But at her side, Hugo wasn’t looking out to sea anymore. He was looking at her, and not as if he was trying to find where she ended and the sand began. He looked at her as if . . . as if looking at her was the purpose of this moment.
She had been searching for a purpose, hadn’t she?
She reached for his hand, trapping his stronger fingers in hers. When he sat up, looking a question at her, she took a deep breath—and quickly, before she could doubt herself, she dove over the little building of sand and pressed a kiss to his lips. It was graceless, hard and fierce and consuming, and she had never felt anything more deeply than the crush of her lips against his mouth.
That was that. She had done it. There was no going back; no pretending that she hadn’t wanted this since the first time he’d offered her a shoulder and told her he wanted her to be safe.
He was warm, shockingly so. The sensation of another person’s lips against her own was so heart-thuddingly sweet that she didn’t realize at once that he wasn’t kissing her back.
But he wasn’t kissing her back, and he tugged his hand free of hers, and the awareness of her own foolishness bled away the heat and the pleasure.
She sank back. Pulled away. Looked down. “I shouldn’t have—”
Then he pressed forward, and his hands were in her hair, weaving through the pinned-up lengths and pulling them loose. He pulled her close, closer, into his lap, and fit his mouth to hers with a determination that left her breathless and startled.
Lord Hugo Starling did nothing by half measures, and once he decided he wanted to kiss a woman, he made sure she was kissed soundly. And oh, now he was kissing her. Not just kissing her back, but kissing her with a fire that she’d not known how to light. He held her to him, her hair, her shoulders, her waist, as if he were as eager for her as she’d been for him. As if this kiss had been waiting like the castle, unknown but familiar, ready for discovery.
So she discovered him: the line of his cheekbone, the slash of his brow, seen so often but never touched. The taste of his mouth, all heat and wine, and the shoulders that seemed broad enough to bear anything. He was in her hands, and she in his, and their mouths clashed. They always clashed; they loved to clash.
When they paused, both breathing quick and ragged, Georgette gasped, “I’m only kissing you because you begged me to.”
He smiled, looking deep and true into her eyes. “I don’t care why, as long as you don’t stop.”
“I won’t stop.”
After a while, a light mist began to chill the air. Hugo shrugged free of his greatcoat and draped it over them both, and there on the sand they kept each other warm.
Chapter Eleven
The following morning, Hugo knocked at the door of Jenks’s chamber.
“One moment,” came the muffled call. When the Runner flung the door open, he was wiping at his chin with a cloth, as if he’d just finished shaving. “Mr. Crowe,” he said upon spotting Hugo. “What is it?”
“I wanted to let you know, Miss Linton is currently being established in a bedchamber on the floor below. Mrs. Crowe and a maid are seeing to her comfort.”
“And why did you take it on yourself to let me know?” The Runner lowered the cloth, twisting it tight in his fists.
“Pure kindness? You seem the sort of person who likes to know who’s in a building with him.”
“That’s all? Not trying to distract me from other happenings hereabouts?”
Hugo’s blink must have looked sufficiently mystified, for Jenks slung his facecloth over one arm. “Right you are, then. I’ll be ready to speak to Miss Linton in a few minutes.”
Hugo shot out an arm, catching Jenks before he could shut the door between them again. “Wait. Please. Mr. Jenks—she is staying here because it is not safe for her to stay with Mr. Keeling anymore. She was imposed upon.”
“I wouldn’t put the matter so politely.” Jenks turned in the doorway to toss his facecloth onto the bed in his chamber. Around him, Hugo saw a Spartan room, with plain wood furniture and a small glass and washstand. It suited Jenks’s brusque manner, though Hugo suspected it had been intended by Sir Frederic as insult. Jenks had been packed off to a servant’s room, it looked like, rather than a comfortable guest chamber.
No matter. Soon enough, they’d all be on their way, and back in London, Sir Frederic would be a genial host only in Hugo’s memory.
The thought of returning to London was not as pleasant as it had been a week earlier.
“That’s why I need to question her,” Jenks added. “One form of lawbreaking is often connected to another. If Keeling gave her some gold for—how’d you put it? Imposing on her? Then I wonder to whom else he’s given gold. And why.”
