The Charmer (19 page)

Despite her reservations, she
stood by the arch. Orlando was intent on searching Monk's pack. Twice she
turned to see if he'd found something, but he continued to rummage through the
contents, checking each item thoroughly before placing it to one side. On her
third glance, he'd stopped rummaging and his nimble fingers skimmed across
seams, along the leather straps.

"Ah." The word was so
soft she almost missed it.

"You found something?"

He pointed at the arch.
"Keep watching."

She did but had to grind her
teeth from telling him it was not his place to order her about. Her ears
strained to listen but she could only hear the wind rustling the leaves.

"He's coming," she
hissed when Monk emerged from the stables.

"Stay there if he's seen
you," Orlando said. "If you move now, he'll grow suspicious."

"I don't like this,"
she said. "I wish we'd left him alone."

"I'm glad we didn't."
He was right beside her, his voice soft in her ear. He stood near the wall so
that Monk wouldn't be able to see him until he was through the arch. Orlando's
hand touched her hip, reassuringly heavy.

"Why? What did you
find?"

But he moved away and returned to
the canvases dumped on the ground.

Monk smiled at Susanna as he neared
the arch. "Your stables are interesting," he said. At her quizzical
look, his smile widened. "It has only one horse but a lot of crates and
boxes. I hope you don't mind, but I looked in one. Will you satisfy a simple
man's curiosity and tell me what's in the jars?"

Simple
? Mr. Monk was not simple.
Everything about him was a puzzle. He spoke with a cultured, educated accent
yet occasionally a word slipped through that made him sound like a stable hand.
Like Orlando, he wasn't afraid to work hard and get dirty, something she found
most of the upper classes didn't want to do. And when he smiled, it didn't
quite reach his eyes. There was a faraway sadness amid their determined depths
but only when he thought no one was looking.

It seemed she had two mysterious
men on her hands.

"Most of it is orange
marmalade," she said. "Cook and I make it from the fruit harvested
from those trees." She nodded at the orange trees where Orlando worked. He
lifted his head and frowned. She could tell he was warring with himself over
approaching them. It must be torture standing there, wondering what they were
saying. Yet he stayed.

"
Orange
marmalade," Monk said. "So that's what those trees are. I wondered
why you were going to great lengths to protect them. It's fortunate you have
help." He nodded at Orlando. "Those canvases are awkward."

"Very fortunate," she
said, quietly.

"Forgive me, Lady Lynden,
but I need to ask...where is your man from?"

"Why do you
need
to
ask, Mr. Monk?"

"Because the distrust goes
both ways, I assure you."

"You don't trust him? Why
not?" She wasn't sure she wanted an answer, but she felt compelled to hear
Monk's reasoning.

Trusting Orlando had just become
one of the most difficult things to do, yet the most important. She wanted to
trust him, desperately. When she lay in his arms she'd had no doubts. Not a
single one. How could a man lie to a woman after he'd looked into her eyes with
such intensity as he entered her? There'd been a raw openness in his gaze, and
she knew with every piece of soul that their lovemaking had affected him as
much as it had affected her. She would have staked Stoneleigh on it.

But in the light of day, the
shadows of his lie and his nocturnal wanderings had remained when the shadows
of night had fled. The feeling that she'd been manipulated would not leave.

"He seems too good to be
true," Monk explained.

She had to laugh at that. In a
way, it was the essence of her own reasoning. How could such a handsome, clever
man with a dazzling wit and powerful presence be a mere gardener? Surely the
Maker had something more in mind for him. "He worked in a manor house
called Collier Dean in Sussex," she said, careful not to look at Orlando
as she spoke.

"Where was he born? Who was
his father?"

She tensed. "I was satisfied
with his credentials and his terms of employment, and didn't ask. I don't find
it necessary to pry."

"My apologies, I didn't mean
to offend you. But...Lady Lynden, I urge you to ask more questions about his
background. The credentials you speak of came from his lips, I assume. Did he
have a letter of introduction from his master at Collier Dean?"

