At least Julia was safe with Strathmore, far away in North Africa. Their wedding in the small chapel at Montfort, their passion and love for one another, had been a comfort. Julia had found the protection with Lord Strathmore that she herself had been unable to provide.
Meredith was neither a weak nor emotional woman, and had done her best for her wards for many years. In a strange twist of fate, she had inherited wealth that had allowed her to shelter her young charges from the evil that she had had a hand in creating. But she would always carry the burden of knowledge that she had not done enough.
Rowena lay dead, somewhere at the bottom of the Irthing River, the loss forever mired in Meredith’s heart. She could not bear to spend one moment thinking of the man who was responsible for the heinous crime, her hands shaking as she tried to contain her anger. When she had learned that Faron still lived, she thought she would go mad with impotent rage. Yet she could do nothing for fear that Julia would be harmed. About herself, she no longer cared.
Meredith stepped back from the window and surveyed the room. There were small reminders of her girls scattered about the place, Julia’s favorite books, Rowena’s riding jacket that Meredith could not bear to put away, and Rowena’s favorite pen in its ebony box on the escritoire. She wandered over to the desk and picked up Rowena’s favorite copy of Wordsworth’s poems. It made her feel close to Rowena, to hold the source of her joy.
She stood there for a time, hoping for a miraculous gift, looking out the wide windows of Montfort where the horizon was a gunmetal gray. She could see nothing, but it didn’t matter. She can’t be dead, her conscious mind cried, even though logic told her that she must give up the illusion and give in to her grief. A full year later, she could not believe that Rowena would not come home.
Her stomach clenched, and she forced herself again not to think of Montagu Faron, not to remember that last afternoon so many years ago when they had ridden through the Loire Valley, the lush green of the countryside bounteous in the late summertime. As the sun set, it had cast a delightful glow upon the land, creating a feeling of magic. They had ridden to Blois just as the sun was slipping behind the low hills of the small city. Together they meandered through the narrow, empty streets and along a narrow road beyond prying eyes. Finally they dismounted and walked the rest of the way, the horses’ reins dangling loosely in their hands.
Behind them stretched the valley of kings, extending along the river in a deep serenity and an aura of splendor and history. Presently, they had stopped at a small cottage with an arched door and a tangle of rosebushes. The sight of the charming domicile brought a smile to Faron’s young face.
“Entirely unexpected, no?” he asked in English. “You are surprised, Meredith?”
Meredith had caught the intimacy in his voice. She had looked at him then with young love in her eyes, at the tall and handsome youth in the evening light. He had raked a hand through his coal-black hair, his cloak slung over his arm and a loose white shirt open at the throat. “Shall we go in?” he asked, producing keys from his cloak. Outlined against the golden light of early evening, he looked like the image she’d first had of him, the image from her dreams. He was dark and brooding like the heroes in the novels she loved to read. He was her soul mate, sharing his interests in science and the wide world. They had spent hours together in his father’s laboratories, scoured ancient texts in the chateau’s library, and exchanged heated words in heated debates about everything from galvanization to nitrous oxide.
Meredith remembered the vivid red of the roses as though it were yesterday, recalling how she and Faron had lingered on the cottage threshold. She had always known they would be together one day, and had felt an inexplicable premonition of a shared fate. And so she had put her hand in his, watching as he studied her face seriously for a moment and then pulled her to him with a searing kiss. Then he tore his eyes away and unlocked and opened the door. Lifting her in his arms, he had carried her inside.
Meredith raised her head from her reveries, the pain in her chest unbearable. Looking into the darkening sky surrounding Montfort, she wondered how her life had taken such a perverse turn and why the only man she had ever loved was now the man she would hate to her grave.
Chapter 14
The first night at Alcestor Court, Rowena slept fitfully, desperately missing the warmth and security of Rushford beside her. They had arrived late Friday evening, and their host, Baron Sebastian, had not made an appearance to welcome them to his country residence but rather preferred that his butler show his guests to their appointed bedchambers. Rowena and Rushford had been placed at opposite ends of a long hallway, in the tradition of country house weekends, where couples were encouraged to play elaborate games of sexual rondeau.
