The Pleasure Trap (18 page)

Because he seemed genuinely concerned for her safety, she kept her resentment in check. “When Dexter scratched at the door to get out, I saw no reason not to go out with him.”

He folded his long length into the armchair on the other side of the fireplace and lifted a brow. “Armed with a pistol?”

“I didn’t expect trouble, but I’m not a fool.” She gave a careless shrug. “So I took my pistol with me. My aunt will support my story.”

“Story,” he repeated. “Yes, it does have the feel of a story, doesn’t it? A fairy tale, in fact! Let’s forget for the moment that you and your accomplice, Dexter, stole out of the house by the library door when you might have taken one of the doors where a porter was on duty. Tell me about Nell. I believe you said that she was the woman who escaped from Bedlam. Odd that you never mentioned her before.”

Her chin lifted. “I met her the night she escaped from that house of torture. It was late and, believe it or not, Dexter was scratching to get out. However, he didn’t go to the back door. He went down another flight of stairs to the laundry room. Nell was there, in a sorry state, filling herself with stale bread. She was freezing cold, hungry, and terrified out of her wits. I gave her my coat and boots. She told me her name. I went to the pantry to get something else for her to eat, and when I returned, she was gone.”

His voice had lost its hard edge. “You helped a woman who had escaped from Bedlam? Weren’t you afraid she might attack you?”

“Attack me?” She shook her head. “Oh, Ash, she was trembling so hard that she could hardly stand up straight. And she isn’t a woman. She’s a young girl. I would have done as much for a stray dog. My one regret is that she ran away before I could get her away from this place. I don’t blame her. She doesn’t trust anyone, except perhaps Dexter.”

Dexter, who had been looking a shade glum since Ash arrived, lifted his head from his huge paws and thumped his tail on the floor.

No one paid him any attention.

Ash shook his head. “If she was incarcerated in Bedlam, there must be a reason for it. What did she tell you?”

“I could hardly get her to say a word. She only told me her name after I told her that she was not going back there and that I’d find a safe place where no one could harm her. I was thinking of sending her to Henley.”

He was leaning forward in his chair, a hand pressed to his brow. “You were going to send her to your home in Henley? A runaway from Bedlam?”

“Not alone, of course. My aunt, I’m sure, would have been happy to go with her.” She added forlornly, “I hadn’t made up my mind what I was going to do with her.”

He shook his head. “Let’s leave Nell for the moment, shall we? Tell me what you saw when you went out with Dexter, step by step.”

He frowned when she hesitated, and that hastened her into speech. “To tell you the truth, I didn’t see much when we went outside, but Dexter picked up the scent of something—I don’t know what—and he sort of took off. Naturally, I followed.”

“Naturally,” he responded dryly.

She ignored his sarcasm. “He led me to the gypsy camp. That’s why I thought Nell must be there. I’d hoped the gypsies had come back and had taken her in. And I knew Dexter was fond of Nell. If he’d picked up her scent, he would try to find her.”

“But you didn’t see the girl?”

She saw the trap before she stepped into it. “She was wearing my coat. I caught a glimpse of it.”

He pressed his lips together as though he was trying to keep a straight face.

“What?” she asked.

“Dexter was fond of Nell?”

“Of course he liked her. Isn’t that obvious? She broke into this house. She was an intruder. But Dexter didn’t growl or bark an alarm. He nestled against her to keep her warm. Do you want to hear about Angelo or don’t you?”

“Please,” he said meekly.

She drew in a breath. Casting her mind back, she said slowly, “I don’t know when I became aware that he was there. I leveled my pistol and…and…I heard his steps; he was coming straight at me. ‘I’ve got you now, little bitch,’ he said, or words to that effect. It wasn’t the words that frightened me. It was his rage. He was raving like someone demented.” She saw the look on Ash’s face and quickly amended, “That’s what I sensed, anyway.”

“You ‘sensed.’”

Her chin lifted. “I’m a Claverley. We sense things.”

