One Step Behind

by Brianna Labuskes

  “Yes,” he answered. “The methods are different, but I believe we’re dealing with the same person. Here is a sample of his work he’s sent to me.” Lucas tossed a letter toward Rathburn. “Do you know who it is?”

  There was the question, Gemma thought. Rathburn had been acting peculiar throughout the interview, in a way she could not understand. She had a sense that he was only giving them information in small snippets. Things he felt comfortable divulging, but nothing more.

  He stared down at Lucas’s letter for a long, quiet moment before answering. “Not who. But why.”

  …

  The tension that had been building within him erupted with the simple sentence. Rathburn had been toying with them the entire time. Lucas had recognized him as a master manipulator the moment they’d entered the room. The man must have written the script to this little melodrama in advance; the only time he’d been thrown even slightly was over the blackmail. Lucas wondered how long Rose had waited after they’d left before she sent a message to her former paramour.

  “Do go on,” Lucas said, letting his words drip with ennui. He knew from years of experience that the more interested in the information one appeared, the more difficult it would be to extract.

  “I did not show you all the letters,” Rathburn began.

  “Of course not,” Lucas said. He’d been surprised with the amount they had been able to read. Lucas guessed the ones that Rathburn had kept were even more damning. “There was a girl.”

  Rathburn tipped his head in acknowledgment of the point. “There’s always a girl,” he agreed with a world-weary smile. “We were boys back then. Your father, me, a couple of others.” He settled back into his chair, steepling his fingers against his chest as he eyed them both. “We thought the world was ours: money, power, whores. All harmless fun.”

  Gemma shifted in her seat. Lucas didn’t acknowledge the movement, but he wanted to pull her away from the story he saw coming. The ugliness of it.

  “You started a club,” he prompted Rathburn instead.

  Rathburn’s smile grew nostalgic. “The Kingsmen. So young, you understand.”

  “Was ‘We shall either find a way or make one’ the motto of this club?” Lucas asked.

  Rathburn’s lips curved up in a cat-like smile. “So young. And yes, that little boast was your father’s, actually. We carried it over from university days. We even had rings made up for ourselves. We thought we were so clever.” Rathburn shook his head. “If only we had been.”

  Lucas’ stomach clenched. He’d maintained the hope that his father had not actually been involved deeply in whatever tragedy had set this all in motion. That did not seem to be shaping up to be the case.

  “What happened?” Gemma’s voice rang out clear in the air beside him.

  “Ah, a little fun gone wrong, of course,” Rathburn said, swinging his gaze to Gemma. Lucas did not like the sharp gleam in his eyes when he looked at her.

  “The girl?” Lucas asked when Rathburn fell silent again. He was enjoying toying with them, dropping tidbits of information for them to clutch at, but not enough to hold on to. Lucas was losing patience.

  “Yes, the girl. Her. She’s the reason for all this…” Rathburn trailed off and waved a hand toward the letters and then to them. “She was just some whore we had some fun with. It was a house party we attended as the Kingsmen. I do not even remember which one anymore. I barely remember the girl except she turned up on my doorstep a few months later claiming rape and pregnancy from me. As if she could pin that on any of us. Foolish girl.” He told the story as if they would find it absurd. Perhaps many in society would. Lucas did not.

  “Why did she think she could, then?” Lucas asked with great restraint. Tolerating the man’s presence while not planting a fist in his face was proving to be difficult. “If she was a whore, why would she think she could make any of you own a bastard?”

  “I have no notion, nor do I care to delve into a whore’s thinking,” Rathburn said. “But I turned her out immediately.”

  “But how do you know this matter revolves around her? Hers is a sad story, but it is a common plight faced by women, particularly those of no means,” Gemma said. She was clearly trying to maintain her composure, but Lucas could sense the anger bubbling away just beneath the surface. “An impoverished prostitute would hardly have the power or wealth to carry out such a revenge plot. And society cares very little for such women, unfortunately.”

