by Lucy Leroux
“What was that noise?” Mrs. Kimball asked.
“I don’t know. Is the house on fire?”
“No. We just heard the pounding and…er…we ran upstairs to see what the matter was.”
Comprehending that the pair had exited one of the bedrooms farther down the hall, she nodded nonetheless. She pulled the pelisse closed tight wondering who had been knocking at her door.
The murmur of conversation grew in volume as more and more guests gathered. “What was that racket?” a newcomer asked.
“Someone was pounding on Mrs. Montgomery’s door. I think they were trying to break it down,” young Lord Windmere said, the excitement in his voice growing with the promise of scandal.
“I’m sure that’s not the case. Perhaps there’s an emergency,” she said, looking around for Gideon.
He wasn’t there, but Crispin was running up the hallway with Lord Westcliff at his heels.
“Amelia! What’s going on? Who attacked you?”
“No one, there’s been a mistake. Someone was knocking on my door is all.”
Amelia wasn’t sure he could even hear her. The volume of the conversation around them had grown precipitously. She continued to assure him everything was fine, but Crispin did not pay her any mind.
“Excuse me, my dear.” Lord Westcliff was frowning. He stepped around her, pulling the door closed.
A little wave of dizziness blurred her vision. She forced herself to focus, a familiar dread creeping up her spine.
Whoever had struck the thick oak door had done so with enough force to splinter it in the center—someone very strong.
Chapter 11
“What are you saying?”
Gideon’s head was aching. He could not make out what his valet was telling him.
After he’d confronted Amelia, he had gone into Westcliff’s library. He then proceeded to consume most of a bottle of brandy he had found there. Sometime near dawn, he had finally made it upstairs and collapsed in bed without talking to anyone. Now the aftereffects of his long night of drinking were making themselves felt.
Manning looked at him with a frown. “You missed all the excitement. Someone tried to break into Mrs. Montgomery’s room last night.”
Gideon sat bolt upright. “What?”
“According to the household servants, Lord Westcliff is beside himself. A man broke into the house last night. No one saw the intruder, but the villain somehow made his way up to the guest hallway. He must have been trying to find one of the ladies alone up there. Mrs. Montgomery had locked her door, so he was not able to ravish her. The door was badly damaged so determined was the villain, but he ran away when the racket attracted an audience.”
“Good God.” The pounding in his head retreated to the background. He swallowed heavily. “Is she all right?”
“I believe so. Lord Westcliff was most apologetic. He put her in another room with a footman stationed outside to guard all night. Her maid was roused to share her room as well. In fact, most of the women elected to have a maid in their room last night.”
His mind was reeling. “I can’t believe I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Well, the library is in another part of the house,” Manning said with a little grimace. “Mrs. Montgomery was understandably unsettled. Lord Worthing escorted her and another lady back to town early this morning.”
A knock sounded at the door.
“That should be the breakfast tray I ordered. I assumed you wouldn’t want to go down to breakfast this morning.”
“Thank you. Start packing; we will be leaving within the hour,” he said as Manning let the maid inside with the tray.
“Are you sure that is wise?” Manning asked once the girl had left. “Riding with a sore head will be most uncomfortable.”
“My own fault,” Gideon muttered in between bites of toast. He had let his temper get the best of him last night. In a fit of self-indulgence, he had incapacitated himself during an actual crime.
“I’m going to have a look at the door that was damaged. Then we’re leaving.”
“Yes, my lord. I’ll have everything ready.”
A few minutes later, Gideon was standing in the guest hallway.
“What the devil happened here?” He hadn’t been expecting an answer, but Westcliff came up behind him.
“I was hoping you would tell me.”
Gideon swung around to face his host. “What the hell does that mean?”
“Err…well, one of the servants mentioned that you and Mrs. Montgomery had a small disagreement last night. Perhaps you went to go see her last night after overindulging in some of the fine brandy I keep in the library?
“This wasn’t me.” Gideon traced the splintered wood. A reddish dust lined the fissure. He felt the texture of it between his fingers, a considering frown on his face.
Westcliff cleared his throat. “Are you sure you recall all last evening? Someone almost broke this door down and then tore through the garden.” He sounded almost hopeful.
Gideon held up his gloveless hands. “I admit I owe you a new bottle of brandy, but I don’t owe you a new door. You still have a housebreaker to find.”
His knuckles didn’t have a single mark on them. If he’d been the one in the hallway last night, his hands would bear some bruises or cuts, so great was the violence done to the door.
“Oh, I see.” Westcliff’s face clouded. “Well…your boots did look a bit small for the prints we found.”
Gideon paused. “You found prints? Are they inside the house?”
“No. They’re in the garden.”
“Show me.”
The marks in the muddy garden were massive. He and Westcliff were leaning over them, marveling at their size.
“The servants are in an uproar,” his host confided in a murmur. “They are whispering about giants.”
“I can see why.” Gideon shook his head. “But these prints are too large for any man.”
Westcliff straightened. “You think these are manufactured? Someone fabricated them?”
