Late for the Wedding (3 page)

Chapter 3

He missed his footing again on one of the high, cramped steps and likely would have fallen if the maid had not held his arm with such a firm grasp. The close call sent a small tingle of dread through him. It was a long way down to the bottom of the narrow staircase.

“Steady as ye go, m'lord,” the maid said bracingly. “We don’t want ye to have an accident before we get there, do we? Come along now.”

“What d'ya expect? It’s bloody damned dark in here.” Perhaps he should have refused those last two glasses of brandy she had pressed on him before they left the bedchamber. His head was spinning and he was starting to worry about his stomach. “Ought to have used the main staircase.”

“I told ye, sir, the master doesn’t like staff to entertain guests alone in their bedchambers.”

“Beaumont always was a bit prim and proper when it came to that sort of thing.”

She was a strong wench, he thought; stronger than she looked. She was able to hold the candle in one hand and maintain her grip on his elbow with the other. But, then, good maids were required to be sturdy, he reminded himself. They not only had to be able to hoist heavily laden breakfast trays, full chamber pots, and huge stacks of linens all day long, they routinely carried their burdens up and down long flights of steep stairs like this one. In addition to the exercise, there was all that sweeping and scrubbing and washing. Bound to build stamina in a wench. But he liked ‘em that way. That was the reason he preferred to take his evening sport with one of the hardworking girls in a household rather than with the professional whores in the brothels. The latter were inclined to be weak and listless from an excess of gin and the milk of the poppy.

He told himself that the long climb would prove worthwhile when they reached their goal. Doggedly, he plodded up another few steps.

“How much farther?” he muttered. His heart was beating so strongly he wondered that she did not hear it.

“We’re almost there.”

The step in front of him seemed to waver in the flaring candlelight. He had to work hard to set his foot down on it, and even at that he nearly missed.

The maid tightened her grip on his arm and urged him upward. “Come along now.”

When he reached the top of the cramped stairs, he was wheezing. The maid halted in front of a door. He was grateful for the pause, because he could no longer conceal his ragged breathing. He was sweating profusely too.
Should have left my coat and neckcloth in my bedchamber. Ah, well, I’ll have them off soon enough.

“Are you feeling all right, sir? You look a trifle feverish. Mayhap you had a bit too much to drink tonight, hmm? I trust you’ll be able to last long enough to give me a nice romp before you fall asleep. I’d hate to think we climbed all this way for naught.”

There was something different about her now, he thought. Her speech no longer suited her station. It had taken on a more cultured, educated tone. She did not sound like a servant.

He wanted to ask her a question, but his tongue was thick in his mouth and no longer functioned properly. The dizziness was getting worse.

For some reason the sight of the night sky sent a jolt of terror through him.

“Don’t worry, m'lord, brandy has this effect when you put a drop or two of laudanum in it.”

“What’s this about laudanum?”

“Never mind, I know just what you need to restore your senses.” The maid opened the door. “Some fresh night air.”

“N-no.” He shook his head when she tugged him through the opening. “I’m not feeling well. I think I’d better go back to my bedchamber.”

“Nonsense, m'lord. You need the exercise. I hear you’re engaged to marry a young lady in a few months. She’s young and healthy and she’ll expect a lusty husband on her wedding night.”

He peered blearily at her. “How . . . how did you know that I’m engaged?”

“Gossip gets around, m'lord.”

The balmy night air did nothing to clear his head. The full moon began to move in a circle overhead. He closed his eyes, but that only made the spinning sensation worse.

“Almost time for you to have your little accident, m'lord,” the maid said cheerfully.

Sudden panic shot through him. He managed to get his eyes partway open. “My wh-wh-what?”

“Rest assured that there is nothing personal about this. Just a matter of business.”

Chapter 4

As exit lines went, the one she had just used to bid Tobias good night had not been particularly clever or original, Lavinia thought. While it had no doubt made her point, she was already regretting it by the time she reached her bedchamber a short time later.

This floor of Beaumont Castle had clearly been reserved for the less important guests such as herself, as well as a sprinkling of companions, valets, and ladies’ maids. One extremely fashionable guest, Lady Oakes, had brought along her own personal hairdresser, who had been provided with a room halfway down the hall.

Lavinia let herself into the cramped little bedchamber and lit the candle on the dressing table. The light flickered in the cracked looking glass, casting a weak glow across the sparse furnishings.

She strongly suspected that this room had once been occupied by a maid or a very poor relation. The narrow bed took up most of the available space. There was a small wardrobe against one wall. The basin and pitcher on the washstand were badly chipped.

She went to the window and opened it. It was cool for a night in late June, but not cold. She would survive very well without a fireplace for warmth. Moonlight flooded the gardens and grounds below. The deep silence of the countryside was a stark contrast to the familiar clatter and din of London’s nighttime streets. All this resounding quiet would no doubt make it difficult to get to sleep.

Lavinia folded her arms on the ledge and brooded on the tranquil scene. There was no getting around the fact that she had not handled things well in Tobias’s bedchamber. What on earth had she been thinking when she had as much as told him not to come to her room tonight? Indeed, she’d had every right to lose her temper, but the unfortunate result was that she would not be able to discover what was going on between those two until breakfast. She was quite certain that her curiosity could not be contained that long.

