The Edge of Desire

by Stephanie Laurens

  “No, no!” Trowbridge waved his hands. “Good Lord. It wasn’t like that. Our acquaintance…well, friendship as it was, was nothing like that.” He looked sincerely horrified. “If you really must know, we met at school.”

  Letitia opened her mouth. Christian silenced her with a look. “Which school?”

  “Hexham Grammar School.”

  Christian looked into Trowbridge’s large, slightly pro-truberant blue eyes. “Did you know Randall was a farmer’s son?”

  “Yes, of course. We…ah, he wished it kept secret. Especially when he went up in the world.” Trowbridge glanced at Letitia, as if conscious of what such a secret would mean to her.

  Christian grasped the moment to ask, “And what about you, Trowbridge? Have you come up in the world, too? Are you, too, hiding something?”

  Abruptly Trowbridge looked him in the eye. “Patently, I’m hiding nothing at all.” He held out his arms, hands spread, inviting them to view him as he was. “From which you may infer that deception isn’t my strong suit.” He glanced at Letitia. “It was Randall’s.” He looked again at Christian. “If I had half his talent, I would, without doubt, be more circumspect. As it is…”

  Again he gestured, turning the movement into an extravagant bow. “If you’ll excuse me?”

  With a nod, he turned away, and walked swiftly, rather stiffly, back up the lawn.

  Shoulder-to-shoulder, Christian and Letitia watched him go.

  “I’ll lay odds,” Christian murmured, “that he’s from a lower class family, too. That he was another governors’ scholar. His natural…flair, for want of a better word, is his disguise—in our circles quite an effective one.”

  Letitia snorted. “If we’re to talk of odds, what are the chances of two governors’ scholars from Hexham Grammar School rising from nothing to walk our gilded circles?”

  “I wouldn’t like to think.” Christian took her arm and started back to the house. “Regardless, what would you wager that when we learn about Swithin, he, too, will prove to have attended Hexham Grammar School, and that he, too, was a governors’ scholar?”

  “Regardless of Trowbridge’s protestations, his particular bent, no matter how widely recognized, how relatively open and undisguised, still gives him a powerful motive for murder.”

  Later that night, Christian moved about Letitia’s bedchamber; shrugging out of his coat, he laid it over the back of a chair. “For instance, if Randall, who must have known his secret, including numerous details—a gentleman who could claim long acquaintance—were to explicitly expose Trowbridge, then everything he’s worked for, his position in the ton, would evaporate overnight. The fact that he and Randall shared another secret wouldn’t matter—the secret of their births counts for much less, and affects them both equally.”

  In light of Trowbridge’s “particular bent,” they’d had to wait until now, when they were free of both Agnes and Hermione, to discuss the subject.

  Standing before the window looking out over the night-shrouded street, Letitia folded her arms. “No lady would be able to allow him to cross her threshold, not if his inclination was public fact.”

  They’d returned to South Audley Street to find that Tristan had indeed arrived and spent several hours with Dalziel searching through the files and papers. They’d eventually departed, leaving a message with Hermione—chuffed to be a part of their investigation—to the effect that they’d return the following day to continue searching and share any news.

  Beyond that, Hermione knew no more, which had done nothing to ease Letitia’s growing concern over the Orient Trading Company. She had a gnawing premonition that Randall being a farmer’s son might prove the least troubling of the secrets he’d left behind. She leaned against the window frame. “I wish I’d asked Trowbridge about the company—whether he knew anything of it, or whether, indeed, he was another part owner.”

  On the journey back from Chelsea, they’d speculated as to whether Trowbridge and Swithin might prove to also be part owners in the company, accounting, perhaps, for the other two-thirds.

  Unbuttoning his shirt, Christian crossed to stand behind her. “One step at a time. We’ve established that Randall and Trowbridge were once friends, that they’d known each other for decades, but that for some reason they grew distant with the years…or they played down and actively hid their association.”

