Laura Lee Guhrke (17 page)

Mick turned his attention to Sophie. “You still insist that you know nothing of the person who shot at me in the Embankment?”

If that was the stand he was going to take, Auntie was doomed. She was not too proud to beg for Auntie’s sake. “Please don’t do this,” she pleaded. “I don’t know who wants to kill you, and I’ve sworn it on my life. If you don’t believe me, there’s nothing more to say, but please don’t arrest my aunt. She’s elderly, she’s frail, her reputation is at stake. If you need to blame someone, blame me.”

“Even if I do what you ask, and even if your cousin doesn’t prosecute, you have been arrested, and the newspapers will find the story irresistible. Your innocence won’t save you from that. Are you certain you don’t wish to change your story?”

She shook her head and met his gaze across the table. “Please, Mick. Please don’t arrest my auntie.”

“You care so much about your aunt’s reputation that you’re willing to sacrifice your own instead?”

The question astonished her. “Of course I would. She’s my aunt. She’s my family. I love her. There isn’t anything I wouldn’t do for her. That’s what families do. At least,” she amended, thinking of her sister, “that’s what they’re supposed to do.”

Something in what she said caused him pain. She sensed it. Perhaps because he was an orphan who had no family. He wanted a family, though. A wife, children, but he didn’t think he’d ever have them.

He shoved back his chair and startled her out of her thoughts about his life. She looked up at him, “Mick?”

“You’re free to go, Sophie. I won’t arrest a woman for a crime she did not commit.”

Sophie’s heart sank. It was all over then.

“Mrs. Summerstreet is a different matter,” he went on, “and I honestly don’t know what to do about that.”

“You can’t mean to keep her here?” Sophie looked at him in shock. “Oh, no, you can’t! Please let me take her home.”

He looked back at her for a long moment. Then he let out an exasperated sigh. “Take your aunt home. I’ll let you know later today what I decide to do. As for the necklace, I’ll be keeping it for the time being.”

Sophie knew there was nothing to do now but wait. Pleading Auntie’s case any further was futile. She stood up, and he opened the door to let her out.

She went to the main room of Criminal Investigations, where Auntie and Grimmy were waiting. “Hell let us know later what he’s going to do.”

During the carriage ride home, Sophie hoped her aunt might be worried enough to at least see the error of her ways, but she didn’t seem at all concerned.

“Sophie, dear,” she said, “the spirits led him to us. In fact, I’m certain that Maxwell is somehow behind all this. Michael Dunbar is very much like him, you know. I’m sure the dear boy isn’t going to put me in prison.”

Sophie, who did not think of Mick Dunbar as anything like a “dear boy” and who did not have much faith in the spirits of dead relatives, even that of Uncle Maxwell, was not reassured. “I’m not worried about prison, Auntie. Katherine would never bring charges
against you, and he knows that. However, I’m terribly worried about gossip. If word of this gets to the newspapers, your reputation would be ruined.”

Violet waved that aside. “Nonsense. How are the newspapers going to find out? As you pointed out, Katherine won’t want scandal, so she won’t say anything. You won’t. I won’t. And I’m sure Michael won’t.”

“The newspapers get word of any arrests, Auntie,” she pointed out. “Inspector Dunbar told me that. The cousin of a viscount being arrested for jewel theft would be newsworthy.”

“But Michael didn’t actually arrest me.”

“He did arrest me.”

“Neither of us is going to end up in the newspapers. The spirits wouldn’t send us someone to do us harm, darling.”

Sophie let the subject drop, but she couldn’t banish her worry, and even though it was nearly two o’clock in the morning, she couldn’t sleep. After lying there for half an hour, worrying about what would happen to Violet and herself, she couldn’t stand it. She got out of bed and did what she always did when she couldn’t sleep. She went down to her conservatory.

After she had lit the gaslights, Sophie pushed her long, loose hair back over her shoulders, rolled up the sleeves of her nightgown, and decided to mix a batch of her new perfume. Making fragrances from her flowers was a special hobby, and she had recently invented a new scent. Katherine had loved the perfume the first time Sophie had worn it in her presence
a few weeks previously and had requested some of the fragrance from her.

