Leslie Lafoy (25 page)

“This is different. I was a temporary and obviously not very interesting diversion. A former lover of his has arrived in London and—”

“He hasn’t rekindled the romance.”

Another statement of simple truth from Fiona’s view of the world. If she weren’t always spot-on … “How can you know that?”

“Lord Lockwood followed you out when you left the cathedral,” she explained. “Whatever promises he made Drayton, he obviously still cares enough about you that your tears concerned him. If he was truly done and had moved on to another, he wouldn’t have spent the service watching you and he certainly wouldn’t have left his friend to go after you.”

It would be nice to think of it that way, to believe that Tristan was being genuinely honorable, sincerely protective. “I suppose you could be right,” she allowed, trying not to hope.

“Suppose?” Fiona countered with a chuckle, her green eyes sparkling. “If I were you, I’d be thinking about whether I wanted to be married in London or at Ryland Castle.”

Simone snapped up her jaw and then laughed. “You think I’m going to marry Tristan?”

“Yes.”

Oh, for the love of
 … “He has to ask,” Simone countered. “And he’s not going to.”

“Since when have you waited for fortune to come to you?” Fiona didn’t give her a chance to even mull the notion before adding, “If he makes life interesting, then go after him. Creating a scandal is better than lying in your bed, staring at the ceiling, and being miserably bored for the rest of your life.”

“Caroline and Drayton would prefer—”

“That you be happy.”

And they’d be happy for her as the family name was dragged through the muck and mud? Simone sighed and gave her sister the best smile she could muster. “I’ll think about it,” she offered.

“Sometimes,” Fiona said softly, “it’s best to not think but simply act on instinct.”

“Oh yes. My instincts have served me so well on this already.”

Her sister shrugged and looked past her. “Drayton and Haywood are coming this way. Are you going home with us? Or do you have other plans?”

“Other plans,” she hastily decided, easing away. “If anyone needs me, I’ll be at Lady Emmaline’s lying through my teeth about her artistic ability.”

She thought she heard Fiona mutter something about giving regards to Lockwood, but she didn’t turn back and ask her to repeat it. If Tristan did turn up at his sister’s … Simone didn’t know what she was going to give him. A swift kick had appeal. So did a cold shoulder. And a good piece of her mind. Unfortunately, even more compelling was the hope that he’d give her one of his bone-melting smiles and then kiss her senseless.

“Lousy instincts,” she groused, hailing a cab.

Chapter 14

The desk clerk, duly impressed with their titles and Noland’s Yard credentials, dashed for the stairs, leaving Tristan and his friend to wait in the inn’s quiet parlor. As Noland leaned against the mantel and considered his cuticles, Tristan paced and considered all that could go wrong with the meeting. If Sarah refused to be sensible or even moderately reasonable …

He stopped in front of Noland to grouse, “I’d rather take a sharp stick in the eye than do this, you know.”

Noland clapped him on the shoulder and said cheerily, “But it is the right thing to do and the best way to do it. You’d feel miserably guilty for the rest of your life if you didn’t warn her.”

“Are you sure there aren’t any legal provisions for justifiable kidnapping?”

“Positive. If she refuses to act in the preservation of her own life, there’s nothing you can do to force the issue. You’ll simply have to be content in the knowledge that you made a good-faith effort to intervene.”

“And if she trots right off to tell Lucinda that Scotland Yard has her under investigation?”

Noland shrugged. “It might be the easiest solution, Lockwood. Lucinda would undoubtedly flee the country and never look back.”

“And never be brought to justice,” Tristan pointed out.

“Justice, my friend, is like a diamond. It comes in many shapes, has complex facets, and is seldom found without a flaw of some sort or another.”

Just what he needed, Tristan silently complained as he resumed his pacing. A damned philosopher.

“Sweetheart! I knew you’d come to your—” Her words stopped in the same instant that her feet did. Standing in the doorway of the parlor, she looked between him and Noland and frowned.

Tristan summoned his manners and a tight smile. “Sarah, may I present my friend, Lord Richard Henry, Viscount Noland. Noland, Miss Sarah Sheraton of San Francisco.”

“
Formerly
of San Francisco,” she corrected, gliding into the room. She gave Noland a nod and polite smile while saying, “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Lordship.”

