Rushford threw an arm across the back of his chair, inclining his head, as though preparing for an attenuated conversation. “I’m beginning to think that you enjoy spending an inordinate amount of time skulking about in dangerous places,” he said. “Clambering about my roofline is one thing, but that alleyway behind Mrs. Banks’s is far from safe.”
Safety had nothing to do with anything, Rowena thought, the sharpness of a hundred emotions warring with good sense. Her instincts had been right. Faron would not give up, for whatever his twisted reasons, in tormenting her family. She had returned from the dead and she would climb mountains, swim rivers, challenge armies—rooftops and alleyways were minor encumbrances. “I was indulged as a child and young girl,” she said curtly, not trusting herself to say more. “My aunt encouraged all our interests—including physical pursuits.” Closer to the truth was that they had been raised in a man’s world, with Meredith’s example anything but that of a conventional female. They had learned nothing of flirting, of empty conversation, of hiding behind a mask of frivolity and silliness. Their existence had been comprised of books and science, of foreign languages, of riding and marksmanship.
“I’m not surprised,” he said. “You demonstrate unusual courage.” It was unclear whether the observation was intended as a compliment.
Rowena regarded Rushford warily, folding her hands neatly on the table dividing them. Keenly aware of his height and the length of his legs, she tucked her ankles beneath her chair. “Were you acquainted with her?” she asked in an abrupt change of subject. They both knew to whom she referred.
Rushford’s eyebrows went up at her question, but he shook his head, and she chose to believe him, although why she couldn’t say. “I do not know the dead woman in question,” he said, removing his arm from the back of his chair to face her directly, his expression unchanging. Heavy footsteps sounded from behind as the publican came over to their table, apron straining over his girth, and placed two tumblers of brandy, both chipped, in front of them. Rowena was about to refuse the drink and then thought better of it. It was barely noon, but she needed the fortification, and she took a sip of the strong drink, aware that Rushford was watching her carefully. “I don’t usually indulge in spirits,” she said for no reason, her tone hopelessly prim in contrast to the welcome warmth in her chest.
It was obvious that he did. Rushford shrugged, taking a healthy mouthful. “Immaterial to me,” he said. “And by the way, the answer is still no.”
Rowena almost jerked from her chair but then sat down again, hiding her disappointment beneath a brittle bravado that barely held her nerves in check. “I haven’t even had the opportunity to pose the question,” she said. She wanted nothing more than to leap out of the tavern and return home to Montfort, to reassure herself that all was well with those she loved most. But it was impossible. In the past, hers had been a direct, forthright nature, but now she realized that circuitousness had its place. Setting her glass down carefully, amazed that her hands did not tremble, she tried another tack. “Why were you at that dreadful place this morning? I can only assume that you were investigating the possible causes behind another suspicious death.”
Rushford’s glance flicked away from her to the bar, where the publican was arranging a row of glasses on the dusty rack in preparation for the regulars to take their place under his rheumy gaze. “That dreadful place,” he said, returning his attention to her, “belongs to Mrs. Banks, East London’s undertaker. There are hundreds if not thousands of suspicious deaths in the city each year, although few receive undue attention, but that is another matter for discussion at another time.” Rowena wondered whether he was thinking of the Cruikshank murders, of the prostitutes about whom no one cared. “And to answer your next question,” he interrupted her thoughts, “which I’m certain is forthcoming, the cause of death in this instance was by way of drowning.”
Drowning. Rowena’s mouth was suddenly dry, her hands in their leather gloves cold. It was not his words so much as the incisive tone that pushed her close to the edge. “Was he or she . . . could she have been . . .” Rowena struggled to finish the sentence.
“She,” Rushford supplied.
The implications crowded her thoughts. “Is that why you were called to Shoreditch? There is something of a sinister nature behind her death,” she said, answering her own question.
Rushford smiled grimly. “In all probability there is something untoward going on. Most actresses are not partial to midnight swims fully clothed in the Thames. Besides which, bruises on her throat lead one to believe she had been strangled—asphyxiated.” Rushford stared at Rowena over the table. “And her body was weighted down.”
Rowena paled. “Weighted down? To do that to someone—” She straightened in shock, struggling to keep her own nightmares from piercing the light of day. Her throat closed on memory of the water flooding her lungs, her heavy skirts pulling her inexorably lower. The cold, stiff body on Mrs. Banks’s table could have been Meredith’s or Julia’s. The horror repeated like an incantation in her mind. Her eyes tracked the scratches on the wooden trestle table. She chose her next words with the exactness of a surgeon, as though they could form a bridge away from madness toward reason. “I know you may choose not to believe me,” she said, her voice sounding hoarse to her own ears, “but there is every possibility that there is a connection here . . . between me and the woman lying at Mrs. Banks. Which would make your involving yourself in my situation—”
“Advisable?” He completed her sentence and followed with a short laugh, his strong white teeth flashing in the dimness. “I don’t quite follow you. Why would there be a connection between you and an actress lying dead at Mrs. Banks’s?”
