A Lady of His Own

by Stephanie Laurens

  So she could look him in the eye. Study those midnight blue eyes she couldn’t always read…they were unreadable now, but watching her. “Charles…”

  She couldn’t think how to phrase it—how to warn him not to imagine…

  He arched a brow. They were almost breast to chest. Without warning, he bent his head and brushed his lips, infinitely lightly, across hers.

  “Fowey,” he breathed. “Remember?”

  She closed her eyes, mentally cursed as familiar heat streaked down her spine, then jerked her eyes open as, her hand locked in his, he towed her around and on.

  “Come on.”

  She let out an exasperated hiss. If he was going to be difficult, he would be, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

  Granville’s curricle was waiting when they reached the stable yard, a pair of young blacks between the shafts. Charles lifted her up to the seat, then followed. She grabbed the rail as the curricle tipped with his weight, then he sat; she fussed with her skirts, helpless to prevent their thighs, hips, and shoulders from touching almost constantly.

  It was not destined to be a comfortable drive.

  Charles flicked the whip and expertly steered the pair down the drive. She paid no attention to the familiar scenery; instead, she revisited the scene in the library before luncheon, and luncheon, too, incorporating Nicholas’s belief in their “understanding”…Nicholas’s reactions still didn’t quite fit.

  She drew in a tight breath. “You told him we were lovers.”

  Eventually, Charles replied, “I didn’t actually say so.”

  “But you led him to think it. Why?”

  She glanced at him, but he kept his gaze on the horses.

  “Because it was the most efficient way of convincing him that if he so much as reaches out a hand toward you, I’ll chop it off.”

  Any other man and it would have sounded melodramatic. But she knew him, knew his voice—recognized the statement as cold hard fact. She’d seen the currents lurking beneath his surface, the menace, knew it was real; he was perfectly capable of being that violent.

  Never to her, or indeed any woman. On her behalf, however…

  She let out a long breath. “It’s one thing to protect me, but just remember—you don’t own me.”

  “If I owned you, you would at this moment be locked in my apartments at the Abbey.”

  “Well, you don’t, I’m not—you’ll just have to get used to it.”

  Or do something to change the status quo. Charles kept his tongue still and steered the curricle down the road to Fowey.

  They left the curricle at the Pelican and strolled down to the quay.

  Penny scanned the harbor. “The fleet is out.”

  “Not for long.” He nodded to the horizon. A flotilla of sails were drawing nearer. “They’re on their way in. We’ll have to hurry.”

  He took her arm, and they turned up into the meaner lanes, eventually reaching Mother Gibbs’s door. He knocked. A minute later, the door cracked open, and Mother Gibbs peered out.

  She was flabbergasted to see him, a point he saw Penny note.

  “M’lord—Lady Penelope.” Mother Gibbs bobbed. “How can I help ye?”

  Somewhat grimly he said, “I think we’d better talk inside.”

  He didn’t want to cross the threshold himself, much less take Penny with him, but she’d already been there, alone; they didn’t have time to accommodate his sensibilities. Mother Gibbs would speak much more freely in her own house.

  “Dead, you say?” Mother Gibbs plopped down on the rough stool by her kitchen table. “Mercy be!”

  It was transparently the first she’d heard of Gimby’s death.

  “Tell your sons,” he said. “There’s someone around who’s willing to kill if he believes anyone knows anything.”

  “Here—it’s not that new lordling up at the Hall, is it?” Mother Gibbs looked from him to Penny. “The one you was asking after.” She looked back at Charles. “Dennis did mention this new bloke had been asking questions and they’d strung him along like…” She paled. “Mercy me—I’ll tell ’em to stop that. He might think they really do know something.”

  “Yes, tell them to stop hinting they know anything, but we don’t know that it was Lord Arbry. Tell Dennis from me that it’s not safe to think it was him, in case it’s someone else altogether.”

  He would have to speak to Dennis again, but not tonight. He refocused on Mother Gibbs. “Now, tell me everything you know about Gimby.”

  She blinked at him. “I didn’t even know he was dead.”

  “I don’t mean about his death, but when he was alive. What do you know of him?”

  It was little enough, but tallied with what the old sailor had told them.

  Penny asked after Nicholas; Mother Gibbs had little to add to her earlier report. “Been down Bodinnick way, he has, talking to the men there again, saying the same thing—that he’s in Granville’s place now and anyone asking for Granville should be sent to him.”

  “All right.” He took a sovereign from his pocket and placed it on the table. “I want you to keep your ears open for anything anyone lets fall about Gimby or his father, and especially about anyone seen near his cottage recently, or anyone asking for him recently.”

  Mother Gibbs nodded and reached for the sovereign. “I’ll tell me boys to do the same. Those Smollets might not have been sociable-like, but there was no ’arm in them that I ever saw. That Gimby didn’t deserve to have his throat cut, that’s fer certain.”

