The Toplofty Lord Thorpe (14 page)

“The Gypsy,” Thorpe reminded her, sliding his hands down her arms to capture her fingers in his tight grip. “You know, darling, I do believe that old charlatan may have helped to save your life. I might not have been so suspicious otherwise when I saw you. Oh, Lucy,” he breathed, drawing her against his
chest. “You were such a sight, all bruised and turned in on yourself. I was never so frightened in my life. Promise me you'll never do anything like that again.”

Lucy closed her eyes as she rubbed her face against his waistcoat. “I promise never to let anyone drug me ever again,” she told him solemnly, then raised her face to grin at him. “Besides needlessly upsetting you, my dearest, the stuff tasted quite vile, you know. Although, if my memory serves me correctly, I do believe last night held a few pleasant moments, hmm?”

Julian lowered his head until his forehead touched hers. “You remember?” he asked huskily. “It was unforgiveable of me, taking advantage of you when you were powerless to fend me off.”

“Yes,” she agreed, wrapping her arms around his waist beneath his jacket. “Your behavior was utterly reprehensible. Julian,” she asked, dimpling, “do you promise to be reprehensible again just as soon as you are able? Perhaps later this evening, when I am more awake? My memories are quite pleasant, but regrettably vague.”

“You cheeky wench!” Julian said, delighted all over again by her unabashed openness when it came to expressing her feelings. “However did I exist without you?”

“I can't imagine,” she answered airily, pulling his mouth down to within an inch of hers. “But I do believe I can now foretell your fortune, if you'd care to be enlightened. Ah, my blond god of happiness, your days will be filled with love and laughter for
evermore, and your nights, ah, yes, those lovely nights, will be spent like this.”

Their lips came together in a long kiss that swiftly brought back the powerful feelings that had sprung up between them in the dark hours of the early morning. As they strained together, heedless of their surroundings, all thoughts of murderers and deceitful plots flew out of their minds, and for those too-brief moments in time they were as lovers have always been, totally enmeshed in each other.

But they were not to be left alone for long, as the sound of approaching footsteps brought Thorpe, cursing under his breath, back to his senses. “Stand here beside me,” he told Lucy seriously as he turned them toward the open doorway.

“Hmmm,” Lucy agreed happily, smiling inanely as Rachel entered the room ready to scold her errant charge. But one look at Lucy's dreamy expression, and Rachel, who had not spent her entire life squiring her niece about, could only sigh resignedly and shake her head. Clearly her days as chaperon were coming to an end. Thank goodness. Tristan didn't require her services—it was more than time she set up an establishment of her own. Besides, she thought, smiling inwardly, Tristan and I would kill each other within a sennight if we were forced to deal with each other too closely.

Julian had just had time to pour each of the ladies glasses of sherry before the rest of their party arrived—Jennie looking delightfully radiant as she walked in beside Kit, and Dexter looking very out of
place in his role of supporting prop to his still-swollen-faced cousin Parker. Tristan was the last to arrive, and he merely nodded at Thorpe before positioning himself near the doorway, his shoulder propped against the wall.

The actors were all in place, Julian observed, lifting his glass to his lips as his cold gray eyes surveyed the room and its occupants. It was time for the play to begin.

 

“Y
OU'RE LOOKING FIGHTING
fit,” Dexter told Lucy as he sat down after helping Parker into a chair. “According to Julian, you were at death's door, but I see he has exaggerated the thing out of all proportion. Julian, dear fellow,” he said, looking up at his cousin, “you're like an old hen with one chick. When I told poor Parker here what you said about Lucy's condition, the man nearly expired with shock. I'd be careful if I were you—it just might be you have a rival vying for Lucy's affections.”

Leave it to Dexter to get straight to the heart of things, Julian thought sardonically, even if he doesn't have the slightest idea of the importance of what he has just said. Exchanging a knowing look with Tristan, who had straightened his posture at Dexter's words, Thorpe walked over to stand in front of Parker. “So you were worried about Lucy, were you, cousin?”

Parker touched a shaking hand to his discolored eye. “Yes…yes, of course,” he agreed shakily. “I'm aware of your high regard for Miss Gladwin, and the
thought of anything happening to cause you any more pain was very distressing to me.”

“Yes.” The earl smiled his agreement. “I must remember how very loyal you are to me, Parker. Lucy would be wise to look to you for comfort if I am to soon be clapped into jail for the murder of Miss Anscom. As my countess, which she will be before the week is out, she must needs lean heavily on your knowledge of my affairs.”

“Then you do intend to marry her?”

