SLIGHTLY WICKED

by Mary Balogh

  “You failed to keep our appointment this morning,” he said, “and so I was forced to ride after you.”

  Their appointment. She had completely forgotten about it.

  “Don’t tell me you forgot about it,” he said as if he had read her mind. “That would be very lowering, you know.”

  “Perhaps they did not tell you—” she began.

  “They did.”

  “Well, then,” she said when it appeared that he would say no more, “you may ride on or ride back, Lord Rannulf, whichever you choose. You would not wish to associate with a thief.”

  “Is that what you are?” he asked her.

  It was incredibly painful to hear him ask the question.

  “The evidence was overwhelming,” she told him.

  “Yes, I know,” he said. “You are a particularly inept thief, though, Judith, to have left evidence lying about your room when you must have guessed that sooner or later it would be searched.”

  She still could not understand why Bran had put the bag in her room. The earring she could understand. Panicky in his haste, he must have dropped it without even realizing it. The floor was carpeted. There would have been no loud clatter as it landed. But the bag ... The only explanation she had been able to devise was that he had known he would be suspected from the first moment but had not expected that her room would be searched. He had hidden the bag in her drawer, she guessed, as a sort of private acknowledgment of his guilt to her and a pledge that he would return the contents as soon as he was able. It was not a very satisfactory explanation, but she could think of no other.

  “I am not a thief,” she said. “I did not steal anything.”

  “I know.”

  Did he? Did he trust her? No one else did or probably ever would.

  “Where are you going?” he asked her.

  She pressed her lips together and stared up at him.

  “To London, I suppose,” he said. “It is a pleasant stroll, I believe.”

  “It is not your business,” she said. “Go back to Grandmaison, Lord Rannulf.”

  But he leaned down from the saddle and held out one hand to her. She was powerfully reminded of the last occasion on which this had happened and of her first impression of him then—broad, rugged, dark-complexioned, blue-eyed and big-nosed, his fair hair too long, not handsome but disturbingly attractive. Now he was simply Rannulf, and for the first time today she wanted to cry.

  “Set your hand in mine and your foot on my boot,” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “Do you know how long it will take you to walk to London?” he asked her.

  “I will not be walking all the way,” she said. “And how do you know that London is my destination?”

  “Do you have any money?”

  She compressed her lips again.

  “I will take you to London, Judith,” he said. “And I will help you find your brother.”

  “How do you know—”

  “Give me your hand,” he said.

  She felt bowed down by defeat then and at the same time strangely comforted by his large presence, by his knowledge of what had happened, and by his insistence that she ride up with him. She did as he had directed her and within moments was up before his saddle again, bracketed safely by his arms and legs.

  How she wished time could be wound backward, that that adventure of three weeks ago could be lived all over again and what had followed it could be changed.

  “What are you going to do when we find him?” she asked. “Turn him over to the authorities? Have him sent to jail? Could it be even worse than that for him? Could he be ...” She could not complete the appalling possibility.

  “Is he guilty, then?” he asked.

  “He is very deep in debt,” she said, “and his creditors have followed him even to Harewood and pressed him to pay.”

  “All men in debt steal their grandmothers’ jewels, then?” he asked.

  “He knew about them,” she said. “He had even seen the box. He joked about how they could get him out of his difficulties. At least, I thought it was a joke. And then last night he came to me in the middle of the ball to tell me that he was leaving, that he thought he would be out of debt and would make his fortune very soon. He was very agitated. He kept looking around him as if he expected someone to pounce on him and stop him. He would not let me see him on his way.”

  “The evidence seems overwhelming,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “As it seems in your case too.”

  She turned her head sharply to look into his face. “You do believe I am guilty,” she cried. “Please set me down. Set me down.”

  “My point being,” he said, “that evidence can sometimes lie. As it obviously does in your case.”

  She gazed at him. “You think it is possible that Branwell is innocent, then?” she asked him.

  “Who else might have taken the jewelry?” he asked her. “Who else but the two of you had a motive?”

  “No one,” she said, frowning at him. “Or perhaps a large number of people to whom the prospect of riches is enticing.”

  “Precisely,” he said. “We could easily narrow down the number of possibilities to nine-tenths of the population of England. Who might have had a motive to ruin you and your brother?”

  “No one.” Her frown deepened. “Everyone loves Bran’s charm and sunny nature. And as for me, no one ...”

  “It is at least a possibility, is it not?” he said when her eyes widened.

  “Horace?” The idea was an overwhelmingly attractive one, deflecting as it would the guilt from Branwell.

  “He certainly had a vicious plan for me,” he reminded her.

  But she could not accept a theory merely because she wanted to believe it. Except that the velvet bag in her drawer and the earring on the floor would make far more sense if Horace were the culprit.

  “I must find Bran anyway,” she said, “even if only to warn him. I need to find out the truth.”

  “Yes,” he said, “you do. When did you last eat?”

  “This morning,” she said. “I am not hungry.”

