Harry turned away. “Watch here,” he snarled at one of his underlings. “Joshua, look in the cellar. I’ll search the kitchen. After that,” he added with relish, “we’ll begin upstairs.”
“You will not!” Gillie said stoutly. With tacit agreement, she and Bernard split up, Bernard following Joshua to the cellar, Gillie following Harry through to the kitchen, haranguing him as she went. She didn’t glance back to the shadow now standing in the salon doorway, but she knew, somehow, that it was Lord Wickenden. Her humiliation felt complete.
Until it struck her that Wickenden was one of the few people who actually knew Jack was here. It froze her tongue in her mouth for almost a second. Bernard had once called him vengeful. She’d found him forgiving, although she now knew the reason for that. Even so, her mind boggled at him exacting such a petty revenge. Surely, it was just not in his character…
Inevitably, Harry discovered the children sitting around the kitchen table while a harassed Cook tried to prepare supper.
“Ha!” Harry exclaimed in triumph, pointing to the alarmed children. “Now, what, Miss Muir?”
Cook left off stirring her sauce to waddle over and put her arms around the children who were sniveling quite impressively, although without any tears. It was clearly a role they’d played before.
“They don’t look much like smugglers to me,” Gillie retorted. “Children, are any of you called Jack?”
“Don’t try and be clever with me, Miss. They’re Jack Sugden’s brats and no mistake.”
“I know who they are.”
“Then what are they doing here?”
“Waiting for their mother. Eliza works for me.”
“Since when?” Harry scoffed.
“Since her husband vanished and left her and her children hungry!”
“Such benevolence,” Harry sneered.
“Only in part. I did feel sorry for them, especially after their house was ransacked. But we needed more staff, with all the entertaining we do. Eliza seemed the perfect solution.”
“I’ll bet you didn’t get a character reference,” Harry said with contempt.
Gillie narrowed her eyes. “I don’t need one. I’ve known Eliza all my life. Now are you finished terrifying the children and upsetting my cook?”
Harry pulled open the door to the larder, sniffed loudly, and stuck his head into the tiny back door vestibule.
“Where is Eliza Sugden, then?”
“Serving wine to our guests, I imagine,” Gillie said, “It’s what I pay her for.”
“Fetch her to me, if you’d be so good,” Harry said, striding back through the kitchen. “Tell me, Miss,” he added as they emerged back into the hallway. “If you’re so short-staffed when you entertain, why did two of your servants leave the house ten minutes ago?”
“Because I sent them to fetch Doctor Morton, if it’s any of your business.”
Harry paused and stared at her. “Jack’s wound playing up, is it?”
“I have no idea. I sent for the doctor to attend my stepmother who is currently en travail.”
“She’s what?”
“Giving birth to her child! You must see that we have our hands full here without your men tramping about the house upsetting everyone!”
Her guests had, in fact, clearly decided to help with the confusion. The watcher in the hall was surrounded by three officers of the 44th, led by Kit Grantham, while others good-naturedly blocked access to the stairs.
“No, no,” Kit was blustering. “I demand to know under what authority you dare to disrupt my friends’ home! Miss Muir is my future wife and I will not have her…”
Somehow, through the heaving confusion in the hall, a small gap had opened up, and through it, Gillie met the gaze of Lord Wickenden, who leaned negligently against the newel post at the foot of the main stairs.
But Harry, clearly no respecter of persons, began to barge his way through the obstacles in his path and Gillie hurried after him. “Do you imagine I keep smugglers under my dining table?” she demanded.
“No, but you have servants’ quarters and attics, don’t you?” Harry retorted.
“Free of smugglers as a rule,” Gillie muttered.
Harry, meanwhile, had come face-to-face with Lord Wickenden, who stood right in his path. Clearly unafraid of “Quality”, Harry met the baron’s disdainful stare, even raised his arm to push him aside. And yet for some reason, his arm fell again.
“Miss Muir,” Wickenden drawled. “Should I let this fellow pass or toss him out on his ear? My advice is the latter.”
