by Jo Goodman
He felt rather than saw one of those stones whiz inches from his nose. South was also certain he heard the word fool uttered in disagreeable accents. His mouth twitched. He let his hat drop back into place and folded his arms across his chest. Stones once again crunched underfoot as he settled in for the duration.
Northam found pitching that stone served as an effective release. He fell in step beside Elizabeth. He could not help but notice her limp was more pronounced. Good manners dictated that he should at least offer her the opportunity to rest. He remained silent, certain that he was with the one woman who required no invitation from him to do as she pleased.
Elizabeth stopped fiddling with her apricot shawl and let her hands fall to her sides. "I daresay I will provoke you again," she said quietly.
"The same has occurred to me."
She nodded. "Shall you beat me?"
Put before him so very baldly, Northam felt like something less than a man for having even imagined such an end. Almost as troubling was that he had been so ineffective in concealing his thoughts from her. "I will never raise a hand to you."
Given in the manner of a solemn pledge, Elizabeth did not question his sincerity. Rather she considered he did not know how sorely his honor would be tested. "I will give you cause," she said.
Northam did not smile. "Of that I am certain." He raised his elbow. "Will you not take my arm?"
Elizabeth recognized the subject was closed. Having said what she considered most important, she was also not eager to belabor her point. She slipped her arm through his."South is a good friend, is he not?"
Northam supposed her comment was not a complete non sequitur. Even though he would not have struck her, she must have realized that South's intervention was timely. "He is the very best of friends."
"And Eastlyn and Mr. Marchman?"
"The same."
"You are indeed fortunate."
"I am."
"You must not think that our marriage will change the nature of your alliance with these men."
Northam frowned slightly as he considered her words. He decided to be honest."At the risk of shattering what remains of your good opinion of me, I confess that it never once occurred to me."
"I suppose that is because you have had mistresses before, and their place in your life was set and interfered little." When she glanced at him she saw his frown had deepened. "Clearly I have done much to raise your concerns when my intention was quite the opposite. I wanted to assure you that I shall not mind if you choose to spend a great deal of time in the company of your friends."
Northam's tone was dry. "Am I to suppose from this that you wish to be treated as my mistress, or that you shall be content to see me as little as possible?"
She averted her face and fell silent.
"Are you thinking or merely speechless?" When she made no response he let it pass. "I believe it is quite likely that with you in my London residence the Compass Club will choose to meet there instead of White's."
"Do you mean to flatter me, my lord?"
"Is such a thing possible?"
Elizabeth found herself smiling. "I had not thought so."
Taking a turn on the park's inner path, they fell into a companionable silence. The sound of their footsteps kept South from inserting a caution.
"At the risk of raising Lord Southerton's suspicions," said Elizabeth, "I find I must sit down."
"Of course." Instead of leading her to the stone bench, Northam guided Elizabeth off the path and toward an old apple tree where a swing was suspended from a thick knobby branch. He tested the strength of the ropes and the security of the seat. Finding both satisfactory, he indicated she should sit. The alacrity with which she complied told him how much she was pained by her hip and leg. "Is there some way I can assist you?"
She hesitated, her eyes darting toward Southerton's bench. She could only make out the dark shape of his beaver hat in the torchlight.
Northam followed the direction of her gaze. "I believe he is sleeping. He can do so most anywhere. Something he learned in His Majesty's Royal Navy." He looked back at Elizabeth. Her head was tilted at a sweet angle, her lashes lowered as she studied the toe of one shoe. Moonshine glanced off the curve of her neck. He would have liked to place his lips there, just in that gentle curve, and see if he could taste the moonlight. As if feeling his eyes on her, Elizabeth lifted her hand and placed it in the exact spot he wanted to kiss. She brushed aside a fallen tendril of hair.
Before she caught him out, Northam dropped to his knees in front of her and raised the foot she was regarding so seriously. He placed it on his thigh, holding it between his palms when she would have pulled back. "Is it a stone?" he asked.
Elizabeth nodded. "I must have a hole in my shoe."
Northam ran his fingers along the edge of her sole and found it in short order. "Here it is." He began unlacing her shoe.
"Oh! I do not think—"
"Elizabeth." Northam said her name pleasantly enough, but in a manner that brooked no argument. He removed the shoe and shook out the stone. The slight weight of her stockinged foot against his thigh was pleasant. She had understood the intimacy of this small task better than he. He put down the shoe, picked up her foot, and began to massage her arch with the balls of his thumbs. He watched her lips part, first to mount a second protest, then simply to offer up a sigh that was the very definition of contentment. "The park is pleasant in the evening, is it not?"
"Yes."
"Hampton Cross has such a place. The swing, though, is large enough for two."
Elizabeth thought it did not bode well for her that she immediately wondered with whom he had shared it. "Is Hampton Cross your country home?"
"One of them. It is where I prefer to spend my time when not in London."
"Your mother lives there?"
"No. She enjoys town. With my sisters all settled, the house is much too large for her, or so she says. When she retreats to the country she likes to stay in Stonewickam with my grandfather. You do not have to worry that she will interfere with your running of Hampton Cross."
