Thick as Thieves

by Catherine Gayle

  His sisters’ offspring were a far safer conversational subject than the Bexley-Smythe women. He already knew the children held him in great esteem and affection, and would never use a fire poker around him for any purpose other than to stoke the fire.

  After what Stalbridge had put his sisters through over the last several years, God only knew what the chits were capable of…

  Without conscious thought on his part, Preston scanned the room until his gaze settled upon the hearth and the neat arrangement of tools situated beside it. A new thrill of fear clutched his heart, squeezing like a vise. The fire poker. Both of those young ladies were seated much closer to it than he was.

  Then the eldest of the Bexley-Smythe sisters met his gaze. She smiled at him in a way that lit up her warm eyes and sent a chill racing through his extremities towards his loins.

  God’s teeth.

  Before Preston’s thoughts could run any more rampant than they already had, Goddard came into the drawing room to announce that supper was served. They all ushered out into the corridor, Preston urging his two sisters forward until the three of them were at the very front of the exodus.

  He wanted as much distance between himself and the fire iron as he could get.

  What an utterly odd gentleman this Lord Preston was proving himself to be. While he may be Lady Upton Grey’s brother, after spending the entirety of dinner seated next to him there was simply no other conclusion Freddie could draw about the man.

  He’d conversed politely enough—the gravelly nature of his voice proving him to be the unknown gentleman she’d overheard talking with Lord Upton Grey—and had seemed knowledgeable and cordial and all the various and sundry things one must strive to be at all times when in polite company. And yet, every time Freddie had commented in any way upon any of the gentlemen in her acquaintance, a panicked expression had taken over Lord Preston’s otherwise handsome features.

  She’d lost count of how many times his distressed hazel eyes, now nearly gray in color, had flitted away from her to stare at some random spot near the hearth when she would speak. It was the most uncanny thing she’d ever in her life experienced.

  Most gentlemen would take care to look at a lady when the lady in question spoke to him. It was only polite, after all.

  Yet Lord Preston did not.

  He’d done the same thing in the drawing room before supper, as well, and all she’d done there was simply look at him. She hadn’t said a single word!

  Freddie didn’t appear to be the only one having such a profound and confusing effect upon the man, either. Any time Edie said something, or laughed, or did anything at all it seemed, she elicited the same reaction.

  Was this strange behavior merely how the marquess reacted to all women who were not his relatives?

  But that didn’t really make much sense as an explanation for his odd behavior, because Mama’s behaviors did not garner similar results, and she was just as unrelated to Lord Preston and Freddie and Edie were.

  Perhaps it was young ladies, then. Or unmarried ladies.

  She could only imagine what must have happened to him in order to be so petrified of young, unmarried ladies. Had he been jilted at the altar? Did someone attempt to entrap him into marriage through a compromising situation? Did he have a jealous mistress who wanted to keep him and his attentions all to herself?

  Freddie’s thoughts about Lord Preston and his curious aversion to young, unmarried ladies ran rampant all throughout supper, which only caused her to stare at him far more thoroughly than was prudent.

  His eyes were perhaps his most striking feature, a combination of startling hazel intensity and warm, golden flecks, the effect of which gave him an entirely caring demeanor. His auburn hair, ever-so-slightly longer than was fashionable, curled slightly at the edges in a manner which made her think of scandalous things like reaching out her hand to feel if it was as soft as it appeared. Yet his face consisted almost entirely of hard, angular lines, making her thoughts turn to places she had no business allowing them to wander. Then she realized how very much taller he was than she (and like her sister Georgie, Freddie was quite tall for a lady), and she thought more fully about all the hard, angular lines he must possess in other locales.

  When she felt a flush of heat creeping up her neck, she knew she must absolutely turn her thoughts in a different direction, and quickly lest he notice her blushing. Granted, then he would more than likely simply stare across at the hearth again. It might not be all bad.

  As such, when Lady Upton Grey had arisen from her seat and announced it was time for the ladies to retire to the drawing room and leave the gentlemen to their port, Freddie had found it difficult to repress her unladylike sounds of relief.

  She was not accustomed to spending such an inordinate amount of time pondering the oddities of any gentleman apart from her brother Percy, no matter how dashing and debonair the gentleman in question might appear.

  Appearances, after all, did not tell the whole story of a man. She knew that as well as anyone, after observing the changes in Percy since Papa had died.

  She silently thanked the heavens when, after the gentlemen had joined the ladies in the drawing room, Lord Preston had decided to play cards with three of the others, well away from Freddie and her sister.

  For the remainder of the evening, she had sat with Edie and discussed all manner of things which were quite inane and banal, but which blessedly allowed her mind to wander to things other than Lord Preston’s piercing hazel eyes. How very odd that he preferred to watch a roaring fire than to look upon her.

  Of course it would happen that the first place her mind wandered was back to that room in the blue corridor. Or, to be more specific, to the reliquary itself which was in the room…and to the five thousand pounds Lord Upton Grey seemed certain it would fetch at auction.

