One Night To Be Sinful

by Samantha Garver

Margot gasped again.

  "So you admit"-Kingsly smiled as if he had won-"a member of your staff did steal one of Lord Raleigh's best guns."

  "Did you not hear her say she was almost injured?" Margot said in a horrified tone.

  "He heard me, Margot," Abby said grimly.

  Kingsly's grin wavered. "Now, insofar as the man who originally took the gun has left North Rutherford, I am obliged to take matters up with the other seen with the weapon."

  "How do you know Mr. Garrett is not here?" An icy shiver stole down Abigail's spine. Her head turned, her gaze focusing on the stretch of property that bordered hers. In the distance she saw the figures of three individuals, two on horseback.

  Margot said something coarse and sinful under her breath.

  "I feel I should take your stableman with me," Kingsly was saying. The wax he used to set his mustache gleamed in the sunlight.

  Abby heard Timothy release a grunt of worry before she faced the magistrate again. "I think not."

  "He was seen with the gun, Lady Wolcott." The man's voice bordered on whiny.

  "Prove it, Mr. Kingsly. Show me this gun Timothy has. Let's go to his room in the stables now, shall we?"

  "He was there already," Timothy said, glancing at the magistrate for only a second before looking down at the tips of his worn boots, "when I got in from taking Achilles out. My room's a mess."

  Abigail's teeth clenched together, well aware Timothy kept his room so neat and tidy it was un believable. "Did you find the gun?" she asked Kingsly.

  "No, but-"

  "Then you have no proof, do you, sir? No reason to take Timothy away or bother us any longer."

  Kingsly blinked, his mouth opening and closing like that of a fish out of water.

  "Now, I'll ask you only once to take your leave," Abigail snapped. "Good day, sir."

  "You cannot speak like this to a man who protects the community," Kingsly croaked, red rising from his neck to his cheeks.

  "I am not speaking to a man who protects my community." Abby linked her arm through Timothy's, and she and Margot began to guide him toward the safety of the house. "I am speaking to you."

  Chapter 24

  He walked from his own home, his gait steady and even as the bustle of Town gave way to the less populated neighborhoods of great stone mansions and manicured lawns. He was a man with a purpose; it was evident in the grim angles of his face and his rigid stride, so no one stopped him as he stepped through the iron gates of the Valmonte estate and through the front door. The doorman had been pressing a buxom maid against the entry wall, running his fingertips across the lace of her decolletage, and fairly jumped out of his buckled shoes when Calvin entered.

  He met the other man's gaze steadily, ignoring the gaping woman behind him. "Take me to Lord Valmonte," Calvin ordered.

  The doorman eyed the breadth of Calvin's shoulders beneath his somber black greatcoat, the size of his hands curled into fists. The younger man's hands were almost delicate, and his shoulders, where his shimmering pink jacket fit tightly to them, slight. "Yes," he said. "This way, sir."

  Only the fireplace illuminated the parlor. Most of the room was in shadows save where Patrick Valmonte sat in a high-backed leather chair directly before the hearth. Calvin could see little of the man-as his chair back was to the door-save his stocking feet stretched out on the carpet, the length of one arm, and the empty snifter he held loosely in elegant fingers.

  "A visitor, my lord," the doorman announced quickly and disappeared.

  Calvin's brows drew together as he glanced at the closed door. He could never imagine Mrs. Poole or Margot permitting a stranger into Abby's company without making certain their employer would be all right. When he faced forward again, Calvin saw Valmonte had risen.

  He blinked slowly, drunkenly, at the man who had invaded his privacy. "Do we know each other, sir?"

  Just looking at the man whom Abigail was going to wed made dark jealousy curl down Calvin's spine. The fact Valmonte, even in his drunken state, appeared elegantly collected didn't help either. His brown hair was swept neatly back from his forehead and tied at his nape. His face-high cheekbones, dimpled chin-and soft gray eyes were clear evidence that he was unmarred with childhood traumas and hunger. The man, in his expensive attire and perfectly tied cravat, had never had a day of suffering in his life. He had not hesitated to abandon Abigail when her life had become difficult.

