Twice Tempted (10 page)

“He is a very nice man,” Mairead finally said, looking up, her eyes wide and troubled. “He says he knows some mathematics. Do you think he was lying?”

Fiona smiled. Mairead was otherworldly. She wasn’t blind. Since their eleventh birthday men had been telling her lies to get close to her. Mairead had somehow managed to see through most of them.

“Is it important to you?” Fiona asked her.

Again Mairead cogitated, her head tilted just a bit. “I don’t know. I suppose it must be if I’m asking, don’t you think? But he truly seemed interested, and not that many men are.” Suddenly she flashed a bright, impish smile. “Not many men understand so much as a parallax.”

“And he did?”

“He did. He said it is used in gunnery. He couldn’t have been in the artillery, could he? He didn’t say. He didn’t say much about himself.” She looked startled. “And he listened. He didn’t look. Do you know?”

Fiona nodded. It took an exceptional man to be more interested in what Mairead said than how she looked saying it. “Then I don’t think he was lying. Maybe we could invite him to dinner one night, and you can discuss your work.”

Mairead actually flinched. “Oh, no. No thank you. I don’t have time for that. It will be enough that he gets me on the refractor and goes away. Don’t you think?”

And before Fiona could answer, Mairead leapt back to her feet. “I have a puzzle I’m working on. Do you want to help?”

“A puzzle?” It was always a challenge keeping up with Mairead’s quicksilver mind.

She was bouncing on her feet. “Yes. I found it in the castle. But I can’t make it out.”

“What kind of puzzle, Mae?”

Mairead shrugged, her attention already lost. “Words. I like word puzzles.”

Fiona nodded. “I know. Maybe later, sweetings, all right? For now, I believe I’m going to simply lie here and rest.”

Again Mairead paused, poised on the balls of her feet like a bird coiling to take flight. “Would you like the pillow, Fee?”

Fee smiled up at her, knowing what a sacrifice her offer was. “Oh, sweetheart, thank you. But I don’t think so. I think I’m happy when you have it.”

Mairead nodded anxiously. And then, suddenly, she rushed up to Fiona and bent to kiss her. “Be better, Fee.”

And without another word, she sailed out of the room, leaving her sister to contemplate the upheaval in their lives. The noise that would, in the end, signify nothing. Alex Knight had come here to be kind. To redress the harm the marquess had done. Alex had done it because he was a gentleman. Fiona understood that. Even so, she had once again watched him walk out the door and seen her own dreams depart with him.

How had he become so wrapped up in them, those faint longings for a normal life? A home, a family, a loving husband. She had known better since she had walked into Miss Chase’s Academy and compared her life to those of the girls around her. They would all fulfill the promise of their looks, breeding, and wealth. She would grow old protecting her sister from the harsh world outside and nurturing the genius that gleamed behind those amazing eyes. The two of them would live and die together, sharing a history, a love of natural philosophy, and the special bond that came from sharing the same womb. She had known that all along.

Suddenly, though, since Alex Knight had come back into her life, it hurt. It hurt in ways she couldn’t describe. He had cracked the door on a future she had only allowed herself to imagine once, in the courtyard of a country inn, only to have it quickly and ruthlessly snuffed out. This time she would have to be the one to slam that door shut again. No matter how much it hurt.

Chapter 6

A
lex knew he shouldn’t be so angry. He had tried his best, after all. He’d used logic, guilt, coercion, and blackmail, but Fiona Ferguson had chosen to stay where she was: in a middle-class neighborhood teaching tradesmen’s daughters.

He should damn well be relieved. After all, he’d succeeded in locating her. And she was safe. He had ridden his horses into the ground for two hundred miles, dreading what he’d find. If he found her at all. Terrified that he had failed Ian again. That he had failed
her
again.

But there she was, with a fairly comfortable roof over her head, food to eat, and a pastime to keep her occupied until her brother could get free to oversee her care. It should be enough. It certainly should have dispensed his obligation to her.

It didn’t, and it made him want to hit something.

Trying to work off his frustration, he paced his father’s library, bow window to roaring fireplace to overfull floor-to-ceiling bookshelves that had been his childhood playroom. Usually the room soothed him, bathing him in the scents of woodsmoke, tongue oil, and leather binding, the light pouring like warm milk across old Turkey carpets.