He let the explanation go unchallenged. “Go on.”

“If he’d come any closer, I would have pulled the trigger. But you shouted my name and I”—she gave a shaken laugh—“I sort of collapsed with relief.”

“What made you think he was Angelo?”

“Who else could it have been?”

He let out a long, thoughtful sigh. “Keble told me not to say anything to anyone, but I’m coming to see that that was a mistake.” He turned his head and captured her gaze in his. “Do you remember the heckler at the symposium?”

“Of course I do. What about him?”

“His name was Robert Thompson, and the night Lydia was attacked, he was bludgeoned to death in one of the arbors in Vauxhall.”

“The heckler? Bludgeoned to death?” Her mind was numb with shock.

Her shocked stare prompted him to add, “After the constable interviewed everyone at the Manor, I went with him to Vauxhall to see if I could identify the body.” He shifted restlessly. “Keble asked me not to say anything. It’s his investigation and he told me, more or less, to keep out of it. We’ve talked since then, and he believes that Thompson’s presence at Vauxhall was a coincidence.”

Her mind was reeling with questions. “Who is he? What does he do? Why was he at the symposium?”

“That’s what doesn’t add up. Seems he was the proprietor of a prosperous inn on Gloucester Road. I’ve asked myself that same question. What would the proprietor of an inn have in common with Gothic fiction? I have someone looking into it—Jason Ford—but you can see why I was rough with you when I found you wandering outside on your own.”

Her mind was racing off in a different direction. Had Angelo killed Robert Thompson? If so, why hadn’t she felt the shock of it inside her own mind? Vauxhall was some way from the Manor. It seemed that Angelo had to be very close to her before she could read his mind.

On the other hand, maybe Angelo hadn’t murdered Thompson.

“Ash,” she said, her voice quavering, “how many villains are we looking for, one or two?”

He lifted his shoulders and let them drop. “I don’t know what to make of it, but until I do, I don’t want you to take chances. Do you hear me, Eve?”

She nodded. “Don’t take chances.”

After an interval of silence, he said, “What did Dexter do when this man came toward you?”

She had to think about that. “He growled, but he didn’t bare his fangs. I think he growled because he sensed that I was afraid.”

“Did he bark?”

“No.”

“Or try to attack the man who came at you?”

She shook her head.

“What does that suggest to you?”

She answered slowly, “That Dexter must know him, be familiar with him.” Her voice quickened. “Maybe Angelo is one of the groundsmen or one of the gardeners.”

“That’s what I think, too, but he wasn’t Angelo, just a groundsman who mistook you for a trespasser. I think he panicked when he realized his mistake and that’s why he ran away.”

He was so wrong, but she didn’t know how to convince him. People who heard voices in their heads were candidates for—She couldn’t complete the thought.

When he got up, so did she. She wasn’t going to sit there like a naughty child and allow him to lecture her. She knew what she knew.

His voice gentled. “Listen to me, Eve. Isn’t it possible that everything has become distorted in your mind—the attack on Lydia, Angelo, the girl who escaped from Bedlam? It sounds to me that you’ve been listening to Miss Claverley. I think she has fired up your imagination till you can’t tell what is real from what is fantasy.”

She’d heard those words or words very like them from her father. He hadn’t wanted her to turn out to be like her mother. And because she loved him, she had tried to be what he wanted, just an ordinary girl.

It hadn’t worked. Nothing she did could win her father’s love, not then, not now. He still regarded her as a freak.

Well, an ordinary girl would be no match for Angelo.

She looked up at him with hurt and resentment burning in her eyes. It was hard to distinguish between Ash and her father, and in that moment she saw them as one. “Don’t patronize me and don’t belittle my aunt. I’d rather trust her intuition than your cold logic. She’s a Claverley, and Claverleys are extremely sensitive to what people are thinking and feeling.”

He was quick to pick up where she’d left off. “What about you, Eve? You’re a Claverley, aren’t you?”

