Return of the Viscount (11 page)

“Forgive me,” he said. “That was dark humor of the sort not used among ladies.”

“But used among soldiers,” she murmured.

“We talk often of death, as if we might keep it away with words alone.”

Her gaze remained troubled. He couldn't put the image of her out of his mind on the ride into Enfield. Was there something wrong he didn't know about?

He found Appertan and his friends at the same coaching inn taproom, and they were already in full drunken splendor. Several loose women had wisely been brought in to focus their merriment. Michael remained on the fringes, assessing each young man, and several not so young, old enough to know better but obviously hanging on to the coattails of the foolish earl. Michael felt decades older than most of the young pups.

Appertan noticed him at last, and after a weary roll of his eyes, sent over a drink. Soon, he was introducing Michael to the other men, and they all began to ask for bloodthirsty stories of fighting in the mountains of Afghanistan. He obliged them with a few, and even Appertan looked impressed. But it was difficult to talk of that time, when his regiment had been sent back to Bombay after the taking of Kabul, and those left behind were slaughtered a few years later while fleeing Afghanistan through winter mountain passes.

If Fenton, the man who'd attacked Cecilia, had been there, he'd made a quick departure before Michael could see him. As it was, Rowlandson seemed to have forgotten Michael's threats and acted as if they were old friends.

One by one, Appertan's compatriots either sank beneath a table or disappeared into a back room, where they gambled over card games and dice. Appertan himself kept studying Michael as if he wanted to say something but couldn't make up his mind. At last, he brought a brandy to Michael's table, plopping it down until it sloshed over on his hand. He laughed and licked it off, seating himself as if he were a sack of grain ready to spill open.

Michael silently saluted him with the brandy and tossed it back in one swallow.

Appertan laughed, then rested his elbows on the table and leaned forward. “So did m'sister send you to be my nanny for the evening?”

“No, in fact, she was concerned this might not be a good idea.”

Appertan sipped from his glass, nodding as if in deep contemplation, when he was probably so drunk he had to take time to formulate words. “It's a good thing you're here,” he mused, wiping at a spot of port on his chin. “If Cecilia is in fear of her life, I should keep an eye on you.”

Michael reminded himself that the other man was drunk. “What do you mean by that? Is someone threatening my wife?”

“I don't know. Are you?” Appertan hiccoughed and chuckled.

“Explain yourself.”

He raised both hands. “Calm down! They were just accidents. Cecilia knows that, really.”

“ ‘They'?” Michael stressed the words in a low rumble. “She's had more than one accident?”

“Penelope said she shouldn't have told me, but Penelope tells me everything. Seems Cecilia almost fell down the stairs a couple nights ago, caught herself on the balustrade. She probably tripped and doesn't want to admit that she could be as imperfect as the rest of us.”

Michael barely resisted taking him by the collar and giving him a shake. “Go on.”

Appertan shrugged. “Penelope said Cecilia thought something actually tripped her, but she couldn't find it. Of course not, because she just missed a step in the dark.”

Teeth clenched, Michael glowered at the foolish young man. Cecilia never exaggerated or misspoke—he already knew that about her, and if Appertan were sober, he'd remember that as well. So Cecilia felt that she'd been deliberately tripped. “She didn't fall all the way down the stairs,” Michael said slowly. “Or otherwise . . .” He restrained a rare shudder at the thought of her body broken at the bottom of the stairs.

“Or otherwise . . .” Appertan used his finger to mark a line across his throat. “She only told Penelope. I'm a little offended.” He snorted a laugh into his glass of port. “And, of course, it was an accident. Everyone
loves
Cecilia.”

He didn't bother to hide his sarcasm—or his jealousy, Michael thought. “And then the bust fell on her in the entrance hall.”

“Another accident. The maid was right there, dusting. Cecilia is just being overly dramatic.”

“And have you ever known her to be overly dramatic?” Michael demanded.

“She's a woman, after all.” He stood up unsteadily. “I'm tired of talking about her.”

