The Reluctant Viscount

by Lara Temple

  He led the way through the back corridor into the hallway, sweeping the lantern about as if expecting someone to leap at them from the shadows. She waited tensely for him to turn and leave, holding back against the urge to demand he not go out alone into the night again. But he just placed the lantern on the small side table in the hallway. He opened his mouth to speak, then closed it, and she saw the muscles about his jaw tighten and flex. She held herself very still.

  ‘I need a drink,’ he said finally. ‘Is there anything here?’

  She nodded and hurried towards the front parlour, where they kept a decanter of brandy for rare guests. She needed a drink, too. She was shaking, from cold and fear and shock, and her arm ached dully where the rifle had hit her. The gloom in the parlour lightened as he followed her, placing the lantern on the modest dining table and striding over to pull the curtains closed. She didn’t look around as she poured him a large measure of brandy. Glass chattered against glass as her hands shook at their task. Finally she handed him his glass and went to sit down, untying her cloak and draping it over the arm of the sofa. She didn’t feel steady enough to take what was coming standing.

  He placed the glass down on the table with a snap.

  ‘Of course. Breeches. Why am I not surprised?’

  She glanced down at her legs.

  ‘I needed something comfortable…’

  He covered his face with his hands and drew a deep breath.

  ‘Hell, where do I start?’ he mumbled through his hands and she felt a welcome spurt of annoyance focus her and her shaking eased slightly.

  ‘You can be as condescending as you wish, but I am not the idiot who went about playing bullseye for a murderer! He was about to shoot you when I scared him!’

  ‘No. He was about to reveal himself when you warned him. Pay me the compliment of believing I might know what I am doing, Alyssa. There are not that many places along the path I am known to walk in the evening which provide cover for someone wishing to attack me. We found traces of earlier tracks in two of them when we searched the woods earlier. Nick and Jem were each positioned to watch one location without being seen while Jacob was set to track Percy from the Duck and Dragon, where he had shown up earlier this evening. I had to be seen, but I would not have come within ten yards of either spot. At that distance Percy would have been no more accurate with a rifle than a dog. He is too vain to admit it, but that quizzing glass isn’t just ornamental. In the dark and at that distance he would have the devil’s own luck to do any damage. And we needed to catch him in the act so he couldn’t claim he was just wandering around old haunts!’

  Alyssa’s assurance faded with each additional, coldly furious word.

  ‘You should have told me,’ she said miserably.

  He didn’t answer immediately.

  ‘Perhaps, very foolishly, I thought it would hardly be considerate to have you concerned about what was going on. How was I to know you would decide to go into the woods in the middle of the night when there is a murderer about…? Damn it, Alyssa!’

  Alyssa felt utterly humiliated, but even worse was the realisation that she had ruined perhaps their best chance of capturing the villain. There was only one thing she could offer as palliative.

  ‘It wasn’t Percy,’ she said numbly as once again an icy cold coursed through her, as it had the moment she had seen the figure gliding between the trees, black on black…

  Her statement distracted Adam momentarily from his anger.

  ‘Of course it was Percy.’

  She shook her head.

  ‘No. Percy is almost as tall as you are. This man was smaller. And right-handed. Percy is left-handed. I remember Ivor once saying that they tried to break him of the habit in the nursery when he was growing up at Delacort but finally they gave up. That man, the man in the forest, held the rifle in his right hand.’

  She closed her eyes as that moment, sharper now even than when she had been there, flashed before her. The cloaked figure, the long dull glint of the rifle barrel and beyond it Adam’s blurry silhouette against the path. Then the moment when the figure had turned towards her, swinging the rifle. The moment before the barrel had knocked her sidewise she had seen him fully—all in black and hooded like a hangman.

  ‘You could have been mistaken,’ he said, his voice cold, and she opened her eyes to dispel the vision.

  ‘It is possible. He was hooded. But I don’t think so. It was not Percy.’

  He took a restless turn around the room and then stopped, levelling an accusing finger at her.

  ‘Whether it was or not does not change the enormity of what you did! What were you doing out alone, in the forest…?’ He stopped as his voice turned into something like a snarl.

  What had she been doing? she wondered wearily. She could not explain to him that it had been impossible not to go, knowing that he was going to be out there tying himself like a sheep to a stake to draw the wolf. The implications of that admission were more than she was willing to acknowledge even to herself. She stood up and shrugged, and he seemed to bound forward.

  ‘Don’t you dare shrug at me! Answer me!’ He seized her arms and she gasped in surprised pain as his hand closed on the spot where the rifle had struck her. She tugged her left arm from his grasp and he let go immediately.

  ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘It’s nothing.’ She pulled away instinctively as he reached for her again, but he took her arm, gently this time, and pushed up her sleeve. She glanced down at the large, already livid bruise.

  ‘It isn’t serious,’ she mumbled, but he ignored her and just stood there for a moment, looking at the bruise before very tenderly lowering her sleeve again, his fingers brushing along the soft skin under her arm, and she wavered as a tingling rushed up to her chest, mixing with the pain and spreading scalding heat through her whole body. It was sudden and urgent and she moaned slightly in protest and need.

