That was the course she had chosen five years ago when her father had gone off to war and left her penniless again. She had taken her mother’s name, sought her mother’s family, and started a new life. What life could she start now?
She didn’t want to start all over again. The first time hadn’t been quite so wrenching. Her father had ruined his name so many times that she hadn’t cared if she left it behind. She’d lived wherever he’d left her, with whomever would take her in. She’d not made any long-term friendships that way. It had seemed glorious starting out all over with a new name, a home, a friend, and family. Leaving all that behind now would break what remained of her heart.
Besides, she couldn’t desert Blanche.
Dillian let that determination sink in. Her father certainly hadn’t provided a model example of the rightness of his way of thinking. Perhaps turning her back on the past and moving on with her life wasn’t the ideal method of dealing with problems. It certainly seemed the easiest solution, but that didn’t make it right.
Drying her tears on her pillow, Dillian contemplated her alternatives. Regardless of anything else, Blanche was her friend. Blanche had saved her life, saved her meager savings, taken her in when no one else would. She simply couldn’t desert Blanche. Not even her father could be that callous.
So if she didn’t desert Blanche, how could she protect her? The wretched Lawrences had taken over Blanche’s life. Michael could stand guard at the door.
That left Dillian to produce the journals and any secrets they might uncover. What if they were wrong, and the journals held no secrets? What if Neville had truly decided to just murder Blanche rather than wait around for her to cut him off? That intruder tonight wouldn’t be fooled for long if he worked for Neville.
She must see Blanche to safety first, then go after the journals.
She reached that decision just as she heard her cousin’s footsteps outside her room. Scrubbing at her tearstained cheeks, Dillian leapt from the bed and began searching through her few personal articles. By the time Blanche had knocked and entered, Dillian had her old brown round gown in her hands and was ripping at the hem.
Blanche stood worriedly just inside the doorway, watching Dillian rip at the old dress. “Are you leaving?” she asked in a small voice.
“No, you are.” With firm conviction, Dillian produced the hoard of coins she had sewn into the hem during those hours she had watched over Blanche in the physician’s home. She gathered them up and dumped them into a small pouch she kept at hand.
“I think there is enough here to take you and Verity to France. If Michael insists on accompanying you, he can go as coachman or whatever for propriety’s sake, but he’ll have to pay his own way. It shouldn’t be for very long. I’ll send for you just as soon as I’m sure it’s safe.”
Michael appeared noiselessly in the doorway. “And you’re after thinkin’ the likes o’ the lady will reach Dover without notice, be ye? Will ye be sendin’ the army with them, p’raps?”
“Stifle that nonsense,” Blanche answered crossly. “Dillian may be right. You saw that man in the garden. We’re not safe here. If I’m not in England, Neville can’t touch me. I’m quite capable of living quietly for a few months. That way I’m no danger to anyone.”
Michael shifted from the wall and entered the room. “Your duke has men crawling all over Dover and into France looking for you. With or without the burns, you aren’t exactly invisible. Someone is bound to notice you. If you go anywhere, it should be in the opposite direction. Have you any friends in Scotland?”
Blanche’s eyes lit with hope. “Yes, I do. As a matter of fact ….” She stopped and shook her head as her glance fell on Dillian. “Neville knows all my friends. He will already have notified them. They would simply send for him the moment I arrived. I’m sorry, Dillian. Do you know of anyone?”
“I do, but I don’t know if they can be trusted any more than I can trust Reardon. If Neville can hire an army, he can hire anyone. It’s not as if old soldiers are given much in retirement pay,” she said bitterly.
“Reardon? Who is Reardon?” Michael asked with suspicion.
“None of your blamed business. None of this is any of your blamed business. Why don’t you go away and leave us alone? Even that mule-headed brother of yours has sense enough to know when he’s not wanted.” Dillian turned her back on the too knowing eyes of Michael and sat down at the vanity to unpin her disheveled hair.
