by Lyn Stone
“You are married, sir? Would I know her?”
“Perhaps as Miranda Williams when she was a girl, or later as Lady Ludmore. She was Baron Ludmore’s widow. We were wed a bit over month ago in a very quiet ceremony, since it is her second marriage and she was hardly a year out of mourning.”
“I don’t believe I’ve met her, but congratulations to you, Mr. Morleigh,” Grace said. “I do hope she can attend the wedding, too, and I will tender my apology to her in person for treating you so poorly. We should celebrate your nuptials, as well as ours, since your whole family will be here.”
“Thank you for the thought, but the day should be yours and Caine’s alone. May I offer my sincere best wishes, ma’am?”
“Please call me Grace, now that we are to be cousins,” she offered.
“Of course, and I shall be Neville to you. I’m certain you and my Miranda will get on famously.”
Grace could well understand his wife’s anger. “I shall see she forgives me, then. And I must thank you profusely for your part in the investigation and finding someone to help.”
“We have not uncovered all thus far,” Trent said. “We still suspect that Wardfelton has done wrong by you and your inheritance. Without the account books, however, it will be difficult to prove.”
Neville said, “He is still under investigation.”
She waved her hand to dismiss the worry. “I am free of his wardship and that’s the important thing to me.”
Trent got up and helped himself to the bottle on the sideboard. He returned with a glass of brandy for both her and Neville. He went back and retrieved a glass for himself. “Shall we toast?”
Grace raised her glass. “To new friendships. My heartfelt thanks to you both.”
She sipped, then set down her glass. “Now to get you two settled. Please make yourselves at home here and ring if there is anything you want.” She pulled the bell cord and had Mrs. Bowden show them to their quarters.
They left her happier than she had been in days, just knowing the threat was over and that Caine would be here tomorrow. Their wedding would commence the morning after.
*
Back in London, Caine dismissed Neville’s enquiry agent and sent a footman to the Hadley stables to ready his mount. He was glad he’d sent Trent and Neville on ahead. Guards had probably been reassigned to other duties. Everyone at Wildenhurst would be unaware that danger to Grace still existed.
It was already late in the day and he should hurry. Though his favorite bay was a goer, Caine knew it was impossible to run at top speed for long, certainly not for eighteen miles on a dark road, risking injury to horse and rider.
Caine had to travel much slower than he wished and, even so, arrived exhausted late in the night. He approached the stables. No one rushed out to meet him, so he knew it was as he feared. The guard had relaxed, probably at Trent’s suggestion.
Caine woke a stable lad and ordered him to care for the bay, then took a lantern and went to the back entrance of Wildenhurst. The door was not locked. He entered the kitchens, which were dark and deserted in the middle of the night.
He sat down on a bench to take off his muddy boots, then blew out his lantern and left it on the table. No point in rousing the entire household before he notified Trent, Neville and Grace of the still-existing threat—that Sorensen was not the culprit, or at least not the only one. Also interesting was the fact that Wardfelton had shaken surveillance.
Caine decided to go to Grace first so she wouldn’t be frightened if she was awakened by the outdoor commotion of Mr. Harrell’s getting the guards back on duty. More important than that, he had to make certain she was all right. It had been entirely too easy for him to enter the house without anyone the wiser.
He knew Wildenhurst so well he had no need of a light to find his way upstairs to the bedrooms. He also knew that Grace slept in the north end, in the room adjacent to the one in which he had recovered from the fever.
Caine treaded silently through the upper corridor until he arrived at her door. Then he paused. How should he wake her? Gently call her name from across the room or go in quietly and wake her with touch?
Touch, he decided, would be less likely to startle her. He opened the door, stepped inside and turned to close it.
The blow felled him immediately.
Chapter Fourteen
“Grace!”
She had raised the brass lamp to strike again when she heard him groan her name. Weak moonlight from the window revealed only shapes, but she recognized his voice immediately.
“Caine?” She dropped her makeshift weapon and knelt beside him, her hands on his shoulder. “What were you thinking, sneaking into my room? I almost killed you!”
Caine reached up to feel the damage to the back of his head. She could swear she heard him laugh.
“What is wrong with you?” she demanded. “Have I addled your wits?”
Caine slipped his arms around her and crushed her to him so that she was sprawled across his lap. “More than you know. We could have used you in battle against the French.”
She brushed the back of his head with her hands. “Oh no, it’s swelling. You’ll have a goose egg. I’m so sorry!”
“Nonsense. You did precisely what you should have done. I was a fool to steal up here like a thief in the night, but I wanted to wake you first and explain—”
She kissed him. It began as a way to stop his words. He must have come to tell her he was delaying the wedding again. Why else would he seek her out in the middle of the night for private words?
