Lucy sighed, placing her arm around her ribs and holding her left side with her right hand. “I do not know whom I can trust other than Mr. Clancy, and even then I wonder. He and Miss Watts are the only two people who know my destination was your hunting lodge. Everybody else thinks I headed back to London while Kate and Jonathan are at Bath.”
A muscle worked in his jaw, and he pinned her so completely with his heavy stare that she wished he would find someone else with which to be angry. “Do you realize you were nearly at death’s door when I found you?”
She struggled to maintain his gaze. “I apologize for the inconvenience my mishaps have caused you.”
“Your mishaps? Mishaps?” He shook his head. “I found your horse and carriage down the road two miles. You walked all that way in a blizzard and then fell fifty feet down a steep embankment. Much longer outside in the cold and you would have died from exposure. I’m amazed the fall didn’t kill you.”
She licked her lips and took another sip of water. “How did you know I was there, that I had fallen?”
He broke eye contact, looking at the lamp on the table rather than at her. “I have eyes and ears everywhere,” he finally said and brought his ice-blue gaze back to her face. He leaned forward and braced his arms on his knees. “Miss Pickett . . . Lucy—for the love of heaven, may I call you Lucy? I’ve saved you from a ghost and a vamp attack. I’ve seen your naked back, and this marks the second time you’ve slept in my bed.”
Her mouth twitched at the corner. “Yes, you may address me by my given name.”
“Very well, then. Lucy, what the blazes were you thinking?”
She took another faux deep breath, wincing in spite of her resolve not to display any discomfort before him. “Kate and Jonathan are at Bath.”
“You mentioned that.”
“I convinced Jonathan he needed to get Kate out of the manor and away to safety.”
His eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“She is being poisoned.”
The man took the news in stride, she had to give him that. She’d been unsure of his reaction. She had thought he might not believe her.
He kept his expression carefully neutral. “And how did you arrive at this conclusion?”
“Her fingernails. They are beginning to show stripes that signal poison in the system.” She paused. “I have a horrible request of you. One that I suspect may result in my immediate ejection from this lodge.”
“I cannot imagine what that would be.”
“I suspect Lady Clara was also poisoned. I’d like to have a look at her fingernails.”
He stared at her, his mouth slack. “You want to disinter my late wife?”
“I am aware of the ghoulish nature of my request. I realize it may not be possible—you would need access to the Gravelocker’s code, which can take weeks to obtain approval for, but—”
“I have the code,” he interrupted. “I assume you have good reason to request such a thing?”
She nodded. “I pulled punch cards from two of the ’tons at the manor. Someone had programmed both of them to add small amounts of an herb to Kate’s beverages—the same mysterious herb I found in the greenhouse when I first arrived at the manor. She’s been on the mend the last two weeks, but as I considered it after the fact, I realized it was because those two ’tons were out for repairs. The punch cards, however, were never examined or replaced.”
He remained silent as he watched her, shaking his head once before rising from his chair and pacing the room. After a couple of circuits, he stopped at the foot of the bed. “Who would do this?”
“How long have you had Mr. Grafton’s ’tons?”
“Years. A decade, at least.”
“And who would benefit from your wife’s death?” she asked him softly.
He shook his head and resumed pacing. “It makes no sense at all. If someone were after my title, I should think I would be the one drinking poison.” He stopped again at the foot of the bed. He stared through Lucy, his mouth dropping open slightly. He closed it with an expression of unguarded pain. “Marie.”
“Marie?” Lucy echoed. “Forgive me, but why on earth would Marie want Clara dead? Envy? Perhaps because Clara was stepping into a role that Marie felt was hers?”
Blackwell shook his head and ran both hands through his hair. “She wasn’t envious of Clara. She was disgusted with Clara.”
“But why?”
He returned to the chair by Lucy’s bedside. “Clara was frightened of me. She never, we never even . . . She was a timid, frail thing, and she couldn’t stand to be in the same room with me, let alone the same bed. Marie despised her for it.”
“You told your sister that your wife had refused you?”
Blackwell’s expression darkened. “No, I did not share such things with my sister. But Marie had good rapport with the staff, every last one. She received the information from Clara’s maid and, of course, came to me in a cold fury. She wanted me to annul the marriage, find someone who would at least be willing to give me an heir.”
“But would she have gone to such drastic measures as poisoning Clara?”
“I don’t know.” His hands again plowed through the thick hair, and her heart turned over at the sight of his distress. “I wouldn’t have thought her capable of such malice. She was . . . She was a force to be reckoned with, but now I’m left to wonder if she was thinking unclearly and I was too absorbed in my own misery to realize it.”
“Whether she did or did not commit murder is not a reflection on you. It is not your guilt to carry.”
“I knew Marie better than anyone. I ought to have seen it.”
“Perhaps, but perhaps not.” Lucy’s ankle throbbed, and she shoved the covers down with her one good hand, pulling her leg out and propping her ankle atop the bedding. All thoughts of modesty and propriety flew from her head as a stabbing pain shot thorough her ankle and into her foot.
Blackwell rose and reached across Lucy for another pillow, which he folded and propped under her foot.
