“’Ere we are, gov’nor,” the driver said as he threw the door open and lowered the step.
Charles exited first and flipped the driver his coin before he lifted Mrs. Huffington down. He steadied her as the coach pulled away, leaving them in the dim glow of a streetlamp. Even in the darkness, he could see the deepness of her blush. A bit late for that, was it not?
“I...I...” she stuttered. She held his arm as she steadied herself.
He grinned. He liked having the upper hand and vowed not to give it up again. “An auspicious beginning to our new arrangement, is it not?”
“I...that...shouldn’t have happened.”
“Tush! ’Twas little more than a kiss. And we’ve done that before, so nothing new at all.”
“Did...did we kiss back then? I’d forgotten.”
Her words were so patently a lie that he laughed. On the strength of that long-ago kiss, and before her aunt had invited him to tea to “talk,” he’d been eager to ask for her hand. This “kiss” had been even more powerful, but he was older and wiser now, and he’d known how to use it to his advantage. No longer a callow lad apt to challenge her, he merely smiled, evoking another telltale blush.
She turned toward her door and took an unsteady step. He gripped her arm again and walked up the steps with her. It was not his intention that she take a tumble because he’d weakened her knees. No, her next tumble, though she didn’t know it yet, would be directly into his bed.
With one hand on the door latch, she turned to him. “Mr. Hunter, I scarcely know what to say.”
“Good night will do.” He arranged the shawl around her shoulders and grinned. “Or, ‘Until tomorrow, Mr. Hunter.’”
A spark in her eyes told him that her wits had returned. “I think it should be ‘Never again, Mr. Hunter.’”
He laughed outright as he gave her a low bow and entered the street.
* * *
Around the corner and down a narrow lane, Charlie found himself deep in thought. Though he’d been loath to admit it, that “kiss” had taken a toll on him, too. One that left him barely able to stand straight.
In the coach, though, the years had slipped away the moment their lips had met and he’d been vulnerable again, young and eager to please. Everything he’d done since then, good and bad, everything he’d become, was because of that kiss. Because of Georgiana.
He hated that feeling. Hated that she could still do that to him—make him remember their long conversations and how she’d said she wanted the same things from life that he did—loving each other, learning, a family, travel, extending themselves in service to those less fortunate, growing old together. He felt he’d found the one woman in all the world who could fill his every need, and he had vowed to fill hers.
But now he knew the spell she could cast over him. Knew how deeply he wanted to possess her. And how deeply she wanted him, too. But that was physical. He could still give her that much. So he would take her. Enjoy her. But never fall prey to her wiles again.
Yes, he’d been deliberate. He’d meant to disarm her and draw her closer to him. He’d meant, in fact, to take her completely and lull her into believing he was smitten with her. But...his conscience had pricked him as deeply as a sword point. If she was innocent of the charges, he’d have a damn lot of explaining to do. But if she was guilty...oh, hell! If she was guilty, he’d want her still. As frequently as he could manage before she climbed the gallows.
He was so lost in his thoughts that he almost missed the movement in the shadows. How had he missed that he was being followed? He barely had time to prepare when, with a suddenness that kicked his heartbeat to a higher level, he was attacked.
A knife slashed across his midsection and he spun away to avoid it. When the knife became caught in his jacket, he used the momentum to gain control. Fear, followed quickly by anger, infused him, making him reckless.
His attacker made a fist of both his hands and brought them down on Charles’s shoulder, trying to drive him to the ground. His arm went numb and he dodged away, leaving nothing but air to brace the man. He went down on his knees, catching himself by throwing his arms out to break his fall.
Charles took the knife by the hilt and freed it from his jacket as he gripped a handful of the man’s hair and jerked backward. He held the knife to his throat, ignoring the throbbing in his shoulder and arm.
“Gor!” the man wheezed as he looked into Charles’s face.
Not Gibbons! Damn it all! “Who are you?” he snarled.
“Don’t matter,” the man gasped.
“What the hell do you want?”