Elizabeth could not quite credit it. "A mother who gives up her son and the chatelaine's keys? She must be the best of all mothers-in-law."
"I believe you will find her so," Northam said blithely.
She regarded him suspiciously."You are pulling my leg."
He chuckled, giving her foot a little tug. "Indeed."
Elizabeth found she was smiling again. How did he manage it? she wondered. No doubt he disarmed his mother and sisters in just such a fashion. They probably all spoiled him. It was little wonder that he thought the dowager would accept her.
Northam glanced up in time to see Elizabeth's quicksilver smile vanish. "What are you thinking?"
"You make things seem as if they can be accomplished without effort."
"Do I? I work very hard at it."
"I am serious."
"So am I." North stopped massaging her foot and picked up her shoe. Stretching the heel slightly, he helped her slip it on and began tying the laces. When he was done he let her remove her foot from his thigh. The scalloped hem of her gown fell into place around her slender ankles. He sat back on his haunches and brushed off his trousers, then rested his forearms casually on his kneecaps. "It cannot have escaped your notice, Elizabeth, that as scandals go, ours is not much of one."
Elizabeth's brows puckered. "Have you been involved in a great many?"
"This would be my first."
"Mine also. It does not seem without consequence."
One corner of his mouth lifted. She sounded a shade disappointed that this might not be so. "Oh, it most definitely has import," he said. "Certainly for us, but in the end you may discover it falls a week short of a nine-days' wonder." He straightened and placed one hand on each of the ropes holding Elizabeth's swing. "Perhaps it would help to examine the particulars."
Elizabeth had to tip back her head to look up at him. His shoulders blocked the torchlight, throwing
his face into shadow. If she had thought about finding herself in just this position, she would have anticipated a certain amount of wariness, even discomfort. The reality was quite different. Unwise as it seemed, she could not deny that she felt safe in the shelter of his large frame, protected. "I should like to hear," she said. "What are these particulars?"
"Well," he drawled, "in spite of Madame Fortuna's reputation for accurate prognostication and the irrefutable fact that Lady Battenburn's necklace was found in my trunk, I don't believe most people present at the discovery credit me with being the Gentleman Thief. As the baroness noted, I'm as rich as Croesus, and while it is not a solid defense, it takes issue with my motives. Regarding Southerton's snuffbox, it hardly seems the sort of thing I would take, given the fact that South is my friend and also that I've had so many previous opportunities to finger it. It begs the question: why now?"
"Yes, indeed," she said with a certain wryness. "I asked that very question myself."
Northam gave the ropes a little jerk, shaking the swing and a bit of Elizabeth's complacency. He felt her grab the ropes to steady herself. "Have a care, my lady. It would take but a small effort to send you backward, head over bucket."
He would do it, too. Oddly enough, the threat cheered her more than raised an alarm. It had been such a long time since anyone played with her. "Go on," she said. "I find myself enthralled by your discourse."
Northam thought Elizabeth would not be quite so full of herself had she been able to see his smile. He had it on good authority, namely from a well-known French opera dancer, that this particular smile could cause a frisson in a woman's breast. At Hambrick Hall there had been an unfortunate incident with the headmaster's wife because of this smile, but that was before he understood about frissons or the importance of exercising caution in the use of the smile. He had been twelve and rather thoughtless. Elizabeth could only benefit from what he had learned since then.
Before she suspected the bent of his mind, Northam went on. "The gold watch fob and ruby pendant that were meant for the winners of the treasure hunt have not been recovered. They weren't in my trunks and they have not appeared anywhere else. By Lady Battenburn's own admission, neither item was highly valuable, yet they had some worth. Not, though, as much as South's snuffbox. Battenburn's other guests do not think I am so cork-brained as to have returned a snuffbox in order to take something of less value."
North saw that Elizabeth was still staring up at him, her shadowed features attentive. Steadying himself and the swing by holding on to the ropes, he raised one leg and placed the toe of his boot on the wooden seat beside Elizabeth. "It remains true, however, that while I am not the Gentleman Thief, I could not prove I did not take Louise's necklace, possession being nine-tenths and all that...."
"Oh, excellent," she intoned dryly. "You will appreciate I was becoming fearful that my confession was not only ill-timed but ultimately unnecessary."
His chuckle was deep and edged with playful menace. He rocked the swing seat lightly with his boot so that she gave a sudden small cry and gripped the ropes more tightly.
"Regarding your confession that we spent that particular evening—and morning—together, it appears that most of the guests did not believe you."
"What?" Elizabeth planted her feet firmly on the ground to keep the swing from bobbing. She found this information astonishing. "That cannot be right. You must have misunderstood. Why would anyone think I would say such a thing if it were not true?"
"But it is not true," he reminded her.
"Of course it is not. Still, I cannot like it that people would doubt my word."
Northam considered that if he were to refine on her logic for the rest of his life, he would not be able to make sense of it. "I must have your promise that you will never try to make me understand that. I believe the effort would kill me."
