Axel (41 page)

Colonel Brandon was not the stuff of a restless widow’s dreams. Mr. Darcy hadn’t been worth a second read, and Mrs. Radcliffe lacked… credibility. If only Abby had thought to ask for the loan of some of Axel’s herbals and treatises, she might be whiling away her evening tormenting herself in earnest.

A week had gone by, and she’d had… a polite note thanking her for the loan of Grandpapa’s journal. She’d all but run out of tasks for the Candlewick footmen to do. Gregory’s bedroom had been reduced to a cold empty space, the windows yet open because Abigail could order they be kept so.

Axel might have some ideas for what to do with that apartment, but the professor was apparently busy with his herbal and his roses. Hennessey had shared that much servants’ gossip from Candlewick, before Abby’s dignity had asserted itself.

Abby also refused to permit herself a few drops of the poppy to ease sleep nearer, because… just because. Another book would have to do until she could order Axel’s treatises by mail from one of the shops in town.

She’d spent fruitless hours searching for the second safe Gregory had secreted somewhere on the premises, though her sense of urgency about that task had ebbed given Sir Dewey’s explanations.

Not a confession, never that.

“I’ve thought about Mr. Belmont,” she informed her cat. She’d limited herself to two feline companions, for starters. Eros sat at the foot of her bed, looking white, fluffy, and inscrutable. “For an entire week I’ve thought about him. Pride be damned, I know what and who I want. If Axel Belmont must have his fellowships, then I’ll wish him the joy of them, provided he also makes me the merriest widow in the shire.”

Psyche hopped onto the bed, already purring. Abby had promoted them from the home farm because they resembled the cats in the paintings she’d slipped past Gregory’s guard all those years ago. Confident, dignified, luxuriously healthy, proud… everything Abigail had not been when she’d married Gregory. She loved these cats, loved allowing them onto her bed, or wherever she pleased to settle herself throughout the day.

A thought caught in the gears of her imagination, and insight flared up like a vigorous green shoot in a pot of rich earth.

“I know where that damned safe is,” Abby said, pushing off the bed and grabbing a night-robe. Her room was toasty—at all hours, her room was toasty—but the corridors were chilly, and Gregory’s apartments were downright frigid.

“I know where that safe is, and may Gregory burn in hell for abusing my sensibilities yet again.”

She was out the door, past the exhausted footman slumped in his chair at the end of the corridor, and crossing to the family wing when the recollection of her last encounter with Axel Belmont stopped her.

She knew where the safe was, but she also knew that even at this late hour, her surest ally and champion would come if she sought his aid. Abby roused the footman, gave him quiet instructions, then turned her steps toward the coldest corridor in the house.

All Axel could think as he rounded the top of the Stoneleigh Manor main stairs, was that Abigail had best be whole and hale, or more murder would be done under this roof. On the heels of that sentiment, he caught sight of something pale whipping around the first turning of the corridor to his right.

The hem of a nightgown? Stoneleigh’s ghost? In Axel’s present mood, he wasn’t above shooting a ghost, nor lecturing one right back to eternal perdition. He pursued as quickly as silence allowed, making the next turn only to see nightmares come back to life.

Abigail stood motionless, this time before the alcove outside Gregory’s apartments. A painting of a white cat asleep in the sun rested against the floor, while a man with his back to her once again emptied the contents of a safe.

Axel crept up behind Abigail, just as she took a noiseless step away from the intruder. She nearly bumped into Axel, but something—his scent perhaps?—warned her to look behind her. She stepped aside—the lady had the most wonderful inclination to common sense—and gave Axel a clear shot.

“Turn around, Mr. Ambers,” Axel said, “and explain yourself.”

Ambers complied slowly, his expression disdainful. “Well, if it isn’t the king’s buffoon and the charming widow. You can put the gun down, Mr. Belmont. I haven’t killed anybody, and you’ll never be able to prove otherwise.”

Axel brought the gun up. “A buffoon I may be, but you insult the lady at your peril. The use of force to apprehend a fleeing felon is well within my authority—deadly force, as it happens.”

“What a cheering thought,” Abigail said. “You’re trespassing, Mr. Ambers. I’d be very surprised if that safe doesn’t hold valuables, suggesting theft is also among your accomplishments. Insulting the man who will decide what you’re charged with doesn’t strike me as a very smart.”