  “Liar,” he said. “Claire Campbell tried that one on me too. You could well starve on pride, you know. Did you sleep last night?”

  She shook her head.

  “It shows,” he told her. “If I were meeting you now for the first time, I might mistake you for only a marginally lovely woman.”

  She laughed despite herself and then had to clap the back of her hand over her mouth and swallow several times in order to prevent herself from bawling.

  One of his hands pulled loose the ribbons of her bonnet from beneath her chin. He took the bonnet off—it was the one he had bought her—tied the ribbons inexpertly again, and looped them over his saddle. Then he drew her sideways against him and pressed her head to his shoulder.

  “I do not want to hear another word from you until I can find a respectable-looking inn at which to feed you,” he said.

  She ought not to have been comfortable. Perhaps she was not. She was suddenly too tired to know. But she could feel the strong, firm muscles of his shoulder and chest, and she could smell his cologne or whatever it was about him that made him unique, and his head and hat were shading her from the rays of the sun. She drifted into a pleasant state between sleeping and waking and imagined lying safe on the bottom of a Viking boat while he stood massive and protective at the prow. Or standing beside him on a cliff top while his Saxon locks and his Saxon tunic fluttered in the breeze and she knew that he would take on every fierce warrior who dared invade his shores and vanquish them single-handed. She would have thought she was asleep and dreaming except that she was aware that she dreamed and seemed to have the ability to direct the dream in whichever direction she wanted.

  She wanted to believe in him as the eternal hero of mythology.

  Chapter XIX

  He let one inn go by since she was dozing on his shoulder and he guessed that she needed . sleep at least equ
ally as much as she needed food. He stopped at the next decent inn and insisted that she eat every mouthful of the meal that was set before her even though after the first few bites she told him that she did not think she could eat any more.

  It was already late afternoon. They would not make it to London tonight. He thought briefly of hiring a carriage and going as far as Ringwood Manor in Oxfordshire. Aidan had told him fondly in London, while waiting impatiently for all the business of selling his commission to be completed so that he could return to his wife, that Eve had a strong tendency to reach out to all sorts of lame ducks, most of whom ended up in her employment. She would take Judith in even if Aidan pokered up and looked askance at her. She would perhaps be able to offer Judith some of the comfort she needed.

  There would be no real comfort, though, until she found her brother, until she was convinced beyond all doubt that he had had no hand in the robbery of their grandmother’s jewelry. And no comfort, he supposed, until the jewels and the thief had been found and she and her brother were totally exonerated.

  “We had better go,” she said, setting down her knife and fork on her empty plate. “What time will we reach London? Will Bran be at his lodgings, do you suppose?”

  “Judith,” he said, “you are almost dropping with fatigue.”

  “I must find him,” she said. “And it must be before he disposes of the jewelry if he has it.”

  “We will not get there tonight,” he told her.

  She gazed at him blankly.

  “And even if we did,” he said, “you would be fit for nothing. You would be dead on your feet. You almost are even now.”

  “I keep thinking,” she said, “that I will wake up and find that all this is a bad dream. All of it—Bran’s extravagances, my aunt’s letter inviting one of us to go to live at Harewood, everything that has happened since.”

  Including what had happened on her journey? He stared at her silently for a few moments. Could it possibly have been just last night that he had felt a strong bond with her and had been convinced she would gladly accept his marriage offer this morning?

  “We had better stay here for the night,” he said. “You can have a good rest and be ready to make an early start in the morning.”

  She set both hands over her face briefly and shook her head, but when she looked up at him it was with weary eyes and a look of resignation.

  “Why did you come after me?” she asked.

  He pursed his lips. “Perhaps after last night’s near disaster with Miss Effingham,” he said, “I was glad of some excuse to avoid further visits to Harewood Grange. Perhaps I was tired of being incarcerated in the country. Perhaps I was not fond of the idea that Horace Effingham would be your only pursuer.”

  “Horace is pursuing me?”

  “You are safe with me,” he said. “But I would prefer to have you in the same room with me tonight. I repeat—you are safe with me. I will not force myself on you.”

  “You never did.” She looked wearily at him. “I am too tired to move from this chair. Perhaps I will just stay here all night.” She smiled wanly.

  He got to his feet and went in search of the landlord. He took a room in the name of Mr. and Mrs. Bedard and went back to the dining room, where Judith was still sitting, her elbows on the table, her chin cupped in her hands.

  “Come,” he said, setting a hand between her shoulders, feeling the tense muscles there. He picked up her bag with the other hand.

  She got to her feet without a word and preceded him from the room and up the stairs to the bedchamber he indicated.

  “Hot water is being brought up,” he said. “Do you have everything else you need?”

  She nodded.

  “Sleep,” he instructed her. “I’ll go back downstairs for the evening so as not to disturb you. I’ll sleep on the floor when I return.”

  She looked at the bare boards beneath her feet, as did he.

  “There is no need,” she said.

