by Liz Carlyle
Miss Tarleton gave a tight smile. “You must call me Cousin Gwyneth now, I daresay,” she replied, looking as if it pained her.
It pained him not to point out that they had been cousins since her birth, and that she had heretofore suffered no impulse to call him anything save, he suspected, that odious Mr. Napier. But he resisted the petty impulse. He knew nothing of Gwyneth Tarleton, or what her life was like.
Moreover, he was not here to assuage his pride, or even to coddle hers. Instead, he simply introduced Miss Colburne.
Diana Jeffers was delicate and pretty, and if she found any discomfort in greeting to the woman who was ostensibly to replace her as Lady Saint-Bryce, one could not discern it. “Welcome to Burlingame,” she said, her voice warm, if a little vague.
“Shall I take Beatrice back up?” asked Mrs. Jansen, as if uncertain whose permission to ask.
“Yes,” said Gwyneth and Lady Hepplewood at once.
Lady Hepplewood’s glower darkened. “Gwyneth will take you to the east pavilion,” she continued to Napier. “Diana, you will return with me.”
“Shouldn’t I help Gwyneth settle them in?” suggested Miss Jeffers.
But Lady Hepplewood had already started in the opposite direction, her ebony stick clacking hollowly across the white marble of the vaulted entrance hall. “Gwyneth has no need of help,” she said, crooking her head to look back with obvious exasperation. “Now do come along, Diana. I cannot find my needlework. I’m quite sure you’ve mislaid it.”
Frustration sketched across Miss Jeffers’s face, but swiftly vanished. “Of course, Cousin Cordelia.” She turned to shoot Napier and Miss Colburne one last glance. “We keep apartments in the west end of the house. Do visit us there if we may be of some service.”
Napier thanked her, then turned to follow Gwyneth in the opposite direction.
“You must forgive Aunt Hepplewood’s presumption,” said Gwyneth as they walked.
“Must I?” said Napier.
“I suppose Uncle Hep’s death and Tony’s turning black sheep have left her a tad distraught,” said Gwyneth without a modicum of warmth.
Tony, Napier knew, was Hepplewood’s heir, and their only child. And if half what he’d heard in London was true, Lady Hepplewood had just cause for her concern. But Napier said nothing, for Tony’s moral failings were none of his business.
The trek from the formal salons of the main house was a long one, taking them through one ostentatious room into another until at last they reached one of the long passageways that connected Burlingame’s main house to the pavilions.
Here the soaring baroque arches appeared to once have been open but now were fitted with glazed windows that rose some twenty feet high. The passageway floor was laid with alternating tiles of sparkling black and white marble and the ceiling was vaulted on pairs of grand columns that he supposed were marble, too.
Miss Colburne, however, after commenting admiringly on the whole, called the columns scagliola and the passageway a grand colonnade. Napier made a mental note to ask her what the differences were. She seemed a walking miscellany of obscure facts.
Gwyneth Tarleton nodded her approval, and kept moving. But having apparently decided that Miss Colburne just might possibly be worthy of her attention, the lady slowed her pace from time to time in order to point out further architectural details.
Once again Napier found himself grateful for Miss Colburne’s presence for she seemed to know just the right things to say and to ask. Oh, his gratitude would likely pass when next she tried his patience—something he expected was inevitable. And that sudden shaft of lust—not to mention the ripe swell of her breast beneath his hand—had been disconcerting.
But thus far, she was upholding her end of their bargain, and admirably so. It felt as if something had shifted between them in the train, and her eyes no longer held as much uneasy suspicion. Nor did his, perhaps. They were, by hook or crook, in this together, it seemed.
At the end of the colonnade, they entered what appeared to be an entirely different house, and one Napier had not previously visited. This, he understood, was where Lord Duncaster resided, and it looked far more like a gentleman’s well-worn country manor and less like an overwrought imitation of Versailles. Napier felt oddly better of his grandfather for preferring it.