Noland effected a real bow at the waist. “Madam.”

Seeing no reason to let Sarah labor under the assumption that this was a social call, nor to prolong the inevitable ugliness, Tristan said simply, “Noland is an agent at Scotland Yard.”

“How very interesting, Lord Noland. You must have a great many stories to tell.”

Noland, God love him, practically preened. “Actually, Miss Sheraton, I do.” At Tristan’s scowl he cleared his throat and sobered to add, “But one in particular has brought me here today to speak with you.”

“Oh?” She gestured toward a grouping of upholstered chairs near the hearth. “Would you care to have a seat for the telling?”

“Why, yes, I would. Thank you. After you, Miss Sheraton.”

Tristan leaned his hip against the edge of the buffet, crossed his arms over his chest, and watched the two of them settle in as though tea were going to be served at any moment.

“Sweetheart, aren’t you going to join us?”

Three ruined a game of patty-cake. He managed another smile. “I’m fine right here.”

She shrugged and turned her attention to Noland. All gentility and social finesse, she smiled prettily and said, “Now, Lord Noland, if you would please tell me the story. Am I to assume that I am somehow involved in it?”

“You are, madam. Quite inadvertently, of course. However, that doesn’t alter the fact that you are in considerable danger as a result.”

“Danger?” she gasped, pressing her hand daintily to her chest and opening her eyes wide. “Good heavens. From what?”

A public that expects good acting.

“From whom, madam. And I regret to say that the source is none other than Lady Lockwood.”

She sagged back into the chair for a second and then shot forward in it the next to glare in Tristan’s direction. “You are completely and utterly despicable! Your mother warned me that you’d do anything to avoid accepting your responsibility.”

He tamped down his anger and met her gaze squarely. “Sarah, enough of the games. If you are with child, it’s not mine, and we both know it. Just as we both know that you’ve come to London because your latest great ambition is to be the next Lady Lockwood.”

She gasped, quickly pressed her fingertips to her lips, and blinked in what he supposed was an effort to look as though she were holding tears at bay. It might have been more believable if there had actually been tears. “I’m here,” she said softly, weakly, “because I’ve realized that I love you.”

“No, you don’t,” he countered. “And I don’t love you. I never have and I never will. We are done.”

“How can you be so cruel?” She covered her mouth again, managed to make a little hiccuping sound, and then fumbled about in her skirt pocket. Producing a lace-edged handkerchief, she dabbed at her eyes and sniffled. “All I want is to spend the rest of my life with you, making you happy.”

“Aw, Christ on a crutch,” he snarled. “Noland, feel free to step into this charade at any point.”

His friend started. “Ah, yes. That is why I’m along, isn’t it?” He reached over and patted Sarah’s hand. “Now see here, Miss Sheraton; while Lockwood is being decidedly brutal about the more personal aspects of the matter, he is also quite sincere in his concerns for your safety.”

She shook her head and wrung the handkerchief. “Accusing his own mother.”

“She’s not my—”

“Miss Sheraton,” Noland interrupted, shooting him a dark look, “I assure you that Lockwood isn’t casting baseless aspersions. Lady Lockwood is under official investigation in the murder of her husband and two stepsons.”

“No.” Sarah lifted her chin in brave defiance. “I simply refuse to believe such a thing. She is a cultured and delightfully pleasant woman.”

“You forgot,” Tristan groused, “to mention wealthy.”

“Lockwood,” his friend chided, “I would deeply appreciate it if you would please refrain from escalating the tension in the situation.”

He looked away, clenching and unclenching his teeth.

“Actually, Miss Sheraton,” Noland went on, “Lockwood’s observation concerning his stepmother’s financial circumstances is of central importance. Lady Lockwood has profited greatly from the recent deaths of her male family members. Insurance and all that.”

“Is insurance illegal in England?” she asked in a tiny, “I’m so wounded and helpless” voice. Tristan rolled his eyes. Simone would have been six jumps ahead of Noland by this point in the conversation. Hell, by now there wouldn’t be any point to having a conversation; she’d have figured it out on her own and been well on her way to packing up her things and heading back to America.

Or maybe not,
he admitted. Simone wasn’t the sort to run from a contest. Or the sort to try to force a man to marry her.