“By all means let him pass,” Gillie said. “He is, as it were, digging his own grave. It is all matter for the letters his superiors will receive as to his conduct.”
Wickenden stood aside. “Then by all means, dig,” he said pleasantly to Harry. “We shall take notes.”
Muttering something indistinguishable–to Gillie at least, Harry barged past. Gillie followed on his heels. She glanced back across the hall once, to see Bernard and Joshua emerge from the cellar stairs. They appeared to be arguing.
“Joshua!” Harry called. “Anything?”
“No, sir. A couple of dodgy-looking barrels –.”
“They’re just old,” Bernard said impatiently. “A man can have an old barrel in his cellar, I suppose?”
“Up here, Joshua,” Harry commanded. “Go back to your party,” he snarled over his shoulder at the guests. Ignoring him, Wickenden walked silently behind Gillie. Harry glared at her. “There is no need for you to accompany me.”
“There is every need! This is my house you are invading on some presumably malicious misinformation! Who told you Jack Sugden was here?”
Harry didn’t answer. At the top of the stairs, he barged into the parlor and the little dining room, opening every cupboard door. Joshua went up the next flight of stairs with Bernard daring him to make the slightest mess of any of the bedchambers, while Harry marched purposefully on the door at the end of the first floor.
“You can’t go in there!” Gillie objected. “My stepmother is en travail!”
“So you said, ma’am,” Harry returned grimly.
Gillie allowed his instincts to be only too right. She only hoped hers were, too. If he opened that door, if Jack stood in the middle of the room being yelled at by Isabella…
With the most perfunctory of knocks, Harry wrenched at the handle. Unexpectedly, Wickenden’s hand closed over his. Harry tried and failed to wrench it free, glaring at the baron. “Get your—”
“Allow the lady to go first, for God’s sake, and make sure all is decent. What are you thinking of?”
Harry flushed and actually stood back, leaving Wickenden in possession of the handle. He pushed open the door and stood aside for Gillie.
“Isabella,” Gillie said, hurrying inside, her eyes darting. Jack was nowhere to be seen, only Dulcie holding the hand of her panting patient. “I am so sorry, dear, but this man from the Watch insists you’re hiding a smuggler in here.”
Harry had barged in right behind her and stopped dead, staring at the unmistakably genuine scene before him.
“Smuggler!” Isabella uttered, heaving herself forward on her pillows. “Smuggler?” She hurled a cushion at Harry, erupting into a torrent of Spanish before breaking off and falling back with a scream of agony.
“Get out of here, Harry Moore, you imbecile!” Dulcie hissed, From nowhere, it seemed, she seized a broom and came at him with it. “Your father would turn in his grave, but so help me your mother will hear about this outrage! Out! Out!”
Harry fled, knocking into Lord Wickenden who lounged against the doorpost, his back to the room.
“So sorry, Isabella,” Gillie muttered.
The valence moved and Jack’s head appeared from underneath it. At the same time, Eliza Sugden revealed herself inside the wardrobe. Gillie shooed them back into hiding with a wave of both hands and hurried to the door.
“Nicely done,” Wickenden breathed.
“How much d
id you see?” Gillie whispered in suspicion, closing the door behind her.
“Nothing, of course.”
Harry was charging up to the servants’ rooms from which, Gillie had to hope, Eliza had removed all traces of her husband.
“He’ll turn them upside down in frustration,” Gillie said ruefully.
“You should have let me throw him out.”
“Well, this way they’ll see the report as false and leave us alone. On that head, at least.”
“Who made the complaint?”
“They won’t say.”
“It wasn’t I, for what that’s worth.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” He stood too close to her, all but hemming her in at the doorway, and she refused to show weakness by sliding away along the wall. “Then you don’t imagine I am seeking revenge for your humiliating jilting of me for the penniless young officer?”
“I didn’t jilt you,” Gillie said calmly. “You never made me an offer of any kind. I never expected you to. If you did, it would not have been one I could accept.”
“You mean a carte blanche?” he said outrageously. “But you know, you’d have a lot more fun as my mistress than as Kit Grantham’s wife.”
