by Nicole Byrd
She heard a sudden muffled peal from inside the home, and she jumped. Then she remembered that it was the bell for the early dinner, which served as the children’s main meal of the day. Gemma knew from her time here that all the staff and youngsters would be gathered in the drab dining hall in the basement.
Now was her chance! She ran lightly up to the back door and turned the doorknob, wondering if she were strong enough to break the lock.
To her surprise, the knob turned easily. Someone had been lax, Gemma thought. When she had been here, the doors were always kept latched, if for no other reason than to keep some angry, desperate inmate from running away.
This was no time for indulging in the memories that still haunted her. Fighting back her fear, Gemma eased open the door, stared down the dimly lit hallway, then took one step over the threshold.
A strong hand covered her mouth.
Five
Gemma jerked in shock, but the hand muffled her shriek of surprise. Its touch felt slightly rough against her mouth and its grasp impossible to evade. Her arm had been seized in a steely grip. She tried to break the hold, but she couldn’t move. Terror raced through her, and she thought for a moment she would faint.
“Do not scream,” a man whispered. She realized she could smell starchy linen and a slight hint of male skin.
It seemed so unlikely for a murderer to smell of clean linen that some of her initial panic ebbed. What was this about? Who was it who held her so firmly?
Standing very close, he moved into her view. She saw a tall, well-made man with somewhat disordered fair hair and eyes the color of gunmetal. His face would have been handsome if his expression had not been so grim. Smudges of dust darkened his cheeks. He wore a black coat and had wrapped a dark scarf around his throat and chin, and he blended easily into the shadows of the hall.
“Are you a teacher at the foundling home?” he whispered, glancing down at her drab but ladylike traveling costume. His voice seemed too genteel to belong to a thief and housebreaker, and yet, why else was he here?
She shook her head.
“I will release my hand, but if you make a noise, I will throttle you here and now. I have had sufficient practice in the art to do it quickly. Do you believe me?”
She nodded. His tone alone would have convinced her; his words made her once more cold with fear.
He removed his hand but held it a few inches from her mouth, as if not quite trusting her. His eyes were still dark with resolve.
Her mouth very dry, Gemma tried to swallow.
“Who are you?” he asked.
Her voice came out as a muffled croak. “I—I have come to slip into the matron’s office and examine her records?”
He stared at her. Did he not believe her? It was a strange enough errand.
“Why?”
“It’s too complicated to explain just now,” she told him, keeping her tone low. “Listen, the children and staff are at dinner; there is little time before they come back upstairs. Just let me go into the matron’s office down the hall. But you—why are you here? There is little here to steal, you know. Surely, you have not come to harm any of the children?”
She would have to scream for help, if so, even if it meant risking her own death. She would not sacrifice any of those pitiful youngsters below stairs.
He raised those slashing brows in apparent shock. “God forbid!”
If he were a twisted villain looking for some innocent sacrifice, he would not admit to it, one rational part of her mind told her. And yet, his voice held the deep note of sincerity, and she found that she believed him.
“Lead the way,” he told her. “And raise no outcry.”
She nodded, and he let go of her arm. She saw that he held a slim metal bar beneath one arm and realized he must have broken the lock on the outer door to get inside. Unease rippled through her again, but she refused to give up her quest. She tiptoed down the hallway, opened the door, and slipped into the office.
He followed, shutting the door very quietly behind them and sliding the latch into place. Biting her lip, Gemma thought for an instant how secluded they now were. This would be a better place to kill her than the hallway, where her struggles would more likely be heard from below. But she could not waste time on useless fears. She was here, and she would take her chances.
Gemma glanced about the room. Pewter candlesticks sat on the desk and table, and a small clock adorned the mantel, poor enough pickings for a thief. She saw him draw out a large sack of coarse cloth from beneath his coat, but she cared little if the matron lost her trinkets. Gemma went straight to the shelf of ledgers, which was just where it had always been. She picked up one of the books and opened it to scan a page, seeing a list of household expenses.
Eggs, 5 shillings
Potatoes, 10 shillings a bushel
The list went on, but none of it was what she sought. She leafed through the thin journal, then picked up another.
“Is there a list of students?” the man asked, peering over her shoulder.
She looked at him in surprise. “That is one of the things I am searching for,” she admitted and continued her search.
Then she stiffened. She heard a muffled thud from below, and then the pounding of feet on the staircase. “The children have been released from the dining room,” she told him. “Someone may come!”
He raised his brows again, but she forgot to be afraid. Time was slipping away, and she had to find out—
Then, to her shock, he took his bag, and, ignoring the clock and the pewterware, grabbed a handful of the shabby ledgers and dumped them, along with the metal bar, into the sack.
Staring at him for only an instant, she made up her mind. Gemma seized another armload and helped him. Together, they emptied the shelf.
Then the man turned his head. She heard it, too—heavy footsteps in the hall. She pictured the matron marching along with her usual ponderous tread, and the child inside her cringed in terror at the thought of being discovered. The sting of the matron’s stick on her shoulders returned to her, as real as if the beating were just occurring. For an instant, fear veiled her vision so that she could hardly see. Oh, God help her . . .
