She pushed away from him and sat up, because next his hand would start up with those caresses, and Avis’s skirts would soon be around her waist and her wits missing altogether.
“You are wrong, Hadrian. This note was delivered directly after you afforded me the protection of your name, as you put it. Engagement to you won’t keep me safe. It will anger those who think I ought to retire to Blessings in permanent obscurity and you in harm’s way.”
Hadrian sat up too and scooted around behind her.
“Good. If they get angry enough, they’ll do something obvious, and we’ll know who threatens you. Hold still.”
Avis wanted to argue with him, because this degree of zeal had likely sent countless good men into peril, and yet, his confidence fanned the small, uncertain flame of hope that even after twelve years, Avis had been unable to extinguish.
Hope that she could be free of the past.
Hope that her neighbors, people she’d grown up with, weren’t as mean and judgmental as their behavior suggested they were.
Hope that Avis’s family could someday be whole. Vim checked on her, Ben looked after Alex, and Ben and Vim occasionally crossed paths. Nonetheless, their strongest connection had become shared avoidance of the past—and each other.
And now her stubborn hope was complicated by a private, wonderful joy.
“I liked it.” She spoke barely above a whisper, when Hadrian put the last pin in her hair and drew her back against his chest.
“Beg pardon?”
“You’ll mess up my hair if you keep cuddling me like this.”
“Then I’ll tidy you up again. What did you like?”
Not a what, much more of a who.
Hadrian’s embrace settled around her more comfortably. “You liked that part, did you? Liked making love with me?”
“Hush. I’m glad we did what we did today, Hadrian.” She would concede that much.
“But you planned to have your way with me, then send me packing, engagement broken, hateful note in your pocket, and Bothwell none the wiser. It won’t be like that, Avis.”
“I can’t put you at risk,” she said, but she made no move to leave his embrace.
“I’m not at risk until we wed, if that note is to be believed, though as to that, I’d rather be married and have you under my roof at Landover, where the staff is loyal and would see to your safety. Furthermore, my lady, we’ll study this wretched collection of yours and gain what insights we may.”
We. How casually he yoked his fate to hers.
Avis shifted away, reaching for her boots. “The notes could be from anybody, or several people, or my own servants.”
“It isn’t anybody,” Hadrian countered, grabbing her ankle and taking a boot from her hand. “You have the most delicate feet.”
“Hadrian.” Her reproof came out as exasperated endearment.
He slipped on her stocking, then her boot, lacing it up as he braced her foot on his thigh.
“Whoever wrote your note is educated. That handwriting is tidy, an example of careful penmanship, and your servants are not in the habit of using words like synonymous.”
He put her second stocking and boot on with the same brisk efficiency.
“You’re right.” Why hadn’t she reached those conclusions herself?
“If we read the whole of them, we might find more clues.” He set her foot aside, after treating her calf to a bracing little squeeze. “You have to promise me something in absolute sincerity, or I will tell all the world what happened here today.”
“You mustn’t!”
The look he shot her would have quelled insurrections in the most unruly congregations.
“You would. You think you’re keeping me safe by being my swain.”
Hadrian brought her hand to his lips. “At last you speak reason. I am your swain, Avie. You are my damsel—in distress or otherwise.”
He kept possession of her hand when Avis would have turned away.
“Besides, love, you liked it. Liked what we did together. Wouldn’t you like to do it again? Under the stars, in a nice big fluffy bed, for hours and hours? Wouldn’t you like for us to be lovers?”
* * *
Hadrian saw St. Just off shortly after breakfast, envious of a man who had family to the east, family in the Midlands, and yet more family all over the Home Counties. Rather than allow himself to brood on the departure of his friend, Hadrian forced himself to spend the day with his letters and ledgers, but was relieved when a footman ushered Fenwick into his library.
“Got your note,” Fenwick said, peering around at Hadrian’s desk. “Impersonating a productive landowner, are we?”