Her shock was only fleeting. It seemed she understood him too well. “You are trying to provoke me,” she said calmly.
“On the contrary,” he said lazily, stretching out one hand to tip up her chin with one finger and then letting it slide down her throat. She steeled herself not to shiver, pretended to ignore his touch. “I might be trying to seduce you.”
His finger did not stop at the base of her throat although it lingered there an instant over her racing pulse before slipping further downward between her breasts to the neckline of her gown. It felt like a trail of fire, heating her whole body.
“You might be,” she managed. “But I know you aren’t.”
“What makes you think that?” he asked, as though interested, while his finger caressed, slid inside the neckline of her gown.
Breaking her paralysis at last, she seized his wrist. “Because it wasn’t Mrs. Derwent’s instruction.”
“I haven’t followed anyone’s instruction in nearly ten years.” Using her grip on his wrist, he pulled her closer and bent his head unhurriedly, closing his mouth over hers.
She gasped because her every desire was to surrender to his kiss, to lose herself in the sweet, sensual daze. And none of it was real, not for him. Her loss surged upward like a tide and her eyes, her throat, ached with tears desperate to spill.
She jerked her lips free. “I will never be your mistress,” she said shakily. “And I will marry Captain Grantham.”
He regarded her, his eyes, still so close, searching her face. “For the first, I haven’t asked you. For the second, of course you won’t. You’re only doing it to spite Lillian Derwent, and you wouldn’t ruin two lives for spite.”
She stared at him, stunned that he had seen through everything. Only vaguely did she register the footsteps climbing the stairs from below.
“Gillie?” said Kit’s voice. “Are you up here?”
“Yes,” Gillie said, breaking away from Wickenden. She pushed past him, hurrying along the hall to the staircase. But it seemed the wicked baron had stopped playing discreetly. He strolled after her.
“Is all well?” Kit asked anxiously, his gaze flickering from Gillie at the top of the stairs, to Wickenden, and widening.
“Of course. They’ve found nothing. They’re tearing the servants’ rooms apart now, and then they will have to go away. Leave them be, my lord, you have done enough. I’m going back to my guests.”
Irritatingly, Kit offered her his arm. She took it. Beneath her fingers, he felt rigid and her heart sank all over again. She wasn’t sure she could bear another lecture on propriety, not on top of everything else. But unusually, Kit was silent. Perhaps he was inhibited by the leisurely step of the baron behind them.
Downstairs, Doctor Morton had just arrived with Mattie and Danny.
“Oh thank goodness,” Gillie said, hurrying across to meet them. “I’m so glad you came, Doctor! Mattie, will you show him to Mrs. Isabella’s chamber? Danny, the Watch is rifling the servants’ quarters. Perhaps you’d keep an eye on them?”
“Damned rats!” Danny exclaimed, charging at once for the stairs. “They just waited for me to leave so you’d get no warning!”
“There, I remember the way,” Doctor Morton said, steering Mattie back toward Gillie. “I think you should look after your mistress.”
There was nothing for Gillie to do but walk as regally as she could into the salon. She just hoped no one would notice that her limbs trembled and her whole face ached with unshed tears.
Chapter Twelve
Wickenden was conscious of a rare prickle of guilt as he walked into the salon behind Gillie and Kit Grantham. He hadn’t meant to upset her. Merely, he’d taken the opportunity to prove to himself that he was right about the reasons for her sudden engagement to Kit, and to prove to her that he didn’t believe in it. He hadn’t really stopped to think of his intentions beyond that, just to end the charade. Her trembling lips had proved to him where her heart lay, and yet her distress made him feel like a cad.
Well, aren’t you? a pernicious voice whispered in his head. What are your intentions toward a gently born young lady who sets your blood on fire?
But God help him, it was more than lust. He wanted to protect her, laugh with her, walk with her…
Sensing the ultimate danger in such thoughts, he veered away, mentally and physically. Leaving Gillie and Kit talking to the elder Miss Muir, he strolled through to the smaller salon and poured himself a glass of the excellent brandy. He even raised his glass to the absent Jack, presumably still beneath the bed of an angry Spanish woman in labor.
