TOUCH ME

by Lucy Monroe

  Her aunt sighed, but nodded her lovely white head. "You have a point, my dear. Perhaps you will see your way clear to coming for a visit after dinner. Both your sister and your brother will be there."

  Thea bit her lip, her desire to meet her twin and her trepidation at the thought of spending time with Langley at war within her. "I don't know."

  She needed time to think, and there was still the embezzler to consider, Uncle Ashby's well-being to worry about. Any relationship she might develop with Langley could not overshadow the responsibility she had to the man who had helped her mother raise her.

  Drake returned home to find his wife staring broodingly into the unlit fireplace in the drawing room. She looked up as he entered, and some strong, unnamed emotion slammed through his chest. She was so beautiful, so courageous, more intelligent than most men and more determined, too.

  She had risked the unknown, her own emotional comfort, and even her life to prevent harm to her adopted uncle. She stubbornly insisted on finding the embezzler to her company, having refused Drake's offer to continue the investigation alone. She was beyond anything he had ever imagined finding in a wife. He vowed he would be what she needed in a husband.

  "What are you thinking when you look at me like that?" she asked.

  "That I have an uncommon wife and I want to be worthy of her."

  Her eyes widened and then misted over. Jumping up from her chair, she flew across the room to land with a thud against him. He closed his arms around her, shocked by her reaction.

  She returned the embrace and spoke against his waistcoat. "How can you think that after everything?"

  "Everything?" What idea had taken root in her active imagination now?

  She nodded against his chest. "Yes, everything. I seduced you. Spurned you. Mistrusted you. And even now you are busy with my investigation while your business suffers."

  He forced her to move away enough for him to look into her tear-drenched blue eyes. "You may not have noticed, but I was hardly an unwilling participant the first time we made love. For you to believe otherwise is not only an insult to my manhood, but absurd."

  She blinked the moisture away from her eyes and stared at him in wonder.

  "Furthermore, had you accepted my proposal immediately, I would not be so certain now that our marriage is what you truly desired. Yesterday was a difficult day for you and you allowed your emotions to rule your head, saying some things you did not mean, but in your heart of hearts, you did not doubt me." He said it not merely because he wanted it to be true, but because he believed it.

  She trusted him far more than she realized, or she would never have married him.

  She looked so vulnerable that he could not stop himself from leaning down to offer her a soft kiss of reassurance. Her lips were pliable and willing under his, and the mating of their mouths turned into something hot and out of control before he remembered that he had brought visitors back with him.

  The sound of a throat clearing behind him told him that they had been shown into the drawing room.

  He lifted his head from Thea's intent on making one final point. "I will have you know that I am quite capable of supervising an investigation and overseeing my business. I would not have you think that I am an inferior businessman."

  Her smile was like walking from a fog-shrouded London night into a ballroom lit with hundreds of candles. "I am glad to hear that, since I hold your business acumen in such high esteem."

  The way her body pressed against his belied any belief his business acumen was of primary consideration to her at the moment, but he'd learned he liked her teasing. "Mr. Drake?"

  She looked around his shoulder, her eyes widened in surprise. She had just realized they had visitors. Her gaze shifted back to him, a question in their beautiful blue depths.

  "I've brought some guests."

  She broke away from him, her pretty cheeks turning the color of a rose in bloom, and turned toward the two men occupying the other end of the drawing room. "So I see."

  "Barton was making a mad dash for parts unknown when Hansen, the bright fellow standing next to him, convinced him to come talk to me instead."

  Thea crossed the room and stood in front of Barton. "So, you've brought him here so I could question him as well?"

  The blond assistant swallowed audibly, his nervousness apparent in his shaking fingers and pinched lips. "I haven't done anything wrong."

  "Then why were you leaving the city?" Thea did not sound as if she believed the assistant.

  Drake had his own doubts, but Merewether, not Barton, had been seen going into the warehouse storing the stolen goods. Barton's tale sealed the other man's guilt.

  Knowing the news that her adopted uncle's family was to blame for recent events would upset her, Drake slipped his arm around Thea and hugged her to his side. "Tell my wife what you told me, Barton."

  "Mr. Merewether came to me and said as how you suspected me of stealing from the warehouse. He offered to help me hide in the country until he found the true culprit and cleared my name. He told me you planned to have me sent to Newgate." Barton shuddered at the name of the prison. "I didn't steal anything. I noticed discrepancies in the ledgers months ago. When I went to Mr. Merewether with my concerns, he said he would look into it, but that it was probably simple calculation errors. Since he kept the books, I had no choice but to accept his word."

  "You could have contacted me via letter," Thea chided.

  Barton nodded, clearly miserable. "Yes, but I wasn't sure of anything, and Mr. Merewether took over all the accounts after that. He kept the ledgers locked in his office. I had no way of substantiating my claim."

  "You should have tried." Drake was not as calm about it as his wife. His hold on her tightened. He could not bear the thought of losing her. "When Thea discovered the thefts, he sent someone to try to kill her."

  Barton's face lost what little color had remained after being accosted while trying to flee the city. "I didn't realize."

  Thea squeezed Drake's arm. "He did not succeed, my love."

