by Lisa Bingham
“Lord Sutherland?”
Nigel shifted, tucking his thumbs into the watchpocket of his vest. Clamping a fragrant cheroot between his teeth, he squinted at the man veiled through the screen of smoke. “What is it, Wilde?” When Wilde didn’t immediately speak, Lord Sutherland responded to his silent cue by saying, “Baron, have you met my secretary? Reginald Wilde.”
The Frenchman held out his hand for a firm handshake. Before he quite knew what had happened, Wilde had flattered him, bolstered his ego, and deftly introduced him to a plump matron a few feet away. Once the new pair had begun to converse, Reginald’s gaze briefly clashed with Lord Sutherland’s. Casually, he strolled to a small pocket of space wedged between the huge guillotine window and a potted palm.
Calmly, lazily, Lord Sutherland ambled toward him, still patiently puffing on his cigar. But he became more watchful and intent.
Even after Sutherland joined him, Wilde stood just behind his employer, close enough to impart his information but far enough away to appear as if he weren’t speaking to him at all.
“You should have been a spy, Reginald. Damned if you don’t have a flair for such things.”
“Perhaps.” Wilde addressed his cravat rather than his employer, his voice so low it seemed to melt into the thick air. “I think you should come to the library at your earliest convenience.”
Nigel smiled and nodded to a trio of ladies on their way onto the portico. Once the females had ducked beneath the heavy sash of the man-sized window and disappeared outside, he heard Wilde punctuate his odd remark with a single word. “Immediately.”
Lord Sutherland’s gray-flecked brows rose in surprise at such an odd request. Wilde knew there was nothing more important on his lordship’s schedule than entertaining the dicey combination of dignitaries, aristocrats, and adversaries who cluttered his home. Yet, the man had still extended his odd request.
“Really?” Lord Sutherland drawled in an imperious tone, one that was at the same time bored and laced with curiosity. “What business is so pressing that it can’t wait until morning?”
Wilde hesitated, clearly torn about speaking aloud in so public a place. Finally, he admitted, “If you remember, several months ago we were approached by a strange duo who claimed to have been hired to find Beatrice Sutherland’s long-lost grandson. They wanted to play one end against the other and receive a salary from Biddy as well as from you. You chased them away, saying the information they brought was a scam.” He paused for effect. “Well, they have returned from their voyage. They claim their mission was successful.”
Lord Sutherland looked at Wilde then, really looked at him. An iron-hard sparkle lay embedded in his assistant’s dark brown eyes. Taut lines of tension bracketed his handsome mouth.
“Come with me.” Nigel Sutherland didn’t even wait to see if the younger man followed. Determinedly, he began to weave through the crush of petticoats and pantlegs, ivory fans and walking sticks.
Once outside the ballroom, he nodded now and again to couples chatting lazily in the vaulted corridors. His pace remained slow enough to avoid attention but purposeful enough to waylay interruptions.
Soon he reached the darker portions of the east wing, where fewer candles had been lit in the hopes of keeping the guests away from this part of the estate. Without pause, Sutherland threw open the door to the study. The strains of the waltz followed him like phantom threads, spilling into the room and making the mausoleum quality of the library even more pronounced.
Cold marble and polished wood glistened in the scant crimson light cast by the coals left glowing in the fireplace. Gargoyles sneered from the ornately carved mantelpiece. Grotesque African masks leered from the walls. Nigel had decorated the room himself with the care and precision of a calculating surgeon. Each item had been purchased and arranged with the intent of intimidating his business associates and discouraging the staff from entering the room to dust.
A pair of candles sputtered from the wall sconces on either side of the window. The tapers barely provided enough of a glow to illuminate the two men sprawled upon the horsehair settee.
Lord Sutherland crossed to the huge mahogany desk. He stood tall and stiff, effortlessly conveying a sense of arrogance and disapproval, an aura that clung to him as surely as the muted scents of cigar smoke and wine.
“Gentlemen.” The greeting was imperious, haughty, cold.
