A Lady of His Own (31 page)

He came, puzzled, then concerned when he heard of Penny’s indisposition. He readily agreed they should leave at once; of course he would accompany them.

Lady Carmody was gracious, understanding, and content enough that they’d appeared and thus ensured her tea party was a huge success. She patted Penny’s hand. “
Quite
understandable, my dear. You are looking rather wan.”

Mrs. Cranfield tut-tutted. “You need a good night’s rest, my dear. Make sure you get it, and leave the worrying to others.”

Lady Trescowthick looked uncertain, but kissed Penny’s cheek and glanced at Charles. “Do take care, dear.”

They made their exit as fast as they dared. Penny held to her pose of an incipient faint until they’d turned out of the drive and were heading along the lane, out of sight.

She exhaled and straightened. Looking at Charles, she noted the rather grim set of his lips. “Why did we have to leave?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back to Wallingham.”

She would have argued and insisted he tell her now, but his tone reminded her there was another with them—Nicholas, to wit. Folding her hands in her lap, she composed herself in patience, and waited.

Her mind ranged back over their departure; thinking of Lady Trescowthick’s puzzled look, she couldn’t help but smile.

“What?” Charles asked.

She glanced at him, but he was looking at his horses. She looked ahead. “I was just wondering when it will occur to them that I’ve never fainted in my life.”

Charles heard the amusement in her voice and bit his tongue. Hard. No need to point out that while those three ladies, who had known them both since birth, might indeed note the oddity of her faint, instead of supposing the faint a sham, they might come up with quite a different reason to account for it.

A reason that, already or at some point in the not overly distant future, might indeed be real. Would be real.

Would she feel faint? Penny? Would she enjoy carrying his children?

He hadn’t even asked her to marry him yet. He told himself he was foolish to imagine he knew any woman’s mind, let alone hers, well enough to predict her answer, yet after last night he felt unreasonably confident. And ridiculously buoyed by the mere thought of her carrying his child.

Almost distracted enough to forget the revelation he’d had in Lady Carmody’s sunken garden. But not quite.

He pulled up in the stable yard, gave the reins to a groom, and handed Penny down. They waited for Nicholas to join them, then walked together to the house.

“That wasn’t as bad as I’d feared,” Nicholas said. “At least their curiosity wasn’t morbid—more that they simply wanted to know, to be reassured they had the facts correct and weren’t falling prey to mere rumor.”

“Indeed.” Penny glanced at Charles as they entered the house. “Now—why did we have to leave just then?”

He met her gaze, then looked at Nicholas. “Could we have a word with you in the library?”

Nicholas blinked. “Yes, of course.”

He led the way. She followed with Charles, wondering; once she’d focused on him, she’d realized he was tense. Annoyed, but not at her.

What had Nicholas done?

Nicholas led them into the library. Charles stood back and let her precede him, then followed and closed the door. Nicholas had gone to the large desk; he sat in the chair behind it.

Charles steered her to one of the chairs before the fireplace. “Sit down,” he murmured.

She did.

He didn’t. He paced to the hearth, turned, and looked at Nicholas.

Nicholas looked back at him, his diplomat’s mask very much in place. The conviction Nicholas had done something she hadn’t noticed grew.

When the silence had stretched as far as it could, Charles said, his tone hard and harsh, “Just tell me this. You aren’t, by any chance, setting yourself up as a target here, are you?”

Nicholas’s expression didn’t change, but his pallor was so pronounced that the slight flush that rose to mantle his cheekbones might as well have been red flags. “I have no idea what you’re suggesting.”

Charles looked at him, then shook his head. “I hope you lie better when negotiating trade treaties.”

Stung, Nicholas replied, “When negotiating trade treaties I deal with diplomats.”

“Indeed, but I’m not a diplomat, and it’s me you have to deal with here.”

Nicholas sighed and closed his eyes. “What I do is none of your concern.”

“If what you do has any connection whatever to the murderer of Gimby Smollet and Mary Maggs, it’s very much my concern.”

“I have no more notion than you which of those five is the murderer, or even if it
is
one of those five.”

The words were weary, but definite.

Penny broke in, “Just what did he do?”