Distracted by recent events, Sophie had forgotten that request, and it was fortunate she remembered it now. They were going to Ascot in less than two weeks, and the recipe needed that long to distill so that the flower scents would blend together. Since she couldn’t sleep, she might as well make some now to take with her to Berkshire.

Sophie went to her perfumery, one of several “rooms” she had created in the conservatory by using trees, vines, and other plants. From her shelf of tinctures, she selected the bottles she needed for her newest creation and took them to her worktable.

She loved being in here. There was something about this room that soothed her nerves and eased her mind, and making perfume from her own flowers was a hobby she thoroughly enjoyed.

Sophie had just gathered all the ingredients and tools she needed when she heard footsteps on the tile floor.

“Sophie?”

She stiffened. That was Mick’s voice. Had he made a decision already? “I’m in my perfumery,” she called back.

“Your what?”

She repeated her words, and the sound of her voice enabled him to find her amid all the exotic greenery. He walked in through the doorway she had made of two immense Grecian urns and looked around him. “A perfumery?” he said, glancing at the table and the array of bottles on it. “You make perfume?”

The hoarse tightness of his voice made her fear the worst.

“Do you wear the perfume you make?” he asked, his gaze moving slowly up her body to her face.

There was something in the way he was looking at her. It was the same way he had looked at her in the library. It was a look of desire, hot and fierce, scorching her.

She forced herself to say something. “I just invented a new recipe. It’s my favorite, I wear it all the time. People seem to like it. My cousin wants some, and I’m going to make some for her. Lord Fortescue seemed to like the fragrance very much.”

Mick jerked at his tie, loosening it. “I’ll bet he did.”

Her own mention of her cousin brought her back to the most important thing on her mind. “Did you make a decision about my aunt?”

“What?” He shook his head as if coming out of a reverie. “Yes,” he finally answered. “I did.”

“And?”

She bit her lip, gripping the edge of the table so tightly her hands began to ache. She held her breath, waiting.

“A reporter from one of the penny papers was at Scotland Yard,” he went on. “Merrick had told him the cousin of a viscount had been arrested.”

“Then Auntie’s ruined,” she murmured. She relaxed her grip and lowered her head, staring down at the vast array of bottles on the table before her. Four years of knowing Auntie’s affliction and doing everything she could to protect her from scandal, and it had all been for naught.

“I wouldn’t quite say ruined,” he said.

Sophie looked up, still thinking the worst. “What does that mean?”

“I had a little talk with Sergeant Merrick, and I explained to him that those related to peers do not get arrested. It simply isn’t done. He didn’t understand that particular rule of the Metropolitan Police.” He paused, then added obscurely, “He’s not the only one.”

“Does this mean you aren’t going to arrest Auntie?”

“Yes, that’s what it means.”

Sophie choked back a sob.

“Don’t cry,” he said, “or I’ll change my mind.”

“I’m not going to cry,” she assured him, so relieved she could hardly get the words out. “I’m just stunned. I never expected—”

“What?” he interrupted. “That I might have a heart?”

“Something like that,” she admitted with a laugh. “I didn’t think you believed me when I said I didn’t know who shot at you, and that you were going to arrest Auntie to bring me to heel.”

“I don’t arrest elderly ladies who aren’t harming anyone just because they technically break the law. There wouldn’t have been evidence to hold her in any case, because like you, I cannot imagine Viscountess Fortescue pressing charges against Violet.”

“I’m Katherine’s cousin, too, and it didn’t stop you from arresting me,” she pointed out.

“You were never officially under arrest.”

“I wasn’t? It felt very official to me!”

“I didn’t file an arrest report, or a police report, I
didn’t take your fingerprints for the record, and I didn’t put you in a cell.”

“What about the newspaper journalist?”

“I told him that Sergeant Merrick was mistaken. You were only there to report a minor crime. Your aunt was with you, of course, as a proper chaperone, since no young lady would go to the police by herself.”

Sophie studied him for a long moment, thinking for the first time that perhaps he was not so awful after all. “Thank you.”

His lips tightened, and he looked away. “Forget about it. I have.”

“What crime did I supposedly come to report?” she asked.

“A missing watch.”

She burst out laughing, and he returned his gaze to her, his brows drawn together in puzzlement. “It was the best I could do on the spur of the moment,” he said. “Why is it so amusing?”