“Uh...yer watch and coin.”
A lie if ever he’d heard one. He pressed the edge of the knife against the man’s Adam’s apple until a fine line of red appeared and a single drop trickled down the man’s neck. “Don’t lie to me if you want to live.”
The man whimpered. “Easy, gov’ner.”
“Who sent you?”
“Nobody. Just bum luck...”
He emitted a muffled shriek when Charles increased the pressure on the blade. “Give me the name.”
“He’ll kill me!”
“And I’ll kill you if you don’t.”
“Gibbons! Dick Gibbons!”
Charles slipped the knife downward, wiped the blade on the man’s jacket and released his filthy hair. Just like Gibbons to hire a street ruffian. “Go back to him and tell him to do his own dirty work. Tell him I’m waiting for him.”
The man scrambled away, half crawling and half tripping over his own feet in his haste.
Charles tossed the knife into the shrubbery and peered into the midnight mist. Anyone else? No, too quiet now. He rubbed his shoulder and continued, keeping watch this time. Two attempts in one night. The bastard was stepping up his game. He’d better find Gibbons before Gibbons found him.
Chapter Five
Georgiana slammed her bedroom door and leaned back against it as if she could hold her shame at bay. She’d sent Clara to her bed with a sweep of her hand. No more conversation tonight!
How could she have confided all her deepest fears? How could she have allowed him such liberties? How could she have cast caution and the lessons of the past to the wind?
Because it felt so good. So right.
She threw her reticule across the room and dropped her shawl where she stood. He’d bewitched her! That could be the only explanation. She’d never allowed liberties like that before, except with Gower—and that had been required because they’d been married. In bed. And he hadn’t made her feel the things that Charles Hunter had. Things that left her breathless and trembling. Craving more. She’d never suspected—never dreamed—there could be such delight. She collapsed on her bed, her knees unable to support her through the vivid memory of the unexpected passion he’d awakened in her.
Oh! And it was Charles Hunter who had taught her that. He must be laughing up his sleeve right this very minute. Or telling his friends how easily seduced she’d been. For the second time! Or plotting how he might avoid her in the future, now that he’d made a fool of her again.
Never again.
She stumbled to her dressing table and pulled the pins from her mussed hair, dropping them in a gilt pin dish. She needed to compose herself or she’d never sleep tonight. Not that she’d slept well at all since arriving in London.
She suspected she was losing her mind. Aside from the shocking incident with Mr. Hunter, there were other signs of madness. She hadn’t told him everything. In fact, she hadn’t told Mr. Renquist everything, either. They’d think she’d gone quite balmy. Perhaps they’d even think she was unhinged enough to have killed her husbands herself. She couldn’t risk that. She’d almost rather believe she was cursed than that those little things meant she’d gone insane.
There were dozens of them—those little things—her forgetfulness, the missing items she’d sworn she left here last fall, the things she’d brought with her from Kent that she could not find now, the vague uneasin
esses, the prickle of hair on the back of her neck warning that she was being watched or followed.
She might have suspected one of the new servants, but the missing items were inconsequential, really, and of little value beyond sentiment. A tortoiseshell comb, a ribbon, a brass locket she’d gotten at a country fair. Oddly, when she’d made a fuss over a small golden ring with a tiny garnet that had gone missing, the household had been in an uproar until one of the servants found it in the garden. Georgiana couldn’t imagine how it had gotten there since she had no recollection of being in the garden.
Clara said she was too high strung, that her nerves were spent and her imagination had run away with her. Furthermore, Clara informed her, grief could make a person think and do very odd things.
Like allow Charles Hunter to...
No! She would not spend another moment thinking about that! Or about him. If she had any sense at all, she’d leave London immediately. But since she could not, she would face Mr. Hunter down. Offer him impudence for impudence.
She opened the drawer of her dressing table and removed the bottle of laudanum Aunt Caroline had kept on hand to help her sleep. She hadn’t used it before, but tonight, at least, it would help her forget the news from her solicitor and her wanton behavior with Mr. Hunter. She removed the cork and took a sip, ignoring the instructions to measure the dose carefully. She couldn’t possibly be any more reckless than she’d already been.