  Reaching for her, he drew her back against him; she let him, but remained stiff, spine straight, in his arms. He continued, “If Trowbridge is a part owner of the Orient Trading Company, then claiming he barely knows Randall won’t wash—they would have had to meet frequently, and with Randall leaving him a bequest in a relatively recent will, citing their friendship, then Trowbridge’s claim of mere acquaintance isn’t believable.”

  “Which in itself is strange—why hide a friendship if it were there? Trowbridge didn’t attend Randall’s funeral, yet he must have known of his death. He hasn’t called to offer his condolences—he didn’t offer any even today.”

  Settling her against him, he reviewed the short interview. “Trowbridge was taken aback that Randall had named him in his will. It seemed to me his reaction had more to do with Randall acknowledging him at all, rather than that it was via a bequest.”

  “Hmm.” She closed her hands about his at her waist. “What I don’t see is how any of this is helping us clear Justin’s name.”

  Secure in the knowledge that she couldn’t see, he let his lips curve, then he touched them to her temple, drew them slowly down, barely touching, over the whorl of her ear to press a more definite kiss into the shadowed hollow behind it.

  Eliciting an encouraging shiver.

  “We’re identifying other possible suspects.” He murmured the words against the soft skin of her throat. “And once we know more about the Orient Trading Company, we’ll doubtless have more. If Randall was managing an enterprise directly engaged in trade, there’s always the chance of a disgruntled customer or supplier furious enough, or desperate enough, to commit murder. We now know we can add Trowbridge to our list. And most likely Swithin as well. The more potential suspects we can identify, the weaker the case against Justin.”

  She eased back against him, into his warmth. “Perhaps, but he’s still the prime suspect.”

  “True.” He skated his lips down the long line of her throat, heard her breath catch as she arched her head, allowing him better access. “But once we start winnowing our suspects, the real murderer will emerge.” Raising his head, he turned her, met her shadowed eyes. “And once we have him, Justin will be safe. In every way.”

  She looked into his eyes; he could sense the frown in hers. “You make it sound so…straightforward. That it will simply happen, step by step, like that.”

  “Because it will.” He drew her closer. “Because we’ll make it happen”—he bent his head—“just…like…that.”

  He covered her lips and kissed her—deliberately kissed her to distract her.

  To give her something else to think about, to fill her mind with…

  Him. Them.

  And what might be.

  He needed to reawaken her dreams again, to convince her to trust that they could come to be. To convince her to put her hand in his again, to be his again.

  In his heart he knew it wouldn’t be as easy as he’d like, yet when he held her in his arms, when she stepped into him and sank her fingers in his hair and kissed him back with all the pent-up longing in her dramatic soul, he felt like heaven was within his reach.

  So close, as he angled his head and deepened the kiss, he could taste it.

  She no longer even pretended that she thought he might—or should—leave her each night, that he should go home and allow her to retire alone. Just as well. The single night he’d stayed apart from her had seemed to drag on forever.

  Yet as they tussled for direction, wrestled for supremacy, as clothes dropped like so much litter to the floor, as hands grasped and mouths and lips caressed—until he spun her about, bent
her forward over a round table and entered her from behind—and she gasped, caught her breath, then sighed, shifted, and took him yet deeper—even then he wasn’t sure, couldn’t tell whether she was as caught in the moment as he was.

  As deeply ensnared by the emotional net that for him, at least, in moments such as this, held him.

  All he could do was show her how he felt—let her see, and feel, how possessive of her, with her, he wished—needed—to be.

  And hope she understood.

  In the end, after they’d both touched glory and he’d carried her, all but staggering, to collapse on her bed, as she curled against him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, the fingers of one hand lazily riffling the hair on his chest, all he could do was hope that she would once again grant him what she’d so freely gifted him with all those years ago.

  Hope that with every night, with every day that passed, she would see his unswerving devotion for what it was.

  Hope that on this unsettling and unfamiliar battleground, he was advancing his cause, and drawing ever closer to recapturing her heart.

  Chapter 13

  The following morning, Christian left Letitia sprawled boneless in her bed; returning to Allardyce House, he breakfasted in solitary state, then went to call on Montague. That expert in money matters received him in his office—with a frown.

