Any Wicked Thing

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Any Wicked Thing Page 24

by Margaret Rowe


  “And if I do?”

  “I won’t sell you the damned castle, Freddie. I’ll sell it to Cam instead. And you’ll have wasted a few days on your back for nothing.” He slammed the garden door behind him.

  And it had been only a few days, yet Frederica’s entire life had changed. There were three weeks more to go. How could she pretend that everything was the same between them? Sebastian was angrier with her than he had been ten years ago, which was saying something. She should have withered under his glare, but all she wanted to do was cup his face and kiss him.

  She picked herself up off the cold floor. She could not sit idly by supervising their dig—she’d probably not made sense of the earl’s diary anyway. It was a pity that Mr. Ryder had only a copy—it was always better to read source material in its original form. A person’s handwriting could reveal so much. The transcriber could have altered the odd word here and there, completely subverting the earl’s intention. She may as well return to the library and start from the beginning.

  Anything to keep her mind off Sebastian, and what would happen when he left her again.

  Chapter 32

  Sometimes I wish Cam would just shut up.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF SEBASTIAN GODDARD, DUKE OF ROXBURY

  Cam leaned on his shovel. “I wish I had some work gloves. Is she all right?”

  Sebastian shoved his own filthy hands in his pockets and headed for the shaded bench instead of the herb bed. He knew he should just work out his anger by digging, but Cam would pick at him until he had the truth. “No. She’s rather shocked at the condition of our backs, if you must know.”

  “So she’s disgusted? She’s not the woman for you, then.”

  “I never said she was the woman for me! Stop playing matchmaker.”

  Cam dropped his shovel and joined him under the tree. He fished a handkerchief out and wiped the sweat from his neck. “You really need to tell her. You’ll feel better.”

  “Don’t go lecturing me! Freddie used to be my friend, but all that ended ten years ago.”

  “How old was she then? Fifteen? How long will you punish her for losing her head over you? You must have been an elegant stripling.”

  Sebastian had never divulged the consummation to Cam, whether out of a foolish sense of chivalry for Freddie or plain revulsion, he did not know. But the entrance of their fathers—that had been gone over in minute detail. Ultimately, he was able to laugh over it, but it still remained one of the most ghastly experiences of his life. “I told you. She’s twenty-eight now. At eighteen, most girls are married. Freddie was out to snare me. She knew what she was doing.”

  Or did she? Alcohol was almost like a poison to her. It fogged the clearest of heads taken to excess, but it seemed Freddie didn’t need much for the fog bank to roll in with a vengeance.

  “Well, she didn’t catch you, did she? Your father was looking out for the succession.”

  And how hypocritical that he didn’t think Freddie was good enough. She was from a respectable gentry family, though they had fallen on times hard enough for her father to seek employment as the duke’s secretary. Phillip Goddard and Joseph Wells had met as schoolboys, and had carried on their forbidden love all that time. Sebastian’s letters from his father had been impassioned with explanations. By the time Sebastian understood, it was too late.

  A stray honeybee buzzed around them. Cam shooed it away with his handkerchief. The garden was quiet until he spoke again. “When are you getting married, anyway?”

  Sebastian pictured himself before an altar, a strange young girl at his side. A strange young rich girl. He felt the bleak reality of it. “I don’t hold out much hope for that.”

  “Nonsense. Turn up in London for the Little Season in September and you’ll be married by the end of it in November. You’ll have a bit of blunt from the sale of the castle and can afford to visit your tailor. A few Wednesdays at Almack’s in knee breeches—the parson’s mouse-trap is a fait accompli. You’re a duke, Sebastian.”

  “A poor one. And I’m not normal anymore.”

  “What’s this? You’ve never been shy about your predilections. Surely you can convince some sweet young thing to don a gag and endure a light caning for the privilege of becoming the ninth Duke of Roxbury’s mother.”

  “Don’t joke. And it hasn’t come quite to that. I’m not cruel. I would never be, not after what we went through.”