And she was quick to correct her mistake. “Up to a point, but I also take after my father. That doesn’t mean I think my Claverley relations are charlatans. They trust what they feel, and I trust them.”

She stood her ground when he dropped his hands on her shoulders. The look he gave her was searching. “Will you listen to yourself? You’re an intelligent woman. You can’t believe all that rot. No sane person could. We’re talking about real life here, Eve, not the fantastic realm of Gothic fiction.”

She was glad now that she’d had the sense not to confess everything to him. His skepticism—no, his insulting dismissal fed her resentment. “I don’t care what you think,” she said. This, of course, was the opposite of what she was feeling, but she had her pride. “I told you what happened tonight. My aunt had nothing to do with it. Nell was out there, or at least Angelo thought she was out there. He mistook me for Nell. He was enraged. If you hadn’t come along, I would have shot him.”

When he made a small sound of impatience, she gave him a shove and stepped out of his grasp. “I’d hoped you would help me find her. I hate to think of her out there, fending for herself. She could fall into the hands of the wrong person—Angelo or someone who would return her to Bedlam. I promised her that would never happen, and I mean to keep my promise.”

His hands fastened on her arms. “You are not going to run around the grounds at night looking for that girl. Not only would you be putting yourself at risk but her, as well.” His voice gentled. “Leave it to me, Eve. I’ll find Nell, if she can be found. And I promise she won’t ever go back to Bedlam. You know how I feel about asylums. I wouldn’t allow Harry to go to one. I won’t do less for your runaway.”

A knot of remorse constricted her throat. She shouldn’t be surprised. She wanted to tell him that she wished she hadn’t been so hasty to judge him when they’d first met. He was a far better man than she had ever imagined. She didn’t tell him because she knew he would give her a flippant reply.

“I won’t forget this,” she managed to say past the lump in her throat.

He gave her the smile that always melted her heart. The hands digging into her arms released their pressure and slipped around her waist. She became lost in the look in his eyes—appealing, soothing, and if anyone needed to be soothed, it was she. Her encounter with Angelo had left her shaken. There was so much she hadn’t shared with Ash, so much she’d learned when she was inside Angelo’s head. Could she tell him? Dare she trust him?

His head descended. Hers lifted. Against her lips, he whispered, “This is real, Eve, what we can touch and taste. No crystal ball was needed. I knew it would come to this.”

This time, when she shoved him, she sent him back on his heels. Panting, glaring, she got out, “If you’d had a crystal ball, you would have known that what you want you won’t get from me. Why don’t you try your tricks on Sophie Villiers? Her Gothic bed with its crimson drapes and profusion of gold frogging and tassels is your proper element, if you ask me.”

She walked to the door. “Dexter, come.”

Dexter was curled up on the hearth, either sleeping or feigning to be deaf. Eve gave her dog one baleful look and marched out of the room. On the other side of the door, she sucked in a disbelieving breath. She had just made a colossal blunder! Would he notice? What would he make of it? Why couldn’t she curb her unruly tongue when she was with Ash Denison?

Ash combed his fingers through his hair. How dare she bring Sophie Villiers’s name into what, to him, had been a perfect moment of harmony between them? And all because he’d made a little joke. Had the woman no sense of humor?

He heaved a sigh. The one good thing to come out of this was that Eve had not been stalked by Angelo. He believed his own words—a groundsman had spotted her and mistaken her for a trespasser. That Dexter had done nothing more than growl confirmed his opinion.

If Ash believed she’d had a close call with Angelo, he’d be panicking right now.

Nell. He’d promised to find her and take care of her. A runaway from Bedlam? He was beginning to feel like a character in one of Eve’s novels, but whether she would cast him as the hero or the villain was still to be settled.

He looked at Dexter. “So now I’m stuck with you, am I?”

Dexter thumped his tail, shook himself off, and padded to the French door.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were reading my mind.”

Dexter whined.

“Fine,” said Ash. “Let’s see if Hawkins and the groundsmen have found anything interesting.”