Just before she reached the edge of the trees he went after her again. If he’d had any doubts about her being a killer, she’d just satisfied them. Emily Portsman, Rachel Newbury—whatever she chose to call herself—hadn’t murdered anyone. And she’d also just told him who had killed Lady Ebberling.
Portsman, as he’d come to think of her, dodged behind a fallen tree and then down a hill into a brush-filled hollow. Even in a gown she moved fast, and she was thinking about evasion as much as she was about putting distance between them. “Ebberling killed his wife, didn’t he?” he asked to the woods in general, sidestepping a tangle of branches and moving to cut her off from the rise beyond. “And you saw it.”
Silence answered him. With a curse he realized she’d been waiting for him to make enough noise to drown her out, and then she’d stopped moving. Evidently she’d even stopped breathing and quite possibly she’d become invisible, because he couldn’t pick her green and yellow gown out from the green and brown sun-spotted wood.
He knew approximately where she had to be, and he cut back down the hillside toward the thicker growth below. “He did hire me to find you,” he continued, keeping himself and his gaze moving, looking for a flinch, an inch of cotton, a lock of chestnut hair. A whisper of sound made him adjust slightly to the east. “He said you stole a necklace and murdered the marchioness over it and then vanished without a trace.”
From the corner of his vision a sizable branch rushed at the side of his head. Nate sidestepped and straightened, letting the momentum of the blow carry her into his shoulder. With a twist he pulled the club from Portsman’s hands and shoved her into the trunk of a tree.
Still moving, he grabbed her right wrist and swept her arm over her head, using the tree to keep her pinned. She flailed at him with her free hand, and he trapped it, as well. “Stop struggling,” he muttered in her ear as he pressed up behind her. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“No? You just want to kill me, I suppose?” Her voice broke. “I knew it was stupid to leave the club with you. It went so nicely yesterday, and I thought…”
“You thought what?” he prompted, curious.
“I don’t know. I’m just tired. Tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of being afraid all the time.” A tear ran down one cheek. “Are you supposed to do it, or does he mean to murder me, himself?”
“He’s paying me something over ten thousand pounds to bring you to him alive. He implied that you wouldn’t be turned over to the authorities.”
She shoved backward, trying to set him off balance. But he’d been waiting for the move, and only tightened his grip.
“I’m not going to turn you over to him,” he continued, somewhat dismayed to realize that while he’d made that decision when she hadn’t tried for the knife, it was still a decision. Was his conscience, his sense of morality, so badly damaged that he’d at one point—at several points—actually been willing to turn this woman over to someone he knew meant to kill her? The amount of money offered had been the first thing to make him suspicious, after all.
It was more money than most people would see in a lifetime, and yet Ebberling hadn’t put out a public bounty. Instead the marquis had hired a man he’d known to be a spy, someone who didn’t talk about his clients or his work, someone willing to take a great deal of blunt to do a job and not ask too many questions about it. Nate scowled. He’d asked only for clues about where his quarry might be, and had completely ignored the larger question about whether this vanished chit had actually done what she’d been accused of. Worse than that, he hadn’t ignored the question as much as he hadn’t cared. He’d wanted to hunt, and the whys and wherefores hadn’t troubled him a whit.
“You expect me to believe that you hunted me down, took me out here to the middle of nowhere, and chased me through the forest, just to let me go?” she demanded, still wriggling to get free of his grip.
Nate mentally shook himself. “I’ve been chasing you through the forest because you keep running away,” he retorted. “Stop doing that, and we can chat about the rest of it. I have a picnic luncheon packed behind the seat of the phaeton.”
For a heartbeat or two she stopped fighting him. “Then you meant to feed me cucumber sandwiches and afterward decide whether to kill me or not? You’re an awful, despicable man.”
“And what did you intend, my dear? To announce that you know I’m a spy and then have more sex with me while attempting to wheedle out whether I was after you or some other poor chit?”
“You’re only annoyed because I thought of that tactic first. And if you did suspect me of killing someone, what the devil were you doing in my bed?”
The question annoyed him. “The first time I only thought you might perhaps know where I could find Rachel Newbury.”
“And the second time?”
“Because I enjoyed the first time.”
“Well, I only invited you upstairs because I thought you might be working for Ebberling and I wanted to know what you knew. So you’re much worse than I am.”
That, he was. “I’m letting you loose. Don’t run or I’ll chase you down again.”
He let her hands go and took two long steps backward before she could turn around and kick him in the balls or scratch his eyes out or whatever she might attempt next. The fact that he had no idea what she meant to attempt didn’t annoy him. It made him feel the opposite of annoyed. Something he didn’t quite have the words to describe, when he generally knew everything. A very precise, very ordered everything.
She turned around, facing him. First she rubbed at her wrists, then she wiped the wet from her cheeks, which had the effect of further dirtying her face. Third she brushed her dirty hands down the front of her dirty green and yellow gown. And the entire time her deep brown gaze held his. Every pretty, disheveled ounce of her radiated suspicion and distrust and fear and anger. He wondered what she saw when she looked back at him. His spectacles were somewhere between here and the phaeton, while his cane had never left the carriage at all. They were only the physical part of the disguise he’d been wearing for the past three years, but at the moment he felt distinctly unlike himself—whoever that was.
