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Authors: Melody Thomas

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BOOK: Angel In My Bed
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“It's the laudanum,” she sniffled when David took her back to bed and covered her with blankets that smelled like him.

“I know.”

“I hate you,” she lied, closing her eyes as he tucked the corners around her.

“I know.”

She had tried to hate him. For years, she had tried, but in her confusion, she now tried to remember why.

“Sleep, Meg.”

And somehow, she did.

D
avid danced through the master's wheel with the same precision he attacked his life, with finesse and resolve to finish what he started. Sword in hand, he lunged and retreated, crossed his back leg over and began the advance again. Sweat trailed into his eyes. He'd been working the wheel for an hour, his saber a driving force in the hushed silence, broken by the sound of his breath. He paused in momentary riposte.

Pamela Rockwell watched from the doorway, her arms crossed beneath her bosom. She had been his partner since he had rejoined Kinley's team three months ago. Blond as sin, she was skilled at hunting down information. If he gave her half the chance, she would know his every secret. She was also married to his other partner on this case.

Her verdant gown and petticoats rustled as she swept into the studio. “Don't let the point fly, darling. Movement is about balance and speed. You're off your game today.”

“Thank you for the remark, Pamela. I wasn't aware that you fenced.”

“You won't use a gun.” She glided to a stop in front of him. “But you keep your thrusting skills honed? Isn't there a double standard in that?”

“Only if I stab someone through the heart with the tip of this sword.”

He yanked a towel from a peg on the wall and blotted his face and hair dampened from the workout. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and black trousers that disappeared into calf-hugging boots. Casual working attire, but too hot, even as cold as it was outside.

“Do you wish to go another round before you face Kinley then?”

He peered at her over the edge of the towel. “If you feel the need to worry about my sense of duty, I'll spare you the trouble. My duty is intact.”

“Then you won't have a problem surrendering your prisoner to him? Kinley has wanted this trophy on his wall for years.”

“Indeed.” David tossed the rag on the floor next to a pitcher of water. “How is that, since we've only known she might be alive for a few months?”

“You walked off the case nine years ago. Willingly, I might interject. Maybe I need to remind you of your job, David. Lest you become a risk to this mission.”

“This mission, Pamela? How long has Kinley known Meg was alive?”

Pamela brushed lint from her sleeve, blindly unaware that Kinley's obtuseness had always been a black spot in David's relationship with his former mentor. “I'm not your enemy, David. I'm on your side. Remember?”

“And I'd certainly never assume that the foreign office dealt in anything less than the truth. Or that you would ever lie to me.”

Pamela sighed in her usual melodramatic fashion and pulled away. “Do you know how hard it is to salvage a wreck in turbulent seas?”

He assumed she was talking about the sunken steamer. “Depending on the depth, I imagine it's not impossible. People do it all the time.”

Pamela stood against the sunlight pouring through the mullioned window. “When Kinley couldn't find any trace of what was stolen from the treasury on that ship, they assumed Miss Faraday was never a passenger. He has had agents in and out of every British port from here to Calcutta for the past five years. You should be proud that you found her in less than three months.”

“Kinley has bloody known for five years that Meg might still be alive?”

“What do you care? Obviously, she still has a connection to her father. Who else could she have been going to meet when you intercepted her last night?”

“You do realize she is my wife.”

“Kinley told me the circumstances of the investigation ten years ago made it difficult to get into Colonel Faraday's circle any other way.” She peered at him from beneath her lashes. “Clearly most men see no problem that you chose to mix pleasure with business. Who wouldn't have done the same in your place? Even you have vices, it seems.”

“Surprise, surprise, Pamela.” He returned the sword to its place on the wall. “I'm not the saint everyone bloody thinks I am. And maybe Meg isn't the devil, either.”

“Oh, please, David. You didn't get that scar you carry skeet shooting,” Pamela reminded him. “Meg Faraday is guilty of everything of which she's been accused, and I do not believe you've forgotten the mission already.”

“I've forgotten nothing.”

He had returned to Kinley to finish this job—for his heart, for justice, for answers to questions he had buried in the last decade—at least that was what he fed his conscience every morning when he looked at himself in the mirror.