* * *
Marcus Wycliffe heaved a world-weary sigh as he and Sir Harry Richardson sat at the small table on either side of Charles. “We searched every hole and shadow near Covent Garden. No trace. And, of course, no one saw anything. All we can say for certain is that Mrs. Huffington did not fire the shot.”
“Aye?” Charles took a deep drink from his tankard. “Well, that does not eliminate the possibility that she had help.”
Wycliffe winced. “Are you backing out?”
Charles had had time to consider that option in the hour he’d been waiting for Wycliffe and Richardson to arrive. Anger and desire mingled into a heady brew every time he thought of Georgiana Huffington. Sense told him to walk away. Something dangerous and darker urged him to continue. His darker urges were always stronger. “I’ve already made a beginning. Mrs. Huffington is unaware of the Home Office’s interest in her. Our meeting went well.”
Wycliffe quirked an eyebrow at Charles. Even through the dim tavern light, the man could be intimidating. “Went well? How well?”
Charles had no intention of telling his superior that he’d left the woman in question still trembling from his touch. She might be his assignment, but he was still discreet enough to know that some things were none of the Home Office’s business.
Richardson, however, sat back in his chair and regarded Charles with a sly grin. “Details, man. We want the details.”
“Our conversation was quite enlightening. She is shrewd enough to know how she appears to the ton. She realizes that people are talking, and she has thought ahead to the necessity of finding a palatable answer to the mystery. She has even voiced a concern that she might be next—which is something I do not think we can rule out entirely after the shooting tonight.”
Wycliffe placed his tankard on the table in front of him. “Did anything she said, no matter how subtle, lead you to believe she might be the culprit?”
“She’d be too clever for that and seems to be willing to explore even far-fetched explanations.”
“As a diversion?” Richardson suggested.
Charles had considered this possibility. Mrs. Huffington was certainly intelligent enough to attempt that sort of diversion, but he doubted she was desperate enough for that yet. For a split second, he’d thought perhaps she had set that street ruffian on him, but no. The man had confessed it was Gibbons. He shook his head. “I wouldn’t rule out the possibility, but I do not think she considers me threat enough yet to attempt the deception.”
“It’s that congenial demeanor you put forward. No one ever suspects you’re up to anything deeper than your next pleasure.”
Charles smiled at Richardson’s conclusion. “It has served me well thus far. Mrs. Huffington suspects me of nothing but passing interest. If she were guilty and suspected my intentions, she would be unlikely to risk piquing my attention. In fact, I begin to suspect you only cast suspicion on Mrs. Huffington to persuade me to take this infernal case, Wycliffe.”
Wycliffe gave him a canny grin and signaled the bar for another ale. “So do you suspect something?”
“I don’t believe in coincidence. Someone or something is behind these deaths and attacks. And I was nearly killed on my way here tonight. All these events appear to have a common thread, and that appears to be Mrs. Huffington.”
“Christ! Two attacks in one night? Someone really wants you dead. Do you think she could have hired someone? Paid someone to shoot and miss, just to misdirect suspicion? Then kill you on your way here?”
Charles thought about how close that shot had come, how open she had seemed in the coach, how truly bewildered by events. “The man tonight said Gibbons sent him. As for the incident in Covent Garden, I think we must consider the possibility that Mrs. Huffington could have been the target.”
“Who—”
Charles shrugged. “Her husbands’ families? Someone from her past? I need to know more before I can hazard a guess. I am gaining her confidence. And, should I make the proposal I am thinking of, I imagine there is a fair chance she will take it.”
“What sort of proposal?” Wycliffe asked. He lifted his fresh tankard and watched Charles over the rim.
“Why, marriage, of course.”
Richardson leaned forward, his bright blue eyes widening. “Are you mad?”
He laughed. “Aye, I suspect I am.”