Gideon rose, scrutinizing the marks in the mud with a critical eye. Even the tallest man he had met did not have feet on this scale. “I believe so. The scale is impossible. If a man this size was wandering the countryside, you would have heard of him. There is no way such a person could’ve escaped the locals notice.”
“I suppose you are correct. But who would do such a thing?”
Gideon shrugged. “Some miscreant youths having a lark. I wouldn’t be surprised if a wager was involved.”
“A wager and a considerable amount of alcohol, I suspect,” Westcliff scoffed. “They must have guessed that with so many guests, they could slip in and out and stage this scene with little chance of getting caught. It was a crime of opportunity. In a way, it’s a relief. I would hate to think someone was intentionally targeting a female guest.”
Though it was his suggestion, Gideon couldn’t let Westcliff blindly accept that this was the act of young men bent on mischief. “I wouldn’t let my guard down if I were you. Post men around the house for the next few weeks. Whether a bet was involved or not—breaking into the house was a step too far.”
“Agreed. What are young people coming to?” Westcliff shook his head and thanked him for his advice. With an air of exhausted resignation, he went back inside the house.
Gideon bent down once more, measuring the length of the boot print with his hands before dismissing them once more. The miscreant who created these had miscalculated when he made them unrealistically large.
His conscience pricked him at the thought of leaving. By rights, he should have stayed behind to help Westcliff find the fools responsible for this business. But the women they had almost victimized was no longer here.
Amelia could have been hurt, or worse. Regardless of what he’d learned last night, she didn’t deserve to be terrorized.
Yet she deserves to hang?
Stop it. He hadn’t proved her guilty one way or the other. And he wasn’t going
to discover the answer here in the country.
Gideon was on the road a few minutes later.
Amelia threw a pair of shoes in a trunk with a thump, silently cursing Gideon’s name. Not only had he insulted her character, but he had tried to terrify her at Westcliff manor.
Except it hadn’t achieved his desired result. Amelia wasn’t afraid or ashamed. She was furious.
Strangely enough, Crispin had defended him when he had dropped her at her townhouse.
“He must have been intoxicated,” he said. “Luckily for everyone involved, the earl must have regained his senses and taken himself off before anyone spotted him knocking at your door.”
Crispin had gone on to imply that Gideon had experienced some sort of upset at the billiards game, but wouldn’t elaborate on what it was.
She had nodded in agreement, but Amelia no longer cared about what Gideon was thinking or even the threat of scandal. The incident at Westcliff’s had given her the final push she needed. She was leaving London and the hypocrisy of the ton behind.
The war with Napoleon made travel to Italy impossible, but that didn’t mean she had to subject herself to the scorn of society any longer—and Gideon could hang.
Amelia was going home.
She was still supervising the packing of her trunk when a great commotion sounded below stairs.
“Carlotta, go see what is happening,” she said, rising from her settee.
Her maid returned less than a minute later.
“The Earl of Flint is downstairs. He insists on seeing you immediately,” Carlotta said in Italian.
Of all the… How dare that man show his face here!
Amelia had had enough. It was bad enough she was forced to endure the slings and barbs of society. She would not endure that sort of treatment from Gideon. Or worse, she thought, remembering he had tried to knock her door down in a drunken fit.
You have nothing to fear, she told herself bracingly. It was only the drink.
She had seen firsthand how spirits could affect an otherwise gentle and reasonable man. Gideon may have shown his true colors at the Westcliff estate, but he would never harm her when he was sober. She knew him well enough to believe that at least.
Carlotta shifted uncertainly. “Shall I send him away, signora?”
“No.” Amelia’s decision was made. “I will see him. Put him in the parlor.”
“You do not want help dressing?”
“No,” she said, putting on a thick robe over her nightshift. If Gideon was going to be offended at seeing her in her nightclothes, then he shouldn’t have come calling at this hour.
Ignoring the lingering sense of betrayal she felt at the accusation he’d flung at her last night, Amelia swept down the stairs in high dudgeon, preparing herself for battle.
The door was standing open, so he didn’t hear her approach. For a moment, she watched him. Gideon was pacing, making the parlor appear much smaller than it really was. He filled the room, seeming to take up all the space and most the air with little effort.
He was like the caged tiger she had seen on the estate of an Italian duke. Like that beast, he prowled restlessly, giving the impression that iron bars would be no barrier to being pounced on and mauled.
Trepidation made her hesitate. Crispin was right. Gideon was no longer the young man she knew. She didn’t know him at all. There was too much masculine strength and fury trapped in his powerful form. It had only been a matter of time before that power lashed out at her.
It was the way of most men. She had let herself forget that.
A shudder passed through her when he turned and saw her. The intensity in his expression took her breath away. It was one thing to imagine all the clever insults she would use against him. It was another to say them to his face.
She was silent too long.
“Are you well?” he asked.
That wasn’t what she had been expecting, but his tone was not one of concern. It was charged with too many emotions for her to define a single one.