  Adam pulled her to him, his arms enfolding her as he had in the forest. She felt bared and scorched and she pressed closer, as if she could merge into him. His voice, hard and urgent, pulsed through her.

  ‘Alyssa…you are never, ever to do something like that again. Do you understand? Ever.’

  She shook her head against him, breathing him in, wishing this was her rightful place. How could she stand it if something were to happen to him? Even if she was not willing to be with him on his crippling terms, she needed him alive and well. She felt beaten and tired and hopeless. She wished he would just hold her until it was all over and he was safe.

  ‘Your luck will run out one day, Adam,’ she said wearily, forcing herself to push away from him, and his arms fell to his sides.

  ‘That is my concern,’ he said after a moment and she didn’t answer. There was no point. She went and sat on the sofa and pulled a blanket towards her. She felt so cold recently. The silence stretched, but she didn’t look up, not even when Adam spoke at last.

  ‘I want you to stay here at the cottage until I come to drive you over to Lady Nesbit’s tomorrow afternoon, understood? And lock the back door behind me when I leave.’

  Alyssa debated taking issue with these commands but just nodded and pulled the blanket more closely about her. Adam stood there for a moment, but then he picked up the lantern and left the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Adam walked swiftly across the lawn. It was rather cold, but he was hardly aware of the chill. When a figure pushed away from the long wall marking the line between the cottage lawn and the orchard behind it both body and mind went into shocked alert. He had already pulled out his pistol when he recognised Nicholas.

  ‘Nick! What the devil? Has something happened?’

  ‘No. Just making sure it doesn’t,’ Nicholas replied phlegmatically.

  Adam noted the pistol Nichol
as tucked back into the pocket of his greatcoat and realisation sank in.

  ‘You were on guard? You must be frozen through!’

  ‘Not quite, but I’ll be glad for some brandy when we get back. I can’t believe I forgot to bring a flask to a night vigil. I’m getting rusty. Jem will be waiting for us and hopefully Jacob as well. Is she all right?’

  Adam debated how to answer that question.

  ‘She is. She caught quite a blow to her arm, but I think her pride took the worst bruising. But she’s luckier than she deserves. He might have killed her.’ He kept his voice as level as possible, but he could not help the anger and fear that seeped through. The memory of that moment when he’d heard her call out his name kept coming back. Until that moment, fear had been present, but it had been subdued as he’d honed his senses in the darkness. But her voice, high and urgent, had shattered his focus and he’d headed towards her as blindly as any fool stepping into a trap. If the murderer had had more sense, or experience, he could have made the most of that moment.

  The image of her bruised arm refused to leave him. He had fought back the urge to cover the already purple-brown contusion, gently, with his hand, as if he could erase it. He could still feel the smooth warmth of her skin as he slid his fingers down her arm. And her soft cry, which he could not tell whether it was one of pain or pleasure. It had seemed natural to pull her against him. All he had wanted was to continue what he had twice begun in her study and carry it to its natural conclusion. Even knowing it would be unforgivable to take advantage of her in that state, he had no idea what he would have done if she had not moved away. The transition from danger to fear to the physical desire she evoked in him had held him at the edge of his control.

  ‘She said the man she saw there wasn’t Percy,’ Adam said, forcing himself back to the present.

  ‘She saw who it was, then?’ Nicholas asked urgently and Adam shook his head.

  ‘She said the man was hooded and dressed in black, but she is convinced he was smaller than Percy. And that he raised the rifle to his right shoulder, while Percy is left-handed. I think she’s right about that, but I’ll ask Jem.’

  * * *

  When they reached Jem’s house they found the fire lit and a bottle of brandy and mugs on the rough wooden table.

  Jem nodded in confirmation to Adam’s question.

  ‘Ay, Master Percy is left-handed without a doubt. Masters Ivor and Timothy were wont to taunt him as a boy for that, but he could never break himself of it, poor lad.’

  Adam refrained from commenting on Jem’s somewhat misplaced sympathy.

  ‘I’m still curious as to what your Jacob reports.’

  ‘He’s here already, My Lord. I sent him to the kitchen for some bread and cheese. Ah, that’ll be him. Come in, boy.’

  Jacob nodded a greeting and silently set about cutting slices from a large loaf of bread. Nicholas sighed contentedly and reached over, happily tucking a chunk of cheese between two slices of the doughy bread.

  ‘Why is the simplest food always the best? Now, fill us in, Jacob.’

  Jem’s son nodded serenely, looking very much like his father.

  ‘It’s as I told Pa just now. Mr Somerton was at the Duck and Dragon from just coming on eight o’clock this evening. There was a cockfight and the betting was heavy. Mr Somerton won on a Bloomsbury Red what come all the way from Faringdon. There was talk that Percy was drowning his sorrows after trying his luck with the wealthy widow and getting shot down. Aside from once when he went outside to relieve himself, he was there until Mr Libbet came to take him home half an hour ago. I followed and they went directly to his lodgings in Turl Street. Then I came back here. So whoever it was out there tonight, it wasn’t Mr Somerton.’

  ‘Thank you for that, Jacob,’ Adam said. ‘You’ve done very well. Why don’t you go get some rest?’