“I do not know how to explain it.” She did not understand it all herself. She swallowed hard. “You see, it began over a year ago, at my home in Cumbria.” She attempted to keep her description spare and unemotional, aware that he could just as easily bolt from his chair and leave the tavern. A calm, rational explication. “I last recall riding my horse on the estate,” she continued, “when he stumbled, which is absolutely uncharacteristic of Dragon.” Her beautiful Arabian, headstrong and willful, but as reliable as a rocking chair. “I came off, and then I remember nothing more but awakening to darkness and remaining in this impenetrable fog for what seemed like days or perhaps even weeks.” She stopped abruptly, wondering whether it wise to continue, to tell him about the voices and the dreams, all the while fighting the urge to confide in this man who, she reminded herself with effort, was a stranger. “I remember very little except that I was found all but dead on the banks of the Birdoswald River.” She paused. “I had been left to drown.” For one fleeting second, she thought she caught a hint of what—knowledge, awareness in his eyes? But it was gone before she could name it, and he did nothing more than tilt his head to one side, as though contemplating a great mystery. “Continue with your story,” he said.
“It is not a story,” she insisted, her voice strained to the breaking point. “It’s the truth. Why else would I be entreating you to help me?” Dear God, she sounded like a bedlamite. “I do not know what more I can say to make you believe me.” She paused to clear her throat, which was thick with emotion. “I sense,” she resumed more slowly, enunciating each word and recapitulating her argument, “that there is a connection between the dead woman and my dilemma.”
Rushford absently fingered his glass. He had beautifully formed hands, Rowena observed, the thought only adding to the rush of confusion muddling her thoughts.
“That’s a rather wild connection to make,” he corrected her flatly.
She took a deep breath, ignoring the knots tightening in her stomach. “Please hear me out,” she said, wondering desperately if he admired her at least for standing her ground.
Rushford managed a smile. “If it prevents you from scaling the edifice next door, I will, but let’s begin with something simpler, such as your name,” he demanded.
She hesitated for the
barest second. “Miss Rowena Woolcott.” A strange feeling of relief flooded over her, like the beneficence of a confession. The knot in her stomach loosened, and for some unknown reason she believed that she could entrust her identity to this man. “I would ask you to keep this in strictest confidence,” she said, “as knowledge of my existence could endanger those closest to me.”
“You have my word,” he said simply. “By this point in our short if unorthodox acquaintance, I understand that it is your wish to remain dead to the world.”
Rowena bit the inside of her lip to keep her expression calm. “I realize this sounds mysterious but only because you don’t yet know all the elements at play here, not that I know myself, which is why I’ve come to you . . .” To stop herself from rambling, she clasped the tumbler on the table before asking finally, “Then you will help me?”
His smile widened at the entreaty in her voice, the hard lines of his face transformed into an expression she wished desperately to interpret as warmth. Rowena blinked and then just as suddenly the smile faded. “Miss Woolcott,” he said, her name on his tongue unreasonably pleasing to her ears, “much as I would like to help you, I must reiterate what I said to you yesterday evening. I am not the man you think I am. Trust me when I say that your consorting with me can only bring you more harm. The best I can do is offer you funds so you may return to your home safely. Otherwise, you will simply be compounding an already difficult situation.”
“Difficult for whom?” Her hands curled into fists. “I get the distinct impression that there is something you are unwilling to reveal here, sir. Why is it that you are keen to unravel the mystery behind a stranger’s death, but you will not help me?” The words left her mouth before she knew it. She was, after all, as much a stranger to him as the actress lying cold and dead on Mrs. Banks’s table in Shoreditch.
He raised a brow. “Simply because I found myself embroiled in the Cruikshank murders does not mean that I am prepared to involve myself in every lamentable situation that comes my way.”
Rowena flinched at the dismissal in his tone, narrowly reining in the urge to tell him the whole truth, or at least what she knew of it.
Rushford continued, “In short, Miss Woolcott, I suggest that you flee the scene as quickly as you are able.”
“Then you admit that I am in danger. How could you possibly know that, sir?”
“You’ve told me on several occasions, if you’ll recall.”
“And now you believe me suddenly. So what has changed?”
“You would have made an excellent barrister, Miss Woolcott,” he said drily, a glimmer of admiration in his eyes.
She unclenched the fingers on her lap. “Then I’m not finished questioning you, my lord. Why is it that you find yourself embroiled in these nasty situations, the Cruikshank murders and now this poor actress? There is something at work, I’m convinced, that compels you to come to the aid of those who have nowhere else to turn. It is the reason behind my appearance at your town house last evening and the reason why I am sitting across from you here today, my lord.”
He considered her over steepled hands. “You are tenacious, Miss Woolcott.”
“Merely desperate,” she corrected him. “There is no one else to whom I can turn for the appropriate expertise. You are a man who could spend his time gambling or boxing or riding in Hyde Park, and yet you choose to devote your time to matters far outside your station. Why?”