Insulting the lady of the house in Axel’s hearing would be downright imbecilic.

“Careful Ambers,” Axel said. “If your temper is troubling you, please recall my gun is loaded. I can also charge you with conspiracy to commit murder.”

Ambers yanked down his waistcoat. “I have done nothing wrong, and when my father hears of this, you’ll regret it, Belmont.”

“This would be some fellow with a title?” Axel suggested. “A man who apparently paid for you to have a gentleman’s education? For you are well spoken, literate, can curse in French, have passable taste in clothing, and fine penmanship, all of which made you an ideal accomplice in smuggling endeavors. Oh, and I forgot—you also bother the maids, proof positive of titled antecedents.”

Axel had the fool’s attention now, and Abigail was looking positively impressed. Also a tad chilly, which meant the discussion needed to be brief.

“See here, Belmont. I am the son of no less person than Henry Ambers, eleventh Baron of—”

“Now, Ambers,” Axel chided. “His lordship will be very disappointed to learn that his son was involved in trafficking opium… smuggling being a hanging felony, of course. Though perhaps his lordship would be more upset to learn that you were procuring the poison that very nearly brought Mrs. Stoneleigh to her eternal reward. Accessory before the fact, or conspiracy, that is the question.”

Ambers’s air of bravado faltered, but Axel’s discourse wasn’t nearly concluded.

“Farleyer referred to you as a man of business,” he went on, “which I took for a reasonable error, given your airs and graces. I wondered why Stoneleigh granted his head groom the use of a lovely cottage. I should also have wondered why a glorified stable boy rode prime horseflesh, dressed to the nines, and swilled brandy at the Weasel rather than good English ale.”

“Excellent points,” Abigail said. “What I note now is that Ambers needs to be removed from the premises, Mr. Belmont.”

Hennessey, flanked by Mrs. Jensen, Heath, and Jeffries, all in evening dishabille, came up on Axel’s right.

“Reinforcements,” Axel said. “My thanks, Mrs. Stoneleigh.”

“Madam sent a summons below stairs,” Jeffries said. “Miss Hennessey grasped the situation when madam was not in her apartment. Heath and I are happy to assist, Mr. Belmont.”

“As am I,” Mrs. Jensen added, brandishing a skillet.

Hennessey said nothing, but her eyes promised a slow, painful demise to Stoneleigh’s familiar.

“Lock Mr. Ambers in a loose box stall,” Axel said. “Give him a blanket or two, water if he asks for it. Tomorrow, take him to the Weasel and he’ll be bound over for the assizes at the next parlor session.”

“You can’t prove anything,” Ambers said, taking a step back and bumping into the safe’s open door. “I wasn’t even in the house when Stoneleigh died. I can hardly pass over the threshold here without Mrs. Jensen having me followed by a footman, else I might have found this safe sooner. All I want is the sum Stoneleigh promised me for years of loyal service.”

Oh, right
. Years of loyal service disregarding the law, the Commandments, and common decency.

“Heath, Jeffries, be careful,” Axel cautioned. “Ambers go peacefully, and consider writing a confession. You’re guilty of trespassing, attempted theft, possibly embezzlement, smuggling, collusion, obstructing a magistrate in the prosecution of his lawful duties… I might suggest the courts sentence you to transportation if you show remorse.”

That silenced the culprit, for when transportation loomed as a man’s best hope, the situation was dire indeed.

Heath and Jeffries escorted Ambers down the steps, Mrs. Jensen sniffing indignantly as they passed.

“I wondered why he was always in the house during madam’s absence,” Mrs. Jensen said. “For years, he took his meals at his own table, but once Shreve left, there’s Ambers, bothering my maids, and turning up at all hours where he ought not to be.”

“Doubtless looking for the safe and any evidence that would tie him to Gregory’s crimes,” Abigail said. “And like a fool, I ordered that Gregory’s balcony doors remain wide open. If Mr. Belmont hadn’t shown up—”

She wrapped her arms about her middle.

“You rang for your staff,” Axel said. “Ambers was unarmed, and my guess is, he was looking to get the poison and any evidence of smuggling off the premises before he took his leave in April. Perhaps the safe holds records, perhaps there’s also cash in there, but we need not discuss this now.”

“Come along, Mrs. Stoneleigh,” Hennessey said, offering Abigail her shawl. “You’ll catch your death in this corridor, and I’m sure Mrs. Jensen can have the kitchen make you up a posset.”