“Come,” he breathed into her ear. With long strides, he crossed to the window and pushed up the sash. Putting the bag on the floor, he held out his hands to her, and she allowed him to grasp her around the waist, lift her with an easy strength, and help her slide through the open window. She fell the few feet to the ground below, then scrambled out of his way as, bag in hand, he followed her through the opening.
“Make haste,” he ordered. “We must get out of sight.”
Nodding, she took the hand he offered, and they dashed for the trees. It seemed a long way. Gemma’s heart pounded as she ran, and her shoulders tensed as she waited for an outraged Mrs. Craigmore to lean through the window and scream for them to bring back her lost ledgers, but she heard only the slight thud of their feet on the grass and her own pulse beating fast. At last the lush greenery and thick trunks offered them shelter. When the house was hidden from view, they paused in the deep shadow of a large oak. Out of breath, her pulse still racing from exertion and fear, Gemma leaned against the tree and stared up at him. He still held the sack over his shoulder.
“Now, who are you?” she demanded. “I cannot allow you to take away those ledgers. I need to study them. And they can have no value to you.”
He gazed back at her without answering. Gemma lifted her chin, trying to read his face in the dimness. She was, no doubt, in terrible danger, standing here with some unknown felon, yet she refused to relinquish her original goal. Somehow, she would find out her true origins. If Lord Gabriel never answered her, if he refused to see her, if—heaven forbid—her mother had changed her mind about a meeting, this could be Gemma’s only lead. She had lived with uncertainty for too long to believe that it might really be lifted.
She put one hand on his cloth bag, now heavy with the books, but he did not loosen his grip.
They both maintained their hold on the cloth, and Gemma tensed again. The man’s eyes were heavy with purpose, but she met his gaze squarely.
“They are more valuable than gems. There is information here I must have, that I would die for,” he told her. The melodramatic statement should have sounded ridiculous, but his tone was such that she believed him implicitly.
“The contents are just as vital to me, and I will not let you disappear with the books,” she argued, even as she wondered how on earth she would stop him. He was more powerful, and she was alone.
She felt him stiffen as if preparing to pull the bag out of her grasp, and to delay a struggle, she added, “Why do you wish these ledgers?”
“Why do you?” he shot back. “Why would a lady wish to know the inner workings of a foundling home?”
“I was once an inhabitant,” she told him.
To her surprise, his expression lightened. “You have lived here? So the home is not as bad as I have imagined?”
“It is worse,” she said bluntly.
His face fell, and determination thinned his well-shaped mouth.
“But why—” He was questioning her, now. His dark eyes were intent. “Why do you wish to have them?”
“I need information,” she said. “The reasons are complicated, as I said.” And not ones she wished to confess to a stranger.
His lips relaxed enough to lift into a wry almost-smile as if he guessed the direction of her thoughts. “And you know nothing about me.”
“No,” she agreed. “I do not. If you let me take the ledgers, I promise to allow you to see them, as well. I will give you the address in London where I am staying.”
And where she could meet him with people around her, a sturdy footman on call, she thought. Where a stranger would be less likely able to commit a quiet murder. She had not forgotten his first threat, while he had held her immobile with hands like forged steel.
He stood still for a moment, as if deep in thought. Then he looked back at her. “I think it is possible that we could help each other. If you once resided at the home, you may know other things that could be of use to me.”
That depended on what his unknown purpose was, Gemma thought, but she would not argue now. “It is possible.”
“How were you planning to return to London?” he asked, suddenly practical. “Surely not on foot?”
She shook her head. “I have a cab waiting,” she said. “About half a mile from here.”
He seemed to make up his mind. “Then you will come with me to collect my horse, and I will follow you back to London,” he said.
Thereby being sure that she did not give him a false address, Gemma thought cynically. But if she distrusted him, he had the right to similar suspicions. She wondered suddenly if she was doing right to bring a housebreaker—although he had not stolen anything she would expect of a common thief—to Louisa’s home. It was too late to change her mind, however, and she was desperate not to allow him to ride away with those ledgers.
“Very well,” she agreed.
They had been so quiet that, reassured, the birds in the trees around them had once again begun to call. As the stranger lifted a branch for her, a thrush fluttered away in alarm. Stepping softly, he led her farther into the woods. Gemma’s fear flared again—until she made out a horse, a roan, tied to a young tree and waiting patiently for its rider to return. Here, under Gemma’s worried gaze, the stranger transferred the ledgers to his saddlebags.
He saw her look of concern. “Do not worry. I will not disappear with them. As I said, I think we can help each other.”
Knowing she was likely mad to trust a thief, she nodded. Gemma felt another qualm as he untied the horse, put his foot into the stirrup and swung himself into the saddle. She gazed at him in alarm, but he leaned over and held out his hand.
“Come, I will take you to your carriage.”
She hesitated for a moment, then, suddenly aware that she did not wish to be found here alone when someone from the foundling home came searching after the loss of the journals was discovered, she gripped his hand and allowed him to swing her up behind him.
