Shirley Kerr (17 page)

“Yes, we do.” She turned to leave, but he caught her hand and raised it for a kiss. Tingles raced up her arm at the intimate contact of his lips on her bare skin. She tugged free and left before he could see the heat stealing across her cheeks.

She felt his stare following her all the way to the town house and up the stairs, until she closed the front door behind her.

She leaned against the door for a few moments to regain her composure. Silly reaction, just silly. If she wasn’t careful, she’d soon be as much a goose as Marianne.

Her solitude lasted mere seconds, as maids and a
footman crossed the hall in pursuit of their duties. She took a deep breath and began the painful climb up the stairs. It would take a little bit of convincing, but Nick would not press the issue, and she felt certain she could bring Alistair around to her way of thinking. If nothing else, she’d point out how unsuitable she’d be as a duchess. She was not going to marry him. She was going to get back the snuffbox.

She was halfway up the second flight of stairs when the drawing room door was flung open and Steven stomped into the hall, fists on his hips. “Charlie, where the hell have you been all night?”

S
he schooled her expression to one of polite inquiry. “I thought you were going down to Lost Wages. What happened?”

“Don’t try to change the subject. I want to know where you’ve been.”

She mirrored his posture, planting her fists on her hips, and raised her chin. “Since you chose to ignore my theory,
again
, I followed up on the lead myself.”

Instead of appearing suitably chastened, he looked more incensed. “
What
lead?”

One of them had to remain cool-headed. Since she had been proven correct, she could afford to be magnanimous. “About Sir Nigel having the snuffbox.”

His eyes widened in horror. “You spent the night following Nigel?”

“Of course not. It only took a little while to confirm
that the coach I saw the snuffbox thief get into the previous night belongs to one of Sir Nigel’s known associates. They’re conspiring together.”

He scowled. “And the rest of the night?”

Yes, about the rest of the night…“When I finished, it was late, and since I was much closer to the docks than home, I spent the night on the
Wind Dancer
. Nick sends his best, by the way.” It was getting disturbingly easy, this lying by omission.

Steven scrubbed his fingers through his hair. “Damn it, Charlie, this is London, not Paris, and the war is over. There are rules here, and Society expects you to abide by them. What would the duke think?”

Society, not to mention the duke, would no doubt frown upon her spending the night sleeping atop the viscount. Society and the duke need never know. “When did you start caring so much about the rules?”

A maid walked down the hall just then, innocently going about her duties. Steven lowered his voice once she was out of sight, though his anger had not subsided. “You gave me a scare. You could have at least left a note.”

“I didn’t think you’d be home to see a note, and besides, I didn’t expect to be gone all night. What happened at Lost Wages?”

He sighed, and gestured for her to come into the drawing room. “I’ll have a breakfast tray brought up, and we can compare notes. Fair enough? Or did Nick already feed you?”

She shook her head. “He let me sleep until it was almost time for them to cast off.” It was slightly easier to
walk down the stairs than up, and she thought she was doing well.

Steven clamped his hand on her shoulder as she stepped past him in the doorway. “Why are you limping?”

She grimaced. “I…slipped and fell.” She stopped short of offering any more details, since Steven would see through that as an obvious lie.

“Should I send for a doctor?”

She shook off his hand and headed for the fireplace. “It’s just a bruise. I’ll be fine in a few days.” She held her hands out in front of the fire. She wasn’t cold, hadn’t been since waking up with Alistair, but this was a good reason to not sit down just yet.

To her relief, Steven did not press the issue, but instead rang the bell pull and requested a breakfast tray for two. They indulged in idle chitchat until the tray had been brought and they were alone again. Charlotte gingerly perched on the edge of the sofa and poured tea for both of them. “You first.”

Steven scowled after taking a sip, but Charlotte knew his bitterness was not because of the tea.

“You were right. Jennison, the gaming hell manager, did have several snuffboxes for us to choose from, but not the one we were after.” He removed the covers from the tray and dug into the eggs and ham.

She could gloat, but as she ate a bite of the ham, she was surprised to find herself wishing for candied plums. And cheese. Fed to her by Alistair.

It had to have been the brandy, not to mention the blood loss, that made her bold enough to touch her tongue to his thumb last night. With any luck, he too blamed her
behavior on the brandy. Especially when she’d patted the mattress beside her and invited him to join her in bed.