  Was he her love?

  He could not demand an answer to that question in the middle of their investigation, but soon he would.

  Thea measured Barton with a glance. "I don't suppose you would have any idea of who Mr. Merewether sent to our island?"

  "You mean you don't know?" Barton asked, sounding surprised.

  "No."

  A little color returned to Barton's face and he pulled himself erect. "I believe I know the answer to that. I saw Mr. Merewether pay one of our previous dockworkers a substantial sum of money before sending him aboard a Merewether ship bound for the island. It could be someone else, but I doubt it."

  Drake's irritation nearly spiraled out of control. "Didn't you find that behavior odd?"

  Barton held himself perfectly erect now. "I do not make it a policy to question my superior's actions."

  The only thing that prevented Drake from doing the prissy assistant bodily injury was the restraining hold Thea had on his arm. "Pierson, you must remain calm. We now know who the infiltrator on the island is. Mr. Barton can give us his name and description."

  Barton nodded vehemently. "Yes. I can."

  Drake decided to wait until the man had given them the information before he knocked Barton senseless for allowing Thea's life to be put in jeopardy.

  He was still annoyed two hours later as he drove his curricle toward Merewether Shipping's office, the assistant and Hansen following in a hansom cab. Thea had not allowed him to beat even a modicum of sense into the irritating Barton.

  Thea sat silently by Drake's side as they made their way through the congested London traffic. Her voice surprised him when she decided to speak. "Lady Upworth came to call."

  "She had said she would."

  "Yes."

  He waited, knowing that she would get around to whatever occupied her thoughts eventually.

  "She told Langley the truth."

  "No one can force you to see him. I
won't allow it."

  He saw her nod from the corner of his eye. "Thank you."

  "Do you want to see him?"

  "I…" She fell silent for almost a full minute. "I want him to tell me why he never searched. Why he married Jacqueline."

  A completely unexpected thought came to him.

  "If he never searched, then he did not know for certain your mother had died. He could have been committing bigamy." Then an even more disturbing thought took its place, a possibility that should have occurred to him before, but never had. "Was your mother dead when he married the current countess?"

  "No."

  No wonder Thea had so strongly resisted the idea of acknowledging her father. "The bloody bastard."

  "You were right when you said that he lacked honor. He also lacked morality."

  "Yet your aunt told him the truth about you. Why?"

  "She feels responsible for my mother's death and for Langley's marriage to Jacqueline. She is convinced that had she told him the truth about my existence and Mother's flight to the West Indies, neither event would have transpired."

  "That is a heavy burden to carry."

  "Yes, I know. Almost as heavy as the burden a daughter might carry believing that had she not been born, her mother would never have left her son and country to live on an island that eventually killed her."

  Drake understood this type of guilt, and he refused to allow his wife to torture herself with it. "You were a gift to your mother, not a curse. You must accept that, Thea, or you discount all the sacrifices she made to keep you."

  He felt her gaze burning into him and slid his away from the surrounding traffic for a moment to meet it.

  "It's true," he assured her.

  "Then you, too, must accept that you are a gift to your mother and that her sacrifice in keeping you has not been in vain."

  Drake laughed harshly. "She had no choice."

  Thea shook her head. "Do not be a fool. She could have gone to the country, given birth to you, and given you away with no one the wiser. Your grandfather's connections are certainly enough to have ensured the safety of her secret."

  Feelings inside of Drake shifted in a way that left him breathless. He had always defined himself by the fact that his father did not value him enough to acknowledge him, not the reality that his mother had wanted and loved him so much she had accepted a lifetime of Society's censure to keep him.

  To have the right to call him son.

  Unfamiliar moisture gathered in his eyes, and he blinked it away. "She is a very special woman."

  "Yes, she is, and the evidence is in how well she raised you." Thea's words reached down into his soul and wrapped themselves around his heart.

  Since meeting her, he had begun to care less and less about proving himself to Society and his father. In that moment, the desire to show his father he had value disappeared entirely from inside Drake. Thea had been right—his life was defined by his mother's love, not his father's rejection. And his value resided in the man he had become, not the man who had helped make him.

  The freedom he experienced at Thea's words was unlike anything he had ever known. Yet another reason to give thanks to his Maker for this incredible woman who was his wife.

  When they reached the warehouse, he had been so mellowed by his thoughts that he wanted only to kill Emerson, not torture him first for trying to hurt Thea.

  * * *

  Chapter 19

  « ^ »

  The fever has caught me. I am weak and I know that it will only get worse. I have watched others die of this malady for over a decade and know what is to come. I have tried to fight it, but I feel I am getting weaker. I have only one regret—that I did not return to England to see my son sooner. So close. The journey has been planned, but now I know it cannot be made. I will never touch his face or hear his laugh. And he will never know me, never know how my love for him has grown all the years of our forced separation.

  May 16, 1807

  Journal of Anna Selwyn, Countess of Langley

  Thea felt slightly sick as she and Drake entered Merewether Shipping's office for the second time since she had arrived in England. The prospect of having Ashby Merewether's nephew arrested left her feeling hollow.