She drummed her fingers on the stone and considered how to proceed.

There was no help for it. She would have to make the trek back downstairs to Tobias’s bedchamber. He owed her some answers, and she knew she would not be able to rest if she did not get them tonight.

Furthermore, she did not at all care for the notion of Tobias spending a great deal of time down there alone with Aspasia Gray.

She tried to decide how long to wait before she returned to his room. Twenty minutes? She could only hope that she would not collide with any of the people she had managed to avoid on the first trip.

So much for the delightful diversions of a house party. She’d had her doubts from the start, but Joan Dove had assured her that she would enjoy herself immensely.
Yes, there are some boring games and conversations and you will have to put up with some obnoxious people, but, trust me, you will find it all worthwhile. The thing about a country-house party, Lavinia, is that no one cares what you do or where you go after the lights are turned down for the night.

Obviously Joan had not anticipated a complication like Aspasia Gray.

A sudden thought sent a prickle of dread down Lavinia’s spine. What would she do if she discovered that the woman was still in Tobias’s bedchamber when she returned?

She was not jealous, she assured herself. She was
deeply concerned
. Tobias had been in exceptionally good spirits earlier this evening. Whatever had transpired between him and his new client was serious enough to plunge him into that ice-cold mood that she had learned never boded well. It was not the fact that he appeared quite menacing at such times that worried her. After all, he was no threat to her, only to those whose intentions were villainous. Rather, it was that he was inclined to take risks when he was in that frame of mind.

A soft knock startled her out of her reverie. She swung around, hurried back across the room, and yanked open the door.

Tobias stood in the shadows of the dimly lit hall, looking even more dangerous than he had a short time earlier. He had not bothered to put on his coat or neckcloth. He had not even refastened the collar of his white shirt. She could see some of the dark, curling hair that covered his broad chest.

“Well, this is a surprise, sir.”

He glanced down the corridor, apparently assuring himself that there was no one around, and then he stalked into the tiny room.

“Do me a favor,” he muttered, shutting the door behind himself. “In the future, if I ever again suggest that we accept an invitation to a country-house party, kindly tell me to go stand out in the rain until the fit passes.”

“How odd that you should say that. I was having similar thoughts.” She went back to her post by the window. “Who is she, Tobias?”

“I told you who she is,” he said quietly. “Her name is Aspasia Gray. An old acquaintance.”

“I collect that the two of you were once quite close.”

“I said
acquaintance,
not
lover
.” He came to stand behind her. “Bloody hell. Surely you don’t think there was anything of significance in the fact that she had her arms around my neck when you walked into my bedchamber, do you?”

“Well, as a matter of fact—”

“I can explain that rather unfortunate scene. Aspasia was merely thanking me for agreeing to make some inquiries on her behalf. I did not want to be rude by shoving her away.”

“I see.”

“Damnation, Lavinia, she caught me off guard. I heard you open the door and the next thing I knew her arms were around my neck.”

“Mmm.”

“What is this?” He closed a hand over her shoulder and tugged her gently around to face him. “Surely you do not think for one moment that I was engaged in a serious embrace with Aspasia? I love you. You know that. I thought we had agreed that we trusted each other.”

Some of her tension eased. She touched his face. “Yes, I know. I love you and I trust you, Tobias.”

He exhaled deeply. “Thank God. You had me worried for a moment.”

She raised her brows. “I do not know Mrs. Gray, however, and I have no particular reason to trust her.”

He shrugged. “You need not concern yourself with the subject of Aspasia.”

“Yes, well, I
am
concerning myself with that subject. Furthermore, the fact that I trust you does not mean that I relish the sight of you standing in your shirtsleeves with another woman’s arms draped around your neck.”

He smiled slowly. “You make yourself quite clear, my dear.”

“You are not to make a regular practice of that sort of thing, sir. Is that understood?”

He raised one hand to trace the engraving of the goddess Minerva that decorated the silver pendant she wore at her throat. “You are the only woman whose arms I want around my neck.”

She got almost no warning—just a brief glimpse of the candle flame reflected in his eyes—before he kissed her. The urgent, driving hunger in him thrilled her senses. But it also made her wonder again about the precise nature of his conversation with his new client.

She had experienced this incendiary desire flowing from him often enough in the past to recognize it. His dark passions had their source in a well of midnight buried deep within him. He kept the channel to that place closed and locked for the most part, but it had been opened tonight. She suspected that was Aspasia Gray’s doing.

“Tobias.”

He locked her hard against him, one arm around her neck, the other anchoring her waist. “When you told me not to bother coming here tonight, I felt as if you had plunged that spear you carried straight into my heart.”

“I did not mean it,” she whispered against his neck. “Indeed, I was only biding my time up here until I went back downstairs to your bedchamber.”

“You had every right to be angry.” He kissed her mouth, her cheek, and then her throat. “But there was no need, I swear it.”

“She did it deliberately, didn’t she? She heard the door open and she put her arms around you at that instant so that I would see the two of you together.”