"That is not your concern,
Mr. Monk." It was a pathetic response, but she could think of no other.

"You're right, and it's not.
However, you shouldn't employ someone you know little about."

"Like you, you mean?"

He nodded his head once,
conceding her point. "All I'm suggesting is that if I were a woman alone I
would not trust any pretty face that presents himself."

"Come now, Mr. Monk, I would
hardly call yourself pretty. Handsome, yes."

He laughed. "Quick of wit
and
beautiful, I see."

Her face heated and she looked
away.

"My apologies, I didn't mean
to embarrass you."

"Thank you for your concern about
Mr. Holt, but it's unfounded."

"You have reason to trust him?
I'm glad to hear it."

She
wished
she had a
reason to believe Orlando. There was, however, one thing she knew he was not
guilty of. "No doubt you heard about the intruder here the other night and
think Mr. Holt is to blame."

He lifted one shoulder. "I
suppose so."

"Then you're mistaken. Mr.
Holt could not have been the intruder. He was at my side as the man ran away.
He could not possibly be in two places at once."

"No, of course not." He
gave a perfunctory bow. "My apologies, I can see you are a formidable
woman. But if you find your gardener is...not what he seems, you know where to
find me." He walked off before she could ask what he meant.

Susanna followed him and received
a loaded glare from Orlando when he looked up from the canvas he was rolling. A
blankness quickly closed over his face and he threw the canvas at Monk.
"Think you can carry two?"

Monk held out both arms, the
canvas balanced on top of them. "Pile on another. I'll need to rearrange
them in the stables, and make more space. Could take awhile."

"Take your time."

Monk left the garden carrying both
of the heavy canvases as if they weighed nothing.

"What were you two talking
about?" Orlando asked her when he was out of earshot.

"That's between Mr. Monk and
myself."

He took a step closer and she
swallowed. The look in his eyes was primal. The boyish humor had vanished, the
dimples too. She shivered and rubbed her arms. But it wasn't fear that rippled
through her, it was passion. Bold, fierce. Raw.

He was looking at her the same
way. As if he would take her right there, on the damp ground, and stake his
claim.

God help her, she would have let
him too. She wanted him like she'd never wanted any man. But just as quickly as
the change had come over him, it vanished. He stepped back, the storm clouds
chased from his eyes as he stared at her in dazed confusion. It was as if he'd
been in a trance or a dream and suddenly woken.

He turned and strode to the last
orange tree where he remained, his back to her.

Orlando tried to breathe. It
wasn't easy. His chest felt too tight to contain his wildly beating heart and
his skin felt hot all over, especially at his groin. He closed his eyes, but
all he could see in the darkness was Susanna touching Monk's arm and the cur
laughing at something she said.

Hell. He wasn't supposed to feel
like this.

"Will you come to me
tonight?" she murmured in his ear.

He opened his eyes and drew the
cold, sharp air into his chest. "Do you still want me to?"

"Of course."

"Then I will." There'd
never been any doubt on that score. Not on his part. His relief at hearing the
eagerness in her voice was immeasurable.

"He'll be back soon,"
she said. "What did you find in his pack?"

"There was a letter of
introduction addressed to Lord Lynden from Lord Whipple slipped inside a
partially opened seam."

"Lord Whipple? Monk's
previous employer?"

"Possibly."

"Did it contain anything of
note about Mr. Monk? Anything that may allude to him being untrustworthy?"

The last traces of the fog that
had engulfed Orlando lifted. He finally remembered where he'd heard Lord Whipple's
name before. A chill prickled his scalp and made the hairs on the back of his
neck rise. "The letter contained very little of use, but it did reveal a
prior connection between Monk and Lynden. It seems they knew each other years
ago, but Whipple informed Lynden that Monk had changed in that time. He then
urged Lynden to employ Monk. He said he was very good at his job."
Very
good
.
Urge
. Neither were the precise words contained within the letter.