Michael almost pulled him back down, but knew it was pointless to interrogate Appertan when he was drunk. “I'm heading back to Appertan Hall. Would you care to accompany me? Cecilia said the roads are hard to follow at night.”

“You're so easy to read, Blackthorne,” Appertan said, shaking his head and wearing a foolish grin. “You're just trying to get me to make an early evening of it. It's only one in the morning, and there's more fun to be had,” he added after squinting at the clock on the mantel. He slurped the last of his port before slamming down the glass. “As if a soldier couldn't find his way back on good English roads,” he muttered, walking away with a noticeable lean to one side.

Michael no longer cared if Appertan made it home. All he could think about was Cecilia alone and unprotected, fearing for her life—and maybe with good reason.

Chapter 10

C
ecilia wasn't certain what woke her. She'd been exhausted when she'd fallen asleep after an evening of pacing. Now, as she rose through the depths of slumber to awareness, something wasn't right.

She didn't open her eyes—couldn't. Her breathing was shallow with sudden fear, but she controlled it, controlled herself, when she wanted to fly from the bed.

The floor creaked. Someone was in the room, and she knew it couldn't be Nell, who hummed when she worked.

Cecilia debated what she could use as a weapon. The letter opener was on her writing desk across the room. All she had nearby was a candleholder of heavy pewter. How could she reach for it without attracting notice?

The steps didn't come closer; someone hovered, watching her, and she felt a strange, tingling awareness. She was so helpless, so vulnerable. But she couldn't lie still and simply let her assailant do as he wished. Slowly, she opened her eyes the slightest crack. She was relieved she'd left the curtains open, so that faint moonlight glimmered, giving everything a ghostly hue.

The shadowy outline of a man stood unmoving near the open dressing-room door. The moonlight reflected off something—a polished cane. Lord Blackthorne's cane.

Suddenly, he sat down in a chair and leaned his head back. His eyes were black hollows in the moon-touched planes of his harsh face. He gave a great sigh, his wide chest lifting and falling.

“You're safe,” he whispered.

Safe? Why would he say such a thing?

Her breathing calmed, and she silently berated herself for her momentary fear.

But perhaps her husband felt compelled to claim his marital rights. She had heard her friends whisper that a man
needed
a woman, that it was painful for him if he did not . . . if she didn't allow . . .

She could no longer pretend to sleep, stirring as if awakening. He stiffened but remained where he was; he didn't care if she saw him.

She came up on her elbows first, doing a masterful job of acting drowsy and confused, or so she thought. “Is someone there?”

He didn't hesitate. “I am. I did not mean to frighten you.”

She pushed up onto her hands, only realizing that her blankets had fallen around her waist when his gaze dropped down her body. Her nightgown covered her well, but it was of a fine, thin fabric, and she felt almost naked in it compared to the layers of garments she wore like a shield during the day. She pulled the blankets back up and tucked them beneath her arms, across her chest.

“Why are you here?” she asked.

“I was worried about you.” He hesitated. “It was . . . a strange feeling, one I can't explain.”

“I did not hear you knock; nor did I invite you in.” The faintest scent reached her. “I smell . . . strong spirits.” She wondered if drink lowered his every inhibition?

He grunted. “I did not drink nearly as much as your brother. Considering his thin build, I am amazed that he still functions at the end of the night.”

“He returned with you?”

“No. He said he had more entertainment to enjoy.”

“But not you?”

In the gloom, she could see the shrug of his big shoulders.

“I am too old for such pointless endeavors. And I never did like wondering what I said or did while inebriated.”

“But surely you've been in that state a time or two,” she said, scooting back to lean into her pillows.

“Every man has. And I know Appertan is still a very young man, but one with many responsibilities that he cannot continue to ignore.”

“You are a viscount, with your own responsibilities. Surely you should not have overimbibed.”

He rested his cane across his thighs. “My father was still alive when I enlisted. He was embarrassed by my decision and furious with me, but just to prove myself, I decided to drink like a man with the other soldiers.”

“You showed him,” she murmured, fighting to keep from smiling.