  She oughtn’t to allow herself to think about it at all. It wasn’t hers. It belonged to her host. Well, now that he’d given it to Lord Preston, she supposed it belonged to the marquess. Nevertheless, it wasn’t hers, or Mama’s, or any of her sisters’, or even Percy’s.

  It shouldn’t matter to her in the slightest.

  Yet she could think of little else, if anything at all.

  Because of that, she quickly grew bored with sitting in the drawing room and whiling away the hours until she could make her escape.

  Then an absurd idea struck her and, as with all the Bexley-Smythes, once an idea took root in her mind, it was practically murder to remove it. She wanted to go back to the blue corridor, back to the near-empty room housing the golden reliquary, and take a closer look at it.

  She just wanted to determine if it really was a reliquary as she suspected. Or at least that was what she was trying desperately to convince herself of. And if it was one, she wanted to know if it was still holding the relic it had been created to hold. Surely Lord Upton Grey had already checked inside it, but one never knew for certain about these things unless one was willing to perform an investigation.

  There were few individuals Freddie knew who would be better suited to investigating anything. She’d spent years trying to sort out all the various lies and half-truths her siblings had told, all in the name of making certain someone other than the person in question was blamed for some nonsense or another. In more recent years, it had fallen upon her to investigate all the pursuits Percy had undertaken so she could discover in advance what their fate might be. Determining exactly what this treasure was could be entrusted to no one else—particularly since no one should know she was aware of its existence.

  For all she knew, it could be something else other than a reliquary entirely.

  She’d only seen it from a distance, after all, and her glance had been fleeting at best before she’d made her hasty escape. But…well…she just needed to know. It was a particularly bothersome trait…another of those Bexley-Smythe characteristics which so often felt like curses.

  Alas, Freddie wasn’t one to typically feign an illness, but that
was precisely what she did when, after at least two hours of such ennui-inducing tedium, it seemed the other occupants of the drawing room were no closer to retiring for the evening than they had been immediately after supper.

  After what could perhaps have been considered an overly dramatic sigh, she placed a hand to her temple. “Oh, dear.”

  Edie was still so caught up in her current conversation with Lady Upton Grey that she didn’t hear her. Either that or she was ignoring her. One of the two.

  But Lady Upton Grey turned in her seat and leaned forward. “Are you quite all right, my dear?”

  The lady’s concerned query drew the attention of the entire room. It became very quiet all of a sudden, almost eerily so. Even Lord Preston turned his slightly troubled hazel eyes in her direction.

  Goodness. She hadn’t intended to draw all eyes in the room to her. It was much easier to make a quiet and subversive retreat if one hasn’t garnered an entire room’s attention. “I’m sure it’s nothing,” she said in a rush. “It’s just a bit of a megrim, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, how horrid,” Lady Upton Grey said. “I always suffer megrims after spending more than a few hours in a carriage. It’s the constant bumps along the road, I’m sure. Come, you should go up to bed at once.” With that, the lady rose and reached out a hand as though to assist Freddie.

  Bother and blast, she wasn’t truly ill. She couldn’t have anyone coming with her—not if she intended to go and get a better look at the silly reliquary. Then she’d have to go all the way to her chamber, likely change into her nightrail and climb into bed until her maid left her alone, and then somehow find a way to sneak back down to the blue corridor without any proper clothes on.

  That would prove to be the absolute opposite of coming closer to meeting her end goal.

  “Oh, truly,” Freddie said far more hastily than she ought to have done. She pushed herself to her feet and smoothed her skirts, all the while making a pointed effort to avoid looking at Lord Preston, lest he stare at the fire again and befuddle her more than she already was. “There’s no need for you to accompany me. I’ll just go upstairs and Meg will see to getting me settled.”

  Slowly returning to her seat, Lady Upton Grey inclined her head just enough for the action to be visible. “If you’re certain…”

  “Meg will see to anything she needs,” Mama put in. “We will see you in the morning, Frederica. I’m sure you’ll feel much more the thing then.”

  Their hostess smiled graciously up at Freddie. “I do so hope you feel well enough to join us tomorrow.”

  “As do I.” Before anyone could say anything else which might deter her, Freddie skirted around the various chairs and tables and out of the drawing room. Once she was alone, however, she didn’t continue on towards the stairs. She looked all around her, making certain no one would see where she was headed, and then turned in the direction of the blue corridor.

  Curiosity might have killed the cat, which was an awful thought indeed…but it would undoubtedly kill her, too, if she didn’t appease it.

  Since Lady Frederica had already gone up, Preston didn’t feel it would be too terribly rude of him to excuse himself from the after-dinner festivities soon after her departure.

  Therefore, he told Upton Grey and his sisters that due to his extensive travel—not to mention the reason for it—he was weary and in need of his bed.

  That wasn’t exactly true, though, or at least not entirely.

  The truth was that since he’d first come into contact with the two young Bexley-Smythe ladies, his thoughts had been almost entirely consumed with images of them wielding fire pokers and myriad other seemingly harmless objects which could be brandished against him. Every item he looked at suddenly became alarming.

  When Lady Frederica had picked up her fork to eat at supper, he imagined her stabbing him with it.

  When Lady Edwina had raised her glass to her lips, he imagined her coshing him over the head instead.

