by Louise Allen
Jared made no attempt to tell her it was otherwise, for which she was thankful, she was not in the mood to be mollified and patronised. Not that he had ever tried to...
She realised with a start that he was speaking. ‘The new Lord Northam – let us refer to him as Theo for now, it makes things simpler – will be much involved with his father’s funeral. Where will that be?’
‘Near Nottingham. He will be interred in the family mausoleum at their country seat, I am sure,’ Guin said, grateful for something to think about other than the fact that her image was all over the London print shops. ‘At least that will get Theo out of London. I can imagine him calling someone out over this.’
‘More than likely,’ Jared said. ‘I would hold his coat for him. If he got in first, that is.’
‘You would challenge someone for me?’
‘Of course.’ He seemed surprised that she would ask and something inside Guin melted. ‘But other than that, there is nothing to be done that we are not doing – finding who murdered your husband and who has been persecuting you. And, while we are about it, keeping you out of the public eye until another, more titillating, scandal comes along.’
It was difficult to think of something more titillating than the adultery and double murder that the print implied, but Guin took a steadying breath and poured tea all round. ‘Did you discover anything this morning?’
‘That your first husband’s death was all that it appeared, that his grave now has a fine headstone and that he had a sister, Elizabeth.’
Guin put down the teapot with a thump that set the little table rocking. ‘Francis had a sister?’
‘One who has set up a headstone calling for vengeance, what is more.’ Jared described the headstone, his conversation with vicar and innkeeper and his day in the saddle attempting to find where Francis has gone on the last day of his life.
‘He was on foot, the weather was foul. I have visited every hamlet and farm within a five mile radius of the inn and found nowhere he was seen, no-one who admits having any business with him. Which means that, unless he had a rendezvous with someone passing through – ’
‘He was coming here,’ Guin said slowly. ‘But why? Because whatever it was he wanted, it was not here – the house was closed up. The Quentens had intended to let it, I believe, but Augustus saved them from having to do that.’ Then she realised that talking to the innkeeper and viewing the scene had convinced Jared of her innocence in Francis’s death, but that before, he had been uncertain. It left her, she realised, surprisingly angry. Her hand shook as she made herself sip her tea. She could not rant at him here and now, she told herself.
‘That would account for his frustration as reported by the innkeeper and how heavily he was drinking.’ Jared picked up his cup, thought for a while, apparently did not notice her tension. ‘We have been wondering what connection there is between the tricks played on you and the murder of Lord Northam. I am beginning to think that whatever it is, it centres on this house. Francis Willoughby brings you here to this village, visits this house, dies before he can achieve his purpose, then Lord Northam appears having bought this same house, comes here and meets you. Months later you return to Allerton Grange together and the attacks on you begin, then follow you to London.’
‘Do we now wait for something to happen here again?’ Faith asked into the silence that followed.
‘Excuse me, sir, but there’s something I don’t understand.’ Dover had been working his way through the meat pie in silence. Now he pushed away the plate and looked round the group. ‘I can understand that Elizabeth Willoughby might, misguidedly, blame Lady Northam for her brother’s death and cause those attacks to happen. She might even be resentful that Lord Northam assisted Mrs Willoughby, as she was then, when the magistrate was becoming difficult. But surely, murdering him was a complete over-reaction. I mean, I can see that she might want to murder Lady Northam, if she really is so obsessed and unreasonable, but why him?’
‘Could it be coincidence and motives behind the attacks on me and Augustus’s murder are not connected?’ Guin wondered. ‘Coincidences happen all the time, but we do not notice them.’
‘If it were not for the fact that Francis almost certainly expected to find someone, or something, here, at this house, then perhaps coincidence might explain it. The innkeeper thought Francis reminded him of someone, but he had no idea who. It is suggestive, though.’
‘The Quentens’ steward, I wonder,’ Guin mused. ‘I never met him and I do not know his name. He left the district when they did, but I seem to recall something Augustus said about him obviously being competent and well educated from the records that he left. He assumed he was a gentleman who had fallen on hard times. Could he be a brother, perhaps? But, no, it cannot be that. Augustus would have commented on the similarity of the names.’