The bit of gold from Keeling felt heavy in Hugo’s waistcoat pocket. “I couldn’t say.”
“Couldn’t you?” Jenks shut the chamber door behind him. “You heard about the scorched chests north of Doncaster, didn’t you? The ones from the Royal Mint?”
“Yes. My—wife followed the story eagerly when she could find a newspaper.”
As they began walking down the corridor, Jenks looked at him wryly. Hugo could almost hear his thoughts. Keeping up the wife charade, are you? “I imagine that she did. Did you hear there was a body found buried by them?”
“No, I haven’t seen a newspaper since—wait, what? A body? A human body?”
“Discovered two days ago. Got the express an hour ago. And when an express comes on a Sunday, it’s a matter of life or death.”
In this case, the latter. A chill prickle raced down Hugo’s spine. “That’s bad news. Will there be an inquest? Have you need of me to give medical testimony?”
“No need for a doctor to testify. The body was too burned to tell more than that it had belonged to a man.”
The imagination revolted from the picture thus raised. “My sympathies to the fellow, and to the fellow who found him. That had to be a terrible discovery.”
“Doubtless it was.”
Jenks was a master of the too-long silence. The corridor stretched endlessly before them, the escape of the main staircase far away. And in Hugo’s pocket was a bit of gold from Keeling.
And near Doncaster, a man had been killed for three chests of coins.
That decided it. “Look.” Hugo stopped walking, then drew forth from his pocket the bit of gold Keeling had given him. “I want you to have this. No amount of metal is worth a life.”
At the sight of the gleaming bit in Hugo’s palm, Jenks froze. “So I’ve thought from the beginning. Rare is the person who agrees with me, Mr. Crowe.”
“I’m a doctor,” Hugo said, knowing the reply was inadequate. I have human feeling would have been more to the point. “If this is a clue that will help you solve the murder or the theft, then it’s yours.”
“Who gave it to you?”
Despite the terse words, the man displayed no expression. Clothing, face, hair—he was determinedly nondescript, so as to fade from the memory of those he questioned. A good tool for a Runner.
Hugo weighed his response, tipping his palm so the blob of gold rolled back and forth. A petty urge to deny Jenks the information seized him. The Runner had complicated Hugo’s journey north to an annoying degree, forcing him and Georgette to pose as a married couple.
Although that part had not been as difficult as it had first seemed. Truly, it wasn’t bad at all. Except for the fantasies of home and hearth and bed that had begun to seize Hugo’s imagination, crowding out his determination to adhere to his plan.
Georgette Frost was hell on a plan.
But. In favor of telling Jenks the truth was the burned body in Doncaster. The bullet wound in Keeling’s side. Perhaps a week healed, it was too recent to date from the theft at the Royal Mint a month previous. But could it have come from a man ambushed near Doncaster, who had been killed for his rich cargo?
Then there was the weeping Miss Linton, paid in gold by a man who had raped her—or at the very least, coerced her in a despera
te moment.
That settled it. Hugo held out the gold. “The hind Keeling gave it to me yesterday in payment for his medical treatment.”
Jenks extended a palm. When Hugo dropped the gold into it, he squinted at it. “Must have been the devil of a treatment. Did you build him a new leg out of clockwork?”
“Hardly.” Hugo wiped his hands with a handkerchief, not wanting to remember the feeling of the gold in his palm. “I believe he was trying to buy my silence.”
“Didn’t work, then.” Jenks looked up from the bit of gold, considering. “What’s the price of your silence? It comes dear, if gold isn’t enough.”
Hugo tucked away his handkerchief. “Not particularly. My words are free to the right listener.”
“Hmm.” Jenks pocketed the gold, then walked on. When they reached the end of the corridor, the hall’s great staircase before them now, Jenks halted. “You and your . . . wife . . . vanished yesterday.”
“Nothing and no one can vanish. That violates the law of conservation of mass,” Hugo replied. “And are you expressing a suspicion of me? I handed over gold to you, Mr. Jenks.”