“I risk the wrath of a certain countess if I don’t attend my correspondence. Thanks for coming. Shall you join me in some sustenance?”
“Sustenance is never a bad idea.”
Hadrian poked his head into the corridor, gave orders to a footman, and turned back to the room to see Fenwick reading Hadrian’s letter to Emmie St. Just.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
“Making sure you aren’t playing Avie false.” Fenwick set the letter down, casual as he pleased. “Does St. Just know you’re writing to his wife?”
“In the first place, Ashton Fenwick, my correspondence is private, and in the second, he all but ordered me to assure his gravid wife that he fares well, lest she worry over him.”
Fenwick set the note down and took a seat one instant before Hadrian would have smacked his fingers. “St. Just wants you writing to her so she won’t worry about you.”
“Regardless, it’s none of your affair.” If Fenwick would stick his nose into correspondence that was none of his business, would he also pen nasty notes to Avis?
Though Fen’s attempt at spying had hardly been stealthy, and Fen was nearly as protective of Avis as Lily Prentiss was.
Fen crossed an ankle over one knee, the soul of nonchalance. “Apologies all around, but Avie is in a state about something and has been for a few days.”
“How did you divine that?” By reading her journal? By spying on her?
“I had tea with her Sunday, as we usually do when we aren’t together for the main meal of the day, and she was preoccupied. Then too, Lily has been glaring daggers at me, despite my allowing her to slap me at the last gathering.”
“For dancing with her?”
“On general principles,” Fenwick said. “Perhaps for not dancing with her. Some women express their finer feelings for a man in violence.”
“You think Lily pines for you?” Hadrian hadn’t considered this angle, but it fit, in a hopelessly juvenile way.
“Lily hates me.” Fen was toweringly untroubled by Miss Prentiss’s poor opinion of him. “She can’t destroy me, but she knows I’ll not raise a hand to her, so she wallops me from time to time. Something or someone has unbalanced the woman in some regard, though she seems to limit her displays of temper to me. Now, what did you haul me over the hill to discuss?”
“Do you recognize the handwriting?” Hadrian passed Avie’s nasty note across his desk to Fen and watched his caller’s face carefully.
“I don’t, exactly.” Fenwick held the note to his nose and sniffed it. “These are not my sentiments, but the penmanship looks ominously like my own.”
“Like yours?”
“Give me a pen and a sheet of foolscap.”
Hadrian complied, then watched over Fen’s shoulder as he copied the note, word for word. Fenwick blew on the copy and sat back. “See?”
Hadrian set the original and the copy side by side. “The crosses on your t’s slant up and these are downward. The loops on your p’s and e’s and so forth are narrower.”
“Different day, different details, but that note is cowardly, mean and untrue. Shall you call me out?”
Somebody needed calling out.
“For reading my letter to Emmie St. Just, I should; but no, not for this note.” Hadrian and Fen had worked together like dogs in the summer
sun, shared many a drink, and a few meals, and while Fen might insult Hadrian to his face, Fen would not prey on a woman, not even on Lily, who deserved at least a verbal birching.
Fen’s expression as he studied the note was impassive, almost as if he weren’t surprised. “This is what’s upsetting Avis?”
“Mostly.” Hadrian considered resuming his seat behind the desk and chose the chair beside Fen instead. “I’m on her mind some too, I should hope, but this note has disconcerted her.”
“It takes a lot to disconcert that woman, though this disconcerts me, for I don’t know whose head to break in response.”
“I share your dilemma.” Hadrian went to the door to accept a tray from the footman. “Avis has had years to ponder the matter, and she won’t even think of confronting those who wish her ill.”
“Now, Bothwell,”—Fenwick’s tone was patient—“do not tell me the lady has received similar notes in the past or I will have to turn her over my knee, and won’t that be fun?”
Hadrian set the tray down on the desk, though dumping it over Fenwick’s head had wicked appeal. “Avis is terrified, Fen. She didn’t tell me about the note. I found it by accident and interrogated her.”