  "No." Calvin stepped farther into the room, onto the thick Persian rug circled by the firelight. "But we both know Lady Abigail Wolcott."

  Valmonte flinched as if he had been hit. "Abby?"

  The familiarity cut into Calvin's heart. "Don't call her that. Only her friends call her that."

  "You are Ab-Abigail's friend?" The other man had not moved from where he stood at the chair.

  Calvin felt his lips curl. "You could say that."

  "Forgive me for being so bold as to ask"- Valmonte's voice was soft, almost musical-"but why are you here?"

  Calvin himself hadn't known why until that moment. "To call you out."

  "Call me out?" The duke's face went slack. "You cannot be serious."

  "Mr. Emanuel Fitzherbert and Abby's own brother will serve as my seconds. I'll leave you a night to appoint yours."

  The brandy snifter hit the carpet, but did not break. Valmonte's hands hung limp at his sides. "Good God, man! What is this about? I've done nothing to warrant such extremes."

  "You're a thief," Calvin said, then shook his head. "No, you are even worse than that. There has to be a more suitable name for a man who preys on the kindness of a woman whom he should protect. Monster, perhaps?"

  "I don't understand." Calvin was tempted to believe the other man as he frantically shook his head. "Is this about the accident?" Valmonte lifted his palms up in supplication. "I was drunk and stupid. I admit I was pushing the horses much too hard. I did not know what I was doing afterward. I took quite a blow to the head, I swear it."

  "I don't want to hear your excuses, Valmonte." Calvin's hands shook, his fists were drawn so tight. A picture was being formed in his mind as the other spoke: Abigail in a carriage bent on destruction.

  "I saw her in the river." Valmonte's hands trembled, his eyes watery for a reason that went beyond drunkenness. "She was staring at the sky, not blinking. I thought she was dead. What else could I have done?"

  Then it hit Calvin, a silent rush of awareness. It explained why Abigail was so hell-bent on depending on no one. The one man in the world she should have been able to rely upon in her ordeal had failed her.

  His control snapped like a twig. One moment Calvin was near the door, the next he was across the room. He gripped Valmonte by the lapels of his coat and slammed him against the stones that surrounded the fireplace. A rush of satisfaction coursed through his blood when he heard the other man's teeth crack together.

  "You left her there." Calvin's voice was deadly soft as he spoke through clenched teeth. "You drove the phaeton over the bridge, saw Abby fall. Then you left her there to die."

  Valmonte could not argue. His shirt was drawn tight across his neck, his face turning a brilliant shade of red.

  Calvin didn't care. "You son of a bitch!" He slammed him against the hearth again.

  "Patrick?" It came from the opened doorway, a near-shriek. Patrick!"

  Calvin glanced back over his shoulder, saw the pale figure in the frothy white robe. The woman a girl, really-looked no more than seventeen. Her blond hair hung in tangled disarray about her shoulders. Her blue eyes were wide and went swiftly from being frightened to angry.

  "Who is this man, Patrick?" she demanded, fisting her hands on hips thin enough to be a boy's. ZI) "Have you been gambling again?"

  Calvin released Valmonte, who crumpled, coughing, ungracefully to the floor.

  "Answer me, Patrick!" The woman bounded into the room toward her husband, completely ignoring the man who had almost killed him. She tapped her foot impatiently on the floor. "I thought I told you I did not want
you visiting those gaming hells. I cannot believe you told me I could not purchase that diamond brooch from the jeweler, then went out and wasted money away on your bloody hobby."

  "Elizabeth ... ," Valmonte croaked, crawling up to his knees.

  "I do not want to hear it!" She kicked him sharply in his side, sending the man back to the floor. "I will not stand for this. I'm telling Papa, and he'll be none too pleased with you, sir." Elizabeth promptly burst into hysterics. She was a great deal less attractive with spittle flying from her lips and mucous bubbles erupting from her nostrils. "I hate you, Patrick Valmonte. You have ruined my life!" She ran from the room screaming.

  Calvin lifted a brow, waiting until Valmonte groaned and sat up. He propped his back against the wall, offered the standing man only a brief glare before tentatively touching his side. He winced in pain.

