Linking her fingers to disguise her uncertainty she pivoted to face Clayton. “Can I help?”
“Not bloody likely. Though I think a large brandy is what I need.”
She ignored that request. “Tea perhaps?”
“And here I thought you were meant to be at my beck and call.”
“Who are you?”
Maggie turned to face the visitor.
“She’s my housekeeper. Miss Francis, however, does not always do what she’s told.” Mouth grim, his gaze rested on her. “You can show Detective Brownley out please, Maggie.”
The detective tugged the cap from his pocket and placed it firmly on his head. “Thank you for your time, Mr. Abbott. You would do well to heed my warning. Something is amiss at your premises in London and the Yard is keen to dig deeper. I only came to warn you because you were our Mickey’s superior during the German ruckus until... Well, he looked up to you and wrote about you a lot.” The detective’s gruff voice suddenly softened. “Mickey’s little boy is the spitting image of him, and I do what I can.” He straightened and fixed Clayton with a determined stare. “If there’s one thing I know, Mr. Abbott, Mickey respected you and he would have wanted me to warn you.” He leaned in closer, his voice conspiratorial. “I can only tell you this once, sir, it’s the least I can do. Mickey...well, he would ‘av done the same, but that bloody mustard gas got ‘im. Those blisters—”
Clayton’s face suddenly bleached of all color, and his grip on his cane tightened.
“Yes. Yes.” Maggie reached for the detective and drew him away before Clayton fell on the spot. “Thank you for the warning, Detective, I’m sure Mr. Abbott appreciates it. Come this way.” Without taking her hand off the detective’s arm, she led him out of the room and propelled him to the front door.
Out in the foyer she opened the door to the chilly late afternoon air. The detective tugged up the collar of his coat, then shoved his hands into its deep pockets. “Tell him to act fast, Miss. Being a wealthy businessman won’t help Mr. Abbott one little bit.” Turning from her, he stepped out into the fading daylight. “He needs to sort it out damned quickly.”
Opium? Clayton?
Maggie closed the door on the detective and turned to go back into the library, but halted at the sound of Clayton’s raised voice.
“What the hell is going on, Edward?”
“How would I know? I’ve been busy sourcing new markets. With the end of the war, opportunities are going to open wide.”
Determined to find the truth of the matter, Maggie walked into the library and straight to the drinks cabinet, pouring Clayton a whiskey and handing it to him.
“I thought you were the whiskey patrol, Miss Francis?” He offered a mocking smile and despite herself, Maggie smiled fleetingly back.
“I thought you might need it, given the news.”
Clayton’s mouth turned down and he hunched his shoulders. “So you’ve heard.”
She shrugged in an effort to appear nonchalant. “Impossible not to.”
“I don’t know how this could happen right under my nose. It bloody doesn’t make sense. You would have thought somebody would have spilled the beans. I wonder how many are being paid off to keep quiet?” He glanced to Edward. “You’ve been in charge of the company in my absence and saying nothing seems amiss.” Clayton swigged at his drink and sank down into the seat behind him.
“Take the advice of an old friend, Clayton. It’s best just to let it alone. It’s likely to die down.”
“You’ve got to be joking. Detective Brownley seemed pretty adamant that Bellerose Trading is under investigation.” He shook his head, eyes closing for a moment. “Opium, for God’s sake, as if any company could recover from such a scandal.”
Edward shot to his feet and, side-stepping Maggie, poured himself a whiskey, downing it in one long greedy gulp, then quickly refilled his glass. Something in his manner changed. Worry and desperation colored his Nordic features. The moment he turned back to Clayton, however, those emotions were tempered. “You can’t go down to the city, Clayton. What will people say when they...well, how will you hide? No, you’re better off staying here in the wilds of Derbyshire. Stay safe here and leave it to me. Probably a bit of nothing.”
Stay safe. Hide.
“He can’t do that.”
Both men shifted their attention to her.
“Mr. Abbott, Bellerose is your family business, its reputation and that of your family is at stake. The world does not care what you look like, Clayton.”
