“And…?”
“Blast it all, that’s the connection! It has to be! If I’m not mistaken, all three of these women belonged to the Abigail Adams. She lied to me!”
“Who?”
“Miss Elizabeth Dunaway.” Fresh-faced and intensely intelligent. “The owner of the Abigail Adams! The most stubborn, irritating being on the face of the earth.”
Drew was looking at him in bewildered astonishment. “That stubborn, is she?”
“Cunning as a damned fox. She knew I was looking for evidence about the other two abductions.”
“How?”
“I met her at Scotland Yard.”
“What was she doing at Scotland Yard?”
“It’s a very long story. Suffice it to say that she heard about the earlier kidnappings from the Lord Mayor at the same time I did.”
“Ah. That is suspicious.” Drew raised his eyebrow, obviously amused by the whole thing. “But why would Miss Dunaway keep the information from you? Unless .. . she’s the fiend we’re looking for?”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” Though he wouldn’t be surprised if the woman had withheld the information just to thwart him. “She’s just… stubborn, as I said.”
“And bloody beautiful, by the sound of your blustering.”
“She promised to cooperate with me.” Ross’s ears began to burn as he started gathering the papers back into the three scattered files.
“Is Miss Dunaway a young woman?” Drew was sitting on the edge of the table, following Ross’s every move.
“Old enough to understand the seriousness of this investigation. I’ll not have her playing me the fool.”
“So I take it that Miss Dunaway is beautiful?”
“She’s dangerous. To every woman in London.”
“Please, Ross. Caro will have my hide if you don’t give me a few facts about the woman.” The man cast him a pitiful look he didn’t understand.
“What are you talking about?”
“When I tell Caro about how upset you were about the cunning Miss Dunaway, whom you met at Scotland Yard, she’s going to plague me with questions about her.”
“Why would you tell Caro?”
“She’s my wife. I tell her everything.”
“Why?”
“It’s safer that way. You’ll understand when you’re married. Now what will I say to Caro about Miss Dunaway when she asks?”
“I just told you she was stubborn and irritating and—”
“And a beauty. Right?”
Try as he might, Ross couldn’t help the smile that filled his chest and overtook his mouth. He started to answer but Drew held up his palm.
“Say no more. I understand perfectly.” Drew was grinning broadly at him, as though he’d just confessed his heart in song. “Just remember, my friend, the stubborn ones are the most dangerous of all. Have yourself a good night.”
With that, Drew left the archive room.
Ross planned to have a good night, all right.
Miss Dunaway, on the other hand, was going to have a night she wouldn’t soon forget.
Chapter 8
Men, some to business, some to pleasure take;
But every woman is at heart a rake.
Alexander Pope, Moral Essays, 1775
“You’re safe with us here, Lydia,” Elizabeth whispered to the shadowed figure curled up beneath the thick down of the counterpane. “Sweet dreams.”
But the beleaguered young woman was already fast asleep, her face relaxed now, the livid bruises paler in the soft light of Elizabeth’s single candle. Much better than they had been when she arrived two days ago.
Two days that had seemed like twenty. Heralding weeks that overflowed with things to be done.
Yawning with the need for her bed, and finally satisfied that Lydia would have a long, restful night, Elizabeth drew her robe more closely around her nightgown, slipped out of the corner guest room and padded down the corridor to her own spacious suite of three rooms.
The north-facing corner of the Adams was the only home she had at the moment. But she was exactly where she needed to be. Smack-dab in the middle of the bustle of London. Everything so vastly different from the slow-moving life she’d loved in the country with her dear and eccentric aunts.
Great-great-aunts, really. Two of the most remarkable people she’d ever known. The Hasleton sisters had taken her into their hearts when she was orphaned as an infant. They had filled her life with wonders and their country estate with poets and philosophers, adventurers and inventors.
And how dearly she missed them both. Their advice and their humor and their unflagging confidence in her.
“You can do anything with your life, Elizabeth,” Aunt Tiberia had been forever telling her, with a shake of her fist toward the sky.
And Aunt Clarice, always trying to best her older sister, “But whatever you choose to do, my sweet, look ‘em right in the eye when you do it.”
Right in the eye.
“Do you hear that, Blakestone?” Elizabeth said into the long shadows of the corridor. “Right in the eye.”
But what if those eyes were dark and fierce and oh, so compelling? What if they had the power to muddle her thoughts? And cause her pulse to flutter wildly?
What if the low rumble of his voice set her heart soaring, made her laugh and sigh? What if she craved the touch of his mouth, yearned for the feel of his hands against her skin, for the intimacies that usually came only with marriage… .
Of course, marriage was simply impossible. For a world of reasons. But most practically, because she could never trust a husband with her financial affairs. After all, her fortune was the sum of her independence. And too many people depended on her independence for her to risk their lives and happiness on a marriage.
Aunt Tiberia had always been quick to advise her to weigh the risk to her future. “To marry, Elizabeth, is to surrender your independence and your considerable fortune to a man. And you’ll soon learn that men are only good for one thing, my dear. Though they are very, very good at that one thing.”