  "Never mind finding seconds, Valmonte," Calvin said. "Death would be an all-too-pleasant release. I think the prison you have locked yourself into now satisfies me."

  "Go to hell"-Valmonte's voice was no longer musical, just coarse and breathless-"whatever your name is.

  "You will no longer take stipends from Abigail."

  Valmonte peered up at Calvin from beneath lowered brows. "I do not take stipends from Abigail."

  "Your initials are in her account book."

  "Not mine." Valmonte shook his head and groaned when his eyes rolled. He rested his head against the wall to stave off dizziness. "Why would I need Wolcott money? I have plenty of my own. Plenty from my lovely wife."

  The man was not lying. Calvin scowled at the observation. Then who the hell was PV?

  He stepped over the other man's sprawled legs, running his fingers through his hair as he moved to leave the parlor.

  When Valmonte spoke, he had to clear his throat twice before the words would come out. "How is she?"

  Calvin stopped and slowly turned back into the room. Gazing at Valmonte's features, he rethought his earlier idea that the other man had never experienced suffering. Then he relished in his own smile as he said, "She's wonderful."

  "Where, pray tell, have you been?" Emanuel Fitzherbert said by way of greeting. He had made himself comfortable in one of the settees of Calvin's study. He held a fine ceramic saucer and a nearly full cup on his lap.

  "I had to pay a call across town." Calvin shrugged out of his jacket and tossed it onto a chair on his way to the drink table.

  "Not tonight, Garrett. You're hardly five minutes late." Fitzherbert glanced between the clock in the corner to the man who was removing the crystal stopper from a decanter. "For the past fortnight, you have been missing. Your staff told me you left town."

  Calvin leaned back against the drink table and took a long swallow of gin. "I was assisting a friend in a matter of import."

  "You have friends?" The accountant was slight, a foot shorter than his employer and about half as wide. His hair was pale, as were his eyes, set behind a pair of wire-rimmed bifocals. He had always been unconcerned with Calvin's larger size, just as he had been with the other's rough appearance when he'd been hired.

  "If you are finished"-Calvin downed the last of his drink and moved toward his desk-"I should like to get to the matter at hand."

  Fitzherbert immediately set his coffee aside, opening the leather case he had propped against his legs.

  "It is a bit, I think, out of the realm of a normal man of affairs." Calvin regarded Fitzherbert from across the top of his desk.

  The other man glanced up over the rims of his specs. "I am not your normal man of affairs."

  Calvin nodded. He and the other shared a bond; they had both spent most of their childhoods on the streets. Whereas Calvin had used his fists to get by, Fitzherbert had used his uncanny knack with numbers. "Have you heard of North Rutherford?"

  "I've visited before." Fitzherbert opened a notebook on his lap, produced a quill out of nowhere. "It's not far from London."

  "Not even a full day's journey," Calvin nodded. "I'd like you to go there tomorrow. Use my carriage. Locate the magistrate, Kingsly, and deliver to him a sum of five hundred pounds."

  Fitzherbert paused in writing. "Five hundred, you say?"

  "Yes. Inform Mr. Kingsly that the money will assist him in his move from North Rutherford to wherever else in England he desires to go."

  "The magistrate has plans to leave?"

  "He will after you speak to him," Calvin said. "You tell Mr. Kingsly that a benefactor who surpasses a certain viscount in integrity does not believe his services are required in the country any longer. Tell him that either he takes the five hundred pounds and leaves, or said benefactor will pay him a visit. Assure him that after the visit, he will wish he had made the move."

  "Excuse me for interfering"-Fitzherbert wet his lips-"but making such threats borders on illegal practices."

  "Rest assured, Fitzherbert," Calvin countered grimly, "Mr. Kingsly has proven himself unworthy of any type of consideration. He has put my friend, a woman, in harm's way."

  "Might I know this woman?"

  "I doubt it." Calvin's lips curved a little. "She's a bit reclusive, my Lady Wolcott."

  "Not Abby?" Fitzherbert's brows lifted.

  Calvin frowned at the other man. "How do you know her?"

  "I assisted her and some lady friends in a financial matter not long ago."

  "What matter?"