“Spying on another’s correspondence, Saint Hadrian? Perhaps you need to be turned over my knee.”
Or perhaps he’d spill the teapot in Fen’s lap. “Who is so angry at Avis they’d threaten my life if she married me?”
The levity in Fen’s eyes was replaced by cold calculation. “That is a peculiar chain of reasoning. This person isn’t necessarily angry at Avie, or she would have suffered attempts to harm her person.”
“She hasn’t?” Finding the answer to that question was part of the reason Hadrian had summoned Fen. Letters to Vim and Benjamin had been dispatched for the same purpose, though neither fellow was at a known location.
Fen’s expression became grim, indeed. “You must interview the lady herself, for she might have hidden attempts at harm to her person—or not seen them for what they are. A passing bellyache can be attributed to bad fish, when in fact the culprit is poison, and so on.”
“I must interview her? Just my hapless self? No half-savage, nosy, Highland steward to threaten spankings if she balks? And what do you mean Avie isn’t the object of somebody’s anger? Calling her the whore of Cumberland is hardly an endearment.”
Fenwick reached for a sandwich, though how he could think about food when Avis could be in danger was a mystery.
“They are angry at her,” Fen said, “but it occurs to me, and this is purely my barbarian imagination at work, the real object here is for Avie to suffer continued misery and isolation.”
“Like a parasite doesn’t seek to destroy its host.” Hadrian poured them each a cup of strong tea. “A grim analogy, but you have a point. This person has had years to hurt Avie, and they’ve settled for cutting up her peace, while she remains in good bodily health.”
Fenwick gestured with his sandwich. “Eat. Worrying requires sustenance, and that note is worth worrying over.”
As was Avis’s silence about the notes and its predecessors. “More barbarian wisdom?”
“My grandmother.” Fen passed Hadrian a sandwich of chicken and cheddar on white bread, which should have appealed—but didn’t. “Full-blooded Highland savage and a tough old boot. Have you seen the other notes?”
“Tomorrow. Avis asked for a day to gather her wits.”
“She’d be safer married to you.” Fenwick put a second sandwich on a plate, which he balanced on his knee with incongruous daintiness. “You could wrap her up in cotton wool here at Landover.”
“Glad to know I have your blessing,” Hadrian said, taking a bite of his sandwich, mostly so Fen wouldn’t scold him. “Who would bear such a grudge against Avie that they’d employ a nasty trick like this?”
“Collins’s staff?” Fenwick suggested. “They’re local, and they have an interest in their employer’s reputation.”
“Good place to start. His accomplices would also be worth a look, though I never learned their names. Leaving notes around does strike me as a bullying tactic, and Collins was nothing if not a bully. I suppose we should look at Collins’s mother too, though, and any woman who set her cap for the baron before Avie was engaged to him.”
“A woman? We need look no further than darling Lily to recall that the ladies can have a nasty temper.” Fenwick considered his second sandwich. “That widens the field of suspects considerably, though Collins’s mother has every reason to be bitter. She’s been without her darling boy’s company for the past twelve years.”
According to Harold, the baroness hadn’t socialized much as a result. Some women would find that alone grounds for resentment.
“Avie hasn’t let anyone know about the notes, so whoever is tormenting her has likely grown complacent over years of wreaking mischief. I’m determined to bring her detractor to justice sooner rather than later—twelve years is twelve years too long for Avie to suffer.”
Fenwick saluted with his tea. ““There speaks a determined swain, but what of Avie?”
Hadrian ran a finger over the gilded rim of his tea cup and debated in what sense to reply to Fen’s question.
“At least until recently, Avie has been determined to slink away.” From the ill will stalking her, from marriage, from her right to a happy future. Hadrian hoped that her slinking days would soon be behind her.
Fenwick rose, sandwich in hand. Hadrian did not warn him about leaving crumbs on the carpet because Fen would leave no crumbs—he was that careful.
“So you must slay her dragons and climb her tower, else she won’t marry you?”