He shot from his chair and stood only a few inches from her. His breathing razored, fury darkened his green eyes to the darkest of the forests, the puckered wound whitened and protruding. “What the hell do you know? Have you seen them, their eyes, heard the whispered words that aren’t so quiet? The Beast. The monster, they call me. I’m a caricature for ridicule. That is my reality!”
He paced the floor, and then halted by the window with his back to her. His voice dropped to a whisper, the anger depleted. “Staying secluded is not so much safeguarding myself, but for others. I am protecting them from seeing a beast.” He leaned into the window, the palm of both hands flat against the pane, his shoulders slumped. “I protect the children who, when they see me, run sobbing into their mother’s arms.” He spun around to face her. “That is why I stay away, Maggie. To protect them.”
Maggie’s heart ached for him, but she refused to let him see any hint of pity. “Am I running scared? Does Florrie? Have Sam and Annie run from you? Sam ran to you, wanting to help.” She lifted her chin. “We see the man, the person behind the scars. You need to give people a chance to get to know you and stop hiding behind a mask you have created in your own mind, because that is not how people who know you, see you.”
Clayton threw his hands up. “You don’t understand.”
She could feel his ragged breath wash across her, but she refused to back down. “Yes I do. I’ve seen brutalized bodies, their heads blown off by German bombs, rotting flesh forgotten beneath the collapsed buildings. Horrible, yes. Sad too. This is the very reason you must go to London. To protect what you have, for you are very fortunate to have family.”
“I have my mother. That is all. This is about business. Nothing else.”
Maggie’s eyes watered. “Many have lost everything and have no one. You are alive. You survived. You have family, and a business passed down through generations. You have history that must be protected for the future.”
Clayton lowered long lashes over his gaze. “Perhaps you are—”
Edward closed the distance between him and Clayton and slapped Clayton on the back in a camaraderie that to Maggie felt as honest and true as if the war had not happened. “Don’t worry about it, old chum. Keep yourself to yourself up here and I’ll deal with it.”
Maggie gritted her teeth at Edward’s bonhomie. Did he not understand the dire situation for Bellerose? And the reason Clayton must go to London. Why did he not want him to travel, but instead, to keep hiding away from life? Surely those were not the words of a friend? What was Edward hiding? Surely he couldn’t be involved. Clayton was his childhood friend.
She reached out to Clayton, her fingertips lightly brushing his shirtsleeve. Immediately his muscles flexed beneath her touch and a tiny shiver fluttered along her nerve endings. “Clayton.”
He remained silent until slowly his attention shifted from the fire, focusing briefly on her fingertips, and then he lifted his gaze to her and stared as if seeing her for the first time. He shoved his hands in his trouser pockets. “Maggie is right. I need to go and sort this out. There’s a train in the morning at ten.” He glanced briefly at her and his expression softened, sending spirals of heat curling around her heart.
Edward’s mouth thinned. “Are you sure? Let me go and I’ll send you reports daily.”
“No, you’ve already said you’re busy with building up trade. I’m sure there’s a misunderstanding. Our staff has been with us for most of their working lives, so
me go back to my grandfather’s time. They wouldn’t deceive Bellerose. I’m sure of it.” He cast a glance at her fingers still residing on his arm and a scurrying heat stole across her cheeks. She quickly withdrew her hand.
“You do seem to know how to get a rise out of me, Maggie.”
She leveled her gaze on him, desperate to hide her emotions. “When required.” Her voice was clipped, succinct. Though wildly unbidden thoughts of Clayton played havoc with her concentration. She bit down on her bottom lip as if that would make her wake from this...this senseless fantasy.
“Right, Maggie, pack your bag.”
Dear God. Is he sending me away?
“We’re heading to London in the morning.”
“We? You mean you and me?”
“Of course.”
“Why me?”
“Because you’re my housekeeper...” Intense green eyes stared into her soul, forcing Maggie to swallow, unable to sever their connection.