“Ah, cousin,” Julian gibed, shaking his head, “surely you have already figured that out for yourself. Isn't that why you went to her room last night and poured laudanum down her throat—so that you wouldn't have rid yourself of me just to be left with an inconvenient countess to share the wealth?”

“What?” Dexter, the only member of the party who had not been privy to any of the events of the previous evening, leapt to his feet, his eyes on Lucy. “You were drugged? By
Parker?
Why in blue blazes hasn't anyone told me?”

Lucy shrugged apologetically. “Because you were our other suspect, Dex, I'm sorry to say. But do wait awhile before flying up into the boughs, for I want to hear the rest of what Julian has to say. There is more, isn't there?” she asked her financé.

Parker huddled in his chair, speechless, as Julian expanded on his theme. “There certainly is more, quite a bit more, but we shall require Parker's assistance in order to fill in a few gaps. To begin with the beginning, I suggest we go back to this past winter,
and my residence at Hillcrest. It was during this time that you first met Susan Anscom, wasn't it, Parker?”

“I don't know what you're talking about!” the secretary denied hotly. “I never even met Sue Anscom!”

“Sue?”
Rachel put in pointedly. “Methinks he dost protest too much, don't you?”

“Aunt Rachel,
sshh,
” Jennie whispered, quite caught up in things.

“You met Susan Anscom, seduced her, then talked her into going along with your dirty little scheme,” Thorpe persisted, his voice still deadly calm. “Tell me, was murdering Miss Anscom always a part of your plot, or were you initially only out to destroy my good name?”

Parker looked around the room, knowing himself to be the center of attention, and his formerly fearful expression faded, to be replaced by a smile of utmost satisfaction. After years of blending in with the woodwork, being overlooked, dismissed, and discounted, he was suddenly the most important person amid a roomful of some of England's most respected peers. “It was my idea from start to finish.” He sneered, sitting up proudly. “Sue thought I was helping her into compromising you into marriage, but I only told her that to keep her in line. I wrote the suicide notes, copying her handwriting from her journal. Stupid cow—as if I was going to all that trouble so that she could end up a countess.”

“And then you killed her,” Lucy put in, fascinated in spite of herself. “Tell me, Parker, was it your child she carried?”

He threw back his head and laughed aloud. “Child?” he mocked. “There was no child. That was a last-minute inspiration of mine—rather like the finishing icing atop a cake. Her seduction alone wasn't enough, just like disgracing Julian was no longer enough. I always believed I would be a much better earl than he—society might turn a blind eye to Sue's suicide, but it wouldn't overlook a man who had murdered his own unborn child.” His smile faded and then he looked down at the hands he had clasped tightly in his lap. “But it took too long for those fools to act—couldn't they see Sue had been murdered?” He glared at Julian. “You should have been arrested by now. And then
she
began to meddle,” he complained, jerking his head in Lucy's direction. “I had to be rid of her.”

“Naughty puss,” Kit Wilde observed mildly. “I always said you were a bit too much of an independent thinker. Jennie would have been content to let me do the sleuthing. I can see why friend Parker here was so put out with you.”

Lucy bristled, but then remembered the button she had found and smiled ruefully. “I begin to see Parker's point, much as it pains me. If we were to inspect his jackets, I believe we might just find the one to which this button belongs.” She held up the bone button so that all could see. “I stumbled upon it beside the pool. Miss Anscom must not have agreed with all of Parker's plans and put up a bit of a struggle. You know,” she said thoughtfully, “I'm rather
distressed that Julian has beat me to it, but I still don't totally understand how he figured it out. Julian?”

“Not yet,” Dexter contradicted, clearly quite angry. “I want to hear why he thought I was a suspect, drat it all anyway. I'm highly insulted, coz, and I don't mind saying so.”

Julian bowed deeply in his cousin's direction, as Tristan slipped silently behind Parker. “My deepest apologies, Dex. But as my heir, you had to be a suspect.”

“And that's another thing,” Dexter said, scratching his head. “I
am
the heir. Even if Parker had succeeded in having you hanged, he wouldn't have inherited the title. I stood in his way.”

Lord Rule's deep voice made Parker jump slightly in his chair. “Somehow I don't believe that trifling incidental would have deterred our man Parker for very long.”

“Why, you…” Dexter swore, lunging toward the secretary, only to halt in his tracks as Parker jumped to his feet, a small silver pistol in his hand.

“Stay away from me, all of you,” he warned, moving the pistol about nervously.

