by Liz Carlyle
“Miss Ashton—” said Napier a little tightly.
She glanced up to see Napier’s knuckles had gone white where he gripped the seat. “Yes?”
“That was . . . inappropriate.”
Lisette flung the pencil down. “Well, pardon me,” she said hotly, “but I’ve little experience with trains. As to inappropriate, sir, that was your hand on my—well, never mind that.”
“That was not what I meant,” he returned. “What I meant was . . . that I was . . . or that we—well, we should perhaps not be too often together at Burlingame. It might be for the best. I shall have my job, and you shall have yours.”
“Well, yes. I daresay.”
“And we should keep our minds on what we’re about,” he added a little harshly. “We cannot afford to step wrongly here.”
“Napier, I did not step wrongly.” Lisette snatched up the pencil again. “I was flung upon you by this awkward, monstrous beast of a machine you’ve blackmailed me onto.”
But his eyes were still glittering dangerously. “You’ve quite a fondness for that term blackmail.”
“Because it’s accurate,” she retorted. “Moreover, the last useful mechanical contraption invented, to my mind, was the printing press. So once this curst business is over, you may put me on the first mail coach back to London, kissing my heels as I go. And trust me, once I’ve grasped the details of this awful chore, I will do my half of this job faultlessly.”
Now Napier looked oddly amused. “I’m very glad to hear it.”
Lisette made a sound of exasperation. “Look, just go through all the names and precise titles again,” she said. “I must write it all down and memorize it.”
“Why should you care,” he said without rancor, “when I scarcely do?”
Lisette looked at him impatiently. “You’re too entirely accustomed to bludgeoning your way through life, and having the power of the law on your side,” she said. “But now you are on your way to visit family, Napier, and under disingenuous circumstances at best.”
He lifted one broad shoulder. “And—?”
“—and you mean to present me as your future wife,” she finished. “Even if you have no interest in those people, it will appear quite odd to them if I do not. It is the sort of thing women know, Napier. It is the sort of thing, to them, that matters greatly.”
“Yes, I daresay.”
“You daresay?” Lisette looked at him chidingly. “What if I am an opportunist? Most women are, you know. I am almost certainly marrying you for your family connections.”
“And not my overwhelming charm?” said Napier mordantly. “Or my vast wealth?”
“You haven’t any charm,” she said. “But pray tell me more of this vast wealth. It may kindle my affections.”
“A wolf by the ears,” he muttered.
Lisette just smiled, pencil held expectantly aloft.
The bustle beyond the window at an end, the train started up again and after dragging a hand down his face, Napier began to recite off every detail of the Tarleton family, practically down to their height and weight. Lisette was not surprised; it was his job to know everything when directing an investigation.
He recited it, however, in a precise but dispassionate way, as if they were someone else’s family, his gaze focused unseeingly out the window, with Lisette occasionally glancing up at him as she took notes. The morning sun shone faintly upon his face now as they traveled a stretch of open countryside, casting him half in shadow and half in light—which seemed oddly in keeping with his nature.
Lisette had once suggested it in jest, but Napier was quite a striking man. Not a beautiful one, no, for his face was too strong, his eyes too hard. And he had a harsh blade of a nose that spoke of Roman blood, and of sheer, unbridled obstinacy. But in a room crowded with wealthier, more beautiful men, Napier would have turned every female head for he possessed what her old governess had called “a certain je ne sais quoi.”
And while he might be hard-hearted, he was at least half a head taller than she, a remarkable accomplishment indeed. It oddly pleased her; they would not look like an awkward couple when she met his family.
By the time he’d finished speaking, Lisette had more or less sketched a family tree, and an old and noble one indeed—though in that moment it had not yet occurred to Lisette that there was still one last and critical detail missing.
“Are you going to remember all that?” he said, cutting into her thoughts.
“I think I already have,” she murmured, ticking down the list. “I’ve a knack for memorizing things once I’ve read them.”