  Rathburn shrugged. “I cannot comment on the reasons why a madman might champion such a stupid cause. I am sure the whore spun a pretty tale of horror to whoever is seeking vengeance.” He twisted off the ring on his right middle finger and tossed it on the desk. “The letters, apart from some allusions to the night in question, mention our crest. Yet only a handful of people know about it.”

  Lucas didn’t look at the ring, but Gemma picked it up. She traced the inside engraving even though she’d seen it before.

  “Why would you show that to the woman?” Lucas asked. Rathburn was not telling them the whole story. He doubted, however, that the man would disclose anything further than what he had concocted for them.

  Rathburn raised his eyebrows in a dismissive gesture. “She asked about us, I answered. Like I said, young and foolish. But certainly nothing that would warrant the terrorization we’re now facing.”

  It was time to rattle the arrogant bastard.

  “It’s gone further than terrorization, Rathburn,” Lucas said. “Dalton was killed last night in his own home.”

  “I had not heard,” Rathburn said, looking remarkably unperturbed. “We had grown apart, you understand.”

  “You had not talked to him about the letters?” Lucas pressed.

  “No. I saw him in passing at my club, at most.” His gaze flicked to the clock in the corner. “Now, you’ll have to excuse me, I have an appointment.”

  Gemma carefully laid the ring back on his desk before they got to their feet. Rathburn walked them to the door but stopped them right before they left. “I do hope the madman is caught and brought to justice.”

  “Yes. I do hope justice is served,” Gemma murmured before walking out without looking back.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “He is despicable,” Gemma huffed as she clambered into the dark confines of Lucas’s carriage. She wanted to put as much distance between herself and that wretch of a man as possible.

  “He was certainly hiding something,” Lucas said, settling himself into the velvet cushions.

  “Something? Everything! He deceived us from the beginning and then continued along with the charade. As if we would believe his story.” She shuddered, thinking about his smugness when he talked about the woman whose life he probably had been responsible for destroying. “There is much more to the story.”

  “Yes,” Lucas said, looking out the window as their carriage eased into the streets, cutting through the fog of the day. “He gave us some information, but it was scripted, as you say.”

  “And he was far too eager to share it, at that,” Gemma said, thinking of how willing Rathburn had been to hand over the letters. “You cannot remember your father mentioning the man at all?”

  Lucas’s fist clenched against his thigh, and she immediately regretted the question. Stupid.

  But he answered anyway. “I confess I did not talk frequently with my father,” he said. “I would not have thought to ask about youthful friendships he may have fostered. Ours were mostly conversations about how I was not fulfilling my responsibilities as heir.”

  Gemma made a low sound of distress. “How could he say that? You clearly value family responsibility over all else.”

  He turned from the windows and smiled at her, though she thought it might be directed at himself. “He wanted me to stop…traveling and marry to carry on the line. He worried our estate would otherwise go to a distant cousin.”

  “Maybe it wasn’t just about that,” she said, realizing just how complex their relationship must have been
. “What if it was his way of keeping you safe? He was worried about you.”

  Lucas fell silent again. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and lay a comforting head on his chest, but she did not dare encourage him to think of her in that way. It would only make it worse when they called everything off.

  He turned his thoughtful green eyes on her with a sharp intensity. “How was that man one of his closest confidantes? Rathburn is scum. How did my father not see that? How was he so blind? If nothing else in this world, I believed him to be intelligent. Harsh, but smart…” He trailed off and Gemma felt his pain as if it were her own. She tried to imagine learning similar information about her uncle, and what she would want to hear in the situation.

  “While I do not believe youth excuses folly, I do believe we are not at our most perceptive at that age, and we are subject to outside influences,” she began softly. “Your father may have gotten caught up in a silly club, but he also removed himself from his acquaintance with those men and lived a moral life after that. It’s not always about the mistakes we make. Sometimes, it’s what we do after that matters,” she said, holding back the impulse to stroke his hair in reassurance.

