He slipped out of bed, his heart pumping and his mind racing to battle-alert level. He grabbed his pistol and pulled the chair free.
Lieutenant Bourne stumbled through, shoulder first. “Christ, Captain. You sleep like the dead. I thought something had happened to you. It’s time for your watch.”
Arnaud was already pulling on trousers and reaching for his shirt on the back of the chair. “Anything suspicious out there?”
“Maybe—nothing I actually saw, but there was something. Something made my sixth sense itch.”
“Like what?” Arnaud jammed an extra pistol into the back of his belt.
“Don’t know exactly, but I’m certain someone or something was out near the north garden when I walked the perimeter.”
“What did you see?”
“No one showed their face, but it was more of a feeling I had, like someone was watching, taking my measure.”
They raced down the side steps into the kitchen on the lower level.
“Save us!” A maid stirring a boiling pot over a fire gave a startled yelp as they flew past.
Once outside, Arnaud was grateful the earlier, nearly full moon had set. He didn’t want the intruder to see them coming. They pounded up the path toward the north garden, and just as they neared the pillared entrance, Cullen and George joined them. Arnaud swept his hands at the surrounding forest without a word, and the two split up to circle through the trees.
Damn whoever was trying to hurt Sophie. Finally, he would make them pay.
Sophie and Lydia lay side by side in their huge feather bed and giggled.
Lydia threw aside the counterpane and walked to the door, lowering her ear to the keyhole. “Listen to all those footsteps. Wouldn’t you love to know who is going to whose chamber?”
“No. Please do get back into bed. The less we know about this ‘midsummer’s night,’ the better off we’ll be.” She waved Lydia away from the door. “What if someone catches you eavesdropping?”
“Our door is locked.” Lydia pointed to the large, ornate key stuck inside the keyhole. “And besides, you and I are too boring. Who would want to know what we’re up to?” She jumped at a sudden insistent tapping.
“Who goes there?” Sophie demanded from the bed. After a series of incoherent whispers from outside the door, she abandoned her perch and retrieved her parasol from a corner where it had leaned abandoned since the day before. Lady Howick had been too ill to remind her about hiding her complexion from the sun. With great stealth, she joined Lydia in her vigil by the door. “Tell us who you are or go away.” She repeated her earlier order.
After more incoherent, low pleading, Lydia recognized the voice. “Teddy. What are you doing? Papa sent you away. If he finds you here, I don’t know what he might do. Go away.” She stood back and clapped her hand over her forehead. “What could he possibly want that would make him risk Papa’s wrath?”
“Shall we send for your father?”
“Oh, heavens no. I’m sure some of the frenzied scufflings we heard tonight belonged to him or Mrs. Withers. The poor man deserves a night of pleasure.”
Sophie giggled again. “But what should we do about Teddy?”
“Maybe we should tell Captain Bellingham?”
“The last thing I want to do is disturb the honorable, upright captain, but you’re right. Something must be terribly off for Teddy to show up here when he’s supposed to be toiling away as a bookkeeper in Wales.” Sophie let out a huge sigh. “I suppose I should let Arnaud know.”
After waiting for the sound of Teddy shuffling away to fade, Sophie slipped out into the hallway, respectably garbed in a morning dress. She stopped mid-stride and suffered a bout of shame. Here she was at her first house party, invited by one gentleman, but sneaking off in the middle of the night to see another. At this rate, not only would she never receive an offer from a “gentleman,” but no one else in the ton would ever suffer her to cross their doorstep, either.
At first she and Lydia had determined they should go together, but then realized if someone, like Lady Howick, decided to look in on them, they would both be in huge trouble. Better for one of them to remain to provide explanations.
After a long, careful walk, she ended up diagonally across both wings of Clifford Park from the room she and Lydia shared. She hoped her cursory look at the room layout with names and floral insignia was sufficient. Otherwise, who knew who would answer her cautious tapping? When the door swung open with a vicious clatter, Arnaud stood there fully dressed and glaring.
