Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (20 page)

“It isn’t snooping if you’re looking for people with a motive to harm that client. Your finances are the next thing we’ll examine.”

She set the cheese on the counter with a solid thunk then put both fists on her hips. “I keep my own books, Mr. Hazlit. Nobody is pilfering from the exchequer. Butter or mustard?”

“Both, and your company, if you please. I already know you’re quite wealthy.”

She looked up sharply, her expression more displeased than surprised. “How did you come to that conclusion?”

She didn’t deny it; he noticed that much despite the fact that her hair was in a loose chignon at her nape, and her attire today was an old-fashioned empire day dress in faded green. She looked cozy and approachable, except for the frown creasing her brow and the tension radiating from her.

And the knife in her hand.

He moved toward her. “You hide your wealth, though it’s observable, nonetheless. Your wine cellar is not large, but each bottle is an excellent vintage. Your everyday china is better quality than most of Mayfair trots out on special occasions. The sheets on even the footmen’s cots are clean and sturdy. You have a closed range in this kitchen, a luxury half your neighbors are still saving for.” He took the knife from her hand and put it on the counter. “Your dresses are beautifully made, even if they’re intended to disguise your attributes rather than accentuate them. The furniture in the servants’ parlor is new. Only in your own chambers do you resort to castoffs and stringent economies.”

He was near enough to get the scent of her, of flowers and cinnamon. This close, he could also see the fatigue around her eyes and mouth, and a mulish determination to the set of her chin. He could kiss that chin…

“Mr. Hazlit, I asked you to find one fairly nondescript reticule, not to make free with my privacy. I really wish you’d let me know you were on the premises.”

To keep himself out of trouble, he took the loaf of bread she’d retrieved from the bread box and began to cut slices. “I was making a point.”

“The point that I’m not safe in my own house?” Her voice was quiet, but it shook with anger nonetheless. Or fear?

He kept his tone all the more even as he cut the bread. “I came in a cellar window somebody probably cracked for air on a warm day. Your house is safer than most. Whose responsibility is it to make sure the place is locked up each night?”

“Mine.”

He stopped slicing to glare at her. “For God’s sake, Maggie. That is not a job for the lady of the house.”

She snatched up a small bowl and a wooden knife and began to smear a generous dollop of butter on each piece of bread. Her movements were assured, the preparation of at least simple food something she was obviously comfortable with. “I have neither butler nor house steward, Mr. Hazlit. My establishment is modest, despite your accusations to the contrary.”

“Your establishment is modest,” he said, watching her hands as she worked. “Your fortune is not.” He turned to cross the kitchen lest he cover her hands with his own and demand that she tell him what was in the damned reticule.

He put together a tea tray while she fussed with the bread, cheese, ham, and mustard. “We’re going to have to talk about your finances, Maggie. Anybody who stole something from you might be laying the groundwork for blackmail if they know the extent of your wealth.”

She stopped slapping mustard on their sandwiches and stood, the wooden knife in her hand as she scowled at him. “You are making groundless accusations. You would not be searching this house if you didn’t think there was at least some possibility the blasted thing is merely mislaid.”

He studied her where she stood some eight feet and three tantrums away from him. Each time he saw her, she was a little more frazzled, a little more tightly wound. Each time he saw her,
he
was a little more frazzled, more tightly stretched between growing desire and an even more intense need to protect her despite her secretiveness and stubbornness.

“You’re right.” He picked up the tray and lied with smooth professionalism. “I’m eliminating the most obvious possibility first and hoping the reticule is simply lost. Shall we eat at the table?”

She nodded and stacked the sandwiches on a plate. “There are stewed apples in the brown crock in the pantry.”

“Perhaps later. Come sit with me, Maggie. I’ll tell you what else I learned from your house.”

She brought the food to the table, and to his surprise, sat beside him rather than across the table. Perhaps she didn’t want him peering directly at her face, and perhaps he didn’t want her peering at him. The ensuing discussion was going to be difficult.

Proper English lord that he’d been raised to be, he poured the tea before firing his first broadside. She stirred her tea with that little tapping of the spoon on the bottom of her cup before taking a sip.

“So what did you find in my house?”

He couldn’t do it. Couldn’t bludgeon her with a truth likely to jar her self-control so badly he’d be able to pry the contents of the reticule loose from her. Not yet.

He passed her a sandwich. “There were children in this house at some point, servants’ children, but also children of the master and lady of the house. I suspect they played together when the adults weren’t looking, or maybe the previous owners were peculiarly democratic.”

“How do you know this?”

Before answering, he watched to make sure she took a bite. “In the cellars, which are the best places to play pirates’ cave, there are words and initials carved into the paneling, down at a child’s height. Some are simple English, but one motto is in Latin.”

“What does it say?”

“It’s hard to make out.
Noli
desperare
, I think.”

Her smile was wan. “Never despair?”

“A good motto for pirates’ captives. Finish your sandwich, Maggie.”

She glanced at him, her expression curious. “When did you decide to call me Maggie?”

The
last
time
I
kissed
you.
“When did you decide to allow me to?”

Her smile tipped up then spilled over into a grin. “You are a very provoking man, Mr. Hazlit. What else did you find?”

And still, he could not tell her. “Very little dust. Your housekeeper is carrying a torch for a second cousin in the shires. They correspond madly about his sheep and her recipes for tisanes. The underfootman has a lock of the tweeny’s hair under his pillow, but you said the tweeny is mooning after someone else. You’re forgetting to eat.”

She took another bite of her sandwich. There was more he would tell her, but not when she was just beginning to relax and let down her guard.