“Thank you,” she murmured. He was close enough for her to lean forward and nuzzle his neck, and she closed her eyes against the temptation. Her heartbeat increased and she felt light-headed. She almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. She had traveled through a blinding storm, made a nuisance of herself, had taken his bed yet again, and asked to dig up his wife’s dead body to examine her fingernails. A kiss on the neck when he’d clearly shown he wasn’t interested in such intimacy would likely shoot him through the roof.
Lucy refocused her thoughts. “We must consider the fact that, while Marie may have hated Clara, Marie herself met an unfortunate end the day after Clara passed. Forgive me for intruding on painful memories, but if my vision of Marie is true, her wounds were not self-inflicted. Kate told me Marie had a way with animals, even wild ones. The theory that she was randomly attacked by a large cat seems unlikely.”
“What are you suggesting?” His voice was tight as he took the teacup from her hand and refilled it with water from a pitcher on the nightstand.
“I am suggesting that perhaps Clara and Marie both met their ends at the hands of the same person.” She took the cup from him with a nod of thanks.
Blackwell studied her until she felt . . . warm. “Now do you see why you must leave?”
She raised a brow but regretted the movement. Even her face hurt—her face, for heaven’s sake. “I am not the lady of the manor, and thus not in any danger of being poisoned. The devil himself couldn’t drag me away at this point. I want to see my cousin safe in her own home. I want to exact justice for Marie—and Clara. We must know how she died in the event of criminal charges.”
And I want to fix you, to make you smile. And take you on a very long, extended holiday across Europe . . .
“Lucy.” He walked to the middle window and pulled the curtains all the way open.
“Still the storm rages,” he said softly. “I’ll not move you today—you must rest—but when this is over, I’m contacting your brother. Perhaps you’ll heed his advice.”
“Blackwell, I am not a child.” She eyed him steadily as he left the window and returned to her bedside. “I am staying with you until these things are resolved.” She paused. “You need me, and unlike the rest of this pathetic country, I am not afraid of you. I can help you.”
He smiled, but it seemed sad. Resigned. “Because you fix things? Am I another of your projects? I shall save you the energy and trouble—I cannot be fixed.”
She ignored him. “When we have determined who is behind the mayhem, I will leave you in peace, but do not ask me to go one minute before. It will nag at me until the day I die.”
“You owe nothing to Clara or Marie.”
“Marie has sought me out. She led me here last night when I would have sat down in the snow and died.” Lucy swallowed. “I owe her everything.”
Miles looked at her for the space of several unnerving heartbeats before finally nodding. “Very well. But I insist you tell me everything that transpires and that you do not go off on your own trying to ‘fix’ this ridiculous family.”
“I give you my word. I am not foolish.” She looked down at her battered body and couldn’t help the small laugh that escaped and then turned into a groan of pain. “Not usually, anyway. But I didn’t dare telescribe the information from the manor where anyone could read it.”
He nodded. “I’ll have Mrs. Romany prepare a light brunch for you.”
“The woman who was with me earlier?”
“Yes. She is a gypsy by birth, and from a family who were always welcomed on Blackwell land. I’m having her prepare the adjoining chamber for you as we speak.”
“She had the feel of a healer about her.” Lucy slid carefully back down under the covers. “Very gentle.”
He turned to go.
“Blackwell,” she called out, still hearing the scratchiness in her throat. “Thank you. I don’t know how you found me, but I am grateful.”
“You are welcome,” he said, ever the consummate aristocrat. “And I must thank you for risking all to tell me about the chaos erupting in my own home.” He frowned. “Do you have the program cards with you? Those you found in the two ’tons?”
She nodded and directed him to the purse pouch she’d worn at her waist the night before.
“Oliver will want to see them.” He pawed through the yards of fabric on her discarded dress, which Mrs. Romany had placed over the back of a chair near the fireplace. There was something oddly intimate about watching a man sifting through her petticoats, and her heart thumped hard as he set aside her bodice and her black satin corset that was laced liberally with pearls.
Finally pulling the purse from the dress, he held it up, and she nodded.
“They’re wrapped in felt,” she told him.
He opened the small clasp on the delicate beaded purse, his large, tanned hands appearing all the more masculine in contrast. He retrieved the bundle in question and snapped the purse closed, placing it on the nightstand next to her. “Should you need your things,” he said.
“Are you remaining here for the day?”
“Yes. The roads are impassable, even for the Traveler.” He paused, looking at her intently. “I want your word that you will not leave your room once night falls.”
She managed a rueful smile. “I don’t believe I’ll be going much of anywhere in the immediate future.” She paused. “Why do you come here so frequently?”
“I enjoy hunting.”
“Yes, I see the impressive rack hanging over the mantel.”
“Exactly,” he said, although the slight flare of his nostrils as he examined the antlers spoke of his true feelings.
“Did you take that one down yourself?”
Blackwell shook his head. “That was my father’s trophy. It has hung in that spot for as long as I can remember.”
“So what prey do you enjoy hunting?” She shifted gingerly and fluffed the pillow beneath her head.
He turned his gaze from the antlers on the wall to her face. “This and that.”