“Suspicion is my line of work. Just as treating people is yours.”
“Fair enough,” Hugo said. “Though I was intended for the clergy. Wouldn’t you feel dreadful about suspecting a man of the cloth?”
“No,” Jenks said. “But then, you might say the rule of law is in my blood.”
“Is it? Then I hope you have a pleasant time with your suspicions,” Hugo said to Jenks. “Pardon me, but that’s all I need to speak with you about at the moment. I must be off.”
The Runner would not move from the center of the staircase. “To where?”
“To treat the blacksmith. Mr. Lowe had all the toes on his left foot off yesterday and I want to check on his wound.”
“I’ll come with you.” Jenks stepped aside.
Giving him the bit of gold had been the right thing to do. Hugo knew that. And yet a small part of him wished he’d tossed it to Jenks over one shoulder and walked away, whistling.
He settled for asking, “Have you any experience at caring for amputations?”
“No. But I won’t be looking at feet. I’m looking for another clue.” Jenks followed Hugo down the stairs, a fine wide sweep that grew more ornate with each story nearer the ground. “Lawbreakers don’t respect the Lord’s Day. I can’t afford to either.”
With the Runner trailing him like a substantial shadow, Hugo went into the parlor where he’d treated patients the previous day and collected a bag full of medical supplies. “So you’re going to call on Keeling?”
“On Lowe. If the gold you gave me was once a sovereign, it must have been melted by a blacksmith. I’ve only circumstantial evidence thus far. I need proof to make an arrest.”
“But Lowe’s toes were cru—”
“Maybe he needed convincing.”
“What a dark place your mind is.” Hugo hesitated over an empty glass vial, then added it to the leather bag as well. The boy who’d shown such interest in medical workings the day before was, he thought, a son of Lowe’s. There might be time to teach him another compound or two. “And who do you suppose convinced him so violently? Am I saving Mr. Lowe’s life only for you to cart him off to the gallows?”
“That depends on what I find,” said Jenks. “And whether you save his life.”
“Oh, I’ll save it.” He glanced over the supplies remaining on the tea tables. Ah, there was the honey Georgette had used to make a tea for the little boy. Honey had healing properties on wounds. He added that to the bag as well.
“We’re not making a cake, Mr. Crowe,” said Jenks. “Let’s be off.”
“If you wish,” Hugo replied. “As soon as I fetch Mrs. Crowe to join us.” For somehow in the last day—or the last week, or even longer—it had become impossible for him to think of setting off somewhere new without Georgette.
* * *
It was raining as they wound through Sir Frederic’s land, the sort of light rain that turned the fields soft and pliant and melted footpaths into mud. Georgette crowded close to Hugo under an umbrella, mindful of Jenks under a second umbrella a few paces behind. For his sake, she must act married; for hers, not too married, lest she dwell on the incendiary kisses of the previous day and take them to heart.
It was the sort of muddle that could drive a woman mad—or fire her imagination.
Georgette was more prone to the latter.
The smell of damp earth filled the air. At a distance, bondagers passed here and there. They all wore the same sort of garments, and it was impossible to tell one from another. What were they doing, huddled in the cold mist of a June Sunday morning? Walking to or from church? Paying calls on one another? Compared to them, Georgette was dressed impractically, her boots not stout enough and her skirts trailing in the dirt of the path. She held them up, fabric bunched in one fist, wondering what place in England she might belong.
Linton was now settled in Raeburn Hall, a process that had involved much fuss from Sir Frederic and argument from Keeling. In quick snippets as they walked, Hugo told Georgette of his conversation with Jenks. The body, the gold, the wide-cast suspicions.
“I am glad you gave the gold to Jenks,” she had answered, and he looked relieved.
It had been his own, his payment for doing his work well. He ought to do what he thought right with it. And when one thought about the blood being shed for the stolen money—the treasure hunt lost its playful glint and took on a darker cast.
The darkness clung to Linton, too. Georgette had been struck by the woman’s youth, and by her dreadful fatigue. She was no more than nineteen, and living on the edge of poverty. Had Georgette been, as the Duchess of Willingham might say, less fortunate in her friends, she could easily have found herself in similar straits.