He sighed. “I certainly did. I wasn't even ten miles from home. We drank so much and brawled to show our fighting prowess that the tavern owner complained to our company sergeant. The man had great pride in wearing the uniform and thought little of someone who dishonored it. And I was wearing my uniform—when you're enlisted, you have to, at all times.”

“But surely a few drunken soldiers weren't all that unusual.”

“But I was a drunken baron, my courtesy title. The sergeant dragged my ass—forgive me—he dragged me back to my father and threatened to discharge me then and there.”

She winced. “And proud man that you are, I imagine you did not take well to that.”

“I was humiliated, and it was all my own fault. Never again did I embarrass myself that way.” He hesitated. “It was the last time I ever saw my father. I inherited the viscountcy six months later, when he had an apoplexy and died.”

“I'm sorry your last memory was a poor one. Surely he was proud of you, that your letters—”

“It was six months before I arrived in India. By the time I posted my first letter, he was already dead.”

She shouldn't speak, but the words tumbled out of her. “I hope the letter informing you of his death was as kind as yours was to me.”

Old sorrows hung between them like laundry abandoned on the line.

“I only spoke the truth about Lord Appertan,” he said quietly. “He was a great man.”

She thought of Lord Blackthorne's many letters to her since, asking how she did, telling her of his daily life without revealing much bloodshed. But she had begun to know his letters well, and could read between the lines, the tension of a border dispute, the endless waiting and worry when he'd sent a detachment into danger. He'd not been sentimental or full of flowery phrases, but clear and concise and reliable.

Such a man could not want her dead. He would have had to plan it from the moment of her father's death, crafting his letters to appeal to her, planning to visit her all along.

Squeezing her eyes shut, she leaned back into the pillow with a sigh.

“You are tired,” Lord Blackthorne said as he rose.

She tried not to tense, remembering how he'd touch her—how she'd allowed it, dwelled on the sensation. He limped toward the dressing-room door.

“Good night, my lord,” she called softly.

“Sleep well,” he answered, and shut the door behind him.

She told herself she was relieved.

A
t dawn, Michael walked the rolling hills of the Appertan estate, needing to exhaust himself each day just to sleep at night. He'd never imagined that being so close to a woman would enthrall him, having thought himself above such weakness. But no, his wife was like a siren to a sailor, luring him in even though it might not end well.

And now she might be in danger, and every protective instinct in him demanded that he spend the nights with her now, but she would only think he wanted to bed her. When he'd stood above her, saw her sleeping peacefully, a great weight had felt like it crushed his chest, filling him with an aching tenderness and worry and a helplessness he wasn't used to feeling.

She was his; he would protect her with his life. He'd been naïve to think that making himself a husband in name only, from the other side of the world, wouldn't change him or his life. Her sweet letters had drawn him in, until he couldn't stop wondering about the real woman behind the words, the one who needed money to protect herself and her people when her brother couldn't do it. The moment Michael had been ordered to recover in England, he hadn't protested, not one bit. He'd wanted to meet her, this woman who thought she had all the answers. And she hadn't disappointed him.

But Cecilia didn't want him, or the devotion of a husband, and he wasn't the sort of man to force himself on a woman, regardless of his rights by law.

It might have begun with words on paper, with her kindness toward a lonely soldier. She'd put aside her own pain, and now he knew she did that for everyone she cared for, from family to servants. Her fright at almost dying beneath a shattered bust didn't matter as much as the poor maid's fears of being let go. She gave up her chance at a normal young lady's life to help her brother. And someone might be repaying her kindness by trying to kill her. By not thinking of herself first, didn't she increase the danger?

She'd had two accidents, so minor that she only mentioned her concerns to Penelope. But the fact that she felt any sort of trepidation made him believe her, for she wasn't the type of woman to imagine things. He'd almost told her what he knew, then thought better of it. She wouldn't want his help, and if she forbade him from looking into it, he'd only anger her by going against her wishes. So for now, he would keep silent, helping her behind the scenes, keeping her safe, trying to find out if there was anyone who might wish her harm.

And the first one to question would be her brother.