  He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but said nothing to dampen Mother Gibbs’s rising zeal. “If you hear anything, no matter how insignificant it may seem, get Dennis to send word to me—he knows how.”

  Mother Gibbs nodded, face set, chins wobbling. “Aye, I’ll do that.”

  They left and walked quickly back to the harbor. They reached the quay to see the first of the boats nudging up to the stone wharf. Charles hesitated. If he’d been alone, he would have gone down to the wharf and lent a hand unloading the catch, and asked his questions under cover of the usual jokes and gibes, and later in the tavern. But he had Penny with him, and…

  “Lady Trescowthick’s party, remember? She’s unlikely to approve of the odor of fresh mackerel.”

  She’d leaned close, speaking over the raucous cries of the gulls. He glanced at her, met her eyes, then nodded toward the High Street. “Come on, then. Let’s head back.”

  They did, driving along in the late afternoon with the sun slowly sinking in the west and the breeze flirting with wisps of Penny’s hair.

  She sat in her corner of the curricle’s seat, and tried unsuccessfully to think of ways to further their investigation. Impossible; if she’d kept on her habit and ridden into Fowey, she might have been able to focus her mind. As it was, she’d very willingly unfocus it, suspend all thought, all awareness.

  Being close to Charles for any length of time had always suborned her senses. She tried, kept trying, to tell herself she found his nearness uncomfortable…lies, all lies. She was good at them when it came to him.

  The truth, one she’d known for years and still didn’t understand, couldn’t unquestioningly accept, was that, quite aside from the titillation of her senses, he made her feel comfortable in a way no other ever had. It was a feeling that reached deeper, that was more fundamental, that meant more than the merely sensual.

  One word leapt to mind whenever she thought of him—strength. It was what she was most aware of in him, that when he was beside her, his strength was hers to command, or if she wished, she could simply lean on him, and he would be her strength and her shield. He’d protect her from anything, lift any and all burdens from her shoulders, perhaps laugh at her while he did and call her Squib, but yet he would do it—she could rely on him in that.

  No other had been so constant, so unchanging and unwavering in his readiness to support and protect her. Not her father, not Granville. No one else.

  Charles was the only man
in her life she’d ever turned to, the only man, even now, she could imagine leaning on.

  She sat back in the curricle, felt the breeze caress her cheeks. It seemed odd to be sitting next to him after all their years apart, and only now comprehend just how much she’d missed him.

  CHAPTER

  9

  THEY RATTLED INTO THE STABLE YARD, AND THE GROOMS came running; Charles tossed them the reins and came to hand her down.

  For a moment, he seemed distracted, then he focused on her. “I’ll come over and we can go to Branscombe Hall in your carriage. You might suggest to Nicholas that he drive himself there.”

  She arched a brow, but he merely said, “I’ll be here at seven-thirty.”

  He took her arm and walked her to the edge of the lawn. “I’ll see you then. I want to check that pair before I leave.”

  Releasing her, he stepped back, saluted her, and turned away. Remaining where she was, she watched him walk back toward the stables.

  Waited. Caught his eye when he glanced back.

  Saw the exasperated twist of his lips as he stopped and, hands rising to his hips, looked back at her.

  She laughed, shook her head at him, then turned and headed for the house. He wanted to go and play horses with the grooms and ask God only knew what questions, and he didn’t want her cramping his style. All well and good—he should simply have said so.

  A cynical smile curved her lips. Surely he didn’t imagine she wouldn’t guess and remember to interrogate him later?

  Later was seven-thirty, when true to his word he strode up from the stables. She heard his footsteps in the hall and left the drawing room to join him.

  He’d entered from the garden; he walked out of the shadows at the back of the hall into the light cast by the chandelier.

  Her breath caught; she felt her chest tighten, felt her heart contract. All he needed was an earring dangling from one lobe to be the walking embodiment of any lady’s private dream.

  Halting, he arched a brow at her.

  Smiling at her own fantasy, she went forward. He was perfectly turned out in an evening coat the same color as his eyes, a dark, intense blue one shade removed from black. His shirt and cravat were pristine white, his waistcoat a subdued affair of dark blue and black swirls, his long legs draped in black trousers that emphasized rather than concealed their muscled strength.

  The cut of coat, waistcoat, the style of his trousers, was austere. On any other man, the effect would be too severe, yet he exuded an impression of high drama, of larger-than-life abilities—a strong hint of the piratical remained.

  She raised her gaze to his face, only to discover his had reached her toes, clad in gilded Grecian sandals and fleetingly, flirtingly visible beneath her skirt’s hem. She halted before him.

  He looked up—slowly—his gaze tracing the lines of her gray-blue silk gown. The hue was several shades darker than her eyes, chosen to complement them and her fair hair. She’d had her maid dress her hair in a stylish knot, leaving tendrils trailing to bob about her ears and caress her bare shoulders.