When his eyes finally flashed recognition, she wished she knew whom he’d been expecting.
“Oh, it’s you.”
“I’m sorry I’m not the one you wished to see, but something has happened we thought you should know.”
Dark shadows beneath his eyes gave away his lack of sleep. He stepped outside his door, pushed her behind him, and looked both ways down the hall before snatching her back inside and closing the door.
Once inside, he pinioned both of her arms to her sides and held her against the door. “Pray tell what brings you out taunting the fates this night. I’ve spent hours chasing miscreants through the woods, making endless explanations to Sir Thomas’s servants, and now the object of all our guarding and thrashing about decides to take a late-night jaunt through the house.”
Sophie dared not breathe throughout his impassioned speech. She could feel his hands tremble where he held her shoulders, and after all the two of them had been through, she could not recall a time when he’d lost control.
She carefully raised her hands to cover his. “I am truly sorry to have caused you and your men so much work and worry. All you tried to do was the right thing, and now you’re stuck in this web of intrigue and deceit along with me.” When she touched him, his tension seemed to subside a little. “Someone came to our door tonight and tried to get us to let him in. Lydia thinks she recognized the voice, even though he spoke very fast and low. She believes it was Teddy.”
“You didn’t let him in…”
She shook her head. “Of course not. Neither one of us trusts him, but we can’t understand why he would come here all the way from Wales after Lord Howick banished him. And how did Teddy know where we would be?”
“Someone led my men on a wild chase near the far north garden tonight. I joined them until I realized that’s exactly what they wanted. Of course, they expected you and Lydia to let Teddy in, so they could do whatever it is they’ve been plotting for weeks.” Arnaud let go of Sophie and began to pace the small dormer room he’d been assigned. “Is there anyone from your time with your father who might have had a reason to wish you harm?”
“Hardly. A group of lovely, drunken writers, artists, and actors? Not a one of them would have the means to carry out such a complex plot, pay informers…” she trailed off. “Every penny they made went into wine and entertainment. They had trouble planning as far ahead as their next meal.”
“Then the one we seek has a much coarser aim.”
“What are you going to do now?”
Arnaud tucked her arm into his and accompanied her into the hallway back toward her chamber. “I’m not going to let you out of my sight until we get back to Howick House.”
Arnaud almost abandoned his own principled refusal not to make Sophie his wife. Almost. Earlier that evening he’d been as close to terrified for another human being as he’d ever been in his life. Chasing after faceless demons in the north garden had nearly undone him. And to think that idiot Seaton had been at Sophie and Lydia’s very chamber door demanding entrance while he and his men were haring off in search of threats meant only to lead them away.
Now that he held her next to him, he didn’t want to let go. He had the irrational conviction that nothing could happen to her as long as he could keep her close. Folly. That kind of thinking was folly. If someone truly wanted to harm her, what would happen when he had to return to his squadron? He knew he could count on Lord Howick and his men as well as the tough wareho
use guards on his mother’s staff, but they wouldn’t care for her the way he could. Zeus! He had to rein in his wandering mind already rattled by a night full of nonsense.
When her door loomed ahead in the short arc of light of Sophie’s lantern, he let out a deep breath full of tension he didn’t realize he’d been holding. At Sophie’s three short taps, Lydia whisked the door open. The stern face next to Lydia’s was a shock even though he realized the man had good reason to be there after all they’d been through that night.
“Good evening, Captain.” Neville’s broad shoulders filled the doorway behind Lydia.
“Seems we’re all in a bit of a precarious situation tonight,” Arnaud said.
In the dark hallway behind him, Lord Howick’s deep voice echoed in the darkness. “Indeed you are.” His hand grasped Arnaud’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. I understand fully why the two of you are here in the middle of the night in my daughter and Miss Brancelli’s chamber. Let us make sure no one else has to strain their own comprehension of why we’re all here.”
