Authors: Erica Ridley

Tags: #Man-Woman Relationships, #Historical Fiction, #Smuggling, #Smugglers, #General, #Romance, #Historical, #Secrecy, #Fiction, #Love Stories

Too Sinful to Deny (17 page)

BOOK: Too Sinful to Deny

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What had Miss Devonshire been doing in a chicken shed that could possibly constitute a secret worth killing for?

Chapter 13

Evan considered Miss Stanton’s pensive countenance only a moment before making up his mind. He fell back to her side and proffered his arm.

“Come,” he commanded.

Miss Stanton’s fingers curved around his forearm. It was a testament to her apparent discomfiture that she obeyed without question.

He led her away from the stench of the chickens, away from the cover of trees, closer and closer to the jutting edge of the cliff overlooking the water. Yet with every step taken in tandem, he felt the real danger came not from the possibility of losing his footing to gravity and tumbling to his doom, but of losing a larger and larger part of himself to the woman at his side. Which, to Evan, signified a free fall of an entirely different—but twice as terrifying—nature. He could afford no such fancies.

And yet he led her to his favorite spot in all of Bournemouth.

A half-circle of bleached rocks were all that separated the well-worn patch of dark earth from the endless sky. He loved to come here and lay on his back to listen to the ocean and watch the storm clouds roll in with the setting of the sun. At peace. Just far enough away from humans and animals alike, here it was easy to imagine himself alone in the universe, with nothing but nature to keep him company.

Except, this time, he was not alone. The slender fingers about his forearm would remind him of this fact, if it were somehow possible to have forgotten. Even when she was not present, Miss Stanton was never far from Evan’s mind. But he began to doubt the wisdom of bringing her to such a simple place as this.

She would no doubt fail to see the magic he found in every grain of sand and wisp of cloud. It was not at all the thing for proper young ladies to lie in the dirt and while away a lazy afternoon staring at the sky . . . much less grin up at the sun when it ducked from sight and the first cold drops of rain fell from the heavens.

Without a word, Evan turned his back to the precipice, intending to circle back toward Moonseed Manor. It had been a mistake to delay the inevitable. There were any number of more important things they both would be wise to attend to.

Yet Miss Stanton did not budge.

He glanced down. Her lips were slightly parted, her eyes wide. She tried to remove her hand from his arm in order to move closer to the dropoff, but he did not allow her to do so. If she intended to venture to the edge, she would do so with him or not at all. He placed her hand in his and gave a quick squeeze before slowly inching forward. No matter how carefully they tread, dirt and sand and pebbles spit forth from the edge of the cliff and disappeared into the wind and rocks below.

“Thank you.” Miss Stanton’s grip on his hand tightened, then relaxed. “This is beautiful.”

With their fingers still laced, she leaned into his side and rested her cheek against his shoulder. Evan tilted his head slightly so that his own cheek rested atop the softness of her hair. Together, they watched the play of light on the surface of the waves as a sliver of moon came to chase away the last of the sun.

With a jolt, Evan realized he was more content with her, just like this, than he had ever been while alone, in his many visits to this very spot. It was as if the act of sharing the moment, sharing the view, sharing the
peace,
brought even more of the same.

Unfortunately, it also brought a heavy dose of guilt—another emotion with which he was not at all familiar. This incredible woman, with her eyes gently closed behind slightly askew spectacles as she laid her face so trustingly against him . . . He could not return the favor and trust in her as well. He could take no one into his confidences. Not until he’d brought Timothy’s killer to justice with the pistol even now tucked into the waistband at the small of Evan’s back.

And even then, what would he do? He was a smuggler, a liar, a thief. He carried pistols, and did not fear using them.
Had
used them, when the situation so demanded. He would be sneaking onto the property of a friend this very night, with the macabre goal of unearthing his brother’s corpse in order to give Timothy a proper burial. And if that was in fact who lay beneath the third grave in Ollie’s rock garden, Evan would be forced to put a bullet right between his friend’s eyes.

He turned his head just enough to place his lips against the soft curve of Miss Stanton’s forehead. Her skin was cold. Darkness had fallen, and the ocean breeze whipped the air into a wintry frenzy.

“Time to get you home.”

“It is not my home,” she responded, but the words were without their usual bite. It was as if they left her lips automatically, as if she thought them so often they ached to burst free. “It will never be my home.”

Evan told himself he was grateful for the reminder, despite the unwelcome clench to his stomach upon hearing those repeated words. Keeping her hand in his, Evan guided her toward the path leading back toward Moonseed Manor. She was right. Bournemouth was not her home. Would never be her home.

In the future, he would be wise to keep his head from the clouds.

Evan waited until half past midnight before selecting a pick and a shovel and slipping through the night into the shadows behind Moonseed Manor. Under normal circumstances, he might be of the mind that he had no business—or interest—in discovering the identity of whatever corpses might lay in his friend’s garden. But these were not normal circumstances.

Evan’s brother was dead. And missing. He had to find him.

He also had someone on his tail. No. Not on his tail. He hadn’t been detected. But someone else crept through the shadows in a slow, sure crawl, intent on their final destination. No doubt the same destination. The footfalls grew closer. Louder.

Louder? Evan paused, frowned. These footfalls were doing anything but creeping. They were stomping about noisily, as if the owner thought he had every right to be digging up corpses in the moonless night.

Or
she.
A hint of yellow flashed in the distance.

His eyes narrowed. He resumed his approach with the same amount of caution, but a significantly higher amount of ire. If that incomprehensible woman had tried to cover up the truth simply because it seemed a lark to sneak about desecrating graves while on holiday, he had a few choice words to say about the matter.

He burst through the trees—and froze.