“And as my housekeeper, I’ll require you with me.”
His housekeeper. That’s all I am to him?
What do I expect? Friend? Lover?
Disappointment surged. Where had those thoughts come from? Thoughts of something more, something exciting. They were so silly. So impossible. She mentally pulled herself together. “Of course, I’ll organize everything.”
***
“Oh, shit!” Clayton slammed a hand across his forehead, fingers abrading the corded scar as a brutal reminder.
London meant venturing away from his seclusion. Seeing people. Have them see him.
He was no coward, nor shallow or vain, yet the thought of leaving Bellerose turned his innards to jelly.
But he had to go. He had no choice.
Concern marred Edward’s aristocratic visage. “Are you sure you want to go?”
Clayton shook his head. “I have no choice. The company’s name and family name are at stake.” Actually, he wasn’t so sure he could deal with it, but with Maggie at his side, just like when they walked the lanes, at least things would hopefully be easier. Funny how he already thought of the two of them as a team.
He exhaled a long sigh. Yes, he could do this.
“You’ve got a nice set up here, Clayton. Why go to London?”
“You heard what Detective Brownley said. Though I wish to God he had not been related to Mickey.” Mickey Brownley had been a good and trustworthy soldier. So trustworthy he’d gone into battle even though his commanding officer was not at the helm. Clayton had escaped the gas. Mickey—all his men—had not been so lucky.
Clayton sank bank into the sofa, squeezing his eyes closed. Without thinking, hell, he didn’t want to think of those bloody days, he reached up to his face, trailing over the gouged ruts in his left cheek.
His eyes flashed open, severing the living nightmare. “Opium!”
“Rumors, surely. Why bother feeding into it?”
Clayton shut off his self-expose, and tried to drag his brain back to focus on the problem of the moment. “Someone is using the Bellerose name as cover for importing that bloody stuff. I want it stopped.”
Edward refilled his glass for a third time, drinking most of it in one gulp.
Clayton chuckled. “Careful with the whiskey, old friend, or you’ll have Miss Francis on your back.”
Edward eyed his empty glass and offered an uncaring shrug. “Quite right. I can’t upset the stoic Miss Francis. Where’d you find her, by the way?”
“I didn’t. That was Beatrice’s doing.”
“Now why am I not surprised at that? You’re mother has a very determined way about her.”
Just like Maggie. “My mother thinks I need help.”
“And do you?”
Clayton shrugged. “I’ve shut myself away for a long time. Maggie’s changed all that. Don’t tell her, but she’s a breath of fresh air.” He may have acted the beast the day she’d arrived, but she had surely tamed him and woken him up to the world. He turned toward the light, an action that seemed incongruous considering he’d refused to let light into his life for so long—ever since the day Elaine had stared in horror at his face. The same day he’d set her free from their engagement. He could never have married her and lived with what he saw reflected in her eyes. Pity. Revulsion.
Oh, he knew he was no monster; his wounds had been vicious, though they had healed considerably since that day, but Elaine had wanted perfect, and as far as she was concerned, he was perfect no longer.
And so he’d shut himself away—until Maggie. She was the only person to see the man behind the mask.
“Maggie’s right. Given this new threat, I have to go to London. Who the bloody hell would use Bellerose to import that fiendish drug? I thought our staff was reliable and trustworthy. Any ideas?”
Edward tipped his crystal glass of whiskey to his lips. “Not a clue.”
Mouth grim, Clayton scraped a hand across his chin, then looked out the window at the darkening day as a soft flurry of snow rained down on the land.
There was a light knock at the door. Maggie stood at the entrance. Her gaze flicked to Edward briefly and Clayton witnessed an uncertainness in her expression.
Fingers linked in front of her, she stepped into the room. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but I cannot find the diary. I thought that perhaps I had left it in here.”
Clayton’s brows rose. “Are you still trying to find out the mystery of Josephine, Maggie?”
“It is intriguing, though I’m not sure I’m any closer to knowing what happened.”
