Lynne Connolly (23 page)

He plunged in deep, tasted my earlobe. “Come on, Rose, give it to me. Let me make you come over and over, until you don’t know who you are anymore.”

I caught my breath, cried his name, and my body pulsed, gripping his shaft, pulling it deeper. He growled and drove in again, and I felt the gush of hot liquid that signified his ejaculation.

He took what I gave him and gave it back tenfold, opened to me so much that no distance existed between us.

Nestled warmly against him, I slid into sleep with his hand cupping one of my breasts.

Chapter Fourteen

We had a disagreement in the morning when Richard wanted me to stay indoors and I refused to do so. I would not hide away from anyone. Richard went about his business in the clubs and coffeehouses after making me promise I’d travel armed and with at least two of our footmen. To appease him, I agreed. So, in a spirit of defiance, I ordered the carriage brought around and persuaded Nichols to array me in a gown of deep red. I might need the weapons with Lady Southwood.

She received me alone, which pleased me as I wouldn’t have to wait. I wanted plain speaking today, with no bark on it. No salon, no visitors to mar that. Richard’s disconsolate mood of the previous evening, so unlike him, drove me to pick up the cudgels, not just on his behalf, but of my children, born and unborn. I would not have their lives overshadowed by a conniving grandmother.

Her smile appeared rather fixed, but after the maid had brought the inevitable tray of tea and left us alone, I asked her how she did. The reply involved a great deal of muscle pain and aches, but I marked that she did not ask me in return. Not that I would have told her. For a woman at death’s door she appeared remarkably fine, in a green gown with wide panniers. Her face glowed with health and the careful application of various cosmetics. Her hand didn’t shake as she lifted her tea dish to her lips, and her demeanour remained sternly in place.

She turned her attention to my stomach. “I dislike the modern fashion of gadding about once a woman begins to show.”

“I do not. I’d go mad confined to the house and probably drive Richard mad too. He didn’t want me to come here today to see you, though.”

“Why not?” She raised a pencilled brow. I’d heard of people using mouse fur to create false eyebrows. I should be glad she hadn’t taken to that because I doubted I’d have kept a straight face if she’d crooked that at me.

“He thinks you have stirred the pot. It shows a lack of consideration to him and to me that you choose to champion the young man who caused us so much trouble last year.”

For a moment I thought she’d refuse to discuss the matter, in which case I would leave. But she replied, “It is for Strang to show me consideration. When, in due course, he becomes the earl, then I will have to accord him the respect due to his station, but I will decide for myself if my son deserves any more than that. You were not here during his wild years, Lady Strang, and you could not know how close he came to destroying the house of Kerre and all its wealth.”

I knew it, and the ensuing rise in fortunes since Richard had mended his ways and turned almost respectable. “A man is allowed some wild ways in his youth. But he reformed before he met me, so I had no chance of seeing it. Nor would I have liked to. However, nothing he did during those years came close to this scandal. If Lord Southwood had decided that document was real, it would have invalidated my marriage.”

“Leaving him free to marry again.” She’d never made any secret in private about her lack of approval of me as a daughter-in-law. She’d wanted a well-born heiress for Richard, but he’d given her an ultimatum—me or nobody.

“He did marry again. He married me.”

Her mouth turned down in distaste. “He was ever determined to defy Lord Southwood and myself.”

“That isn’t why he did it. It isn’t why I agreed.” She was dragging me down avenues that would lead to recrimination and bewailing. While she might enjoy that excursion, I would not, so I changed the direction of the conversation. “I want to know why you are seemingly in accord with John Kneller and why you continue to receive him. Did you meet him before? It seemed to me as if you knew him already when you received him here. A prior acquaintance?”

Her face turned completely blank. “I can’t think what you mean.”

I gave voice to a suspicion I’d had ever since I saw them together. “John approached you before.”