‘Unless one or other of them was using a false identity,’ Faith suggested. ‘We know Mr Francis Willoughby was not entirely honest – ’ Guin repressed a snort, ‘– but we know from his headstone that was his real name. A brother might be flying under false colours, perhaps.’
‘It sounds as though a query to the Quentens is called for,’ Jared said. ‘If the agent is no longer employed by them they should know where he has gone.’
‘What do you want me to do now, sir?’ Dover asked. ‘Go back to London? I caught the stage to Thirsk and then hired a horse, I can do the same thing the other way round tomorrow and be back in London the day after.’
‘Not yet, I think. Lady Northam, do you have a Landed Gentry in the house? Because now we have the names of Francis Willoughby’s parents from the gravestone we might be able to trace the sister that way and also see whether there are any brothers. If not, Dover can ride to Pickering tomorrow, there’s a circulating library there that should have an up to date copy.’
‘Augustus may have kept one in his study,’ Guin said after a moment’s thought. ‘There is no proper library here, the Quentens took all the books with them when they moved out and Augustus had not begun to buy books for here yet in any quantity, although there are a few and I brought some of my own for the tower room. I expect Theo will want to add more if he decides to keep this house. I have just realised, this estate will belong to him now, I should ask his permission to stay when I write my letter of condolence for the death of his father.’
She stood up, bringing everyone else politely to their feet. ‘Shall we go down to the study and look for the book, Mr Hunt? At least you will know then whether the trip to Pickering is necessary.’
Jared followed her out and down the stairs in silence. Guin went into the study, across to the big chair, empty beside the desk. Jared closed the door and simply stood there, looking at her, his weight slightly on the balls of his feet, every line of his apparently relaxed body signalling alertness. This was a man poised for a fight: it seemed he did not need either word or gesture to alert him to her mood after all, he had been aware all along.
She found she was holding onto the back of the chair, Augustus’s chair, as though drawing support from some lingering trace of his presence. ‘I have only just realised that until you spoke to Mr Grantham at the inn you half believed I had murdered Francis. Perhaps totally believed it. I thought you trusted me.’
‘When you demonstrated a sense of guilt so strongly and Willoughby sounds so ripe for murder?’ he said in a tone of such reasonableness that she wanted to throw the inkwell at him. ‘Of course I had to suspect you. I did not know you, I did not know Lord Northam well enough to trust his judgment. To become a widow twice in such a short time argues a significant degree of misfortune – or something else entirely.’
There was a small sound as her nail pieced the leather of the chair back. ‘And yet a conversation with a complete stranger was enough to convince you of my innocence? After that evening… after what has passed between us?’
‘He gave me an understanding of why you felt guilty, of what Willoughby was, seen through a stranger’s eyes. It is m
y profession to keep people alive, to be suspicious of everyone, everything. Allowing emotion to – ’ Jared broke off.
‘You feel some emotion for me?’ She despised herself for the question, for having so little pride that she needed to ask for any kind of reassurance.
‘You do not know?’ Some of the stillness left Jared. ‘You think that I take encounters with women casually, that I would use you in that way?’
‘It was I who used you, I seem to recall.’ A kind of anger shivered through her, sparking some emotion in that watchful amber gaze.
‘Perhaps we used each other.’ Jared’s voice was silky with a sensual promise that did not ring true. Yes, he is angry too.
She should move back, or tell him to leave, or do anything but what she did, what those eyes were compelling her to do. Guin let go of the chair, stepped forward, her hand lifted, not knowing whether it was to strike or to caress.
Jared lifted his, right to right, a swordsman’s salute, and their palms met, kissed together in the lightest brushing touch and they stood there, hands open yet utterly trapped, breath mingling. Stood so close that Guin could count the individual lashes, see his irises widen as his gaze darkened and heated on her face.