  Even now Lady Edwina, the smaller and younger of the two, seemed to have a weapon in her hands, though in actuality it was merely a book of poetry. Surely she could use it to slam against his toes and distract him while her mother, Lady Stalbridge, utilized more destructive armaments against him.

  Perhaps sleep was called for. It certainly might help to clear his head.

  That said, the thought of falling asleep with such thoughts still at the forefront of his mind did not sound appealing in the slightest. Preston could only imagine the path his dreams might take.

  So instead of making his way directly to the Wolfe bedroom and seeking solace in his rest, he decided he needed to do something else. Something which could completely redirect his line of focus.

  In short order, he found himself walking through the blue wing Upton Grey was remodeling towards the study where the reliquary remained. He wanted to take a closer look at it while no one was looking over his shoulder.

  It shouldn’t have surprised him that his brother-in-law was so keen to assist in Preston’s efforts for Darlingshire House—not after what had happened with Rachel. Yet the level of Upton Grey’s generosity was remarkable.

  The corridor was empty and rather dark, as expected. A few of the sconces held lit candles, but of course there were not nearly as many as one would find in the occupied parts of the great house when guests were present.

  What did surprise him, however, was the fact that the study’s door was open. Hadn’t they closed it when they left this afternoon? He was certain they had.

  Preston slowed his gait as he drew closer to the doorway, listening to determine if someone was still inside. Perhaps a servant was cleaning? No, that seemed unlikely given the late hour. The servants were either still serving the family or had already taken to their beds, so they could be well rested for the upcoming day’s work.

  He listened more carefully, but no matter how closely he listened, he heard nothing.

  Yet, once he was mere feet away, a faint light was recognizable filtering gently through the open doorway.

  He knew without a doubt that they hadn’t left a candle burning when they’d quit the room earlier. More damning still, the efficacy with which Goddard ran the house left no likelihood for a servant to have forgotten such a potentially hazardous detail as leaving a candle unattended in an unoccupied room after cleaning within.

  Someone was most assuredly inside, and that someone almost certainly was the same someone who had vocalized the gasp he’d heard from the hallway this afternoon—the very gasp which Upton Grey had sworn must be merely a figment of Preston’s imagination.

  On the contrary, his imagination had never been so vocal before. Preston held sincere doubt it would have begun to effect such peculiar behavior at this moment or any other.

  No, someone had absolutely, unequivocally gasped.

  Not simply someone. It had to be none other than Lady Frederica Bexley-Smythe, given the fact that only she had supposedly retired for the night other than Preston himself. No one else could have arrived here before him without them passing him on their way.

  What in God’s name was she doing?

  Preston stifled a groan and said a quick prayer for favor, and in particular for the sort of favor which might involve the lack of suitable weapons being held in the lady’s hands, and then he entered the study.

  The flickering light from her flame and the faint glow of the moon pouring through the windows illuminated the golden reliquary in the otherwise black-as-pitch room, and then bounced back to shimmer within the silvery and golden hues of her hair. She held the candlestick aloft in one hand, the other caressing the reliquary almost as one would caress a lover, her delicate and elegant fingers trailing along the ridges of its detailed edges.

  His heart lurched at the vision, and then it lurched again at the direction his thoughts had taken. Allowing himself to think about any young lady’s touch as a lover’s caress was akin to asking for problems he wasn’t prepared to remedy. Marriage was not to be in his future�
�not after what had happened to Arrington—and marriageable-aged misses always had marriage upon the mind.

  The Bexley-Smythe sisters surely weren’t an exception to the rule, especially when one considered the muck of things Stalbridge had created for them all. Finding a way to secure appropriate matches, and sooner rather than later, had to be at the forefront of each of their minds.

  But why was this sister here caressing his reliquary when she ought to be in her chamber nursing an aching head?

  Just then, her fingers curled around the top of the cross and lifted it free, exposing the interior to her view. “Blast,” she muttered beneath her breath.

  Preston had to stifle the urge to laugh, but hearing her curse was the last thing he would have expected. “Expecting to find a relic still inside?”

  She jumped, allowing both the golden piece in her hand and her candlestick to crash to the floor. The drop extinguished the candle, thank the lord, but it left the pair of them in total darkness. He’d caught sight of her huge, brown eyes in that brief moment of surprise, though, wide as cannon balls and as expressive as any he’d ever seen.

  Her expression wasn’t nearly as amusing and intriguing as the curse that came from her lips just then. “You ought to give a lady some warning instead of coming upon her unawares like that.”

  He imagined her holding her hands upon her hips in an action reminiscent of a willful governess. The image did nothing to quell the sudden lustful urges he’d acquired. Damn, but something would have to be done about that.

  Preston gritted his teeth, as though that could somehow put a block on his desire. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time I discover a lady handling something of mine in an unused room where she oughtn’t to be, particularly when the lady in question should be upstairs in her bed.”

  Taking cautious steps in the dark, he moved closer to the center of the room. His thigh brushed against the table, and he stooped to retrieve her discarded items. For a long moment, his hand swiped fruitlessly through the air, only making purchase with the legs of the table. He shifted closer and tried again.