by Olivia Drake
Mystified, she took the note. “Thank you.”
As he bowed and departed, Bella closed the door and walked to the candle on the bedside table. She broke the red wax seal and scanned the brief message.
Her legs went weak. Unable to believe her eyes, she sank down onto the edge of the bed to read the note again.
Chapter 20
Miles left the ballroom only after dusk fell and the room went so dark that he could scarcely pick his way through the shadowy maze of Egyptian statues. His strides echoed down the long corridor with its crimson runner. Here, candles flickered in sconces, the pale light gleaming over the white pillars that stood at intervals along the walls.
Of their own accord, his footsteps veered to the blue drawing room. A glance into the darkened doorway told him that Bella was no longer working among the gloomy piles of artifacts. He hadn’t really expected to find her there. If truth be told, he had been avoiding her all day.
He’d awoken at the crack of dawn from an erotic dream of her. Miles had not felt so randy since he was a boy on the cusp of manhood, furtively using his hand under the covers to alleviate his passions. He’d resorted to that ploy today, too. But the release had been perfunctory in comparison to the bliss he’d experienced inside Bella.
I’m sure we can both agree it must never happen again.
He stalked toward the west wing, his solitary footsteps the only sound in the vast reaches of the house. As a rule, he did not show favor toward any particular woman. Why should he when they were all alike in the dark?
Except for Bella. With her, once had not been enough.
As a rule, he did not act on whims, either. He planned out his days, deciding ahead of time the artifacts he wanted to study or which hieroglyphs needed to be deciphered for the dictionary he was compiling.
Except for this morning. Before full light, he had impulsively set out on horseback for Turnstead Oaks, an estate he owned in the hills of Berkshire. The hard ride had invigorated him, the cool damp air whisking the cobwebs from his mind.
I’m sure we can both agree it must never happen again.
Blast it, that was supposed to be his line, not hers. It was what he’d been planning to say to her before she’d interrupted him. He should be pleased she shared his view.
And he was, dammit.
Upon arriving at his estate, he had taken a walk through the manor house. It was a lovely place, comfortably decorated, more a real home than the museumlike mansion in London. Turnstead Oaks had been his mother’s favorite residence, where she’d recovered from her many miscarriages. Miles often had stayed here as a boy. How long had it been since his last visit? A year? Two years? Three? By the astonishment of the servants, perhaps even longer than that.
Bella would like it here. He saw himself making love to her in the big bed upstairs, the windows open to birdsong and summer breezes …
Immediately, he dismissed the fantasy. She had made it clear she would not be his mistress—and that was just as well because an affair carried the risk of pregnancy. Bella was no seasoned whore who knew tricks to prevent conception. And he could not, would not marry her. It was out of the question. She deserved better than a man who knew nothing of love, a man whose sole purpose in life was the study of ancient Egypt.
Better he should focus on extracting more information about Sir Seymour from the lockbox of Bella’s memory. Then, when she was of no further use to him, he could dismiss her from his employ.
Edgy and unsettled, he had proceeded to the greenhouses. That had been his real reason for making the journey to Berkshire. He’d chatted with the old gardener, a familiar face from his boyhood days, while selecting a variety of exotic fruits for Bella.
He wondered now if she had liked the basket. Had her face lit up with that warm, open smile of hers? By pleasing her, Miles hoped to unravel the tension knotting his gut. She was a lady by birth and he had taken her virginity. A gentleman would have offered her marriage.
But he could not.
He had vowed long ago to devote himself to the ancient artifacts, to preserve them for posterity, to decode the pictorial language, as his father had wanted to do. Miles had no room in his regimented life for a wife. Only through dedication and hard work could he atone for the sin of causing his father’s premature death.
It wasn’t your fault. You couldn’t possibly have known that brigands would attack that night.
Bella’s soft words tugged at him. He’d thought long and hard about her views on the ride into Berkshire and back. Her arguments had been logical and persuasive, and talking to her had somehow lightened the heavy weight inside him. Yet the stone of guilt still lodged in his gut. Perhaps he had carried it so long it had become a part of him, like calcified tentacles wrapping his core.