  He was quiet for a moment, and she worried she had overstepped. False engagement aside, at the end of the day, they were simply partners in an investigation. She did not have the right to pry into his life or emotions.

  But a moment later, his arms shot out and he pulled her onto his lap. He crushed his lips against hers. This kiss was not gentle; it was an assault. His tongue slid inside her mouth and grappled with hers. His teeth nipped her lips. It awoke a need in her that she’d felt last night, and she clutched at his shoulders, wanting more. Just as she moved to straddle his legs and press her body more firmly against his, he softened the embrace, pulling back after one more affectionate brush of his lips. He rested his forehead against hers and took a deep breath. She gathered her own as she tried to steady her racing heart.

  “I shall obtain a special license as soon as possible,” he said. “It is no longer safe for you to live with Roz.”

  Gemma reared back in dismay. He caught her just before she disgraced herself by tumbling onto the floor of the carriage.

  “I do not need or desire your protection,” Gemma said, forcing herself to speak the words even as her heart screamed that they were lies. “We had an agreement.”

  “I do not understand why this is coming as such surprise to you,” Lucas said, watching her with hooded eyes. “If you have not already noticed, we are affianced. Did you think we would escape from this unscathed?”

  “I am supposed to break it off with you, my lord,” she cried out. She should have known he would try to do the honorable thing in the end. Lucas was nothing if not honorable. “You promised.”

  “I promised no such thing,” he assured her, retaining his grip on her. “But our reputations aside, you are an intelligent woman, my dear. You must realize there could be consequences from our actions last night.”

  Gemma’s breath caught in her throat, and her hand went without thought to rest above her womb. She saw herself holding their child, and could not believe she had not considered that possibility. She pictured a little girl with raven hair and her blue eyes, or a boy with flame-red locks and green cat eyes. Their child. Lucas’s child. Hers. She felt a pang.

  “If there’s a child, he or she will need a father,” he pushed on over her silence. “They would need the protection of my name.”

  He had a point, and he knew that she knew it. She could not and would not deny her child respectability. But still something held her back.

  It wasn’t that she did not want to marry him. He had become home to her. But she wanted to be that for him. Wanted him to love her as fiercely as she did him. Wanted to be his true partner, his companion, his lover. She craved a relationship, not a caretaker. Not someone forced into it through his own ironclad sense of responsibility. And she could not bear the thought of forcing her child—their child—to become the same type of burden she had been.

  She met his eyes. He’d been watching her. Her eyes roved over his face, down to where his hand held hers prisoner. The other was clenched on the soft velvet of the seat. He was nervous, tense and unsure about what she would say. He was trying not to show it, but she knew him better than that, she realized. For some reason it relaxed her.

  “If there is to be a baby, we can make the decision when we know,” she said. It was what she was willing to give for now.

  “That’s not good enough.”

  Convince me. Convince me you want this.

  But he just stared at her, his aristocratic brows raised. He was so used to ordering people around, he was wholly unfamiliar with someone saying no. Well, he was going to have to get used to it if he really did want to marry her.

  “I don’t see why not,” she said, annoyed that even though she had logic on her side, she was the one stuck defending her position.

  “People will talk,” he gritted out. He was not pleased.

  Tough. Neither am I.

  “And then they’ll move on to their next topic before the ink on the wedding certificate has dried. Marriage erases all sins, as well you know.”

  If his grimace was any indication, he wanted to argue. But he couldn’t. She was right.

  “It’s a moot point,” he said, and she braced herself. “I need you under my protection. It’s not safe for you to be living with Roz. You’re far too vulnerable there.”

  “Hire runners for me then,” she countered. “You can have me watched every hour of the day if you’d like. There’s no need to marry me for that.”

  “But then it wouldn’t be me watching you.” He forced the words out from his clenched jaw. She almost, almost, took slight pleasure in his annoyance.

  “Does that matter?”

  “Yes.” His voice was unusually loud in the close confines. “Don’t you realize that? Don’t you realize that you matter? You are what’s important. The only thing that’s important.”

