Barbara Pierce - Sinful Between the Sheets

by Barbara Pierce

  Ramscar reached him first. His other friends and con­cerned strangers circled him, checking to see if he was un­injured.

  "I never saw anything like it," Cadd said angrily. "The driver must have been foxed. It was like he was aiming the damned coach right at you!"

  Fayne accepted Ramscar's hand and he was pulled to his feet. "Did anyone get a look at the coachman?" All he had glimpsed was a dark indistinct figure. In truth, his fo­cus had been on the horses. He listened vaguely to the neg­ative replies. No one around seemed to recall anything about the mysterious coachman.

  His entire body was shaking and there was an uncom­fortable weakness in his limbs. If he had hesitated, Kilby would have been a widow. First, someone tried to drown his wife, and just now he almost died under the wheels of a runaway coach. Fayne did not believe in coincidences.

  He waved his hand at the dust in the air and coughed. Leaning heavily on his friend, Fayne murmured, "I think someone is trying to breathe life into the Solitea curse." He coughed again into his fist.

  Ramscar nodded, signaling silently to Cadd and Everod that it was time to leave. "Let's go. I'm beginning to see your point about us discussing your recent troubles in pri­vate. If there is trouble brewing, surprise may be your only advantage."

  CHAPTER 21

  Kilby sat on one of the sofas in the Brawleys' drawing room feigning a calmness that she was incapable of while she plaited Gypsy's long black hair. There had been noth­ing wrong with the previous braid. Fussing with her sister's hair gave her an excuse to touch Gypsy. She needed the tactile reminder that the girl was safe. Fayne's family had kept their promise, and Kilby was in their debt.

  From the comer of her eye, she observed her new brother-in-law as he paced in front of the window. The tension he tried to conceal was palpable to everyone in the room. Like Fayne, Mr. Maccus Brawley was a man of action. Kilby sensed he longed to join her husband in the hunt for her brother and for clues to the man who had attacked her. Nonetheless, he had made a promise to protect Fayne's new family and the man took his job seriously.

  Lady Fayre, or Fayre, as she insisted on being addressed, was at the pianoforte playing a piece of lighthearted music that was meant to distract them all from dwelling on Fayne's absence. Her sister-in-law played the instrument with supreme confidence and she did credit to the sheet music. It was a pity Kilby was unable to properly appreci­ate the lady's efforts.

  Gypsy made a soft sound of complaint.

  Kilby finished tying the bow. "Fidgety, are we?" She af­fectionately stroked the length of the braid with her fingers. "You never could sit still for more than a few minutes."

  Kilby tipped Gypsy's chin up and kissed her cheek. The fact that her sister seemed happy made it easier for Kilby to let her go. "Off you go, then. Take care not to trouble the servants."

  Gypsy jumped up, her blue eyes gleaming with excite­ment at the prospect of exploring the house. After three steps, she abruptly turned and threw her arms around her older sister. Kilby held her close, relishing Gypsy's show of affection.

  "I love you, my wandering girl," she whispered against Gypsy's ear.

  Her sister broke away and slipped out of the room.

  "She hasn't spoken a single word since your parents' deaths?" Fayre asked, concern marring her lovely face. She had given up on her music.

  Kilby shook her head and wearily sighed. "No. Some­times she will make sounds, and for a few seconds I start to believe she is finally recovering from the loss of our par­ents." She glanced down at her clasped hands, fighting back the despair that tightened her throat.

  "Gypsy seems to comprehend the world around her somewhat," Maccus said carefully, not wanting to offend his new sister-in-law. "Have you considered that her si­lence is merely stubbornness?"

  "Several of the physicians who examined my sister came to the same conclusion." Kilby's mouth tightened as the past assailed her. "With Archer's approval, these learned men subjected Gypsy to numerous cruelties in an attempt to pro­voke her into speaking."

  Fayre gasped in horror, clearly imagining the pain that was inflicted on the grieving child. Her hand lightly rose upward to caress the silver and diamond brooch pinned to the front of her bodice as if the delicate spray of flowers and leaves brought her comfort. Standing, she crossed the room and sat beside Kilby on the sofa.