Only in her arms had he felt freed of that burden. Only in her arms had he experienced a closeness that reached deep into his depths, as if to root out that tangled knot. Only in her arms had he felt loved.
My love. How sweet those words had sounded on her lips. How perfect she had felt sheathed around him. Yet once they’d achieved euphoria together, she had withdrawn into the cool, efficient employee.
It would be best if we forgot this night entirely. Then we can go on as before. There’s no need for us to speak of it ever again.
Miles stalked into his dim-lit study and slammed the door. A fire burned low on the hearth, and he seized the poker to jab savagely at the coals. Tongues of flame leaped up like the blaze inside of him that had not been quenched.
He should be thankful that Bella had no intention of making demands on him. Even though she’d been the one to invite him into her bed, she would have been within her rights to demand a marriage offer. But Bella was not like other ladies. She had gifted him with both her virtue and his freedom. They had shared a highly enjoyable evening together. He had been lucky to escape without any entanglements.
So why was he so troubled?
Fraught with frustration, he walked to the window to fetch a candle from the table. He would ring for his supper and then distract himself with work. The papers on his desk had been sorely neglected these past few nights …
Even as his fingers closed around the silver candlestick, he glimpsed a movement out in the darkness of the garden. A shadowed figure slipped from tree to tree. The rain had stopped, and the pale moonlight shone for an instant on that slender figure.
Bella.
A jolt sizzled through him. Why the devil was she walking outside? It must be damp and chilly after the rain, and she’d catch her death. Yet a certain furtiveness about her actions pricked his attention.
Releasing the candlestick, Miles moved back out of sight. He didn’t want her to glance up and see him silhouetted by the firelight. Instead, he shifted the draperies slightly and peered out through the crack, curious to know her purpose.
He found out soon enough.
As she neared the back wall, another figure emerged from the black depths of the shadows. A man, tall and lanky. The moonlight touched briefly on his fair hair and angular features.
Bella went straight to him and took his hands in hers.
Miles gripped his fingers around the draperies. Who the devil was that fellow? Why was Bella meeting him in the garden—and in such a clandestine manner?
She’d arrived recently from abroad. She’d claimed not to know anyone in London other than that antiquarian friend of her father’s, Smithers. But the intruder out there didn’t appear to be an old man.
One thing was certain. If he was anyone legitimate, he’d have come to the front door instead of sneaking in from the mews.
All of a sudden, she lifted her arms and hugged the man. He did the same to her, too, drawing her close to his body.
That tight, heartfelt embrace was a punch to Miles’s gut. It drove the breath from his lungs. In the next instant, a flood of fury sent him sprinting out of the study, striding swiftly down the corridor to the antechamber that led into his private apartments.
A fire burned on the marble hearth in the ducal bedchamber. The covers had been turned down on the massive, four-poster bed. With a look of surprise, Hasani stood with an armload of linen in the middle of the rug. “Your Grace! Have you decided on an early night—”
“Go,” Miles snapped. “I won’t need you tonight.”
He stalked past the servant and went to the row of glass doors that led out to the garden. Wresting one open, he proceeded out onto a covered stone terrace. The damp chill of the night air restored a measure of his senses. He slowed his stampede down the steps to the garden path. He didn’t want to alert Bella to his presence.
At least not yet.
He advanced swiftly, stealthily through the shadows toward the place where they stood, by the gate to the mews. The scent of early roses mingled with the fecund heaviness of wet loam. All the while, his mind worked feverishly.
This furtive meeting cast a new, sinister light on Bella’s other actions. He’d caught her poking through his study, then the archives. She had been searching for something in particular, he felt certain of that. What? Could it have something to do with this man?
Was he a thief?
