The Confessions of a Duchess (16 page)

A sudden sound in the dark corridor behind her set her spinning around, clutching the bottle like a weapon. It would be a shocking waste of good champagne to break it over an intruder’s head, but she would do it if she absolutely had to. She reflected that creeping around the priory ruins at night was probably not a good idea. She was not one of the credulous folk who believed that the spirits of the dead abbots walked through the ruins but even so, her grip on the bottle tightened.

The shadows shifted and Dexter Anstruther stepped into the circle of light thrown by the lantern. Laura was so surprised she almost dropped the bottle on the floor.

“Mr. Anstruther!” Her voice came out with a strangled squeak, revealing more vulnerability than she would have liked. “What on
earth
are you doing here?” Dexter looked from her face to the bottle in her upraised hand and back again.

“Please could you put the bottle down?” he said. “You are making me nervous.” He did not look remotely nervous, Laura thought. He looked tough and uncompromising even though his tone was very polite. For a moment she caught sight of the other Dexter Anstruther—not the gentleman who had come to Fortune’s Folly to court an heiress but the man she had met with at the Half Moon, the man who worked for the government in some shadowy capacity and no doubt had faced far more perilous situations than a jittery dowager brandishing a champagne bottle. Then the dangerous expression faded from his eyes.

She did as she was asked and put the bottle down. There was an odd silence between them as his gaze assessed her from head to foot, not with the overt masculine appraisal that she had seen from men sometimes, but with a more thoughtful calculation. It made her shiver. There was something impersonal about it, as though he were in some way measuring her character, and yet at the same time it felt intensely private.

“Are you alone?” he demanded.

The color flooded Laura’s face at the implication of his words. “Of course I am alone!” she said. “Do you think that I entertain gentlemen friends down here in the cellars at night?”

“I don’t know,” Dexter said. He gave her a look that brought even hotter color searing her face. “Do you?”

“Of course not,” Laura snapped. “You are offensive, Mr. Anstruther. And it is no business of yours, anyway.” Her tone was sharp, masking her physical awareness of him.

The wine cellar was not small but suddenly the walls seemed to press in on her and she felt a little breathless. Being in an enclosed space with Dexter Anstruther had definitely not been part of her plan for the evening.

“Never mind interrogating me when I am on my own land,” she said. “You still have not answered my question. What are
you
doing here?”

“I was following you,” Dexter said. “It is dangerous to loiter in the priory ruins in the dark, your grace.”

“You were following me?” Laura was taken aback. “I didn’t see you.” Dexter smiled suddenly. The impact made Laura’s knees weaken. “I would not be much good at my job if you
had
seen me,” he commented. His smile faded. “I was not the only one following you, your grace. The reason I came to find you was because I saw someone else behind you in the lane. They looked suspicious.” Laura’s brows shot up. “How singular of you to appoint yourself my protector, Mr.

Anstruther. I am sure you must be mistaken. There is no one else here and I only came down to fetch some elderflower champagne.”

Dexter took the bottle, looked at it closely and started to pull out the stopper.

“Don’t,” Laura said hastily. “You need to turn the stopper rather than pull it—” It was too late. The cork came free with a popping sound that echoed around the stone walls and the champagne spurted out like a fountain, cascading all over Dexter and soaking his pantaloons against his muscular thighs. Laura tried not to stare. She grabbed one of the cloths that she used to wrap the bottles of brewing wine and handed it to him to mop up. She was definitely not going to attempt the task herself. Patting dry Dexter Anstruther’s soaking pantaloons would be asking far too much of her self-control.

“Oh dear,” she said. “I did warn you. It is champagne and very volatile.”

“So I perceive.” Dexter wiped his face with the cloth and flattened down his wet hair.

“Next time you need a weapon,” he added, “just pull out the stopper rather than plan to hit someone with the bottle.”

“I’ll bear that in mind,” Laura said. She watched as the tiny droplets of champagne that were scattered in his hair caught the lantern light. She wanted to touch them. More specifically, she wanted to lick them up. Heat squirmed low in her stomach. She tried to get a grip on herself.