Finally she stuck out her right hand. “Rachel Newbury. And you are?”
The damned chit had balls, herself. He shook her hand. “Nate Stokes. But you’re still lying.”
Chapter Nine
When she jerked her hand away, he let her go. For a moment something profoundly sad and lonely crossed her features, but it was gone just as swiftly. “I don’t trust you enough or know you well enough to give you the truth,” she said aloud, walking past him in the approximate direction of the phaeton. “But for the purposes of this conversation I’m admitting to being Rachel Newbury. That will have to suffice.”
It didn’t suffice for someone who loved puzzles as much as he did, but for the moment he would accept it. “Very well.”
“Do you keep solemn oaths that you swear?” she continued, glancing over her shoulder at him as he fell in behind her. “Or is it merely lip service that enables you to accomplish whatever task you’re about?”
“You cut more deeply than a knife, my dear,” he said mildly, to cover the fact that what she’d just said had truly hurt. He had sworn oaths in the past, in front of or to people he’d been ordered to stop or to kill, and he hadn’t even blinked. “When I was employed by England, I swore an oath to protect her. I never broke that vow. Is that what you mean?”
“I intended to ask you to swear that you would keep your word when you said you wouldn’t hand me over to Ebberling, but I realized I have no idea if your promises mean anything at all.”
If she continued to rip away at him like that with mere words, he would be asking her to simply take the knife and finish him off in a matter of minutes. “Look at me,” he snapped.
She must have understood the iron beneath his tone, because she stopped walking and turned around to face him. “What?”
“I swear that if you are indeed inn
ocent of killing Lady Ebberling, I will not hand you over to Lord Ebberling. I swear on my life and what remains of my honor.”
For a long moment she searched his gaze. Finally she nodded. “I will accept that.”
“Then tell me what happened.”
“I will tell you over luncheon, Nate Stokes.”
They found the phaeton with the left front wheel jammed against a boulder some thirty feet from where he’d jumped off it. The pair of grays looked none too happy to have been left standing there in such an embarassing situation as running off the road, but he’d had little choice and fewer places to aim the team where he could be sure the carriage would be forced to stop.
“My apologies, lads,” he said, taking them by their heads to guide them backward until the vehicle was clear of the boulder, and then tying them off to a tree.
“You’re not going to blame it on me?” the chit asked, climbing atop the boulder to look down at the proceedings.
He shrugged. “I would have run, too. But I would have grabbed for the knife, so you’re a better person than I am.” The picnic basket had survived the crash, and he carried it over into the shade beside the stream and set it down.
“Would you have stabbed me to escape?”
No. “I suppose that would depend on whether I’d killed Lady Ebberling or not.”
“So that was a test of my innocence? I thought you were threatening me.” She hopped down from the boulder and untied the ribbon at the high waist of her gown.
“Also a test of sorts. You didn’t take the knife, which meant you weren’t a killer.”
She pulled the gown over her head and stepped out of her shoes before she walked over naked to dunk the dress in the stream. As she washed it, along with her hands and scraped knees and face, she looked over her shoulder at him. “But you said you would have taken the knife.”
“I’m a killer.” An aroused one, he thought, laying out the blanket and sitting cross-legged beside the basket to pull off his shoes and shake out the left one. The damned button fell into his hand, and he tossed it over his shoulder.
“And I’m not terribly reassured. And I’m only washing my dress; not seducing you.”
“You already seduced me.” Nathaniel shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it across from him. “Here.”
“No, I’d only planned to befuddle you. But then you kissed me, and…” Her cheeks darkened. “You kiss very well.”
“Thank you.”
Once she’d laid her dress across the boulder to dry she took a seat on the blanket and pulled his jacket on over her naked form. It was too big for her and did a splendid job of covering her from the hips up, but her long legs folded to one side, drawing his gaze and his attention. “And thank you,” she said, and reached for the glass of Madeira he poured her. “You say you’re a killer the way some people would say they had some tea.”
“I’ve had time to reconcile myself to the truth.” He pulled a plate free from the basket and lifted off the cloth wrapped around it. She’d been correct about the meal; a dozen triangular cucumber sandwiches were artfully arranged across the porcelain. Taking one, he handed them over and watched as she daintily consumed one of the delicate little morsels. “Tell me what happened with Lady Ebberling.”
“You know it’ll be my word against his,” she returned, sipping at her Madeira. “It doesn’t mean anything. Except that you’ll be even deeper in this mess than you are at this moment.”
That seemed to be secondary to learning what had transpired and whether he could help her. “Just tell me. And what should I call you?”
“Portsman works as well as anything else. I’m accustomed to the name. And I don’t want you or me mistakenly calling me something else.”
“Then tell me, Portsman. Don’t leave anything out.”
Her shoulders rose and fell, the movement opening his jacket and revealing a tantalizing partial view of her round, soft breasts. “Very well. I applied for the governess position at Ebberling, and Katherine—Lady Ebberling—hired me on the spot. She said she took an immediate liking to me, but I think the marquis had been … driving governesses away. He was very demanding and particular about who was looking after his son.”