“He did. Or rather, his mother did. She visited me after her husband’s death. But I couldn’t accept her, not then. She brought her children to me, and by then I could see the resemblance to my son, but for all I knew he’d fathered half of society.” She sent me a spiteful glance, as if I had something to do with it. “You think he’ll stay loyal to you?”

“Yes.” I didn’t need to defend myself to her.

“I gave her a little money and told her I didn’t want to see her again. Kneller kept in touch. I knew he’d inherited an estate from his guardian. So when he introduced himself after he arrived in London, I was expecting to hear from him. He is my grandson.”

I couldn’t give her any credit for family feeling. “I hope to give you another. Do you intend to support his claim of legitimacy?”

She sighed then, a gentle puff of air in the frozen, elegant room. “No. My husband demands that I give that up.”

That didn’t surprise me after what his lordship had said to us. I thought then that part of her defiance might have little to do with Richard and myself and more to do with her relations with her husband. “He’s a bad influence for Georgiana. I came today to tell you what we know of Kneller’s activities, the ones we have proof for.”

“Strang has told me some of it.” She smoothed an imaginary crease from her gown. “I cannot believe that a young man of such address had the temerity to pose as a knight of the realm.”

Or to take part in smuggling activities, or to murder, or to abduct and terrify me, but perhaps they were lesser sins in her eyes. “He has done a great deal more than that.”

“For my daughter’s sake I have decided to curtail his visits here.” She put down her tea dish with a gentle click. From that I guessed her agitation. She usually replaced it in its saucer soundlessly. I hadn’t touched my tea. “It is unfortunate, but I fear I’ve been mistaken in that young man. After a great deal of discussion with my husband, I have decided to accede to his wishes.”

In other words, Lord Southwood had decided to bellow at her until he got his way. I didn’t envy her that. I had a dread of loud voices, especially those raised in anger.

Another door closed to John. When he left London, as he would soon if Richard’s plan to have him pressed came to fruition, few would mourn his passing or even notice it.

I took my leave and left the cold house with its stately residents. I wanted my own house, my own tea and some peace.

As I descended the steps of the carriage in Brook Street, a group of people took my attention. Our house was in a relatively quiet part of the West End, but occasionally a street-seller or pickpocket would cause a commotion. I didn’t like such occurrences close to my house, but there seemed no rowdy behaviour so I deemed it safe to go forward.

Ever curious, I took the four steps towards the small crowd. Someone saw me and stepped back. Someone else, one of my servants, saw me and blocked my way. “This is not for you, my lady.”

I ignored him. “Let me through.” I used my elbows to nudge him aside. The crowd moved away at my approach.

A bloodied body lay sprawled on the ground. My first disembodied thought was that it was as well my gown was red. I’ve found that sometimes the first consideration is nonsensical, but none so foolish as this one.

I stared at the figure. A man, wearing a soiled pink evening coat, one arm flung above his head, the other by his side, useless now. He lay on his front, and when I moved to try to back the crowd away, I caught a glimpse of gleaming golden curls.

My mind finally caught up with what I was seeing. I crouched, heedless of my clothes now, and waved at the footman to turn the person over.

The man was turned with a sickening slump and then we all saw that any attempt to revive him would be useless. He didn’t have a face.

A jabber of voices punctuated the sudden silence. “Looks like a carriage ran over him.”

It did. His face and hands were mangled, bloody, raw wounds open. He could have seen the vehicle just too late and held his hands up to protect himself in an instinctive gesture. Then the wheel would have run over his hands and his head.

The elaborate clocked stockings bore soil from the street, but no wounds I could see.

I dusted off my hands and got to my feet. “Wrap him and take him inside,” I said. “Send for his lordship, but don’t alarm him.” I turned to go indoors, but turned back again. “And inform Mr. Fielding at Bow Street.”

Murmurs followed me back to the house.

I went inside and took a few deep breaths. Nichols followed me, having stood close to me all the time I was outside. I gave Nichols my outer clothing and she handed it on to a footman. I sighed. She wouldn’t leave me now.