  “I’m having a great deal of difficulty following the trail of Randall’s money back in time—which I shouldn’t have. It’s as if he, as a financial entity, simply came into being, fully funded, twelve years ago.” Montague reached across his desk, picked up a sheet and peered at it. “Interestingly, that was the same time—twelve years ago—that the Orient Trading Company first surfaced.”

  Lowering the sheet, Montague looked over his pince-nez at Christian, seated before the desk. “It’s quite remarkable that I can find no trace of any accounts for Randall prior to his establishing the accounts he died with, all of which are with London banks.”

  “Twelve years ago, Randall was twenty-two years old.”

  “Indeed. And I can tell you there are few twenty-two-year-olds who could claim the level of capital he had. I’ve even considered the question of an alias, but there’s no sign of that. Much as it shocks me, I’m tending to the theory that when Randall set up his currently held accounts twelve years ago, he deposited the funds in cash. It was a significant amount, yet there’s no trace of that money coming from anywhere—meaning any other account or instrument or fund.” Montague shook his head. “It had to have been moved in cash.”

  Christian nodded. Given Randall’s background, that was perhaps not surprising. Chances were, he hadn’t had much to do with banks before coming to London.

  “One thing I have made headway with is the estimation of Randall’s final estate. I’ve yet to hear back regarding the estimated worth of the third share in the Orient Trading Company, but even leaving that aside, the figure is quite startling.” Montague glanced at a sheet of paper, then handed it across the desk.

  Christian took it, read the figure, and raised his brows.

  “Indeed.” Montague sat back, removing his pince-nez. “While I’m sure it’s not what you want to hear, I would have to say that Randall’s estate provides an excellent motive for murder, even if the one inheriting is one’s sister.”

  Christian pulled a face. He handed the sheet back. “And the company?”

  “The Orient Trading Company appears to be a legitimate enterprise, at least on the surface, with reputable legal representatives. As to the nature of its business, I’ve sent out inquiries, but have yet to hear more.”

  “We’ve found a set of books that Randall kept—they appear to be the accounts, income and expenses, and so on, of the Orient Trading Company, but even though we’ve only started looking through them, all the entries are in some sort of code—as if they’re payments to and from various sources but with only initials identifying the sources, and no indication of what goods were traded.”

  Montague frowned. “That sounds like an amateurish method of account keeping, but it doesn’t preclude what I’ve said—the company may still be entirely legitimate, just run very privately and secretively.”

  “Randall was nothing if not secretive, so that’s no surprise.” Christian thought, then said, “It might be best if you concentrate first on identifying the other owners.”

  “The beneficial owners.” Picking up a pen, Montague made a note.

  “Just so. And it would be helpful if you could verify the company’s income, at least to the extent of confirming whether it was profitable or not. After that, if we still have no clue as to what the company’s business consists of, we’ll need you to delve deeper. We’ll see what we can learn from the books first, but it might well be that they’ll only increase the mystery.”

  Montague nodded. “Rest assured I’ll give these matters my fullest attention.”

  His enthusiastic tone made Christian smile; as he stood, he remarked, “You seem to enjoy these forays into investigation.”

  “Oh, I do.” Montague pushed back his chair and rose. “Indeed, I will admit I live for the unusual queries you and some of my other clients bring me from time to time. They lend spice to the mundane accounting and investing that otherwise is my bread and butter. While sustaining, bread and butter and nothing else can be rather dull.” Smiling, Montague accompanied Christian to the door. “Sadly, good money management often is deathly dull, so I feel rather blessed when you or one of the others looks in.”

  Christian grinned; he saluted as he went through the door. “Glad to be of service.” Walking through the outer office, he headed back to Mayfair.

  At midday they all assembled in Randall’s study—Letitia, Christian, and Dalziel, with Hermione as lookout. They shut Mellon out and locked the study door, much to his consternation.

