A Lady of His Own (32 page)

Figgs noticed her concern. “It’s the shock, like Lord Charles said. There.” Pulling up the covers, she patted them down around Nicholas. “He’s as comfortable as can be.”

Piling her cloths in the basin, she hefted it. She glanced again at Nicholas. “I’ll send up a footman with some hot bricks. That’ll warm up the bed and bring him to himself.”

“Thank you, Figgs.” Penny sank into the armchair, her gaze fixed on Nicholas’s effigy-like face.

Figgs humphed. “Em brews a tisane as calms the nerves something wonderful. I’ll have some sent up for you all. After all this fuss, you’ll be needing it, no doubt.”

Penny smiled. “Thank you.”

Figgs bobbed and left.

Charles walked back in as Figgs neared the door. He held it, then closed it behind her and crossed the room to Penny.

She raised her brows at him.

“Shutting the door after the horse has bolted, but…” With a light shrug, he sat on the arm of the chair. “If it was me, I’d come straight back in. Better safe than sorry.”

“What have you organized?”

He told her of the orders he’d given, two men in each patrol, with two patrols circling the corridors, passing in sequence from one wing to the next. “One man alone, this villain will kill him, but he won’t use a pistol—too much noise—and unless he’s a wizard, he won’t try to take on two men at once.”

Penny nodded. Everything seemed so unreal. This was her home, yet patrols of footmen were now required to keep a murderous intruder at bay.

“I’d send you to bed, only I’d rather you remained in the same room as me.”

She blinked, looked up at Charles. “I’ve no intention of returning to my bed. I want to be here when Nicholas awakes—I want to hear what he says.”

He smiled, wry, resigned, and said no more.

Em’s tisane arrived, and they each drank a cup; a pot under a knitted warmer sat waiting for Nicholas. Footmen came with the bricks wrapped in felt; Charles oversaw their disposition. Another footman stoked the fire into a roaring blaze. Penny thanked him and dismissed him. Then she and Charles settled to wait.

The clock on the mantelpiece ticked on.

Another hour passed before Nicholas stirred.

“You’re in your own bed,” Charles said. “He’s gone.”

Nicholas frowned. It took effort to open his eyes; he blinked at them, went to move, and winced. His eyes widened. “He stabbed me.”

“Twice.” Charles’s tone was caustic. “What possessed you to tackle him alone?”

Nicholas grimaced. “I didn’t think it through—there wasn’t time.”

Charles sighed. “What happened?”

“I was sitting in a chair in the hall, waiting—”

“Why there?” Charles asked, perplexed.

“Because I reasoned he’d go to the library, and I could see the library door from there. I didn’t think he’d come through the window. The first I knew of him was a great crash—he’d smashed one of the display cases.”

“Hmm.” Charles’s eyes narrowed. “What happened next? How much do you recall?”

“I rushed in—he saw me and swore, but I was on him in a flash. We tussled, fell.” Nicholas’s gaze grew distant. “It was so dark. It was more guesswork than science, grappling, rolling—then he flung me back, and stabbed me.” He paused, then continued, “Then he stabbed me again. It felt so cold…” After a moment, Nicholas looked at Charles. “I heard a shout, but it seemed to come from a long way away.”

“That was me—I was in the doorway.”

“I must have fainted. What happened next?”

“He threw the knife at me”—Charles glanced severely at Penny—“at
us
, instead of plunging it into your heart. Then he fled.”

“He got away?”

“The shrubbery is too damned close to the house—it’s the perfect escape route.” Charles studied Nicholas’s face. “I need you to tell me all you can remember about your attacker.”

Nicholas nodded; gingerly, he eased up in the bed.

Charles rose and went to help him, stacking the pillows behind his back. “You’ve lost a fair amount of blood—you’ll be weak for a day or so, and those wounds will pull like the devil as they heal, but you were lucky—he didn’t have time to be as professionally vicious as he’d have liked.”

Penny rose and poured the tisane; when Nicholas was settled again, she handed him the cup. “It’s Em’s special recipe. It’ll help.”

Nicholas accepted the cup, sipped gratefully. Slipped back into his thoughts.

“So?” Charles prompted, returning to sit on the arm of Penny’s chair.

Nicholas grimaced. “I couldn’t see anything of his face—he had a scarf tied over his nose and mouth. In the dark, I couldn’t get any idea of his eyes, and he wore a hat jammed low—it didn’t come off.”

“Don’t think of features—you wrestled with him. How did he feel to you—old, young, supple, strong?”

Nicholas blinked; his expression grew distant. “Youngish, but not that much younger than I. Quite strong—leanish.”

“How tall?”