  Jem nodded and handed his son a mug with a small brandy.

  ‘That’s right. You go on now, lad.’

  The young man grinned and headed out, mug in hand.

  ‘So. Miss Drake was right. It weren’t Master Percy. At least not last night,’ Jem said after a moment.

  ‘So what now?’ Nicholas asked practically.

  ‘We go back to the possibility that he has hired someone,’ Adam said wearily. ‘All the more reason to spend the night at the Duck and Dragon establishing an alibi. We need to find the man from the woods. If Percy is involved, he will have to make contact with him at some point. Also, this man must be staying somewhere in the area to be able to spend so much time around the Hall. We need to find out if there are any strangers staying in or near Mowbray or if Percy has been in contact with anyone from the area who might fit the bill. We’ll need you and Jacob for that, Jem.’

  Jem nodded.

  ‘Jacob and I can do the asking. Carefully.’

  Adam nodded and Nicholas stood up resolutely.

  ‘All right. First things first—we need to get some sleep. You both look like something I scraped off my boot and I feel like it. Everything will seem clearer once we all get some decent sleep.’

  Adam stood up and nodded.

  ‘Point taken. We will talk again tomorrow.’

  * * *

  Once in his room Adam dismissed his valet and sat down on the side of the bed. He was drained, but his mind was tumbling over itself with ideas of what they needed to do. And underneath was the rumble of the images and sensations that would not be subdued and compartmentalised. What on earth was he going to do with Alyssa? He had about as much control over her as he had over the weather. Everything else he could deal with, even the danger, but her…

  This was partly his fault. Either he should have lied more convincingly about not planning anything that night, or he should have, as Nick had warned him, taken her into his confidence and established the ground rules absolutely clearly. But how could he have guessed she would do something so mad? Maybe he should have. He remembered she had once demanded what he would have done if their situations had been reversed and he knew for certain he would not have let her go into the forest on her own without intervening. He could tell himself a million times, and believe it, that it was different—that he was a man, and that he had had to deal with danger in the past—but none of that would mean anything to the little crusader.

  Well, he had learned his lesson. Next time he would sit her down and make it clear that if she set one foot outside the cottage in such a situation he would have her kidnapped and sent to the Antipodes if that was what he had to do to keep her safe. And if she dared call him domineering one more time or tell him he had no authority over her, he would…

  He lay down, rubbing his hands over his face. The only ideas that surfaced were ones he shouldn’t be entertaining. It had taken every ounce of his willpower not to seduce her tonight. He shifted on the bed, trying to get comfortable, pressing down on the physical heat that surged every time he let his mind slide back to the memory of her body against his, softening, and the faint moan that had caught in her throat, the promise of the wild girl waiting to be set loose. He pulled the covers over him and turned resolutely on to his side. He needed to sleep and then he could try to consider what he had to do about her. Sleep now, think later.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Alyssa looked at her reflection in the mirror. It was sunny outside and the light streamed in strong and warm, raising golden lights in her gathered hair. It reflected in the hazel flecks of her eyes and the pale orange ribbons that adorned the bodice of her best afternoon dress, which Betsy’s nimble fingers had copied from a fashion plate in La Belle Assemblée. A matching pale orange pelisse hid the bruise on her arm, which throbbed intermittently, though she did not need it to remind her of what had happened the previous night.

  It was another uncharacteristically beautiful summer day. Which was strange, since she felt
a little cold. She placed her palms lightly on her pale cheeks. Cold, and tired, and scared, and now she had to go and act in front of Lady Nesbit that all was well.

  She heard the unmistakable sound of a curricle pulling up outside and she picked up her reticule and bonnet, breathed in and stepped out of the cottage, tying her bonnet.

  ‘How is your arm?’ Adam asked once he had helped her into the curricle.

  ‘Well, thank you,’ she replied properly. ‘Have you discovered anything? About Percy or last night?’

  Adam flicked the reins and the team pulled forward.

  ‘You were right, it wasn’t Percy. Jem’s son watched him the whole evening at the Duck and Dragon. Which means it was probably a hireling. We’ve been out all day making discreet enquiries about strangers in the area or about the people Percy has been seen with, but no luck so far. And that is the end of our report. Believe me, if we discover anything I will inform you promptly. But right now we need to concentrate on convincing Lady Nesbit not to show me the door.’

  She flexed her shoulders, trying to relax them.

  ‘You make it sound like a difficult task. You really don’t believe you can charm her?’

  He glanced down at her with a slightly wry smile.

  ‘My faith in my powers of persuasion has taken a slight beating recently. I depend on you to smooth my path.’

  She turned away slightly to hide the flush she could not control. She had never considered herself a blusher, in fact she could hardly remember blushing before Adam’s return. Just another sign part of her was stuck firmly in the schoolroom when it came to him.

  ‘I have a great deal of faith in your ability to be suave, Lord Delacort. And we don’t need a Drury Lane performance just to be moderately convincing.’ She could not completely subdue the bitterness in her voice and he smiled without mirth as he pulled his team skilfully to a halt at the foot of the stairs to Nesbit House.