“That’s not the way I’m seein’ it, colleen. Gavin knows when he’s wanted all right. He’s just a mite contrary when it comes to givin’ in. He’ll come back. The two of you might as well sit here and tat doilies or whatever until he does.” He eyed the bag of coins. “If you’re spending money, spend it on hiring a few extra guards.”
Dillian tucked the pouch beneath her, out of sight. She took a brush to her hair and glared at Michael’s reflection in the mirror. “Go away, O’Toole. We have better things to do than tat doilies or talk to you.” She didn’t dare speculate on what he meant about Gavin knowing when he was wanted. If that wretched excuse for a marquess had told O’Toole anything... She simply wouldn’t think about it.
She watched Michael’s expression in the mirror as he turned to Blanche. Something in his gaze caused a painful tug on her heart, and she closed her eyes against it. No one had ever looked at her like that. The bloody marquess had looked at her with desire. Lots of men had looked at her like she was a plump pudding begging to be devoured. She rather thought that like young boys who could never get enough food—men could never satisfy their craving for women. But lust had nothing to do with what she saw in Michael’s eyes when he looked at Blanche.
The impossibility of the match made her speak harshly. “Out, O’Toole, or I’ll scream bloody murder and call for the watch.”
When she opened her eyes and looked in the mirror again, he was gone.
From over her shoulder she heard Blanche whisper, “Why can’t anything be easy anymore?”
* * * *
Michael idled the next hour or so by carrying up buckets of water and rope, locating hammers and nails, keeping the curious caretaker and his wife quiet, and watching out all the downstairs windows. When Gavin reappeared carrying a large sack beneath his cloak, Michael opened the front door for him, then returned to rigging the rope over the door.
Gavin eyed the arrangement approvingly. “I’d hoped to find buckets here. I had to steal most of this lot as it was. Lazy merchants don’t keep gentlemen’s hours.”
Michael tied the rope end to the door latch, tested the rigging by opening the door and watching the bucket tilt precariously, and nodded. “Just don’t go running in and out without unfastening it.” He disabled the rigging temporarily so they could go out without drowning.
“I’m bloody well not going anywhere. You are. I can finish up here. I want you over at the solicitor’s office. Be a beggar or a king, I don’t care, just get in that office and find the journals.” Gavin emptied his sack in the middle of the hall floor and sorted through his collection of oddities.
“As you pointed out, it’s the middle of the night,” Michael reminded him. “Unless you have breaking and entering in mind, I may as well stay here for now.”
Gavin threw him an impatient look. “Then, go break and enter if that will fetch them any faster. If the journals are the key, let’s find out. I’ve had enough of games. I want this over.”
Michael leaned against the newel post and contemplated his brother’s tightened jaw and the flashing anger of his eyes. Gavin looked every inch the Lawrence he was at the moment. The Lawrences were known for their dark coloring: complexions, eyes, and hair. They were also known for blazing tempers and outrageous arrogance. Gavin had all that and more.
“Finding the journals won’t end a thing, you’re aware,” Michael said conversationally, watching as Gavin selected a long stick and measured it against the front window.
“Are you still here? Must I do everything myself?” Gavin an
swered with irritation, not turning away from his task.
“What difference will it make when you discover Miss Whitnell’s deep dark secrets? It won’t make her a different person. She’ll still be a cantankerous she-devil, and you’ll still want to climb between her sheets. She’s been good for you. She’s got you out of the house and back into the world. So why do you keep behaving like a rabid animal when she’s around?”
Michael watched with interest as Gavin’s knuckles whitened around the stick he whittled to fit the window. He fully expected the haughty marquess to launch himself at him any minute now. He frequently trod the narrow line between Gavin’s fury and patience. Sometimes he slipped too far on the wrong side. The topic of the luscious Miss Whitnell drew that line narrower than usual. Michael waited for the eruption to follow.
Instead of exploding, Gavin merely set down his stick, walked across the floor, grabbed Michael by the shirt-front, and lifted him from his feet. “You will not refer to the lady in that manner again. Do you understand?”