If the two men noted the less than cordial greeting, they did not let on. They remained seated, ignoring courtesy that stated they should rise at the entrance of the seventh Earl of Lindon.
Reginald wisely shut the door, slowly, silently, without even a whisper of wood brushing carpet to draw the attention of a passing guest.
Lord Sutherland pinned a baleful gaze upon the duo on the sofa. “I told you never to return,” he growled. “I will not be drawn into your charades. Not then, not now.”
“But we’ve got a bit o’ news, guv’ner.” The crowing taunt came from the smaller man. A nasty, ill-featured bloke with the face of a gutter rat.
His companion placed a calming hand on the little one’s arm. “Jonesy, don’t be so quick t’ fly off the beam with his lordship.” The placating smile he offered Sutherland was oily in its obvious effort to please. “We knew you’d be wantin’t’ speak t’ us right away. We would’ve come sooner, but we only just arrived in town.”
Refusing to rise to their bait, Lord Sutherland circled the desk and sank into the tufted chair. He pulled a sheaf of paper toward him as if any news these men might impart was of no import. But the sudden heaviness of his chest made it difficult to concentrate. His thoughts grew as muddled as London fog.
For years, he’d lived with rumors that Richard Albert III had survived. Each month, he’d brushed a dozen such tales off as a hoax. But when an elderly sailor had brought proof of an heir, Nigel had hired his own team to investigate. Those men had returned with news of a horrible fire and a death. They had been sure it was Richard Sutherland. Quite sure. Somewhat sure.
Thinking his position secure, he’d been amazed when Biddy had continued with her search. When the rumors of sightings began again, Nigel had sent the same men anew to confirm the child’s death. He had never seen the pair after that. Nor had they corresponded with him in more than a year. Certain that his own team had eliminated the problem, he had ignored the offer made by Smythe and Jones when they had tried to gain two rewards for one job.
Had he made a huge tactical error? Could Beatrice Sutherland have found something? Someone? Or had she become so desperate she was willing to gamble the last of her possessions to chase a dream?
Bosh! It couldn’t be true. Nigel’s position was secure, his crimes well covered.
Except for one stray thread. Chelsea Wickersham.
The thought caused a bead of sweat to form between his shoulder blades. Chelsea. The same woman who had escaped his clutches a decade before. The same woman who had disappeared from the Barrinshrops’ in London. The same woman who had reportedly gone to fetch the elusive Sutherland heir.
Refusing to appear worried in front of this overly solicitous pair of bandits, Nigel offered carelessly, “Come back tomorrow if you think it’s necessary. As for tonight, I have no time for such games.”
“I don’t think you want us t’ be doin’ that, guv—”
Once again, Jones was restrained by his companion. “We woulda come to you first, mind you, but you dinna believe us when we came before, so’s we took our time.” He grew sly. “You’ll want t’ listen good to us this turnabout. We got news, we do. News ‘bout a Sutherland heir. We know where t’ find ‘im.”
Nigel couldn’t help a slight start of reaction, but he masked the reflexive action by leaning back in his chair and peering at the men over the tips of his steepled fingers. “Of course you do. I’m also quite sure there’s a price connected to such information. Information which will prove ultimately worthless.”
“She was willin’ t’ believe us.
”
Sutherland waved away that piece of trivia with a negligent hand, then hid it behind the lip of the desk when the faint sheen of the candles caught the way he trembled. “Beatrice Sutherland is an old woman, willing to grasp at any lost straw—”
“Not the old one. The young miss. The pretty one.”
Nigel sensed the way even Wilde’s interest was piqued by that tidbit of information. Their eyes met, clung, and bounced away, just as they had in the ballroom. All in the space of a heartbeat.
“Some parlor maid, I suppose.” Sutherland dismissed it, lifting a silver letter opener from the desk and tracing the elaborate etchings. A nervous tension began to swell in him, but he tamped it down, focusing his energies on the blade he held, absorbing the tensile strength of the metal, the cool kiss of the razor-sharp edge.
The feral man leaned forward, the poor lighting making his nose seem sharper, like that of a fox. A cunning, quick-witted fox. “No, sir. The governess. The one old Lady Sutherland plucked away from Lord Barrinshrop’s kiddies.”
