Secret Admirer

by Michele Jaffe

  “I assure you,” Lawrence said from behind her, “that I will enjoy it as little as you will.”

  Tuesday twisted all the way around to face him. “I doubt that, Mr. Pickering. I do not think it is possible for anyone to enjoy anything less than I enjoy your company.”

  “What a charming compliment,” Lawrence drawled with his fake smile.

  “You seem to inspire burning emotions in my breast.”

  “You are not the first woman to say so.”

  “It is a wonder to me you have lived as long as you have.”

  “I know you will soon be making me regret it.”

  They glared at one another, until finally Tuesday sighed. Her shoulders sagged and she turned back toward Miles. “Fine. If there can be protection for the others, I will endure Mr. Pickering’s presence.”

  “And I will endure hers.”

  Behind her, Lawrence smiled, this time for real, but Miles was not seeing that. What he was seeing was the struggle Tuesday was waging to conceal her own broad grin.

  “It has been a real pleasure meeting you, Lady Arlington,” Miles said as they were leaving, and meant it sincerely.

  “Thank you, my lord.”

  Miles watched her go from the room, then stopped Lawrence at the threshold. “Are you sure you know what you are doing, Mister Pickering?”

  Lawrence narrowed his eyes at him. “It worked didn’t it? It was the only way to get her to cooperate.”

  “Really? I thought it was the only way for you to avoid apologizing to her.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about,” Lawrence replied innocently and strolled out, leaving Miles shaking his head in the doorway.

  Miles was wrong, Lawrence assured himself as his coach took them to Worthington Hall. He would never have orchestrated anything this elaborate just to avoid apologizing to someone. Even someone who deserved an apology as little as Tuesday Arlington.

  “Is it true that you lived on rats when you were in prison in Spain?” she asked, breaking into his thoughts.

  “No,” he replied. The meeting with Miles had gone even better than he had planned. His men would be swarming all over her house, at her request.

  “Oh. That is too bad,” she said.

  “Yes, I can imagine you liked the idea of me living on rodents,” Lawrence answered without looking at her. (He was not thinking about the fact that she cared for her brother Jack all alone, probably painted extra just to support him.) She had responded exactly as he had known she would to the suggestion that he be her personal guard, and now he would be by her side if she did anything. Or if anyone tried to do anything to her. Nonsense. She wasn’t in any danger—except from him if she did not cooperate.

  “That is a delightful thought,” Tuesday was going on, “but it’s not what I meant. I told the cook to make you rat pudding for lunch. To remind you of old times.”

  (He was not thinking about the fact that she had offered one of his operatives what he had to assume were her last pennies.) It took him a moment to realize what she had said. “You told your cook? This morning? Are you claiming you knew I would be coming home to dine with you?”

  She gave him a look of innocence identical to the one he had given Miles only minutes before. “Of course. But I will confide something to you, Lord Pickering.” She leaned toward him and her gray-green eyes were shimmering. “I had no idea just how much fun it would be to see how it came to pass.”

  (He was not thinking about the fact that she was the only woman he’d ever met who was, truly, breathtaking.)

  Lawrence did not know how she ended up in his arms, half-naked, with his lips pressed against the incredibly delicious spot where her neck met her shoulder. All he knew was that he had been wrong.

  He had no damn idea what he was doing.

  Chapter 13

  There was not a place on Tuesday’s body that was not on fire. Not a part of her that did not need to feel Lawrence Pickering’s touch. Her lips pressed against his and she felt his heart racing against her chest, felt his fingers on her shoulders, on the edge of her bodice, smooth and sure on her skin.

  He was the most beautiful man she had ever seen, even when he was filthy and disheveled. Now, freed from having to be loyal to her disloyal husband’s memory, she could admit that he made her knees weak and her heart pound and her skin tingle and had from the first moment she had laid eyes on him. Yearning built from years of neglect, from the maelstrom of emotions that had engulfed her that morning, coalesced into searing desire.

  Lawrence molded his lips to hers, urging them open with his tongue. It had been two long years since he had been intimate with anyone, and he knew, now, that it had not been by choice but by need, the need to find her, this one woman. She fit against his body as if she had been made for him—she was made for him—her arms twined behind his neck, her fingers in his hair, pushing his mouth over hers harder. His fingertips slid inside the bodice of her gown, slid along the sides of her full round breasts, finding unimaginable softness. When they found her nipples she arched against him, pressing into his hard member until he thought he would die.

  She moved away from him and he looked into her eyes and saw a thousand questions there and, beneath them, a yawning abyss of insecurity. He was stunned. But that was something he could take care of. He reached up and stroked her cheek.

  “I did not know a woman could be as beautiful as you are,” he said huskily and was astonished to see tears form at the corners of her eyes. She bit her lip, his lips for biting, and he ran his finger over where her teeth were. Not just sweet but soft and full. He kissed them again, gently this time, and she kissed him back and even though it was the chastest of kisses, they were both trembling.

  This was a terrible idea, the worst possible idea, whatever they were, doing was everything they shouldn’t be. They didn’t even like each other. They couldn’t even be in the same room without glaring at each other. She might have killed her husband, he might be her jailer. They were both too fragile for this, both too broken.

