“It certainly is foolishness—unless, of course, you think he is setting up a mistress, or three.”
“Three?” Artemis just cocked an eyebrow at her, and Alethea decided not to question that any further. “No, Hartley swore that he would be faithful, that he believed in holding to vows spoken. Said that was why he had never sought out a wife before now despite needing an heir.”
“Good man. Could be exactly why he did not marry years ago as so many others would have. Last of his line and all. Can make a man take whatever he can just to breed that all-important heir. Had to be very certain in his choice. At least most reasonable people would see that clearly enough.”
Alethea crossed her arms and scowled at him. “You are a wretch. I am astonished that Penelope has not been driven to beat you daily.” He laughed, and it was such a contagious sound, she joined him.
“Be at ease, Cousin,” Artemis said. “Do not borrow trouble. The man swears fealty and has chosen you above all others after having enjoyed so many rakish years. That is no idle thing.”
“I know. ’Tis just that I am but a newlywed, and my honeymoon ended after only two nights.”
“And you want him to love you as you love him.” He grinned and kissed her on the cheek when she growled at him. “Do not chew over that bone for too long. Consider what he does, Cousin, not what he does or does not say. Men can be idiots at times, not even realizing that words are needed.”
She watched him rejoin the others and sighed. It was no great surprise that such a young man would know all about emotions and how they could twist a person’s heart and mind. He was an empath and, apparently, a very strong and precise one if he could differentiate between one sort of sadness and another. Artemis was also surprisingly wise for such a young man. She should heed all he had said, but feared she would not. Emotions could wreak havoc on wisdom.
No, it was not wise words she needed to soothe her fears. She needed Hartley back in her bed, in her arms, in her body. She was healed. Despite all her stuttering and blushing, the doctor had understood her query after her stitches were removed and had declared her ready to take up her marital duties again. Alethea just had to think of a way to make Hartley understand that.
Hartley wanted to hit something or someone. He was not particular. He wanted to hurl himself into a street brawl, fists flying. Eighteen days had passed since Alethea had been shot and since someone had tried to kill his niece. Yet he had nothing. No proof save for one small ruby earring. A name and a picture but still no criminal. It was frustrating beyond words. They had Alethea’s sketches, and they had the name of her assailant, but no one would admit to knowing the man.
He stood outside yet another low tavern with Aldus, waiting for Argus to arrive. They needed his strange skill at making people talk. Whoever the man was who had attacked Alethea, he was deeply feared by the denizens of London’s criminal warrens. That much Hartley had discerned. There was a chance that no one in this tavern really knew the man, but the chance that no one in any of the many taverns they had entered had ever heard of or seen him was very slim.
Even worse, they had lost two more of the men on the list of Claudette’s lovers. One young Sir John Talbot had been stabbed in a brothel, and another had apparently fled the country. Hartley wondered about the murder, wondered if Claudette had discovered how they were questioning all her lovers and had decided to get rid of them. It might be time to warn the men as well as question them.
He also wanted to go home. It was getting dark, and Hartley did not wish to spend another night hunting their quarry. He wanted to spend it making love to his new wife. His whole body ached for her. He would wake in the night and spend far too long fighting the urge to go to her bed or drag her into his. She was healed now, and he would not sleep alone for another night. Nor, he thought as he watched two men swagger into a brothel on the other side of the street, would he spend another whole night roaming the rat-infested areas of the city.
“I think we need to sit back and look at what we already have,” said Aldus as Argus’s carriage pulled up. “We have been working at this night and day and may need to just step back, take a breath, and study what we do have.”
“That would suit me,” said Hartley. “We will have Argus talk to these fools in here and then go home. I would like to spend a night with my new wife.”
“Ah, newlyweds,” drawled Argus as he walked by and headed into the tavern. “Such heat, such neediness, such constant pining for each other. Love is in the air. I do believe I feel a little nauseous.”
Hartley shook his head and followed the man inside, a chuckling Aldus at his heels. Once they had found a table and ordered some ale, he watched Argus work his magic. It took two long hours to garner anything of importance, and it was not much. Even Argus looked disgruntled.
“Perhaps we are looking in the wrong places,” Hartley said as they left the tavern.
“For a hired killer?” Argus frowned. “This is where they usually linger, waiting for someone too cowardly to do their own dirty work to hire them. And this is the time those who want to be hired begin to gather. Sun starts to go down, and the sewer rats start to creep out.”
“This man dressed better and spoke better than anyone here. Alethea said he had a hint of an accent one might associate with men such as this, and he needed a bath.” He exchanged a brief grin with the other two men. “Yet why could he not be low gentry, or someone she has blackmailed into doing this work for her?”
“Or someone who just enjoys doing such work,” murmured Argus. “Someone who is just a little higher than these dregs. Killing can be a profitable business. He may be trying to rise up in the ranks, so to speak.”
“Well, ’tis evident that no one here knows him. You got a hint, a nibble, but no more. So, at best he has wandered through here, but he is no longer a part of this lot.”
Climbing into the carriage after telling the driver to take them to Iago’s, Argus sat on the seat opposite Hartley and Aldus and rubbed his chin. “I believe I need to more carefully study the list of her lovers.”
