Last Night's Scandal (31 page)

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The air between them thrummed.

“Strange dreams, perhaps,” she said.

“Yes.” His gaze drifted down to her hand again. “At any rate, I’ve come to help.”

“Help what?” she said.

“I’ve come to help you look for clues,” he said.

T
he way she’d looked at him when he came in.

But it was the same way she’d looked at him that night when he’d found her in the ballroom. Had he seen worlds in those blue eyes then?

He’d seen something, and it had stopped him in his tracks.

Last night she’d said . . . she’d said. . .

I adore you. I always have and always will.

What did it mean, what did it mean?

He said, “I was wrong to dismiss your clue out of hand. I was wrong about those provoking ghosts. If I’d stopped to think for a minute—but it’s obvious now why I didn’t. The fact is, I was wrong. The fact is, the men don’t need me standing over them constantly. The fact is, we need to stop the ghosts. At present, your plan is a perfectly good one. The ghosts must have strong reasons for believing they’ll find a treasure here that no one else believes in. Either they’re completely insane or extremely stupid or something’s misled them . . . or it exists.”

She folded her hands at her waist. She wore very little jewelry. A simple bracelet. One ring, that one ring.

“Thank you,” she said.

He dragged his gaze from the ring. He glanced about, but no servants stood nearby.

“That’s why I was awake when you came in during the night,” he said softly. “The paper you found nagged at my mind. It wouldn’t let me sleep. I got up to see what I could make of it. I had some ideas, but I was working from memory. I should like to have another look at it.”

“It’s in the muniments room,” she said.

A
s Lisle had been surprised to discover, the castle’s simple exterior concealed a complex and inconsistent interior. The entresol Olivia had made their muniments room was tucked between the first-floor kitchen passage and an alcove off the second-floor drawing room. Its window overlooked the gap between the north and south wings.

The straightforward way to get there was by climbing the south tower staircase. The other route took one up to and across the minstrels’ gallery through the door into the north tower.

Then a left turn into a short passage, past the doorway to Herrick’s quarters, then up a shallow set of stairs. The room was larger and brighter than the kitchen passage below, because the window recess wasn’t as deep. Not that it was exactly bright on this grey day.

“Well?” she said.

He looked about. “The last time I saw it, the place was a jumble of boxes and books.”

“This is Herrick’s doing,” she said. “He’s had the workmen put up shelves and install a cupboard.”

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Now everything was in its place, neatly labeled.

He oughtn’t to be surprised. He’d seen how she organized the staff. All the same, it was a puzzle. In so many ways, she was so chaotic.

But no, that wasn’t quite right. She was calculating, too. Ruthlessly so at times.

Maybe she only seemed chaotic because she made her own rules.

“The furniture came from your cousin Frederick’s study,” she said.

There wasn’t much. A small, plain writing table with a single drawer stood in the window recess. An old-fashioned wooden writing box lay on the table. One very utilitarian chair that probably weighed a ton.

“It looks like the sort of thing Dr. Johnson might have written his dictionary on,” he said, “if he wrote on his grandfather’s writing table.”

“Frederick Dalmay was not a man of fashion,” said Olivia. “Most of his belongings were so old and ugly, I left them in Edinburgh. Mains is waiting for you to tell him whether to sell them or give them away. But I thought we ought to have something of your cousin’s here. He lived in this castle for so long, and seemed to love it. I thought those pieces fit here well enough.”

“They look very well,” he said.

“Better here than they did anywhere else, at any rate,” she said. “Herrick’s moved the more recent household ledgers to his office. Since your cousin’s collection is all about the castle’s history, it seemed right to consider the books and papers as estate papers or muniments, and keep them here with the other property documents and such.” She took a book from the shelf. “I put the mystery paper back into the book where I found it,” she said, “in case there’s a key to the code in the book itself. I can’t see any connection, but you might. I thought that whoever put the paper there probably didn’t do it at random.” She opened the book to the page where the odd paper lay, and gave him the book.

He took out the singed document and scanned the pages between which it had been placed.

“One of the ghost stories,” she said. “The one about the dungeon prisoner. I thought there might be a connection.”

“Might be.”

She drew nearer and peered at the paper he held. He could smell her hair and her skin and the shadow of a fragrance that hung in the air about her.

“I remembered it better than I thought,” he said. “The same clumsy grid, and those tiny symbols or figures scratched in some of the rectangles.”

“I know it could be a puzzle,” she said. “Or a game. But I can’t give up the feeling that it’s more.”

“That’s what kept me awake,” he said. “The feeling that there was more than I was seeing.”

“I’m not good at these things,” she said. “Decoding wants logic, and I’m not logical.”

“You don’t have to be,” he said. “I’m logical enough for two.”

“It does look like a child’s attempt to draw the castle,” she said. “The flattened perspective. The curious proportions.”

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“That’s the style of Egyptian art, essentially,” he said. “Take the wall paintings. Size isn’t in proportion. Size designates importance. The face is in profile, but one eye looks straight out from . . .” He trailed off, his attention shifting from the paper to the room about him. “The wall,” he said. “We’re looking at a wall.”

She followed his gaze. “A wall? But that’s so straightforward.”

“Maps are usually straightforward, too.” He squinted at the tiny figures. “I should have brought my magnifying glass.”

She opened the writing box and took out a magnifying glass. “I needed it to read Cousin Frederick’s writing,” she said.

The writing he’d refused to help her decipher.

Because he was an ass. He’d already worked that out. And he’d worked out the simple fact that he had a great deal to make up for, and he might have very little time in which to do it.

He moved nearer to the window and studied the paper through the magnifying glass.

“They look like numbers,” he said after a moment.

