Secrets of the Heart

by Candace Camp

  “I cannot believe it,” Rachel said, shaking her head.

  “You just told me that he did not love her.”

  “Yes, but there is a great deal of difference between not loving a spouse and putting her to death!”

  “To begin with, we do not even know if the woman was done in and, if so, whether this chap had anything to do with it. That is why I intend to visit him.”

  “Now?” Rachel asked, rising from her chair. “I want to go with you.”

  “You? No. Absolutely not.”

  “Why not?” Rachel cried. “You said that we were going to work on it together. Surely it would be better if two people were there to judge whether this man is telling you the truth when you question him.”

  “You are talking about a man who may have killed a woman. I am not putting you in the same room with him.”

  Rachel shot him a disgusted look. “He poisoned her. I promise I will not eat or drink anything he offers me.”

  “I’m serious.”

  “So am I! What is he going to do to me with you right there? Surely he is not going to pull out pistols and shoot us both because you ask him a few questions. And if he is dangerous, two people would be better than one.”

  “Do you plan to wrestle him to the ground if he proves a danger?” he asked, raising an eyebrow pointedly.

  “If I had to, I would,” Rachel shot back. “However, if you have a small gun, I could conceal it in my reticule and use it if anything happened.”

  “I don’t know about him, but you are certainly frightening me.”

  “If you are not serious about our investigating this thing together, then I shall simply go on my own,” Rachel told him.

  “Dammit, I will not allow you to—”

  Rachel crossed her arms and looked at him, brows raised. “Excuse me? I don’t believe that there is any question of your allowing or not allowing me to do anything.”

  He set his jaw, then said grudgingly. “Of course not, Lady Westhampton. If you wish to endanger yourself, there is nothing I can do about it.”

  “I will not endanger myself,” Rachel retorted. “Don’t be foolish. I can take a footman with me. Or Anthony could accompany me.” Of course she would not do that, Rachel knew. She had no intention of seeing Anthony again because of her long-ago promise to Michael, but this man did not know it. There was no reason for him not to believe that she would carry on the investigation without him.

  His eyes flashed and he began “You will not—”

  He broke off and slammed his hand down on a nearby mahogany dropleaf table, making the array of delicate porcelain figurines on it rattle. “Bloody hell! You are the most aggravating female I have ever had the misfortune to meet.”

  “Then I presume you must have lived a life very much to yourself,” Rachel retorted amiably. She could sense that she had won the argument.

  “No one but you would suggest taking a possible murderer with you as protection.”

  “Oh, Anthony Birkshaw is no more a murderer than I am. Are we going to interview the footman or not?”

  “You cannot go dressed like that,” he protested, looking her up and down with a critical eye. “It is obvious that you are a lady. He would never talk honestly in front of you.”

  Rachel looked down at her dress, frowning. She had been rather obvious the other day in the East End, she thought, remembering the ragtag collection of children that had followed her.

  “I will get a change of clothes from my maid,” she said.

  “That will take too long. I have little desire to be trudging about with you late at night, inviting thieves—or worse—to attack us.”

  “Oh, you are just trying to be obstructive,” Rachel replied crossly.

  A grin crossed his face. “Am I succeeding?”

  “Yes. You are exceptionally good at it.”

  He sighed, giving in. “All right. You can borrow something of Lilith’s.”

  “She isn’t here. She went next door.”

  “That’s all right. I shall get a maid to find something. Lilith won’t mind.”

  Rachel was not so sure about that, but she wanted to go too much to protest. Hobson rang for Lilith’s maid and explained what he wanted, so the maid led Rachel upstairs to Lilith’s room and after the woman sorted through the dresses in her mistress’s wardrobe for a while, she brought out two, one bright red and the other an equally vivid peacock blue. Rachel, feeling daring, chose the scarlet one and let the maid help her out of her own dress and into that one.