Laughter caught in his throat. Life around Gillie was never dull.
“My lord, might I have a word?”
Wickenden blinked at the speaker who seemed to have materialized in front of him. Kit Grantham, looking stern and serious.
Wickenden sighed. “Of course.”
“It’s about Gillie. Miss Muir.”
“Indeed?” He didn’t want to have this conversation here. Or at all, really, but certainly not in her home, in public. He therefore made his expression discouragingly haughty. “I’m not sure it should be.”
Kit flushed and stepped closer. “My lord, I am aware of the agreement between you and my mother. I know you were acting on her instruction—”
Wickenden poured another glass of brandy and pushed it into Kit’s hands. “My good captain, I have done nothing whatsoever on your mother’s instructions.”
“On her plea, then,” Kit corrected impatiently.
Wickenden sipped his brandy. “Not even that. I am, alas, much too selfish. And do you know, I do not care for the tone of this discussion?”
To the credit of his courage, if not his intelligence, Kit would not back down. “I must ask you, my lord, not to distress Miss Muir by calling here.”
Wickenden sighed. “You are not in the position of choosing Miss Muir’s guests,” he pointed out.
“I am betrothed to her,” Kit said sternly.
Wickenden continued to gaze at him until he flushed and dropped his eyes, clearly aware that Wickenden knew the betrothal was false. Kit looked at his brandy glass in surprise, as if he’d forgotten it was there, and raised it to his lips.
“You’re a good friend to her,” Wickenden allowed quietly. “But you’d be a better one if you persuaded her to end this farce now.”
Kit lowered his glass, narrowing his gaze in temper. “My engagement is not your concern.”
“Very true,” Wickenden said and with the slightest of bows and would have passed on, only Kit actually caught his arm.
“Sir!” Kit said desperately.
Wickenden gazed significantly at Kit’s hand on his sleeve until the younger man hurriedly dropped it.
“Sir, I will speak,” Ki
t said urgently. “You must not come here again.”
Wickenden had had enough. “Or what?” he asked flatly.
Kit floundered. “Or I will be forced to take steps!”
“Such as?” Wickenden asked without much interest.
“Such as calling you out,” Kit blurted.
“Lower your voice, you imbecile. There will be no duel associated with her name.”
“I have any number of reasons to call you out!”
“Oh stop it,” Wickenden said tiredly.
“Then you are afraid to fight me?” Kit pounced.
Wickenden stared at him. “Terrified.”
Kit’s flush deepened. “You hold me in contempt, I gather.”
“I’m not going to fight you,” Wickenden said irritably. “Not today and not tomorrow. Read into that fear or contempt or whatever you will. Excuse me.”
Maybe Wickenden, in his distraction, handled him badly. Or maybe Kit was too desperate to prove himself Gillie’s protector, especially against the man he must suspect she cared something for. Whatever the reason, Wickenden caught the change of expression a tiny instant before Kit moved.
Wickenden’s hand shot out, seizing Captain Grantham’s wrist. The brandy slopped up the side of Kit’s glass, a few drops trickled over the top and rolled down the side. Kit withstood his gaze defiantly.
“Really?” Wickenden said softly. “Here, in her home, with the Watch on the premises?”
Kit flushed, trying to jerk free. But Wickenden wasn’t finished. “Very well, my seconds will call on you, but if you breathe a word of this to anyone else, I’ll kill you where you stand.” He smiled for the benefit of anyone who might be watching, as if this was all horse play, then released Kit’s wrist and strolled away into the larger salon.
Everyone was settling down to some more play, amidst a lot of talk, low-voiced and otherwise. This was why ladies would never attend these gatherings – save for the elderly whist fiends with the elder Miss Muir. Nobody wanted the Watch blundering in, searching for smugglers or trying to clear the house. It was a brave venture. Bernard alone could have got away with it perhaps, but not with Gillie under the same roof.
Barons, Brides, and Spies: Regency Series Starter Collection Volume Two Page 15