Charles glanced at her, exasperation in his eyes. “He waltzed back and forth before their noses as if daring the murderer to come after him.”

Penny looked at Nicholas. “That wasn’t wise.”

“None of this was ever wise,” Nicholas returned.

She and Charles both picked up the allusion to something beyond the immediate subject.

“I know the caliber of this man,” Charles said. “Believe me, you don’t want to tangle with him.”

“No, you’re quite right. I don’t.” Nicholas drew in a breath. Opening his eyes, he looked at Charles. “But I don’t know who he is, and I can’t tell you anything. I’m glad enough that you’re here—at least that means Penny’s safe. But…there’s nothing more you—or I—can do.”

Charles’s eyes, fixed on Nicholas’s face, narrowed. “You mean,” he said, in his silkily dangerous voice, “that we’ll just have to wait for him to show his hand.”

Nicholas inclined his head.

She waited to see which way Charles would go, whether he would push, or…

Eventually, he nodded. “Very well, we’ll play the next scene by your script.” He caught Nicholas’s gaze. “But I’ll find out the truth in the end.”

For a long moment, Nicholas held his gaze, then quietly replied, “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

An uneasy truce prevailed for the rest of the day. Charles was concerned, and on more than one front. He left her with Nicholas in the drawing room and spoke with Norris. Nicholas smiled faintly when Charles returned, but said nothing.

By early evening, the entire household was as weary and wan as she’d earlier pretended to be; by unspoken consent, they retired early.

She and Charles found pleasure and, even more, comfort in each other’s arms. The revelation of the previous night—that moment in which it had been shatteringly obvious that what lay between them was definitely not purely physical—was still there, waiting to be acknowledged, examined, and dealt with. She couldn’t deal with it now, not with so much other tension surrounding them. Although the connection remained, a deep and very real link between them, Charles didn’t allude to it, and for that she was grateful. Sated, as much at peace as they could be, they fell asleep.

About them, the old house settled, and slept, too.

Penny woke, and felt the mattress shift. Instantly alert, she lifted her head and saw Charles padding around the bed. He stopped by her dressing stool, picked up his breeches, and proceeded to climb into them.

“Where are you going?”

He glanced at her. “I woke up, and thought I may as well check the doors and windows downstairs.”

She listened, but could hear nothing. He wasn’t hurrying as he pulled on his boots.

“Stay there.” He headed for the door, glanced back. “I’m going to lock the door—I won’t be long.”

She sat up as he opened the door, started to whisper, “Be careful.”

Crash!

Downstairs, glass shattered, wood splintered.

Charles swore and shot out of the door. Penny bounced from the bed, grabbed up her robe, struggling into it as she raced after him. The ruckus continued. Reaching the stairs, she saw Charles ahead of her, leaping down. She reached the landing as he gained the hall and swung around, heading for the library.

She followed as fast as she could.

Charles slowed as he neared the open library doors. Thuds and grunts came from within. Noiselessly, he glided into the doorway.

Poised to react, every nerve tensed, he swiftly scanned the shadowy room. The curtains had been left open, but there was little illumination from outside; it took an instant to separate the destruction on the floor from the figures wrestling amid the wreckage most of the way down the long room.

Then one man gained the ascendancy, reared above the other, raised his arm, and struck down. Immediately, he raised his arm again—faint light glinted along a blade.

“Hold!” Charles shouted, muscles tensing to race in.

The man looked up, and changed his hold on the knife.

Penny moved behind Charles, peering past his shoulder.

Charles swore, and flung himself back.

The man threw the knife.

Pushing Penny out of the double doorway, Charles flattened her against the hall wall beside the door. Her “
Ooof!
” coincided with the thud of the knife as it hit the paneling on the opposite side of the hall, then clattered to the tiles.

He was back through the doorway as the tinkling died.

The room was a mass of shadows. He searched, then saw the man frantically climbing through the long window at the end of the room. His face was black—a scarf or mask; a hat was pulled low over his forehead.

The knife from Charles’s boot was in his hand before he’d even thought. It was a long throw; he took an instant to gauge it, then sent the knife streaking down the room.