  Suddenly the garden seemed alive with sounds—the chirp of birds, the beating of butterfly wings, the rustle of leaves overhead. Sebastian studied the dappled shadows on his breeches, remembering darker play of light, when he longed to close his eyes but was forced to keep them open, the better to concede his subjugation.

  Cam understood. “You feel the shame of it still, don’t you? You needn’t.”

  Sebastian suppressed his urge to stalk off through the garden gate and get lost on the moors. “I still dream of it. As my father’s son, it’s a bit ironic, don’t you think? I spent half my life trying to prove I was all man, only to find myself—” His throat closed. He could not continue.

  “I said last night that I was not my father. Nor are you. You did what you had to to survive.”

  “And came to enjoy it,” Sebastian said, tasting the bitter truth of his words.

  “We are naught but animals, no matter how we try to deny it. Should you have killed yourself over something that was really so inconsequential?”

  “At first I thought I would go mad,” he whispered. But the whippings and the balm of opium quickly focused him on the tasks ahead. There was no time for drama or tearing at his shirt. The shirt was long gone in any event.

  Cam patted his shoulder. “But you did not, and we made do. I admit I got the better end of the bargain. Unfair, when I am a bastard and you were a marquess. Too bad you revealed that little tidbit. I believe it gave our captor even more glee to debase you.”

  Cam and he had been in no ordinary, government-run jail, although that might have been hell as well. As “guests” of an influential relative of Viceroy Muhammad Ali, they had gone to Akhom Ali to have him help broker a business deal with the governor. They wanted permission to excavate a sand-buried settlement and remove what Cam deemed saleable to his network of Egyptian artifact collectors. They’d been foolish enough to think that promising a share of the treasure to the viceroy and his cousin would ease their way. Sebastian and Cam had drunk wine from Akhom Ali’s vineyard, ate a feast from his table as his “honored English visitors.” The next they knew, they were tied up and beaten until they provided his entertainment.

  The man’s only daughter had been victimized by the notorious Henry Kipp, and it seemed Sebastian and Cam were substitutes for his revenge. Because Sebastian had the misfortune of previously working with Kipp, he received the brunt of the punishment.

  But he had not fared worse than Akhom Ali’s daughter. Her father had killed her for bringing shame upon the family. That act had unleashed his every sadistic impulse. Ali was unhinged and unrepentant in the creative torture he devised for his two Englishmen. It was a wonder they emerged with their offensive male equipment still attached.

  Of course, that had been a constant threat. What they had been obligated to do with said equipment was bad enough.

  “Maybe we’ll find your father’s stash and I won’t need to marry for money after all,” Sebastian said, yanking the discussion back to something slightly more palatable.

  “Not at the rate we’re going. From the composition of the soil, I don’t think it’s been disturbed to do any more than insert catnip plants into the upper layer. It’s packed and solid as iron. Where are the castle’s cats, anyway? They’d have a field day with the mess we’ve made.”

  “My father never kept animals, save for the odd horse. As a boy, I wanted a dog in the worst way.”

  “There must have been kennels here once, judging from the old earl’s portrait. All those adoring spaniels at his feet.”

  “If there ever were, they’re rubble n
ow. Really, Cam, you know a week won’t be long enough to find anything, if there’s anything to find. The property’s more than a thousand acres. Archibald could have buried the gold on any one of them.”

  “Why all the notations on the castle and the gardens? No, I’ve got a hunch. I’m hardly ever wrong.”

  It was true. Cam seemed to have a knack for turning up valuables in a rubbish tip. He’d earned his reputation as a treasure hunter. Sebastian wondered what they would have found had they been allowed to dig in Egypt, but once they escaped, they didn’t wait around to find out.

  “Who’s that fellow?”

  Young Kenny was standing at the castle door, his horror over the destruction they’d wrought around it almost comical.

  “It’s all right, Kenny. We just wanted to tidy up the garden.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “You’re welcome to help us put the plants back if you like. We got a little carried away.”