“Give it up, Parker,” Julian advised smoothly, holding out his hand to show him the bullets Bartholomew had discovered in his room. “And on the off chance you had more of these things hidden elsewhere, I also took the liberty of removing the firing pin. You have often remarked on your dislike of firearms of any sort, and it occurred to me that you
would have a pistol only if you felt in need of protection. A guilty man would feel that way, wouldn't he?”

Parker seemed to crumble where he stood. “All for nothing,” he mumbled self-pityingly. “All for nothing.”

“Yes,” Julian agreed, removing the pistol from Parker's slack grip. “I only wish you hadn't gone to the trouble of hiring some local to rearrange your face in order to prove your loyalty. Lord Rule ran the man to earth this afternoon in the village, so there's no sense denying it. Yes, it's a pity. It would have afforded me the greatest pleasure to have smashed you into a pulp.”

“I'll take him to the constable,” Tristan offered, grabbing Parker none too gently by the elbow and leading the man away. “Kit,” he asked, “care to ride along? If we're lucky, the worm will try to make a break for it.”

“Trifling incidental?” Dexter repeated dully, looking at Rachel for comfort. “Am I really a trifling incidental?”

“Of course you're not,” Rachel soothed, slipping an arm about the young dandy's slim shoulders. “Jennie, let us adjourn to the morning room, where we can ask Raleigh to bring Dexter here a bracing cup of tea, as dinner will certainly be late. Poor Dexter,” she clucked as the two ladies led the disillusioned young man from the room.

“It's over,” Julian breathed, once he and Lucy were alone in the room. “At long last it's over.”

Lucy shook her head, hiding her eyes from him.
“Note quite, Julian. I would not be fair if I did not point out that you are now free to marry Lady Cynthia. She's engaged to Lord Seabrook now, but I can't believe she wouldn't take you back once she learns your name has been cleared of scandal.”

Julian assumed a thoughtful expression. “I see,” he said consideringly. “But what about you, Lucy? I have compromised you a half-dozen times at least. Wouldn't you object?”

Lucy looked up at him with much the lively expression she had shown when successfully handling her hobbyhorse in the park. “Object, Julian? Goodness no. Not me. Why, I should simply resume my pursuit of you with renewed fervor until I had won you back again. What do you think of my secreting myself in your bedchamber and draping my scantily clad body across the bottom of your bed?”

Sweeping her up high into his arms, Julian threw back his head as Lucy dropped butterfly kisses all over his face. “Sounds promising, pet,” he growled deep in his throat. “Tell me more.”

“O
H
,
POOR
D
EXTER
,”
Lucy wailed, bringing her hobbyhorse to a halt beside the stylishly clad young exquisite who was just then sprawling inelegantly on the grass in the middle of the park, his fallen hobbyhorse at his side. “I told you not to try that hill until you had a bit more experience.”

“Drat it all, Lucy, I was doing just fine till that show-off husband of yours cut me off. Whose idea was this expedition anyway?”

Julian, having already dismounted from his vehicle, strolled over to give Dexter a hand in getting to his feet. “After more than a year of marriage to Lucy, I'm afraid I have been totally corrupted. Forgive me, Dex, but this excursion was my idea.”

“You don't do things by half-measures, do you, coz?” Dexter gibed, brushing himself down and then sighing over the grass stain on his left knee. “And to think you used to look down your nose at my exploits. There are times, Julian, when you make me feel like a very old man. Why don't you be a good fellow and go set up your nursery awhile—it may mature you, settle you down a tad.”

Winking broadly at his wife, who just as broadly winked back at him, Thorpe refrained from comment. There was time and enough for children next year, he
and Lucy had decided. For now they were content to explore all the joys in life that he had previously overlooked—and his Lucy made an excellent teacher.

“Have a slight accident?” asked Lord Rule, who had ridden up atop his pitch-black stallion. “Have a care, Rutherford, else you'll break that leg again.”

“How did you know—?” Dexter was startled into saying before he stopped and amended, “Me? I never heard such foolishness. I never broke anything in my life—except a few bottles after dinner, of course.”

“That's not what I heard from the lady,” Tristan quipped, raising one dark brow. “Nursed you all winter a year ago right here in her rooms above the milliner's shop over past Piccadilly.”

“So that's where you were!” Lucy leered, giving Dexter a playful poke in the ribs. “Does this lady have a name?”

“I slipped on the stairs as I was leaving late one night,” Dexter explained into his cravat. “Julian,” he then pleaded, raising his head, “call her off, please!”

