The Love List (24 page)

“Eventually I learned how correct they were.”  He heaved a sigh.  “Though it took a long damned time to sink in thoroughly.”  And havoc and devastation that he could not speak of.  “It was hard on Tru, though,” he said instead.  “He’s deserved far more than he’s ever got from me.”

He could see the questions in her face.  She didn’t get the chance to ask them, however.  They both started as the door burst open.

“They are here,” Bunter announced, his fingers still working to fasten a straining maroon waistcoat across his belly.  “A black and a grey, you said, pulling a black, unadorned carriage?”

Aldmere took a step as anger and adrenaline surged.  “Damn.  How many?  And where are they?”

“Two.  One in the stables, poking hay with a pitchfork.  Another in the front, spinning a pack of lies about a missing heiress and demanding to search the place.”  He beckoned.  “Come along.  Ten to one, the first bloke will come in the kitchen and start searching from the back after he finishes in the stable block.  The missus and the kitchen girls will keep him busy there while you sneak out to where he’s already been.”

Aldmere bit out a curse and nodding, took hold of Brynne's elbow.  And was struck with admiration for her once again.  Though her eyes had gone wide and her breathing shallow, she kept calm and determined in the face of this trouble, just as she had all along.

Bunter, checking the hall, beckoned them to follow.  “Who are these men you’ve run afoul with, that they would know of our old association?” he asked in a whisper.

“Damned if I know,” he growled, then stopped suddenly, struck.  “Do you have a spot with a vantage?  A place where we can catch a glimpse of one of them?”

“I’ve just the place.  You can see the bloke in the stables leave when he’s finished, then Robert will have your mounts ready before the cat can sneeze.”  Bunter grinned.  “You’ll be on your way before they’ve looked under their first bed.”

“Lead on, then.  I’d like to see just who is so determined to follow in our footsteps today.”

Fourteen

You can imagine my excitement, dear Reader, when I received a note from Captain Wilson.  We met in the Sydney Gardens, where he told me he’d been a fool to think he could live without me.  Our love was too great to deny.  He had obtained a Special License and we would marry in secret.  My parents, he assured me, would be forced to come around once the deed was done.  I was shocked and titillated.  I was ecstatic.  I was a fool.

—from the journal of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright

“You’re sure you didn’t recognize that man?”  Brynne glanced up at Aldmere.  “He didn’t look even a little familiar?  Like someone you might have seen out in Society, at a ball or the theater?”

They had made it to their original destination, the village of Clapham, where sat one of the duke’s homes.  More specifically—they were
outside
one of the duke’s homes, tucked away in a picturesque storage shed at the end of the garden.

Their escape from The Horns had been swift and quiet and had gone just as Mr. Bunter predicted.  Despite a shared wish to ride out of there hell-for-leather, they’d kept their mounts to a comfortable, unobtrusive traveling pace and arrived while the sun still rode in mid-sky.  Brynne had been surprised, however, when they left their borrowed mounts at a livery.

“If those men following us knew about Bunter, then they surely know about this house and my history with it,” Aldmere had explained as they set out on foot.  “We’ll just stroll though town as if we belong.  I’d like to be sure we haven’t picked up any new followers before we get near the house.”

“We should stay alert for signs of anyone watching the house, as well,” she’d agreed.

  “I don’t want to go in until after dark, just in case.”

“We cannot just amble about until then.  The village isn’t large enough.”

Amusement had lifted his brow.  “These are my old stomping grounds.  Not to worry, I’ve just the place.”

Once again they’d donned the guise of a couple.  Brynne had spared a few moments to worry about the ease with which the roles slipped on, then had given it up as futile.   As the afternoon advanced, they’d walked arm in arm about the Common.  Anyone watching the empty house would have seen only a pair of lovers ambling past, enjoying the bright sun and spring breeze.  Aldmere led her a good bit farther beyond the house before he took a turn along a country lane and eventually abandoned it to approach the place again, through the wilderness at the back. 