From behind Lord Howick, Mrs. Withers glided into view in a long, deep blue velvet dressing gown. “Perhaps we should continue this conversation inside,” she said, pulling shut the heavy door behind her and shepherding what had become a veritable crowd further into the bed chamber.
Captain Neville was the first to break the silence. “I came as soon as we realized the diversion in the north garden was probably a ruse. I was afraid someone might have circled back to Lydia and Miss Brancelli’s chamber. I…I’d been here only a few minutes when Captain Bellingham joined us with Miss Brancelli.
Since Miss Howick was uncharacteristically quiet, Arnaud hoped, by all that was holy, his stoic marine captain had not fallen under the spell of her wide, blue eyes. The deep pools of seeming innocence tended to pull in unsuspecting souls.
“The most important thing,” Mrs. Withers interrupted, “is that everyone survived the night’s events unscathed.”
A sharp knock startled everyone into silence.
Arnaud jerked the door open so quickly, Sir Thomas and Viscount Rumsford, both fully dressed in riding clothes, nearly fell forward into the room.
“Ah, so this is where all my guests ended up after dinner and Mrs. Withers’s entertaining monologues.” Sir Thomas’s infectious grin greeted everyone crowded into Lydia and Sophie’s chamber. “When my majordomo advised there had been a disturbance in the north garden, we decided to investigate and see if everyone was all right.”
Arnaud noted with approval both men had arrived armed with pistols.
Howick stepped forward. “Thank you for your concern. We’ve been on guard for some time, as you well know. Captain Bellingham and his men were in the garden and chased off the trouble makers, but my cousin, Seaton, must have returned from Wales to cause mischief with my daughter and Miss Brancelli. Fortunately, they barred the door and then called for help.
“Oh,” Viscount Rumsford said. “That must be the fellow Thomas’s valet tackled in the garden.”
“What?” Howick shouted and then swore, “By God, I’ll kill that stripling.” After Mrs. Withers laid a firm hand on his arm, he added in a contrite tone, “So sorry, my dear.”
Sir Thomas gave Howick a long look and then winked at Arnaud. “Since we’ve secured Mr. Seaton in the tack room for the night under guard, it would appear there are no further dragons to be slain. We will leave the party in your capable hands, Captain.” Viscount Rumsford aimed a mock salute at everyone squeezed into the small chamber before the two men retreated the way they came.
When Arnaud sought to see Sophie’s reaction to the news of Seaton’s capture, she’d moved close to Mrs. Withers who appeared to be pressing something into her hand.
Chapter Twenty-One
And then he ravished her with a kiss that made her tingle all the way down to her toes.
“That’s the way to finish the chapter, if you ask me.” Lydia leaned over Sophie’s shoulder and pointed to the blank space on the page at which her friend stared while chewing on the end of her pencil.
“Lydia, please.” Sophie pushed her friend back from her shoulder. “Give me room. I want the publisher to accept my work, not race shrieking from his desk when he reads prose like that.” She turned an accusing face on Lydia. “And besides, have you ever been kissed like that?”
“Maybe.” Lydia turned her head away and feigned interest in the branches of a tree outside their window.
“Lady Lydia Howick!” Sophie let her tone drip with accusation.
“Oh, so you are carrying on a romantic affair of the heart, but you don’t want anyone else to enjoy warm caresses and kisses?” Lydia turned back to Sophie, her face flaming with heat.
“I have no idea to what you are referring, but I do know your father would send you back to the country and send poor Captain Neville heaven knows where if he heard you talk this way. He told me he trusts all of Arnaud’s men implicitly.”
“Of course.” Lydia opened her hands in agreement.
“Because,” Sophie continued, her voice hardening, “they know he has the power to uplift or destroy their naval careers.”
Lydia had the good grace to cast her eyes downward.
Her lady’s maid Jane tapped on the door and leaned in to warn them they had only an hour left before she had to begin work on their hair and dressing for the evening dance.