Panic flowered in Nigel’s belly. He stilled.
“Calls ‘erself Wickersham. Chelsea Wickersham. But I ‘ear that’s not ‘ow she was christened.” Knowing he had the full attention of the Earl of Lindon, the wily man stood and scooped his hat from the settee. When Jones didn’t immediately follow, Smythe grasped the little man’s elbow and yanked him up. “But if you’re too busy t’ speak t’ the likes o’ us, we’ll just be on our way.”
“Stop!”
The moment he spoke, Lord Sutherland realized that the single word had revealed too much, hanging naked and quivering in the crypt-like tension. Gathering his control, Nigel tossed the letter opener onto the desk and stood. “Sit down.”
Rather than appearing cowed by the implacable command, Smythe chortled. “I don’t have t’ take orders from the likes o’ you.”
“Sit.”
The word fairly seethed, but Smythe still didn’t back away. “Only if you intend t’ make it worth my while … yer lordship. I got debts t’ pay. Especially,” he taunted, “after such a long and fruitful trip. One I’d be willin’ t’ tell you ‘bout if—”
Without warning, a woman invaded the study.
“Nigel? Whatever are you doing? Our guests are wondering … where …”
The sudden silence of the room was a tangible thing, alive and crouching in the corners. The beautiful lady who entered must have sensed it somehow, because her head jerked slightly as if she were a faun sniffing the night air. Soft gray eyes, pearlescent like the wings of a pigeon, roved the room. “Dear?”
“Not now, Estella.”
“Is something wrong?” Always the proper hostess, Estella offered a serene smile in the direction of her unfamiliar guests.
Nigel pushed his shoulders back and rolled his chin to ease the constraint of his collar. Offering a glare of warning to the men who had dared to confront him, he tugged down the hem to his vest and crossed to his wife’s side. “Nothing’s wrong, my sweet.”
Unable to help himself, he touched the sweep of blond hair that framed his Estella’s heart-shaped face. The woman he’d married was still, at forty-eight years of age, so tiny, so petite, that his own stature seemed to make her shrink even more. But rather than intensifying the tension that throbbed in the stillness of the library, by her very smallness she diminished it. There was nothing more intimidating than a fragile woman.
“Just man-talk, my dumpling. Why don’t you return to our guests? I’ll join you shortly.”
“Could I bring some refreshments?”
“No, dearest.” He added pointedly, “Our meeting will be short.”
“If you’re sure I can’t be of some service,” she offered, referring to the two strangers.
“Quite sure, my pet. Go and see to our other guests. They’ll be retiring to their rooms anon and will wish to thank their adorable hostess for this evening’s entertainment.”
She offered Nigel a fleeting, teasing smile, one that held an echo of the coquette she’d been in her youth. The attitude dimmed when she studied Smythe and Jones. Nevertheless, she obeyed her husband’s whims. “Very well, then. Good evening to you, gentlemen.”
“Now see ‘ere—wait just a minute! I don’t suppose you’ve got another bunk or two. Willie ’n me are old friends of his lordship. An’ if it wouldn’t be a hardship on y’, mum, we’d like t’ accept his invitation t’ stay.”
Estella consulted her husband, and he offered a curt nod.
“I’ll see to it, then. I feel certain the footmen can be moved from the room next to the kitchen if you don’t mind the simple accommodations.”
“That would be fine, just fine, I assure you.”
Jones grinned.
“I’ll send someone once the room is ready. Good evening, gentlemen.”
“Yer ladyship.”
“Mum.”
Her departure down the corridor was much more reluctant than her arrival, as if, unsettled, she wished to linger to test her own disquiet. But soon, she disappeared, her indigo gown melting into the gloom, until only the faint trail of her perfume remained.
Sutherland waited until the last lamp at the end of the hall caught the golden highlights of her hair and limned the exquisite formation of her profile. Then he closed the door and turned the key.
