The Deadliest Sin

by Caroline Richards

  Sharing none of her surprise, Strathmore moved to the curtained window that stretched across the far end of the room, and opened it outward onto the park. A gust of damp wind filtered into the stale air along with the dimmest of gaslight from the lone lantern at the edge of the park.

  “Who is this Dr. Grant and how do you know him?” asked Julia peering at what appeared to be the skeleton of a dog’s head.

  Closing the window and letting the curtain swing back in place, Strathmore shone his torch onto the glass topped specimen. “That’s the complete skull of a Tasmanian wolf, a large marsupial carnivore from New Guinea. Dr. Grant and I have crossed paths through our association with the Royal Society.”

  “I surmise this Lowther fellow knows him as well. Or were you the one who chose Dr. Grant’s residence for this rendezvous?”

  Without answering directly, Strathmore said, “Since Grant is away in Australia, I knew we could meet here in total privacy.”

  Julia stared at what appeared to be a zebra encased in glass. “Remarkable,” she said under her breath. “I had never thought until now of taking photographs of such specimens. It would make flora and fauna so much more available to a wider audience.”

  Julia found Strathmore standing by her elbow, disturbingly close. “Indeed it would,” he said. “I have often thought it would be useful to have a camera available at certain junctures in my explorations.”

  She traced a trail of dust on the glass with the tip of her gloved finger. “At present the apparatus is cumbersome, making travel difficult. Only think of the jumble of boxes and trunks that I took to Eccles House. However, only recently I received a letter from Mr. Masters speaking of new advances that will soon make the entire process less unwieldy and time consuming.”

  “You continue your connection with Masters.”

  “He introduced me to daguerreotypy and since that time we have formed a close working relationship. He is very knowledgeable and continues to be of help in my pursuits.”

  “You never thought to wed the man?”

  She looked up at him, startled. “Wed the man?” she managed to say calmly, even as a sense of unreality began to seep into her mind. She was imagining that tone of possessiveness in his voice.

  “It would seem a suitable match as there are no dynastic ambitions to get in the way,” he said flatly.

  “Women can and do lead fulfilling lives without husbands and children,” she bristled. She gestured to the encased zebra. “Why is it that only men should have an interest in the wider world, in the pursuit of knowledge and study?”

  “Why indeed,” he said with dark irony. “Clearly, you and your aunt and sister are doing remarkably well without the encumbrances of a man to lead the family.”

  “We were doing quite well. Aunt Meredith is the most capable individual I know.”

  “You are impressively loyal, Miss Woolcott. But have you ever wondered what your aunt is keeping from you and why?”

  Always questions—which she could not answer. He acknowledged her struggle with a faint smile and it blunted the edge of her frustration. She wasn’t any more pleased at being there with him than he was to have her. It was a staggering insight, the contrariness of it all—that the pursuit of Montagu Faron had brought such opposites together.

  She was so absorbed in the clamor of her thoughts she had missed the echo of boots on the path outside the drawing room. Strathmore hadn’t. He touched her arm, glancing about the room. He had obviously visited Dr. Grant in the past because he made his way unerringly to the far wall lined with bookshelves.

  “Lowther’s not alone. There are two of them.”

  Startled by the realization, she followed him wordlessly. He pushed the edge of a bookshelf and swept her backward into the space behind it before she could protest. It was a closet, a hidden storage space, and he pressed them inside, pulling the bookcase all but closed, leaving a sliver of an opening. He held her close, his arm hard beneath her breasts as they sank back in the darkness. The scent of cedar filled their nostrils as Lowther marched into the room.

  He had lit the sconces in the hallway, spilling light into the drawing room, illuminating the jumble of curios, the lifetime collection of Dr. Grant. Julia’s eyes widened at the man who followed close behind him.

  “I don’t believe we have finished our discussion,” Beaumarchais said, grimacing fastidiously at the little mound of bones in a cabinet to his immediate left.