He watched her without commenting. Lisette laid the paper aside. “Well, that’s that,” she said. “Your grandfather. Your great-aunt. Her companion. Your uncle Saint-Bryce’s daughters: one spinster, one married, and one in the schoolroom. And perhaps, if we’re lucky, this dashing and disreputable Tony chap will turn up to entertain us. Is there anything else I should know?”
“No.” He paused for a long, pensive moment, looking suddenly awkward. “Well. Perhaps. You see, Cordelia—my great-aunt, Lady Hepplewood . . .”
“Yes?”
“She has some unfortunate . . . notions.”
When Lisette merely looked at him pointedly, Napier rolled his eyes, and went on. “Sir George says that Lady Hepplewood has taken it into her head that I’m to marry the companion.”
“Marry Miss Jeffers?” Lisette drew back an inch, a hand set dramatically over her heart. “So that’s why you need me so desperately. But if I’m to have competition for your favors, I shan’t take it well, I give fair warning. I’m not just opportunistic, Napier. I am possessive.”
His smile was muted, his eyes flicking over her face as if somehow taking her measure yet again. “Excellent,” he finally said. “Be quick and brutal if you must. I’ve no wish to disappoint anyone—and in truth, how could the woman want a man she’s scarcely met?—but Aunt Hepplewood says that since the poor girl was to marry . . .” Here, his words dwindled and to her shock, Napier’s ears began to turn faintly pink.
Diplomatically, Lisette consulted her notes. “I believe the lady was to marry Lord Saint-Bryce.”
“Just so,” Napier muttered. “And I suppose that they imagine . . . well, that I am now he.”
It took a moment for this to sink in, then Lisette’s pencil clattered to the floor. “Good heavens,” she murmured. “The heir to the Duncaster viscountcy—Baron Saint-Bryce—is toiling away in government service?”
Irritation sketched over his harsh visage. “Nothing about this is settled.”
“Well, I am admittedly no expert,” said Lisette, “but if you were born on the right side of the Tarleton blanket and all your uncles are dead without sons, then there’s no settling to it.”
Napier cut his gaze away again. “Good God, you sound just like Sir George.”
“Are all your uncles dead?” she demanded. “Where is the third?”
“The eldest proved a rake and a scoundrel,” said Napier emotionlessly. “He preferred the pleasure of other men’s wives—until one of his cuckolds shot him dead on Primrose Hill.”
“Truly?” Lisette’s eyes searched his face. “And . . . you haven’t another, barking around somewhere?”
“I think we’ve established that I have not,” he said coolly. “In any case, just make it plain out of the gate that you and I are betrothed and that your family has strong expectations that I will—”
He stopped, and turned to look at her oddly.
“That you will what?” Lisette pressed.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes almost softening. “Do you even have a family? I didn’t think . . . I mean, with the Ashtons dead. They are dead, I gather?”
“Yes, both.”
“Then there’s someone on your mother’s side, perhaps?”
But Lisette wanted no one’s pity. “Oh, indeed!” she said, drawing herself up haughtily. “You’ve the pleasure of addressing the only living granddaughter of the ninth
Earl Rowend. Would you care to kiss my ring and pledge fealty?”
The softness vanished. “Do be serious.”
“I’m quite serious,” she said. “And I can act as high in the instep as any Tarleton. Why, until Papa couldn’t pay her, we had a French governess—and no one teaches hauteur like a Parisian born and bred.”
But Napier’s expression had turned inward. “An earldom, eh?”
Lisette arched one eyebrow. “What, the daughter of Sir Arthur Colburne, dashing but faintly scandalous bon vivant was not good enough for you?” She gave a regal wave of her hand. “Very well, use the noble Lord Rowend as you will.”
“Is your grandfather living?” asked Napier tersely.
“No, but it scarcely matters. The whole family despised Papa, and very nearly disowned me. They rarely know where I am or what I’m doing.”
“Good,” he said pensively. “That’s good. Perhaps we shall survive this preposterous plan after all.”
Lisette was unwisely pleased by his use of the word we. Then it dawned on her just what he implied. “Oh, no, Napier, wait one moment,” she said, stabbing a finger in his direction. “Do you dare suggest someone might make you honor this sham of a betrothal? Or worse, that I might?”