The Baron had clearly attended to the disposition of the bedrooms, having each guest’s name written neatly on a card and slipped into a tiny brass frame on the bedroom door so male guests would not blunder into the wrong rooms. Or so Rowena had guessed, insisting to Rushford that they sleep alone in their appointed bedchambers, so as to fit seamlessly into the weekend’s baroque choreography.
“Lock your door. And keep the key in the lock,” Rushford had growled, reluctant to let her out of his sight. But Rowena had pushed him away, needing some time to regain her equilibrium after having spent three scorching days in Rushford’s bed. She wished to clear her head and her heart, to focus on the matter that was her only concern. Faron.
She awoke before the maid brought the tea tray. Springing from the bed, she flung open the curtains and looked out on a perfect early-spring morning with a pale sun already sparkling on the green expanse of lawn beneath her window. She turned away from the window as the maid knocked and entered with her tea. She shivered in her thin nightgown, gossamer threads held together with satin ribbons and delicate lace.
“Shall I lay out your riding habit, madam?” The maid straightened from arranging the tray, and Rowena recalled the butler’s announcement the previous evening that the day would begin with a hunt.
“Please do.” Rowena poured her tea in a rich aromatic stream from a silver pot, her pulse jumping at the thought of riding again. She blocked out images of Montfort and Dragon and instead observed the maid holding her new riding boots of cordovan leather up to the light, examining them for marks. The maid proceeded to bustle around with jugs of hot water, then laced Rowena into her new riding habit. Leaving her fair wig in the bottom of the armoire, she fitted a snug hat over her hair, a clutch of trembling feathers its sole decoration.
An hour later, with the maid leading the way, Rowena proceeded along a deserted hallway and entrance hall to the breakfast room, where a footman jumped to open the door. Momentarily startled, she found herself alone with Rushford.
“Good morning,” she greeted him with a casual smile and as if they had not recently spent days indulging in the heights of passion. There was a studied coolness in her tone, an affectation she had thought best to rehearse and adopt, at least in public, in an attempt to mimic Miss Barry’s easy sophistication and sang froid.
“I’ve been up since the early hours of the morning,” he said shortly, barely looking up from his place setting.
“Quite unlike you from what I’ve seen these past three days,” she said cheekily, lifting the lids of the chafing dishes on the sideboard. They were entirely alone aside from two footmen who studiously avoided looking at them. The guests were obviously still abed, and Rowena wondered how many would actually make it to the hunt.
Rushford’s response was a grunt.
“You did not sleep well, I surmise, judging by your tone and lack of conversation.”
He looked up at her from his empty plate. “I think this is a mistake,” he said abruptly. Rowena knew exactly to what he referred—her presence at Alcestor Court.
“We agreed,” she said briefly, helping herself to a dish of eggs and a slice of toast. “There is nothing to discuss. We’re here now. Together.” She sat down at the far end of the table,
as far away from Rushford as possible.
“You can return to London. It’s not too late.”
“I’m sorry, Lord Rushford.” She looked up in innocent inquiry. “I didn’t quite catch that.”
“Your hearing is quite selective.”
“Enjoy your breakfast as I’m certain the hunt will be demanding. I quite look forward to it. It has been sometime since I’ve ridden,” she said with a serene smile. “And while you’re about it, my lord, could you please pass the teapot?”
Rushford pushed back his chair with a deliberate scrape against the polished floor, picked up the heavy pot, and marched the length of the table, depositing it beside her tea cup. “At the very least, follow my lead,” he said, staring down at her. “And we are sleeping together in the same bedchamber this evening, twisted conventions be damned.”