  Had the thefts been the only consideration, she would have simply fired the man without a reference, but he had hired someone to kill her and she could not be sure that Uncle Ashby was safe even now.

  The corridor leading to Emerson's office echoed with the sound of her and Drake's footsteps as well as those of Hansen, Barton, and the two Bow Street

  Runners who accompanied them. Drake had insisted on bringing the Runners along to take Emerson into custody.

  Certain Drake would have preferred to execute his own kind of justice, she hadn't argued. Emerson faced prison and possible exportation to Australia, but if he only knew it, those options were far more lenient than other ideas Drake had expressed.

  Lightly tapping on Emerson's door, she and Drake waited for an invitation to enter. When it came, her husband pushed her behind him and entered the room first.

  Emerson sat at his desk, either oblivious to his predicament or a consummate actor.

  He smiled when they entered. "Congratulations on your recent nuptials, Mr. and Mrs. Drake. I read the announcement in this morning's paper."

  Thea could not believe this jovial man was responsible for the thefts and attempts on her life. He sounded so terribly sincere in his happiness for her, looking almost smug about it.

  Then his eyes widened at the sight of the Runners as they came into the office. His smile slowly slipped away.

  "I worried Uncle's plan would go awry like this, but he was sure you wouldn't call in the Runners." He looked nervously between her and Drake. "There's something I believe you need to know."

  Drake removed his driving gloves. "Unfortunately for you, we've already figured it out."

  "I've told them the truth, Mr. Merewether," Barton inserted.

  Emerson looked at Barton as if his brains had gone to let. "The truth?"

  Thea's heart filled with aching sadness. "Uncle Ashby is going to be so hurt."

  Drake stood beside her, emanating anger, his glare causing Emerson to flush. Sweat beaded at the young man's brow, and he dabbed at it with a handkerchief.

  "I wouldn't mind doing the old man a little harm myself right now." He looked at the Bow Street Runners. "I assure you, their presence is unnecessary."

  Thea had gasped at Emerson's first statement, unable to credit such a lack of loyalty. Now she glowered. Did the man have no conscience at all?

  "On the contrary. Their presence is eminently necessary. My husband might be tempted to mete out his own brand of punishment were they not here. You should be grateful I insisted on bringing them along."

  Emerson frowned, dabbing at his brow again. "You mistook my meaning. Please, if you will allow me to explain, all of this can be cleared up."

  "No explanation is necessary. Your behavior speaks for itself." Drake shifted beside her, and Emerson flinched as if in preparation for a blow.

  "Take him into custody." Drake's tone dripped ice. The Bow Street Runners moved forward, but Emerson jumped from his chair and backed away, his eyes widening with obvious fear.

  "Please, if you would just let me explain." He looked imploringly at Thea.

  She hardened her heart against the man who looked so much like her adopted uncle. "It's no use denying the charges. The evidence is not in your favor."

  "There is no evidence—I mean, not really." He sidled farther away from the approaching Runners. "It was all part of Uncle's plan to get you here to England."

  Thea blinked at the desperate sincerity in his voice. Emerson should write Penny Press novels, his lies were so convincing.

  Thea forced aside her desire to believe Emerson. "Uncle Ashby would never condone someone trying to kill me."

  Emerson's fear became a palpable thing. "Kill you? What are you talking about?"

  "You da
mn bloody well know what she's talking about." Drake stepped to the right, cutting off any hope of escape for Emerson in that direction.

  "They know about the man you hired to go to the island office and spy on Mrs. Drake." Barton's voice came from behind Thea.

  Confusion showed on Emerson's rounded features. "What man? I hired no man."

  "It's no use denying it, sir. I've told them everything."

  "How could you have discovered Uncle Ashby's plans? Did you read my letters?" Emerson did not sound in the least bit guilty; he seemed more outraged than anything else. "I thought they appeared as if they had been read, but the wax seal was not broken."

  "I won't lie for you, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Drake know the truth already. You've been stealing from the company."

  "Yes, of course I've been stealing. Well, not stealing really, but temporarily storing company goods in an alternate location. Uncle's plan would not have worked otherwise."

  Thea stared at him. He was mad. He belonged in Bedlam. He talked of his perfidy as if it were something Uncle Ashby would wholly approve of. Perhaps he deserved their pity, but insane or not, he had hired someone to kill her. She turned from him, not wanting to look at him any longer.

  "Please. Take him away."

  "No. You must listen to me. I have proof of what I claim. I assure you."

  "Wait." Drake's voice rang with authority.

  They stopped their cautious approach to Emerson.

  "Explain this plan of your uncle's to me."

  Barton shifted beside her, and she caught a look of consternation on his face before the blond man's features went blank once again. Her attention returned to Emerson as he began to speak.

  He moved back to stand behind his desk.

  "Uncle Ashby wrote me several months ago asking for my help in a plan to get Miss Selwyn, I mean Mrs. Drake, to come to England. I have his letters here as proof." He knelt on the floor beside the desk and unlocked the bottom drawer. He riffled through the papers and then riffled some more. Finally, he stopped and looked up at Thea, his expression ashen. "The letters are gone."