  “To the contrary. You need not have accompanied me here. It was a moment of weakness on my part, clearly,” said Lowther dryly.

  Ignoring Lowther’s irritation, Beaumarchais forged onward. “I need more information if this Woolcott business is to be completed satisfactorily.”

  Julia remembered where she was and tensed against Strathmore, Beaumarchais unexpected presence igniting searing images of those hours at Eccles House. The picture of craven overindulgence with his smoothly oiled hair, Beaumarchais concerned himself with adjusting the fit of his brocade greatcoat, absently fingering the two stiff-upward points of his cravat.

  In the sliver of light, she could see that Lowther was a tall, barrel-chested man, with a retreating hairline, ascetic nose and high brow. There was nothing familiar to her about his features. Julia sank back against the hardness of Strathmore’s chest, which rose and fell steadily behind her. She tried to ignore other sensations—the pistol in the waistband of his trousers or the hand that had tightened ever so slightly around her waist.

  The situation was quickly becoming untenable. More specifically, her reaction to Strathmore was becoming untenable. Her head was at war with her senses. She was tempted to dissolve into his hard warmth, radiating like a hot summer’s day through the damp boucle of her cloak. Mesmerized by the reassuring evenness of his breathing, she briefly closed her eyes, shutting out Lowther and Beaumarchais, taking in Strathmore’s scent like the addictive drug it was turning out to be. She had never been so close to a man, and certainly never a man like Strathmore with his assertive physicality that, in the dark, filled her entire world.

  She kept her eyes closed, fighting the urge to surrender, to renounce her quest to unearth Faron and simply allow the white heat of desire to take her away. She resisted the inexplicable and mortifying impulse to place her hand over his at her waist and drag it down around the curve of her hips, past her buttocks and between her thighs. To seek and find all the hidden, secret places in her body that craved to be stroked, savored, and seduced when he was near.

  Her eyes flew open at the outrageous thoughts, only to see Lowther turn and stare directly at the hairline opening of the bookshelf. She held her breath, tightening her spine against Strathmore.

  “It would help to know,” Beaumarchais was saying, watching Lowther survey the gilt-edged spine of a book, “what possible reason Strathmore might have to please our mutual friend.”

  “You don’t like the man, that’s clear,” said Lowther distinctly, brushing a blunt-fingered hand against a title and then letting it drop again. “Did he best you at something, perhaps steal a woman? You are such a peacock, Beaumarchais,” he continued. “Besides, I thought we’d finished with this discussion earlier at my apartments. What other reason do you have to follow me here?”

  “I don’t trust Strathmore.”

  “Your repetition is becoming tedious. I shall ask again—why should that be of concern to me?”

  “Don’t you wonder why Faron is so intrigued with the man? When he could have hired someone far more suitable for the assignment of tormenting Meredith Woolcott.”

  Lowther could not possibly be standing any closer to the bookshelf, hovering for agonizing seconds just inches from the hidden storage space. Julia’s breathing became shallower, swifter, as Strathmore shifted his arm up from her waist until it brushed the underside of her breasts. She did not know which terrified her more—the prospect of discovery or the exquisite agony of Strathmore’s unbearable proximity.

  “Perhaps you should rephrase your question—why
is Strathmore eager to do Faron’s bidding when he has the world on a string?”

  Lowther scanned the bookshelf with watery blue eyes, and Julia noted when they narrowed speculatively. Sliding a large book from the shelf, he turned to Beaumarchais, rifling through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

  “What do you know of the Nile, Beaumarchais?” he asked.

  Strathmore shifted slightly behind her, easing his leg aside so his pistol wasn’t digging into her backside. Instead, she felt the hard muscles of his thigh nestling directly into the folds of her skirts and suddenly she regretted her decision not to don crinolines and hoops. Only her chemise and outer skirts separated her from the hard, unfamiliar body warming hers.