Some inscrutable emotion flared behind his eyes. “Theoretically, a gentleman may not break a marriage engagement.”
“Oh, how you do flatter yourself!” Lisette scowled across the compartment. “Only in your fantasies, Napier, would I have you. Moreover, the only family contact I have is when they send the family solicitor round twice a year in the faint hope I’ve died and will no longer inconvenience them. So be damned to you and your presumption.”
But Napier seemed to have absorbed little of her invective, and this time his mouth did decidedly quirk. “I likely am,” he murmured, relaxing onto the banquette again. “Damned, that is.”
The train rumbled on, the compartment silent, with Lisette glaring across the distance at Napier. After a time, however, his unflinching stare wore her down and she broke it off by scrabbling about for her pencil. “Very well, then,” she said when she’d found it. “I’ll have the family details memorized by Swindon. Now we‘ve our personal history to settle upon.”
As if stirred from a trance, he blinked. “Ah, yes. That will be necessary.”
“Regrettably.” She gave a sour smile. “And since this betrothal has come about on the heels of a scandal we must explain that away, for it’s always the little lies that trip one up.”
“There’s nothing so welcome as the voice of experience,” said Napier dryly. “Very well. What do you suggest?”
Lisette didn’t bother to rise to the insult. There was, after all, a painful amount of truth in it. “My name was briefly mentioned in the Times as a witness,” she simply said. “I daresay they do read newspapers, even in a godforsaken backwater. How shall we handle that, Mr. Napier?”
“Ah,” he said. “How indeed.”
“Were we already betrothed?” she prodded, looking him up and down. “The papers made no mention of such a coincidence. So was it a secret betrothal? Are we in love, Mr. Napier? Or do we dare not tax our thespian skills so far beyond the credible?”
He shook his head. “It cannot be an arranged marriage; that won’t hold.”
She sighed. “And I haven’t quite enough money to entice a viscount’s heir.”
Napier studied her with his cool, steady gaze. “The truth will suffice,” he finally said. “We’ll say we met when you called upon me in my office to complain about Lazonby, and that I was immediately taken by your . . .”
“—spirit?” she supplied helpfully.
“Actually, it was your proclivity for bribery and seduction,” he countered, “along with that tiny peek of your left breast. But yes, let us call it spirit.”
“How gallant,” she said. “And perhaps we met again from time to time so that you might update me as to how the case against Lord Lazonby progressed?”
“Doubtless we did, since I was so charmed by your willingness to unbutton your gown in my office.” Napier settled back onto his banquette. “Do keep talking, Miss Ashton. We’ve all of two hours left.”
“But of course, my darling,” she said.
“Wait.” Napier sat bolt upright again, all pretense vanishing. “Why don’t we say you’re Elizabeth Colburne? Are you attached to the name Ashton?”
Lisette had learned not to get attached to anything. Upon arriving in Boston, she’d begun using the name because she’d been twelve years old and the Ashtons, childless, had insisted. It had scarcely mattered to Lisette; her father and sister were still just as dead. But the trust documents Bodkins had presented upon her return to England—and even as late as last week—still carried the name Elizabeth Colburne, and she’d spared it not a thought.
“My father had his name legally altered,” said Napier pensively. “Did you?”
She shook her head. “I suppose that I am Elizabeth Colburne,” she murmured. “It feels . . . odd, somehow, to realize it.”
He sat now on the edge of his seat, occupying the whole of the compartment, it seemed, with his wide-set knees and hands clasped loosely between them. He was thinking. And looking at her in that dark, deeply intense way of his; looking with such cold penetration that for an instant, she shuddered from the chill. How she would hate to be a criminal under his investigation!
But in a way, she was. And perhaps that’s all she was to him: a criminal—for he doubtless suspected her of things more heinous than even Lisette was capable of.
