Leslie Lafoy (21 page)

Her heart was racing and she had to swallow before she had the poise to ask, “Did they lock him away for attacking a superior officer?”

Barrett fastened his gaze on hers and coolly, very pointedly, replied, “There were no witnesses to support the commander’s accusations.”

She knew—to the center of her bones—otherwise. And that Barrett was entrusting her with a long-held and most valuable secret.

“I would have shot the bastard from twenty paces and been done with it,” he continued with a shrug. “Carden, on the other hand, made sure he knew that every blow was on behalf of a man who died because of his incompetency and pomposity.”

“He made it personal.”

Barrett nodded. “Death is very personal for Carden. Not his own, of course. Some of the men who have worked with him would tell you that heights don’t bother him. Others—the slightly more observant ones—would tell you that he actually likes them. But the truth is that it’s not about heights at all. It’s about edges. Carden enjoys danger.”

“He flirts with death,” she observed softly, uncomfortable with what she was hearing, but not overly surprised by it.

“An excellent way of putting it. Sometimes, he even taunts it. The things I’ve seen him do…” He shook his head and chuckled as a wide smile brightened his face. He leaned against the doorjamb again and crossed his arms over his chest.

“The first task when building a span is to establish a pulley cable between the two anchor points. Men and materiel move out and back and across in a basket that hangs from the cable. If the cable slips from the pulley or jams … It’s often a very long way down.

“I was in the basket at the midpoint and over fifty meters up when the cable jammed. I hadn’t taken a harness out with me and I was too far out for one to be flung to me. Carden disappeared and came back with one of Cook’s rolling pins. I sat—exceedingly bored when not horribly embarrassed—in the basket while the rope fell short time after time, a vicious storm rolled in on us, and Carden sat on a truss, calmly whittling on that rolling pin.”

“He whittled while you hung over an abyss?”

With a low laugh, Barrett nodded. “The lightning was cracking all around us when he finally put his knife away, walked to the end of the cable, dropped the harness for me over his shoulder, settled the rolling pin on the cable, and stepped off the edge. He laughed all the way out and dropped into the basket with me as though he’d done nothing more than ride a horse down Rotten Row and then hopped off.”

“He wasn’t wearing a harness himself, was he?” Sera guessed.

“Carden never wears a harness.”

“It would take away the edge,” she observed with a sigh. “How did he get back to the point?”

“With my weight lowering the point end of the cable, he rode back on his rolling pin.”

“Laughing.”

“He’s not completely foolhardy,” Barrett assured her. “He simply sees risk differently from most men. For him it’s a grand game.”

Carden’s life, as much as she’d seen of it, was a far cry from the one Barrett had described. “There’s hardly any great danger in building houses and conservatories. He must be terribly bored these days.”

“He’s had some practice for it,” he countered with another shrug. “Military life is frequently more tedious than it is exciting. One has hours on end to fill as best one can. We invented a great many games to amuse ourselves and pass the time. In fact,” he said, stepping away from the jamb with a wink, “I’ll show you one of them. Wait right there.”

He went to the parlor and returned a few seconds later with an apple. “Here, toss this,” he instructed, putting it into her hand and then pivoting to stand beside her. “In any direction you’d prefer and whenever you’re ready.”

She had no idea what he was going to do—perhaps catch it in his mouth—but she adjusted her hold on the heavy piece of fruit, tossed it straight up into the air above their heads, and then instantly stepped back so that she could more easily watch him. He moved so quickly that she wasn’t quite sure what he’d done, but there was a most definite flash of silver just before the apple tumbled out of the air and landed on the marble tiles by the door. She could only stare in openmouthed amazement as Barrett strode over, snatched it up, and pulled the knife out of it.

“Carden would have cut it cleanly in two,” he supplied, wiping the blade on the sleeve of his suit coat. The entire knife disappeared up his left sleeve as he added, “He’s much more proficient with knives than I am. With a sword, he’d have quartered it.”

“Of course,” she said, shaking off her surprise. “Swords and knives have dangerous edges.”

“I’ve never thought of it that way. You’re right.”

“Since I haven’t seen any chopped fruit lying about … What is Carden doing for diversion while he endures the tedium of his life?”