‘Did we use each other, Guinevere? Or is this about more than need, more than the physical?’
‘You said emotion.’ Had he heard that whisper?
‘I should not allow myself to feel, not for a client, not for the person I am supposed to be protecting.’ His voice was as soft.
‘But you do?’ She was asking a man to admit to feelings that would expose him, lay him, and his pride, open to rejection, perhaps to mockery. I am a viscountess, Guin reminded herself. Jared, a swordmaster, a man who takes paid employment, is well aware of that. And yet this man never felt inferior to anyone, she was certain of it. It was not arrogance, it was confidence, hard-earned, hard-learned, self-assurance. Jared Hunt had carved himself a place outside Society and yet could step over that threshold as and when it suited him. She recalled how easily he had fitted into the ballroom, his friendship with the Duke and Duchess.
‘Yes. I care for you, Guinevere. I desire you. I believe you. I am not certain which order those came in.’ There was amusement suddenly, lighting his eyes with flecks of gold, crinkling the skin at the corners. ‘No, that is not so. Desire came first, desire came the moment I saw you.’
‘Truly?’ Somehow they had moved together, breast to breast, both hands clasped. She watched his eyes as he watched hers, an entirely silent conversation running beneath their spoken words. ‘I was frightened and so I was angry and haughty with you.’
‘I thought you an arrogant witch, that first hour or so,’ he admitted readily. ‘But one who had me by the throat.’
‘By the throat?’ she teased.
‘And areas further south.’ He moved against her slightly, demonstrating the point. ‘But you were the subject, the object of my employment. I could not afford to care like that.’
‘You do now?’ But the question was lost against his mouth and the kiss Jared took was hot and hard and urgent. He freed his hands and pulled her against his body and that was hot and hard and urgent too. Guin tugged awkwardly at his coat, clumsy in her need to touch bare skin. With a fluid twist of his shoulders it was free for her to push down. There was a moment when they were apart as he shook it off, then he had her again and her fingers were fisting in the fine linen of his shirt and under it was skin and muscle and strength and she wanted that too.
He tasted of coffee and cinnamon and aroused male. As she recovered from that first heady contact his lips softened, his tongue curled, playful in its exploration, and she yielded to it even as her busy hands yanked the shirt from the waistband and finally, finally, she could touch his body. So hard, so smooth except where ridges and knots betrayed old wounds. She feasted with her fingertips, thrilled when he arched against her hands like a big cat seeking caresses.
Guin felt her legs losing strength, knew she was sinking towards the floor, realised she did not care and gave a moan of protest as Jared broke the kiss.
‘I am damned if I am going to make love with you for the first time on the floor or a desk top.’ He unbuckled his sword belt, let it drop.
‘We made love in a barn – ’
‘We had sex in a barn. My bedchamber’s nearest.’
Chapter Eighteen
‘No, my room. There’s a not-so-secret door and stair in the corner here.’ Guin tugged at his hand, impatient when he stooped to retrieve his coat. Trust Jared Hunt to leave no incriminating evidence behind him. He dropped it and pressed a kiss into the angle of her neck. Her fingers fumbled on the old oak panelling until she found the right angle to press, then the door opened and they climbed, cramped, bumping on the twisting stair, so narrow that Jared’s broad shoulders brushed the walls.
It opened into her bedchamber and Guin turned to see Jared at the stair door, framed by the old oak panelling as he pulled off his shirt.
‘You look like a returning knight storming his lady’s chamber after years away at the Crusades,’ she said, half laughing at her own fantasy, half deadly serious.
Jared tossed aside the shirt, heeled off his boots, his gaze steady on her as his hands went to his waistband. He was stripping himself naked for her, making himself as vulnerable as such a controlled, dangerous man surely never could.
Guin caught her breath at the sight of him revealed, aroused for her. For me. If he can trust, so can I. Her gown fell in silent folds at her feet, her slippers kicked off easily. Her corset defeated her but from the look in his eyes, it would not defeat him. Guin walked the six steps that brought her to the man who was to be her lover and reached up, pulling free the leather tie that held his queue of hair tight. It came loose under her raking fingers, shook out around his shoulders, the mane of a lion, kinked by the braid and silkily alive in her hands.
