Swept Away By a Kiss (36 page)

She snapped awake entirely, the images of her last moments of consciousness crashing back. Her frantic glance scanned the room, her head spinning with grogginess.

“Who was the man in the corridor, Mabel? Do you have the papers?”

“I hid them in the window box, mum. I thought it the best place if someone came looking.”

Guarded relief washed through Valerie. “But who was the man who saw me fall?”

“Mr. Flemming.” Mabel folded her arms across her chest, narrowing her eyes.

“Mr. Flemming? Are you certain?”

Mabel nodded. “He helped me bring you in here. When I thanked him and told him it were better he left, he started asking about those papers, if he could see them and how you’d got them.”

A cold shiver raced across Valerie’s shoulders. “What did you say to him?”

“I told him it were your business and I didn’t know; then I thanked him again and shut the door. Locked it too. Did I do well?”

Valerie forced a smile. “Very well. You are a born adventurer.” She pushed back the covers and swung her legs over the edge of the bed, muddled but determined. Steven said he would be gone only for the day. Valerie wanted to be ready the moment he returned to Castlemarch. She didn’t look forward to encountering Lord Hannsley, even though he could not possibly suspect her of stealing the documents. He hadn’t any reason to believe she and the Viscount of Ashford had any particular relationship. At least Steven’s diffidence toward her during the past sennight was good for something.

She swallowed down the thickness in her throat, and pushed away from the bed. “Mabel, please ring up a bath for me.”

“Right, mum. But first you might wish to—that is—”

“What? Haven’t you told me everything?” Valerie’s stomach tensed.

Mabel took a visibly fortifying breath. “Nothing we can’t do something about, milady.” She shoved a hand mirror beneath Valerie’s chin.

“Dear me,” she muttered, cringing at the bruise smudging her neck just above the collarbone, a bruise the exact size and shape of Lord Hannsley’s open mouth. “Do bring that bath up right away, Mabel. I feel the need to wash thoroughly.” She turned toward the window box. “And lay out the green pinstripe muslin. I feel a chill in the air today. I think I will be most comfortable in a high-necked gown.”

Sodden and pocked with ditches, the road from London wasn’t any easier to negotiate under the afternoon sun than it had been in the icy gray of dawn traveling in the opposite direction. But Steven urged Tristan along it as though the hounds of hell chased at his heels.

Alistair was betraying him. Men all over town held Alistair’s vowels, some men of honor, but most of them not. Steven’s solicitor, Farthing, had discovered that Alistair was in debt to at least fifteen thousand pounds, and he owed the largest debt to Clifford Hannsley.

He had borrowed money from Hannsley for more than a year to pay his gambling losses. He’d even performed a few unsavory tasks for the marquess in some of London’s rougher hells. The most damning piece of news Farthing found, though, was that Hannsley had recently sold Alistair’s debts to the sharks. The seedy loan agents were preparing to collect, already looking to the Earl and Countess of March as surety.

Tristan’s hooves skidded across an icy patch. Steven steadied the horse, then urged him faster. Time was short. He would return to Castlemarch and force Alistair to tell him what Hannsley knew. Then he would blackmail him into turning on the marquess. The threat of Lord and Lady March discovering their nephew’s villainy would be enough to make Alistair succumb. Dirty business, but necessary.

As the road rushed by beneath him, Steven made careful calculations, figuring every detail, every word, every gesture that would assure him success. But for the first time in his life filled with such scripting and staging, his thoughts kept straying.

The truth gripped his belly. His urgent need to be back at Castlemarch had little to do with Alistair, or even with bringing Hannsley to justice. All of that could wait until the holiday party drew to a close. It would be safer for his godparents that way, and easier not to disturb any of the other guests.

Steven needed Valerie. He needed her more than air, more than freedom and destiny and wisdom combined. And when he had her with him again, he would tell her everything.

She was fearless, passionate, and quick-witted, with an open heart despite the hurt she had suffered for so many years. Steven could not bear wounding her again, and he would not be without her for another day. The hours since he had held her in his arms felt like thirst upon the ocean. He could not resist any longer.

It was time to find out if she could accept him for who he truly was.

Lord and Lady March invited their guests to help distribute Boxing Day gifts to the servants. Valerie went out in a carriage to the tenant farms, relieved the Marquess of Hannsley was not present. But impatience skimmed through her blood. Steven would return within a few hours. It could not be soon enough.

As though waiting for her to return, Mr. Flemming stopped her in the hall as soon as she entered the house.

“I hope you are well, my lady.” His sober face creased with concern.

“I am glad to meet you here, sir,” she spoke her words smoothly. “Thank you for your assistance last night. My maid told me you appeared at the precise moment she needed help. I am grateful.”

He bowed. “I mean no disrespect, ma’am, but you seemed to have an air of haste about you. I am concerned you might have been fleeing something—or someone—displeasing to you.” The pupils of his eyes were pinpoints of intensity. “May I offer assistance?”

Valerie forced a smile. “How valiant you are, Mr. Flemming.” She laughed. “But I assure you, fiendish pursuers are not threatening me. Rather, I am in danger of Lord March’s potent Christmas punch. I drank far too much and lost my way in the corridors.” She lowered her lashes as if embarrassed. Then she smiled, wished him a pleasant day, and fled.

Dropping into a chair in the library, she slapped a trembling hand over her brow and drew in a breath. Remaining calm under Alistair Flemming’s skeptical gaze took all her powers of dissembling. He had looked at her so peculiarly, as though he knew what she had done. But he couldn’t know. How could he?