“You do not enjoy hunting at all. So why, then, escape monthly to a hunting lodge? And why keep that ridiculous rack?”
His brows drew together. “It is tradition,” he muttered.
“You are the earl now,” Lucy said on a yawn. “You can make your own traditions.”
She closed her eyes and felt herself slipping into a welcomed state of rest. Everything hurt. The last conscious sensation she had was the feeling of a warm hand upon her forehead, followed by a cool, wet cloth.
Lucy slept away the better part of the day. By the time she awoke, feeling moderately refreshed, the outside world had turned dark. Mrs. Romany had made her a delicious meal and had sat with her while she ate before helping Lucy into the adjoining bedchamber, which was significantly more feminine in décor. The old woman quietly knitted, her gnarled fingers managing the needles with an ease that spoke of years of experience. She told Lucy that she was employed year-round at the lodge, along with a butler, Poole, and a skeleton staff of ’tons. Beyond that, she didn’t say much, and Lucy enjoyed the comfortable silence.
She hadn’t seen Miles since earlier that morning when he’d brought her a cane from his father’s study. The dinner hour had come and gone, and she’d self-administered some medicinal herbs from a stash in her suitcase. The medicine blunted the harsh edges of the pain, and she felt her flagging energy return by degrees.
After seeing Lucy settled in for the evening, Mrs. Romany had told her she would be in her own room down the hall. Blackwell had also told her that he had business to see to, though when Lucy had asked him what sort of business he conducted at night, he’d completely ignored the question.
Mrs. Romany had lit the lamps in the chamber, drawn the curtains securely against the windows, and built a cozy fire. The old woman cared for every detail that Lucy could have requested, and she snuggled under the covers with an odd sense of contentment. Her eyelids drooped, and she nodded off, hoping to be in possession of a clearer head come morning.
Lucy slept for several hours before she awoke with an urgent need to use the latrine. A quick check of her pocket watch showed that it would soon be dawn, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to wait for Mrs. Romany’s assistance to travel to the outhouse.
Gingerly swinging her feet to the side of the bed, she slid to the floor, balancing the brunt of her weight on her left foot and her cane. Not bothering to dress, she simply took her heavy cloak, which had dried by the fire, and swung it around her shoulders with a gasp of pain.
She shoved her left foot into a boot, but not her right, and then grabbed a pair of galoshes that she fitted over both feet. She made her way to the landing just outside the door. To her immediate right was a staircase leading down to the main front hall.
Navigating the stairs took some time, and she was breathless when she reached the bottom. The silence in the lodge was pronounced. Given that the lodge wasn’t a household full of people, there was no need for bustling staff seeing to their morning duties. Crossing to the heavy front doors, she slid back the dead bolt and swung the door open against the protesting hinges and her protesting torso. Pausing only to lift her hood into place, she stepped out into the falling snow.
Making her way carefully down the stone steps, she turned and looked for the path in the snow that Miles had shoveled earlier. Of course the path was again hidden beneath a blanket of white, and she shook her head as she began picking her way through the snowdrifts. The snow slid into her galoshes and trickled down to her feet in cold rivulets that had her shivering.
The sky was just beginning to lighten by the time Lucy stepped out of the outhouse to begin her return to the lodge. A low-pitched growl sounded to her left. She spied movement not t
wenty yards away in the trees that surrounded the building.
It was the same enormous black wolf she had seen before. She would know it anywhere.
Cursing the fact that she’d ventured outside without her ray gun, she inched her way back to the outhouse door, wondering if the structure would hold in the face of a wolf attack. It hadn’t seen her yet, but before she could hide, the wolf howled and arched its back. The creature’s spine, its legs, even its ears seemed to swell and recede as the wolf again opened its mouth and issued a wretched cry.
Horrified, she stood stock-still as before her very eyes the wolf’s fur began to disappear, its hind legs extended, and with a loud series of cracks, the wolf shifted into the shape of a man. Leaning heavily on her cane and bracing one hand against the outhouse, she opened her mouth to scream but couldn’t make a sound.
The man—she would know him anywhere. She wondered why she hadn’t put it together the night before when she’d had a good look at those mesmerizing ice-blue eyes the wolf had possessed.
Miles braced his hands on his knees and coughed, spitting something and wiping his arm across his forehead.
She barely registered the fact that he was naked—had been too stunned to notice anything but the fact that Blackwell was a predatory shifter—and she blinked against the swirling snow, watching as he reached into a metal box on the ground and pulled out breeches and then shrugged into a white dress shirt. He had just finished putting on his boots and was donning his overcoat when he looked up and saw her.
“Lucy!”
Miles began running toward her, and she felt light-headed. She turned to escape—to anywhere, really—when she remembered her battered ankle and nearly collapsed from the pain of stepping down on it.
Miles grew nearer, and she put out a hand in a feeble attempt to ward him off. Her head spun, her body ached, and she realized she would never make it to the lodge before he caught her. It didn’t mean she wouldn’t try, and in a full-blown fit of panic, she began running for the lodge, ignoring the pain that lanced through her ankle and up her leg, robbing her of breath and all rational thought.
Beauty and the Clockwork Beast Page 21