He tossed her an impatient look, but seeing her pained expression, relented. “This isn’t about trust. Look, I wrestled with this all night. For God’s sake, Julia, he is my brother, but he is also a duke, one of the highest-ranking peers of the realm. I have nothing but the word of a petty, two-bit poacher who can be bribed with twopence. But I know he speaks true. I know my brother,” he said emphatically.
“And I believe you,” she said, calmly. “Or rather, Weasel.”
Her words appeared to strip the wind from his anger. “You do?”
“I do. In the future, you have to trust in me to do so, or . . .”
“Or you will not marry me?” He looked rueful.
“Well, it wouldn’t bode well for our marriage if you intend to keep things from me. If you think I cannot be trusted—”
“I told you, this isn’t about trust—”
“Then what is it about?”
“Fear,” he exclaimed, tossing his hands up, his expression incredulous, as if he could not believe she didn’t understand. “I am afraid. For you. For me. Some might call that cowardly to admit it, but I think it is smart because it makes me cautious. As a duke, Edmund has unlimited resources at his disposal. They allow him to carry out whatever nefarious schemes he damn well pleases. And it pleases him or it would please him to see me dead and buried. I should be afraid and so should you. You need to return to Taunton Court. To get as far away from me as possible. It is not safe here with me.”
“Me?” she cried, her voice rising to match his. “No one wants me dead. You are the one gallivanting about town, a hair’s breadth away from getting killed.” Her voice choked and she spun away, mortified at her loss of composure.
Silence fell.
“Julia.” His tone was soft, apologetic. He curled his hands over her shoulders, gently turning her to face him.
She tried to resist, tears blurring her eyes. He persisted until she was enfolded in his arms. Undone, she hugged his waist. She needed the touch, the warmth, and the comfort. She needed him. Her cheek rested against his heart, and the steady beat calmed her.
“My fearless warrior.”
She could hear the smile in his voice. “Not so fearless.”
“Well, this is another novel situation. You and I seem to be making a habit of tangling ourselves in them.”
“Yes,” she sniffed, half laughing, half choking. “Perhaps we should stop.”
“I agree. Why don’t you go home with your father until I—”
She stumbled back. “No, absolutely not.” If he was staying, so was she. Someone had to look after him. She crossed her arms. “You forget, we are not married—yet—so you cannot dictate my actions. I have not said yes, and at this rate, I will not be doing so if you think that I am going to run away and hide in the country while you stay here, risking your worthless hide.”
“Julia, this is not some business venture.” He frowned, his expression one of strained patience. “Worthless?”
“It will be if you are tossed into the Thames, or riddled with bullets or—” She cursed her voice for cracking again.
He swore and raked his hands through his hair. “I cannot risk your life. I cannot do it, and I will not.”
“You are not. You are making the choice to risk yours, just as I am making the choice to risk mine. Besides, father said you borrowed his Manton revolver to show a friend who was interested in purchasing one. I know why you borrowed the gun, so it is good that I accompany you on your next trip.”
He looked at her as if she were speaking French, his tone a mixture of frustration and perplexity. “I would think most women would avoid a man with a gun. But what the devil does the Manton have to do with your accompanying me anywhere?”
“I happen to be a crack shot with those guns.”
Daniel looked surprised, and then he began to laugh.
She bristled. “I don’t see what is so funny.”
“No, of course not. There is nothing remotely funny about this situation.” He sobered, and before she knew what he was about, he had caught her hands and threaded his fingers through hers. He dipped to press their foreheads together. “You have to marry me. I cannot live without you.”
She smiled into his eyes. “I am considering it.”
“Still?”
“More seriously,” she conceded. “For the time being, I will pretend to be your fiancée while you visit Mr. Shaw’s sons.”
He groaned. “You have no mercy.”
“You need a lesson in trust.”
“I have told you everything. You got the better half of the bargain. I only got one kiss. Maybe we should make another bargain. For another kiss, I will let you accompany me to Mr. Shaw’s sons, with the cavalry following for protection—the cavalry being Brett and Robbie.”