  She inspected herself in the mirror, feeling a mixture of delight and trepidation. It was not a dress any lady would wear. The low-cut top exposed more of her breasts than anything Rachel had ever worn, and the fact that Lilith was slightly smaller than herself meant that the material was stretched tautly across them. But the vivid color sang against her coloring, and excitement made her eyes sparkle and her face glow, and she looked, she thought, more dashing than she ever had before.

  Rachel left the room and descended the stairs, her nerves jumping a little as she wondered what James’s reaction would be. She had her answer soon enough in the way his eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he looked up at her from the bottom of the stairs. He drew a quick breath, then opened his mouth and immediately shut it.

  “I can see I shall have my work cut out for me if I am to keep you safe in that,” was all he said.

  But Rachel had seen the fire that had lit up in his eyes when he saw her, and the tightening of his face. She knew as surely as she knew anything that he wanted her. The rather frightening thing was the fact that his obvious hunger had awakened a similar response deep inside her. Feeling rather too warm and breathless, Rachel gripped the stair rail and continued down the last few steps to the bottom of the stairs.

  They stood for a moment facing each other. His eyes went to her mouth, and Rachel wondered if he was going to kiss her. She knew, guiltily, that she wanted him to.

  He cleared his throat and called up the stairs to Lilith’s maid, “Fetch us one of Mrs. Neeley’s cloaks, too.”

  Rachel said nothing, merely raised a sardonic eyebrow at him. His fair skin colored a little, and he stepped back, turning away from her to the door. “I am going to get us a cab while she does that.”

  He stepped out and started down the three steps leading to the street. Rachel walked over to the door to look out after him. Just as he reached the street, there was a sharp crack, something hit the stone steps in front of Rachel, sending up a spurt of stone dust, and James spun half around and fell.

  CHAPTER 13

  Rachel let out a shriek and ran toward him.

  “No! Go back!” Hobson stumbled to his feet, clutching his arm, and started up the steps.

  Rachel ignored his words and met him, grabbing his unhurt arm with both hands, and pulled him with her back up the stairs and into the house. Slamming the door with her foot, she helped him over to the stairs, where he sank down onto the bottom riser. He was still clutching his arm with his other hand, and he looked down at it now. Red was seeping through the sleeve of his jacket.

  Rachel’s eyes followed his, and she swallowed, feeling suddenly queasy. “Oh. Oh, my.”

  She sat down quickly on the step beside him and rested her head on her hands, elbows propped on her knees. “You have been shot, haven’t you?” she managed to say.

  “It appears so.”

  “Why? Who?”

  “I have no idea. Here, help me out of my jacket.”

  “But—”

  “Rachel—”

  “All right. You’re right. That’s not important right now.” She took a deep breath, then gingerly took hold of the lapels of his jacket. She eased the coat back off his shoulders, but her care did not keep him from sucking in his breath sharply and later emitting a soft groan. Finally she got the jacket off his good shoulder and managed to gently tug the other sleeve slowly down from his wounded arm. The shirt underneath looked even worse, much of the arm soaked red with blood, and w
ith a dark hole in it where the ball had gone in.

  “Let’s cut off that sleeve,” Rachel suggested quickly. “Come on. Where is the study?”

  He nodded toward the rear of the house, and she took his good arm and helped him to his feet. They made their way down the center hall to a room on the left, a small study.

  “There’s liquor in that cabinet,” Hobson said, nodding toward a chest-high mahogany cabinet.

  Rachel hurried over to it and pulled out a decanter of brown liquid and a glass, and brought them back to the desk, where Hobson sat on the edge, legs braced against the floor. She poured a half glass of whiskey, her hands trembling so that crystal clanked against crystal. She handed the drink to Hobson, who took a large swallow.

  “Scissors,” he said, pointing to the top desk drawer.

  Rachel opened the drawer and pulled out the scissors, then turned back and began to carefully cut away the sleeve at the shoulder. She peeled the sleeve downward, having to tug a little where it was stuck to the wound. Hobson winced but said nothing, and she pulled it the rest of the way off, exposing the raw, bloody wound.