  Her breath caught, and her eyes shot to his. He hadn’t meant to say that, she realized. His face gave him away. He wanted to take the words back.

  Because they made him vulnerable.

  And that meant they carried weight. The other things were still there. He felt responsible for her safety. But maybe that was because he cared about her. He wanted to give her protection if she was with child. But maybe that was because he was concerned about her security and happiness and that of their possible child.

  Maybe she was reading too much into it. But his ragged breathing, and the shuttered look in his eye did more than all of his well-thought out arguments could have. It made her think maybe they actually had a chance.

  Am I brave enough to risk it?

  She didn’t know. Walking out of his life without at least trying though, was something she wasn’t willing to do. Not after he’d told her she was important to him.

  The words slipped from her lips and sealed her fate. “All right.”

  …

  There was still a slight buzz in her ears as she walked into Roz’s house a few moments later. Lucas was on her heels, even though she had been hoping to shake him at the carriage. She desperately needed a few seconds to herself to regain her composure.

  It was immediately clear that she would not be granted that blessed privacy any time soon, however. Mrs. Bird, her aunt’s housekeeper and Bird’s long-suffering wife, was in the hallway, waiting for them.

  “A Mrs. Williams is here to see you,” she intoned. “Not in there,” she continued as Gemma nodded and headed toward the drawing room.

  She paused mid-step and turned back to Mrs. Bird.

  “In the kitchens,” Mrs. Bird answered the unasked question.

  Gemma exchanged a glance with Lucas, whose face was still inscrutable, as it had been since she’d agreed to marry him. He lifted an eyebrow now, though. “Do you know a Mrs. Williams? And why is she in the kitchens”

  “I do not, and I ha
ve not a clue. Mrs. Bird?” Gemma could not quite follow the conversation, and for that she blamed her unsettled state. It was not every day that a woman agreed to marry the man she loved. If only he loved her, too, and didn’t just see her as a responsibility.

  “She is the housekeeper,” Mrs. Bird said, a nudge in her voice. She glanced at Lucas, before turning her attention back to Gemma. “The one you asked about.”

  “Oh!” Gemma exclaimed as the mystery snapped into place. She stripped off her gloves and tossed them on the sideboard before hurrying toward the back of the residence. Lucas kept pace easily with his long legs. She burst into the kitchen, startling the pale, mousy woman who sat drinking tea at the thick wooden table in the center of the room.

  “Mrs. Williams, how lovely to make your acquaintance,” she said. “I am Gemma Lancaster and this is Lord Winchester. We appreciate you stopping by to answer a few questions.”

  The woman shrunk even further at the greeting. She darted her eyes to Mrs. Bird, who stood behind them at the threshold. Mrs. Bird nodded once, and the nervous woman seemed to relax.

  “Mrs. Bird said ye were looking for information about Lord Dalton’s death,” she said. “I had nothin’ to do with it, I swear it.”

  “We know you did not,” Gemma reassured her. “We will not go to authorities nor inform anyone you were here.”

  Mrs. Williams eyed them warily. “Mrs. Bird mentioned a reward. Y’see, I haven’t been able to work since we fled after his lordship’s, er, demise. No character references.”

  “We shall take care of that and offer you compensation for the information you are able to provide,” Gemma said. She was not surprised the woman was seeking a bribe; she would have been more suspicious had she not asked for anything. Gemma nodded to an amused-looking Lucas, who tossed several coins on the table in front of the housekeeper. “Could you tell us about the night Lord Dalton was shot?”

  Mrs. Williams scooped up the gold, running her fingers over the coins before slipping them in a pocket. “It was me night off. I was supposed to visit me sister, but she came down with a fever and told me not to come. I didn’t inform his lordship because he would have acted as if it was not me night off, even though it was me night off, y’see. I retired early, but I heard him movin’ about above me for a good time after that. I should have stayed in me rooms, that night.”