Good heavens, no wonder he thought she was compromised. Her judgment certainly had been, though her virtue was still very much intact, thanks to Alistair’s gentlemanly behavior. Had he been tempted at all? He hadn’t even tried to steal a kiss, and had done everything possible under the circumstances to protect her modesty. Or did he think of her only as a partner in their subterfuge?

She realized she had been staring at the same forkful of meat, and Steven was staring at her. She cleared her throat. “So what did you do? Tell him none of the snuffboxes were to your liking?”

He shrugged. “We’d been playing for more than an hour before he arrived. We debated over the choices while we played, and it didn’t take long to make it seem as though we’d lost too much to buy any trinkets. He wished us better luck next time.” He took another bite. “Bow Street should have a jolly good time if they ever go in there—some really high-end stolen merchandise passes through the back room every night. And most items are small enough to fit in your reticule.”

“So it’s true, they have thieves all over the city selling to them?”

“Not the kind you’d expect. I saw Madame Melisande, and she appeared to be bargaining with Jennison over two vinaigrettes and a fan.”

“She was buying?”

Steven shook his head. “Selling. It would seem her
favors as a mistress don’t pay as well as she’d like, and this is how she keeps up appearances. Saw a couple of other women just like her as the night wore on, doing the same thing, not to mention a few dandies. Apparently those pink-and-yellow-striped silk waistcoats cost more than I thought.”

He polished off his meal. “So. Your turn. Tell me about this lead you followed. Who’s working with Sir Nigel?”

“Well, to begin with, I discovered his business partner Tumblety is actually our old friend Toussaint.”

Steven slammed his cup to the tray hard enough to make the silverware dance. “I should have killed him when I had the chance.”

“You almost didn’t survive your last encounter with him.” She’d now have a scar to mark her encounter with the traitor, just as Steven did.

Steven scrubbed his hands across his face. “All right. Keep going.”

“There isn’t much else to tell. I climbed up to the balcony to break into his study to get the snuffbox, but our friends from Darconia were already there, rifling his desk. I thought he would be at Lost Wages with you, but he surprised us all. The Darconians and I leaped over the balcony and the garden gate. They ran in one direction, I ran in the other, and stayed with Nick.”

“You’re supposed to be dancing at balls, not climbing balconies.” He leaned back, stretched his arms over his head. “I should pay a call on Nick. It’s been a while since he and I chatted.”

She wasn’t deceived by her brother’s casual tone. She
made sure not to look away from his steady gaze. “That will be a bit difficult, seeing as he’s halfway down the Thames by now. Said he’d be back in a fortnight or so.”

Which was exactly how long she had to retrieve the snuffbox, jilt Alistair, and start getting her own assignments from Lord Q.

When the door knocker sounded at two, Charlotte was already in the foyer, tying the ribbons to her short-brimmed bonnet. The butler opened the door to admit Alistair, who stood on the threshold, hat in his hands.

As though he’d never before seen her, his gaze was riveted on her face, the way she imagined he studied a newly discovered astronomical object. After several heartbeats, his eyes drifted down, slowly traveling the length of her body and back up, his mouth softening.

The smoldering heat in his eyes startled her, and something intense flared deep inside her. Her pulse quickened, even as her hands stilled in the act of tying her ribbons.

“Allow me.” Alistair’s smooth baritone voice washed over her like a caress as he slid the ribbons from her nerveless fingers and tied a neat bow beneath her chin. His kid gloves were indeed soft as butter when he brushed against the bare skin of her throat.

If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was besotted. Quite puzzling. She couldn’t even attribute his reaction to the sight of her bosom, since she’d chosen a high-necked walking gown of Pomona green muslin with a matching spencer. She wanted no flesh on display, no visible reminders of last night.

If Steven saw them now, he’d have no doubt their engagement was the result of a love match. And if Alistair kept looking at her that way, she might come to believe it herself.

But Steven was still upstairs, discussing financial matters with Aunt Hermione. For whose benefit was Alistair playacting the smitten suitor?

He held one arm out for her and gestured over his shoulder. “Shall we, my dear?”

She gave herself a mental shake, and placed her hand in the crook of his arm. “Farnham, should anyone inquire, I’m just going for a turn about the square.”

“Very good, miss.”

They were quiet on the short walk to the park in the center of the square and past its gates. She felt a twinge of envy at the sight of a governess with her two young charges, happily seated as they all were on a bench beneath the elm tree. It would be days before she could sit comfortably.