Martin is no longer here to slay your dragons. She had to do this herself.
Amelia swallowed hard, but when she finally found her tongue, it was sufficiently sharp. “Am I to believe you burst into my home at this hour of the night to ask after my health?”
“No.”
He faced her, standing straighter. It made him seem even larger. “I came here to learn the truth about the day Martin died. No more lies. No more secrets.”
She had known the question was coming, but her skin prickled and grew colder anyway.
“You’re no different from all those societal parasites who whisper their lies about me behind my back. You think I killed him.”
Gideon’s mouth tightened. “I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to! Your actions speak for you.”
His brow creased. “My actions?”
Amelia took a steadying breath, but her hand trembled as she pointed at him. “You have a lot of nerve to confront me like this after what you did last night,” she accused.
Gideon stopped short, confusion flickering on his face—and sympathy. “I realize you had a fright at Westcliff’s, but you don’t honestly believe I was the one knocking on your door?”
“You deny it?”
“Of course I bloody deny it! I admit I was angry with you, but I would never behave in such a disgraceful manner no matter how deep I was in my cups.” His words rang with self-righteous indignation.
Amelia ran her eyes over his face, trying to decide if he was telling the truth.
“Do you doubt my word?” he asked.
She wanted to say yes. Somehow, she knew that it would hurt him. But she couldn’t bring herself to lie, so she said nothing.
His eyes widened. “It was not me. I swear it on Martin’s life.”
Tears flooded her eyes, and she wrapped her hands tightly around herself. “I hate you for what you said.”
“Then tell me how Martin died. I promise you will never have to see me again.”
She ignored the stabbing pain somewhere near her heart. “He fell down the stairs.”
His breath was ragged. “Did someone help him down the stairs? Worthing, perhaps?”
She shook her head violently. “How can you say such a terrible thing? Crispin adored him, and the feeling was mutual.”
He stepped up to her. “You know, the latter may be true to the best of your knowledge. Martin was an innocent and naive young man. He did not see the truth of people until it was too late. Worthing would not have had to expend much effort to fool him.”
His face was like stone as he towered over her. “On the day Martin died, you came home from your morning calls. You found him at the bottom of the stairs—and you said This is all my fault.”
How did he know that? Had he been making inquiries about her? Spying on her?
“I don’t remember saying that,” she said, pressing her hands together.
It was the truth, although those words were familiar. They had become an almost daily refrain in her thoughts for the past year.
“Are you and Worthing lovers?” Gideon’s voice was ragged, as if the question had been ripped from his very core.
“No!”
His hands opened and closed as if he was contemplating strangling her. “I know you are lying because I saw the pin myself,” he said, his jaw so stiff she thought it would break.
“What pin?”
“The one awarded for the Classics prize at Abingdon. It was one of Martin’s most-treasured possessions. He was inordinately proud of it and always wore it. I know because I nicked it once as a lark when I visited his rooms at the school. I felt terrible when he tore his room apart afterward. He was frantic to find it.”
Gideon took her by the arm, his grip biting into her forearm. “The only person Martin would have given it to is you, his wife. And you gave it to your lover.”
“I did not.”
“So I’m supposed to believe Martin gave it to Wort
hing?”
“Yes, you fool. They were close!”
“Don’t try to fob me off with that Banbury tale. The prize meant everything to Martin—more so because Sir Clarence derided it. Martin would never have given it away to a mere friend. And now Worthing wears it like some sort of blasted souvenir of his conquest.”
Amelia clenched her fists and leaned forward. “Martin gave that pin to Crispin. I saw him do it. I was there!”
Gideon stared down at her furiously, raising his hand. She flinched and took a quick step back.
He hesitated, his eyes flaring with an intense heat. Reaching out, he took hold of her hair. His grip was not painful as he pulled her inexorably toward him.
His mouth came down on hers. Shocked, she froze, but his kiss was as relentless as the rest of him. As potent as any drug, it demanded a response. She tried to give him the one her conscience demanded. She beat on his chest with her fists and tried to claw his face before he caught her hands in his.
Amelia expected his grip to tighten so he could lord his superior strength over her, but to her surprise, he let her hands go. Instead, he stroked down her back, coaxing her against him. A flash of awareness came and went. She had melted against him, her token resistance burned away by the heat of his passion. His mouth was robbing her good sense, plundering and claiming with a skill she had never dreamed existed, let alone experienced.
Gideon raised his head. He moved his hands up to the sides of her face. There was a visible tremor in his fingers.
“Do you want me?”
Amelia was shaking from head to foot, but her “Yes,” was clear enough. Her trembling hands rested briefly on Gideon’s shoulders before she snatched them back like they had scalded her.
Her assent had freed Gideon from whatever gentlemanly restraint had been holding him back. He carried her to the floor, covering her body with his. His mouth flamed over her mouth, his tongue teasing until she parted her lips.
She whimpered as his taste filled her mouth. His response to the small sound was telling. He rocked against her, his hands shifting clothing and exposing her.