After mounting a wide, circular staircase, he was shown into an airy bedchamber with a pair of massive windows overlooking a parterre garden rolling out into some sixteen symmetrical squares, and beyond that, a crescent-shaped ornamental lake set with a cupolated gazebo at the end of a little pier. The whole of it, he imagined, must have required a battalion of gardeners.
After confirming his satisfaction with the room, the efficient Gwyneth swept Miss Colburne further down the passageway, and Napier found himself alone. Jolley, it appeared, had been safety delivered from the station with their bags. Napier noted his dressing case already lay open upon an ancient barley-twist vanity, and his dressing gown hung on a hook by the door.
As to the valet himself, he was likely belowstairs sidling up to the cook. Jolley always kept an eye to the main chance. Left to his own devices, Napier headed toward the dressing room. There was no hope, he supposed, of a water tap in this ancient pile, but he glanced inside all the same.
Nothing. He turned around, intending to yank the bellpull so that he might wash the day’s dust away. But as he passed into his bedchamber, the door flew open and Miss Colburne darted in, slamming it shut behind, her odd green-blue eyes alight with what could only be described as burning curiosity.
“Well,” she said, leaning back to set her palms flat against the wood, “who do you think did it?”
Napier shot her a warning glance, and hoped she took it as such. “I’ve no idea who’s done what to whom,” he said, “but account yourself lucky I hadn’t stripped down to my drawers to contemplate it.”
“Napier, do be serious. You hadn’t time.” She paused to turn the lock with an efficient snap! and then followed him to the windows. “So far, I place my hope in Gwyneth Tarleton. I find her to be frightfully efficient—and the efficient are sometimes ruthless.”
For a long moment, Napier said nothing. Though his gaze was fixed upon the lake and the row of topiaried yews that lined its path, he could feel her warmth—her sheer vitality—hovering at his elbow. Her presence soothed him even as it oddly frustrated him. He did not wish to feel either—not where she was concerned.
But the undeniable truth was, from the moment he’d laid eyes on the woman those many months ago, there had been a physical attraction. A dangerous attraction. And though she seemed almost unaware of it, she had only grown more tempting with time.
“I don’t suppose there’s any point in telling you that you’ve no business in a gentleman’s bedchamber?” he finally said.
She gave a sound of exasperation. “Well, I’ve no business traveling with a man I scarcely know and certainly don’t mean to marry,” she said, “but that hasn’t stopped either of us, has it? Besides, we must have a place to speak privately if we’re to work together.”
“That is my very point.” Napier turned on his heel to look at her, and wished at once he had not. “We aren’t working together. You are merely to occupy yourself in distracting that maddening pack of females.”
He could hear her toe begin to tap beneath the elegant sweep of her velvet skirts; could see impatience sketch across her face. “Then you quite waste my investigative skills,” she blurted.
“Oh?” he said, daring her to confess the truth. “And what sort of investigative skills, pray tell, would a grammar teacher from Hackney possess?”
Her face colored furiously. “You know I’m not a fool, Napier,” she said. “Very well, yes, I worked a little in Boston, helping Uncle Ashton with his newspaper. And I might do a dozen things more here at Burlingame, were you simply to tell me—”
“Miss Colburne,” he interjected.
“Elizabeth.” Her voice broke a little oddly. She let her arms dro
p and laid her hand on his arm. “Or Lisette if you like. That’s what my family always called me. But you can’t go on calling me Miss Colburne—not when you’re addressing me. It sounds . . . distant.”
But it was precisely distance that he needed; distance from her, and from that warm, verdant scent she favored. It mingled now with the dust and heat of the day to form a heady, feminine fragrance that tempted him to do just as she suggested. To confide in her—or worse.
She stepped nearer. “So it’s Lisette, then?”
Napier shut his eyes for a moment and tried to remember just who she was—and why she was here. “And you . . .” he managed, his voice entirely too low, “what will you call me?”
A teasing grin curved her mouth. “Saint-Bryce, it would appear,” she said, “if your family has any say.”