Even as little time as he’d spent here over the years, it held some of his best memories. It was in this room Sir Joseph had declared him an adult, passing over a snifter of brandy and asking about his days at Christ Church. It was here he had curled up on the floor on cold winter days as a boy, reading Mallory and Homer and Dante while Sir Joseph had worked on government reports, the two sharing a masculine retreat from all the women in the house.

If he’d thought the room would provide a haven from thoughts of the women today, though, he was sadly mistaken. Fiona Ferguson followed along every step of the way. Stubborn, willful, obdurate Fiona Ferguson.

Stopping at the front-facing window, he looked out to where the light was finally breaking through the sick yellow fog. That wasn’t what he saw, though. Suddenly he saw a country road on a soft spring day, the rain-swollen clouds scudding over the trees. He could smell the rain-dampened earth, the pungent scent of livestock, and the thick sweetness of the gorse. He could see her, a splash of color among the gray green.

She had been cursing. He smiled, remembering it. The poor girl had slipped going over a stile in an attempt to escape him and gotten her hair completely tangled in the briars.

“I’m afraid you’re going to have to be shorn like a sheep,” he’d told her, his knife in hand, his own gut clenching at the idea of sacrificing that magnificent treasure.

Any other woman would have wailed, pleaded, threatened. Fiona Ferguson had only closed her eyes and said, “It doesn’t matter.”

It had. He knew. But she was obviously not going to be the one to let on.

Back then he had seen her as a schoolgirl, a bird too unfledged to understand what she was trying to do in escaping school. Now he knew better. She had been fledged long since, growing up too fast and learning too much. Strong in ways no woman he knew was, but vulnerable in more.

She deserved so much more. A real home. Friends, family, the chance for a brighter future than living out her days in spinsterish isolation with her odd sister. And in Alex’s head, he knew her brother would provide that. But from the very moment she had stood toe-to-toe with him four years earlier, refusing every lure that might keep her from seeking out her sister, something connected her to him. Something more than an obligation to her brother.

His father was right, of course. He did have a habit of picking up strays. It had been true at Eton, where he’d saved both Chuffy and Nate Adams from upperclassmen, and true after, when he’d gained a valet in a poker game rather than see the poor man further abused by the cheating sot he worked for.

But Fiona was different. She was, in an odd way, his, and had been from the moment he’d kissed her. And no matter where she went in life, what she did, he would still feel compelled to watch over her.

He even admitted, standing here alone, that his compulsion wasn’t purely altruistic. There was an indefinable something about Fiona, a humming energy that seemed to radiate off her like sunlight. A smooth, certain strength that dared a man to challenge her. A tightly leashed sensuality that taunted any man who came too near.

He’d come too near, and his cock stood to attention just thinking about it. Heat curled in his gut, and a chill snaked all the way down to his balls, a sensation of prescience. Of inevitability. Of carnality recognizing like to like. The schoolgirl had grown up, and his body knew it.

If he had any sense in his head, he would leave her be. Let her struggle to make ends meet far away from civilization with only her sister and an acerbic housekeeper for company. Let her squander her life on imaginary numbers and pinpoints of light in the sky. He had better things to do. He had a father to protect and a blackmailer to catch. He had a nation to protect. And she had the right to a more honorable friend.

It didn’t matter. He didn’t seem to have a choice. He would protect Fiona Ferguson whether she wanted it or not.

“’Lo, gov,” a cracking tenor voice broke into his reverie. “Lady Bea says as ’ow you might want to see me.”

Startled, Alex looked up to see a lanky, towheaded lad leaning against the library doorway. Perfect timing, he thought, considering one of the tools he’d decided to use in keeping watch over the Ferguson girls.

“Thrasher,” Alex greeted the boy, turning away from the window. “I’d ask how you got into my father’s house, but I assume it would be pointless. Are you off duty, or is this your new livery?”

Grinning like an imp and clad in a set of tattered woolens, a grimy kerchief tied about his neck, the boy tipped a jauntily-perched bowler. What was it with scrubby slum brats and unique headware? Alex wondered.

“Off duty, aren’t I?” The boy sauntered in, scanning the library as he came. “Caught me in a…private interaction with the stable lads, Lady Bea did.”

As typical of her rather eccentric house staff, Lady Kate had hired the young urchin to be her tiger when he’d tried to pick her pocket. Thrasher had answered by being the house’s best source of information, shady connections, and shadier pastimes.