  They were both too damaged not to do it.

  Tuesday held onto Lawrence, pressed against the hard planes of his chest, hugged the deep muscles of his back. Killers, dead husbands, paintings, fathers, remorse, nightmares all seemed like vague memories against the powerful, delicious reality of his presence. The world turned upside down and the only thing that mattered was being here, like this, with this man.

  Then, suddenly, he was pulling away from her.

  Tuesday put her hand on his cheek and whispered, “Lord Pickering, what is wrong? Did I hurt you?” Lawrence turned to face her. Their eyes met and where before Tuesday had seen a world, a future, redemption, she now saw nothing. Empty. They were empty again.

  No, not empty. There was something in them.

  Contempt.

  There was no way for her to know it was contempt for himself. She slid off his lap, hastily tugging her bodice back up with quivering fingers. She could feel the letters, “Rejected” burning into her skin as if they really were written there. She was a terrible wife and a terrible screw. How could she have thought they were both feeling the same thing? She was a hag. She was—

  “You did not do anything wrong. That whole thing was wrong. I am sorry, Lady Arlington. It should not have happened. We have both been under a strain.”

  Tuesday shook her head but kept her face down. A strain, she was a strain, a hag and a strain and a—“It is my fault. I should not have thrown myself at you.”

  There was a pause, then, “You didn’t. I started kissing you.”

  “No, I started it.”

  “You are wrong,” he corrected, a little more heated. “I distinctly remember pulling you onto my lap.”

  “No, I was the one who moved over to your side of the coach.”

  “Because I pulled you.”

  “You did not.”

  “I did too.”

  “You are mistaken, Lord P
ickering. I moved over and then I forced you to kiss me.”

  “Forced me? Exactly how?”

  “By—by forcing you.”

  “That is not an explanation. I am afraid you are going to have to do better than that to answer me, Lady Arlington.”

  His tone was so infuriatingly imperious that Tuesday looked up from her lap.

  He was smiling at her.

  At that moment, emotionally raw, Tuesday felt the world sway under her again. She felt her stomach flutter, felt as though she were tumbling headlong into empty space, felt as though all the normal laws that governed human behavior had been suspended.

  At that moment, she looked into Lawrence’s smile and knew that she was falling—

  Chapter 14

  —onto the floor of the coach. It was something about the rapidly changing angle of Lawrence’s face above her that made it clear, but not for long, because almost instantly he was also on his knees.

  The vehicle swerved sharply, sending Tuesday rolling on top of Lawrence, and jolted to a stop. They lay there, his arms clutching her tighter than necessary against the length of his body, for a single instant. Then they pulled away from each other fast, and were just in the process of disentangling legs and petticoats and fingers, when the door flew open and George filled it.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve taken up wrestling, Tuesday,” he said.

  Tuesday glared at him. “George, what happened?”

  “That is an extremely good question,” he replied airily. “It seems that your charming maid, CeCe, threw herself in front of the coach—”

  “Threw myself? You pushed me,” said an outraged CeCe.

  “Why would I do that?”

  “Who can say? You probably thought it was amusing. I suppose you like hurting animals as well.”

  “Adore it. Such a feeling of power.”

  CeCe turned from him to address Tuesday. “What actually happened is that as I was drawing your bath—oh bother, I’m afraid it will be cold now—I thought I heard someone calling me from across the street, from the alley, and since I could not see who it was I went out and was just about to cross when George came out of nowhere and grabbed me up and—”

  “Saved her from being trampled to death,” George concluded. “I won’t do it a second time, though.”

  “Good, then I shall not have to mend a second gown from where you ripped it,” CeCe shot back.

  Lawrence’s face appeared then and CeCe momentarily looked like she might swoon when he said to her, “I am glad nothing happened to you.” After which he peered over her shoulder out the door, added “Please excuse me,” and stepped from the coach. Tuesday leaned out to see where he went.

  CeCe’s eyes also followed him, and under her breath she murmured, “He has the loveliest manners.” Then a look of alarm flooded her face and she turned to Tuesday. “You don’t think he got hurt, do you?”

  “I doubt it,” Tuesday said with an audible hint of disappointment, which earned her a smile from George and a reprimand from CeCe. Tuesday was not really listening, however. She was watching Lawrence as he talked to a young man on horseback who had just ridden up. “George,” she said abruptly. “Could you take CeCe inside so she can recover from this ordeal? I have to speak to His Lordship.”

  George opened his mouth to say something in protest, but Tuesday was out of the coach past him before he managed to articulate it. “Thank you,” she called to him over her shoulder, then moved toward Lawrence and the mounted man.

  They were speaking intently, so neither of them noticed her approach. She arrived just in time to hear Lawrence say, “We already know his identity, Elwood. And why he was killed.”

  The man called Elwood nodded. “I am afraid it is not as simple as you think, at least, not if you think he was killed because of the smuggling.”

  Lawrence looked concerned. Elwood had once been his employee and was now the Special Commissioner of London’s second in command. There was nothing that went on in the city that Elwood did not know about, particularly nothing nefarious, and his tone was worrying. “What exactly do you mean?”