  “Catmint’s good for tea. And headaches. I was coming out to get some for Miss Frederica.”

  “That’s thoughtful of you. Is she still feeling poorly?” Sebastian asked, trying to be friendly.

  “She has not been herself since—” The man’s face screwed up. He’d been nice-looking once, but his usual slack-jawed expression took precedence. “For a while.” He still had the wit not to accuse the duke outright for ruining their little castle community.

  Kenny must view Sebastian as a bad influence, which he was. And he’d threatened Freddie in the hall in his anger, which must have upset her further.

  This whole castle contract should be dissolved. The longer he stayed here, the more complicated his emotions were becoming. Cam was acting like a catalyst, making him see that his gamesmanship with Freddie really served no purpose. It was not her fault he’d been lied to and neglected his whole life. It was not her fault he’d been abused and now sought his pleasure in ways no decent woman would sanction. He had proven his point with Freddie—even a bluestocking spinster was prey to his methods. He was a master at sexual manipulation. But he felt no pride.

  The three of them returned the catmint bed to order. Cam whistled to rival the birds, filling the awkward silence. Kenny took an edging tool from the little shed at the bottom of the orchard and expertly marked the grass so no trace of upheaval was evident save for the men’s filthy hands and faces.

  “You two get cleaned up. I’m going to check on Miss Wells.”

  And what would he say to her when he found her? His conscience, always so casually rumpled, was becoming as regimented and straight as Kenny’s flower beds.

  Chapter 33

  It is done. Finally.

  —FROM THE DIARY OF SEBASTIAN GODDARD, DUKE OF ROXBURY

  Shamefully, Frederica had fallen asleep at her desk, after finding nothing else anomalous in the notebook that leaped to her attention. Perhaps the earl was an avid gardener as well as a traitor. When she felt the hand on her shoulder, she awoke with a start, her headache back with a vengeance.

  Sebastian stood over her, covered in dirt. “It’s time for some nuncheon, Freddie.”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “Just worms. If we dig any deeper, we’ll get to China. Now I know I can find work as a grave digger if need be.” He paused. “I’m sorry I was short with you earlier.”

  “It’s all right. None of my business anyway. I feel—awful.”

  “Perhaps you need a hair of the dog that bit you.”

  Her stomach lurched. “Oh, God, no. Never, ever again. I don’t think I’m up to lunch, Sebastian.”

  “Cam will be disappointed. He’s scrubbing up even as we speak.” He picked the leather-bound book up. “Any other bright ideas gleaned from this?”

  She shook her head, regretting the movement. If anything, she felt worse now than she had when she had woken up this morning, with the addition of a crick in her neck.

  “Here, now, go on back upstairs. I’ll clean up and bring you a tray.”

  “What about Mr. Ryder?”

  He tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “He can fend for himself, Freddie.”

  “Tell him I’m sorry. About the lunch. And all that wasted digging. You both must wish me to the devil.”

  “Nonsense. We thought it worth a try. You didn’t hold us at gunpoint.”

  She pushed away from the desk. “I’ll do better tomorrow. Right now, I can’t think.”

  Each step upstairs rattled her bones. She didn’t even bother turning down the coverlet as she stretched out on her bed. She was rarely ill—there wasn’t time to be—but right now she wished she could stay in her room for the foreseeable future. But she didn’t go back to sleep. Her mind was busy racing through the halls of the castle, imagining where a thorough rogue might stash a French fortune.

  Sebastian didn’t bother knocking when he pushed into the room three-quarters of an hour later, his hands filled with her luncheon tray. He had washed, but had not bothered with a neckcloth, waistcoat or jacket. The ends of his hair were still damp, curling up at his collar. She made a half hearted effort to sit up.

  “I’ve brought you another draft of headache powder. Mrs. Holloway’s, this time, and some catmint tea. Young Kenny’s suggestion. Everyone is most anxious over you.” He set a toleware tray on her bedside table. Apart from the liquids, there was a soft-boiled egg in its shell, a small ramekin of custard and a slice of bread spread with apple butter. Simple, comforting nursery food, fragrant with vanilla and cinnamon.