Wycliffe snorted. “I’ve heard she has said she will never marry again.”
“That suits me well. I don’t mean to actually go through with the nuptials. Just propose. Lead the ton and the public at large to believe it is true.”
“To provoke an ‘accident’?”
“Exactly.”
“Will she go along with your plan?”
“I have ample reason to believe she will. She says she wants to get to the bottom of this, so it would be difficult for her to refuse my help.”
“And what if no one attacks?”
“They will. Or she will. The temptation will be too great for the killer to resist. Booth was engaged to her for mere hours before he lay dead in the street.”
“Damn it all, Charlie, I do not like this,” Richardson muttered in a low tone. “You’d be a target.”
“Have you forgotten Gibbons? I am already a target.”
Wycliffe sat back in his chair. “When do you plan to make this proposition to Mrs. Huffington?”
“Tomorrow.” Charles glanced to the establishment’s dingy window, where a faint trace of dawn lurked. “Tonight, actually. We are both invited to Thayer’s musicale, and I shall contrive to escort her home. Once we are alone, I am certain I can persuade her.”
Richardson chuckled but wisely said nothing.
Wycliffe sighed. “I do not know if you are brave or foolhardy, Hunter. Guard yourself well.”
* * *
Charles milled with the rest of the attendees at the Thayer musicale, holding a glass of wine in one hand and a small plate of pastries that had been forced upon him by his hostess in the other. He had arrived late and hadn’t been able to spot Mrs. Huffington. The soft glow of candlelit chandeliers cast moving shadows and made it difficult to recognize anyone until he was nearly upon them. But now that the performance was over, he wandered toward the dais to position himself to view the room.
The soft chords of the pianoforte carried to him as he approached. Ah, and here she was. He deposited his plate on a passing footman’s tray and paused to watch the scene. Harriett and Mrs. Huffington sat together on the bench, Mrs. Huffington with her hands poised upon the keyboard. Harriett was giving her some
sort of instruction and both were laughing.
For a moment, Charles could almost believe both women had nothing more than the next fete to worry about. Mrs. Huffington’s skin glowed as warmly as the candlelight. Her gown, sumptuous lavender-blue satin, was cut to emphasize her striking figure, and the lush swell of her breasts straining at the organdy edging of her bodice was almost more than he could bear. His mind filled with the memory of their coach ride last night—how the tight little buds teased his tongue, how she had sighed and tangled those same fingers she now placed upon the keys through his hair and held him closer.
He swallowed a gulp of wine, praying that would douse his rising hunger and other parts of his body that were also rising. Alas...
“Mr. Hunter!”
Drat. Harriett had spotted him. She smiled and waved. “Mr. Hunter! How nice to see you.”
He stepped forward and gave her his best casual smile. “And you, Miss Thayer. A thoroughly delightful presentation, by the way. Though it does not seem possible, I vow that you and your sister improve each time I hear you play.” He glanced at Mrs. Huffington and nodded. “Mrs. Huffington. I trust you are well this evening.”
Only the slightest stain of pink rose to her cheeks. “Quite, sir.”
“I was just demonstrating to Mrs. Huffington the technique for sharing a keyboard in a duet. Though she plays quite well, she is rather clumsy when trying to share the keyboard.”
Mrs. Huffington laughed. “Had I anyone to play with when I was learning, I am certain I’d be better.”
Oh, that simple phrase brought to mind all manner of possibilities. Indeed, he’d have been more than happy to play with her, to teach her, well, perhaps not the pianoforte.... He finished his wine before he could say something unforgivably crude.
Harriett glanced between him and Mrs. Huffington and stood with a meaningful smile. “I believe I have neglected my duties long enough. Now that you have someone to keep you company, Mrs. Huffington, I will excuse myself.”
Mrs. Huffington’s mouth opened as if she would object, but Charles offered his hand to help Harriett down from the platform. That done, he turned back to the object of his search and held his hand out for similar duty. “How was your day, Mrs. Huffington?”
A Daring Liaison Page 6