Alyssa Everett (11 page)

Papa had been right when he’d said Ben and I would add up to a regular Punch and Judy show, and it was all my fault. I’d never been a gracious loser. I hated for anyone to get the better of me. My brother Will had once joked that he was afraid to poke me in the ribs with a finger for fear I would come back at him with a bayonet. Why did I have to insist on winning every skirmish? Just now, I’d known the scuffle with Ben was merely a game, yet I’d treated it like a fight to the death. Why couldn’t I simply let things go now and then?

Chastened, I sat down gingerly beside him on the bed. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize...”

“You know, there’s a reason they call it a low blow.”

“Yes, I see that now.” I sat in repentant silence for a time before meeting his eye. “I don’t know what came over me, except that we were fighting and you were so much better at it than I was and—”

“Stop calling it a fight,” he said with a grimace. “Good God, do you seriously think I go about strong-arming females?”

“I wasn’t thinking at all. I was too furious for that. It seemed unfair that you should be that much bigger and stronger than I am.” I shook my head, appalled at myself. “I know I overreacted, but when I feel pushed to the wall, I have to push back. I can’t help it. I’m not sure why, except—well, things seem to come so easily for other girls, while I’ve always had to fight tooth and nail for the slightest advantage.”

Instantly, I wanted to bite my tongue. I wasn’t just speaking of our silly tussle. I meant
all
the injustices in my life—Cliburne and Helen and what my father had said at dinner tonight. Pretty, soft-hearted girls might be spoiled and cosseted and showered with affection, but their no-nonsense sisters never were. I had to stand up for myself. No one else was going to stand up for me.

I’d never intended to admit my feelings, though, and certainly not with such a note of self-pity in my voice. And to make such a humbling confession to Ben, of all people... Why must I pour out my insecurities to him? I never said such things to anyone else. But Ben was the first man I’d ever met who seemed to take my outspokenness in stride instead of making me feel hopelessly unfeminine.

The tightening of his jaw was the only acknowledgment he made of what I’d said, but it seemed to me his aggrieved air eased.

“I’m sorry,” I said for the second time.

“I’m sorry too,” he replied after a pause. “I
am
bigger than you. It just never occurred to me you might see what we were doing as anything but a bit of foolish larking about. I mean, if I’d really wanted to take advantage, I could have—”

I searched his face. “You could have what?”

To my surprise, he slipped one hand behind my head and gently pulled me to him, his lips coming down to meet mine. I was so astonished, I...well, I went completely limp. There’s no other way to describe it. What other reason would I have to let him kiss me that way? Why else would I have leaned into him, practically melting into his embrace?

I’m so weak
, I thought dizzily.
He knew I was only bluffing when I told him I’d scream
...

His lips were gentle at first, but they quickly grew surer and more insistent when I didn’t push him away. His hand in my hair caressed my scalp. My heavens, but he knew how to kiss. He was such a prodigy, even my bones seemed to be dissolving into liquid.

A blissful eternity passed before Ben lifted his head, his heavy-lidded eyes smoky. “I could have done that.”

I gulped. He’d certainly proven his point. Though temporarily I might manage to gain the upper hand, he had the power to vanquish me in the end. Lacking the strength to pull free, I simply sighed and wrapped my arms around his neck. “Oh, Ben...”

At this sign of surrender, he grinned and kissed me again.

Years before, at Miss Pritchard’s Academy, I’d tried to prepare for my first kiss by practicing on a pillow. The attempts had been both disappointing and sadly uninstructive. My pillow hadn’t had strong arms that wrapped around me and held me tightly. My pillow hadn’t groaned almost imperceptibly when I wiggled against it. It hadn’t smelled like almond shaving soap or had breath that quickened as the kiss went on. Most of all, my pillow hadn’t kissed me back.

Since then, I’d been kissed twice, once by a friend’s brother during a house party and once by a slightly drunken escort during a drive home from the opera, but neither time had been anything like this. Ben bore me slowly backward on the bed. Propped on his elbows, his weight pressing me down into the feather mattress, he opened his mouth. Though I’d never kissed that way before, I eagerly followed his lead. It was the single most thrilling moment of my life—the clean, manly scent of him, the heaviness of his body atop mine, the slightly rough wool of his evening clothes against my bare skin, and most of all, his astonishing, breathtaking expertise.

His tongue stroked mine, sending a shock of pleasure through me. He slid a hand inside my wrapper, cupping my breast through the thin linen of my nightgown. On the fringes of my conscience I knew I ought to stop him, but when would such an Adonis ever hold me this way again?

It’s just a game
, I reminded myself.
A
bit of foolish larking about.
Lending the proceedings an air of perfect unreality, the clock in the passage outside my room began to chime midnight, as if I were in a fairy tale and kissing Ben were part of the enchantment.