That should have been Axel’s cue to withdraw, to get back into his cold saddle and ride through the darkness to his own bed. He remained right where he was, close by Abigail’s side.

“Thank you, no, Hennessey,” she said. “You and Mrs. Jensen have my thanks, for your quick thinking and your bravery. For the present, Mr. Belmont and I have more to discuss. I’ll see you both in the morning.”

Discussion was encouraging. A fellow engaged in a discussion might slip in a small lecture about true love, dunderheaded tendencies, and undying devotion, with a passing mention of wild passion. Perhaps an entire digression on the topic of wild passion.

Mrs. Jensen sniffed and harrumphed some more, but Hennessey declared that
she
was in need of a posset, and got Mrs. Jensen by the elbow. Before those good ladies were halfway down the stairs, Abigail was in Axel’s arms.

And he could not think of one damned useful thing to say.

The goddamned rose bit Axel on his right index finger, which would pain him when next he took up his quill pen. Such injuries were to be expected when harvesting blooms from the Dragon.

“Perishing lot of thorns,” Axel muttered, wrapping his bouquet in chamois. The day was moderate, a foretaste of spring. The same temperature in October would have been brisk, in March it was reassuring.

Axel had spent half the morning bathing, changing his clothing, and searching out fresh blooms and fresh courage. A note from the Weasel confirmed that Ambers was under lock and key, and for once not criticizing the fare he’d been offered.

After cutting a profusion of roses, Axel climbed upon Ivan the Inconveniently Frisky and made for Stoneleigh Manor at a trot, flowers at the ready.

He had a key—thank God he’d thought to keep a key to the front door—but waited like an anxious suitor for Jeffries to admit him.

“Good morning, Mr. Belmont. Mrs. Stoneleigh was preparing to go out. Shall I see if she’s receiving?”

Go out? Abby was a grieving widow. Where would she go out
to?

“I’ll await her,”—where?—“in the conservatory.”

“The conservatory is largely unused, sir.”

“Never trust a man with an unused conservatory. First rule of amateur botany. I’ll be in the conservatory.”

Rather than surrender his roses, Axel took them to the dusty, chilly cavern at the back of the house. The southern exposure and the morning hour made the place sunny, at least, and it had…potential.

The few ferns struggling by the door had noticed the lengthening days and weren’t struggling quite as miserably, though their air was neglected.

Axel took off a glove and tested the soil, finding it adequately moist for ferns.

“Professor? Have you come to inspect my plants?”

Abigail, in a fetching brown velvet riding habit, stood framed in the doorway. Not a typical half-mourning color, but subdued and dignified nonetheless. The color suited her complexion and hair nicely, and the cut…

Axel did not allow himself to admire how the cut of the outfit flattered the figure she sported now.

He thrust his bouquet at her. “These will need water.” The dozen or so blooms had made the journey well. “Be careful, for they’ve a devil of a lot of thorns. If the stems are trimmed under water, the blossoms seem to last longer.”

Abigail leaned in for a whiff. “Marvelous fragrance. Do they have names?”

“Abigail, I care not what names they have. I care what name
you
have.”

She took the roses, leather wrapping and all, and set them in a fern pot. “Have you a lecture to deliver, Professor? I had hoped to waken to one of your lectures, but once again, I found you’d stolen away in the night. I was on my way to Candlewick to deliver a lecture of my own.”

Contagious, then. Lecturing was contagious after all. “Doubtless, I had a lecture prepared when I left Candlewick, Abigail, though I’m so glad to see you I can’t recall a word of it. I went home to fetch you some flowers.”

For a moment Axel simply admired her, this woman who’d endured so much and who made love so generously. He’d fallen asleep rearranging supporting statements, sub-theses, propositions, and phrases.

And once again holding on to Abigail for dear life.

She stepped closer and, without touching him anywhere else, kissed him on the mouth.

“Does that aid your recall, sir? Perhaps you’d like to hear my lecture now.”

Axel’s heart did an odd hop. “I had best bumble onward first, lest your diatribe cause me to lose all heart and hope. I am at present a bit rootless, you see, in need of transplanting.”

“I don’t want your roses,” Abigail said, stepping back. “I would never take them from you. You need not retreat to the tower at Oxford to protect your roses, you daft man.”