“When he’s not drinking far more than usual to dull it,” Barrett replied, his eyes twinkling, “he’s engaged in an exquisitely civilized and highly refined variation of hunting.”

“In other words,” she rejoined, “he’s finding his danger and excitement in being a rake.”

“There is a definite edge to it.”

“Particularly when you encounter a woman who doesn’t appreciate being viewed as game.”

“That’s very true,” he admitted. “There was a—” He swallowed the rest of the story and shot her an apologetic look. “Never mind.”

She looked past him and down the hall to the open doorway of Carden’s study. How much longer would it be, she wondered, before he couldn’t stand the boredom any longer and went back to dancing on high edges? As much as the thought of his casual risk-taking concerned her, she couldn’t help but think that it was a better way to go through life than drinking himself into oblivion.

“Barrett?” she began softly. “If it wouldn’t be prying to ask or a betrayal of a confidence to answer … Why is Carden drinking so heavily today?”

“Ghosts, I suspect,” his friend answered quietly, also looking at the open door. “He’s never said why he does these dives, but in all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him at a funeral sober. We’ve been to far too many funerals together, Carden and I.

“I think he sees a death as the consequence of a failure on his part. That if he’d tried harder or done something differently, it would have been averted. He hates to fail at anything and takes it hard when he does. Not that he’s ever talked about all of this, you understand. Carden holds his secrets like he does his cards, close to the vest.”

How very sad, she thought, to have secrets that you couldn’t share with anyone, not even your best friend. There couldn’t be any kind of loneliness deeper than that. Laying her hand on Barrett’s arm, she waited until he looked down at her before saying, “You’re a very good friend to understand and accept that, Barrett.”

“He doesn’t ask about mine, so we’re even,” he countered with a most dismissive shrug. He cocked a brow and added, “And then we also share a good number of secrets between us.”

“Such as who might have attacked your commanding officer,” she supplied.

“That would be one. And all things considered, a relatively minor one among the bunch.”

Minor?
Good Lord. She didn’t want to know what they might consider major. “You’re both lucky you aren’t in a jail somewhere, aren’t you?”

He laughed and grinned. “They haven’t built one that could hold us. If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ll go see if he’s still standing.”

She nodded her assent, thinking that men were the strangest creatures; they’d risk their lives for each other, lie for each other, follow one another around the world to keep each other from stupidly getting themselves killed, and never feel the least bit put off by the fact that what they knew about each other didn’t go any deeper than the experiences they’d shared. They really were altogether another species of animal.

“Oh,” Barrett said, stopping and turning back. “The reason I came out here looking for you in the first place … Lady Hatcher’s ball is in a few days. As the son of a prominent financier, I’m considered useful to know and so I’m invited to these sorts of affairs. Mother always insists that it’s my duty to attend. Might I prevail on you to make the evening a pleasant one for me?”

Her instincts squirmed, suggesting that accepting was an unwise thing to do. But Honoria had cornered her into accepting an invitation from Aiden and to turn down Barrett’s would likely embarrass him. She couldn’t do that to him. Sacrificing good judgment to kindness, she summoned a smile and replied, “I’d be pleased to attend with you, Barrett.”

With a smile of his own, he bowed, said, “My sincerest appreciation, Seraphina,” and then turned and went on his way.

She frowned down at the walking stick, an odd mixture of exhilaration and disquietude stealing over her in the silence. The source of her concern was patently obvious: she was not only contemplating an affair with an admitted rake who had a penchant for living boldly and recklessly, but she had—in the span of less than a single hour—accepted invitations out from both of his friends. Friends who were every bit as rakish, bold, and reckless as he was. It all very strongly suggested that she’d forgotten to crate up her good sense when she was leaving Belize.

Her sense of elation wasn’t equally discernible in any respect. There was a bit of a hopeful feeling to it. And an undercurrent of what almost felt like contentment. Or perhaps it was a sense of homecoming. At least as she’d always imagined what a homecoming would feel like. Whatever it was, there was certainly no reason for any of it. She had no home. She had nothing whatsoever to be hopeful about beyond the likelihood that she’d have something to eat tonight. And content? No woman attempting to juggle relationships of one sort or another with three men had cause for anything approximating contentment. Not a sane woman anyway.