Michael hid his grin and nodded solemnly.
Gavin threw open the door and pitched him into the street.
A moment later Michael heard the sound of his own contraption being fastened to the front door latch. So much for returning anytime soon.
Grinning and dusting himself off, Michael whistled as he wended his way merrily down the darkened city street.
* * * *
Dillian heard the tapping and scraping below and wondered what the devil O’Toole had decided to do at this hour. Unable to sleep, she pulled on her wrapper and went out to peer over the stairwell. The sight of Gavin in shirtsleeves, his cravat pulled off, and his buttons unfastened to expose his chest nearly sent her fleeing back to her room. The sticks and hammer in his hand kept her glued to the floor.
She couldn’t see where he went with them. He disappeared toward the rear of the house. The quiet tapping and scraping resumed.
She had no desire to ever speak to the man again. She didn’t even want to be in the same room with him. If she never saw him again, she might eventually forget what it felt like lying naked in his arms feeling his body filling hers, hearing his whispered words against her ear. Eventually. The day she died, perhaps.
If she went back down there, he’d either insult her again, or kiss her back into his bed. She didn’t want either. But she couldn’t sleep knowing he wandered the lower hall. She sat on the top step with her elbows propped on her knees and her chin in her hands, and debated her choices.
Gavin found her there sometime later, curled up and sleeping on the landing. He tried regarding the dark fall of curls against her pale cheek coldly, but he couldn’t. She had berated him, teased him, laughed with and at him. She had worried about him.
Behind that sharp tongue and lovely curves lay a woman with the tender emotions he’d been deprived of all these years. They spilled generously from her in every word and action. She’d surrendered her innocence to his selfishness just to save a friend. She hid secrets, yes, but she wasn’t the only one. Perhaps, if he felt generous, he could possibly believe that she had thought she protected him by keeping him from running after the thief. Women had had stranger notions in his experience.
With a sigh of exasperation, he laid down his tools and lifted her into his arms. She’d fall down the damned steps if she lay there much longer.
She stirred as he carried her down the hall. Her arms went around his neck as if they belonged there, and Gavin pressed her a little closer, enjoying the warmth of her against his chest. She buried her face in his shirt and murmured sleepily. The moment jarred something previously untouchable inside him, and he held back a gasp against the knifing pain. It did no good yearning for what he could not have.
Carefully, Gavin lay her against her rumpled sheets, fearing if she woke she would scream and flail at him again. He really didn’t want her screaming at him anymore. He just wanted to hold her against him and feel her body next to his.
He’d never known how cold loneliness could be until he had to cover Dillian up and walk away.
The north wind howled through his soul as he closed the door behind him.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Wearing an elegant beaver hat, a frock coat of such fit even the Beau could have found no complaint, and stockinet breeches held secure by straps inside knee-high Hessians, Michael Lawrence O’Toole gave a haughty nod to the law clerk in the first office and proceeded up the dimly lit stairs to the next floor.
The clerk downstairs had every right to stare. No gentleman of such elegance ever stirred at this unearthly hour of the morning unless headed home after a night of dissipation. The frock-coated gentleman ascending the worn stairs not only showed no sign of dissipation but moved with the lightness of a skilled athlete. The clerk shook his head in amazement and returned to his own particular cubbyhole.
Upstairs, Michael scanned the row of locked doors, their glass panels dark at this hour. Finding the one he sought, he removed an object from his pocket, fiddled idly at the lock, and a few seconds later, the door opened to welcome him.
Humming softly, he gave the door as polite a nod as he had the clerk downstairs and sauntered into the office. Gray light seeped through a filthy window illuminating a clerk’s tall desk and stool, walls of books, a few battered wooden desks, and another door at the rear.