"You make it very tempting," she said after a telling pause. "Oh, very well, perhaps I can be made to understand your thinking. Explain yourself."
Northam felt compelled to point out, "It is not precisely my thinking."
When he fell silent waiting for her response, Elizabeth gave the swing a small shake to urge him to continue. He could be most frustrating in his desire to reason things out.
Grinning, Northam went on. "It is just that a number of guests have remarked that your announcement was a highly romantic gesture. Apparently it is their conclusion that you made the confession because you are deeply in love with me, not because any impropriety actually took place." Even in the deepening shadows, North could see Elizabeth's mouth open, then close. "You must allow that your own rather sterling reputation supports this reasoning. It puts them all in a bind. On the one hand they must accept your story because it was most sincerely confessed and it absolves me of stealing the necklace. On the other they are inclined to assign you pure motives."
Elizabeth simply shook her head, not quite able to believe what she was hearing. "Why should they extend me such benefit of the doubt? It is not at all the usual thing."
"I agree. I imagine it is because you are so well regarded. And, if I may be immodest, I also have supporters." The one that was sleeping soundly in another part of the garden gave an abrupt little snore. North saw Elizabeth put one hand to her mouth to stifle a laugh. He sighed. "The fact that we are to be married helps to mitigate the circumstances surrounding it. The ton is apt to be more forgiving when things have been made right, or what they consider right. If either one of us was to cry off..."
Elizabeth's smile had disappeared, along with her urge to laugh. She wished he had not said the last. She required no reminder that things could not be changed. "I understand," she said quietly.
Northam felt her stillness and wondered at it. He looked longingly at the apple tree. If only he could stretch out beneath it, rest his back against the trunk, cross his arms, his ankles, generally assume his finest posture for contemplation, then perhaps he could conceive the theory that would explain Lady Elizabeth Penrose. It was not as if he were proposing to understand all women. He wanted only to understand this one.
North drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Comprehension, if it was possible, was not likely to happen tonight. "Lady Powell has a slightly different view of your confession."
That garnered all of Elizabeth's attention. "Oh?"
"She thinks you placed the necklace in my trunk and made the confession in order to trap me into marriage. She was highly complimentary of your efforts. Called it Machiavellian, I believe."
"Lady Powell doesn't know Machiavelli from my left foot."
"Perhaps I misunderstood that part."
"Hmm."
"But she was complimentary."
"I have no doubt. Lord Southerton should be concerned she will follow my example."
"His valet has already gone through his trunks—twice."
She felt her lips twitch. "A perfectly reasonable precaution."
"Fear makes him cautious."
Elizabeth laughed outright. "Have you considered South's role in all of this? Perhaps he put the necklace in your trunk in the hope that I would rush to your rescue. There is the wager, after all. A man can be persuaded to almost any end for an entire sovereign."
"West won. South wagered we would not marry."
"Oh."
"Indeed."
She sobered and asked carefully, "Do you think I meant to trap you?"
"I seem to recall proposing marriage and being rejected in no uncertain terms. If you changed your mind about it, I think you would have come to me, not gone about it in this havey-cavey fashion." Northam absently nudged the swing with the toe of his boot. It rocked slightly, causing Elizabeth to dig in her heels to steady it. When he felt her resistance, he realized what he had been about. "I'm sorry."
"Mm." She waited patiently for him to continue. Her grip on the swing relaxed and she lowered her toes.
"I wondered if perhaps you thought I had meant to trap you."
A slight smile lifted the co
rners of her mouth. "It wasn't a very certain trap, was it? I think you could have made a better job of it than hinging the outcome on the mere hope that I would rescue you. What is it you truly wish to know?"
He laughed quietly, not at all uncomfortable with the idea that she knew something else was on his mind. "Do you think I'm the thief?"
The question startled Elizabeth. After a moment she said, "It never once occurred to me."
"Really? Never once?"
She shook her head.
"I confess that surprises me."
"Do you mean you should like it better if I had entertained the idea? You will have to explain that to me, I'm afraid. Most men would not want their honor impugned. Unless it is because you believe that drivel you said to Lady Powell."
"Oh? And what drivel is that?"
"About your reputation being enhanced by the suspicion that you are the Gentleman Thief."
One of his eyebrows lifted. "I take it your heart does not beat more wildly at the notion."
"It does not even flutter." She felt North's low chuckle as a vibration through the swing. "Why did you think I should suspect you?" she asked seriously.
He considered the question before he answered. "Several reasons, I suppose. The first evening I stayed at Battenburn I came upon you in the library."
"I thought you were in want of a book."
"I was. But there was no reason you should suppose that to be true."
"I see." She was glad for the darkness. It covered her poor efforts to temper her amusement. "So I should have supposed you were in search of items to steal. Pray, go on."
"I see you mean to have fun with me, Lady Elizabeth."
"Yes, I think I do."
North did not mind at all. That she could feel such comfort with him boded well, he thought, even if she did not realize it. "Well, then, for your continued merriment, let me add that you witnessed my athletic grace in leaving a bedchamber by a window route. According to Lady Battenburn, that is how the thief left her room."