“Shall we keep walking?”

She sighed. “That’s probably for the best.”

He waited until they were past the children and their governess and had relative privacy. Goodness, now he looked so serious, as though he’d recently received bad news. She felt a hint of apprehension.

“Last night could have gone quite badly,” he began.

Last night had certainly been no stroll through the park, for at least one of them. She refrained from expressing her sarcasm aloud, willing to let him get off his chest whatever was so important.

“You escaped with a relatively minor injury. Had his aim been better, it could have been…fatal.” Alistair paused, as though the words caused him pain.

She
was the one who’d been shot. All he’d had to do was run.

Oh, and carry her, and clean up the blood, and stitch her up. Though that couldn’t have been all that pleasant—she’d had to stitch one of Steven’s knife wounds once, and had cast up her accounts immediately afterward. Last night she remembered feeling grateful that Alistair had not felt the need to do the same.

He stopped beneath the shade of a massive oak tree, which had probably been growing since King Charles’s reign. Alistair took her hands in both of his and led her off the path, closer to the tree trunk. She had no choice but to meet his steady gaze, his eyes seeming as if they could see right through her, looking as serious as a vicar at an open grave.

The last meal she’d eaten was a cold, heavy lump in her stomach.

“You must admit this task is more dangerous than you counted on. Too dangerous.” He stroked his thumbs across the backs of her hands. “I want you to come home with me while you recover.”

She immediately thought back to this morning and how pleasant it had been to wake up held in Alistair’s arms. Warm, safe, protected. Cherished, even. But that had just been wishful thinking, a fleeting fancy. And the aftereffects of too much brandy.

She was sober and clear-headed now. “Do I really need to tell you how improper that would be?”

He gave an impatient shake of his head. “Not home here, in London. I mean home, in Keswick. The Lake District. My family’s coach is well sprung, so your discomfort on the journey would be minimal. You could recuperate at Moncreiffe Hall in peace. Spend the nights with me up on the roof, studying the sky. Sleep late, and spend the afternoons going on long walks on the park grounds, or around the lakes. There are plenty of shops in the village, and Scotland is not far.”

She took a moment to envision what he described, and shook her head to clear it of the folly. “That’s—I think I’m flattered. Because I’m fairly sure you didn’t mean any insult, suggesting an arrangement that would make it look as though I were your mistress.”

“Mistress?” His brows rose in shock. “No, no. Blast, I’m making a muddle of this.” He reached up to rub his forehead, her hand still tucked in his. He took a deep breath and dropped his hand back to a more comfortable level for her. “You and I, we’re already engaged. I’m suggesting that we follow our engagement through to its natural conclusion.”

She couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t be suggesting what she thought he was suggesting. He tilted his head, frowning at her in concern, and she remembered to inhale.

“The natural conclusion of our arrangement, my lord, is for me to jilt you. That is what we agreed upon, from the very beginning. For us to tell everyone we do not suit. Nothing has changed.”

“Nothing changed? Everything has changed!”

“The only thing that has changed since last night is that Toussaint now knows at least two groups of people
are trying to wrest the snuffbox from his possession.” The fact that Alistair was now acquainted with the location of nearly all her freckles, or that she had spent the night resting on his powerful chest and muscular thighs—shown to great advantage in the buff breeches he was wearing now—did not change anything, either.

He squeezed her hands. “You could have been killed last night.”

“But I wasn’t.”

A sound escaped his throat that sounded suspiciously like a growl. “You stubborn woman. You do not comprehend the effect your death would have had on your aunt or your brother, do you? Or on me?” He let go her hands in order to remove his hat and run his fingers through his hair, disheveling the light brown locks. “How could you, when I barely comprehend it myself?” He put his hat back on and stepped closer, one hand cupping her jaw, his thumb rubbing across her cheek.

Charlotte fought the urge to lean into his caress.

“Let me take care of you, Charlotte. Once we are married, you won’t have to worry about what Steven wants, or proving yourself to Lord Q, or to anyone else. Apart from what I stand to inherit, I’ve already come into my trust fund, so your lack of dowry doesn’t signify. I can support you in grand style. We can be quite comfortable together, you and I.”

The touch of his hand was almost unbearable in its tenderness, his words softly seductive. But he was asking her to give up everything she’d ever hoped for, dreamed of, planned for. Worked for. She could not give in.