So I decided to view the body. Halfway down the narrow stairs to the kitchen, I remembered where I’d seen that coat before. Last night, on John Kneller.

I didn’t turn around when I heard footsteps on the stone stairs behind me. I recognised him without that. His first consideration, as always, was me, but I could assure him I felt perfectly fine. He clasped my hand and stared down at the body. “John?”

“I think so.”

“A carriage accident seems somewhat of an anticlimax.” By that inappropriate remark, I knew he was shocked far more than his calm demeanour would suggest. This event had rocked him as it had me.

“Should we send for Susan?”

“I think so. But not quite yet. She doesn’t need to see this.” He tore his gaze away from the corpse stretched out on the kitchen table—I’d send for another table, because I wasn’t having that one used again.

I met his eyes.

“So what have you discovered, my love?” he asked me.

He knew I’d have looked. At the moment, John’s once-beautiful coat was tucked around his body, but I moved to pull the sides apart and expose his body to his father’s gaze.

Richard stared. “He was murdered.”

I nodded. “I’m sorry, but it seems that way.”

Under the coat, the body was relatively clear of blood from the head and hands, so the stab wound to the chest, right over the heart, stood out in gory relief to the white waistcoat and linen.

“Have you sent for Fielding?”

“I’ve sent to Bow Street. I asked for John Smith, should he be available. Richard, I’m so sorry. You know this was none of your fault, don’t you?”

My husband wasn’t overburdened with guilt, and he knew what he had caused and what he hadn’t, but in his son’s case guilt swamped him to the exclusion of reason. I wouldn’t have put it past the boy to kill himself to cause that result. But even John couldn’t be so eaten up by jealousy.

A murder, then.

Richard took a step, then another, bringing himself to the side of the table. He touched what was left of the left hand, turned it over. “He used to wear a ring on that hand. Do you remember if he bit his nails?”

I remembered. “Yes, he did. But he usually had them filed and manicured. He just wore them short.”

Richard gave a terse nod and laid the arm across the stomach. “An eventful life, if a short one.” He glanced up at me, his face a still mask that chilled my stomach. “It could have been me, Rose. I sometimes thought that. He had my nerve, my way of thinking.”

“Handsome, intelligent,” I finished for him. “But he lacked your integrity and your sense of justice and honour. He was half of you, Richard, not the whole.”

He reached out his hand and I went to him. I felt him tremble. “I never wanted this end for him. Pardon me, my love, but I can’t reason right now. I never meant this for him. I didn’t want him to attack me, I was trying to close him down. I went to the coffeehouses today and I believe we’ve succeeded. He’s ruined, spent all his money in pursuit of revenge, and he hasn’t found the allies he wanted. I met with Steven Drury today, and he promised to do what he could to eject John from his life. He’s visiting Julia’s father to salvage what is left of the fortune.”

The news surprised me. “He got a spine?”

“It seems so, although Julia will do her best to prevent it. Steven is travelling into the country today without telling her where he’s going, on my advice. He’ll talk quietly with Mr. Cartwright to see what they can do. Between them, they should cut her resources considerably.”

“So John would have had nothing. Perhaps that’s what happened. A creditor, or one of the bullies he associated with, turned on him.”

He stared at the body as if he couldn’t stop looking. “Maybe. But why outside our house?”

I recalled what I had thought of earlier. “It wasn’t outside the house. There’s not enough blood out there to account for the head and hands, much less the stab wound. Someone left him there.” He stared, and I let a few minutes fall before I tried to distract him from the gory sight. “That doesn’t sound like a thug to me.”

“No.” He tore his gaze away from the corpse and gave his attention to me. “It doesn’t.” Intelligence flooded back. I saw it fill his eyes, the blankness leaving him as his formidable brain ticked into action. “I saw something just now.” He dropped my hand and returned to his previous position at the side of the table, staring at the body, only this time with purpose, seeking out what he’d noticed earlier.