Not Miss Stanton. Not a lady at all. Two men, far too intent on their murmured conversation to have registered the leaves rustling angrily at Evan’s approach. The flash of yellow belonged to the strawlike shock of hair atop the head of Ollie’s rat-eyed butler. The hulking form at the butler’s side belonged to none other than Ollie himself.

Both carried shovels. But why? Evan tried and failed to piece together the mismatched evidence before his eyes. These were the only two people who
hadn’t
witnessed the earlier misadventure along the shore, much less been close enough to overhear the conversation’s content.

Miss Stanton had clearly been less than eager to make her discovery known, once she’d discovered it
was
a discovery. Forrester had left for Wherevershire moments later, so it wasn’t as if the brainless magistrate might have gabbed the third grave’s existence to Ollie or his lapdog. So how had they known?

A disturbance in the nearby bushes caused Evan to flatten against the side of the Manor. Another flash of blond. Also manly.

So much for the theory that Forrester had left town.

And, by the way he was creeping forward, careful not to step on twigs or dislodge rocks that might advertise his approach—Forrester was about to be just as surprised as Evan had been that they weren’t the first to arrive for tea.

The magistrate’s sudden stop and muttered curse brought a smile to Evan’s face. Ha. Thought so. But Evan remained flattened against Moonseed Manor all the same. This was definitely a night where watching from the shadows might be the better part of valor.

Forrester, it seemed, had the same plan. He neither slunk back into the night nor rushed forward to make some numbskulled arrest citing illegal gardening on one’s own property. He stood stock-still, shovel in hand, eyes on the gravesite.

“I told you.” The butler’s scratchy voice was as low and sinister as wind through autumn leaves. “If it were out here, I would’ve found it. I’ve dug up every square inch that wasn’t covered by a rock. See for yourself.”

A wet sputter, as his hand moved away from the single candle far enough for the cold breeze to lick at the flame.

Ollie turned away, ignoring the proffered candle, and lumbered through the garden. The butler followed with the flickering candle, spreading more shadow than light. But Evan saw more than enough.

Every inch of the garden
had
been overturned. Recently. But why? There couldn’t be
that
many wayward bodies beneath its surface. The soil was too sandy for Ollie to have decided to try his hand at potato farming in a fit of domestic madness. Unless he’d been drunk. Overgrown oaf was well known for making bad decisions after too much whiskey.

Suddenly Ollie stopped. Pointed.

“I said I dug everywhere not covered by rock, didn’t I?” The servant’s voice managed to sound peevish despite his feral rasp. “What was I to do, dig up graves?”

Hmm. Further proof that, coincidental as it might seem, they weren’t all skulking about the grounds for the same reason after all. Evan bit back a frustrated sigh. The thought had reminded him of his brother. Timothy had never believed in coincidences.

“Yes . . . if they’re not really graves,” Ollie answered cryptically, motioning his butler forward. “What do you see there?”

His lapdog paused, shuffled closer, shrugged. “Graves?”

“Grave
stones,
” Ollie corrected softly. “Which are not at all the same things.”

“This is a gravesite,” the butler muttered. “Of course there are gravestones.”

“And there should be two graves.” Ollie jerked the shovel from his lapdog’s limp grip. “Not three.”

They hadn’t known!

Evan looked over at Forrester to see if he was as surprised at this revelation as Evan was, and was startled to discover the magistrate had disappeared. Evan glanced around uneasily. Had he gone for good? Or had he hidden himself better this time, and was even now watching Evan from the shadows? Evan held his breath and waited.

Crunch.

Silence.

Then, “Was that a bone?”

“All the bones in this cemetery are inside caskets, you nancy.” Ollie dropped to his knees. “I think I found it. Help me dig.”

Metal into dirt. Wet soil splattering against rock. Miniature avalanches of tiny pebbles.

The butler’s shocked gasp. “You were right!”

“Help me get it out of here.” The shovels dropped to the earth. “We’ve got to hide it from her.”

They had to
hide
it? What the hell was their prize doing buried in the rock garden beneath an unmarked gravestone, if not being well hidden? And from whom? Miss Stanton?

Evan struggled to peer through the darkness at what looked like an ornate gilded box not much bigger than the plain wooden one the captain used to keep his snuff dry while out at sea. A similar-looking bejeweled box graced Ollie’s dining room mantle. Or was it the same one?

A crackle off in the darkness reminded Evan of Forrester. And his own presence. He was obviously not meant to know about the events transpiring before his eyes. But why?

True, the gold-filigreed box hadn’t been about to remain hidden for much longer. But Ollie obviously hadn’t known that. So what had tipped him off? Why would anyone want to bury a jewelry box in the first place? And for God’s sake,
where the hell was Timothy?
Evan’s muscles bunched in frustration. Then his nostrils flared.

He smelled her, in the wind. Jasmine. Coming closer.

Leaving his tools on the ground where they were, he slipped from his position against the wall and followed the scent, hoping to intercept her before she made a telltale sound. Or worse, stumbled into direct view.

She gasped when his hand clamped over her mouth. He pulled her backward, into his arms, into the shadows. Now was not the time to explain his presence. Nor was it the time to demand what
she
was doing there. In her nightgown. With Timothy’s shovel.

Those questions would come later. As would the answers.

“It’s not safe,” he murmured into her ear, his mouth brushing against the softness of her hair, the smoothness of her cheek. He plucked the shovel from her hands and rested the scarred wooden handle against the gate. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”

She sagged against his chest. Nodded.

He knew better than to trust that nod, but what choice did he have? He lifted his hand from her lips.

Her mouth opened. But before she could speak whatever ill-advised argument she’d been about to make, her teeth clicked shut. She’d heard it, too.

Footsteps. Coming their way. There was nowhere to hide.

BOOK: Too Sinful to Deny

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