  "What did you do?" her sister-in-law asked, sliding a comforting arm around her. Fayre's green eyes were so reminiscent of Fayne's that Kilby had to look away.

  "I turned them out of the house." Her defiant actions had incurred Archer's wrath, but she had not cared. "I could not bear my sister's distress." Kilby met Maccus's sympathetic gaze. "If it is stubbornness that keeps Gypsy from speak­ing, then that will has been forged by pain and loss. Noth­ing will coerce her into breaking her silence, until she is prepared to do so."

  Maccus solemnly nodded. There was something in his expression that revealed he was intimately acquainted with tragedy. "You and Gypsy are part of our family now. If there is anything we can do to help you or your sister, you only need to ask."

  "You both have my gratitude. I do not know how I can return the favor," Kilby said, futilely wishing Fayne was at her side.

  Fayre pressed a lace handkerchief into her hand. "You have already repaid us a thousand times over."

  Confused, Kilby looked blankly at the young woman. "Pray, how? My connection to your family from the very beginning was an imbroglio."

  Maccus crossed his arms and chuckled. "When you know the Carlisles better, you will understand they thrive on adversity," he said, earning a piercing glare from his wife. "Some of them even seek it out."

  "You are not being helpful, Mac," Fayre warned, em­phasizing his name as if the abbreviation held a private significance between them. She turned back to Kilby. “There is no debt between family. Your arrival heralded a dark pe­riod for our family."

  Kilby felt shame burning hotly just beneath her skin. "I realize—"

  "I do not think you do," Fayre countered quietly. "My father's death was difficult for all of us. Although he tried to hide it from the rest of us, Fayne took the duke's death the hardest. Hot-blooded... hurting. My mother and I were concerned that we were going to lose him as suddenly as we did my beloved father. My brother was beginning to slip away from us, Kilby, until he met you. In his bleakest days, you pulled him away from the precipice of his reck­less nature. For that alone, I am eternally grateful you came into our lives."

  Kilby stood up and used the handkerchief to stem the tears forming in her eyes. Fayre's words felt like a warm, healing balm over her raw nerves. She laughed lightly as her thoughts switched to Fayne. "If something happens to your brother while he hunts down Archer, you may regret your kind words."

  Maccus moved away from the window and stood behind his wife. Fayre reached up and patted the hand he had ten­derly placed in silent support on her shoulder. "Carlisle has too much to live for now to be careless," he said.

  If she did not leave the room immediately, she was go­ing to have a very humiliating cry in front of the Brawleys. "I should check on Gypsy. There is no telling what mis­chief she has gotten herself into wandering about your fine house."

  "Dear me, you are in love with him."

  Kilby's hand hovered over the door latch at Fayre's statement.

  Fayre cocked her head inquiringly, her cinnamon-colored curls, bouncing saucily against her shoulder. "My brother thinks you agreed to marry him because you needed protec­tion from that dastardly brother of yours. However, you had another reason, did you not?" Fayre slowly smiled as she closely observed Kilby's face. "How delightful! Tell me, is Fayne aware that you fell in love with him?"

  Kilby closed the door, listening for the inner mecha­nism of the latch to click. Inhaling deeply, she leaned against the door and waited for the deafening pounding in her ears to stop

  Tell me, is Fayne aware that you fell in love with him?

  She had met Fayre twice. How could the lady deduce a revelat
ion Kilby herself was still reconciling in her heart? Did she wear the answer to Fayre's question so plainly on her face? And what of Fayne? What did his entrancing green eyes see when he stared thoughtfully down at her?

  The notion that her feelings were on the surface for everyone to see was disconcerting. It felt as if someone had stripped her down to her soul, leaving her vulnerable. After everything that had occurred, it was a prickly sensation even if it was one of the noblest of sentiments.

  She had to get out of this house.

  Kilby moved away from the door and strode down the passageway that led to the stairs. She had walked down as far as the first landing of the horseshoe-shaped staircase before she stopped and recalled her promise. Resting her hand on the decorative support posts, she glanced curi­ously downstairs, wondering if Gypsy was on one of the upper floors. At the moment, hiding from everyone seemed like a grand plan.

  "Your Grace, there ye are," Hobbs said, approaching from below. "Had enough of that pair, did ye? Can't say I blame ye, with them always tickling and kissing one an­other in all parts of the house. No place is safe."