Valerie glanced at the mantel clock. It was not yet four o’clock, hours until Steven was likely to return, if he indeed made it back to the castle at all before the end of the day. In the meantime, Mr. Flemming might seek her out again, or she might meet Lord Hannsley.

Her neck prickled. She tried to rub it off, but the sticky feeling of helplessness clung. She wanted Steven back quickly, but not so he could protect her from the danger in which she had willingly put herself. She was foolish not to have planned her next maneuver.

She felt vulnerable waiting for Lord Hannsley’s interrogation, and the same waiting for Steven to put his stamp of approval upon her accomplishment. She despised feeling that way. And she hated that even though he said he trusted her, he was not acting upon it now. When he might have asked her for help, he told her not to get involved yet again.

Nausea swirled in Valerie’s belly as she pressed back the horribly familiar sensations, the same pathetic feeling of irrelevance she had suffered each time she tried to win the earl’s attention.

She stood up abruptly. She would devise a new plan, one that would not depend upon a man. This time she would rely upon her own talents entirely.

The Countess of March sat at her dressing room secretaire, a pug nestled in her lap, when Valerie found her.

“Do come in, Lady Valerie. I hope you are enjoying the festivities.” She gestured Valerie to an upholstered chair.

“Oh, yes. I suspect your other guests feel the same. In fact,” she plunged on, “I have come to ask you about one of those guests.”

The countess quirked a brow. “My godson still eludes understanding?”

“Well, perhaps a bit. But he is not the man who piques my curiosity at this particular moment. Although he does hold my interest at most others.”

A smile twinkled in the countess’s eyes.

“My dear girl, you are priceless. No other young lady would dare say such a thing to me. But you have no fear and, I’ll merit, no falseness in you either.” She sat back. “Now, who must you know about this time?”

“Lord Hannsley.” Valerie chose her words carefully. “You see, I do not think I trust him.”

“Why on earth would you expect to?” came the instant reply.

Valerie stuttered, “Well, he is a gentleman, and a guest in your home.”

The countess studied Valerie, stroking the pug’s wrinkled neck.

“I suspect you already know that not all of the Captain’s and my guests come with our endorsements of character approval, don’t you?”

“I had guessed.”

“And what else have you guessed, clever girl?”

“It’s not so much that I have guessed, as I have seen and been informed about Vicar Oakley and Mrs. Hodge, and your involvement with Lord March in certain activities that would not be looked upon with sympathy in certain polite circles.”

“Certain polite circles, I like that. You turn a pretty phrase, Lady Valerie. No wonder I have heard so many accolades of you.” The countess chuckled, then her regard sharpened. “Let’s have no more talking around the matter, my girl. What do you want of me and how is Hannsley involved?”

Clearly Steven had not told his godmother about the marquess and the documents. Valerie took a breath and clasped her hands. For this piece of her plan to succeed, Lady March must know more than Steven wished. But that would simply be his price for having mistrusted her.

“It seems that last night Lord Hannsley made—shall we say?—unwelcome overtures toward my
maid
. She was somewhere she probably should not have been, seeking certain documents that really are not any of her business, but for truly admirable purposes, rest assured. In any case, she chastised him suitably, then acquired the papers without his discovery.”

Lady March’s eyes narrowed. “Did she? And?”

“Well,” Valerie went on, “at the risk of behaving in a shamefully
outré
manner—”

“A risk which you are more than willing to take,” the countess murmured, a smile lifting the corners of her mouth.

“—and offending my hostess, I wonder if one might somehow encourage Lord Hannsley to prematurely depart from Castlemarch? For the protection of my maid, of course, not to mention the documents she borrowed from him.”

The countess’s look remained blank for a moment. Finally she spoke.

“I suspect that another gentleman here at Castlemarch may consider a dismissal of that sort to be inconsistent with his own desires.”

“The gentleman to whom you refer is absent for the day, and in any case does not yet know the full extent of my maid’s involvement. My lady,” Valerie added with a lift of one brow, “perhaps you are familiar with that irritating characteristic of so many of our noble gentlemen, their tendency to underestimate us.”

“Both our courage and our competency,” the countess clipped, setting a decisive pat upon the pug’s head. “The Captain will never see reason where a woman’s capability is concerned, especially his wife’s. Something about a man being in love clouds his better judgment.”

Valerie caught her breath. The countess’s knowing gaze sparkled.

“Tell me your plan and what you have already accomplished, my girl,” Lady March said. “Be quick about it. If I understand correctly, I suspect we’ve little time to see that matters go as you wish, and not as our fine marquess does.”

Chapter 33

THE MOST HONBLE. THE MARQUESS OF HANNSLEY

CASTLEMARCH, DERBYSHIRE

My lord,

The Prince has discovered your treasonous business interests in the Colonies. He has sent a spy to your present location to find you out. You may expect her in the guise of a lady’s maid.

An Interested Party
London

The butler took furlough for the servants’ holiday, so the task of collecting the wine for dinner fell to the Earl of March. Descending into the castle’s cellars, he offered his guests a guided tour. Dark and cool, the long, narrow corridors of golden Chablis, rich Burgundies, ruby-red clarets, strong ports, and dark Highland scotches wound in labyrinthine twists and turns beneath the medieval core of the castle, illumined by wall sconces.