“You think she may have found one among them who is willing to do her killing for her. I saw no Pierre Leon on the list.”
“The person we got the name from might not have the right one. As for one of her lovers? Quite possible. Especially if the price was right. And we must consider the chance that Leon has already paid the ultimate price for his failure that night in the garden, so she will need another killer.”
Hartley swore. “Quite possibly, thus sending us on yet another wild-goose chase. I also wondered if Sir John Talbot’s death was what everyone thinks it was.”
“You think it might have been murder ordered and not done in the heat of the moment?”
“Why not? The woman prefers all witnesses or potential ones to be silenced permanently.”
“A good point. I think we need to step back and look at all we have discovered so far.”
“Aldus just spoke of the same thing.”
“If Aldus is willing, he and I will carefully examine the list of her lovers and see if there might be something there. I also have obtained a dossier on her family. We can study that as well.”
“Family,” Aldus muttered. “Was not Pierre her family? It might be that we need to cross him off that list. What of Margarite?”
“I doubt she is the killer,” said Hartley. “Alethea was positive it was a man, and the name of the man she drew was Pierre.”
Aldus waved Hartley’s words aside with a sharp slash of his hand. “I did not mean that she was the killer, but where is she? Mayhap she is the one who hired the man or saw to it that Sir John Talbot was silenced. She has to be an intricate part of it all or she would not have disappeared, too.”
Argus rubbed his hands over his face. “Hartley, go home before your wife forgets what you look like. Let us all get a good meal and a good night’s rest and then study what little information we have. We are running in circles right now, and it clutters up our minds.”
Hartley had no objection to that plan and felt his heart lighten as Argus told his driver to stop at Hartley’s home first. Despite his eagerness to find Claudette and the man who shot Alethea, he needed to step back. He needed to think of something aside from where to look next or whom to question. He needed Alethea.
Alethea heard the library door open and panicked. She shoved the book she had been reading behind her and looked toward the door. Germaine and Bayard walked in, and Alethea had to fight hard not to blush. The very last thing she wanted these two to know was that she had been reading a very salacious tome she had found in Hartley’s library and to explain why she had been doing so.
“Here you are,” said Germaine, grinning as she sat next to Alethea on the plush settee.
“Why, yes, here I am,” Alethea replied and hoped her voice did not hold any hint of how guilty, embarrassed, and nervous she felt. “Is there something you want?”
“My dressmaker is arriving to do some final fittings in a short while, and I wondered if you could abide being there, to offer advice and all. I do not want her to make my gowns too risqué. So—will you join us?”
“Is it not a little late in the day for that?”
“She is stopping here after closing her shop so that she can take the final fittings and get straight to work. It troubles her greatly that I have no gowns.”
“Of course. I will come up as soon as she arrives.”
“That will be in a few minutes,” said Bayard as he studied his uncle’s collection of books. “Germaine has a strange idea of what a short while really is. Quite often, she means immediately.”
There was no way she could stand up without revealing what she had been reading. Alethea sat and stared at Germaine, trying and failing to think of a reason why she was not getting right up to go and do as she had just promised. She should have locked the door, she thought despairingly.
Just as she was going to make an excuse as to why she could not go immediately, hoping that it would not sound too inane, Germaine jumped up, grabbed her by the hand, and pulled her to her feet. The book fell to the seat of the settee with a soft thud. To Alethea it sounded like a clap of thunder. She yanked her hand free of Germaine’s to grab for the book before either she or Bayard could see it, but Germaine was quicker. A blush spread over Alethea’s face as Germaine looked at the book and her eyes slowly widened.
“Well, what have we here?” Germaine said and started to grin.
“Wretched girl, give me that.”
Alethea tried to snatch the book out of Germaine’s hands, but the girl danced out of her reach and over to her brother’s side. Her blush grew even hotter when Bayard looked at it and grinned. She wished a hole would open in the floor and swallow her up. There was no way to explain this without sounding like a fool—or, worse, a lovesick fool who was desperate enough to try and use the sins of the flesh to make her husband love her.
“Oh, Alethea, you do not need this,” said Germaine as she returned to Alethea’s side and kissed her on the cheek.
“No?” she snatched the book out of Germaine’s hands. “Do you not recall your uncle’s reputation? A rake, lots of beautiful, experienced women.” She sighed. “I just thought I might learn something, but this book is full of things I do not believe the human body is capable of.” She had to smile when Bayard started laughing so hard he collapsed into a chair.
“These books are written solely to amuse men. They are not instruction manuals,” said Germaine.
“What are not instruction manuals?”
Alethea shoved the book behind her and stared at Hartley in horror. A quick glance showed her that Germaine and Bayard were not as disconcerted as she was. In truth, they looked like they wanted to start laughing again. Although she loved to hear that sound of happiness, it was not so enjoyable when it was at her expense.
“Just a book we were discussing.” Germaine grabbed a grinning Bayard by the hand and started to drag him out of the room. “If you have a moment, Alethea, I would not mind having your opinion.”
Escape, she thought, and started toward the door. “Of course, I am coming.”