  “There have been three other men killed the same way in the last month.”

  Tuesday moved forward and joined them. “The same way? With their hearts cut out?”

  Lawrence’s face instantly broke into a frown as he turned to her. “What are you doing here?”

  “This is my house. I live here. What a pleasant surprise, Mr. Pickering, to find you on my front steps as well.”

  Elwood watched with barely concealed amusement as Lawrence tightened and loosened his jaw, then said, “Elwood Marsh, this is Lady Tuesday Arlington. The corpse’s wife.”

  It was as ungallant an introduction as possible, but that was not what made Elwood looked startled. “It is a pleasure to meet you, Lady Arlington,” he stammered. “I am sorry it has to be under these circumstances.”

  “Thank you. You were saying, about the other corpses—?”

  “Right. Yes, they were all killed exactly the same way. All with their hearts, ah, missing. We did not know what to make of the first one. We thought maybe wild dogs had gotten to it or something, but when, a week later, we found the second one, and then a week after that the third, we had to see a pattern.”

  “Could the others have been part of the smuggling ring?” Lawrence put in.

  “That is the problem. Our preliminary research has not turned up anything to suggest a link to your smugglers, but we will want to run their names by your men anyway. There could be some connection to Sir Curtis that we don’t know about.”

  Tuesday, pensive, asked, “Were they all killed in hallways?”

  “No. Carter Smyth was found in the woods behind the Rose in Southwark, although he seemed to have been dragged there judging from the tracks. Amory Lockland appeared near the wall in the far corner of the pleasure garden at Richmond. And Richard Ellington’s body was discovered in an unused storeroom next to Old Cartson’s wine shop over on Cheapside.”

  Elwood had been studying her. Now he saw her swallow hard before saying, “Could you repeat that? About the woods and the garden and the storeroom?” Elwood did and she murmured, “I see.”

  Tuesday’s hands were clenched into tight fists, but Elwood did not notice because Lawrence claimed his attention then. “So the only similarity between them is the way they were killed?”

  “Not quite. When I rode over it was just to say that we should coordinate our efforts because we were running out of time, but now I think it might be something else.” His eyes shifted between the two of them. “You see, all the murders were committed on Tuesdays.”

  The Lion hummed to himself as he pressed the black powder into place. Some of it floated on the air and he stuck his tongue out to taste it. It tasted gritty and bitter and sour. It tasted marvelous. It tasted like death.

  His head was buzzing with excitement and it took all his energy to stay concentrated on what his hands were doing. His mind raced ahead, raced to the deed, then beyond it. This was it, the last quiet moment he would have. After this everything was going to happen fast.

  How do we make people believe?

  We persuade them.

  And if they won’t stay persuaded?

  We force them.

  He liked that. They would be forced to believe. They would be made to see that he was the best.

  He had considered hiring someone else to do the job, so there would be no chance of him getting caught for such a little thing, but there was no one he could trust to do it right. He had to be sure the man got the treatment he deserved. He had invested too much in his disguised identity to let it come unraveled by something as simple as a missed shot.

  No, he would have to take care of the Witness himself.

  Chapter 15

  “I’m going to check on the guards,” Lawrence announced as they entered Worthington Hall, raising his voice to be heard over the sounds of a concert
getting underway upstairs. “Wait for me in your studio.” Tuesday said nothing, just turned and did what he said.

  He should have known then there was something wrong. He should have had an inkling, a suspicion. But somehow his instincts, honed like a fine instrument through years of practice, were dead asleep where Lady Tuesday Arlington was concerned.

  Five minutes later, when he walked through her studio door, he should not have been surprised to find that she was not there, but he was. His first flicker of emotion—his first flicker of emotion in two years—should not have been pain, but it was. For a moment, under the combined onslaught, he missed the rest of the scene. But then, gradually he saw a large tub of water standing in the middle of the floor. And around it, each set on its own stand as if arrayed for viewing from the bath, were four paintings.

  Four paintings on four easels of—

  A wooded glade with two long brown marks as if a body had been dragged.

  A garden wall with headless flowers scattered at its base and a crack like a thunderbolt from which small yellow weeds were growing, running up one side.

  A dark store room, with boxes and a mildewed barrel in the background.

  A corner in a wood-paneled hallway with a knot in the wood that looked like a death’s head and a splattering of blood.

  —murder scenes.

  Lawrence took a step forward and stopped. What stopped him was the feeling of something sharp poking into his shoulder.

  “Take your clothes off,” Tuesday said, emerging from her hiding place behind him, behind the door.

  He started to turn around and the poking got more insistent. “I have a sword pointed at your heart through your back. I suggest you do what I say.”

  She did not want to see his eyes, not yet. She did not want to see him looking at her the way he would be. With accusation and distrust and anger. That, she realized, was why she had hesitated telling him about the paintings before—paintings she had done in the earliest hours of four different mornings, paintings she had tied up and hidden next to her bed so no one would ever see them, paintings of four dreams, of four murders. But seeing them there, placed on display by a hand that was not hers, waiting for her when she had come in, she had understood she had no choice. She had to at least tell him that.