“It wasn’t about sexual advances?” he asked, well past the point of cynicism.
“No. Not with me, anyway. I don’t know about the previous ones. He told me I was pretty several times, but he never attempted to visit my room.”
“Hm. I’m surprised.”
“So was I, actually. He did have a very bad temper, and there were a few occasions when he was cruel simply because he could be, but mostly he was fairly easy to avoid, and I was happy to be employed.”
Abruptly he remembered his conversation with young George, about the first time he’d seen Rachel Newbury cry. She must have been very happy to be employed, if someone with her spirit could be brought to tears and not either leave her employer’s service or level him. “Was he affectionate toward his wife and son?”
“‘Affectionate’?” she repeated, lifting an eyebrow. “He killed his wife.”
“I mean, was it a moment of rage, or…”
“Ah. Before that day, then, I would have said that he seemed as devoted to Katherine as any man might be to his wife.”
“Devoted as any man? That’s a rather large canopy,” he interrupted.
“I wasn’t that interested in discovering the whispers and cracks of the household,” she returned, glancing down at the half-empty glass of Madeira. “I was happy to be employed, and Katherine and her son were both very pleasant to me. We went along well for nearly three years.”
He wondered again what had made her so content simply to have employment, and whether it had anything to do with the Lady Sebret reference on her resume. That could wait for another time, however. She didn’t trust him, and she didn’t have much reason to do so. Hell, sometimes he didn’t trust himself.
“Until…” he prompted.
“Until one morning George decided he would rather stay inside and play with his toy soldiers and frogs than go for our daily walk. It was a bit brisk, so I agreed and set Mrs. Hanworth the housekeeper to keep an eye on him while I went out.” She sighed. “I used to love to go walking.”
Walking. She hadn’t done much of that for three years, Nathaniel knew, hidden inside the walls of The Tantalus Club. The run for her life today hardly counted against that. “What did you see?”
She blew out her breath. “You’re assuming that I trust you, or that I think you can do something to assist me.”
“I could remind you that we’re here, alone, chatting over luncheon rather than on our way to Velton House and Lord Ebberling.”
“Simply because I’m free at the moment doesn’t mean I will remain that way. You’re a spy. How do I know you’re not simply attempting to ferret out how much I saw and precisely what I know before you drag me off to him? After all, it would still come down to my word against Ebberling’s, with us each accusing the other. In that battle, he wins.” She selected a peach and bit into it. “I’m safer keeping my own confidences.”
Nate reflected that he’d had easier chats with men who hated him. Whatever had happened to her at Ebberling Manor, he didn’t think it had been the first time she’d paid a price for something not of her own doing. Everything about her said she trusted no one but herself, and that she had learned that lesson through experience.
“I used to be a spy,” he said slowly. Perhaps a secret for a secret would convince her to confide in him. And for the moment he refused to ruminate over why he’d decided he could trust her when he didn’t trust anyone. “A little over two years ago my cousin drowned, and as his heir I abruptly became too valuable to risk in the field. Or so Wellington informed me, on the day he handed me my papers and told me to go be an earl.” He frowned at his ridiculously small sandwich. “I don’t like being an earl. I know too many things about these hypocrites and fools to be comfortable with smiling at them and dancing with their
daughters.”
“And your brother? Why not give him the title?”
“Because he was sixteen when I inherited, and the last thing my mother said before she died was that I was to look after him better than I’d been seeing to myself.” He hadn’t actually had that conversation with his mother; he’d been in Belgium when she’d become sick. A solicitor and Laurie had been the witnesses, and it had been the solicitor who’d sent him the letter with her last words. He’d ignored them for nearly a year, until Gerard went and drowned himself.
“If you’re no longer a spy, why are you taking money from Ebberling to find me?”
“Because being a spy is all I know, and I can’t abide sitting about smoking cigars and chatting about who might win the Derby. I overheard Lady Trumble say she’d misplaced one of her uncle’s paintings, and that she needed to find it before his visit. It was a Gainsborough, easily identified, and on a whim I tracked it down and retrieved it for her. She didn’t trust the kindness of my heart, however, and insisted on paying me a hundred pounds for doing the favor. They all insist on paying me. To buy my silence and my discretion, I suppose.”
“Then you went to Ebberling and told him you would find Rachel Newbury because you’re bored with being an earl,” she commented, lifting her gaze to meet his before she looked away again.
“He came to me. And he hadn’t seen or heard a trace of you for three years. It seemed like a challenge, so I accepted.”
“And what is your intention now? To tell him that you couldn’t find me, after all? To say you had me and then lost me again? You don’t seem the sort to enjoy admitting to failure, Westfall.”
She was correct about that. He detested failure, and even more, having to admit to it. But this was different. She wasn’t a painting or a necklace or even a long-lost heiress with a large supply of wealth waiting for her. She was Portsman, and he liked her. Him. The fellow who could generally assess any companion’s lies and shortcomings and failures within two minutes of beginning a conversation with him or her.
The Handbook to Handling His Lordship Page 13