The storage shed, constructed of the same material as the low, stone wall bordering the garden, offered an ideal spot to watch the house from across a pretty lawn and garden.  They kept their vigil from there, tucked in amongst piles of firewood and a stack of outdoor furniture.

“No,” he answered her question now, from his precarious perch atop a woodpile.  “The man might be a persistent devil, but he didn’t strike a chord with me.”  He looked away from his window to where she sat, before the other.  “And you’re sure it was the same man outside Hestia’s this morning?”

“Definitely the same.  But I’ve a nagging feeling that I’ve seen him sometime before then—and that was perhaps what triggered my reaction to him this morning.”

“A colleague of Marstoke’s?  That would make sense.”

“I don’t believe so.  I keep thinking that I’ve seen him recently.”  She shifted in frustration.  “I just can’t recall!”

The duke sighed.  “I wish you would peg him as one of Marstoke’s cronies.”

“Why?”

“Because if he is not, then I have to contemplate the idea that we may be faced with more than one group of adversaries to contend with.”

She groaned.  “Why did you have to say that out loud?  Now I have to contemplate it as well.”

He turned back to his vigil.  “Still no sign of life.  Either Tru is adept or he’s not here at all.”

“If he’s hiding then you shouldn’t expect to see anything.  He’s proved clever enough so far.”  She frowned at the house.  “This is near enough for him to traipse back and forth to Town, should he wish to wreak more of the sort of havoc he got up to at the printer’s.  Are any of your other properties so close?”

He shook his head.  “No, but there’s nothing to prevent him staying with a friend or in some other bolt-hole.  My worry is—” 

He’d bit back whatever he’d meant to say.  “Yes?” she encouraged.

“He’s here.  I know it.  I feel in my gut that it’s exactly what he would do.  It’s just—I wonder if perhaps this house meant more to me than to him.”

She couldn’t help but soften a little.  “Did you spend time here together, then?”

Lips pressed together, he nodded.  “It’s where we began to know each other again, as young men.  Tru would come, abandoning school for the cricket or the mills in Kennington, not so far away, and I—”  He stopped abruptly.  “I used to spend a good deal of time here.”

Brynne thought of what she knew about his old reputation as a gifted orator, a firebrand with the ability to sway men’s minds.  And she recalled what she knew about Clapham and its most celebrated residents, united in one cause.  “You were involved with the abolitionist movement?”

He shot her an annoyed glance.  “You are entirely too quick.”

She laughed.  “Not so difficult a leap.”  She did rapid mental calculations in her head.  “It must have been so exciting—you would have been here for some of their greatest battles and victories in Parliament.”

He stared ahead.  “Yes.”

“How wonderful to think you had a hand in something so . . . monumental.”

He snorted.  “I was naught but a green young fool, all passion, bravado and ignorance.”

“I don’t care, any small part of such a wondrous accomplishment must be admired.”  She frowned.  “But there is still work to be done there, is there not?  Though the trade of slaves is abolished, still, men work to outlaw the institution itself, do they not?  You have such influence, surely you must still—”

“No,” he said flatly.

“But why not?”

“Because I’m done chasing at windmills.  I’ve accepted the fact that I cannot change the world with my words and the sheer force of my will.”  She flinched at the intensity of his glare.  “I’ve finished with
dreams
and all the havoc and destruction that comes from chasing them.”

A well-deserved rebuke, she supposed.  She wished she could reassure him that additional barriers were overkill, at this point.  Instead, she merely leaned back into the hard bench they’d shifted before her window.  “I beg your pardon.  I shouldn’t have asked.  In any case, you know your brother, and you’ve followed your instincts.  It will be dark soon.  We’ll see soon enough how accurate they were.”  She patted the wooden spot next to her.  “Come and sit.  There’s room.  It’s better than a log, at any rate and you can see the house just as well from here.”

Not until after a long moment’s hesitation did he let loose a sigh and leap heavily down from his perch to take the seat.

Brynne was forced to press herself further into her corner of the bench.  “I’ve changed my mind,” she grumped.  “There isn’t room.  I’ve suspected all along that you take up more than your fair share of space.  Now I know that I was right.”