“Hmm?”
Julian questioned blankly, for his mind had been on other things. He had tried not to think overmuch about the events of the previous year, but Tristan's mentioning of the subject, even vaguely, had recalled it all to his mind. He repressed a slight shudder as he remembered the last time he had visited his cousin in Ringmoor, the well-run asylum he had placed Parker in after the man had broken down completely on the way to jail. “Oh, look,” he improvised, trying to change the subject. “There's Sir Henry and
his ward, Mary. Pet, didn't you say Rachel was presenting her for Sir Henry?”

“Yes, indeed,” Lucy agreed, happy to see that the slight cloud that had passed across her husband's features was now gone. “Aunt Rachel's doing it as a special favor to Sir Henry. Isn't Miss Lawrence a pretty thing?” she added, looking at the young lady in question as the open carriage moved off down a side path. “Aunt Rachel must still be writing that book of hers, and declined to ride along. Isn't it famous that we have a budding Jane Austen in our midst!”

Tristan's dark eyes were following the progress of the carriage, his expression thoughtful. “What?” he asked, scarcely believing what he had heard. “Rachel is penning a novel? My God, I sincerely hope she isn't using any of us in her book.”

Lucy cocked her head to one side and considered her cousin as he sat so proudly in the saddle. “Oh, I don't know, Tristan. I think you would make a marvelous hero—tall, dark, handsome, and oh so mysterious.”

“What about me?” Dexter pouted. “Wouldn't I make a good hero? Rachel has my permission to use me in her book.”

Julian draped a companionable arm around his cousin's shoulder. “If she has a part in there for a village idiot, I'll be sure to suggest your name, coz,” he teased affectionately, causing Lucy and Tristan to break into laughter.

“Look at them,” Lady Seabrook sniffed, pointing
one kid-encased finger at the small but noisy party of people standing on the grass. “They're making spectacles of themselves as usual. I should never think to so demean myself.”

Lord Seabrook, who had been eyeing the group with something akin to envy, replied flatly, “Yes, my dear, I know.”

Lady Seabrook was about to ask her husband just exactly what he meant by his statement when Julian, uncaring of any audience, leaned down to place a firm kiss smack on his wife's lips. “Well!” Lady Seabrook exclaimed, drawing herself up stiffly. “I never!”

Lord Seabrook flicked the reins and urged his matched pair into movement, never taking his eyes off the clearly happy couple. “No, Cynthia,” he sighed with the resigned air of a man who knew what he had as well as what he had missed, “that much is true. You never—never have, and never will. Pity…”

As Dexter remounted his hobbyhorse, he chanced to see Lord and Lady Seabrook as they passed in the promenade. “Hoo! If it isn't Lord and Lady Seaweed. They don't seem to be enjoying themselves, do they? I hear he sold off half his stable at Tatt's last week. Do you think he's retrenching?”

“Gambling,” Tristan supplied knowingly, for there was little that went on in London that Tristan did not know of one way or another, although Lucy found it impossible to learn much of anything about his life, no matter how she prodded. Tipping his hat, Tristan then bid them all a fine day and turned his horse in
the direction Sir Henry's carriage had taken, although Lucy and the others were not to know that. Mary Lawrence was an enigma; he couldn't seem to get a handle on her and her relationship to Sir Henry. And Tristan didn't like loose ends.

As they watched Rule ride off, Lucy tapped her fingernail against her teeth as she leaned back into Julian's embrace. “If only Tristan would settle down, get married. He seems so restless.”

“Here now,” Julian protested. “Kit tells me Jennie believes herself in charge of settling everyone she knows into comfortable little niches. Don't tell me you are about to go poaching on her private territory?”

“Jennie's efforts have met with precious little success so far, love,” Lucy pointed out, now gnawing on her knuckle as she tilted her head and thought some more. “Perhaps it is time I exerted myself a bit on Tristan's behalf. A man isn't truly happy, truly fulfilled, until he is married.”

“Perhaps Tristan is the exception, pet?” Julian suggested, resting his chin on her hair.

“No,” she denied such ridiculousness out of hand. “It's simply that he hasn't yet found the right woman.” Just then an idea struck her and she whirled about abruptly to throw her arms around her husband's neck. “Oh, you most wonderful, intelligent man!” she exclaimed, giving him a smacking kiss on the cheek. “The exception! That's who we shall find for Tristan—the Exception to the Rule!”

Dexter slipped away quietly, his sympathies with
Tristan, but inwardly thankful that no one considered his flightly self to be good husband material. Married—him? “Then I'd really be the village idiot!” he muttered under his breath, and pushed off down the hill.

Lord and Lady Thorpe, just then gazing contentedly into each other's eyes, never even noticed that he was gone.