The answering silence coiled around him like the dusky spirals of smoke rising from the pair of tapers. Pungent, silken, alive. Deep within the house, the gala continued. Laughter rose and fell like a sparkling wave. He heard the rumble of men’s voices, the women’s teasing replies, and the exuberant thump and rumble of a gavotte. Combined, the noises should have stoked him with success. The party continued to be a triumph, an overwhelmingly entertaining affair. Nigel, Lord Sutherland, had always delighted in impressing his neighbors and confounding his business rivals.
But lingering beneath the tinkling melody of the party lay a heavier tone. A twisted chord of unease which played in a pulsing, vibrating minor key, thrumming unheard by anyone but him. It weighed against his soul and wrapped around his heart. Unfamiliar emotions roiled within him, struggling for supremacy: denial, disgust, disappointment. Fear. The rivulet of sweat he’d felt earlier plunged down his back to pool at the base of his spine. Turning, he leveled a fulminating gaze upon his unwanted visitors.
“I want you to say what you have to say, then be out of this house by morning.”
“Not so fast, guv’ner. We’re a bit tired after our trip. I don’t think I could remember all the details. ‘Ow ‘bout you, Willie?”
Jones guffawed. “M’ mind’s a blank.”
Lord Sutherland visibly controlled his urge to throttle them both. “Perhaps, after a good night’s sleep, you will remember.”
“Maybe we will, an’ maybe we won’t.”
A soft tap heralded the footman who’d come to fetch the new arrivals.
“Sleep well, gentlemen,” Lord Sutherland muttered harshly as the door was opened and they followed the liveried servant into the hall.
“’Ere’s hopin’ you can do the same, yer lordship. It might be the last good night ye’ll be havin’ in a long, long time.”
Reginald eased the door shut and turned to his employer. “Well?”
Nigel returned to his desk and lifted the letter opener, stroking, testing the sharpness of the blade with one blunt-tipped finger.
“See to it that our … guests are given a bottle or two of wine with my compliments. Not enough to level them, just enough to inebriate them and make them more talkative.” His jaw took a harsh edge. “Then bring them to me in two hours’ time. I’ll await you near the entrance to the abandoned mine shaft below Willoby’s Point.”
Chapter 9
The screams awakened her.
Chelsea jerked from a complete sleep, sitting up in bed, her heart pounding, her mouth dry. She flung the covers away and ran into the hall. After throwing open the door to the nursery, she c
ame to a shuddering halt mere inches inside the threshold.
He slept. Not like a boy. Not with the covers bunched beneath his cheek or his knees drawn close to his chest. No, he lay sprawled on his stomach, one arm flung above his head, the other draped over the side of the bed. His hands were curled, relaxed. The linens puddled low over his hips, baring one tight buttock and part of a hair-roughened thigh. Chelsea stood trembling, shocked not only by her reaction to his sleeping form but by the overwhelming relief she felt upon finding him safe and his rest undisturbed. So telling, so revealing, that her first thoughts had been of him. Sure that he had endured some horrible dream or had suffered from an accident, she’d rushed to his side without even bothering to retrieve a robe.
She’d found him safe, and although she wondered who had made such macabre screams, she was loath to leave.
He was so beautiful. If she had possessed some artistic abilities, she would have painted him that way, with the moonlight gilding his bare skin, his hair spilling over the pillows. Or perhaps she would have sculpted him from smooth marble. Every peak and valley, each dip and swell, would have known the sweep of her touch.
But this man was flesh and blood, no painting, no sculpture. Moreover, she was a woman grown, not some adolescent unskilled in the beguilement of the flesh.
So why, with each succeeding day, was it becoming harder to remember such things?
Knowing that if she didn’t leave now, she might not find the strength to do so at all, she backed from the room, waiting for the snick of the latch to inform her that the door held true.
“Miss Chelsea?”
Chelsea gasped and whirled. Smee, upon seeing her agitation, hurried forward, the flame of his candle dancing and skipping at his haste, nearly extinguishing itself in the pool of melted wax near the wick.
“Is anything amiss?” Greyson asked from where he stood near the back staircase.