Rowena tried to contain her physical response to his nearness—and his proclamation. He was already in his riding attire, his stock snowy white against the hard planes of his face. He’d taken her breath away when she’d first seen him in the breakfast room, although she trusted she hadn’t given him the satisfaction of seeing it. He was older. He was experienced—the hours spent in his bed were a testament to his finesse as a lover. And he had saved her life. All the more reason she needed to ensure she didn’t lose her head over a man who held the fate of those she loved in his hands.
“I suppose,” she murmured, taking a bite of her toast, “that we should not appear too possessive. It’s clearly not the thing. Particularly if we are meant to engage with the Baron.”
“Stay away from him.” The words were stark.
“Isn’t that precisely the point? To spend time with the man?” She would not let Rushford know how the Frenchman’s voice alone sent shudders down her spine.
“Only if you are at my side,” he amended unhelpfully, his eyes darkening.
“And leave everything to you, of course,” she said. She rose from the table so they were almost at eye level and she could lower her voice. “You have yet to share with me your strategy for finding your way to Faron, never mind your intentions regarding the Rosetta Stone. And I have a feeling that you intend it to stay that way.”
He placed his hands palms down on the table, his face bending toward hers. For a moment, she imagined that he would lower his lips to hers, but his expression was unforgiving. She blocked out a sudden urge to throw her arms around his neck and to kiss him deeply, to move her hands up through the thickness of his hair, to devour him and transport them back to Miss Warren’s bedchamber in Knightsbridge. His next words stopped the madness and brought her back to reality with a decisive jolt.
“I promised to apprise you of whatever I discover about your family, Rowena. That is all. Anything more is entirely too dangerous.”
She let out an exasperated breath. “Just because we have shared a bed, Rushford, does not mean that anything at all has changed. I am not a child but a capable woman. You are not responsible for my well-being.”
“Then why did you approach me in the first place?”
“For your expertise at solving crimes. Nothing more.” She paused to straighten the dark emerald pin securing the white muslin cravat at her throat. Loathe to admit to him or to herself that there was more binding them together, she sat back down at the table. “You saved my life, and I’m grateful. Forever,” she said quietly. “But that does not in any way make you responsible for my safety in perpetuity.”
“Let me decide that,” he muttered darkly, turning on his heel and leaving the breakfast room.
Rowena Woolcott was correct in her assumptions, Rushford thought later, when the blasting horn of the hunt interrupted his dark ruminations. He saw her immediately when he stepped through the front door of the grand eighteenth-century Palladian country house, and stood looking down at the half dozen riders and dogs congregating on the circular gravel in front of the house. Rowena wore her hat with its feathers caressing her shoulders, auburn hair tucked away. She sat on a roan hunter, her skirts swept to the side. As if aware of his observation, she turned slightly and looked directly at him. He was too far away to see her expression clearly, but he could imagine the questions in her dark blue eyes, her lush mouth turned down in concern. For an instant, he thought that she was holding him with her gaze, robbing him of his will, this young woman who had so suddenly become a seductress. Then she broke the spell, curving from her waist to adjust a foot expertly in the stirrup. Each of her movements expressed the sinuous vitality of a woman in control of and at ease with her body. She looked at one with her horse; her face, as Rushford approached, glowed with suppressed excitement.
A groom brought Rushford a gray hunter, and he mounted swiftly, easing his horse to Rowena’s side. Guiding her mount to the edge of the circular drive, she deliberately looked away and cast her neighbor a quick glance. A man with heavy muttonchops was laughing with the Baron at something he had said. Introductions had obviously been made.
“So you are an experienced rider, Miss Warren,” Sebastian chuckled, resplendent in a dark brown riding jacket with bronzed braiding.
“Guilty,” she said, her gloved hands resting comfortably on her mount’s neck. “I’ve ridden all my life.”
“You were raised in the countryside, if I might inquire? Your accent seems to hold a shadow of the north country.”
“Well done, Baron,” Rowena responded calmly and as though she had nothing to hide. “And if you would permit me, I should say that your accent, slight though it may be, is distinctly Parisian.”