Then as he responded and the kiss grew fierce, almost desperate, Grace saw her chance. She wanted him and she knew, at the moment at least, that he wanted her, too. With her fingers threaded through his hair, she renewed her assault. Her tongue battled with his. She loved the intimacy of it, the taste of him, the urgency of the need that swept through her.
She moved against him, sinuously inviting closer contact with that part of her needing him most. Slowly, as if in mindless surrender, he lay back on the floor.
Grace stretched above him, fitting her body to his as he embraced her. His eager hands clutched, caressed, explored and tangled in her nightdress. And then she felt his palms hot on her bare flesh, soothing, exciting, claiming.
Grace knew the instant his reason intruded. Caine’s hands halted their delicious exploration and he tensed beneath her.
“What’s wrong?” she gasped, her mouth only inches from his.
“This!” he hissed through his teeth. “This is wrong.” He lifted her away from him, yanked her nightdress down over her body and smoothed it with a hand that trembled. He sat up.
She knelt beside him, not touching, sighed with resignation and wished she were capable of cursing out loud. So close, she thought, frustrated to the point of anger.
Nevertheless, in all fairness, she had to grant him credit for self-control. He did have her best interests at heart. It was simply that his idea of best interests and hers did not coincide at the moment. She should not be angry with him. But she was.
It piqued that she had not been able to overcome that iron control of his. “We certainly wouldn’t want to make such a dreadful mistake,” she snapped. “Anticipating vows that might never take place.”
“I was thinking of you, Grace. You know—”
“I can guess. No point doing anything until it must be done,” she finished, hating the bite in her voice even as she said it. Vanity was a terrible thing and she recognized it right away, though it had lain mostly dormant in her until tonight.
He turned to her, a mere shadow in the darkness of the ro
om, but an ominous presence all the same. “You think I don’t want you, Grace?” When she didn’t answer, he added, “Well, I do.”
“Nicely said, if not meant. So tell me why you’ve come here in the middle of the night and then leave.”
He rose then and reached down to help her up. She pretended not to see his outstretched hand and got up on her own.
“This is not how we should begin, Grace. I never meant to… Well, I was carried away, but there’s no excusing it. Are you all right?” He ran his hands up and down her arms as if searching for injuries.
She batted at his hands and turned to go and light the lamp beside her bed. Then she realized it was on the floor where she had dropped it after crashing it over his head. She smelled the bit of fuel that had spilled. Thank goodness it had been nearly empty and that she’d had the presence of mind to remove the glass globe. She found a candle, stuck it in the holder and lit it with a sulphur stick.
“I came to inform you the danger is not over, Grace.”
“The solicitor isn’t dead?” She whirled around to face him. “They said he was dead!”
“You need not worry about the details,” he said gently. “You will be well protected. I’m telling you because I don’t want you to be alarmed when you hear Harrell summoning the men to guard you more closely.”
Grace hated the tone of his voice. “Tell me everything,” she ordered in a firm voice. “I am an adult, Caine, if you will remember.”
“I never treat you like a child, Grace.”
“You do! As if I cannot process what you say or understand the onus of this threat! As if I’m completely without the sense to act on my own if need be!”
“I am trying to spare you worry, Grace.” He threw up his hands and glanced heavenward as if for assistance. “You are just like the rest. All tantrums and fits.”
“The rest?” she demanded, then lowered her voice, realizing this could become quite public if she roused the household. Besides, this was nearly a tantrum she was having and if she let it escalate, it would prove his point.
She took a deep breath, striving for calm. “The rest. Well, what sort of women do you frequent, Caine, and why cast their faults upon me? This is to do with that cork-brained Thoren-Snipes henwit, isn’t it!”
He made a rude noise that sounded like a curse. “Does any woman have the presence of mind to sustain a coherent conversation? They inevitably end in tears, recriminations, outrageous changes of topic. Or sex!” he exclaimed. “None of which solves a thing!”
Well. “And how many women do you know? Two?”
He huffed, threw up his hands again and shook his head. “I didn’t come to you to argue! This is ridiculous.”
She marched right up to him, shaking a finger under his nose. “You cannot, in your wildest imagination, credit me with overcoming a highwayman, can you? Or admit that I could have killed you tonight before you realized what was happening?”
She gestured wildly, so upset she feared she might strike him again if her hands weren’t busy. “Some trick of fate, some stroke of luck, perhaps, but not Grace Renfair employing her wits and defensive means! Oh, nooo!”
He kissed her. Assuredly to shut her up and she knew it. She almost bit him, but refrained due to the practicality she had so recently boasted. He was bigger, stronger and perfectly able to do her harm. Not that he would, of course, but momentary surrender seemed the better part of valor. And she loved his kisses, even this sort. Especially this sort.
Her bones nearly melted along with her anger, but she kept the anger cool by hanging on to a thread of pride. He released her mouth and she granted him his goal. She said nothing.
Small concession on her part, she could scarcely form a thought, let alone a word.