He turned back to the window, and set his hands wide on the sill, almost leaning out of it. A light breeze brushed his cheek, bringing with it the scent of fresh-turned earth and late-blooming apple trees and the soft hoo-hoo-hoo of doves awaiting dusk.
Saint-Bryce.
Was that who he was?
It did not help his state of mind when Elizabeth edged nearer, braced her smaller, paler hands beside his and leaned out with him.
“What a damnable coil,” he muttered, scarcely knowing which coil he meant.
“You aren’t contemplating a plunge to your death, are you?” she asked. “Because at this height, you’ll only break a leg and be trapped here, bedridden.”
He cut her a rueful smile. “Those bay towers out front?” he suggested. “Would that get the job done, do you reckon?”
She pretended to consider it. “I fear the pea-gravel would merely mar that striking face of yours,” she said lightly. “But you could climb that monstrous folly we drove past—and if you keep on with your high-handed attitude, I might be persuaded to give you a shove.”
Her tone was teasing but something in his heart twisted all the same. “Damn it, Elizabeth, don’t—” He stopped, and shook his head.
“Don’t . . . what?” Her brows in a knot, she touched his arm again.
He wished to the devil she would not. But he forced himself to look at her, at the translucent perfection of her skin, and what looked like earnest concern in her eyes. He burned for her—ached with it—even as he knew the danger.
“Don’t even say such things,” he managed. “Don’t even joke about them.”
Don’t make me think of what you might be. Don’t make me doubt you.
That was what he meant.
Already he was falling under her siren’s spell—falling, he supposed, for nothing save superficial charm and that wild, flaming hair. But beneath that beautiful façade lay a cold, calculating relentlessness. He knew, for he’d seen it firsthand when she’d alternately accused him of incompetence, accused him of taking bribes—offered, even, her own bribe—then offered him herself.
And all he’d been able to think about on that long, damnable train journey was that he wished to God he’d taken her up on the offer all those months ago. Even now his cock began to harden at the thought of her lush bottom as she’d squirmed off his lap on the train.
Somehow, he pushed away from the sill and away from her to stand up straight. “Perhaps you’d best go back to your room, Elizabeth,” he said evenly. “I’ll see you downstairs for dinner.”
But Elizabeth, wincing, had begun to unwind the elaborate satin cords from her tousled curls, still oblivious to his lust. “For my part,” she added, “I think Lady Hepplewood is an angry and bitter woman. Ah, yes, that’s more comfortable.”
“Lady Hepplewood is just overbred and overweening,” said Napier.
“No, it’s more than that.” Elizabeth was shaking loose her hair in a way that made him swallow hard. “Did you see her fist on that walking stick? If the human grip could shatter brass, she’d have the shards to show for it. And that poor Miss Jeffers—what is she, the lackey?”
“I gather, yes.”
“Poor girl,” said Elizabeth. “Having long played the grateful drudge myself, I cannot recommend it.”
Napier wanted to ask what she meant, but dared not deepen the air of intimacy. He needed to know nothing more of her; what he already suspected had left him feeling compromised enough.
Instead, he cocked one hip on the sill and crossed his arms, studying her. “Elizabeth,” he said quietly, “why are you not leaving?”
Her satin cords, or whatever they were, having been tossed aside, Elizabeth threw up both hands and looked at him incredulously. “Because we’ve work to do?” she suggested. “Because the sooner we’ve done whatever it is you’ve come to do, the sooner we’ll be away from here?”
Away from here.
Away from her.
God, he prayed for both—but for far different reasons, he was beginning to think.
Suddenly her eyes widened. She cut a glance at the door, then hastened to it, the green velvet of her carriage dress slithering enticingly over her hips. Then, to his extreme discomfort, she bent over a little and set an ear to a flat spot in the carved wood, providing a delectable view.
It seemed an eternity before she straightened and shook her head. “My imagination,” she muttered. “I’m sorry, what were you saying?”
Napier sighed, and altered his strategy. “Make your point, but be quick about it,” he said. “In what way might you be of help?”