  "Oh." Kilby glanced up in the direction of the drawing room. The butler's opinion of the Brawleys was certainly enlightening. Her gaze returned to Hobbs who was watching her expectantly. "Oh, no ... they were not... I was not—"

  "A bit tiring on the eyes, isn't it? We'll say no more of it," the servant assured her. Before she could clear up the misunderstanding, Hobbs offered the folded note in his hand to her. "A boy just delivered this for ye. I'm supposed to put such things on the silver salver we have for such oc­casions. Regrettably, I seem to have misplaced it."

  She accepted the note. Opening the note, she frowned as she read the message. "Oh, dear."

  "There, there ... not to worry, Your Grace. It'll turn up one day," he said, before launching into an amusing tale about a missing cuspidor.

  Kilby did not hear a single word of it.

  Her gaze fell to the letter written by Priddy. Something terrible had occurred and the viscountess was begging for her assistance. She was also insisting that Kilby travel alone. Priddy feared another scandal was afoot.

  Coming to a decision, she touched the servant on the arm to interrupt his tale. "Hobbs, I need to write a letter to my husband immediately," Kilby said, heading down the stairs to the library.

  "Aye, Your Grace," the butler said, responding to the ur­gency in her tone.

  "I'll need a carriage, too." Kilby folded the viscount­ess's note and tucked it into her corset. "And a promise," she added as an afterthought.

  "You have had a run of bad luck of late, Carlisle," Cadd said somberly. "It does make one think there is something to the Solitea curse."

  Fayne's near collision with a speeding coach had dark­ened everyone's mood, especially when it was beginning to appear someone was trying to kill both him and Kilby. He and his friends had gathered in Ramscar's library cum armory. The room was a reflection of the man's contem­plative intellect and his quiet appreciation for violence when all logical paths had been exhausted.

  The walls were lined with waist-high bookcases. In each corner medieval suits of armor, complete with lance, stood guard. Above the bookcases, weapons and helms accrued by the Knowden family over several generations were mounted on the walls. On the north wall, high above the chimney-piece, the skin of a leopard one of Ramscar's ancestor's had slain was displayed.

  It was Fayne's favorite room in the house, and a perfect example of his friend's tidy efficiency. Since Ramscar's town house was smaller in comparison to many of the fam­ily residences, Ramscar's rooms served multiple purposes. For a gentleman who lived alone it was still a generous amount of living space.

  "Is it bad luck, a curse, or is someone helping fate along?" Fayne wondered aloud. "I saw the marks on my wife's neck. Someone followed her to the lake and held her face down in the water. She could have drowned." His throat burned with acrid bile each time he thought how close he had come to losing her.

  Everod sat in a large scale-patterned mahogany chair with his long legs stretched out in front of him. "Why do you think her attacker stopped?"

  Fayne scrubbed his face in frustration. "I don't know. Perhaps Kilby had stopped fighting him, and he thought her dead. Or he heard something that ran him off." He slammed his fist against the wall, rattling the metal swords next to him. "Damn it, above all places I could have taken her, Kilby should have been safe on the family's lands."

  "Carlisle, you have to stop blaming yourself. There was no way of knowing that someone had followed you," Ram­scar said in his familiar matter-of-fact manner. He had propped his hip on one of the shorter bookcases. Displayed on the either side of him were five death masks of his pre­decessors. "If you were followed at all. Have you ruled out a vagrant?"

  "That's the problem, Ram," Fayne said, trying to hold on to his temper. "I have not ruled out anything or anyone." Though that did not mean he did not have his suspicions.

  "I wager your duchess's brother is the likely suspect," Cadd said, unsheathing a gem-encrusted dagger and testing the sharpness of its blade with his thumb. "You made an enemy when you absconded with his sister. While you were gone, Nipping has been trying to rally sympathy from the ton. He claims you kidnapped the lady against her will."

  A sound of disbelief rumbled in Fayne's throat. No one was going to argue that his intentions were not hon­orable. After all, he did marry the lady. "Nipping can whine all he wants. Kilby is a Carlisle now. What he should be worrying about is what I plan to do to him once I am as­sured Kilby is safe."