  Just as his gaze did before lifting to her throat, her chin, her lips, finally meeting her eyes. He looked into them and smiled. As if he was some fantastical beast and his only thought was to devour her.

  Ruthlessly, she suppressed a shiver. Casting him what she hoped was a worldly, cynical, and warning look, she gave him her hand.

  His smile only deepened; his eyes flashed as he raised her fingers to his lips and lightly kissed. “Come. Let’s go.” He turned her to the front door as the sound of wheels on the gravel reached them. “Did Nicholas go ahead?”

  “Yes.” She smiled. “He was rather unsure what to make of our arrangements. He left in his curricle about ten minutes ago.”

  “Good.”

  The footman was holding the carriage door; Charles handed her in, then followed, sitting beside her on the mercifully wide seat.

  As the footman shut the door, she asked, “Why good?”

  “So that by the time we arrive, he’ll be involved with other guests. I want to watch him, but from a distance, not as one of the same circle.”

  Relaxing against the seat as the carriage rolled down the drive, she digested that, then remembered. “What did you learn from the grooms?”

  He was looking out of the window. She waited, confident he would reply, yet she would have given a great deal to know what he was thinking.

  Eventually he said, “Nicholas has been riding out during the day and at night. Sometimes to Fowey, sometimes to Lostwithiel and beyond. Not as constantly as he did in February, but often enough. As far as I can make out, he could have killed Gimby, but there’s no evidence he actually did.”

  After a moment, she asked, “Do you think he did?”

  Another long pause ensued, then he looked at her. “Gimby wasn’t simply killed—he was interrogated, then executed. I’m having a difficult time seeing Nicholas as interrogator-cum-executioner. I can imagine him ordering it done, but not getting his hands soiled with the actual doing. He may well be guilty of Gimby’s death, but might never have set foot in that cottage.

  “And no, before you ask, I haven’t any idea who he might have got to do the deed. I doubt they’re local, which means they shouldn’t be that difficult to trace. I’ve put the word around that I’m looking for news of any passing stranger—we’ll see what turns up.”

  The gates of Branscombe Hall loomed ahead. In short order, the carriage rocked to a halt; Charles descended and handed her down.

  Lady Trescowthick, waiting to greet them inside her front hall, all but cooed at the sight of them—not, Penny reminded herself, because her ladyship thought there was anything between them, but purely because she’d succeeded in getting them both, as individuals, to her event.

  Parting from her ladyship, they walked to the archway leading into the ballroom; Penny glanced sidelong at Charles.

  He saw, raised a brow.

  Lips twitching, she looked ahead. “Just as well most of the unmarried young ladies are in London, or you’d be in serious trouble.”

  “Ah, but I’m entering the arena well armed.”

  “Oh?”

  His hand covered hers on his sleeve. “With you.”

  She nearly choked on a laugh. “That’s a dreadful pun.”

  “But apt.” Pausing on the threshold, he scanned the room, then glanced down at her. “It would be helpful if you could resist temptation and remain by my side. If I have to guard my own back against feminine attack, I won’t be able to concentrate on Nicholas.”

  She threw him a look designed to depress pretension, not that she expected it to succeed, then swept forward to greet Lady Carmody. Yet as she and he commenced a slow circle of the room, she bore his words in mind; he hadn’t been joking. In this situation, staying by his side undoubtedly qualified as doing all she could to further his investigation.

  Ladies had always chased him; at twenty, he’d been a magnet for feminine attention, far more than his brothers had ever been. And he hadn’t been the earl then, not even next in line for the title.

  She’d been one of the few who had never pursued him—there’d never been any need. She’d simply let him chase her.

  And look where that had landed them.

  Ruthlessly, she quashed the thought. Thinking of such things while he was anywhere near wasn’t wise. Let alone when he was standing beside her.

  True to form, he glanced sharply at her.

  She pretended not to notice and gave her attention to Lady Harbottle. “I had no idea Melissa was feeling so low.”

  “Oh, it’s just a passing thing. I daresay now she’s been a week in Bath she’ll be right as rain again and back any day.” Lady Harbottle smiled delightedly at Charles. “I know she’ll want to hold a party as soon as she gets back—to renew old acquaintances, if nothing else.”

  Charles smiled, and pretended he couldn’t see the speculation running through her ladyship’s head. The instant an opening offered, he steer
ed Penny away. “Refresh my memory—didn’t Melissa Harbottle marry?”

  “Yes. She’s now Melissa Barrett. She married a mill owner much older than she. He died over a year ago.”

  “Ah.” After a moment, he asked, “Am I to infer that her trip to Bath wasn’t to try the waters?”

  “Melissa?” Penny’s incredulous tone was answer enough.

  “So she might now be described as a widow with aspirations?”

  “Quite definite aspirations. She’s now wealthy enough to look rather higher than a mill owner.”