Miles clenched his jaw. Perhaps he’d been wrong about Isabella Jones. What did he know of her, really? She’d come to him out of the blue, purporting to need a job, the daughter of a man who’d broken his trust to Miles. What if she had inveigled her way into Aylwin House in order to rob him? What if that was why she’d held him at arm’s length after their lovemaking?
What if she was playing him for a fool?
No. He didn’t want to believe it. He couldn’t believe it. Yet on the very next night after seducing him, she’d crept out to the garden and embraced a stranger. Whoever the bastard was, she’d hidden his identity from Miles. At the very least, she had been less than honest.
Keeping to the concealment of a boxwood hedge, he neared the couple. They stood in the gloom of an elm tree. They were no longer embracing, though Bella was gripping the man’s arms, her head tilted up as she spoke earnestly to him.
Miles couldn’t discern their whispered conversation. But they seemed to be having a disagreement. Her companion shook his head and appeared to be pleading with her. Then he put his hands on her shoulders as if to embrace her again.
And Miles saw red.
He surged forward, making no attempt at stealth this time, his swift steps crunching on the gravel path. Just as they started to turn toward him, Miles seized the man by the scruff of his neck and jerked him away from Bella.
“Hey!” cried his squirming prisoner. “Lemme go!”
A wild fist swung out, but Miles easily deflected it by grabbing that skinny wrist and twisting his arm behind his back.
Bella gasped, her face stark in the moonlight. She came charging toward him. “Miles! For pity’s sake, release him at once! He’s just a boy.”
“Am not,” the stranger objected in an adolescent’s sullen tone. “I’m as full grown as any man.”
Miles dragged him out of the shadows. The moonlight fell on a young man’s face that looked as if he hadn’t quite grown into its angular contours. He had sandy hair and Bella’s blue eyes. He was barely old enough to sprout a beard.
Taken aback, Miles released his captive’s arm and scowled at Bella, then the boy. “What the devil—” he bit out. “Who are you?”
“Sir Cyrus Jones,” he declared, puffing out his bony chest while rubbing his arm. “And I shall report you to the magistrate for attacking me.”
“You could be the one tossed behind bars for trespassing,” Bella scolded him. Defiance firmed her expression as she turned her eyes to Miles. “Your Grace, may I introduce my younger brother, Cyrus.”
* * *
For once, Bella was glad to see the cool mask descend over Miles’s face. His fury had been a sight to behold. When he’d come charging at them from out of the darkness, she had been stunned by the feral harshness of his countenance.
He had looked fit to kill.
A quiver snaked down her spine. She shuddered to imagine what he’d thought, seeing her skulking in the garden with a stranger. Any fledgling trust that had blossomed between them had been damaged. But what was she to do upon receiving that note from Cyrus, asking her to meet him at the garden gate? She could hardly have ignored it.
Oh, she was in terrible trouble now, judging by the coldness on Miles’s face. He knew that she had lied to him, if not in fact, then by omission. She had led him to believe she was alone in the world, and now she could only hope to rectify matters by confessing all.
Except in regard to her search for the treasure map. Not even Cyrus or Lila knew about that.
She continued the introduction. “Cyrus, this is the Duke of Aylwin. You’ll address him as Aylwin or Your Grace.”
“You called him Miles,” her brother pointed out.
The burn of heat rose from the collar of her gown. How was she to explain her informal usage of her employer’s name after so short an acquaintance? She’d sooner cut out her tongue than admit to what she and Miles had done in her bed the previous night.
As if sensing her discomfort, Miles said sternly, “Since your sister is my colleague, I’ve granted her special permission in addressing me. You, on the other hand, will treat me with proper respect. Is that clear?”
Cyrus gave him a wary, mistrustful stare until Bella poked him in the ribs. He said quickly, “Yes … Your Grace.”
Miles eyed the boy’s lanky form for a long moment, and Bella feared the duke might toss her brother out into the mews. Unlike the warm lover who had shown her ecstasy, Miles now wore the stony, autocratic guise of Aylwin. She curled her fingers into fists at her sides. Cyrus had been horribly wrong to disobey her order to stay in Oxford, but now that he was here, she would fight for him. Even if it meant defying the duke and putting her mission in jeopardy.