Hugo had asked Georgette what her purpose was, and she’d answered that it was finding stolen sovereigns. It had not been an adequate response then; since meeting Linton, it seemed even less so.
If she claimed the Royal Mint’s reward—and if she did not—she needed something more to do than exist.
They passed a number of cottages as they walked, all as similar as the garb of the bondagers. Each dwelling was stone-walled and small, with roofs of neat thatch. Flocks of sheep milled haphazardly, corralled into an order known only to the dogs that sometimes barked and herded them.
The innocent wanderings of the animals were pleasant to look on. She hadn’t realized her steps had slowed until Hugo asked, “Shall we pause so you can pet a sheep? That is not a euphemism.”
She welcomed the moment of lightness. “Alas, it never is.” She eyed the soft ground away from the path. “No, I don’t want to pet a sheep at the moment. But you go on if you’ve the urge. I’ll hold the umbrella.”
With a laugh, he declined.
Soon enough, they reached what was clearly the blacksmith’s cottage, for a forge of the same native stone stood nearby. With a steeply pitched roof and a stout brick chimney, the forge dwarfed the low-slung cottage. The smith’s workshop was silent for now, but Georgette could imagine it belching coke smoke, sounding with the ring of a hammer against metal.
Once Mr. Lowe got back onto his feet. Literally.
“I’ll be off,” said Jenks. He peeled away, trudging across the foot-worn ground to the entrance of the forge.
Right. He was looking for clues, not paying a call of goodwill.
She followed Hugo to the cottage, the door of which was opened as soon as they drew near. Mrs. Lowe stood there, pretty and frazzled, with circles of exhaustion under her eyes. “Eee, it’s champion to see you, Doctor. Missus. The mister is as bad as a bairn, blathering all the day and night.”
“Is he in pain?” Hugo asked.
“Mebbe yes, but mostly he seems mor’al happy to have his toes off, like. Can’t wait to be back on his feet.”
She welcomed them into the cottage, a long partitioned room with a clay floor. A trestle table ran d
own its center. To one end of the space, a fire pumped merry heat into the room, and a pot of something savory hung over it, bubbling. Baskets of potatoes and apples were ranged around it, and onions hung from the ceiling in a rope, their leafy tops dried and plaited. A little girl and little boy banged and drummed on an empty pot with a wooden spoon, shrieking their delight. A sheepdog and thin orange tabby wound around Mrs. Lowe’s legs, barking and yowling.
“If Mr. Lowe is this loud, I pity his wife,” Georgette murmured to Hugo.
Mrs. Lowe directed Hugo and Georgette behind the partition, where the blacksmith lay on a bed atop a neat patchwork quilt. The couple’s eldest, the curious boy who had asked so many questions of Hugo the day before, sat at the edge of the bed.
“Doctor! Nurse!” He hopped to his feet at once.
Nurse? Georgette had never thought to be called such a thing. She turned it over in her mind, liking the sound of it. “How are you?” she asked. “And how is the patient?”
“Im-patient,” joked the blacksmith. He hoisted himself onto his elbows, propping himself up against the wall. “Ready to get back to work. A man’s got to make a living.”
“Let’s have a look, then,” said Hugo. Setting down his bag, he bent over the heavily bandaged foot and began to undo the dressing.
As the boy craned in closer, eager to see, Georgette crouched over the bag. She unclasped it and looked idly through the contents. Anything to look busy and not see the poor blacksmith’s wound.
Although—maybe it wasn’t that bad? There was no screaming, no fainting when the bandage fell to the floor. “It is healing well,” Hugo said. “I believe the worst of the pain will be over within a week.”
“Chopped off many toes, have you?” said Lowe.
“I haven’t taken off many toes,” said Hugo. “But I’m a fiend with fingers. Can’t stop slicing them off.”
Lowe guffawed. His son, voice on the edge of dropping, laughed in a rough crackle.
“Men,” muttered Georgette. She ventured a peek at the blacksmith’s foot. If she were to be a nurse—at least for today—she couldn’t shy from anything. She peeked up to see Hugo’s handiwork.
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