Despite the earlier low blow, he’d clearly made a quick recovery, for his anatomy worked like a charm. For the second time in the two days I’d known him, his erection strained against me. In the cupboard I’d jumped away, but this time I pressed closer, tilting my pelvis up to his.

It all left me panting, so that between kisses I could only gasp for air. He dropped his head, spreading the neck of my nightgown wider, kissing the spot where the swell of one breast began. “God, you have the most amazing—”

But I never did learn what it was he found amazing, for in midsentence I let out a yelp and shoved hard at his shoulders.

He jerked back, his expression a mixture of irritation and surprise. “What the devil—?”

I stabbed a frantic finger over his shoulder. “There—look! Someone’s watching us!”

Ben turned his head, following the line of my accusing finger, and evidently saw the same thing I did. There was a tiny opening in my bedroom wall, a peephole that remained illuminated for only a second longer before whoever had been spying on us snuffed out his candle, extinguishing the pinpoint of light that had first caught my eye.

Ben jumped to his feet, instantly in battle mode. “Who has the room on the other side of that wall?”

I scrambled to pull my nightclothes back into order, my thoughts in confusion. “No one. It used to be Helen’s room, but she moved to the larger bedchamber across the corridor after my brother Rowland left to set up his own establishment.”

Ben snatched up the candle on the mantel and charged for the door.

“Wait!” I called after him
sotto voce
, terrified he’d rouse the rest of the house.

Ben kept going. He forged so quickly for the door that the resulting draft blew out the candle he was carrying, plunging the room into darkness. As I groped for the tinderbox and spare candle on my bedside table, Ben’s footsteps pounded toward the room next door.

My hands shook as I fumbled blindly with the flint. I heard an inarticulate exclamation from the other side of the wall, then the muffled thud of something—a body?—hitting the floor.

Abandoning the tinderbox altogether, I dashed out into the blackness of the passage just as a looming figure came barreling out of the unoccupied bedroom. He shoved me roughly aside as he made his escape, sending me sprawling. My feet went out from under me, and I landed so hard that the fall momentarily knocked the air from my lungs.

I gulped in a ragged breath and struggled to my hands and knees. My heart pounded in terror as I groped for the open door. “Ben?” I croaked into the darkness.

There was no reply.

Chapter Ten

Ben

When I came to, my head was in Barbara’s lap. It was a devilishly agreeable way to regain consciousness, really, given that her russet hair was hanging loose about her shoulders, she was dressed in soft, sheer nightclothes, and my face was only inches from her bosom. Unfortunately, the pounding in my head kept me from fully appreciating this stroke of good fortune as it deserved.

“Damnation,” I said aloud. “Don’t tell me I was shot again.”

She’d been gnawing her lower lip, but at this she broke into a smile of such relief, one might have thought she’d been waiting expressly for me to wake up and curse at her. “No, this time you were ambushed and hit over the head with a cricket bat. But you’ve been out for nearly five minutes. Just a few seconds longer, and I would have cast my reputation to the winds and gone for a doctor.”

It all came back to me then—receiving her letter and making up my mind to see her in person, her theory that my cousin John had killed the footman, the tantalizing glimpses her open robe had afforded of her long legs and high, full breasts, our brief wrestling match over the notebook...and then that glorious interval of kissing her on her bed.

Though perhaps I’d only dreamed those kisses. This was Barbara, after all—stubborn, unpredictable, independent Barbara. Surely she couldn’t really taste that sweet, or be that thrillingly soft and eager.

I had no idea how far things would have gone if the Peeping Tom hadn’t intervened. Even now, I could feel the dull ache of unsatisfied desire. Or was that merely a reminder of earlier, when she’d kneed me in the stones?

I winced and sat up. The room seemed to pitch and roll, but I got the better of the sensation, moving to sit with my back against the wall. “Is my head bleeding?”

“It’s stopped now, but it was.” She glanced down at her lap, and I saw I’d left bloodstains on the front of her nightclothes.

“Sorry about that,” I said, and she blushed rosily. “I suppose whoever hit me got away?”

“I’m afraid so. He knocked me down on his way out, and by the time I’d picked myself up, struck a light and made sure you weren’t in any immediate danger of giving up the ghost, he was long gone.”

He’d knocked her down? My hands balled into fists. I’d see he paid for that. “Did you get a good look at him?”

She shook her head. “I have the impression he was tall and dressed in black, but it was so dark and it all happened so quickly, I’m not even certain of that much. I could kick myself for not getting a better look. Judging from the way he hit you from behind, I assume our Peeping Tom and Sam’s killer are one and the same man.” She studied my face, her own pinched with worry. “Is your head very painful?”

It was throbbing, and I knew I was going to have a thundering headache in the morning to go with the ache in my bollocks, but perhaps I could convince my mother I was only suffering from a few drinks too many. I closed my eyes and leaned my head back against the wall behind me. “It’s not so bad.”