Lord Whipple hadn't
urged
Lynden to employ Monk, he'd forced him to do it by way of thinly-veiled threats
to his person and property. And Monk wasn't
very good
at his job,
apparently he was 'the best'. Unfortunately, the letter had not explained what
he was best at, or what Monk was supposed to do for Lynden. There must have
been earlier correspondence between the gentlemen.

Orlando didn't like it. Lord Whipple
was a Catholic, suspected by the queen's spymaster of being behind several
attempts to replace their Protestant monarch with a Catholic one. Orlando knew
this because the Guild had been commissioned by the spymaster to watch him.
When they'd not found enough evidence linking Whipple to any uprisings or
plots, they had let him live.

If Whipple was indeed embroiled
in something treasonous, how was Lynden connected? Why the need for Monk, a man
Whipple described as deviously clever and single-minded?

And what did it all have to do
with Susanna?

"How odd," she said.
"I'll have to confront Jeffrey about it."

"Not yet." Hell, he'd
already told her too much. She was not the sort to sit idly aside when
something was afoot, yet that's precisely what she needed to do for the time
being. "Susanna." He took her shoulders and locked his gaze with
hers. "This is important. You mustn't confront Lynden or Monk. I have
reason to believe you may be in danger—"

"What!" Despite her
defiant outburst, he felt her shiver.

"I think Monk was our
intruder the other night, and until we know his reason for climbing through
your bedchamber window, we must assume the worst."

She shook him off. "Are you
suggesting he wants to harm me? That Jeffrey employed him to..." Another
shiver wracked her, but this one was more visible, more violent.

"It's a possibility we must
consider."

"Don't be absurd." She
began to pace, four strides to the left, turn and back again. "Jeffrey is
my cousin by marriage. I cannot think of any reason he'd want me..." She
stopped pacing. "No. It's not possible. There is absolutely no gain to him
if I were not here. None whatsoever."

"He could buy Stoneleigh at
a good price. Who would inherit it if you were to...?" He couldn't finish
the thought let alone the sentence. In five short days, he'd gone from being
prepared to assassinate her to not being able to think of her death let alone
speak of it.

She didn't look at him, and he
knew she was considering whether Lynden was greedy enough to go to such
lengths. In the end, she shook her head. Her panic seemed to have eased and her
mind taken back control. She was thinking more clearly now. Good for her. He
took her hand and squeezed. She squeezed back.

"I find it so hard to
believe that Jeffrey would think like that. He's not a malicious man, nor
violent. In fact, I think he abhors it. I once saw him turn away from a fight
that broke out at The Plough. He'd gone quite green at the first spray of blood."

"Which would explain the
need for Monk."

Her nostrils flared and he felt
her tense. It was as if she was holding herself together, trying hard not to
show fear or make a sound. "You think he..." Her words were barely a
whisper.

"I don’t know." Yet it
would explain much. Monk's presence for one thing, his ability to stealthily
approach the stables the first time they met, the unsettling feeling Orlando
got whenever he was near.

However, it didn't explain why
Orlando had never heard of him. Hughe made it his business to know the names of
the other assassins operating on English soil. There was no Monk. He could be
new, or he could be so good that he'd escaped their notice until now.

"Do not be frightened."
He rested a hand on her shoulder, close to the small ruff she wore, and rubbed
his thumb along her jawline. "I'm going to protect you, but be vigilant,
my goddess."

She swallowed hard. Nodded.

"I'll go in search of him,
see what he's up to."

He found Monk coming out of the
brewery. The strong smell of fermenting malt leeched from the small building and
hung on the air like an invisible fog.

"What were you doing in
there?" Orlando asked, stepping in front of Monk.

"Looking for a drink. I was
thirsty."

"You can go to the kitchen
for that."

Monk shrugged one shoulder and
made to walk around Orlando. Orlando stepped into his path once more. Monk
raised a lazy eyebrow and smiled.