“What? No hello for your husband?”
Hartley caught her by the arm and pulled her close, then kicked the library door shut behind his niece and nephew with his foot. Alethea stared up at his handsome face and heard the siblings’ laughter fade as they skipped away free. He was staring at the door, a pleased look on his face, and she knew she had only one chance. If she could get the book to the floor without making too much noise, she could kick it under a chair. Her brilliant plan failed immediately. The book landed with a soft thud, but her husband had good hearing.
“You dropped your book, Al—” Hartley stared at the book he held. “Where did this come from?”
“Top shelf, left side, third book in.”
He idly looked through the book, and realized it had been his brother’s. It was filled with colorful drawings of sexual positions, exaggerated male organs, and supine women who seemed to smile no matter what was done to them. He then looked at his blushing wife and slowly grinned.
“Catching up on your reading?”
She blushed even more and grabbed for the book, but he easily kept it out of her reach. He stopped at one page, and despite how ludicrous he found the drawing to be, the position shown had his mind filling with ideas. In fact, the longer he looked at it, the more he could see himself and Alethea in the picture. His body now clamoring for her, he tossed the book onto the settee, and caught her by the hand.
“Hartley?” she asked softly as he led her to the big desk in the corner, pausing only to lock the door as he passed it.
“I am now intrigued.” He picked her up and sat her on top of the desk.
“Oh, no, there is no need, I was just curious,” she began.
“So am I.”
His mouth stopped any further protest. Alethea wrapped her arms around his neck as his kiss roused the desire that had been unsatisfied for far too long. She was so drugged by his kiss that she made no protest at all when he pulled off the fine French drawers she wore. The way he stroked her legs had her trembling with need for him.
He tugged down the top of her gown and feasted on her breast, sending her passion soaring. Alethea twitched only briefly when his fingers touched the aching spot between her legs. Those same clever fingers soon had her arching into his touch.
Hartley savored her wet heat, the proof of her readiness. He pulled her to her feet, turned her around, and gently bent her over the desk. Pushing up her skirts, her looked at her taut, well-rounded bottom, and nearly tore the front flap of his breeches in his haste to open them. It had been a long time since he had taken a woman this way.
Alethea came out of her daze enough to wonder what Hartley was doing. Cool air on her backside roused her a little more. Before she could ask what he planned to do, he did it. She gasped in both pleasure and surprise when he entered from behind. She had the brief thought that this was how animals did it, and then his fingers reached around to stroke the front of her mons as he thrust in and out from behind. Alethea gripped the edges of the desk to steady herself and lost all interest in whether or not it was proper for a wife to let her husband make love to her like this.
It was rough, and fast. Hartley felt her body tighten around him, felt the ripples of her climax stroke him, and had to bite his lip to keep from roaring as his release tore through him. It was not until he was flopped onto his wife’s back, panting, that he had the thought that she might not like being treated in such a way. Women had some of their own ideas about what was acceptable behavior between a man and his wife. Taking her from behind as she was sprawled on the desk in his library was probably not one of those ways.
He carefully eased out of her and tugged her skirts down. Bracing himself for a show of feminine horror and disgust, he turned her around and looked at her. She pushed her hair off her face and smiled at him. Hartley breathed a sigh of relief.
�
�Was that a good enough hello?” she said.
Hartley laughed and picked up her fine lace pantalets. Just as he was about to offer to help her put them back on, there was a rap at the door. He grinned even more when Alethea turned bright red and hid her pantalets behind her back.
“M’lord?” called Cobb. “Lord Covington asks to see you immediately.”
Muttering a curse, Hartley started to ward the door. A soft rustling behind him told him that his wife was donning what little clothing he had managed to take off her. He slowly unlocked the door to give her time to right herself, and then opened it to scowl at Cobb.
“Did he say what he wanted?” he asked.
“His lordship said they had some word of Pierre Leon.”
“Tell him I will be there in a few minutes.”
Hartley turned to look at his wife. She was attempting to tidy her hair and blushing. He wanted to stay with her. Wanted to take her to bed and try a few more of those positions in that book, at least the ones that looked as if they could be done without hurting himself.
“I had intended to stay in tonight,” he said.
Alethea walked over and kissed him lightly on the mouth. “This will end soon.”
He hugged her close and rested his chin on the top of her head. “Have you seen that?”
“No, I am just certain. It will end soon. Go and see what he wants. I will go and make sure the dressmaker remembers that Germaine is a young maid who has not even had a season yet.”
He laughed softly, kissed her, and hurried off to see what Aldus wanted. Alethea sighed and went to put the book away. When he had arrived she had hoped for an evening and a full night together. Instead she had had barely any time at all with Hartley. Glancing at the desk, she almost smiled. It may have been a short time together, but he had certainly put it to good use. He still desired her, and that would have to be enough for now.
The next time he was home, however, she was going to seduce him. He had done little more than chase after Claudette and seek proof of her crimes. It was time he took a night off from that. She intended to make it a very long and pleasurable night as well. And if she had to talk to all his compatriots to see that he got that night off, she would, no matter how embarrassing it might be.
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