As if he owned the office, Michael strolled to the rear door, fiddled casually with the latch, and swung it open with a twist of his wrist. Dropping the small tool into his pocket, he wandered through the larger room, admiring the heavy draperies covering the floor-to-ceiling windows as he pulled them back to let in light. He poked about among the avalanche of papers cascading from shelves, files, and desk, and generally assessed the room’s contents. Finally deciding on a towering wooden file cabinet in one corner, he systematically worked his way through the drawers until he unlocked the one he wanted.
Admiring the drawer’s contents as he fingered through them, he kept one ear open for the sound of early arrivals. Voices carried up the stairwell easily, giving him more than enough time to open a leather satchel he’d discovered in his earlier perusal. The contents of the drawer fit neatly into the satchel, leaving a bit of space for a few other objects that caught his discerning eye.
Still humming a slightly wicked sea chantey, he closed the satchel and strolled out of the office, locking drawers and doors behind him. On the landing, he lifted his hat to a clerk just arriving, sauntered on down the stairs and out to the street.
He was whistling “Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair” by the time he summoned a hackney and settled onto its torn leather squabs.
* * * *
Dillian woke in bed still wearing her wrapper. Puzzled, she lay against the pillows, trying to remember the events of the previous evening. Recalling the incident in the garden, she blushed and restlessly threw off her covers.
Only then did she remember that she’d fallen asleep watching Gavin occupy the lower hall.
Surely, he hadn’t played so free as to carry her to bed, or he would not have stopped at just leaving her in bed with her wrapper still on. Knowing the extent of the marquess’s lust, she could imagine what would have happened had he entered her chamber unchaperoned. She must have wandered back to bed on her own.
That didn’t quench her restlessness. Washing and donning one of her old gowns, Dillian listened at Blanche’s door, heard no one stirring, and hastened down the stairs.
She found no sign of Gavin’s presence in the long hall below. The scraps of wood and tools he’d scattered across the carpet were gone. She started to check behind the floor-length draperies but discovered a footman leaning his chair against the front door. He blinked sleepily at her, then leapt to his feet and moved the chair back where it belonged.
She’d never seen the man before. Her only attempt at hiring servants had resulted in Michael and Blanche’s appearance in dreadful disguises. Perhaps the caretaker had found someone. The footman blushed
at her continued stare and crossed his hands behind his back, taking on a formal stance.
“Who hired you?” she asked with more curiosity than anything else.
“Earl of Mellon, miss,” he answered.
The Earl of Mellon—was that not the name of the marquess’s friend? Dillian narrowed her gaze. “Does the earl not keep his own house to guard?”
The footman started to shrug, thought better of it, and said crisply, “Yes, miss, but I was told to come here.”
She didn’t see much point in asking by whom. She knew. Without continuing the discussion, Dillian drifted toward the dining room to see if any hint of breakfast had appeared. To her astonishment, she found a place set at the table with a lovely yellow rosebud in a crystal bud vase beside it.
The caretaker and his wife had more than enough to do without setting tables and cutting flowers. Meals had been taken as Dillian and Verity found them.
Blanche had little notion of the kitchen’s location and relied on Verity to serve her. They usually ate in their rooms rather than in this formal hall. Dillian contemplated the place setting and wondered if the caretaker’s wife had decided Lady Blanche ought to receive more respectful service.
No, that couldn’t be it. They’d kept Blanche disguised and hadn’t informed the servants of her presence. Dillian stared at the rose with perplexity. Surely, not ….
Gavin? She looked around the room for some trace of him, but better sense won out. Granted, she had teased him once with a rose by his bedside, but Gavin didn’t possess the romantic instincts to mimic the gesture. Michael must have placed this here for Blanche.
Reaching that conclusion, Dillian wandered on toward the kitchen stairs. Before she passed the ornate pilasters at the end of the room, a maid scampered through the doorway bearing a tray of steaming dishes. She bobbed a curtsy at Dillian and began arranging silver serving dishes on the sideboard.
A maid? Not even stopping to question this new arrival, Dillian turned around and retraced her steps back up the stairs to Blanche’s room. Knocking, she let herself in at the first sound of someone stirring on the other side.
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