“Perhaps we should leave now,” she said quickly. A horrid doubt grabbed her. “You did not close the door at the end of the corridor, did you, Mr. Anstruther? It was wedged open with a stone.”

“Of course I did not,” Dexter said.

“Good. The door can only be opened from outside. If it closes—” Laura stopped as a gust of wind roared down the corridor and the lantern flickered and almost went out. “We will be locked in here,” she finished.

There was a thud at the end of the passageway as the door slammed shut in the wind.

The walls of the priory seemed to tremble for a moment.

“Like that,” Dexter said.

“Yes,” Laura said, listening to the echo of the crash bounce from the stone. “Like that.”

IT TOOK DEXTER all of two minutes to ascertain that they were indeed locked inside the priory wine cellar and that there was no way to open the door. He rested one hand against the unyielding stone and thought back to the moment when he had set off down the stairs.

He had checked that his exit was clear before he had gone down. That was an elementary precaution. The door had been held open by a heavy stone, one that could not have moved by accident. Therefore the inescapable conclusion was that someone—perhaps the mysterious person who had been following Laura home—had deliberately locked them in.

Cursing under his breath, he walked slowly back down the corridor to the cellar.

Now he was well served for succumbing to the impulse to follow Laura. He knew he should have steered clear of trouble. The thought that if he had left her to walk home alone she might even now be lying alone and injured in the dark only served to make him feel more irritable. Why did Laura attract trouble and why did he feel compelled to protect her against it? First he ruined his best boots leaping into the river to rescue her from drowning and now he was imprisoned with her because of a wayward impulse to make sure she was safe. Whenever he became involved with her the even tenor of his life was disturbed. The smooth running went awry. Logic and reason fled. It was disturbing enough to feel like a callow youth who could not control his physical reaction to her. To want to protect her, as well, felt even more disturbing in a way that he did not want to analyze. After all, any woman who took the role of a highwaywoman was not only able to look after herself but arguably deserved all the trouble that she attracted.

Laura was sitting on the floor, wrapped in her cloak against the chill of the autumn night, the half-full bottle of elderflower champagne at her side. She looked calm and collected, as though she were preparing for a long and unexpected picnic. Dexter wondered if she was really as serene as she appeared.

“It seems that you are correct,” he said. “The door cannot be opened.” Laura looked up. The lantern light made her hazel eyes very dark and her expression was inscrutable.

“How tiresome,” she said cordially. “How could that have happened?”

“I think,” Dexter said, “that someone has locked us in. Whoever was following you earlier may have done it on purpose.”

“I am sure that you are imagining things,” Laura said, with what Dexter could only feel was a deplorable lack of concern. “Why would anyone want to do such a thing?”

“Perhaps,” Dexter snapped, “because you used to be Glory the highwaywoman and in the course of your no doubt reckless and highly colored career in crime you probably made a number of enemies. That seems as good a reason as any.”

“I sense your disapproval, Mr. Anstruther,” Laura said, “but I cannot agree with you.

No one knew I was Glory and thus cannot hold it against me. No one other than you, I mean.” She sighed. “And now you find yourself incarcerated for your pains in trying to rescue me! Perhaps you should have thought twice before attempting to help me. Generally I can fend for myself, you know.”

Dexter sighed irritably. It was no more than he had been thinking himself a minute before. It was true that it would be difficult to find a more capable or self-contained woman than Laura Cole, and considering that he did not even like her very much it was impossible to understand why he would wish to protect her. He knew that the fault was in him, not in her. He had a hopeless compulsion to help others, even when they did not need it. It was an impulse that had led him to choose the type of work that he did. He strove to try and make the world a better, safer, fairer place and usually he got no thanks for it.

“You feel an overriding urge to bring order out of chaos, Dexter,” his sister Annabelle had remarked one day, “and with a family like ours, who can be surprised at it?

You have striven all your life to take responsibility for us because Mama and Papa never did and now you seem to have extended that duty to the entire human race.” Dexter was rather afraid that his sister, who was not usually so insightful, had been right in this particular instance. He had to be in control. He had to be able to make life run smoothly and calmly in order to ensure that it never sank back into the terrifying confusion of his childhood again. Someone had to take responsibility and that role had fallen to him.