“You’ve had more than enough kisses, but I can be generous.” She stood on tiptoes, and gave him a quick kiss.
He frowned. “I taught you better than that.”
“Yes, well, it is equal to your pathetic invitation to Shaw’s. To the fact that you do not want me with you. That you do not trust me—”
Daniel yanked her back into his arms, crushing her body to his, his mouth swooping down in a kiss that stole the rest of her sentence and all memory of whatever point she was trying to make. She could not find the will to resist or mind. After all, he kissed so very well. She kissed him back, using all he had taught her.
After a breathless span of time, he lifted his head, looking dazed. “That is much better. I do want you with me, all the time. Just alive, Julia, and out of danger.”
Me, too, her heart cried. She opened her mouth to voice the words, when a throat clearing had her trying to move away, but Daniel’s arm was like a steel cable encircling her waist.
“Hmph.”
Daniel barely glanced her father’s way, his eyes on her. “Lord Taunton, you are now my witness. I have ruined your daughter. Again. I think you should intercede and demand she marry me.”
She gasped and slapped her hands against Daniel’s chest, struggling to gain her release.
“Hmph. She doesn’t look too pleased about it. You haven’t gotten her to say yes yet?”
Daniel sighed and released her. “Well, you did mention her stubbornness. It is formidable. I’ll need a hatchet to chip away at it.”
“It looks to me that you have enough weapons at your disposal. I suggest you use them sparingly until you get your acceptance.” He gave Daniel a meaningful look.
“Father,” she gasped. “I cannot accept Daniel yet, for if you have forgotten, Edmund has yet to sever our betrothal. That is not for another week, so I have time before I must give my answer.”
Her father grinned affectionately. “Always one to remember the details. But Julia, after what I witnessed here, see that your answer is yes.”
She flushed. “I am . . . I am leaning toward it. He is persuasive.”
Daniel beamed. “I have moved up in her esteem. I am beginning to think courting is like a tide, if I keep battering away, the barriers will erode.”
“There will be no further battering under my roof. None. Persuading is fine, battering is not fine. Do I make myself clear?” Her father skewered Daniel with a narrow-eyed warning.
Daniel’s smile vanished and he straightened, but at Julia’s snort of laughter he winked.
“I saw that,” her father warned.
Daniel coughed, and struggled to adopt a more serious mien. “Right, no more battering. Absolutely. My apologies, sir.”
Her father cast Daniel another stern look, but the twitch to his lips undermined his glower. “Now then, Julia tells me that you were inquiring about the good doctor Reilly.”
Daniel exchanged a look with Julia. “Yes, sir, I was. He was my father’s physician for years, and cared for my brother and me until I moved away. I had formed a bond of sorts with him.”
Her father nodded. “I am not surprised. He was always treating you for your share of scrapes and bruises. Your fathe
r said you boys knocked heads worse than two spitting bulls. My Meg spoke to your father about it after you showed up with a broken arm. She suggested your father separate you two, but he disagreed. Believed you needed to work it out yourselves, that it built character. With your smaller size, he worried that you needed to be toughened up or he feared you would always be beaten down.” Her father fell silent, his look regretful. “I wondered if I should have said something, but then it resolved when you enrolled in a different school. You boys were no longer together as much.”
Julia’s heart twisted at the thought of that small, bruised boy, and the knowledge that her mother had noticed the abuse and had tried to intercede. It built character. He needed to be toughened up or be beaten down. She shuddered at the late duke’s callous parenting.
She tamped down her sadness when she saw that Daniel was battling his own emotions. The memories her father had dredged up cast a shadow across his handsome features and darkened those vibrant green eyes.
She ached to wrap him in her arms. To offer the comfort no one had given to that lonely, bruised boy. But she could not. Not yet. Or rather, not with her father standing a few feet away and curtailing any form of battering. She wished he would leave.