“Good.” She rose. “Then if you can manage without me for a minute or two, I mean to run downstairs to see if anyone else spotted your attacker.”

I caught her by the wrist. “No, don’t. He may still be in the house. I’ll go.” I made to climb to my feet, but a wave of dizziness hit me. The room tilted violently, sending me toppling back against the wall.

Barbara leaped to take my arm and ease me back to a seat on the floor. “You’re in no condition to negotiate the stairs. Even if you were, you can’t go roaming about the house as if you own the place. Anyone might see you, and I don’t just mean the intruder.”

Damn it, why did she have to be right all the time? “Then let him escape. We’ll find a way to catch him when I’m steadier on my feet.”

“But this could be our only chance to identify Sam’s killer. You needn’t worry I’ll try anything heroic. At the first hint of anything suspicious, I promise I’ll scream the house down.”

I didn’t like it, but I knew arguing with Barbara was like arguing with a brick wall. Besides, she had a point. Our quarry was a blackmailer, a Peeping Tom and a murderer—in short, a danger to everyone around him, Barbara and her family in particular. The sooner we caught the villain, the better.

I sighed. “Take the light, and be sure to make plenty of noise so you don’t stumble into him by accident. Give all the doorways and alcoves you pass a wide berth, to avoid being taken by surprise.”

Undaunted, she picked up the candle. “I’ll be back in two shakes.”

She hurried off with a swish of her nightclothes, leaving me alone to imagine every possible danger and berate myself for having swooned like a schoolgirl when I should have gone in her stead. I reached up and touched the back of my head. My hair was stiff with dried blood, and I had a lump the size of a goose egg.

Sometimes I wished Barbara weren’t so cursed fearless. Between the kisses we’d shared and her admission tonight that winning didn’t come as easily to her as it appeared—a startling show of vulnerability, considering she managed to outdo me at every turn—I’d begun to feel oddly protective of her.

Protective of her, and completely unbalanced. I wasn’t usually one to let lust get the better of my reason, and I’d been well aware how foolish it was to kiss a gently reared young lady alone in her bedroom, yet I’d done it anyway. Even a knee in the bollocks hadn’t deterred me. I’d started that silly wrestling game too. What was happening to my good sense?

Finally—it seemed an eternity, though strictly speaking she’d probably been gone only three or four minutes—Barbara returned. And, bless her, she came stomping in, holding the candle at arm’s length, following my advice to the letter. Unless Sam’s killer was both deaf and blind, she couldn’t possibly have stumbled on him by accident.

“What happened?” I asked as soon as she’d pulled the door closed silently behind her.

She joined me on the floor, kneeling with her feet tucked under her. “It appears our Peeping Tom took to the street. I found the front door standing wide open.”

“Did anyone else see him?”

She shook her head. “The footman must be making his midnight rounds just now, for he wasn’t at his post, and the sound of one man fleeing the house apparently wasn’t loud enough to rouse the other servants. My father heard me roaming about and glanced out of his study, but he was only hoping I was Helen and Mama coming home from the theater. In short, no one saw or heard our Peeping Tom.”

“Don’t call him
our
Peeping Tom. I’d like to wring the devil’s neck.” And that was putting it mildly.

Barbara sighed. “Of all the luck! If only he’d hit you just a few minutes earlier or a few minutes later, Frye would have been at his post beside the front door, and we might have caught Sam’s killer.”

I cast a damping look at her. “Next time, I’ll schedule my concussion more conveniently.”

She stifled a giggle—it was rather gratifying to coax a giggle from no-nonsense Barbara Jeffords—and rose to her feet. Candle in hand, she slowly walked the length of the wall I was leaning against. At almost the halfway point, an oil painting of a partridge had been removed from its hook and set on the floor. She stopped and ran her hand over a defect in the plaster there.

“Here’s the peephole. On my side of the wall, the pattern of the wallpaper obscures it, and on this side, that painting must have concealed the opening when it wasn’t in use. I wonder how long it’s been here?” She frowned, evidently reflecting on all the times she’d been alone in her room and all the things a silent watcher might have seen.

At least, I assumed that was what she was thinking, for it was certainly on my mind. Someone had been observing her through that peephole, watching her brush that shining red hair, seeing her undress and perhaps even bathe, ogling those full breasts and long shapely legs, watching her sleep at night. Who knew what kind of perverse pleasure he’d taken in spying on her? It was enough to make my blood boil.

“Who would want to peep at me?” she mused in a small voice.

Every red-blooded male in Christendom.
I climbed cautiously to my feet, relieved to find the dizziness had abated, and came to stand beside her. “A man, obviously.” I examined the peephole with her. “And one who knows how to get in and out of the house. Or someone already living here...?”

“A servant or a member of the family? But all the servants have been with us for years. As for my family, I hope you don’t mean to imply one of them would spy on me through a peephole.”