Sera shook her head and decided that she had better uses for her time than trying to solve elusive puzzles. It had been days since the girls had done an arithmetic lesson. On slates the numbers were as defined as the sums and differences were always clear and certain. At the moment, she could truly appreciate that kind of predictability and assurance.

C
HAPTER
12

Sera stopped in the kitchen doorway, lamp in hand, not at all certain what she should do. She’d come to check on the puppies and hadn’t expected to find Carden with them at this late hour. She wouldn’t have thought that he would be in any condition to put one foot in front of the other, much less able to get himself down the stairs and into the kitchen. But there he was, sitting on the floor beside the bed they’d made for the dogs, his back against the hearth surround, a puppy in his lap, both of them seemingly sound asleep.

He’d bathed and put on clean clothes since she’d last seen him that afternoon. And shaved. Apparently himself, judging by the nicks in his jaw. Given his state of inebriation when John Aiden and Barrett had finally hauled him up the stairs, it was a wonder he hadn’t slit his throat.

He had a wonderful throat. Neck, chest, and shoulders, too. Since that first morning when he’d answered the door in his dressing gown, he’d hidden himself behind starched collars and fashionable silk ties. He hadn’t bothered tonight and, improper though it was, she couldn’t help but appreciate it. His shirt was open—buttoned only halfway up, in fact—allowing her to view a broad expanse of his well-muscled and darkly furred chest. He’d rolled up his sleeves, too, to allow her to admire the strength evident in his thickly corded forearms. And at the end of his very long, trousered legs … he had beautifully shaped, perfectly proportioned feet.

He wiggled his toes. Afraid that she’d been caught in her bold appraisal, Sera quickly looked to see if he’d awakened. His eyes were still closed and she smiled. She liked his hair ruffled. It looked as though he’d come out of the bath, rubbed his fingers through it, and declared it good enough. It was so boyish—innocent in a way—and such a contrast to the stark virility of the rest of him. How could any woman resist him? Why would any woman even try?

“Do you see anything of interest?”

She’d been caught! Her heart pounding and heat fanning over her cheeks, Sera ignored the question and replied, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

His eyes remained closed, but a smile played at the corners of his mouth. “You didn’t. I was trying to think. Sometimes it helps to close your eyes.”

“What are you thinking about?”

His smile broadened. “How badly my head hurts.”

She eased forward, saying, “I’ve always wondered why people drink if it makes them so dreadfully miserable afterward.”

His smile fading, he opened his eyes and considered her. After a long moment he replied, “It’s that you get to choose your misery. This one tends to make you forget the others.”

She wondered what particular miseries he was trying to forget, but he didn’t give her a chance to ask.

“The puppies look to be none the worse for their dunking,” he said, gently lifting the pup from his lap and placing it back at its mother’s side.

As strange as it seemed, she thought the same thing might be said for his day-long plunge into the bottle. She’d never seen him so … Relaxed wasn’t quite the right word. Resigned wasn’t, either. But she liked this slightly rumpled version of Carden Reeves. She liked it very much.

“Cook says that it’s the broth he made,” she shared, placing the lamp on the kitchen table. Tightening the sash on her wrapper, she knelt beside the padding to stroke the dog’s head. “He gave the mama a bowl of it and spooned a bit into each puppy. He claims it can cure any ailment from whooping cough to leprosy.”

“It probably can. At least I hope so,” he said, holding up a thick china mug for her to see. He took a sip and returned it to the floor beside him, saying, “He often did better at treating us than the regimental surgeon did, you know. When it comes to needles and threads, he’s better than Mr. Gauthier could ever dream of being. Cook’s a true wizard at stitching men back together.”

“I hope that you’ve never had an occasion to personally benefit from his surgical skill.”

“Cook believes that small stitches make for cleaner scars,” he said, pushing his shirt sleeves higher and leaning forward, angling his arms into the soft light. With a fingertip he traced a long, thin white line from the wrist upward on his left arm, adding, “He put sixty-three in this arm.” He showed her a somewhat shorter one on his right. “Only thirty-five in this one.”