  “Not very much, I’m pleased to say, other than what I learned at the Sorbonne in my youth,” confirmed Beaumarchais with a certain amount of smugness. “And I know next to nothing, I happily confess, about the flotsam and jetsam Grant keeps littered about here.” He confronted a series of glass beakers, picked one up, turned it about in his hand, and put it down again. “Damned odd fellow,” he muttered with a sniff.

  Lowther cleared his throat impatiently. “You were asking about Strathmore.”

  “And you’re going on about the Nile.”

  “That’s what Strathmore is after. And what Faron can give him.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Beaumarchais bluntly.

  Lowther slammed the book down on top of a glass-plated shelf. From the corner of her eyes, Julia thought she spied a map. Her mind was suddenly sharp and alert and she wondered how Strathmore would react to her learning more about his plans regarding Faron. Her body pulsed with a strange desire for the man who, for the moment, was just as vulnerable as she.

  Lowther jabbed a finger on the pages opened before him. “The Nile has been an obsession that has driven many explorers to their deaths. Finding its source has become known as the Great Prize. Because of the river’s maze-like tributaries, the source of all the water is hidden from view,” he explained, tracing a finger along the edge of the opened book. “Many believe that finding its source would provide tremendous hydrological power to the discoverer. The rumor is that there are great lakes in Central Africa that are the true source of the Nile.”

  No response from Strathmore, aside from the fact that the rise and fall of his chest was all but undetectable. Julia made no attempt to ease away from his body. The two of them were riveted on the scene unfolding in Dr. Grant’s strange drawing room.

  Beaumarchais fingered his cravat carefully. “You mean to say that Faron has information as to the source of the river and Strathmore will do what he must to engage the man, even if that includes responding to some of his more outrageous and baroque requests,” he said slowly, understanding dawning.

  Closing the book definitively, Lowther waved away the accompanying cloud of dust. “It took you long enough, Beaumarchais.”

  “Why would Faron entertain Strathmore’s interest? Have you ever thought to inquire?”

  Lowther frowned. “I had heard something about Strathmore’s last journey having taken him to Lake Tanganyiaka. Presumably Faron finds himself intrigued, although that is simply conjecture on my part.”

  “There’s not more to it?”

  Lowther looked halfway impressed at Beaumarchais’s insistence. “How can one ever know with Faron? He has been following Strathmore’s progress, intercepting and reading his missives to the Royal Society. When he discovered that Strathmore had also taken on the Mountains of the Moon, he became particularly excited, almost agitated.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The area is unpassable. Like Nero’s centurions, Strathmore became bogged down in the swampy marshes of the Sudd.” He waved Beaumarchais toward the door. “All the more reason for you to leave now. Strathmore is hardly a man to be trifled with.”

  “Nor Faron—as we’re both well aware,” warned Beaumarchais. With a last glance at the zebra in its case, both men turned toward the door of the drawing room. The conversation continued in more desultory terms regarding Beaumarchais’s haste to return to Paris and the unfortunate weather in London.

  All the while Julia’s head buzzed. She had been correct in surmising that the stakes of the game were high for Strathmore. She’d wager the man never did anything except for grand ambition. She felt the gooseflesh rising over her throat, the flush warming her skin, an inexplicable pleasure coursing through her body at the thought, her desire for him growing rather than waning.

  As though he read her mind and sensed the heating of her blood, he shifted his arm up from where it looped her waist and slid a large hand across one breast, gently, lazily, as if they had all the time in the world and would never be discovered in the dark recesses of the storage space.

  Julia bit the inside of her cheek to stifle a moan. She tipped her head back against his shoulder, her spine arched ever so slightly into his touch and her backside pressed into his groin. A part of her never wanted to exit the dark, heady space behind Dr. Grant’s bookshelves, to delay forever the reckoning that would surely come as night follows day.

  The footsteps and voices receded as Lowther and Beaumarchais left the drawing room and the zebra in its glass case behind. It was the moment Strathmore chose to give her a small and totally unexpected push.