  She reached over and took the glass from his hand, downing a quick gulp. Rachel let out a gasp as the fiery liquid tore down her throat and crashed in her stomach, making her eyes water. Hobson let out a soft laugh at her expression and took back the glass.

  “Can you see the back of my arm?” he asked. “Did it go all the way through?”

  Carefully Rachel craned her head around to look at the opposite side of his arm, where there was, indeed, another hole in his flesh. “Yes. It looks like it went through. I’ll send one of the servants for a doctor.”

  “No. Never mind that. I don’t need one if the ball is gone. We’ll just clean the wound.”

  Rachel suppressed a small moan at that thought. “I really don’t think—”

  She straightened, squaring her shoulders. She was not going to give way to useless ladylike vapors now. “All right.”

  He finished off the glass, and she poured him another long drink of whiskey, then rang for the maid and requested water and rags. Hobson continued to drink as she got together her supplies, then began to carefully dab at the wound with a wet cloth.

  He drew in his breath in a hiss, and Rachel stopped, looking at him uncertainly. “Shall I stop?”

  He shook his head. “No. Go on. Just ignore me and get it done.” He swallowed another stiff gulp of whiskey.

  Rachel did her best to follow his advice and ignore him as she gently washed away the blood from the wound. But it was difficult to do when she was standing so close to him. It was very unusual for her to be this close to a man, even her own husband; she could smell the whiskey on his breath and feel the warmth of his body. When he turned his head and looked straight into her eyes, she was suddenly breathless.

  “You are so beautiful,” he murmured, his voice slurred.

  “And you are drunk,” she responded tartly, ignoring the little quiver in her abdomen.

  He chuckled, his eyes crinkling up in a way that struck her as charming. It was absurd, she thought, that he was flirting with her when he was sitting there with a hole in his arm.

  “You need to pour some of this whiskey on the wound,” he told her.

  “What? Are you mad? I will not! That will burn horribly.”

  “I know. And while I am grateful for your concern, it is what you must do. It will help.”

  Rachel looked at him for a long moment, then sighed and nodded her head. “Clearly this sort of thing is quite commonplace for you.”

  Holding a cloth beneath his arm, she lifted it with one hand and poured whiskey directly on the wound. He made a muffled sound and stiffened all over, and Rachel glanced at him anxiously. His face had paled considerably.

  “Are you all right?” she whispered.

  He opened his eyes and looked at her. Humor glinted in his gaze. “Why are we whispering?” he whispered back.

  “I don’t know,” she said aloud, releasing his arm with an exasperated noise. “I was afraid I had hurt you. But I can see that nothing would do that.”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “I would indeed.”

  Rachel pressed a small pad to each side of his wound and began to wrap a long strip of linen around them. “Do you think someone shot you because of your investigating this—Mrs. Birkshaw’s death, I mean?”

  “I have no idea. There have been other things I have been working on. And there are people who don’t like me from the past.”

  “You know, someone told Michael that he should be careful, that someone didn’t like what he was doing. Of course, it was really you he was talking about. I should have told you: I didn’t think about it.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t worry. A man can hardly guard against a man lying in wait and firing at you when you come out the front door.” He paused, then added, with a touch of humor, “However, I do believe that, in the future, I will exit by the rear door.”

  “Did you see them?”

  He shook his head. “No. There was no one directly across the street from me. They were hidden from sight. I—I think the shot came from above, perhaps from the building facing this or even on its roof.” He glanced down at his wounded arm, where she was now tying a neat knot in the ends of the bandage. “What was the path of the bullet? It came out below where it entered, didn’t it?”

  “Yes. Oh, I see. That means they must have fired down on you.”

  Picking up the scissors, she snipped off the ends of the bandage and tucked them neatly in. “There. You are done.”

  She started to step back, but he wrapped his other hand around her wrist and held her in place. “Thank you.”