  He thought there was probably every need. He had never forced himself on any woman. His sexual appetites, though healthy, had never been unbridled. But there were limits to any man’s control. Even tired and dusty and disheveled she was a feast to the eyes.

  “Sleep,” he told her, “and do not worry about anything.”

  That was, of course, more easily said than done, he admitted as he left the room and went down to the taproom, positioning himself so that he could see the entrance from the stable yard. Even if they could find her brother and he protested his innocence—as Rannulf fully expected he would—and even if she believed him, there was still the whole problem of proving their innocence to the rest of the world. And even if that was accomplished, the brother was still a spendthrift who was doubtless deeply enough in debt to ruin his family.

  Rannulf wondered if he would have been as idle and expensive as he had been if he had not had a personal fortune to finance his bad habits. He was not at all sure of the answer.

  Judith washed herself from head to toe with hot water and soap and pulled on the nightgown she had brought with her together with one clean dress and a few essential undergarments. She lay down on the bed, almost dizzy with fatigue, fully expecting that she would be asleep as soon as her head rested on the pillow.

  It did not happen.

  A thousand thoughts and images, all of them infinitely depressing, whirled around and around in her head. For two hours she tossed and turned on the bed, keeping her eyes determinedly closed to the daylight and her ears closed to the sounds from both outside and indoors of a bustling posting inn. She was almost crying from tiredness and the need to find some momentary oblivion when she finally threw the covers aside and stood up. She pushed her hair back from her face and went to stand at the window, her hands braced on the sill. It was getting dark. If they had continued on their way, they would have been two hours closer to London by now.

  Bran, she thought, Bran, where are you?

  Had he taken the jewels? Was he now a thief in addition to everything else? Would she be able somehow to save him? Or was this pursuit simply futile?

  But if it was Branwell, why had he put that velvet bag in her drawer? It really made far more sense for Horace to have done it. But how would she ever be able to prove it?

  And then she had a cheering thought that had not occurred to her before. If Bran had decided to solve his debt problems by robbing Grandmama, he surely would not have taken all the jewels. He would have taken just enough to cover his expenses. He would have taken a few pieces, hoping they would never be missed or at least that they would not be missed for so long that suspicion would not fall on him. He would not have done something as openly incriminating as running away in the middle of the ball if he had taken everything, surely?

  But guilt could have set him to fleeing instead of thinking rationally as a deliberate, coldhearted thief would.

  She set her forehead against the window glass and sighed just as the door opened quietly behind her. She whirled around in some alarm, but it was only Rannulf who stood there, frowning at her.

  “I cannot sleep,” she told him apologetically. He had gone to the expense of taking a room so that she could have a good night’s rest, and she was not even lying down on the bed.

  He shut the door firmly behind him and came across the small room toward her.

  “You are overtired,” he said, “and overanxious. All will be well, you know. I promise you.”

  “How can you do that?” she asked him.

  “Because I have decided that all will be well,” he said, grinning at her. “And I always get my way.”

  “Always?” She smiled despite herself.

  “Always. Come here.”

  He took her by the shoulders and drew her against him.

  She turned her head to rest her cheek on his shoulder and sighed aloud. She wrapped her arms about his waist and abandoned herself to the exquisite pleasure of feeling his hands rubbing hard up and down her back, his fingers digging into tense muscles a
nd coaxing them into relaxation.

  All will be well . . .

  Because I have decided . . . ... I always get my way.

  She came half awake when she realized she was being carried over to the bed and deposited on it.

  “Mmra.” She looked sleepily up at him.

  He was grinning again. “Under other circumstances,” he said, “I might be mortally offended at a woman’s falling asleep as soon as I put my arms about her.” He leaned over her to pick up the other pillow.

  “Don’t sleep on the floor,” she said. “Please don’t.”

  She was half aware a minute or two later of an extra weight depressing the other half of the mattress and of a cozy heat against her back. Blankets came up about her shoulders, making her aware that yes, indeed, she had been chilly. The arm that had lifted them settled reassuringly about her waist and drew her back against the body that had provided the heat. Then she slid down into a deliciously deep and dreamless sleep.

  Rannulf came awake when dawn was graying the room. In her sleep she had just turned over to face him, rubbing herself against his length as she did so. Her hair, he could see, was in wild disarray all about her face and shoulders.

  Good Lord, who was putting him to this excruciatingly painful test? Did whoever it was not know he was human? It was too early to get up and prepare to ride on. She must have had a good five or six hours of sleep, by his calculation, but she needed more.

  He could feel her breasts against his bare chest, her thighs against his. She was warm and relaxed. But he no longer had the luxury of seeing her as Claire Campbell, actress and woman of experience in sexual matters. She was Judith Law. She also happened to be his love.

  He tried determinedly to list her defects. Carrots. Her hair was carroty, by her mother’s description. She had freckles. If there were only a little more light coming into the room, he would be able to see them. And a dimple beside her mouth on the right side ... no, big mistake. A dimple was not a defect. What else? God help him, there was nothing else.

  And then her eyes came open, sleepy and long-lashed. No defect there either.