The people closest to the victim were often the ones involved. And Appertan certainly had the most motive: Cecilia controlled everything he owned. Under his permission, yes, but what if he was beginning to chafe? With the approach of his twenty-first birthday and the withdrawal of his guardianship, perhaps he thought it wouldn't be so easy to dissuade Cecilia. What if he didn't give a damn about his responsibilities, his estates—and he'd certainly shown that so far—and simply wanted access to whatever money he could? For all Michael knew, Appertan was not only a drunk but a gambler, as so many young men were. Most would simply ignore the wishes of his sister, but Cecilia was a powerful force—a representative of their father, whom Appertan had disappointed.

But for now, he would question Appertan about other suspects and see what happened. Michael went to the kitchens first, and the respectful cook followed his directions and mixed him up the soldier's antidote to a night spent drinking. Then he carried the foul-smelling glass to Appertan's apartment, pushing past the protective valet, who insisted that ten in the morning was far too early to awaken the earl.

Appertan was sprawled across the turned-down bed, his clothing askew, boots placed neatly on the floor—due to the valet, Michael presumed. The room stank of alcohol, and Appertan snored louder than the worst military band.

Michael set down his glass on the bed table, then shook the other man's shoulder. Appertan didn't even stop snoring.

“He is a sound sleeper,” said the valet from the dressing-room doorway.

“A bad trait in my line of work.” Michael shook him harder, tempted to toss a pitcher of water in his face.

At last, Appertan frowned and sputtered and stirred, blearily opening one eye, then closing it again. “Go 'way.”

“I'm not going anywhere. I need to talk to you about Cecilia. And I brought you something that will help you recover.”

Appertan tried to drag a pillow over his head as he rolled over, but Michael pulled him back.

“Do you want me to feed you like a child? We need to discuss something important!” He spoke each word with clipped force.

After several more threats from Appertan about expelling Michael from the castle, the young man at last sat up and reluctantly took a sip of the thick liquid.

He gagged. “What the hell—!”

“Plug your nose if you have to, but get it down.”

Appertan choked and gasped until it was all in his stomach, where it only remained for several minutes, until his eyes went wide, and he ran for the chamber pot.

Michael was waiting patiently beside the bed as Appertan collapsed on it.

“You're trying to kill me!” the earl groaned.

“If I were trying to kill you, you'd be dead. You're an easy target. I need to talk to you about who might be targeting your sister.”

“It's all in her head.” Appertan clutched his own and moaned softly.

“Even
I
know she would never imagine something like this. Talk to me. This is important.”

At last, the other man allowed his valet to fluff his pillows, where he reclined with a sigh, crossed his arms over his chest, and glared at Michael. “You really think someone is trying to kill Cecilia? It's just—preposterous!”

“Maybe. I hope you're right. But I'm not willing to take that chance. Now get yourself together and think.”

Appertan gave a dramatic sigh. “Really—who would have anything against Cecilia?”

“She's taken on a man's role, and there are some who don't appreciate it.”

Appertan stiffened. “What are you saying?”

“I don't know—I'm talking out loud, trying to come up with a reason someone would resent her. Any disturbance with servants? Any let go recently?”

He closed his eyes. “Not that I know of. But as long as the staff functions well, I don't pay attention.”

“Because Cecilia does,” Michael said dryly. But there was an edge to Appertan's voice that seemed . . . wrong, but he couldn't place why. Perhaps there was something to the idea of a problem with servants.

“The household is always a woman's domain,” Appertan shot back.

“You're right. I'll have to speak with someone more knowledgeable about that.”

“What about Cecilia? Have you talked with her?”

“No. She hasn't confided in me, and I don't want to make our tentative relationship worse.”

Appertan narrowed his eyes. “Perhaps I should ask about your relationship.”

“I understand your suspicions. You and I are both closest to her, and anyone seriously investigating would think we both have motive. But I've asked nothing of her, so what motive could I have?”

“And I've asked for her help—why would I want to make my life harder?”

Michael crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at Appertan. Was he telling the truth? He didn't know the man all that well, and what he knew he didn't particularly respect. But attempting to murder one's own sister? It seemed . . . far-fetched.