“It’s good ham, Maggie, and you never answered my question about its origins.”

“It’s from Morelands.” She used the back of her wrist to draw a stray lock of hair up over her brow. “We have good stewards in Kent, and there’s a neighbor there with whom I correspond on agricultural matters. He gave me the idea of investing in pigs.”

A very small disclosure, but he treasured it. His Maggie was a swine nabob.

She lifted the pot. “More tea?”

“Please.”

He let her finish the meal in silence, but what he’d found was bouncing around in his brain, making the food sit uneasily in his gut. She’d be upset and scared. Those things would help him get some answers from her, which did not please him in the least.

“Maggie.”

She put the pot down, her gaze meeting his. “Just say it, Mr. Hazlit. You’ve been suspiciously solicitous since I found you in my kitchen. You’re trying to spare me something.” The warmth in her gaze cooled as she spoke. She was manning the garrison, securing her cannon.

“Is it such a bad thing that I’m trying to respect your sensibilities?”

He wanted to grasp her hand, but she rose, taking the remains of their meal with her to the counter.

“It is tiresome to always be accounted incapable of dealing with life’s realities. Bastardy is such a great, defining reality; it provides one a sort of fortitude.” She turned to rest her hips against the counter and crossed her arms over her chest. “I would rather know, Mr. Hazlit, than be pampered and cosseted and treated like a child. What did you find?”

He rose, bringing the tea tray back to the counter, and kept advancing on her once he’d set it aside.

“Benjamin.” He enunciated clearly and slowly for her. “Benjamin Braithwaite Holloway Portmaine… Hazlit is a name I’ve assumed to ensure my sisters are never associated with my present profession, but to you I would be myself: Benjamin Portmaine.” She swallowed as he came to a halt half a pace before her. “It’s my name. I ask you to use it.”

“Speak the truth to me, and I will.”

Ah, that pleased him. She hadn’t dithered or hesitated. She
wanted
to call him by name. He slid his arms around her waist and bent his mouth very near her ear.

“Somebody has been trying to gain surreptitious access to your house, repeatedly, and they have succeeded.”

He settled his mouth on the soft, fragrant skin of her neck, gathered her close with one arm, and used his free hand to destroy the tidy bun at her nape.

***

Damn
him, damn him…
Maggie could not think, could not form a single sentence in reaction as Hazlit’s lips traveled along the column of her throat. Such soft, warm, knowing lips, lips without hurry or hesitation.

“Somebody has broken into my house?”

Lips that settled over hers gently, even as she felt his hand sinking into her hair at the back of her head. He held her still for his kiss, held her steady.

And she wanted him to kiss her. The ugly realities never went away, but sometimes they could be held at arm’s length for a few moments. Right now, she needed such moments more than she needed to ponder who had been searching repeatedly for what in her personal domain.

She wrapped her arms around him and tilted her head, the better to receive his kiss. His mouth left hers, and she was summarily hoisted to sit on the counter.

“Mr. Hazlit?” She was at eye level with him, a novel and pleasing arrangement.

He leaned into her while he said, “Benjamin,” against her mouth. His tongue seamed her lips, sweet with the taste of tea and ardent male interest.

“Benjamin.” She said it against his mouth, too, proving one could almost talk and kiss at the same time. Sitting on the counter, she could get a proper hold of his silky dark hair and do some exploring of her own.

Somewhere in the mental distance, her common sense was lamenting and hurling questions at her: What was this in aid of? How did kissing address the topic of housebreakers? Where was this leading, for gracious God’s sake?

Her body knew where it was leading, for she’d spread her knees to wrap her legs around his flanks, locking her ankles at the small of his back. For the first time in thirty years, Maggie Windham understood the ladies who said they’d been carried away by passion.

“Stop thinking, Maggie mine.” He gathered her closer, wedging himself in tightly to her body. His tongue set up a rhythm, slow and naughty, while Maggie’s womb leapt and heat poured into her veins.

“I don’t want…” She squirmed against him, her body seeking relief or greater arousal, she wasn’t sure which.

“You do, too, and God knows I want, as well.” His hand was on her knee where it rested above his hip. “You’ll let me do this, Maggie Windham, or I’ll go mad. We’ll both go mad.”

Do this?
Do
this?

He shifted his hips away a little, and Maggie moaned in frustration. His tongue in her mouth wasn’t enough, and she was about to climb off the counter and knock him out flat on the kitchen floor, so desperately did she crave greater closeness with him.

“Benjamin…”

God help her, she’d just growled at him. She felt him smile at her frustration, and then he took his mouth from hers to cradle her face against his throat. “Let me touch you, Maggie. Just touch you.”

While she was trying to locate vocabulary sufficient to form an answer, she felt her skirts being dragged slowly up over her thighs. He
was
touching her, probing against the slit in her silk drawers, when a bolt of lightning shot up Maggie’s spine.

“It’s only my hand, just a little touch. Let me.”

The air left her lungs as she felt the smallest breeze on her damp sex, then he did it again—a delicate brush of his thumb, and all of Maggie’s focus riveted on that touch. She wanted to bite something. She opened her mouth on his throat and struggled for breath as her heart kicked against her ribs.

“What are you…?” A little more pressure, this time in a rhythm that sent pleasure cascading through her. Speech having deserted her, she moaned against his neck then slipped her tongue along his jaw.

“Let it happen. Let me give you this.” He had one hand under her skirts. Maggie felt the other slide up her rib cage and settle over her breast while she gripped him to her with both arms and legs.