get—he won’t be finding any journal. But I suppose it’s harmless enough. So long as he stays indoors. I plan to keep him inside overnight.”
Lily beamed. “A kind and wise decision, my lord.” She snapped her fingers. “Rex, follow me.”
“His name is Attila,” the marquess called after them.
She led Rand, Kit, and the dog across the marble-floored great hall and through to Alban’s suite. Once there, she patted the bed. “Up!” she commanded, and the huge animal landed where she wanted—with a leap that made the bed ropes groan.
Rand grinned. “My father would kill you if he saw this.”
“Nonsense. Your father adores me. I saved his favorite dog.” She grinned in return, stroking the animal’s stiff fur. “Kit, would you run to the kitchen and fetch some meat? Cut into cubes, if possible.”
He made her a mock bow. “By all means. Even the exalted marquess believes you walk on water, so your wish is my command.”
As he marched to do her bidding, she giggled. In spite of everything, she giggled. “This is going to work, Rand. I know it.”
Holding one bedpost, he leaned to press a kiss to her lips. “Don’t get your hopes up, will you? Even if we find a recent journal, I’ll have to translate it, and we’ll have to hope it turns out to be incriminating. And then we’ll have to convince the marquess it says what I claim it does—unlikely to be a simple task—and that such evidence merits freeing Bennett and allowing Margery to wed him. We’re a long way from victory, sweetheart.”
“But we’re about to take the first step. I feel it.”
When Kit returned with a bowl of meat, she took Alban’s fancy silver inkwell and held it to Rex’s nose. “Journal,” she said clearly.
“That’s not a journal—” Rand started.
“Hush. I’m going to have him smell journals, too, and I don’t want to confuse him. One word for a scent is enough.” She fed the dog a piece of meat, then waved the inkwell beneath his nose again. “Journal. Journal.” She fed him more meat, then snapped her fingers. “Down. Come along. You, too,” she said to the gentlemen.
Rand barked, eliciting a hoot of laughter from Kit as they followed her.
She hurried back upstairs to the library and through to the small room beyond, Rex trotting by her side. Once there, she took down a stack of Alban’s journals. “Sniff, Rex. Journal.”
She opened one and held it under his nose, then another and another. Each time he sniffed a page, she fed him another reward. “Journal. Journal.”
Kit and Rand just looked at each other and shrugged.
After the dog had sniffed a dozen different journals and received a dozen treats, Lily leaned to look into his eyes. “Journal. Find another journal. Now, Rex. Go.”
Without hesitation, the mastiff bolted from the room.
They all ran after him.
Back downstairs, through the great hall, into Alban’s bedchamber. By the time they caught up, the three of them were panting harder than the dog.
“Journal,” Lily reminded him.
He went straight to the silver inkwell.
She released a strangled laugh. “Good, Rex.” She fed him a piece of meat, holding the inkwell out to Rand. “Will you take this out of here? He’ll never find anything else with this in the room. It smells too strong.”
“Does it?” Kit wondered.
Rand waved the inkwell beneath his friend’s nose.
“Whew.” Kit blinked. “It does stink.”
Rand smelled it himself. “Tannin, and something else I cannot identify. I’d forgotten Alban mixed his own ink. Plain lampblack and linseed oil wouldn’t do for his exalted works.”
He set the inkwell outside the room, shutting the door for good measure when the mastiff looked after it longingly.
The three of them watched him sniff all around the chamber.
“This isn’t going to work,” Kit said. “There isn’t an inch of this room we haven’t looked in or over or under.”
“Give him a chance,” Lily said. She set the bowl of meat on the mantel. “Journal, Rex. Find a journal.”
Rand gestured toward the night table. “He hasn’t noticed all those books.”
“He’s not searching for books. He’s searching for a scent. Those books weren’t handwritten by Alban, so they don’t smell of his ink.”
Rex trotted into the sitting room, sniffed around there, and came back.
“Perhaps,” Rand said, “we should lead him to some other chambers. Ones we haven’t searched yet.”