Nicholas looked at Charles. “Not as tall as you. More my height, maybe an inch or so taller.” He paused, then asked, “Did you see anything—anything to identify him?”

“Not specifically, but I believe we can cross Yarrow and Swaley off our lists. From what we both observed, Swaley’s too short, and there’s no way a man of Yarrow’s weight could have moved as your attacker did. I agree with your youngish—younger than you or me—and leanish, too, although on that I’m less clear.” Charles leveled his gaze on Nicholas’s face. “Now think back—you said he swore when you entered the library. What did he sound like?”

“He was swearing even before he saw me—he seemed enraged about the pillboxes.”

“Well, then?”

Nicholas’s grimace was self-deprecatory. “It was all in French—fluent, and…well, if you work with people who speak multiple languages, you realize they sound different in one tongue versus another.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t even hazard a guess as to how he would sound in English.”

Charles humphed, but nodded. “Carmichael, Fothergill, or Gerond, then.”

“But from what you said before, Fothergill and Carmichael are unlikely.” Nicholas handed his empty cup back to Penny. “And it was very fluent French.”

Charles shook his head. “Don’t build too much on that. I swear in very fluent French, too. As for the rest, ‘unlikely’ isn’t definite. Those three are all still suspects.”

Nicholas fell silent.

Penny studied him, then looked at Charles. He was thinking, furiously, not about what they’d learned, but about how to learn more. He was weighing his options; she knew the look.

After a long moment, he refocused on Nicholas, who met his gaze.

“When are you going to tell me—us—what’s going on?”

When Nicholas’s lips merely tightened, Charles went on, “If I hadn’t decided to come down and check the doors and windows, I would never have been in time to stop his next blow, one that would very likely have ended your life. And no, I’m not telling you that so you’ll feel grateful. I want you to understand how serious this is. This man has killed, not once but twice that we know of, and he will kill again. He has no compunction whatever. Who knows who it might be next time? Figgs, perhaps—she tended your wounds. Or Em, who made the tisane. Or Norris. Or Penny.”

His voice had grown progessively colder. When he said her name, even though she’d guessed it was coming, Penny had to fight to quell a shiver.

When Nicholas glanced down at his hands, lying atop the covers, and said nothing, Charles continued in the same, coldly judgmental tone, “You said you’d reasoned he’d make for the library, and that he was swearing over the pillboxes. Am I right in guessing that you believed the pillboxes would be part of his target?” He stopped, waited.

“Yes,” Nicholas eventually said. Closing his eyes, he rested his head back on the piled pillows.

“I assume you thought that because he’d gone after Mary—she was the downstairs tweeny, so she was responsible for dusting in the library.”

Eyes still closed, Nicholas nodded.

Charles studied him, then looked at Penny. Mouthed what he wanted her to say. She nodded and sat forward.

“Nicholas, we know of the pillboxes in the priest hole.”

His eyes jerked open; he stared at her. “You know…?”

He looked at Charles, who nodded.

“Not easy to explain, not at all.”

Nicholas sighed, and dropped his head back once more. He stared at the canopy over the bed.

“The thing I can’t fathom,” Charles went on, “is how the pillboxes fit with our theory of revenge. No one could have known…”

He paused. He’d been speaking his thoughts as they occurred, as he followed the train, yet hearing it aloud…suddenly he saw the light. “Not quite true, of course. The one group who most definitely would have known about the pillboxes is those who handed them over—the French.”

Fixing his gaze on Nicholas, he felt the jigsaw shift, saw the difficult pieces slide smoothly into place. But he was still missing one major piece.

Nicholas had a stubborn look on his face—one Charles actually recognized; it was very like Penny’s intransigent mask.

“Very well.” Settling back, he watched Nicholas. “This is what I know so far. Your father and Penny’s set up some scheme decades ago passing secrets to the French. The French paid in pillboxes. The secrets were delivered mostly verbally to a contact from a French lugger who met one of the Selbornes out in the Channel. The Smollets arranged the meetings using their yacht and the appropriate signal flags, then Penny’s father and later Granville would go out with one of the smuggling gangs, meet the French, effect the transfer, and come away with a pillbox.

“A very neat exchange for everyone concerned, except the soliders who died in the wars.” He was unable to keep the icy contempt from his voice.

Nicholas heard it; he paled, but otherwise didn’t react. He continued to stare at the canopy. But he was listening.

“Now, however,” Charles continued, reining in his feelings, “for some reason we have a French agent sent to recover some or all of the exchanged pillboxes, and”—watching Nicholas’s face he guessed—“to punish the Selbornes, indeed, to kill any of those involved, or even their relatives.”