“Yes, well, Doctor Reilly patched me up sufficiently, for I did survive as much as I think Edmund wished it otherwise, wishes it otherwise,” Daniel amended.
“Yes, but that is often typical of brothers,” her father offered.
“Edmund is an atypical case,” Daniel said dryly, his eyes hard.
“Yes, I suppose being a duke makes that so.”
“Among other things,” Daniel murmured and briskly changed the topic back to the good doctor. “What did you learn of Reilly? Where is he settled these days? I would like to pay him a visit. Thank him for his kindness.”
“I am sorry, Daniel. I hate to be the bearer of bad news. However, I was at White’s yesterday and I ran into a Bedfordshire neighbor, Viscount Randall. His estate abuts Bedford Hall.”
“Yes, I remember the viscount.” The viscount was a bookish man who liked to drone on about philosophy and religion, wearing Daniel’s father’s patience thin.
“He shared Doctor Reilly’s services with Bedford, and I recalled Julia’s recent query about the doctor, so I asked if the viscount had any knowledge of him. I regret to tell you, Daniel, but the good doctor is no longer with us. What’s worse is that his demise was rather recent and I am afraid it was not of natural causes.” His gaze flicked briefly to her.
Thankfully her father was aware that she was not a woman prone to swoons or flutters, so he continued before she could beg him to do so.
“He had retired to a small cottage on the coast of Kent. Apparently, he upset a burglar in the act of robbing his home and paid too dear a price for it.”
She covered her mouth. She recalled Doctor Reilly’s booming laugh and the toffees he used to dispense to Emily and her when he was called to treat whatever ailments they had at the time. With a twinkle in his eye, he would tout their medicinal benefits.
She knew as surely as she knew her own name that his death was not a coincidence. On unsteady limbs, she walked over to the settee and sank down.
“I am sorry, Daniel.”
Daniel appeared to be grappling with his own shock. He swiped a hand down his face, shaking his head as if he could shake off the truth. “Yes, well, as am I. He was a good man.”
“Yes, he was. But he did have a grand retirement, and no thieving blackguard can steal that from him. Randall said his cottage was set on a plum piece of property along the coastline. The doctor had traveled widely over the past decade, going to the continent and even doing missionary work in India. In fact, he had only recently returned to England and purchased the acreage in Kent. Your father was a generous benefactor.”
“I am glad he finished his life in comfort. I would have dearly liked the chance to speak with him. I had a few questions in regard to my father’s last days that only he could have answered.”
Her father nodded. “I understand. There are always unanswered questions when one loses a loved one.” He walked forward and clasped a hand on Daniel’s shoulder, giving it a reassuring squeeze. “If there is anything else I can assist you with, let me know, besides convincing my daughter to marry you. I am afraid you are on your own there.”
Daniel summoned a grin for her father, who, after a few moments, nodded and left the room.
When he had disappeared, Daniel broke the silence. “Reilly knew. He knew what Edmund was after. My father must have confided in him. He survived by staying out of the country, as I unwittingly did. Shaw survived by . . . blackmail.” His eyes widened, and he fell silent, turning to pace, as if he needed the movement to get his thoughts going.
She could almost see the wheels spinning in his head, moving him to his next thought. He was the businessman riffling through all the information to complete the full picture.
He stopped and swung toward her. “There is blackmail here. Shaw and Reilly were blackmailing my brother.”
She gasped. “How did you conclude that?”
“It explains Edmund’s debts. Where his profits went, why he needs more money. You heard what your father said. Reilly retired grandly, traveled the continent, bought a plum piece of property. My father was generous, and I am sure he left him a stipend on which to retire, but to purchase acres on the coast? To travel extensively? He was a doctor, not an aristocrat with deep pockets.”
“What about Shaw? He did not live extravagantly.”