“No, I’m sure that she meant only to convey a token of her gratitude, because I had just agreed to make inquiries on her behalf. You happened to open the door at the wrong moment.”

“Rubbish.”

“Devil take it, forget that damned embrace. I do not care about Aspasia.” He lifted her off her feet and started across the small room. “You are the only one I care about and this is the only embrace that matters.”

“Tobias, the bed—”

“I am getting us there as swiftly as possible.”

“But it is much too narrow for the two of us.”

“You and I are nothing if not resourceful, madam. We have, upon occasion, made do with the seat of a carriage. I feel certain we can manage a small bed.”

He spilled her carefully onto the cot and came down on top of her. She felt herself crushed into the bedding. The skirts of her expensive new gown, purchased especially for the jaunt to the country, were getting crushed, but in that moment she did not care a jot.

Tobias lowered her bodice and kissed her until her skin burned hot. She framed his face between her palms and responded with a passion that never failed to astonish her. Until she met Tobias, she had not dreamed that she was capable of such intensity of feeling. Even at times like this, when he was in the grip of his darker passions, she responded to him. No, it was more than that, she thought, she
needed
to respond to him,
especially
at such times.

On these rare occasions when he opened the path to that deep wellspring of midnight inside himself, she glimpsed an aspect of his true nature that he allowed no one else to know. She recognized the powerful, elemental force within him all too well because it called to an opposite but equally strong aspect of her own being.

In the past few weeks she had slowly begun to accept that she and Tobias were linked in some metaphysical fashion that she did not yet fully understand. Perhaps she would never entirely comprehend the nature of the connection between them, but she knew now that she could no longer deny it.

She had not dared to speak of these matters to Tobias. She knew that he had no use for metaphysics and would not welcome such a discussion.

But sometimes, when he was deep inside her, holding her as though he would never let her go, not even in death, she wondered if he, too, sensed the bond between them.

He pushed her skirts up with a rough, impatient motion of his hand and slid his fingers between her thighs. She was aware of the hunger pulsing through him. Her own need rose to meet his. She opened his shirt to his waist and flattened her palm on his chest, glorying in the feel of him.

He probed gently until he found the exquisitely sensitive bud. When he stroked slowly, she heard herself whisper the most shocking words, words she would never have used in polite company, words that, until she had met Tobias, she had not realized she knew.

He let his finger glide deeper.

“Tobias.” She tightened and moved against his palm.

He reached down to unfasten his trousers.

A blood-freezing scream sliced through the summer night, shattering the moment with the impact of a thunderclap. Lavinia flinched and opened her eyes just in time to see a dark shadow plummet past the open window.

“What the bloody hell?” Tobias rolled off the bed and onto his feet just as the dreadful cry ended with appalling finality.

“Dear heaven, what on earth was that?” Lavinia scrambled up off the bed. “Some sort of night bird? A large bat?”

Tobias was already at the window, having covered the distance in two strides. He gripped the edge and stood looking down into the gardens.

“Merciful God,” he whispered.

Lavinia hurried toward the window. “What has happened?”

Somewhere in the distance, another scream rent the night. A woman this time. Lavinia leaned out the window and glanced to the left, seeking the source of the second scream.

She saw the occupant of a neighboring bedchamber, clad in a dressing gown and nightcap, standing on a stone balcony. The woman stared, transfixed, into the garden.

Lavinia braced herself and looked down. A figure garbed in formal evening attire lay crumpled on the grass like a broken clockwork doll. Horror turned her stomach ice-cold. The shadow hurtling past the window a few seconds earlier had been a man.

“He must have fallen from the roof,” she whispered.

“I wonder what he was doing up there?” Tobias said. “He is certainly not a member of the household staff.”

Lavinia looked down again and saw a bald pate gleaming in the moonlight. “Oh, no. Surely not.”

She heard more windows thrown open. Shocked exclamations echoed in the night. Down below, a footman, lantern in hand, appeared and walked with great reluctance toward the dead man.

“I will go and see if there is anything to be done.” Tobias turned away from the window. “Wait here.”

“No, I am coming with you.”

“There is no need,” he said gently. “It will be extremely unpleasant.”

She swallowed. “I cannot be certain until I get a closer look at him, but I fear that there may, indeed, be a reason for me to accompany you.”

He paused at the door and glanced back, frowning. “What is that?”

“I may have been one of the last people to see him alive.” She adjusted the bodice of her gown and reached up to feel for her hairpins. “Except for the maid, of course.”

“What the devil are you talking about?” Tobias opened the door and went out into the hall. “Do you know that man?”

“Not exactly.” She followed him out into the dim corridor and paused to close the bedchamber door. “We were never introduced, but I believe I saw him a short while ago, when I went to meet you in your bedchamber. To be more precise, I hid behind the staircase while he went by in the company of one of the maids.”

That got his attention. “He was with one of the servants?”

“Yes. I got the impression that they were on their way up to the roof to engage in what the gentleman referred to as a bit of sport. The maid seemed quite cheerful about the prospect. He no doubt promised her money.” She paused. “I wonder if Lady Beaumont knows that sort of thing is going on in her household.”

“I suspect there is a good deal of that sort of thing going on at this affair.”