Blood Lust (33 page)

She lowered her gaze. “As you wish, my lord.”

A dark brow arched up. William read her compliance, apparently believed she was telling the truth, and his hold on her gentled. “Thank you.”

Surprised by his words, then a tentative smile touched her lips. “Will you stay with me tonight?”

William didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

“For me or for you?”

“Because it’s what both of us want. Now that I’ve accepted my feelings, I’ve decided to stop trying to behave like a saint.” He cocked his head toward the doorway. “I believe I know a remedy for brooding, my lady. It’s a slightly different version of the cure for worrying. Shall I show it to you?”

“I believe I should like that.”

William’s gaze ran over her, but now and utterly disturbing. His eyes came to rest on the twin mounds rising above her bodice.

“Come,” he said softly. “It is past time for us to be abed.” Resting a proprietary hand at her waist, he urged her forward and Katherine went with him, out the door and up the stairs.

“The plan is set then?” William paced toward Damien, who stood beside the mantel in the study.

“Yes. The magistrate has agreed. It is simply a matter of luring Benjamin into the trap.”

“How have you planned to do that?” Katherine asked. She was seated on a comfortable brocade sofa sipping a cup of tea, but William could tell she was nervous.

“We shall send him a message,” Damien told her. “We shall tell him we have uncovered information that will prove he is the man who killed the old duke. We will offer to keep the information secret for the sum of twenty-thousand pounds.”

“And you think he will believe that?”

“He’ll believe it. Blackmail is the sort of thing Benjamin might attempt himself, under a similar set of circumstances. He’ll believe there is someone willing to keep silent for a price. How he’ll react to the threat we’ve posed is the unknown factor in the puzzle.”

Katherine’s teacup rattled. “I presume you expect him to arrive at the warehouse alone?”

“I doubt he’ll come by himself,” Damien countered. “For all his scheming, Benjamin is a coward. He’ll probably bring one of his henchmen to protect him, but odds are he won’t bring anyone else. He won’t want to risk discovery, should the proof being offered is real.”

Katherine set her nearly untouched cup of tea down on the table. “What if my theory is incorrect? What if he knows that William is still alive? What if he guesses that William is involved in this?”

William sighed. “Unfortunately, that is the trouble. If he has somehow discovered my involvement, there is no telling what he might do.”

Katherine rose and walked toward him, slid her arms around his waist and simply held him. “I’m frightened, William.”

He kissed the top of her head. “It’s all right to be afraid. The trick is not to let your fear deter you from your purpose.”

“There is no doubt the plan is fraught with danger,” Damien agreed. “But if it works, William will be a free man.”

Her husband touched a big hand to her cheek. “I have to take the risk, Katherine. For my father. For me. Time is running out.”

“We’ll take our men with us,” Damien added, “post them outside as guards. If they sense any sort of threat, anything at all, the men will signal and we will simply abort the plan and withdraw.”

“I don’t like it, William. Nothing is ever that simple.”

Damien walked toward them, his elegant strides carrying him gracefully in her direction. “Chin up, my lady. The plan is a good one. With Benjamin’s overblown ego convincing him he is untouchable, we have every reason to believe our scheme will work. All we need is one slip, one indication that he is less than pure in regard to the murder. If we can keep him talking, he might very well incriminate himself. Combined with the evidence we have, it would be more than enough to clear William’s name.”

“That’s right. We have to push him, Katherine, goad him into telling at least a portion of the truth.” He turned toward his friend. “The meeting is set for tomorrow night?”

“The note is being delivered even as we speak. Tomorrow night at the docks, we shall discover if our plan will work.”

Benjamin read the note his footman had just delivered then read it again. He slammed his fist down on the top of the table. For all his careful planning, for all the time he had spent making certain he was safe, someone knew something about his father’s murder. Damn! He didn’t need trouble like this.

Half an hour later he was ensconced in his study, seated behind his desk, his henchman standing on the opposite side, his legs slightly splayed, knobby hands clasped in front of him.

Benjamin waved the message like a flag of infamy. “All these years and I’m still not free of it. Whoever he is, that bastard has the gall to demand a meeting. Can you believe it? He says I’m to bring the money to an abandoned warehouse on the docks. He says I’m to come alone.”

“You oughtn’t go by yourself.”

“I know that! Do you think I’m a fool?”

The man stood silent.

“I want to know who this man is. I want to know what he has discovered.” He fanned the note, his mind spinning, pondering events that had occurred over the last few weeks. “That damned girl is involved in this, I can just feel it. I don’t believe for a second it is merely coincidence that just a few weeks before this note arrived, Katherine was prowling about, trying to dig up information. Her friendship with Jane was too convenient, too timely. She was looking for something, but what? Why would she want to know about this murder? What would she possibly have to gain?”

“Maybe someone else wants to know.”

Benjamin looked up. Sometimes the man was a lot smarter than he looked. “Like who for example?”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Maybe her new husband. Maybe he’s the one who wants the money.”

Benjamin shook his head. “The man is married to an heiress. He has no need of money.” Suddenly he frowned, his mind whirling, picking up pieces, trying to fit them together. “What other reason would a person have?”

The big man shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know.”

“Revenge, that’s what. Perhaps the man she married was a friend of my father’s. Or perhaps a friend of William’s. Or perhaps he’s related, maybe even some by-blow of my father’s I never knew about.”

Benjamin came toward the henchman. “You’ve seen him. What does he look like?”

“Who?”

“Katherine’s new husband. Who the devil have we just been talking about?”

“Oh. Tall, I guess. Almost as big as me. Brown hair.” He glanced up. “He wears spectacles, but I have seen his eyes that night in the alley. Blue eyes.”