Or perhaps he did not. For when he spoke his voice had softened, with no hint of sarcasm. “And will you do it, then?” he asked. “You don’t have to; it wasn’t part of our bargain. But if I can say that I’m betrothed to the granddaughter of the Earl Rowend—even an estranged granddaughter—Lady Hepplewood will be unable to find fault with that.”
“Why wouldn’t I do it?” Lisette held his gaze steadily. “My word is my bond, and I’ve accepted your bargain. I don’t admit to anything, mind you. But whatever else I may be, I am not a cold-blooded murderer, a thief, or a liar—well, not unless I have to be. Now all I ask, before I get off this train in Swindon, is Do you have the power to protect me from Lazonby if he turns vengeful, whatever his reason?”
He was regarding her with utmost gravity now. “So far as the judicial system goes, yes,” he finally said. “I can’t control what the man says in the street. But even Lazonby hasn’t the power to hang someone. Not against my will.”
That Lisette believed sincerely.
“Then let’s agree to this properly,” she said, peeling off her glove and thrusting her hand across. “I shall faithfully uphold my end of the bargain if you’ll uphold yours. I want your word, Napier, as a gentleman.”
He looked at her outstretched hand—even pondered it a moment, she thought—then reached across the narrow compartment and shook it, his large, long-fingered hand warm and sure.
“You have my word, Miss Colburne, as a gentleman—provided you are not a murderer or a thief or a liar—that I will protect you from Lazonby’s retribution to the utmost of my abilities, legally, and in whatever other capacity I may.”
Her gaze holding his, Lisette clasped Napier’s hand for an instant longer than she ought to have done, then let it go, wondering if she had truly lost her mind. Wondering when pride and the foolish wish to be thought well of had displaced her good sense.
And worrying about those two little words Napier had not echoed.
Cold. Blooded.
CHAPTER 6
In Which Mr. Napier Grasps His Grievous Error
Napier would give the devil her due. Elizabeth Colburne was a master.
And he—well, he was a damned fool. Or a genius.
By the time they stepped down onto the platform at Swindon Junction, his self-described blackmail victim was a woman transformed, having spent the last half hour of their journey rummaging about in her overstuffed carpetbag like some Covent Garden magi
cian tugging rabbits from a hat.
“I’m glad I came a little prepared,” she had grumbled into the bag as she extracted a satin jewel box, “rather than simply accept your vague instructions. After all, aspiring to become Mrs. Napier is one thing. But if one aspires to become Baroness Saint-Bryce of Burlingame, a little tarting-up is wanted.”
Napier had watched in quiet awe as she redressed her hair, exchanged all her jewelry, dashed a little powder on her cheeks, and stuffed away the simple gabardine cloak she’d worn into Paddington Station. When she was done, she looked nothing remotely like a tart.
Indeed, she scarcely looked like the woman with whom he’d left London. And she looked so little like a radical newspaper reporter that Napier ceased to be certain of his entire theory about how Sir Wilfred Leeton ended up dead in his own dairy.
Elizabeth Colburne now wore a jewel-toned paisley shawl swathed like a cashmere cloud about her shoulders and a short strand of perfectly matched pearls about her neck. A square-faceted emerald identical in color to the green of her velvet carriage dress dropped from the pearls, catching the afternoon light.
Tiny, tasteful emeralds studded her ears and dangled with pearl teardrops. And through her hair she had twisted a length of cream-and-emerald satin roping in a neoclassical fashion that turned her hair into a tousled, flaming tumble of curls.
After whisking her around the hideous twenty-foot marble monstrosity adorning Burlingame’s carriage drive—Hades abducting Persephone, he thought—Napier had handed her down from their hired gig and felt for the first time a measure of appreciation for the massive family pile.
And then he realized in some disconcertion that it was because she looked so grand. He wished his home to look equal to her visit. Disconcerted by this bizarre notion, he cut Miss Colburne another sidelong glance and felt his breath catch. She stood at the very foot of the grand stairs, looking rich, beautiful, and with her unusual hair, faintly avant-garde.
But Burlingame was not his home. And Miss Colburne—well, she was just a bought-and-paid-for actress, or something near it. A wise man would take care to remember both those things.