He didn't know why he should not deliver Meg over to Kinley and be done with her. Maybe he wanted the truth to what had happened years ago when she fled him and disappeared. He could deduce from her behavior that she was guilty. But of which sin, he was no longer sure.

Then again, maybe her fear was part of her superb acting skill, and she'd been waiting for her father's return before making a move. It wouldn't be the first time she'd fooled him or lied.

But then soul to sin and all sanctimonious accusations aside, ten years ago, were her lies any different from his?

Still, he knew his duty. Had always known his duty. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “Don't worry, Pamela. I have no intention of shirking my job.”

She stopped in the doorway and planted her palms on her hips. “Then give good behavior a crack, won't you?” Her teeth were white against her coral lips as she smiled. “Because Kinley is upstairs in the green salon waiting for you to deliver his prisoner.”

 

Victoria sat on the mattress, her head buried in her hands, the memory of her earlier behavior uppermost in her mind as
she battled a throbbing headache. Someone had thrown open the draperies, and she groaned through splayed fingers at the late-afternoon sunshine that dappled the floor.

Finally, dragging the sheet off the bed, she padded to the window on stiff legs. She could see the familiar banks of the river over the village rooftops. She had to get word to Sir Henry that she was alive. He and Bethany would be worried by now that she had not returned home.

She found the dressing room and thumbed through shirts and other articles of clothing folded there. The armoire held more clothing, but no weapons, as if David would be so careless. She gave up searching for her clothes and eased her arms into a black and silver brocade robe she found thrown over a chair beside the bed. The fabric was soft and lay against the ache in her shoulder muscles. She found a mirror and leaned into the glass to inspect her temple. A lump filled out the bruise, coloring her skin a lovely shade of lavender. She grimaced. Doing nothing for her sleep-mussed hair, she walked to the bedroom door and edged it open, surprised there were no guards to keep her inside.

Did David worry so little about her escaping?

A worn Turkish carpet muffled her steps as she followed the hallway, until she heard the low rumble of David's voice and slowed. Clutching the robe tighter against her chest, she moved to the archway of the salon. Fading sunlight cast the room in a warm yet somber brilliance that seemed to match the mood of those present.

David stood near the fireplace, one hand on his hip, an elbow propped on the mantel, clearly agitated as he spoke to the paunchy white-haired man on the chair. Another younger man and woman were present on the red-and-white-striped settee. Victoria hadn't expected anyone other than servants to
be present in the house. She should have anticipated that David did not work alone.

She must have made some sound, for he turned his head, his glass arrested halfway to lips, and she fell into his gaze. She remained frozen beneath the archway, wearing his black and silver brocade robe, appearing as if she belonged to him. The robe's hem touched her ankles and made her conscious of her bare feet.

She tucked a long length of her hair behind her ear, the halting movement betraying her lack of calm. Now, as they all stared, she fought the urge to turn and run. “I wish to go home,” she said to David, since he was the one who had offered to bring word to her family. Would he allow her to see them one last time? “My family will be worried about me.”

The bewhiskered man in the high-backed chair laughed. He stood, his intimidating mien unsettling her composure. “You have a lot of cheek, Miss Faraday. You haven't the right to see anyone again. The only place I'm taking you is back to London.”

“I'm a midwife.” Her eyes lifted to David, who found interest in his glass in seeming abandonment to her plight. A muscle in his jaw twitched. Despite her crumbling defenses, she drew her spine erect and returned her gaze to Kinley. “No matter what you think, there are those who need me. You have to allow me to make arrangements.”

“Is that your latest deception, Miss Faraday?” The white-haired man again inserted himself in her line of sight.

“Sir Henry Munro is a well-respected physician. I've worked with him for nine years. This is what I do.”

“Not anymore it isn't.”

Behind his spectacles, his hazel eyes watched her, and a vague memory grabbed at the undercurrent of her thoughts,
making her ill at ease. Like an overly hot room on a full stomach. He wore his white sideburns thick and bushy on a round face that had suffered the consequences of too much drink. His presence only amplified the misfortune of her current position.