Nicholas didn’t react. Charles’s blood ran cold as Nicholas’s lack of shock or surprise confirmed he’d guessed right. He glanced at Penny; the stunned look on her face as she stared at Nicholas showed she’d followed the exchange and read it as he had.

Drawing a deep breath, he looked again at Nicholas. “Nicholas, you have to tell me what you know. This man is a killer—he’ll continue until he succeeds in what he’s been sent here to do, or he’s stopped. He can be stopped.”

He paused, then added, “Regardless of the past, the current situation is that you have a French agent about who wants to kill you. That puts you and me on the same side.”

Nicholas’s lips curved fractionally. “An enemy of my enemy must be my friend?”

“War makes strange bedfellows all the time.” Charles waited, then quietly said, “You have to tell me. If you don’t, and he kills again, that death will be on your head.”

His final card, but he suspected, from all he’d seen of Nicholas, perhaps a telling one. He certainly hoped so.

“Nicholas.” Penny leaned forward and laid her hand on Nicholas’s. “Please, tell us what’s going on. I know the family’s reputation weighs with you.” Nicholas lifted his head enough to meet her eyes; she grimaced. “No matter how bad the past has been, the family might not have a future at all if you don’t speak now. You must see that.”

Nicholas held Penny’s gaze.

Charles held his breath.

A long moment passed, then Nicholas sighed and let his head fall back. He stared at the canopy unseeing. “I have to think.”

Charles fought to keep impatience from his voice. “This killer’s on the doorstep. We don’t have much time.”

Nicholas lifted his head and met his gaze squarely. “It’s not my story. I can’t just”—he gestured—“make you free of it. I have to think what I can reveal, should reveal, and what isn’t mine to tell at all.”

“You just have to tell me enough.”

Nicholas searched his eyes. “Twenty-four hours. You can give me until after dinner tomorrow”—he glanced at the clock—“no, that’s now today.” He drew in a shaky breath, and met Charles’s eyes. “Give me until then, and I promise I’ll tell you all I can.”

C
HARLES HAD TO BE CONTENT WITH THAT
. A
SIDE FROM ANY
thing else, Nicholas was exhausted and needed to rest.

Returning with Penny to her room, he checked that no villain was lurking, then locked her in and went to check on his patrols. All was quiet, yet the silence was rife with anxiety. After chatting to the four men presently on watch, he slipped back into Penny’s room, stripped, and slid under the covers.

She turned to him and tugged him close. He went, found her lips with his, kissed. Grumbled, “What is the matter with your family? It’s never
your
story, and you all want twenty-four damned hours….”

Penny looked into his dark eyes, softly smiled. “It’s not us—it’s
you
. It’s obvious that once we tell you, all control will be out of our hands.”

He humphed, and kissed her again.

She let him, met him, then encouraged him. Not just invited but dared him to take her, to give himself, let her give back to him and so reassure them both. To touch again and share the comfort they now found in each other, through the physical to reach further once again, onto that other plane.

Responding, accepting, he rose over her, pressed her thighs wide, sank between, and with one powerful stroke sheathed himself in her softness, joined them, and set them careening on their now familiar wild ride. She gasped, clung, and rode with him, absorbed, drawn wholly into the moment, yet dimly aware of the contradiction between his nature and his behavior with her.

He never pushed, cajoled, pressured; he never had. In this arena, he’d always been the supplicant, and she his…not mistress, but perhaps empress, dispensing her favors as she chose. As she decided and deemed him worthy.

And he’d never once argued with that. Never once sought to change their status quo, to demand or simply seize control and take.

A wall of flames rose before them, a surging, greedy conflagration; they plunged into it, rode through it, fell into it. Wrapped in each other’s arms, they let the fire have them, consume them, weld them, leaving them at the last clinging to the edge of the world. Gasping, shuddering, gazes meeting, locking, holding…

Then that too-brief instant of absolute communion faded; lids falling, all tension released, they tumbled headlong into the void.

They settled to sleep, him sprawled beside her, one arm slung possessively over her waist. Her thoughts circled, spiraling down, yet despite her languid state, they didn’t stop.

His breathing deepened and slid into the cadence of sleep.

Her mind continued to drift.

His willingness to cede the reins to her, to allow her to dictate their play, continued to nag, to register as, if not suspicious, then certainly significant, but in what way she couldn’t tell. She’d already asked him why. He’d replied with words she’d interpreted as a challenge:
Whatever you wish, however you wish. I’m yours. Take me.

She mentally paused, through half-closed eyes stared unseeing into the darkness as she replayed those words in her mind. What if they hadn’t been a challenge, but instead an honest reply?