  Also to Barton’s; the runner was still keeping watch from the street. Lounging against the area railings of the house opposite, he’d noted Christian’s and Dalziel’s arrivals with mounting curiosity. When Letitia drew the study curtains firmly across the windows, then peeked through a tiny gap, she saw Barton frowning. He started across the street; she tugged the curtains closed.

  Turning, she glanced at the study door. “Did you leave the key in the lock?”

  “Of course,” Dalziel replied.

  “Good!” She ignored the arrogant look he sent her. “So even if he weasels his way into the house, that pest Barton won’t be able to see in.”

  A heavy knock fell on the front door. Letitia waved dismissively. “Don’t bother—it’ll only be him.” She headed for the window and the catch for the secret door.

  “I don’t think so.” Christian sent her a warning look.

  She slowed, halted—and heard deep voices in the front hall.

  Christian exchanged a glance with Dalziel. “It sounds like Trentham has brought reinforcements.”

  Returning to the study door, Christian unlocked and opened it—to admit three gentlemen. Tristan and two other large gentleman Letitia hadn’t previously met.

  Christian and Dalziel knew them; they exchanged handshakes and greetings, then Tristan brought the newcomers to Letitia and Hermione, who had sidled up to stand beside her. Tristan shook both their hands, then waved to the gentlemen alongside him. “Lady Letitia Randall, Lady Hermione Vaux—Anthony Blake, Viscount Torrington—for his sins, another member of our club—and Jonathon, Lord Hendon, who escaped by being in a slightly different wing of the services.”

  Anthony Blake grinned and elegantly bowed over Letitia’s hand, then Hermione’s. “Delighted to make your acquaintance, ladies.” The dancing light in his dark eyes suggested it truly was. “Please call me Tony.”

  Lord Hendon smiled and shook first Hermione’s hand, making her blush furiously, and then Letitia’s. “A pleasure, ma’am. And please call me Jack—everyone does. I understand you’ve inherited a share of a trading company.”

  “Apparently. Unfortunately we’ve yet to determine jus
t what the company trades in.”

  Tony glanced around. “Tristan said you had books…?”

  Letitia looked across and confirmed that Christian had shut and relocked the study door. “Indeed.” Turning to the window frame, she depressed the catch for the secret door. “Come”—turning back to Tony and Jack, she waved beyond them to where Christian was swinging the secret door wide—“and we’ll show you.”

  Jack and Tony were as amazed by the secret room as they’d all been, but they quickly got down to business when Christian showed them one of the ledgers.

  “Just from this, it seems certain the Orient Trading Company, whoever they are, are a going concern—a business selling…what, we don’t yet know.” Jack looked up from the ledger. His gaze scanned the rows of packed shelves, taking in the enormity of the task they faced, then, jaw firming, he nodded. “We’ll need to get everything down—every box, every file, every ledger. We need to look for the account ledgers—money in, and money out. They could be in separate ledgers—from this one it looks like they will be—and there could well be more than one set of books, too.”

  Tony nodded, surveying the shelves. “We also need to look for inventory files, documents listing goods, invoices, and any shipping documentation.” He exchanged a look with Jack. “If we can get the information on those two areas collected, we’ll have somewhere to start.”

  There were seven of them all told. They buckled down to the task with grim determination. They quickly established a rhythm—Christian, Dalziel, and Tristan reaching and lifting the files and books down from the shelves, then handing them to Letitia or Hermione to ferry to one or other of the two main piles. Tony watched over the pile for inventory and all things to do with goods, while Jack stacked and organized the account ledgers.

  Within half an hour they realized they had a problem, but forged on until every box, file, and paper had been considered, and either assigned to a pile or set aside as not immediately relevant.

  Surrounded by now empty shelves, they slumped into the chairs or propped against the desk or shelves and took stock. Two hours had passed. From the chair behind the desk, presumably the one in which Randall used to sit, Letitia surveyed what they’d discovered about her late husband’s enterprise, glancing from the neatly stacked ledgers, over fifty of them, all fat and plump, surrounding Jack Hendon on one side of the room, to the fourteen thin ledgers by Tony Blake’s feet.