Sebastian bowed his head in assent. “It is indeed, Miss Warren. Although I am an anglophile and have spent many years in England and outside France. As well, my late great-uncle was an Englishman, and it is to him that I owe a debt of gratitude as he bequeathed me Alcestor Court upon his death.” The house loomed in the background, rising up from the parkland below. Classical in style, with a large portico and strong vertical lines on the exterior, it was built of pink sandstone and gray granite.
“Will Miss Barry be joining us?” Rushford heard Rowena ask.
Sebastian and the other guest, familiar to Rushford as Lord Braemore, laughed heartily. “Miss Barry won’t see noon, I shouldn’t think,” he said. “Besides which, she is not an equestrienne.”
“Hers is a sport of a different kind,” Sebastian added drily, gathering up his reins in his gloved hands. “This evening’s diversions are more to her liking.” He turned to Rushford. “Good morning, my lord.”
Rushford nodded briefly, irritated by the Frenchman and his proximity to Rowena and even more so by the emotions she engendered. Lust and passion and protectiveness—that was all, he had convinced himself. The last thing he wanted to do was understand her or know anything more about the workings of her soul, of her favorite pastimes, her politics, if she had any, her love of riding, or her fondness for poetry. He had thought, mistakenly, that taking her to his bed once more would banish such inclinations and reveal the origins of his responses for what they were, pure physical desire for a beautiful young woman who had appeared in his path at a difficult juncture in his life. Nothing more.
The huntsman blew for the start, and the dogs set off in a howling exuberant mass, the grooms encouraging them. The group of riders moved down the long drive. Rowena expertly positioned herself in the front, directly behind the hounds, as Rushford watched expectantly, not in the least surprised to discover that Rowena Woolcott was an aggressive and accomplished rider who was perfectly familiar with the sport. He drew alongside her mount, offering a brief nod of greeting.
“I realize I’ve already broken the first rule in daring to converse with the Baron without you,” she said without preamble but with a sideways glance and a hint of challenge. Clearly, the prospect of physical exertion agreed with her. The statement was delivered in dulcet tones above the baying of the hounds.
“And you will break many more before the weekend is done,” he said, and found himself smiling.
“I never pro
mised to be biddable, except of course, for the benefit of Miss Barry,” she admitted with a smile of her own. “And for now, I’d like to forget about all this skullduggery and focus on the hunt, on the thrill of moving and galloping through the forest on this fine specimen.” She leaned forward to give her horse a firm pat.
“We can’t let down our guard.”
“The first rule of skullduggery, I suppose,” she said, urging her horse into a trot and forcing Rushford to keep up.
“Remember, someone wants you dead.” His exclamation was low but nonetheless forceful. He did not want to add that she had been abducted when riding on the grounds of Montfort.
“But not right now,” she continued as if she hadn’t heard him. “They know me as Miss Frances Warren. I think it’s best not to have these conversations in public. Besides, I wish to have a little sport and some amusement for a change.”
As though he needed reminding how young she was. And how vulnerable.
“You know I’m correct, at least for the moment,” she said. “Nothing can happen when we’re in this melee,” she added, gesturing with a gloved hand to the riders and hounds around them.
“Miss Warren, I wish I could share your optimism,” he said, falling back as they reached a gate leading to a covert. The dogs surged forward, and the riders followed more slowly. Rushford hung behind, allowing Rowena to move ahead, his objective to keep an eye on her at every moment. He watched her perfect posture, her easy seat, as her head snapped up at the huntsman’s horn, searching the pack. The horn blew again, and the dogs tore across the meadow toward the fox, which had broken away.
The entire group surged forward, breaking out of the trees, hooves pounding the soft ground. A long slope of meadow lay ahead, and Rowena abruptly pulled her mount aside as the riders pushed past. She was sensible enough to wait for him, he noted with some small satisfaction. She was unaware that he was as intrepid an equestrien as she was. He arrowed toward her, but she had already charged ahead of him toward a thicket hedge at least six feet in height. Before he could register Rowena’s intention, he watched her gather her horse together for a jump.
The Darkest Sin Page 18