“Now then,” he rasped, sounding as shaken as she felt. “Since you insist on the adult version of events, here it is. Wardfelton’s solicitor was no suicide. He was murdered. I think Wardfelton killed him or had someone do it.”
“What of the evidence found in his pockets?”
“Planted there by whoever killed him. He was strangled and there were bruises made there by strong hands. No water in his lungs, so he was dead before he entered the Thames. The coroner discovered this when he performed the autopsy. This was done only last evening.”
“After Gavin and Neville left London?” Grace guessed.
“Yes. The enquiry agent, that fellow Neville hired, learned of it. He came and told me. He also said that your uncle has not been seen by the man set to surveil him since last evening. So there you have it, Grace. The whole sordid tale.”
Grace nodded as she drew in a shuddering breath, determined to behave reasonably. As if her body was not on fire for Caine still. As if she had her self-touted wits under control.
His findings were serious and discussing them certainly deserved more urgency than solidifying their betrothal by seducing him. That seemed a lost cause anyway. Caine had a mind of his own.
She probably should thank him for full honesty, but she still resented the tardiness of it. “So it is my uncle’s doing, all of it,” she snapped, fisting her hands together in front of her to keep them still.
“I believe so. I reinstituted your guards as soon as I arrived. I had no problem gaining entrance tonight, to the house or to your room. If I had been the culprit and you had been sleeping…”
She went to the bed and sat down, patting the mattress beside her to show she was granting him a modicum of forgiveness. Her temper had cooled. The excitement of her terror, subsequent arousal and their confrontation were now dwindling. Grace felt rather hollow at the moment.
He sat, but left a good deal of space between them, indicating he would not repeat what he considered a great mistake. Fine. Now she must find a way to help evaluate the problem or he would continue to believe she was a featherbrain given to fits.
“All right. We know that my uncle is probably behind these attacks and obviously determined to prevent our marriage. Do you think he will give up once it is a fait accompli? If it ever becomes that?”
Caine sighed and she could imagine his expression of determined tolerance as he answered. “I think it is developing the marriage contract that he dreads. His solicitor is dead, the account books missing and probably at the bottom of the river. By all rights, he should feel safe now.”
“But we cannot count on that,” she guessed.
“Best not. My next logical step would be to approach your uncle again and demand terms this time. It is usually the bride’s family that insists upon those, for her protection. I shall ask for your dower funds. If he refuses to produce your father’s will or evidence that you have nothing, that indicates his guilt as far as I’m concerned.”
“I’ve told you and he’s told you that I have nothing to settle. That could well be true.”
Caine shrugged. “Then what motive could he have to stop the wedding? He has to know that I will, as your husband, have the legal right to investigate your holdings at any time after the ceremony.”
“You wish to delay it again,” she guessed.
“What I am saying is that we cannot rely on the marriage itself to remove what he might see as the threat. In fact, it increases it. Yet, I find it hard to believe he would commit murder over several thousand pounds of misused funds. That, I can’t figure.”
“Assuming there were funds to misuse,” she reminded him again.
“I believe there were. But if so, why did he not simply replace the money? The scandal would be minor, given the offense and he could easily lay blame at the solicitor’s door, whether it was true or not.” He got up and began to pace.
“It makes so little sense!”
“He might be financially strapped and unable to make it right,” she suggested.
“You think so? He owns the valuable town house and his country estate must contain treasures he could sell, even if the land and house are entailed.”
Grace tried to recall what her uncle might possess that would be worth selling. “The paintings, statuary and much of the furniture were gone when I arrived. He said he planned to refurbish, that everything there had been old and outdated. Yet he bought nothing new to replace anything while I was there.”
“Selling off. See, that’s telling.” Caine shook his finger as he paced and considered.
Grace racked her memory. “The books,” she murmured, running a hand through her hair and twisting it into a coil. “Most of the books were gone, as well. There were some newer ones left, but not many. The old ones, some priceless first editions that Father had pointed out to me in the two years we lived there, were no longer in the library.”
Caine had stopped pacing to listen. “But the town house is not entailed. He could have sold or mortgaged that to cover a theft.”
Grace shrugged and shook her head. “We might be misreading his motive altogether. Perhaps it’s simple hatred. He suddenly seemed determined to drive me to suicide long before I met you.”
She watched Caine’s face harden the moment she said that. He looked fierce enough to kill. “When was this?”
“Ever since his regard for me changed, he’s been at it one way or another. For months after I came, we got on well. I think I told you that.”
“Yes, go on. Every detail you can recall.”
Grace shrugged a shoulder. “He was never affectionate or eager to have me there, but he acted cordial enough. He allowed me to supervise the household staff, to act as hostess whenever he entertained and occasionally asked my opinion on inconsequential matters. Then, overnight, he changed.”
“How so? Did he…hurt you?” Caine demanded. “I want the truth, Grace.”