After Jane climbed the stairs at the end of the hallway back toward the servants’ quarters, Sophie pointed a finger at Lydia. “Do not get poor Captain Neville into trouble just because you want to indulge your romantic fantasies. He is a real person who doesn’t deserve to suffer because of some whim of yours.”
When Lydia lifted her gaze back to Sophie, tears pooled in her eyes. “I would never hurt him. He is a great friend to me.”
“Oh, Lydia, what happened the other night before Arnaud and I got there?”
Instead of answering, she broke down in sobs.
That reaction alarmed Sophie more than any of her friend’s previous romantic babbling. She’d never heard Lydia ever express care or concern about any of her other conquests amongst the ton. That the man she would finally love would be a Royal Navy marine officer and the son of a simple squire? She quaked at the thought of what would happen if Lord Howick ever found out.
Arnaud wore severe black relieved only by a snowy white cravat. He stood with his back to a brocade-covered wall while dancers whirled past him. Artemis had made sure his neck wrap contraption was arranged to perfection. Since his valet was helping with guard duties during the dance and leaned against the wall directly across from him, Arnaud did not dare pull at the blasted cloth choking him.
And to add insult to injury, Lady Fitzroy had refused to allow him, or any of his men, to wear boots in her ballroom. If they had to run down an intruder through the gardens, they’d have a deuced hard time in the flimsy dance slippers she’d provided for all of them.
He’d expected Neville to complain the loudest of all his men about the stricture, but something had happened to the hardened leader of his marines. He had his suspicions which he hoped to God never were confirmed. Somehow, Sophie’s flibbertigibbet friend Lydia seemed to have beguiled her way into the man’s affections. If Arnaud survived this night with his wits intact, he would have to have a long talk with Neville, perhaps give him the option of returning to his home in East Anglia for the duration of their leave, or heading down to Portsmouth to find lads for crew when their ship had been re-fitted.
To hell with Artemis. He gave a surreptitious yank on his neck cloth. He didn’t know whether to blame the cravat or the frothy lavender dress encasing Sophie’s lush curves. Both items made breathing difficult. She’d led out the first dance with Sir Thomas and now glided past him with Lord Howick. At that moment, his cousin walked into the Fitzroy ballroom and was announced by Sir Thomas’s butler.
Zeus! In the name of all that was holy, what was his cousin playing at? Did he really care for Sophie? Or was he just an
other callous minion of the ton with his eye on her inheritance? By God, he would find out or know the reason why. Enough was enough. And if his cousin’s intent was honorable, why had he not pled his case before Lord Howick?
Arnaud had made his way but a few feet through the pulsing throng in Sir Thomas’s ballroom when Frannie fairly threw herself into his path. Her ample bosom heaved with vexation, and her eyes narrowed with intent.
“Captain Arnaud Bellingham, you have been a bad boy,” she muttered beneath her breath. “You’ve played me false.”
The only retort Arnaud could summon was “I beg your pardon?”
“You know exactly what I mean. I’ve abandoned all my other attachments because I believed you would come up to scratch.”
Arnaud took in a quick look around before taking her hand and leading her toward Artemis to join the new dance set forming. He gave a guttural growl and turned to warn her. “If you continue to spout nonsense, I’ll have to ask you to leave, because I cannot. I am on guard duty.”
Artemis bowed toward Frannie, ignoring her fuming countenance, and led her by her gloved hand toward the new dance line. She threw one furious backward glance toward Arnaud before the music started.
What could have set off Frannie so that she would hazard a public spat at a simple country dance? When he glanced toward Admiral Longthorpe who had showed up in tandem with Arnaud’s former mistress on the previous night, the look on his face was grim.
Arnaud had no more than retreated to the wall he’d been leaning against earlier than he was joined by his surgeon, Cullen. When the musicians launched into a lively set, Cullen leaned toward Arnaud’s ear and in a harsh whisper, urged him to meet outside to look at something odd the men had found.
Pride Of Honor: Men of the Squadron Series, Book 1 Page 19