Alex nodded wisely. “How much did you take off the lads?”

The boy’s grin was as brash as a gypsy with a bad horse. “Three crowns an’ a month’s ridin’ lessons. Paltry lot. Can I do f’r ya, gov?”

“A couple of things. Sit down.”

Thrasher looked as if Alex had offered him the house silver. Flipping off his hat, he plopped into one of the leather armchairs and crossed his legs.

“I need someone to do some babysitting,” Alex said. “Probably only a few days until I can make better arrangements. In Blackheath.”

Thrasher focused on tossing his bowler onto a bust of some long-dead Knight in the corner. “Not my lay, gov.”

The bowler spun through the air with deadly precision and landed on the bewigged relative at a stylish cant.

Alex smiled. “No, I wouldn’t think so. Besides, no offense, but I’m thinking of someone bigger. Someone who might defend the ladies if necessary. Do you think Finney might be able to help?”

Finney, being an ex-boxer and Lady Kate’s butler, was certainly a better option than using anybody in Sir Joseph’s house. If Alex asked Soames the butler to intercede, that worthy would swoon right along with Alex’s valet, the ever-pristine Mr. Marsh.

“Finney?” Thrasher said. “’e just might. Knows a lotta big coves, does Mr. Finney. She in trouble, this gentry mort?”

“No, not at all. She is just a woman on her own, and I’d rather not have to worry. She is being a bit stubborn about moving someplace safer.”

A rush of longing slammed through Alex, distracting him from the lengthening silence. He could watch her, he thought, close up.

And then her brother would have another reason to shoot him. If she didn’t first.

“Ya want I should scare ’em out?” Thrasher finally asked. “I could do that.”

Alex’s head came up. “What? Good God, no. I don’t want you to do anything. I especially don’t want her to know anybody is there.”

Thrasher gave him a look that spoke of a street child’s impatience with toffs and shrugged. “Just a thought.”

“I’ll need a daily report, Thrasher,” he said. “Does Finney read and write?”

Thrasher let loose a disdainful snort. “In Lady Kate’s house? Even the potboy writes. Daftest thing you ever seen.”

Alex nodded. “Have Finney come by. We need to begin soon.”

Thrasher was getting to his feet when Alex straightened. “One more thing.”

The boy stopped.

Alex considered the thinning fog outside for a second. “Have you ever met a lad named Lennie Wednesday? Resides somewhere in your old neighborhood.”

Thrasher scowled. “Ya think I know every kid was born in the Dials?”

“You’d have a better chance than I would. He’s about your age. Probably a product of the flash houses.” When he still got blank disinterest, he changed tactics. “He said he hangs about the Blue Goose. Do you know of it?”

“Sure. It’s a ’ell in St. Giles where the young swells go to lose their money. You got some money you wanna throw away?”

Alex didn’t answer right away. If he could find Lennie Wednesday again, maybe the lad could point out who had given him the note. Maybe Alex could find a way to defang his enemies before they had a chance to strike.

“I’d like to go there tonight,” he finally said.

The boy cocked his head. “If ya want to blend in, dress down an’ don’t say nuffink. Ya wanna go as a swell…” He shot Alex a blinding grin. “Dress up an’ look stupid.”

Alex grinned back. “That should be easy enough.”

Walking over, he plucked Thrasher’s hat from where it sat. “Ask Mr. Finney to stop around when he’s able.”

Accepting his hat, Thrasher hopped over the arm of the chair and held out his hand. “Well, if that’s all I can do…”

The boy was staring at his hand, as if it had managed to hold itself out, palm up, all on its own. Alex wanted to laugh. Instead, he flipped a coin that Thrasher caught like a bird snapping at bugs.

Alex nodded. “Tell Finney they’ll need to begin tomorrow. I’d rather not leave the ladies unprotected.”

Thrasher tipped a finger to his bowler. “Anything you say, y’r worshipfulness.”

*  *  *

An hour later, Alex was still sitting at the desk staring at a distressingly empty sheet of paper. Acting stupid was going to be easy, he realized. He already felt stupid. He still had no notion of how he was going to convince Fiona Ferguson to see sense and desert her students. He had finally written down his first suggestion when Sir Joseph strolled in.