“A chivalrous, poetic barbarian,” Hadrian observed, “but yes. I suspect she won’t marry me as long as she thinks I’m in danger if I take her to wife.”
“She’s sensible, and she wouldn’t refuse you unless your safety meant a great deal to her.”
A cheering thought, though Fen didn’t look particularly cheerful. “How do you conclude that?”
“Think about it, Bothwell. She could marry you and put your life in jeopardy—if that note is to be believed—then sit back and enjoy being the chatelaine of Landover in Harold’s absence. She’d be your viscountess in all but name, and if she were clever enough to catch a son of you, she’d be set for life.”
“You’re suggesting Avie wants me dead and let me find a note she’d planted herself? You should be writing horrid novels, Fenwick.”
“I’m suggesting she’d give up a chance at all of that to keep you safe.”
“She’d do the same for you.”
Fenwick went to the door, speaking over his shoulder.
“Spanking is too tempting when I’m faced with such stubborn, pigheaded foolishness. I will make sure Avie is closely watched by such members of her staff as I trust, which is to say mostly myself, and I will report anything peculiar to you. She needs you, dunder-headed choir-boy-turned-swain that you are, and I will see you delivered to her. Finish your sandwich.”
He swept out, leaving a ringing silence behind him.
Hadrian didn’t finish his sandwich. He picked up the two versions of the note and compared them again.
They were very, very similar, indeed.
* * *
“You have been preoccupied ever since Mr. Bothwell announced your engagement,” Lily observed, “and I don’t think it’s a joyous preoccupation.” In the sunny confines of the little sitting room, Lily’s gaze held concern, nigh constant concern.
“Engagements have negative associations for me,” Avis said, which was the truth—a truth.
“My poor Avis.” Lily knotted off her thread and snipped her needle free of her embroidery. “Are you sure Mr. Bothwell is the future you want?”
“Who can know what marriage to this or that man will mean?” Avis rose and paced to the windows, which Lily had closed while muttering about lazy chambermaids and chilly drafts. “I esteem Hadrian far more than I did my first fiancé, and I alwa
ys have. He’s a good man.”
Honorable, kind, handsome, protective, passionate.
“He’s still a man. He’ll make certain demands on you, citing scripture to excuse his base urges.” Lily’s tone suggested those base urges had inadvertently been left off the list of deadly sins. “I know you aren’t happy here, Avis, but I had hoped in some small way you’d be content. Still, Mr. Bothwell is in line to raise the Landover heir, and he could end up with the title. Then too, if you refuse his suit—”
Lily left off dissecting Avis’s future to rummage in her work basket, leaving unsaid that if Avis rejected Hadrian’s offer, more pity would come her way.
And more scorn.
“If I jilt Hadrian, I’ll never have another offer, unless you count old Sully’s flirting.”
“Sully is influenced by Fenwick’s poor example.” Yet another deadly sin. “Insubordinate, that one.”
“Don’t start, Lily.” Avis unfastened the window latch, because the day was brisk but not cold. “Fenwick is a superb steward, and he is my friend. I have enough on my mind without you feuding with him.”
“I am sorry.” Lily took one of Avis’s shawls from the back of her chair and draped it around her own shoulders. “I should not let my distaste for that man burden you. If you marry Mr. Bothwell, we’ll remove to Landover, and Mr. Fenwick’s strutting, braying company will merely be that of an infrequent visitor, one calling on Mr. Bothwell.”
The shawl was a soft peacock-green wool and went well with Lily’s fair coloring, and yet, that was one of Avis’s favorite shawls, and the room wasn’t at all cool.
Something inside Avis shifted—another adjustment of the balance between fear and courage—at the sight of Lily appropriating that pretty shawl.
“You think I should marry Hadrian?”
“I should tell you yes.” Lily rose to join Avis near the window. “I should tell you he’s a decent enough fellow, he’ll provide well, and you’ll never want for anything. You might even be a viscountess someday.”
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