“What’s this about?” Edward intervened.
Maggie turned to him and Clayton again caught a glimpse of uncertainty in her soft blue eyes. Her teeth scraped over her bottom lip. “Mr. Abbott has been kind enough to let me read Josephine’s diary.”
Edward raised both brows. “Is that the one Simmone used to talk about? The one that mentions the mysterious emeralds supposedly worth a king’s ransom.”
“The very same.” Clayton glanced around the room. “Can’t see it here, but have a look, if you wish.”
Maggie sidestepped them and moved about the room, searching every nook and cranny.
For a moment, he and Edward were silent, which only seemed to increase her unusual nervousness.
“Don’t worry. It will turn up,” he said trying to set her mind at rest.
On her hands and knees beside the chaise at the window seat, she shoved the curtain aside.
Clayton frowned. “Found it?”
She glanced over a shoulder at him, eyes darkening to sapphire. “No...I...no, it’s nothing.” She dropped the curtain then stood and straightened, shoving her hands in her apron pockets. “I was sure it was here.” She glanced down to the floor beside the small mahogany side table, brows creasing. “I’ll search again upstairs.” With a crisp nod to him, she walked to the door.
“Amazing isn’t it, how one can get hooked in to greed.”
Maggie gasped and spun round to face Edward. She held herself ramrod straight. “It is not greed or lust for emeralds that has me addicted to Josephine, Lord Hindmarch.”
Clayton looked from his friend and across to Maggie. Tension crackled between them. “That’s telling you, Edward.”
Edward disengaged his attention from Maggie and turned back to Clayton. He offered a nonchalant shrug. “Things sometimes are not what they seem.”
Hands fisted, Maggie spun from Edward’s condemnation. “I’m sure I left the diary here yesterday.”
Clayton toyed with his glass, swirling the golden whiskey around. “Never mind, it will turn up.”
She gave him a half smile. “I do hope so. I was rereading Josephine’s comments regarding the necklace.”
Edward paced across the room. “So you intend trying to find the treasure, Clayton?”
Clayton shrugged and sipped his drink. “Not especially.”
“I thought the hours we spent trying to find pirate treasure in your garden at Bellerose when we were children was enough treasure
hunting to last a lifetime. No one has ever found the emeralds, I believe.”
“No, but supposedly the diary holds clues.”
Edward rubbed a hand across the back of his neck, his face slightly flushed. “Surely those jewels are more important than some old ancestor’s death. I mean they’re worth a fortune. Sorry about Josephine and all that, but those emeralds...”
“Can stay wherever they are. You’re right, I’m long over treasure hunting.”
Edward stepped over to the sideboard and refilled his glass, again downing it in one gulp. He raised it to Maggie. “Clayton said you might tell me off, but I’m not frightened of you.”
Maggie’s mouth pursed and she tilted her chin up just that little bit higher. “That’s good, because I’m not frightened of you either.”
And with that the woman who had been in his household for barely three weeks and who had brought about changes in him he had vowed he didn’t want, offered him a stiff nod and walked out without a backward glance, closing the door firmly behind her.
Clayton roared with laughter. “That’s telling you, Edward. I think Miss Francis has just put you firmly in your place.”
***
As soon as she pulled the door closed, Maggie heard Clayton’s laughter and comments. Could he not recognize that something wasn’t quite right with his friend?
An air of urgency bubbled beneath the surface of Edward Hindmarch as he talked of business and the threat of exposure delivered by Detective Brownley.
The man’s desperation confused her. Now, tomorrow they were to travel to London.
Back home.
A lump formed in her throat. Home. She had vowed to never return to London. London was no longer her home.
Now she had no choice.
She shook her head as she took the stairs, the tiny button she’d discovered behind the curtain in the library rolling between her fingers.
If they were to leave early, she needed to pack.
Heading to Clayton’s room first, she quickly sorted his clothing, retrieving a luxuriously tooled leather case from a storage locker.
Saving the Soldier's Heart (The Emerald Quest Book 2) Page 7