I shrugged. “Stranger things have happened.”

She answered primly, “My brother Rowland is married with his own establishment, my brother Will is currently staying with friends in the country, and my brother Edmund is away at school. It couldn’t be any of them. Besides, none of the servants and no one in my family has a name beginning with
M.
”

I reached up to finger the peephole. “Whoever he is, he’s at least six feet tall. You’d have to stretch to reach this opening on tiptoe, but it’s almost at my eye level.”

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Your cousin Mr. Mainsforth is about six feet tall. He appears to know the house too. Remember how he told Helen to meet him in the butler’s pantry?”

“Don’t start that again.” I stooped to lift the oil painting by its frame, restoring it to its place on the wall. “Lots of men are that height. Teddy, for instance, as well as my uncle Daventry and my father.”

“I think we can safely rule out your father.”

I stepped back with a frown.

“Oh!” Barbara’s hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I only meant your father has never been in this house, not that he would have no interest in peeping at a—”

I cut her off with a peremptory glare. “It doesn’t matter.”

Most people would have had the good sense to drop it, but not Barbara. “From the look on your face, I’d say it matters to you. If I’d really meant to insult your father, I could have found a cleverer way to do it than absolving him of peeping at me. And you needn’t be so sensitive. I met him once, you know, and he seemed perfectly unexceptionable.”

“Yes, he
seemed
that way,” I echoed, catching the slur.

Her slim brows drew together. “I wasn’t being snide. Honestly, a person can’t even say something nice about your family without your taking it the wrong way.”

But I’d been called too many names and suffered too many sneers to apologize for my reaction. I turned away. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Naturally, Barbara considered it an utter impossibility she could fail to understand anything. “I grant you there’ve been some unseemly rumors about your father, but who can say whether they’re true or not? And even if they should be, it’s no reflection on you.”

If she’d chosen her words precisely to make me lose my temper, she couldn’t have done better. “In the first place,” I said, wheeling on her, “you haven’t the slightest notion what you’re talking about.
I
can say whether the rumors are true or not, and so can my mother, and so can any number of other people. There’s no point in pretending otherwise, is that clear? And as for my father’s reputation being no reflection on me, that’s either the most naive thing I’ve ever heard you say, or the most dishonest. It’s been reflecting on me for almost as long as I can remember.”

The startled look on her face told me I’d gone too far. But I was angry, and my head was pounding, and how was my father any of her business anyway? I’d hoped she’d begun to feel at least a grudging respect for me, and it turned out she’d had the sodomy rumors on her mind all along. If she were a man, I’d have made her eat her words by now.

She recovered quickly. “I’ll overlook your tone, but only because you just suffered a blow to the head and you’re not in your right mind.”

“Don’t do me any favors. I’m clear-headed enough.”

She stared for a moment in what looked like dismay before drawing herself up with icy dignity. “In that case, there’s no need for you to stay another minute, is there?”

“Thank God for that.” Anger gripped me anew at the way I’d been kneed in the groin, bashed on the head, and was now being coolly insulted. “I can’t remember when I’ve suffered through a more disagreeable evening.”

Too late, I remembered the intoxication of kissing her—her breathless response, the feel of my tongue in her mouth, the yielding softness of her breast against my hand. Of course I hadn’t meant any of
that
was disagreeable. If anything, I’d been speaking out of a frustration born of having something so good cut achingly short.

Before I could issue a retraction, her eyes flashed. “Is that so?” she demanded, so affronted she’d gone completely white. “In that case, you’ll be relieved to know you’re not the only one who considered that little grappling match on my bed a sad disappointment. I thought you had some experience with women. You certainly don’t kiss as if you do.”

I flushed. “As if you’re an expert.”

“I know a hawk from a handsaw.” She brushed grandly past me to take up a post by the door. “It’s time you were going.”

Tight-lipped and furious, I stalked out. She followed with the candle. It was now officially one of the worst nights of my life. Not only was Barbara about to eject me from the house, but I had no notion who’d hit me or if he posed an imminent threat to her. Not to mention that the first time I’d kissed a girl who didn’t earn her keep as one of the fashionable impure—a respectable female, an actual lady—she’d loathed the whole experience. It made being kneed in the groin seem like a fond memory.

“You haven’t said what you mean to do about John and the notebook,” I reminded her as we started down the stairs.

“I haven’t decided yet. I suppose you’ll just have to read about it in the papers.”

“Or perhaps I’ll read instead that Sam’s killer slaughtered you in your sleep,” I said, aiming for the nastiest thing I could possibly say, and then wishing I hadn’t actually said it.

“If that happens, it will be the only noteworthy thing to happen in my bed since—”

I froze at the same moment she did. Her father was standing at the foot of the stairs, glaring up at me as Barbara followed in her bloodstained nightclothes.