Jared smiled, slow and sensuous, and reached around her for the strings of her stays, deft even though he could not see what he was doing. ‘Sure?’ he murmured.
The question in that husky voice was reassuring, but he did not have to ask: she was quite certain about this. It had been a long time since Francis, and he had been an unsatisfactory lover – even with her complete inexperience she had known that – so this might be far from comfortable in the beginning, but she trusted Jared to care for her.
‘Quite sure.’ The words were muffled as her corset fell away and he whipped her chemise off over her head.
She was not certain what to expect next, but it was not to be held away from him, his palms cupping her shoulders, while he studied her face. ‘This can only be a temporary affaire, Guinevere. Of course, you already know that – you are a titled lady, I am a swordmaster. That is all it can ever be.’
‘I am not looking for a third husband, that is certain,’ Guin said, perhaps more crisply than she had intended. ‘But if I were, I am not sure that a foolish young woman of moderately respectable breeding who ruined herself with a rake, and was then fortunate enough to be rescued by an elderly viscount, is in any position to give herself airs. Especially about a man who, however mysterious he chooses to be about his upbringing, is clearly a gentleman by both breeding and nature.’ She took a deep breath. ‘Now, please can you forget all those very honourable scruples and just kiss me?’
‘I live to serve,’ Jared murmured, provoking her into parting her lips so that his mouth on hers caught her mid-retort. Then his tongue teased inside and she lost all track of what she had been about to say.
They were naked, skin to skin, feminine softness against hard male demand and she rubbed herself sinuously against the lean body, honed by disciplined exercise. Jared bent her back over his arm to kiss her breasts, his hair falling over her shoulders, another caress. He stooped, caught her up and carried her to the bed, followed her down, continued his open-mouthed exploration of her breasts until she arched up, clutching at his head, wanting him not to stop and yet wanting more. Wanting him.
<
br /> Jared gave a parting tug at her right nipple with his lips and looked into her half-closed eyes. ‘It has been a long time.’ It was more a statement than a question.
‘Yes,’ Guin agreed, even as those long, clever fingers slid between her thighs, slipped between folds already wet for him. Her body already knew what pleasure he could give it and she pushed against his palm as one, then two fingers eased inside and she writhed against him, wanting it all.
Jared’s weight shifted over her, his lean hips between her thighs, his hair brushing her shoulders, the different texture of the dark curls on his chest setting up another exquisite friction against her sensitised nipples. They moved together instinctively, finding that perfect angle for penetration, his long, strong thrust matching the lift of her hips to take him, all of him.
Guin gasped, burying the sound against his shoulder. It was a long time and, although he was gentler, he was also larger than Francis had been. Jared held still as though he had felt that moment of shock, of resistance, then as she arched up against him, he withdrew slowly, almost completely, then drove in again. Slow and fast, slow and fast, until Guin was panting with need, shaking as the tension built and built, gasping out words that were more sounds than sense until Jared shifted the angle of his thrusts, his breathing suddenly irregular as he seemed to swell and grow inside her.
‘Now, Guinevere.’
An order, a plea… perhaps both, as she abruptly lost the ability to think at all and clung to him, sobbing as he moved sharply, pulling away, gasping out his own ecstasy against her mouth as he convulsed, spilling hot against her belly.
I ought to move. Under him was soft, hot woman, a tangle of hair in his mouth – both his and hers – the sensation of stickiness between their bodies, the scent of their coupling and sweat mingling with the drift of mown grass and roses through the window. Nothing dainty about good sex, Jared thought, utterly relaxed and contented.
He really should move. He could not recall the last time he had simply abandoned himself to the moment after lovemaking. It was far too dangerous an indulgence: a man was never more vulnerable than when he was naked, happy, boneless with pleasure.