But with Laura Cole there was something more than a simple urge to protect. With Laura he felt a possessiveness that was nothing short of primitive. It was maddening when she had treated him so badly and he despised her for it.

“Pray do not thank me,” he said, his tone all the shorter as a result of his anger at his own weakness. He met Laura’s bright gaze. “Sooner or later I will remember not to offer you my assistance when you do not require it. Generally I am not such a slow learner.”

“That would probably be better,” Laura said. “I am sure this can only be a childish prank. After all, it is Mischief Night in a few weeks and you know that the village lads will use that excuse for all manner of practical jokes. Unless this is Sir Montague’s rather juvenile idea of revenge, of course.”

“I had thought of that,” Dexter admitted, “but it seems a little harsh of him to make me suffer as well by locking us in together.”

Laura smiled. “Perhaps,” she said sweetly, “he thought it would be the perfect punishment for me to be trapped in here with you, Mr. Anstruther.” Once again Dexter felt the frustration and the desire fire his blood in equal measure.

Punishment was one word for what he felt. Torment was another.

“It is indeed a sore trial for both of us, your grace, when we have agreed that we should avoid one another,” he said, “but I am sure that we can both rely on our self-control.”

“Oh, of course,” Laura said. “Self-control is infallible, is it not? And now that we have established that neither of us wish to be incarcerated with the other, perhaps you could bend your mind to what we are going to do about it.”

Dexter sighed, shoving his hands into his pockets. He was not convinced by Laura’s argument that this was no more than a practical joke, but he did agree that the best thing they could do would be to get out of there as quickly as possible—for so many reasons. “I take it that there is no other exit from the building?” he said.

Laura shot him another irritated look. “Do you think that I would be sitting here if there were? No, Mr. Anstruther, there are no other doors, or windows, and although there is a privy along the corridor it empties into the moat and I do not relish attempting to escape that way.”

“I shall go and take a look,” Dexter said. “May I take the lantern?”

“Of course,” Laura said. “You shall not be able to see anything without it.”

“You are not afraid to be left alone in the dark?”

“No indeed.” Laura tilted her head to look up at him, a faint smile on her lips. “Are you, Mr. Anstruther? Many people are. It is nothing to be ashamed of. I do not believe that there is anything worse than spiders and mice down here but I can protect you if you are nervous.”

“Of course I am not,” Dexter said crossly. “I only wished to make sure that
you
felt quite safe.”

“How very kind of you,” Laura said brightly. “Of course I feel safe with you, Mr.

Anstruther. I am consoled by the fact you are one of the Guardians and are therefore bound to protect me even though you do not like me.”

Dexter sighed. He looked from her to the bottle of champagne. “Are you drunk?” he inquired.

“Not yet,” Laura said. “Merely a little tipsy.” She smiled at him, a luscious smile that made his pulse race. “Have no fear, Mr. Anstruther. I have no intention of ravishing you. I do not even like
you
very much.”

Gritting his teeth to hear his own words repeated back to him, and reflecting that the Dowager Duchess of Cole was fortunate that no one had strangled her before now, let alone locked her in a cellar, Dexter bent down and retrieved the lantern from the floor.

“I shall be back shortly,” he said.

When he returned it was to find that Laura had broached a second bottle and was looking charmingly bright-eyed.

“How did you get on?” she inquired.

“A small child could probably fit through the gap,” Dexter said, “but you are right—

neither you nor I could squeeze through.”

“I do not agree with sending children up chimneys or into other small spaces,” Laura said solemnly. “It is a barbaric practice.”

“Of course it is. Neither do I,” Dexter snapped. “I merely meant that you and I are both too large to fit through the opening. I was not advocating child labor.” He sat down beside her. The faint scent of her perfume, a floral fragrance that he did not recognize but found profoundly attractive, wrapped itself about his senses. Dexter knew that it was fanciful to imagine that he could feel her warmth, but now that he knew there was no escape he was starting to feel the cold and damp of the room, and Laura and the lantern seemed the only bright things there. In the pale golden lamplight she looked soft, warm and enticing.