She didn’t truly mind, though—and therein lay the danger.  It felt as if men had been making her feel small all of her life.  Yet here sat Aldmere, the biggest and most powerful of them all—and the only one who didn’t make her feel less than what she was.

A dangerous, potentially life-altering thought.  One she didn’t dare pursue.

“When will we go in?” she asked, desperate for a distraction.

“After it’s been dark a while.  We’ll give the neighboring houses time to settle down for the night—and see if anyone else stirs around here.”

“Is there no caretaker at all?” she asked, trying to angle herself into the corner of the bench.  “No one who watches the house for you?”

“I lease the place to a friend of Tru’s, a poet who enjoys the more natural setting along with the proximity to Town.  But he’s taken the spring and summer to go and tour the Lakes.  Tru knew that, I’m sure, and that was another reason I thought this would turn out to be his hiding spot.” 

He leaned forward and wiped a spot from the window.  “Watch the rounded tower at the end of the east wing,” he directed.  “Tru always did love that corner of the house.  We lounged more than a few afternoons away there, debating cricket’s finer techniques, arguing politics and toasting bread and cheese.”

She shifted again, searching for a way to sit without touching him, but gave it up as a lost cause.  Curling her legs up, she sat back, ridiculously content and not even pretending that it had nothing to do with the press of his thigh along her calf, the warmth that spilled out of him and penetrated even the sturdy serge of her gown, or the spicy undertone of his cologne. 

Time stretched and dusk began to move in.  The quiet between them grew too, and shifted.  It all might have been uncomfortable, perhaps, between the isolation, the silence and the approaching dark offering cover for threat and uncertainty. 

It wasn’t.  Not to her.  Instead the dark eased in, thick with comfort, and yet alive with a heady, underlying thrum.

She knew what that was, that reverberation centered down low in her belly and dancing along the edge of her pulse.  The same low vibration had begun when she barged into his office and only grown in intensity since. 

Desire.  Want.  Need.  All humming industriously beneath the silence and the calm.

Foolishness.  Utterly impossible to act upon, as Callie had said.  Yet she had no wish to deny or ignore it.  It was a lovely sensation, entirely pleasant.  Surely these moments were not plentiful, after all.  Who knew when or if she would ever feel such a thing again?  She shifted slightly.  Just a tad nearer, not away.  She would absorb it—and enjoy it—while it lasted.

“Are you smiling again?” he asked.  “I can barely see you now.”

“Yes.”  Smiling wider now.  “Would you like me to stop?”

He pondered the question.  “No.”

“Good.”

The dark advanced, deepened its hold on the tiny structure.  Their window, framed by the forest’s first, rustling branches of beech, held a breathtaking vision of clear sky.  Brynne sat, caught in a liquid state between contentment and anticipation.  Eventually, she put her head back and watched the stars blink into life, one by one.  Gradually the moon rose above the trees, shedding faint light across the lawn and into their snug space.

Only one thought shattered her calm—the realization that this was likely the end.  This was the last time she would sit alone with Aldmere, sharing this warm and lovely and oddly compatible mix of exhilaration and tranquility.  Her heart rate jumped a bit, and she fought back a quick surge of panic.  She wasn’t ready. 

She knew this couldn’t continue.  They were opposites in situation, belief and nearly every other sort as well.  But he bolstered her spirits and confidence, stirred her passions, forced her to think and evaluate herself and her course. 

It didn't matter.  She had to give him up.  She just wished it didn’t have to come so soon.

She jumped when Aldmere’s hand snaked out of the shadows to grasp hers.

For a moment neither spoke.  Her focus narrowed, her world constricted entirely to the slide of his fingers as they laced into hers.

“Miss Wilmott—”

“Brynne.”

“Yes.  Brynne.”  He sucked in a breath.  “I have something to say, before we go into the house.”

She nodded, then realized the motion would be hard to pick out in the gloom.  “Yes?”

His breathing had grown heavier.  “There is no denying that . . . something . . . lies between us.”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand.  Surely the sudden leap of her pulse beneath his fingers spoke for itself.