Aunt Tiberia had always been open with her about the desires of the flesh. Though she’d never gone into much detail about exactly what that one “good thing” was, beyond the act of sexual intercourse itself. Or how she herself had learned this particular fact. Though rumors among those who knew her aunts had always been taken as true. Tales of their brazen lifestyle when they were young—
And foolish, Aunt Clarice would always add with a wistful smile and a throaty giggle.
Yes, marriage was definitely out of the question. Absolutely and forever.
But sex … now, that was definitely in her future. When and how brought on another set of questions. However, with whom posed a more interesting and immediate question. Because for the first time in her life she had begun to entertain fantasies about a particular man.
Blatant imaginings of the earl himself. Hot. Glistening. Naked. Oh, my yes, she could almost imagine that! Wondering if he would … if she could muster the courage to invite him to .. . beg him to—
“Oh, damn and blast!” What foolishness! She didn’t even know if he was married or not. And that would make all the difference.
She shook off the intoxicating image, then slipped through her private foyer into her sitting room, with its office alcove in the large bay of the window.
A warm breeze teased its way through the curtains there, riffling the moonlight across the carpeting.
An airy, everyday breeze. Though tonight something about it slowed her progress as she reached the center of the room.
A stirring scent, a familiar heat. A thrilling tumble of sensations.
“Blakestone!”
She felt the man before she saw him. Leaning against the open door to her bedchamber beyond, as though he’d been waiting for her to return to their bed and its rumpled heap of still warm bedclothes they’d been wrapped in.
“Good evening, madam.” His voice rumbled across the dimness of the room, c
aressed her breasts and spread through her limbs like warm honey.
Her heart should have been slamming around inside her at the man’s startling materialization in the middle of her rooms. But it was keeping a steady beat, as though it had been expecting him all along.
As though he’d known that she’d been hoping for him to come to her some starry night.
Though he didn’t look at all pleased with her just now.
“Good evening, Lord Blakestone.” She steadied her breathing and went straight to the side table to light its globe lamp, surprised at the calm of her fingers among the dangling prisms. “Can I get you a cup of tea or a brandy?”
He said nothing, only glared at her from the doorway, taking up the whole of the opening to her bedchamber. Filling her chest with a kind of breathy anticipation that she didn’t know what to do with.
“I hope you don’t make a habit of calling on ladies in the wee hours by breaking into their homes and frightening them to death.”
“You don’t look frightened to me.”
She wasn’t. Not in the least. Though she could feel the caged anger in him, seething in his muscles, directed at her for some unimaginable reason. Making him look larger than ever in the dimness.
“Nevertheless, if you’d be so kind and tell me how you got in here. I’d like to bar the way from the next prowler who might come along.”
The next arrogant lout to invade her privacy. Though none could ever be quite so pleasing to the eye.
“You needn’t worry on that point, madam. I’ll seal my way as I leave.”
Seal his way? Of all the bloody, invasive nerve! What did that mean?
And who the devil did the blackguard think he was; coming and going in her home, whenever and wherever he pleased?
Look him right in the eye, Elizabeth.
Right in the eye.
Taking Aunt Clarice’s advice into her heart, she struck a resolute pose, fists on her hips, just to prove that his temper hadn’t impressed her, that she wasn’t afraid of his unyielding glare.
“See here, Blakestone, I’ve given you every opportunity to tell me why you’ve broken into my rooms in the middle of the night. It’s late. Now, what is it you want from me?”
She heard him take a long, fierce breath, as though trying to dampen his anger before answering. “What I want from you, Miss Dunaway, is the honesty that you promised me when I started this investigation.”
“Honesty?” Oh, that. Oh, dear. Her heart took off like a wild rabbit, thumping madly in her chest, stifling her breathing.
Because she couldn’t afford to be at all honest with the man. He’d already gotten too close to a truth that she couldn’t possibly reveal to him.
“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean, my lord. I’ve gone out of my way to be honest with—”
“Who is Lady Hayden-Cole?”
Elizabeth caught a breath in her throat, but it closed off into a lump of cold fear, making it even more difficult to breathe. Or to think clearly, with all the questions banging around in her head.
Where was he trying to go with this? What had he learned in his snooping?
She certainly couldn’t tell from his stance. The huge man had yet to move a muscle, still stood there like a living mountain, leaning silently against the door frame.
Feigning a nonchalance she didn’t feel, Elizabeth idly sat down in her favorite chair, lounging as though he were an afternoon guest at teatime, hoping she could lead him away from the subject and her bedroom door.
But her mouth dried to paste as she asked casually, “Lady Hayden-Cole? I’m sure I—”
“And Lady Gwyneth Cladsbury?” He’d cut her off with a coldly controlled cadence. His teeth gleamed in menace beyond the wall of shadows between them.
And had he just growled at her?
“Cladsbury … ?” The rest of her prevaricating stuck in her throat.
“That’s right, Miss Dunaway, Lady Cladsbury.” He was standing free of the doorjamb now, though planted like a statue in the doorway. “While I was here a few days ago inquiring about Lady Wallace, you neglected to tell me that the two other women who have been abducted from the streets of London in broad daylight were also members of the Abigail Adams.”
Dear Lord. He knows!