“How did you get the earring?” she asked, hating that her voice trembled. But she had to ask. The earring David had given to Stillings had once belonged to her father. “Tell me my father is still in prison…or dead.”

Silence followed the query. As Victoria looked among them all with dawning horror, a sick feeling grabbed hold of her stomach. She looked to David. “Before I fled Calcutta, the last thing my father gave me was an earring that matched the one you brought to Sheriff Stillings last night. It was to be a signal between us. How did you get it?”

“A pawnbroker brought it to the attention of our office,” the man sitting on the settee spoke when David did not, his voice hinting of a faint upper-crust accent. “He knew the piece from a description of those jewels stolen in the Calcutta theft.”

“Did anyone question how a pawnbroker knew so much? Was he some historical scholar with a decade-old memory?”

“He's dead,” David answered, setting his brandy on the mantel. “His shop was burglarized three days after he handed the earring to this office.”

“And my father? Tell me he is still in prison!”

“Kinley?” David directed the question to the man standing nearest to her.

“Your father escaped,” Kinley said.

Appalled at the ramifications, Victoria drew in a breath and met Kinley's stare with accusation. “Why wasn't this mentioned in any of the newspapers?”

“For all intents and purposes, Faraday has been dead for nine years,” Kinley said.

“You kept him alive because of what he knows. Now you led him directly to me. To my entire family. You did this on
purpose
.”

“We can save your family,” Kinley said, the menace in his voice amplifying the threat, “if you tell us where the jewels are.”

David set the glass on the mantel. “That's enough, Kinley.”

“Even if I did know where that treasure was, I would never tell you. The gems are cursed.” Victoria shifted her gaze helplessly to David's. “How many people have already died because of them? How many lives ruined? Let them stay buried.”

David pierced her with dark eyes, the quiet intensity of his gaze seeking to understand that which she had not meant to surrender. “Why are you afraid of your father, Meg?”

His voice was gentle, and Victoria was conscious of an irrational surge of panic. Her father had a reason for hunting her, and Victoria realized David no longer believed with even the slightest possibility that the treasure had gone down off the coast of Bombay.

“My name isn't Meg,” she snapped. “It's Victoria Munro. Margaret Faraday died the night that ship went down, along with everything she thought she loved. She will never be back. Do you understand that?”

The younger man sitting on the sofa spoke into the sudden silence. “Would you help us bring in your father? Obviously you are concerned that he will show up here.”

Shaking her head, she yanked her gaze from David to the man and woman, with their perfect blond looks. “You don't know him.” Breathing hard, she felt crushing pain in her
chest. She'd sooner be dead than show her fear to the likes of anyone in this room, but she was already turning to run from the room.

David grabbed her before she reached the door. Somehow, he had made it past two chairs, a curio table, and a delicate crystal lamp to reach her before she'd taken five steps. “Meg—”

“Let go of me!”

Spinning her into the solid restraint of his body, David turned with her in his arms and faced Kinley. “You've known she was Colonel Faraday's target from the beginning. How?”

“We were never even sure she was alive,” Kinley mumbled, yanking his black waistcoat over his belly. “We had to find her first, and you did that.”

Clearly, Kinley had an inflated opinion of his own consequence, Victoria thought, certain she could escape if she could get away from David. No lock had been made that she couldn't pick. She would be free before the overstuffed fool knew what happened. Better to run than bring her father down on Sir Henry or face a public trial in London and forever leave a mark of shame on her son. Hadn't her father always accused her of bringing ruin to everyone she'd ever loved? She wouldn't do it!

“I voluntarily surrender myself to interrogation,” she said.

“Is that right?” David demanded.

She whirled to face him. The very air crackled as they faced each other, two opponents in an unfinished duel, awareness arcing between them like live sparks. “Kinley can take me to London and learn for himself that I do not know where any treasure is.”

David took a seat on the arm of a chair and surveyed her in that lazy, perilous way of his, as good at hiding his feelings
as she was. “We won't catch Faraday without her.” David shifted the brunt of his gaze to Kinley. “Or have you forgotten the primary objective of this mission?”

BOOK: Angel In My Bed
3.07Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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