  Fitzherbert met Calvin's gaze. "I'm afraid I'm not at liberty to discuss their personal affairs. They were all very nice to me, though I could hardly take credit for helping them as much as the Earl of North Rutherford did." He smiled. "Lady Abby sent me a basket of fruit and pastries on my birthday."

  "What would I have to do," Calvin inquired, "to convince you to tell me what you worked on for Abby? "

  "Do me physical harm, perhaps. Yet even then I might not talk." Fitzherbert chuckled. "It's of no use to you, however. I am certain Lady Abby would not make friends with the type of man who assaults others."

  Recalling the near-unconscious Valmonte he had left behind, Calvin lifted a brow.

  Chapter 25

  The sun had almost completed its descent upon the horizon. Abigail gazed at the orange crescent disappearing into the earth, her cheek resting against the wooden handle of the pitchfork, and had to concentrate to keep her mind blank. As a breeze lifted the tendrils of hair that had fallen across her brow as she worked, she told herself it would be of no use to replay her last conversation with Calvin. Recalling that he said he would be back before nightfall the day after he departed the estate was of no help. It hadn't been, at least, the last ten or so odd times Abby had done it before.

  As the afternoon sky turned from blue to shades of purple and pink, Abigail turned back into the stables and began to focus on not worrying.

  The tines of the pitchfork skidded across the stall floor, sending hay into the air and across the horse that had been patiently awaiting his afternoon meal. Achilles looked up from his feed and glared at Abby through a mane laced with straw.

  "Don't look at me like that." She reached out to pluck the strands of hay from the gray's thick mane, using the pitchfork as a make-do crutch. "I know I don't do it like Timothy. We're just going to have to make do," she told both the horse and herself, "until he comes back."

  "Where did he go?"

  The familiar voice sent Abigail's heart slamming against her rib cage.

  He was nothing more than a large shadow until he took the steps that brought him away from the light of the setting sun and into the building. He wore breeches she had never seen before-they fit him correctly-his wide-brimmed hat, and a familiar black coat. His jaw was clean-shaven, his eyes crisp and alert, and Abigail wondered if he was even more handsome than she remembered.

  No, she decided, his features were just unbelievably welcome.

  "Abby?" He frowned when she did not speak. "Where is Timothy? Why are you feeding the horses?"

  When he came closer still, eyeing her from head to toe, she was absurdly self-consciou
s of the way she looked. She wore an old brown walking dress and a coat she had stained long ago with wine. Her hair was damp with sweat at her brow and nape; more of it had fallen out of her braid than not. Abigail pressed the sore and red palm of one hand to her heated cheek.

  "He went to Lady Black's estate for a few days." She considered telling Calvin the entire story about the magistrate's visit and her decision to send Timothy somewhere safe. The idea that he had been gone but one day and a problem had oc curred was somewhat disconcerting. "He's helping her staff at their stables."

  "Then you should have Margot doing this." Calvin reached for the pitchfork, leaving Abigail no choice but to grab hold of one of the stall doors.

  "Margot is in the village." Abby took a deep breath as the wind pressed the remembered scent of him to her nose. "She took the mare to run a few errands and pick up something for me at the bookshop."

  He leaned the pitchfork against the wall, lightly patting Achilles on the muzzle when the horse sniffed at his coat sleeve. "Mrs. Poole?"

  Abigail laughed aloud at that. "You cannot be serious.

  The silence bordered on uncomfortable when Calvin only lifted a brow at her.

  "Well, then"-she tried to forget the awkwardness that hung in the air about them-"did you tend to everything you needed in London?"

  "I believe so." Calvin nodded and offered no further explanation as to what exactly he had been attending to.

  Later she would tell herself it was the unnerving silence that made her talk and, as she had nothing else to say, blurt that which had been hanging at the back of her mind like a dark cloud. "I was beginning to worry you had found yourself another position." Her smile felt crooked as she said, "I thought you had left me behind."

  His expression had been curious and concerned when he entered to find Abigail working in the stables. Now, however, his features underwent a drastic change. His jaw went taut; the skin beneath his high cheekbones sunk inward as if he was struggling with an emotion Abby could not identify. The look in his eye, the glimpse of blue fire, reminded her of the occasion he'd gone after Dobbs and his gun.