Her instinctive reaction was to scoff, but she could hear his voice in her head; he hadn’t spoken lightly. What
if
…?

The possibility shook her, tightened her nerves, sharpened her wits. Her mind whirled and drew another puzzle piece into her mental picture.

The link that had opened between them, that emotional communion that had somehow become an integral part of their joining, was still there, consistently there, and very real. She’d been stunned initially, shocked that he of all men would reveal so much of himself in such a way. That first moment, so intense, had taken her aback, left her momentarily uncertain. Now, however…she needed and wanted to learn more, to explore that connection and see where it led, learn what it meant.

He wanted her, not just physically but on some deeper, more emotion-laden level. That was what that connection, by its very existence, conveyed; she’d seen the yearning, the longing, woven through it.

She accepted he couldn’t pretend to such emotions; she couldn’t recall that he ever had, not with her. But he could conceal; he was a past master at hiding what he felt, one of his most spyworthy talents. While she could sense and be sure of his wanting her, of the sincerity of his belief that he needed her, she couldn’t see what was driving it, what lay behind it. What, indeed, had given rise to it.

One thing she knew beyond question. At twenty, he’d neither wanted nor needed her, not as he did now. She’d been right in defining how the years had changed him—at twenty, the superficial, the obvious, had been all there was; now he was a complex, complicated man, one with hidden depths, still ruled by intense and powerful emotions, but those emotions were now harnessed, controlled, often screened.

The man behind the superficial mask had grown in many ways, had developed depths he hadn’t previously possessed. What drove him to want her was new, one of those facets the years had wrought in him. But what was it?

Her thoughts continued to circle, examining that question from every possible angle…until sleep crept up on her and dragged her down.

The next morning, Nicholas remained confined to his bed awaiting a visit from Dr. Kenton, who Penny had summoned over Nicholas’s protests to check his wounds. When Nicholas appealed to Charles, wordlessly man-to-man, Charles met his gaze stoically and refused to countermand Penny. If it made her feel better to have the doctor call, so be it.

They left Nicholas still weak, but now sulking. Charles hoped he’d grow restless and consent to speak sooner; he was very conscious of wasting the day. He filled the morning writing reports; the first, to Dalziel, he dispatched by rider, the second, a succinct note to Culver informing him of the attack on Nicholas, he left on Norris’s salver.

Culver would be shocked. He would sit in his library and tut-tut, then retreat into his books. He was one person whose reactions Charles could predict with confidence. Not so others in this game.

Once both reports were gone, there was little else for him to do. Dr. Kenton came and went, gravely noting how lucky Nicholas was that neither knife thrust had nicked anything vital. After commending Em’s ointment and Figgs’s bandaging, Kenton advised Nicholas that rest was all he required for a complete recovery.

After seeing Kenton off, Charles prowled around the house. Penny was still in conference with Figgs. He wandered through the library, now cleared of the debris from the smashed display cases, then circled the ground floor, growing ever more restless and edgy. The combination was familiar, the prelude to battle; patience had never been his strong suit.

Yet the battle to come would not come today. Everyone at the house was alert, watchful, careful, very much on guard. While he might have thought to surprise them by returning last night, the French agent—Charles felt confident in dubbing him that—would not call today. Soon, yes, but not yet; he’d wait, hoping they’d relaxat least a little of their vigilance.

To pass the time, he walked through the shrubbery, confirming his memories of the villain’s favorite escape route. He’d been right in not following the man into its shadows in the black of night. The shrubbery was old, its trees and shrubs thick and dense; it would be child’s play for anyone fleeing into it to circle any pursuer and return to the house, leaving said pursuer chasing shadows, unaware.

He walked out of the shrubbery and saw Penny on the terrace. She saw him and waved, then descended the steps and headed his way.

They met in the middle of the lawn; smiling, she linked her arm in his and strolled by his side. He listened while she told him of the household’s reactions, of the staff’s determination to hold firm against the unknown attacker who had taken one of their own, then dared to violate their domain.

Lifting his head, Charles looked at the house. With the staff so resolute and guards in place, Nicholas was safe; he could have so many hours to think. For himself, he wanted to keep Penny with him, which meant keeping her occupied. Nothing from London would reach the Abbey before the afternoon…“If I don’t get out of here, I’ll start badgering Nicholas.” He caught her eye. “Why don’t we take a picnic and ride to the castle? I haven’t been there in years.”

She blinked, then her eyes lit and she nodded. “You get the horses. I’ll order a picnic, then change. I’ll meet you in the stables.”

He let her draw away. Smiling, she headed for the house, clearly eager despite her tiredness. They’d got precious little sleep last night, but more, battling an unidentified assailant was inherently draining. He was accustomed to it, she wasn’t, yet she was holding up well.