“No, but he was a gambler, a cardsharp. He bled Edmund to feed his habit and pay off his creditors. But he was afraid, scared of something that had him drafting a safeguard for his life. What did Fuller say? He had a letter to be made public should Shaw meet with an untimely demise? Fuller thought he feared creditors. He feared Edmund. But Edmund’s fear of Shaw’s revelations being publicized was greater. Thus Edmund did not touch him, and Shaw lived to a ripe old age.”
“Yes, but afraid and guilt ridden, so he wrote to you. He wanted you to hear his confession, but you were too late,” she added.
“Too little, too late,” he murmured softly, his expression sad. “The epitaph on my grave.”
She gasped and stood up. “Do not speak of such things. There will be no epitaphs on any graves. Least of all yours. As I said, I am a crack shot, and I will shoot anyone who tries to get near you.”
The look Daniel gave her had her holding up her hands and backing away.
“Do not come any closer! Stay back! Remember my father’s words. No battering permitted.” He ignored her words and stalked her, his eyes hot. She kept talking. “Reilly’s death changes nothing. We still do not know Edmund’s motive for trying to kill you. We need to speak to Shaw’s sons. Time is . . .” her words trailed off, for Daniel had caught up to her and was drawing her to him. “We need to . . .” It was no use. She could no longer remember what she was nattering on about. “Daniel,” she breathed.
“Julia,” he whispered back, his eyes roving over her face. “My fierce warrior. You have looked after your father, your brother, your sister. I appreciate that you are a crack shot, but I hope to never have that put to the test. Now I think it is time someone looked after you. And that is what I intend to do.” His head lowered and his lips played over hers in teasing, light nibbles that had her legs weakening.
“We will look after each other,” she whispered, tilting her head back to give him better access to the column of her neck. His lips curved against her skin.
“Of course we will. Together. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.”
“Yes . . . but . . . it is time we changed literary references. I was thinking Robin Hood and Maid Marian.”
He lifted his head, his eyes bright as he appeared to ponder it. “Fine, but even if you are a crack shot, I still get to be Robin Hood.” He nodded. “It is apt in this situation. A displaced aristocrat—that is me—saving the poor people—the tenants—from a penny-pinching king—
Edmund. And in the end, he wins the hand of the fair Maid Marian.”
She smiled. “And they live happily ever after if Robin Hood doesn’t get shot, or do anything foolish, or . . .”
He kissed her to silence, which was fine, because she did not really like that ending. She had a far better one in mind.
Chapter Twenty-three
SO how should we proceed?” Daniel asked as he settled back into the upholstered seat of Taunton’s elegant town coach.
“I think you should impersonate Edmund again,” Julia suggested as she neatened the skirts to her carriage dress. “Ducal power humbles everyone. Once they finish bowing and scraping, they scramble to do his bidding before they consider whether they want to or not. And toss in a level of charm. Edmund is haughty, but he could be so very charming and quite dashing, he wasn’t all—What is it? What are you scowling about?”
“For God’s sake, Julia, the man’s a cold-blooded murderer and you are talking about him as if he is a prince.”
Julia drew herself up. “Well, the best villains aren’t just black and white. They are multilayered.”
“Right. Like an onion, and no matter how many of those layers you peel back, all of them still stink.” Daniel snarled, crossing his arms over his chest. Charming and dashing, his arse. How about cruel, duplicitous, and murderous.
“I do not disagree, but how do you intend to extract any information from Martin Shaw if you arrive scowling? We will be tossed off his stoop before his butler can make the introductions.”
He shifted in his seat, refusing to answer. Refusing to let her know she was right again. More often than not, he admired her astute mind, the way she thought dazzling him, but now was not one of those times.
“Stop scowling. You can do charming. For goodness’ sake, when you are not pacing a hole in my carpets, demanding I marry you, or sparring with Brett and Robbie, you charm me. And you charm Jonathan. He follows you around like you can single-handedly win all the wars.”
He shifted again, bristling as he caught the flash of a teasing light in her eyes. She was reeling him in like a fat fish. He frowned, not quite ready to concede. “Very well. What about dashing?”
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