  Cadd slid the blade into its sheath and carefully re­turned it to its display. "Overall, Nipping's complaints are going unnoticed. Brawley let it be known that you had left town abruptly to marry your lady love. Dreadfully roman­tic and all that. The news that you have taken a bride at all is more titillating than the marquess's version that she was stolen from his care."

  Ramscar scratched the tiny scar on his left eyebrow. "I agree with Cadd. If anyone does believe the lady was stolen from the bosom of her beloved family, the ladies of the ton will simply view your actions as romantic."

  Fayne grimaced. "Wonderful." He did not want his ac­tions seen in a romantic light. He was merely protecting the woman he considered his. "I imagine my mother will encourage the fanciful retelling of the tale."

  His friends chuckled at the possible exaggerated stories the dowager might spin on her son's behalf.

  "No doubt," Everod said, crossing his arms. "Besides Nipping, you must have a few other gents you would like to call on?"

  "Hollensworth," Cadd interjected, sneering. "The man despises you. He insults you behind your back in hopes of provoking you into challenging him. As far as I know, he is still in town."

  Fayne had also considered the baron. Hollensworth would never accept that Fayne had not played a small part in his brother's suicide. The fight at the fair should have ended things between them. Nevertheless, Fayne did not trust the man. His resentment could have prompted him to strike out at Kilby. What better way to destroy a man than take away something he valued?

  "Anyone else?" Ramscar asked, his hazel eyes sweeping over them as he silently considered what they knew.

  "How far back do you want to go?" Fayne rolled his eyes at the futility of singling out a single enemy. "Tulley? Burlton? Nicout? Crynes? Pengree?" Even Kilby's friend Lord Darknell disliked him.

  It was not surprising his mother and sister had been con­cerned for him. Since his father's death, he had been col­lecting enemies like Ramscar collected ancient weaponry. Marrying Kilby was the only sane and responsible decision he had made in the past few weeks.

  His face was harsh when he faced his friends. "We start with Archer, and work our way back. Something tells me whoever desires me maimed or dead is someone I have an­gered recently. The attacks on Kilby and me seem to be rushed and unplanned."

  "Which probably explains why he hasn't succeeded," Everod quipped.

  Fayne touched the
earl on the arm. "Ram, I need a favor from you. I left Kilby at my sister's house. I am certain Brawley is competent in a fair fight. Nonetheless, it would ease my mind to know you both were looking after my wife and sister. Will you go there and help guard my family until I return?"

  Ramscar took a lethal-looking battle-ax off the wall. He handled the weapon as skillfully as its original owner. "I will protect them as if they were my own blood, Carlisle."

  Kilby's thoughts were harried and sad as "she strode up the walkway to the Quennell town house. Archer had used vio­lence and threats to get her to leave. Five days later, she was returning as a married lady.

  Had her parents lived, she wondered if they would have approved of the choices she had made. Both her mother and father would have been pleased by her marriage into the influential Solitea family. Her father probably would have had a few concerns about the young duke's ability to see to his daughter's happiness. Kilby smiled faintly at the thought of her father sternly lecturing Fayne on his duties. She had no doubt that Fayne would have convinced her fa­ther of his good intentions as effortlessly as he had man­aged to charm her.

  Naturally, her mother would have been disappointed that they had missed out on the opportunity to plan a proper wedding for their eldest daughter. A private ceremony in the small chapel at Ealkin would have been Lady Nipping's wish. Kilby had also dreamed of marrying in the beautiful old chapel with her family and friends surrounding her.

  It was a lovely fantasy. Sadly, nothing was going to bring her parents back to her so it was useless to moon over things she could not change. It was trouble that had brought her to Priddy's door. Kilby reached up and rapped on the front door.

  No one came to the door.

  Tapping her foot in agitation, she knocked harder. Priddy's note had been brief and to the point. While the viscountess had been enjoying a visit from Lord Darknell, Archer had broken into the house. He intended to confront Lady Quennell again about the whereabouts of his sisters. Insults were exchanged between the two gentlemen and a violent fight ensued. Lord Darknell had subdued her brother, but a decision had to be made on whether or not the magis­trate should be summoned. Priddy was concerned how the Carlisles might view this latest incident.