“I was always hungry at your age,” Miles said abruptly. “Come.”
He turned on his heel and strode toward the house without a backward glance.
Bella caught her brother’s arm as they started after Miles down the winding gravel path. Cyrus loped alongside her, saying in a rather excited whisper, “I thought the duke would be a doddering old fellow with white hair and a cane. But he’s strong—and taller than me. I’ll wager Aylwin could knock down even the stoutest ruffian in a fight.”
Bella had mixed feelings about seeing her brother’s sullenness transform into hero worship. On the one hand, she was relieved that he wouldn’t misbehave and cause her more trouble than she was already in. On the other, she didn’t want Cyrus to try to wheedle Miles into letting him stay here in London.
“You’re too young to wager anything,” she hissed. “Just remember, His Grace is a very important man and you should count yourself lucky he didn’t throw you out into the gutter!”
She had no time to say more because they’d arrived at the service entrance, hidden by a screen of boxwoods and down a short flight of steep stone steps. Miles held open the door. Bella couldn’t read his impassive features, but at least he wasn’t shouting anymore. Her heart raced as she went past him, the narrow entry causing her to brush against him. She might have wilted into a heap at his feet if she hadn’t resolved never to make a fool of herself over him again.
He led the way into the kitchen, where several servants sat around the long worktable, drinking their evening tea near the cheery blaze on the hearth. As one, they all gaped at the entering trio. After an instant of shocked silence, china rattled and chair legs scraped as the staff jumped to their feet to pay obeisance to the duke.
It must be a rare event for the master to venture belowstairs, Bella surmised. They all looked astonished by his presence.
Mrs. Witheridge hurried forward, wiping her hands on the white apron over her black gown and stout form. She bobbed a curtsy. “Your Grace! What an honor. Is there aught we might do for you?”
Miles placed his hand on Cyrus’s bony shoulder. “This is Sir Cyrus Jones
, brother to Miss Jones. He’ll be staying here tonight.”
The housekeeper turned and clapped her hands. “Nan, Susan, run upstairs and prepare the green room at once.” She looked at Bella. “’Tis directly across from your bedchamber, if that’s aright with you.”
A weight lifted from Bella’s shoulders. “That would be perfect.”
She glanced at Miles to thank him, but he was addressing Cook. “If you’ll fetch a plate for the lad, whatever’s cold in the larder should be sufficient. There’s no need to fuss. It’s late and he’ll take his supper right here. I will, as well, come to think of it.”
If any of the staff found that odd, none dared to show any sign. Servants scurried here and there, Cook to fetch provisions from the cold room, a kitchen maid to slice bread and another to brew a fresh pot of tea on the newfangled stove. At one end of the table, a footman laid a fine white cloth and set three places with silver utensils as if they were dining with the Queen.
In a doorway across the kitchen, Hasani stood sipping his tea, his dark gaze fixed on Cyrus. Like everyone else, the valet must be curious to learn she had a brother, Bella thought wryly. His white robes swirling, the man melted back into the next chamber, most likely to avoid being pulled into the beehive of activity.
Just then, Pinkerton shuffled to Bella and bent his grizzled head close to her. “Brother, heh? I thought I noted a resemblance when the lad came to the door, on the pretense of being a messenger.”
She smiled in fond exasperation at her brother, who was slurping a mug of tea brought to him by a blushing kitchen maid. “Well, I do appreciate you coming at once to fetch me. He told me he walked around London lost for a good many hours.”
She caught Miles gazing narrow-eyed at her. That look raised prickles on her skin, and she wasn’t certain if it was from an untimely attraction or apprehension over her brother. The duke ushered her into a seat opposite Cyrus and took the head of the table. As man and boy filled their plates from the platters of meat and cheeses and other foodstuffs, Bella noticed the servants had vanished, leaving them alone in the kitchen.