Rushford placed a hand over his heart in mock surprise. “I protest, Miss Woolcott. It is you who are the sleuth, shadowing my every move and gathering the most intimate of information about my personal habits. Given your propensities, you most likely know how much I wagered last night at Crockford’s and the condition of my linen.”
Despite her desperation, Rowena felt her cheeks warm, the image of Rushford’s impressive musculature, and the memory of his attempt at intimidation, difficult to banish. He was teasing her, she knew, as only a man of his experience could do. Well, she was no schoolroom miss, ready to run with her hair aflame at the thought of being alone with a man. Still, the thought caught her unawares, like the tendrils of a dream at dawn. “I had no choice but to meet with you as I did,” she said in an attempt to justify her actions. “Of course, I had to learn everything I possibly could, and it seemed to make perfect sense at the time . . .” Inexplicably and illogically, all of this felt somehow right, like the tumblers of a complex lock falling into place.
Lord Rushford was a stranger, she reminded herself again, which did nothing to account for the compelling force that drew her toward this man. Perhaps, if she was totally honest with herself, she was simply confused, the strain of her recent experiences tingeing her actions with a hint of madness. The troubling, outrageous dreams, so flagrantly erotic, were somehow responsible for this uncommon, unaccountable response. It was time for reason to resurrect itself. Lord Rushford was but a means to an end, she told herself, looking directly into the dark gray eyes across the table.
He took a last draught of his drink. “If you dare not return home, do you require funds, Miss Woolcott, to settle elsewhere ?” He had clearly made his decision.
Her chin jerked up. “How did you know that I cannot return home? Do you believe me now?”
He shrugged at the accusation in her tone. “You mentioned something about a difficult guardian.”
“Your words, your assumption, not mine,” she said tersely. “And I do not require funds. I require your assistance.”
“I believe we have a stalemate, Miss Woolcott. Particularly if you persist in shadowing my every move. What will it be next—Crockford’s and the West London Boxing Club?”
In response, she gulped the last of her brandy, the heat searing her throat. She bit back a cough, placed the glass on the table, and adjusted the collar of her cloak. “I shan’t give in,” she said, amazed at the conviction in her voice, “until you help me. You, Lord Rushford, are the only one who can.”
For the first time, she detected a hint of weakness in his armor when he said, softly, “Why me?”
“I just know,” she said, although she really didn’t. “And I have a plan.”
“Why does that not surprise me?”
“You yourself suggested it.”
He appeared to stifle a smile. “I can hardly contain my impatience. I’m certain you’re eager to regale me with the details.”
The sound of deep-throated laughter cut off her rejoinder. Three men entered the ale house, their boisterous shouts attracting the publican’s attention. She and Rushford were no longer alone, and she welcomed the diversion, a dilution of the tension, an illusion of safety. Leaning forward, she placed her hands on the table, summoning the courage to make her declaration. “You suggested,” she said softly so only he could hear, “that I become your mistress, that we become lovers.” The words, outrageous and desperate, pulsed between them.
Rushford did the unexpected. He, too, leaned forward, his voice dropping to an intimate growl, to grab her hand, his grip warm and inescapable. “You don’t know what you’re asking, Miss Woolcott,” he said just above a whisper. His voice was deeper than usual, sending a shiver down her spine. “You’re asking for the impossible.”
Rowena nearly jumped from her place as his hand warmed the inside curve of her wrist. Layers of fabric did little to lessen the imprint of the heat of his fingers on her skin. Worst of all, she couldn’t bring herself to take her hand back. She struggled to maintain her train of thought. “I don’t mean in reality, of course, Lord Rushford,” she hastily amended, “merely as a ruse so we may spend time together without arousing suspicion. It would be dangerous for me, Miss Rowena Woolcott, to appear to employ your services, you understand.”
“My services?” he prompted.
Rowena jerked her hand out of his after what seemed an eternity. “You deliberately misunderstand me, sir. Together we could move at will amongst the demimondaine, the world of the poor creature lying dead at Mrs. Banks’s,” she said, gathering the
collar of her cloak more closely around her. She could not repeat the shocking words and suddenly wasn’t sure of what to say at all. She was drowning again, but this time in an entirely different way.
Rushford’s glance was hard. “I warned you last night, Miss Woolcott, and here you are today taking me up on my offer.”
“Don’t be ludicrous,” she huffed. “You deliberately misunderstand.”
“Then what did I just hear?”
She scraped back her chair to rise, and he immediately followed suit, towering over her and in that one movement asserting his dominance. The three men who had entered the tavern earlier looked up from their tankards of foaming beer, eager to take in some light entertainment. Rowena fastened the toggles of her cloak. “I believe we are finished here,” she said tightly.
“I sincerely hope so, Miss Woolcott.” Rowena’s view was filled with the wall of his chest, mere inches from her nose, the faint scent of vetiver tantalizing. “As I mentioned several times, I’m not the man you’re looking for.”
“I shouldn’t be too sure.” The words sounded feeble, all the more so when she flinched away from him. Raw, potent desire was making her begin to tighten and ache in a way that was both familiar and disturbing.
The Darkest Sin Page 5