He gave her the glass and paper. “What do you think?”

“Numbers,” she said. “But not all of them. I don’t know what the other things are meant to be. Flowers? Sun? Stars? Some sort of symbol? Did you find any engravings in the walls when you were measuring?”

“The usual decorations,” he said. “Ornamental work around doorways and such. Nothing on the stones of the wall, though. Nothing corresponding to these marks.” He held up the paper and compared it to the walls about him. “Except for the little numbers and symbols, this drawing looks rather like this wall.”

She stared at the paper. “It could be any wall,” she said, “if it is a wall. But it does seem like one. Is that meant to be a window, do you think?”

“Hard to say. Do you have my plans?”

“I gave them to Herrick—but no, wait. He was done with them.” She pulled open the drawer of the table and took out the plans. “We thought it best to keep them where we could find them easily.”

She took them out. His gaze slid to the ring again.

He brought his attention to the plans. He stared at them until his mind fixed there, too. “If that number measures the bottom of the wall,” he said, pointing to the drawing, “it’s too wide for the room we’re in. The long side of this room isn’t quite nine feet. The number on the drawing is twelve. That could be approximate. How many rooms measure about twelve feet on one side? Most of the south tower rooms are about that. Herrick’s rooms, too.”

“What about the height?” she said. “If that number is the height of the wall, it narrows things down. It eliminates most of the main-floor rooms.”

“Herrick’s quarters don’t match, either.”

“There,” she said. “Next to the broken stairway to the basement. The entresol over the well room.
That’s it
.”

He turned his head to look at her.

Her cheeks were flushed. Her shimmering blue gaze met his. His gaze slid down to her
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mouth, a breath away.

“That’s it,” he said. “That’s it. I can’t do this.”

“What?” she said softly. “Do what?”

“Pretend,” he said. “I’m no good at pretending.”

And he lifted her straight off the floor and kissed her.

I
t was hard and uncompromising, the determined way he did everything he determined to do. She kissed him back, with everything she had in her, and her legs simply wrapped themselves around his hips. His hands slid down to grasp her bottom.

He set her on the table and broke the kiss and drew her hands away from his neck, and she thought,
If you stop, I’ll strangle you
.

He turned away and walked to the door to the stairway, and she thought,
You’re a dead
man.

He latched the door.

Then he picked up the chair and carried it to the other door, and jammed it under the handle.

He came back to stand in front of her.

He said, “Here, let me get you out of those wet clothes.” She looked down at herself and said, “I’m not wet.”

He said, his voice very low, “Then
make believe.
” She could feel his voice shivering down the back of her neck all the way down her spine.

“Very well,” she said.

He brought his hands up to her shoulders. He drew away her shawl and tossed it aside.

Then he slid his hands to the back of her neck. He unfastened the first hook of her dress.

Then the second. Then the third.

They were tiny hooks, yet he undid them, one by one; all the while his gaze never left her face, and she couldn’t take hers from his, from the silver of his eyes.

He undid the larger hooks at her waist. She felt the back of the dress fall open. He slid the neckline down and untied the tapes to the sleeve puffs. He bent his head and unbuttoned the tiny pearl buttons at her wrist. Right hand. Left hand.

She stared like one mesmerized at the top of his head, the silken gold hair. Later, she’d drag her hands through it. Later, she’d run her hands all over him. For now, she’d let him have his way with her.

He drew the top of the dress down to her waist. He tugged. She lifted her hips and he pulled the dress down and let it drop to the floor.

He said nothing.

She didn’t, either. Silence was perfect. No words between them. That was perfect. Only the sounds of their breathing and the sounds his hands made on her clothes and skin.

He was so intent. Methodical. He untied the tapes of her petticoat and tugged it down and let it slide to the floor. He kicked it aside. He bent over her shoulder and loosened the ties of her corset.

Her breath came and faster. So did his. She heard it. But no words. They didn’t need
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words, not now.

He drew the corset away. Her chemise, released, slid down her shoulders, exposing one breast. She didn’t try to cover herself. He didn’t try to cover her. He left the chemise as it was, and started on her drawers.

Shivery feelings, racing over her skin.

He untied the tapes and pulled the drawers off her. They ended up on top of the other things. Her garters went next. Then her stockings. Then he pulled the chemise over her head.

Then she was naked, sitting on the table, every inch of her body quivering.

He had on all his clothes.

In the pit of her belly, sensations skipped and squeezed. She kept very, very still.

He looked at her, the silver gaze sliding over her skin like a caress. She felt it under her skin, skittering down to the place between her legs.

Then he leaned toward her. She thought he would kiss her, and she put her mouth up. But he kissed her cheek. Then he licked it lightly.

She shivered.

Not with cold. Her skin was on fire. Inside was hot and restless.

He licked her. Everywhere. A flick of his tongue. The touch of his lips. Her ear. Her throat.

Her breasts. Her arms. Her hands. He knelt and trailed his mouth and tongue over her legs.

He kissed her feet, toe by toe. Methodically. With complete and utter attention.

Low down in her belly was a maddening restlessness, an itch she couldn’t scratch.

And good God, all the gods, Zeus and the rest and the angels and saints and martyrs and crocodiles and ibis-headed gods, too, he kissed up her leg again all the way to her quim.

Then she shrieked—or it seemed so to her, a scream echoing in the small room.

His hand came up to her belly and pushed, and down she went on the table, obediently, writhing and making mad little sounds, and words that made no sense and Oh my God oh my God oh my God.

Little volcanoes erupted inside her, and she shuddered, and then it happened, the fierce, fiery wave that carried her up and up, and threw her up into the sky, then threw her down, shattered.