  “Thank you. You’re being very nice to me.”

  “I’m meant to. It is your day. Here, drink up.”

  His arm swept around her and he pulled her to his chest. He smelled of her rose soap, clean and sweet. She should perhaps make something with a more masculine scent for him, but that would be a project for another day. He held the glass tumbler to her lips as if she were a child, and she dutifully swallowed it down.

  “Ugh.”

  “Yes, well, the alternative is worse. Mrs. Holloway thought something sugary might chase the taste away. Do you want me to feed you?”

  Frederica blushed, remembering their wicked tea when she was helpless and blindfolded. “I can manage.” Though it seemed a sin to waste it, she left the quivering egg alone, but took a sip of tea, sharply redolent of the herb, a few spoonfuls of custard and a bite of bread. Sebastian stationed himself in a chair opposite, studying his hands. He’d not been able to completely eradicate the dirt from under his fingernails. Today was the first time since he’d been home that she had seen him disheveled.

  Home. No, Goddard Castle was not home to him and never would be.

  She set the bread down on its plate. “Where will you go?”

  “Pardon?”

  “When you leave. Back to Roxbury Park?”

  “Yes. I’m missing some spring planting. Now that I’ve proven myself with a shovel, my tenants might welcome me back with open arms. We Dukes of Roxbury are not very popular, you know.”

  “Things have been bad there for a long while, haven’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “D-do you blame my father?”

  Sebastian looked up, startled. “Of course not. I know I’ve been crude about our fathers’ relationship, but neither one of them could help being who they were. They had more in common than most husbands and wives. All that mad medieval stuff to bind them together. It’s just a pity my father roped my mother into his life. He could have been happy with his collections and his lover.”

  Frederica’s smile wobbled. “But then you wouldn’t be here to feed me pudding.”

  “Your wish is my command. At least for today.” He made as if to feed her, then put the custard in his own mouth, licking the spoon in a very provocative manner. He was teasing her, turning the conversation to steadier ground for him.

  “And tomorrow. And the day after,” she reminded him.

  “Cheat. Just because Cam is here, you think you have me over a barrel.” He picked up the ramekin. “Are you done
? Please say yes, because this is quite good.”

  “I’m done. Didn’t you have your own meal?” She watched him spoon in like a greedy schoolboy.

  “No. I was a bit worried about you and came right up after I had a wash.”

  “That was kind.”

  “Please. You’ll ruin my reputation. You make me sound like someone’s old aunt.”

  Frederica pictured Sebastian with a little lace cap on his head and laughed. A mistake. “Do not be amusing. My head still aches.”

  “I’ll leave you, then.”

  “No! That is, please don’t go. I might have something planned you will enjoy.”

  “Knocking down walls? Mucking the stalls?”

  She wanted to lie in his arms, feel his breath on her cheek, his clean skin against hers. “Kiss me, Sebastian.”

  He dropped the spoon with a clatter. “Right now? Aren’t you ill?”

  “Only from wanting you. You will kiss me and make it better.”

  Mrs. Holloway’s potion had made her brazen. She would blame it if things went bad. She patted the bed, but he didn’t move.

  “What game are you playing, Freddie?”

  “No game. Take your clothes off.”

  “And I just put them on. You surprise me every day, Freddie.”

  She watched as he unfastened each tiny, flat ivory button on the placket of his shirt, grateful there were only two of them. His cuffs were next; then he pulled the linen over his head. She decided she would never get tired of him doing so—he moved with an easy grace she envied.

  He deliberately turned his back to her and opened his falls, his trousers dropping to his boot tops. He was close enough to touch, and she did so. He hitched a breath but stood still as she gently fingered the longest raised scar.

  “Does it hurt?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I am so sorry.” If not for that horrible night ten years ago, he would not have been driven away. His future might have been very different. He must blame her. Her hand trembled as a wave of nausea swamped her. He twisted about and caught it.

 

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