The last words hit him like a blow to the stomach.

“
Blue eyes? The man she married has blue eyes?”

“Bluer than the sky. The bluest I’ve ever seen.”

Benjamin sank down in his chair. “No.” He shook his head. “It isn’t possible. There is no way it could possibly be him.” Springing to his feet, he rounded the desk, stalked past the man and headed for the door. “Come with me.”

Down the hallway, Benjamin led him into the gallery past a row of family portraits to a painting that sat slightly off to one side. “Take a look at this. Is that him?”

“Who?”

“Katherine’s husband. You said you saw him. Is that the man you saw?”

“That’s you in the picture.”

Benjamin ground his teeth, desperate to hold on to his temper. “Yes, that is me on the right. Take a look at the dark-haired boy. He’d be older now. A full-grown man. Imagine him taller, bigger. Is that him? Is that the man you saw?”

The man took several steps closer to the portrait. Then he turned around and grinned. “That’s him, the man in the alley. It was foggy, but I’ve seen him before at the house and that night I saw him real good.”

The man could be wrong, of course. But something told Benjamin he wasn’t. Turning, he stared once more at the painting, and suddenly he knew without the slightest doubt that the man he would confront in the warehouse was his supposedly long-dead brother.

After a few seconds, he smiled. “It’s got to be him. It all fits together. The abduction, Katherine’s hasty marriage. The bastard’s come back from the dead but he won’t stay alive much longer. He thinks he’s got me, but the truth is I’ve got him. I was always smarter than he was.” He chuckled. “I guess some things never change.”

Chapter Twenty-three

The sound of water soaked planks slapped by a brackish sea cut through the moonless evening. It was a quiet night on the docks. The smell of dead fish and mildew rose into William’s nostrils as he rode in the carriage with his tow body guards as they made their way toward Damien’s vacant warehouse.

Damien would be arriving with the magistrate. He had planned to take him directly to the empty office at the rear of the building without ever seeing the others. Damien wasn’t taking any chances the magistrate might recognize the man who was once the young duke of Sussex, even though he had carried the title for only a few days before his supposed murder in prison.

William moved across the room and lit a half-burned white candle that sat atop a crate. He pulled his watch from his pocket and checked the time. Damien was due to arrive in fifteen minutes. Everything was set. Success or failure loomed just around the corner.

Katherine glanced up at the grandfather clock in the drawing room. Only five minutes had passed since the last time she looked. This was turning into the longest night of her life.

“I should have gone,” she muttered, setting her embroidery aside with a sigh, then picking it back up and stabbing the needle into the fabric. “I should have made them take me with them.”

Katherine heard a insistent knock at the door. The butler appeared at the entry. With a hand held up to her throat, where a rapid pulse pounded. Katherine walked to the entry as she watched the butler check the peephole then draw back the bolt and open the door.

Cloaked from head to toe, Elizabeth Spencer, reigning duchess of Sussex, stood in the opening. “I’m sorry to bother you at such a late hour, but I. . . May I come in?”

With William gone to meet Benjamin, Katherine’s worry soured to gigantic proportions. “Of course, your grace.” She forced herself to stay calm. The butler removed the lady’s hooded cloak, and in the light from the candles, Elizabeth’s pale face and trembling lips did nothing to check Katherine’s fears.

“Lady Habersham, may we be private? The matter I wish to speak of is urgent.”

“Follow me. We can speak in the drawing room.” Katherine turned to her as soon as the door was closed. “Tell me what has happened.”

“Your husband is in danger. I overheard them speaking in the picture gallery yesterday afternoon, Benjamin and one of the men who works for him. At the time, I didn’t understand enough to sort the matter out, not until I saw the two of them tonight, preparing to leave for some sort of meeting.”

The fear in Katherine ran through her like a knife. “Tell me what happened.”

Elizabeth clenched her hands. “Not enough, I’m afraid. Apparently the duke has discovered some sort of secret about your husband. I believe Benjamin is going to confront him and that Lord Habersham is in danger.”

The fear tightened now, clenched into an icy knot. Benjamin knew William was alive. Who knew what he had planned. “I have to warn them.” She glanced at the clock. “Oh dear, there isn’t enough time!”

“Perhaps there will be, if I go with you. My carriage is just outside.”

Katherine paused only a moment. If Elizabeth was discovered helping William, who knew what price the duke might extract. But time was running out. Readying her carriage would take precious moments Katherine did not have.

“All right. Let’s go. Pray we get there before it’s too late.”

The single white candle flickered on the empty crate it sat on. William flipped open the lid to his pocket watch and tried to read the dial in the wavering yellow light. “He’s late.”

“Patience, my impatient friend,” Damien said from the shadows beside him. “Benjamin is playing cat and mouse with us. He intends to be the cat in this game and not the other way around. He is making certain the meeting place is safe.”

William thought of their men posted in the darkness across the street. If Benjamin spotted them, he wouldn’t some inside and the game would be over before it got started.

A shuffling sound drew his attention. Damien stepped further back into the shadows as the sagging warehouse door swung open and Benjamin walked into the eerie circle of light thrown by the candle.

For a moment he just stood thee, an elegant slender figure, cloaked in black. “All right, you bloody scum. I’m here just as you asked. Now it’s your turn. You’ll have to show yourself, if you expect me to give you the money.”

William stepped out of the shadows. The fear and shock he had hoped to witness on Benjamin’s face never appeared, only a smug, satisfied smile.

“Ah, so it is you. I though so, but of course I couldn’t be sure.”

William tensed. Damn. Benjamin had known all along. “You don’t seem the least bit surprised. Considering the lengths you went to to be certain I was dead. I find that rather amazing. Then again, most of your brutal tactics have amazed me.”