Meet Me at Midnight (27 page)

Abruptly she sank back onto the couch, as though she’d lost all strength in her legs. “I have no proof,” she whispered, “and he will deny everything. He told me that again today.”

His heart thudding, Sinclair took a slow step forward. “Lord Kingsfeld is well respected, but he is not invincible.”

She gave a brittle laugh. “Ha. That’s what you think. I know better.”

“You owe Thomas the truth.”

“Thomas is dead,” she said flatly. “And he should have known better.”

For a brief moment Sin closed his eyes. “Better than what?”

“Better than to make so many peers angry. Now go. I’m not going to say anything else—except to tell you
that if he knew you suspected him, you couldn’t run far enough or fast enough to escape.”

She had begun shaking, her eyes staring and withdrawn. He knew that he would never get a straight answer out of her—she was more frightened of the unnamed murderer than she was of him. Still, she had given him something.

“Thank you, Lady Jane. Convey my best wishes to your grandmother.”

Her gaze darted in his direction and back to the shadows again. “Go.”

He did as she asked, and showed himself from the house. “Let’s go,” he told his friends, walking past them.

“What did she say?” Wally asked.

“She said that she wouldn’t tell me anything. Someone’s got her frightened half out of her wits, and whoever it was called on her today to remind her of that. I worked Kingsfeld into the conversation, and she didn’t contradict me.”

Crispin scowled. “That’s not much help.”

“It is, actually. I happen to know that Marley spent most of the day with my wife, and wasn’t available to make threats against frightened, lonely women.”

“Sinclair, you aren’t going to go do something rash, are you?” Crispin asked. When his friend declined to answer, the Scot clamped an iron hand over his shoulder. “Sin?”

He shrugged free. “With what proof?” he snapped. His brain still refused to accept the idea that Astin Hovarth had shot Thomas. They had been friends, for God’s sake.
Friends
.

“Your Vixen will be happy to know she was right.”
Keeping a wary eye on Sin, Wally circled around to his horse.

“Vixen,” Sinclair repeated, his chest tightening for the second time that night. “I can’t tell her.”

“Why not?”

“Because she’s Vixen.” They looked at him blankly while he uttered a few choice curses. Victoria’s heart shone in her eyes, and she could no more lie than she could turn away her menagerie. Astin would know the instant he set eyes on her that they suspected him. “Kingsfeld is going to be at my house tomorrow night. And so are you, and Victoria’s friends. If she
knew
…I can’t risk her giving us away. Kingsfeld killed his closest friend; I won’t risk making him suspicious by telling Victoria.”

“In a way, this could be handy. Why don’t I miss the party and go calling on Hovarth House during his lordship’s absence?” Crispin suggested.

Sinclair shook his head. “I promised you would be there. I could explain Bates missing the soiree even if he returns in time, but not you two.” He caught their quick exchange of looks and frowned. “What’s done is done. Go back to Kerston House and see if you can find anything to help us with Kingsfeld.”

“And where are you going?”

“Home—to lie to my wife again.” And to pray that she would forgive him for it later.

“They agreed to come?” Victoria repeated, smiling widely.

Sinclair didn’t seem quite as pleased as she, but she put it to his more cautious nature. No one needed to know his friends were spies, but they could at least all become acquainted with one another.

“I don’t think Bates will be back in time, but Wally and Crispin will be here,” he confirmed. “And I need—”

Milo entered the open morning room, three china plates of varying patterns held out for display. “These were the three with green in them, my lady.”

“Which one looks the friendliest, do you think?”

Her husband looked at her. “Friendliest?”

“Tonight is important. I want it to go well.”

He smiled, though the light in his amber eyes wasn’t quite as joyous. “So do I. All of the settings look quite friendly. I doubt any of them would misbehave.”

Victoria leaned forward on the couch to smack his knee. “Rogue. Milo, I like the one with the roses.”

“They seem friendly to me, my lady. I shall have them put out at once.” With an awkward bow, the butler restacked the plates and exited.

Victoria sat back again to look at the guest list. For once it didn’t really matter where anyone sat, because most of the guests were friends already. “Would your Crispin mind sitting across from Lucien?” she asked, “or would that be too much like bear baiting?”