  Rachel looked into his face. The laughter was gone now, his gray eyes serious. “You’re welcome.”

  He released her wrist, raising his hand to her face and gliding his knuckles lightly over her cheek. “You were very gentle.”

  “I—I tried to be.” Rachel’s flesh tingled where he touched it, and she could feel heat suffusing her cheeks.

  His eyes dropped to her lips, then traveled downward to the swell of her creamy breasts above the blazing red dress. He traced her upper lip with his forefinger, then trailed his fingers down along her throat, following the path his eyes had taken, until they came to rest on the quivering white top of her breast.

  Rachel shivered. Every inch of her was blazingly alive. She could not tear her eyes away from his. And much as she tried, she could not regulate her breath, which came faster and harder. His hand curved over the satiny skin and slid slowly across her chest to the other breast. A shudder ran through Rachel.

  “This—you—” she began, unable to bring out a coherent thought. “I—I am married.”

  “Your husband does not deserve you,” he told her hoarsely, watching his hand as it caressed the tops of her breasts and spread out over her chest.

  “He—yes, of course he—he is a very worthy man.” Rachel was finding it hard to think, her brain was so bombarded with the pleasant sensations he was creating.

  “He does not satisfy you,” he went on, his voice rough. “I can tell. You have the look of a woman who—” his fingers slipped down beneath the top of her dress, caressing the soft skin and coming to rest upon the hard button of her nipple “—does not belong to a man.”

  A small noise escaped Rachel at the touch of his finger, faintly roughened, on the sensitive flesh of her nipple. She had never felt anything so daring, so ungentlemanly and…Her teeth sank into her lower lip as his finger began to move on the bud.

  She closed her eyes in pleasure, and her hands tightened into fists at her sides.

  Michael watched her, shaken himself by the clear desire on her face. Impatiently, he shoved the neckline of the dress down and cupped her breast in his hand. A shudder ran through Rachel, and she swayed a little. Gently he squeezed the soft orb, his thumb tracing her nipple, now hard and pointing.

  He was vaguely aware that he was very drun
k and that he would probably regret this in the morning, but right now he did not care. The woman he had yearned for for years was in front of him now, enjoying his intimate caresses, and he had no desire to stop. He was not sure he even could stop. At the moment he did not care if Rachel was enjoying the caresses of another man in her mind. All he wanted was to taste her.

  He bent and brushed his lips against hers. She drew in a little breath of surprise, but then her arms were sliding around his neck and she was kissing him back, her soft lips pressing into his, her mouth opening gently, naturally. With a groan, he wrapped his arm around her back, pulling her up into him, pressing her body flush against his.

  Desire roared through Rachel, stunning her. She had never before felt the force of it, the driving need that pushed aside all else. Her thoughts scattered, and she knew only the hunger, the eagerness that burgeoned inside her. She clung tightly to him, kissing him back, her tongue twining eagerly with his. Her breasts felt tender and swollen, aching for the feel of his hands again. She moaned deep in her throat, rubbing her body instinctively against him.

  His groan acknowledged her movement, and his arm slid down her back to her hips, pressing them into him. She could feel him hard and pulsing against her, and his hand caressing the curve of her buttocks aroused her even more. There was an ache deep in her abdomen, a blossoming of moist heat between her legs. The things that her mother had related to her years ago of what a man did to a woman seemed not frightening at all at this moment, only exciting and desirable. The ache inside her wanted filling, completion, wanted…him.

  His hand went to the back of her dress, fumbling with the buttons, handicapped by the present uselessness of his wounded arm. Instinctively he started to move his wounded arm up to help, but he was stopped by an immediate and fiery stab of pain. He continued working at the buttons with one hand, but given his state of inebriation and his lack of practice at using just one hand, he moved slowly and clumsily.

  Rachel stepped back, moving her hands behind her to help him with the buttons, but that act disconnected her from the moment, bringing her with a crash back to reality. They were in the study of Lilith Neeley’s house, and she was about to give herself to James Hobson!