She perched awkwardly on the horse’s back. Her skirt was not cut for riding, and although the sturdy fabric did not rip, she had to allow her hem to ride higher up her leg than was proper. Did he glance down at her stocking-clad calves? If so, he made no comment.
Her face flushing, Gemma put her arms around his waist. It was that or risk sliding off, she told herself, and gripped him more tightly than she would have wished. His back was broad, and his carriage very erect. Once again, she wondered just who and what he was.
He clucked to the horse and moved his foot against the beast’s side, and the animal stepped forward.
Her face pressed against his back, Gemma clung to him. She was aware again of the vague smells of his clothing, his body. Even with the faint hint of the perspiration induced by their exertions, and now a slight horsey aroma, he still did not—as she had noted at their first contact—smell like a long unwashed street thug. But if he were not a ruffian, what sort of man was he, then, to be breaking into the foundling home?
She was all too aware of how near their bodies pressed together. His back was hard with muscle, and she already knew the strength in his hands and arms. She felt a faint and most unladylike response inside her to his closeness. To distract herself, she lifted her head and tried to stare around him. They had emerged from the trees, and the narrow road came into view. “Just over there, past the rise of the hill,” she directed.
He turned his horse into the roadway, and they crested the hill. Gemma leaned to the side to see better, and she gasped.
The road was empty. The hackney was gone.
“It’s not here,” she said foolishly as if the stranger could not see the bare road for himself. “The driver must have given up on me.”
She was stranded here, miles from London. Worse yet, she had been left alone with a stranger whose morals she had no reason to trust. All of Gemma’s fears rushed back, and suddenly she could no longer endure their enforced and almost intimate contact. She let go of the man she had been holding so tightly and pushed herself off, sliding down the horse’s flank.
She stumbled but managed to regain her footing and avoid tumbling into a heap. Now what? What would the stranger do, now that she had no other resources? With no witness here to see the crime, he could easily execute that quiet murder he had threatened her with on the instant of their first meeting.
He looked down at her, and she could not read his expression. “What are you doing? You can hardly walk back to London. It will be dark before you reach the city. It would be highly dangerous for you to trek through the night all alone.”
“In case I should meet a man of uncertain reputation?” she asked, her tone dry. “A thief or housebreaker, perhaps, who might threaten me with harm?”
For a moment, she thought he struggled against a smile. “Point taken.”
As she watched, he pulled the dark scarf from around his neck, revealing the neatly-tied white stock of a gentleman. He pushed his fair hair more or less back into place and used the scarf to wipe the dust off his face. Had he dirtied it deliberately to avoid being easily seen in the dimness of the hall? Suddenly he looked much less like a street thief and much more like a gentleman. Had he removed his disguise to reassure her?
It was hardly rational that his appearance should vouch for his honor, but Gemma found that she did feel a little better.
“But why—”
“As you said, my reasons are complicated. I think we should make our way back to London, and then we need to have a long talk.”
She nodded slowly. “Yes. And examine the ledgers.”
“Together,” he reminded her.
“Agreed.”
He leaned over and offered her his hand. She grasped it with both of hers, and without apparent effort, he pulled her up behind him once more. If he were indeed a gentleman, as it increasingly appeared, he was not an
idle sort, Gemma decided.
She felt even more self-conscious about being pressed so closely against his body, but if she did not wish to fall, she could hardly avoid it. He would think nothing of it, she told herself. Or so she hoped.
And indeed, he made no comment except to say, “Hold tight. I need to put some distance between us and the home. There is only a crescent moon tonight, so it will be as well to get as far along as we can before darkness falls. The road will be hard to see.”
She nodded and tightened her hold. It was not very comfortable, perching behind the saddle like this, but it was better than walking the miles back to the city, and she realized she did not at all want to be left on foot, vulnerable to assault by any passing vagrant.
So she gritted her teeth against the discomfort of the horse’s gait and allowed herself to lean into the comforting solidness of the rider’s form. Did the man have a name? Soon, she must find out more about him.
Matthew was all too aware of her body as it pressed against his own. Her breasts were soft against the hard line of his back, her arms firm about his waist but still shapely and indisputably feminine. He ached a little, thinking how long since he had been this close to a woman—and not just any woman.
From their first encounter in the dark hall, he had liked the way she held herself, the soft curve of her throat, the dark silkiness of her hair. He remembered how it had felt to touch her face, her lips—her soft, so touchable lips—and again his groin ached.
A glimmer of regret stirred—he’d been rougher with her than perhaps he’d had to be. He hadn’t wished to alarm her, but he couldn’t allow his mission to be imperiled. He hadn’t expected her to have such courage and such presence of mind. Most females, if assaulted by a stranger in the dark, would have screamed or swooned or engaged in hysterics. A surprising woman, this. No, she had spirit and enough courage to stand up to a man whose honor she had no way of judging. He tried to think about all the ways she had surprised him instead of the soft body that pressed against him, the feminine body so hard to ignore.