He didn’t answer. When she looked up, he was gazing at her, his expression the sheepish one of a schoolboy who’d put a frog in the teapot.

“What is it?”

“I…oh, damnation.” Sinclair sat next to her and pulled her hand over to play with her wedding ring. “I know you don’t like him, and I know you’re suspicious, but—”

“—but you invited Lord Kingsfeld, didn’t you?” She looked back down at her list so he wouldn’t see how hurt she was. “You said no suspects, Sinclair. I know how important this investigation is to you, but
I wanted…I wanted tonight to be for us.”

His lips brushed her knuckles. “Whatever you think of him, I couldn’t exclude him without a reasonable explanation.” He kissed the inside of her wrist. “I won’t do any spying tonight.”

Victoria knew why he was kissing her, yet knowing he was attempting to distract her didn’t make it any less stimulating. She watched, mesmerized and shivering, as his mouth slowly trailed up the inside of her arm.

“Do you still believe me?” she whispered shakily. “Do you still believe it might be Kingsfeld?”

“What I believe,” he returned in a low, seductive voice, “is that I’m going to make love to my wife.” He removed the clips from her hair.

“The door is open,” she enunciated, trying very hard to keep a grip on her sensibilities. “And you didn’t answer my question.”

His lips favored her throat with feather-light kisses, which followed along her jaw and up to the corner of her mouth. “Victoria,” he whispered, “kiss me.”

“But…don’t you—oh, my, that feels good—don’t you care that the man who killed…your brother may be dining at your table tonight?”

Sinclair captured her lips in a deep, hungry kiss. Fire spun though her as she slid her hands slowly up his chest and around his broad shoulders. He knew so much of the world, and she kept waiting for the moment when he would tire of her and her unending silliness; kept watching for any sign that he wanted to return to the exciting life he’d pursued for the past five years. All of her thrilled to his every touch and every soft-spoken word murmured in her ear. If tonight—now—he wanted to forget the spying and the hunting
to be with her, she would be a fool to remind him of it again.

He pressed her down on the couch, his lean body stretched half on top of her. His mouth continued to plunder and explore hers until she could barely breathe, much less think.

“Sin, do you—”

They both started. Roman stood with his well-muscled arms stretched to either side of the doorway as he leaned into the room. His ruddy face darkened further as he spied them prone on the couch.

“Ah. Never mind me,” he grunted and grabbed the door handle to shut it soundly.

“I knew he was good for something,” Sinclair murmured, and slid lower to caress her bosom with his warm, soft lips.

Victoria tangled her fingers into his dark hair, arching up against him as he swept his arms under her and swiftly loosened the fastenings of her morning dress. As she lay back again he tugged it down to her waist and resumed kissing her bare breasts.

Shifting sideways, he allowed her to remove his coat and waistcoat and his cravat, now hopelessly crushed and wrinkled. His shirt proved more difficult, because he didn’t seem to want to stop kissing her and caressing her skin with his long, knowing fingers.

“Sinclair,” she finally protested, and yanked the shirt off over his head when he paused to look down at her.

“I want to be inside you,” he murmured, and took her breast into his mouth.

She moaned in helpless lust, wriggling her hips as he pulled the gown the rest of the way down. He went up on his knees, batting her hands away as she reached
up to help him undo his breeches. She loved it when he was like this; she loved the way he seemed to want her so much he could barely keep his hands steady.

As soon as he freed himself, he nudged her knees apart and sank down again, entering her as he did so. She moaned again, this time in satisfaction. Keeping most of his weight on his elbows, he leaned down to kiss her again, open-mouthed, his tongue moving inside her with the same rhythm as the heated thrusts of his hips. Victoria dug her fingers into his strong back, relishing the sensation of him moving so strongly and deeply inside her.

Her body knew his now, and she began to pulse as she felt him moving close to release. He lifted his head and looked down at her, his eyes dark with passion and desire, as he came with a last deep thrust and she joined him in ecstasy.

“We’ve crushed your guest list,” he noted breathlessly, tugging it from beneath her.

Chuckling, Victoria brushed dark hair from his eyes and pulled his face down to kiss him again. “No harm done.”