  Julia tumbled from behind the bookcase as though out of a dream, Strathmore close behind. His arm still around her waist, he broke her fall, their booted feet hardly making a sound on the parquet floor. The moment was suspended in time as they gazed studiously away from each other and across to the zebra staring serenely from inside its case. They listened carefully to fading footsteps. Lowther and Beaumarchais were making their way down the hallway to the front door.

  Strathmore motioned her over to the window, which he efficiently and silently opened, introducing a gust of damp air into the musty room. Outside, the high shrubbery beckoned.

  “Out you go,” he said.

  Julia was inclined to argue but disagreement required time they didn’t have. Placing her foot onto the sill, she angled her body out the window, easing herself into the shivering pointed leaves of a mulberry bush. Strathmore was close behind, using his arms to lift himself out, the frame scraping his shoulders as he dropped to the ground.

  They crouched low, watching the receding figure of Beaumarchais, who moved briskly down the walkway toward Gordon Square to enter a carriage waiting at the corner. Presumably, Lowther remained in the house, waiting for Strathmore’s appearance.

  “Hold off a moment until Beaumarchais disappears. Then a carriage is waiting for you on Gower street.”

  The spiky needles of the mulberry bush brushed against Julia’s cheek. “The Nile,” she whispered more to herself than anyone else. “That’s it?” The realization was staggering now that she examined it under the light of the moon and away from the heady sensuality that proximity to Strathmore induced. “You believe Faron knows the source of the river? And that’s why you’re doing all of this?” Anger mingled with desire. The bitter irony of it all. Strathmore thought nothing of snuffing out a life, her life, in order for him to feed his blind ambition.

  That’s what she was left with. In the course of three days, he had told her nothing of himself save his name, and even that she had wrenched from him. More significantly, he had promised her nothing, other than to spare her life. He would not help her ensure the safety of her family.

  “This is neither the time nor the place.” The resonance of his voice, a low growl, conjured an intimacy she’d prefer to forget. The knowledge that he stood just inches from her, their arms touching, reignited a peculiar and unwanted restlessness, pooling heat low in her belly. Her awareness of him was exhilarating, painful, confusing and, always there. How could she ever explain it?

  “It’s all simply an adventure to you, isn’t it? To achieve your ends, to make your damned discovery, you are willing to do just about anything, even make a pact with the devil, as you’ve clearly de
monstrated. And you won’t even give me an explanation.”

  “I owe you none.” He turned around to face her directly, his chest just inches away. Strength of will alone kept her from retreating into the bushes. He seemed immense, his shoulders all but filling the window frame behind her.

  “When is the right time, Strathmore?” Once you find yourself with Lowther again, how long will you honor our agreement? If Lowther issues you another challenge in exchange for what you covet so deeply, how do I know that you will not comply?”

  His warm breath fanned over her. “You don’t. It’s enough for you to know that I spared your life.”

  “Who is to say you will do so again? Whereas I shall do anything and everything to protect my family. Including protecting them from you.”

  “You exhort me to trust you and yet you do not trust me.”

  “Precisely. Despite your pitiable strategems to convince me otherwise.”

  He bared his teeth in the gaslight. “The very least you can do is be honest with yourself, Julia. You seem to be enjoying my stratagems.”

  A tremor passed through her. She was forced to lower her eyes when his gaze burned brighter than the gaslight behind him. She compressed her lips to still her rioting emotions. “Must you always make reference—”

  “You’re the one constantly making reference.”

  “I do not.” The disavowal sounded childish even to her own ears.

  “The hell you don’t.”

  She lifted her eyes to his, surprised to find a barely tempered rage in his face. A flicker of triumph burned in her chest. “For whatever reason, you delight in tormenting me. Perhaps you are not unlike Faron after all. For that matter, the resemblance is quite striking.”

  “You delight in dishonesty, Miss Woolcott. With yourself most of all.” His hand caught the back of her head, holding her still while one thumb flicked over her trembling lower lip. “You are perpetually in hiding. From Faron, from me, and most of all from the truth.”