Again, the ingenuous expression. “Why, it’s hard to know,” she said, “when I’ve been told nothing of what brought you here. Nonetheless, I will have time alone with all your maddening females—and ladies do gossip. Moreover, they will take no notice whatever of another lady asking a great many questions. Indeed, given my odd predicament, they will wonder if I do not.”
“There is some truth to that,” he admitted.
“And then, of course, there’s Fanny.”
“Who, pray, is Fanny?”
“My maid,” she said impatiently. “Servants’ hall tittle-tattle is the purest form of gossip.”
“True, my man Jolley is invaluable in that regard.”
“Furthermore, Fanny and I are apt to be in parts of the house you will not,” she said. “While you’re closeted with Duncaster in some stuffy estate office, the ladies will likely take tea in the drawing room, or sew in the parlor, or read in the library. Are you looking, perhaps, for a weapon? Or purloined goods?”
He considered it for a moment, and wondered why he should not take her up on it. Elizabeth Colburne was a clever piece of work, and the fact that she made his cock throb every time she drew near was merely a testament to his stupidity.
“All right,” he said, setting one hand high on the bedpost. “I need every bit of gossip either you or Fanny come across, so long as you take no risk to get it. And I need paper.”
“Paper?”
“Letter paper,” he amended. “From every room in the house, ideally, though that won’t be possible. Give it to Jolley, or have Fanny do so.”
He could see her brain clocking along like a well-greased gearbox. “Someone has written you anonymously,” she said. “Or written something suspicious to someone, at any rate. And you wish to discover if the letter came from this house.”
“Never mind what I wish,” he snapped. “I just want samples of letter paper. Don’t do anything foolish. If you’re seen going through a bureau or a desk, just say you needed to jot down a thought or write a letter home.”
“Yes, to my dear uncle Rowend, no doubt,” she said dryly, “who will need time to plan the wedding.”
Napier barked with laughter. “Oh, doubtless.”
It was then that he made the grave misjudgment of looking at her—really looking at her. A grin had curved one corner of that lush mouth and those eyes were again glittering green with mischief.
Napier dragged a hand down his face.
“What?” she demanded.
But the gravity of his situation had returned tenfold. “I made a mistake,” he fin
ally said.
“Oh?” She tilted her head as if to better see him. “Of what sort?”
“Of every sort,” he managed. “Bringing you here. The lies. The clothes. That damned wig. I don’t know, really, what I was thinking. All of it was . . . unwise.”
Her incredulous expression returned. “Well, this is a fine time to decide,” she grumbled. “I could have been halfway to the Côte d’Azur by now.”
He grunted. “What, I thought you were bound for Scotland, that last, lawless refuge of scoundrels?”
Her gaze swept over him, dark as the velvet of her gown. “Well, I was bound for somewhere far from you and Lazonby, that much is certain.”
“And would to God I’d let you go,” he muttered.
“Why?” she demanded. “You think me a criminal and—yes, you just said it—a scoundrel. Why would you let me go?”
Her head was still set to one side, her eyes drifting over his face, her full lips slightly parted, and that keen intelligence burning fierce and angry in her eyes.
Well, she wasn’t intelligent enough, apparently.
With one hand, Napier reached out and dragged her hard against him.
“This is why,” he said—just before he kissed her.
She scarcely had time to gasp before he’d captured that lush, taunting mouth in a kiss of long-thwarted lust. Her free hand came up to shove him away, too late. Acting on pure instinct, Napier forced her back against the massive oak bedpost.
She gave a soft moan; a sound of surrender, he thought, and on a surge of desire, he pinned her with the weight of his body, his mouth raking hers. Though she kept the hand set stubbornly against his collarbone, Elizabeth did not resist.
Not even when he half hoped she would.
Instead, when he drew his tongue over the delicate seam of her lips, she opened on a soft, welcoming sound and allowed him free rein, her reactions almost artless. Napier seized the advantage, slanting his mouth over hers, thrusting again and again, plundering the depths of her mouth.
Dimly, he wondered at her experience, but the thought washed away on another powerful surge—red-hot desire that shot through his belly and drew his loins taut.