He hoped that was true. It was small comfort that he hadn’t quite lied to her about Kingsfeld; he’d simply avoided answering her questions, and counted himself lucky to have gotten away with it. How long he could keep up the deception, he had no idea. She’d managed to uncover his other secrets without much difficulty.

She sighed, sliding her arms around his waist. “All right, Sinclair. Since you’ve gone to this much trouble to persuade me, I suppose I can tolerate Kingsfeld for one evening.”

“Thank you. I’ll keep him as far from you as possible.”
At gunpoint, if necessary
.

“No, you won’t. You don’t want to make anyone suspicious of anything. We’re all supposed to be a herd of happy, scandalous hedonists, aren’t we?”

“Some happier than others,” he whispered, kissing her ear. Slowly and regretfully he sat up, wondering whether he would ever feel sure enough about her safety to tell her how much he was coming to care for her. Soon, he told himself. As soon as he had Kingsfeld. As soon as he’d fulfilled his duty to Thomas and could be reasonably assured of staying alive long enough to begin his duties to her. “You are very understanding.”

“And you are very persuasive.”

He brushed a finger against her soft, smooth cheek. “I’m glad you think so. Now, I do have one errand to run today.”

Victoria sat up beside him, her violet gaze serious. She opened her mouth to say something, then obviously changed her mind. “Just promise me you’ll be careful.”

So she still wasn’t sure what he was up to. “Would you miss me?” he asked softly, kissing her again.

“Yes. And it would ruin my seating arrangements.”

With a chuckle, Sinclair leaned down to gather his scattered clothes. “We can’t have that.”

Once they’d managed to return to some semblance of decorum, Sinclair rode to the House of Lords, where one of Thomas’s fine bottles of brandy convinced the clerk to produce five boxes of rejected proposals and treatises from the regular session of Parliament two years earlier. Though Sinclair suspected Thomas’s paper wouldn’t be among them, it
took two hours of searching to confirm it. Thomas had authored several unsuccessful treatises, but none of them was as direct and defiant and as threatening to noble purses as the draft Victoria had found.

Waiting until the clerk became tired of the dust and bored with hovering about, Sinclair slipped into another room to search for a second set of records. This time he wasn’t making a random exploration in the hopes of stumbling across something. He knew precisely what he was looking for, and it took only a short time for him to find it.

The Earl of Kingsfeld had indeed divested himself of several minor shares of stock in minor companies with ties to France. What he had kept, though, was ownership of a company located a few miles outside of Paris—a company that manufactured parts for gas streetlamps.

Sinclair cursed. No wonder Kingsfeld had kept silent about his ownership of such an innocent, progress-minded business. Sin knew of the factory; he’d even visited it in the company of one of Bonaparte’s generals. And though pipes and fittings for streetlamps had been visibly stacked in a corner, he doubted even one single lamp had been constructed during the war. The factory had been too busy with its secondary task—making muskets. Muskets that had armed Bonaparte’s soldiers at Waterloo.

Swiftly Sin returned everything to its place, puttered in the storage room for another few minutes, thanked the clerk, and left. The angry, sick feeling in the pit of his stomach grew. He’d seen death and betrayal; he’d even participated, when the task had called for it. But he’d considered the earl a friend. He’d
trusted
him. And tonight the bastard would sit at his table—
the table that used to belong to Thomas—and laugh and smile, and Sinclair would have to laugh and smile with him, because although he
knew
Kingsfeld had murdered Thomas, he still had no proof. He would find that proof, though, and soon—even if it killed him.

Something was terribly wrong. Victoria perched on the arm of the couch to chat with Lucy and Lionel, but most of her attention was on the laughing conversation at the other end of the room. Sinclair and Kit stood with Kingsfeld, all of them acting as though nothing untoward was going on at all. Kit, she could believe, but not the other two.

“…and of course, after Almack’s exploded, no one wanted to tell Lady Jersey about it.”

Victoria blinked and looked at Mr. Parrish. “What?”

“You were right,” Lucy said, sighing heavily and unsuccessfully hiding a grin. “She wasn’t listening at all.”

“I am so sorry.” Victoria clasped her friend’s hand. “You have my undivided attention.”

The girl giggled. “It’s all right. If I had a husband as splendid looking as Sinclair Grafton, I would spend all my time gazing at him, too.”