It thudded into the window frame where the man had been standing a bare second before, pinning his coat. Charles raced forward. He heard a curse, then material ripped and the man, already outside, was gone.

Glass crunched beneath Charles’s boots; he called back, “There’s broken glass—be careful!” He hurdled the slumped figure and finally reached the window; wrenching aside the billowing curtains, he looked out.

The man was briefly visible, a denser shadow pelting toward the dark mass of the shrubbery. Charles watched, itching to pursue but restrained by experience. The man would reach the shrubbery long before he could catch him; once amid the high hedges, the man could wait for him to venture in, then slip past him and return to the house to finish what he’d started.

Swallowing an oath, Charles turned and headed back to where Penny had picked her way to the slumped form and was now crouched by its side.

She glanced up as he neared. “Nicholas.”

No surprise there.

“He’s been stabbed, I think twice.”

A curse slipped out. “The
idiot!
” Scuffing away the broken glass from around Penny, Charles hunkered down. “Light the lamp on the desk.”

Penny rose and went to do as he’d asked. Nicholas was unconscious; grasping his shoulders, Charles rolled him fully onto his back. As the wick flared, then steadied, he saw two wounds, one in each shoulder.

The pattern spoke volumes. The next strike would have gone just above the heart, fully incapacitating, potentially fatal. The last strike would have been a quick jab between the ribs, directly into the heart. Always fatal.

If they’d been a few seconds slower, Nicholas would have died.

Both shoulder wounds were bleeding, but not as much as the next wound would have. Loosening, then dragging free Nicholas’s cravat, Charles ripped the muslin in two, folded each piece, and firmly pressed one to each wound.

He looked up at Penny. She was as white as a sheet, but a long way from fainting. “He’s not going to die.” Her gaze lifted from Nicholas’s deathly pale face to his. He nodded to the bellpull. “Wake the household. We’ll need help with him, and we need to set a guard.”

The next hour went in organized chaos. Already on edge, every member of the staff turned out in response to the jangling bell. Explanations had to be given; reassurances made. Maids had to be calmed, then some were sent to boil water while Figgs ordered the younger ones back to bed.

Figgs herself took charge of Nicholas. Working with Charles, she packed the wounds, then organized two footmen to carry Nicholas upstairs, back to his bed.

“Not even slept in!” Bustling ahead of the laboring footmen, Figgs hurried to turn down the covers. “Lay him there, gently now.”

Charles sank into the armchair by the bed. Penny sat on its arm and leaned against his shoulder. Together, they watched as Figgs sent maids for water, clean linen for bandages, and ointment from the stillroom. While they scurried to obey, with brisk efficiency Figgs stripped Nicholas’s ruined coat and shirt away. Once they’d delivered all she’d requested, Figgs shooed the maids off to bed; carrying the bowl to the bedside, she carefully lifted their improvised bandages and washed away the blood.

Patting the wounds dry, Figgs glanced at Charles. “Can’t say I’ve much experience of stab wounds, but these don’t look all that bad.”

“They’re not.” Charles leaned forward and looked more closely. “At least they’re clean—one benefit of being attacked by a professional.” The last comment was uttered
sotto voce
, for Penny’s ears alone as he sat back again.

She leaned more firmly against his shoulder. “Has he lost a lot of blood?”

“Not that much—his faint is most likely due to shock.”

“Aye.” Figgs looked decidedly grim.

“My lord?”

Charles looked up to see Norris in the doorway. He was carrying a lit candelabra; he glanced at the figure on the bed, then looked at Charles. “A guard, do you think, my lord?”

“Indeed.” Charles rose, lightly squeezed Penny’s shoulder. “Wait here—I’ll be back. I need to speak to him when he comes around.”

Penny nodded. She’d belted her robe tightly about her and was glad of its warmth, especially now Charles had moved away. She’d stopped by her room and put on her slippers, but even warm toes didn’t alleviate her chill.

When Figgs started to smear on the ointment and lay gauze over the raw wounds, she shook herself, rose, and went to help. Working together, they secured bandages around Nicholas. Figgs had used warm water to wash away the blood, but Nicholas’s skin felt icy.