“Insurance is perfectly lawful, Miss Sheraton. But insuring people and then killing them to collect on the policies most surely is not.”

“I still can’t believe it,” she declared, obviously recovering a sliver of her strength. “If Lady Lockwood has done such horrible things, why haven’t you arrested her?”

“We lack proof sufficient to please the Crown in court,” Noland explained. “We are, however, developing a plan to force Her Ladyship’s hand and reveal her as the cold-blooded murderess she is.”

“And how is it, Lord Noland, that I’m endangered by all of this?”

God, she couldn’t figure it out on her own?

“I’m afraid, my dear Miss Sheraton, that you have, without deliberate intention, of course, made something of a target of yourself in letting it be known to Lady Lockwood that you intend to wed Lockwood and that you are carrying his child.”

“I’m not following your line of thinking. Exactly how does any of that endanger me?”

Tristan bit his tongue and kept his gaze fastened on the floor at his feet. How anyone could be so slow …

“Tristan is a wealthy man, Miss Sheraton. A wealthy man without heirs,” Noland, the soul of patience, explained. “Well, direct heirs. He does have a minor-aged half sister who, by law in the absence of a will providing otherwise, would inherit his assets in the event of his death. Lady Lockwood, as her mother, would control the trust into which the inheritance would be placed.”

“And I should care about all of this because…?”

So incredibly self-centered …

“If you were to marry Tristan and produce a legitimate heir,” Noland supplied, “you and your child would inherit his considerable estate, not his half sister. Lady Lockwood would have no access to the fortune.”

She blinked. Tristan cocked a brow, realizing that there was absolutely no artifice in the expression; Sarah was well and truly shocked.

Noland nodded. “It is in Lady Lockwood’s interest to see that you do not marry Tristan.”

“But she’s been quite supportive of my situation. She’s promised me that she’ll make Tristan take the right and honorable course.”

Damnation. And to think they’d been so close to acceptance. “What?” he scoffed. “You’d expect her to just come right out and announce that she’s added you to her list of those who have to be killed?”

Noland frowned at him, sighed heavily, and patted Sarah’s hand again. “However inflammatory his presentation, Miss Sheraton, Lockwood is right. His stepmother is devious enough to have killed three men and to have gotten away with it. For the moment, anyway. She is not being honest with you. She stands to lose a great deal of money if she furthers your plans to force Lockwood to the altar. It is not, I am sorry to say, in her nature to be altruistic.”

She stared off into space for a moment and then snapped to attention as though she’d been bitten by some small bug. “Well, the solution’s very simple. Tristan just needs to write a will that gives his fortune to anyone other than his sister.”

“And leave her penniless?” Tristan countered. “And leave any wife and child of mine in the same condition? Plunge everyone around me that I care about into poverty so that Lucinda won’t have a reason to kill them? Or me? What an astoundingly brilliant plan, Sarah. If only I’d thought of it myself.”

Noland hung his head, stared at the carpet, and heaved a huge sigh of what was clearly exasperation.

“You’re making up all of this,” Sarah accused. “You’ve hired this…” she waved her hand in Noland’s direction “
actor
to put on a play for me in the hope that I’ll run away in fear for my life.”

“No, Sarah. It’s the truth. You’ve made yourself a target. And if you had a…” He bit back the caustic words just in time. Clearing his throat, he willed a calm into his voice that he didn’t feel. “The intelligent thing to do is to remove yourself from the situation completely, Sarah. Tell Lucinda the truth, that you’re really not expecting, and then return to San Francisco. If you don’t pose a threat to her getting her hands on my money, she won’t waste the time and effort to hurt you.”

Her chin quivered and real tears welled along her lower lashes. “But I am expecting a child.”

Oh, damn.
“Then go to Seattle,” Tristan suggested kindly, “and patch things up with good ol’ George.”

“It’s not his baby.”

Well, that explained a lot of things. And complicated the hell out of them, too. “Jesus, Sarah.”

“I didn’t throw him over,” she cried into her handkerchief. “He broke the engagement when he found out I’d been having an affair.”

“It would seem then,” Noland said quietly, “that the logical course would be to inform the man, whoever he is and whatever his city of residence, of his impending fatherhood and demand that he step up to his responsibility.”