“Really, my lord?” Trying her best not to tremble, Elizabeth shrugged broadly from the steadiness of her chair, her palms clammy and cold. “The Abigail Adams has been very popular since the very first day we opened our doors. We’ve nearly two hundred members, and growing every day. I can’t possibly keep track of them all.”
“Perhaps you’d better start, madam. At the rate your members are disappearing, come next season there won’t be enough women left in London for even the smallest meeting. Or don’t you care?”
“Of course I care. We’ve all been quite worried about our missing members.” Just not worried for the same reason you are. “I didn’t mention their membership because I just don’t see how it matters.”
“Oh, really? It doesn’t matter to you that of all the women in London, the three who have been abducted were all members of the Abigail Adams?”
Oh, damn. What an unfortunate mistake. It just hadn’t occurred to her that anyone would make the connection. Well, it wouldn’t happen again.
“I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that they were members here, my lord.”
“Is it?” His voice was still way too calm, his words too smooth.
“What else could it be?”
“Besides suspicious?” Now he was shaking his head. “I don’t know, Miss Dunaway. You tell me.”
“Tell you what, sir?” Her cheeks began to burn with anger, a flare of outrage that he would have the nerve to suspect her of anything as nefarious as kidnapping. “Confess that I abducted three members of my own ladies’ club?”
She didn’t abduct anyone.
“I didn’t say that.”
The women left on their own.
“And what do you think I did with them, sir?” She got to her feet, the untellable truth on the tip of her tongue, raging to be heard. “Killed them, then buried them out in the courtyard beneath our prize-winning azalea beds? Why would I do such a horrific thing?”
Because they asked her to help them escape. And so she did.
Blakestone stood looking at her for the longest time, the angles of his jaw changing and working as he studied her. She’d felt perfectly safe with him planted across the room, glaring at her with his stalking questions.
But now he was striding slowly toward her, his dark eyes fixed on her face.
“Are you a complete lunatic, Miss Dunaway?” He kept coming her way. Slowly, moving into the pale lamplight.
“You, sir, are the lunatic.” Though at times like this she could only wonder at how deeply, how irrevocably, she’d become involved. She backed up, stumbled against the upholstered arm of the chair, and then could go no farther, though he came closer and closer still. “What is it you want from me, Blakestone?”
“I’m trying my bloody damnedest to knock some sense into you.”
“Oh, so now you’re going to strike me? Resorting to violence, are you?” Though she knew without a doubt that he wouldn’t. He wasn’t the type. He was too sure of himself, of his place in the wide world. Unafraid of his own failings, willing to consider other possibilities. She had seen all that in his eyes from the moment he first stepped into her jail cell.
“Blast it all, Miss Dunaway, if you were a man I’d do more than just strike you for all the bloody danger you’ve been courting!”
“Danger?”
He was hovering over her now, breathing like a bull in his fury. His anger turned to impatience. “Don’t you see what your bloody silence might have cost you personally?”
“My silence?” Now he wasn’t making any sense at all. Lady Hayden-Cole had arrived safely in New York nearly two months ago. Lady Cladsbury should arrive there any day now. Lady Wallace would safely board another ship this evening. “How
do you mean?”
He clamped his huge, hot hands around her arms, enveloping them completely, and leaned so close she thought he might be planning to kiss her.
“Don’t you see the pattern? Three women, from the best families, all belonging to the same controversial ladies’ club, all go missing within months of each other.”
“I still don’t see where you’re going.” Though she could see the flecks of fire in his eyes. Could feel the soft sparks against her cheeks.
“Blast it all, woman! The Adams is the common piece of evidence between the abductions. And the Adams is you, Miss Dunaway! You’re the linchpin of this whole mess.”
Of course she was! But she could not possibly admit that to him. Not even to stanch the heat of his frustration. Lives hung in the balance.
“Which, Miss Dunaway, can only mean that someone disapproves of what you do here.”
“Someone disapproves?” She nearly laughed out loud. “That, sir, would be every man in London.”
But he only gripped her arms more firmly, frowned more deeply. “You’ve crossed a line somewhere, madam, in someone’s evil brain. You’ve made a malicious enemy who will stop at nothing to close you down permanently. Even if he has to pick off your club members one by one.”
“Pick off my …” Oh, dear! She’d obviously drawn the wrong kind of attention to the abductions. Certainly the wrong kind of investigator. What the devil was she going to do with him now?
And what a very strange moment to be delighting in the heat of the man’s spicy scent that was curling around her, teasing against the gathered linen of her nightrobe, seeping softly into the folds.
To be intoxicated by the fevered strength of his hands on her arms. Hands that even now were tucked absently against the outer edges of her breasts.
Soooo hot and thrilling.
“Don’t you see the danger, madam?”
Oh, God, yes! And the danger was as sweet as honey. Calling to her.
“Danger to me, my lord?”
Ross caught himself. Knew better than to confess that particular threat: The surging danger he posed to her virtue.
The danger to his self-control.
He was standing too close to the woman for clarity of thought, too close to her sultry scent, to the whispery rise and fall of her chest against the soft linen of her robe.
Marry the Man Today Page 9