Better than most females would, but then he’d always known there was a spine of tempered steel concealed within her slender form.

He watched that slender form cross the lawns and reenter the house, then he stirred and strode for the stables.

Distraction was what they both needed.

It was noon when they reached the ruins of Restormel Castle, dramatically perched above the Fowey valley with sylvan views over field and estuary to the distant cliffs and the sea beyond. A favorite picnic spot for the surrounding families in summer, today it was theirs alone.

Built by the Normans from local gray stone, the castle was a rarity—perfectly circular. Disused for centuries, the curtain wall and outer bailey were long gone; they rode across the dry ditch and into the courtyard of the inner keep, a place preserved out of time.

Dismounting, they exchanged glances. Every child from both their families had run wild here; it was a special place, a well for the imagination to draw on. As he tied Domino’s reins to an ancient ring in the wall, Charles recalled battles he and his brothers had staged there, in the courtyard, their boots scuffing on the stones as they fought with wooden swords, high-pitched voices echoing from the walls. Their parents and sisters had looked down from the battlements, and laughed and smiled.

Penny, too, had her own hoard of memories, in similar vein, happy moments bright with the magic bestowed by childhood’s eyes. She handed her reins to Charles, looked around while he tethered her mare. “Leave the picnic for now.” It was stored in their saddlebags. “Let’s walk the battlements first.”

He nodded. Taking her hand, he led her to the flight of steps that gave access to the now empty hall; from there they took another flight up to the crenellated outer wall.

She stepped onto the stone walkway and paused to look around, to confirm that the building below them, the inner keep, was still as she remembered it, then she turned and let her eyes drink in the sweeping views.

The wind was cool yet soft with the promise of summer, the air fresh and clean, the sun warm but not hot. White wisps of clouds streaked across a cerulean sky. It was an idyllic place, soothing to the soul.

“I don’t know why,” she said, tucking back wisps of hair the breeze had teased free, “but I feel as if the villain, whoever he is, can’t penetrate here. Simply can’t exist here.”

Charles squeezed her hand gently; they started to stroll. “I used to think this was one of those faerie places our nurses used to whisper about. A place that was of this world, but also of the other—a spot where the real and the faerie worlds met, and time didn’t behave as it does elsewhere.”

She shivered delicately, but it was a delicious shiver. “An enchanted place—yes, you’re right. But it never felt haunted to me.”

“No. I decided that was because no bad battles, or betrayals, happened here. It’s as you said. This place has always simply been, and bad things aren’t allowed to happen here.”

Glancing at him, she saw the self-deprecatory smile playing about his lips. She smiled, too, and looked ahead.

Noting the various landmarks, they unhurriedly circled the keep. Nearing the hall once again, Penny paused to glance out one last time. To the left across the river and a little way southeast lay the Abbey; Wallingham Hall lay to the right, farther away and concealed behind a spur of the escarpment.

“Where will we eat?” Charles asked.

Hiding a smile, she turned and followed him down the steep stairs.

They spread a rug under a tree that had sprung up by the side of the dry ditch. The spot still gave them views, albeit more restricted, but also protection from the stiffening breeze. In their oasis of comfort, they munched their way through the delicacies Em had packed into the bags. There was a bottle of wine, but no glasses; Penny laughed and accepted the bottle when Charles opened it and, with a flourish, offered it. They passed the bottle back and forth while commenting on this and that, all matters of local life.

Nothing to break the spell.

When Charles had demolished Mrs. Slattery’s game pie, and between them they’d finished Cook’s almond tart, they drained the bottle, then packed everything away. Hand in hand, they walked back to the courtyard.

Charles attached the empty bags to their saddles. Penny handed him the folded rug; he tucked that away, too. “It’s too early for any courier, isn’t it? They won’t have reached the Abbey yet.”

Charles glanced at her. “Unlikely.”

“In that case”—she looked up at the rooms giving onto the courtyard—“let’s explore.”

Anything to prolong their time in this place, this haven from the world; Charles fell in with her wish without quibble, inwardly acknowledging his own inclination. Outside a murderer might stalk their families’ lands, but while here, time and place were theirs, sacrosanct, inviolable.

He caught up with her in the hall and took her hand. Together, they ambled through the rooms, recalling incidents from earlier times, laughing, smiling at their younger selves. Restormel was a shell keep, the various rooms built around the courtyard. They were traversing the armory beneath the south battlements when Penny glanced out of an arrow slit—and stopped. “Charles?”

He was beside her in an instant.

She pointed. “Isn’t that Gerond?”