“Because it’s so appropriate,” she explained, still laughing. “I am always losing watches. I’ve given up wearing them. I lose handkerchiefs, too.”

His lashes lowered. “Buttons as well, it seems.”

She glanced down, realizing that one of the buttons on her nightgown was indeed missing, revealing a bit of the bare skin between her breasts.

Sophie put her hand up to cover the gap in her gown, hotly embarrassed. “No one in this house likes to sew,” she mumbled, knowing she was blushing. “Especially me.”

He laughed low in his throat, and she fancied that it
sounded like the laugh a pirate might make, a touch of wickedness behind the amusement. He was staring at her, his gaze seeming to slice right through her hand to the gap in her gown and the skin beneath. Right to her heart.

She stood still, hand to her breast, paralyzed by that look. What was it about him that always seemed to catch her between the desire to move toward him and the desire to run away? It was like the fascination for a fire. One moved closer and closer, then got burned.

Sophie tore her gaze from his. His body blocked the only exit, and unless she wanted to crash through the camellias and fig trees surrounding her, there was no escape other than past him. She lifted her chin. “I think I’ll go to bed,” she said and circled the table, hoping he would move aside.

Of course, he didn’t. In fact, he spread his arms, blocking her way completely. His hands touched the urns on either side, his arms placed low enough that she could not duck past him.

She looked at his hand, his strong, tanned fingers curled around the body of a Greek maiden carved in the white stone of the urn. Tongues of heat danced along her spine and down her legs, making her feel as if she were melting right there onto the terrazzo floor.

She cleared her throat. “Could you move out of my way?” she asked, trying to sound nonchalant and failing. “I’d really like to go to bed.”

“So would I,” he said with feeling, but he still didn’t move. His lashes lowered, and he seemed to be staring
at her mouth. “What’s in that perfume of yours? An aphrodisiac?”

Before she could even think of a reply, he moved, wrapping an arm around her waist and pulling her close against his body. He lifted his free hand to her hair, wrapping the long strands in his fist, pulling her head back. Then he bent his head and kissed her.

Charles had kissed her once, in the garden of the vicarage at Stoke-On-Trent, right after she had accepted his proposal of marriage. He’d pressed his lips to hers in the quick and proper fashion of a gentleman. Mick’s kiss, however, was anything but quick and proper. It was raw and powerful, his mouth opening over hers, his tongue brushing her lips until she parted them.

When she did, his tongue entered her mouth, tasting deeply of her. She’d never felt this quivering excitement, this hot neediness, the desperate longing for more.

His arm was a hand of steel across her back, holding her so tight against him that she was standing on tiptoe. Through the thin fabric of her nightgown, she could feel the powerful strength of his body, the pressing of him, hard and aroused, against her. She knew what that meant, too.

This wasn’t about love, only desire. But even as she told herself that, Sophie wrapped her arms around his neck, hanging on to him, the only solid thing when everything else seemed to be spinning. She deepened the kiss even more, meeting his tongue with her own.

He tore his lips from hers with a groan. “Good God,” he muttered. “What am I doing?”

She felt him beginning to pull away from her, and she didn’t want him to pull away. She tightened her arms around his neck. “Mick,” she gasped, pressing her body closer to his, moving her body against his, guided by instinct and a hot desperation she didn’t understand.

“This has got to stop,” he said, but instead of pushing her away, he kept his arms tight around her and buried his face against the side of her neck, his breathing quick and hot on her skin. “God, woman, what’s in that stuff?” he mumbled. “Spanish fly?”

“Jasmine,” she gasped, shivering as he tasted her skin with his tongue. “Lemon.”

“That’s not what I meant.” He trailed kisses up the side of her neck to her ear. “No, I mean the secret ingredient.”

“What secret ingredient?”

“The one that makes me insane, that makes me do things that are stupid.” He pulled her earlobe between his lips, sucking it like a piece of candy, teasing, tasting. She began to shiver.

“Mick.”

Her whisper of his name seemed to trigger something in him, and he tore himself away from her with such suddenness that she swayed on her feet, disoriented for a moment without his arms around her. She blinked, trying to get her bearings as he backed away from her, and she was bewildered by his abrupt withdrawal.