Hers for a few short moments on a lonely road winding through a verdant crevice in an ancient barren moor.
For all that it was wrong, wrong, wrong, Beth stood on tiptoes, wrapped her arms around Terence’s neck and kissed him back with every ounce of pent-up emotion she had stored up over the years. She reveled in the feel of him, the scent of him, the solid maleness of him pressing against the most private part of her.
Suddenly, there was a foot of space between them, as Terence set her firmly away. Beth gaped, her swirling head spinning into anger. Not now, not now! How could he?
Terence nodded toward the road that led to Dunscombe. At last Beth heard the rumble of a heavy wagon, spotted the load of ale barrels undoubtedly on their way to the Refuge or to Squire Blunden’s, a mile beyond. Still too far away, thank goodness, for their faces to be visible to the driver.
“Over the bridge quickly, my girl, then down onto the path along the river. There’s plenty of brush to hide behind.”
So quick a plunge from glory to adultery. Beth allowed Terence to hustle her over the bridge and down the bank. Carefully keeping their backs to the road, they hurried to escape the wagon driver’s eagle eye.
As if it mattered, Beth thought, anguished. Undoubtedly, word of Lady Monterne’s indiscretion was already winging its way across the wild reaches of Dartmoor. The hawks, the ravens, the elves and vixens, even the hellhounds of Wistman’s Woods proclaiming the downfall of the woman who had once been the innocent, untouchable Merchant Princess.
Terence was alone when he climbed the steps to the Refuge, having sent Beth around to a another door with instructions to take the servants’ stairs and lock herself into her room until he himself came to get her. As expected, Viscount Monterne was waiting for him. Ferris, looking grave, ushered Terence into the library, then left, closing the door firmly behind him.
Lord Monterne, one booted foot resting on an andiron jutting out from the clean-swept black marble fireplace, looked up. Lazily, he swirled a glass of brandy in his hands. “Been enjoying my wife, O’Rourke?” The words, though soft-spoken, shot across the room like bullets.
Terence’s hands clenched into fists. A brief struggle with his cooler pragmatic self, and the hands, white-knuckled, were clasped behind his back. “Would you care to rephrase your question, my lord?”
“You wish me to be more blunt?” Rodney enquired with deadly calm and deliberate misunderstanding. “Then may I say I have no intention of dishonoring myself by calling you out. I don’t fight tradesmen. You are to be gone from here within the hour or I shall see you stripped and whipped down the driveway, all the way to Dunscombe if necessary.”
“If I leave, I take Beth with me.”
“You’ll hang if you do. And Brockman falls with you. The whole bloody empire.”
“Then there’ll be no blunt left to inherit.”
“Bugger it!” Monterne growled. “The settlement will do. The girl’s weak. Barren. More trouble than the promise of a tradesman’s money is worth.”
Did he believe him? Terence wondered. Was it possible Monterne would throw one of the largest fortunes in Britain down the wind? And if he would, what did that mean to Beth? Would he let her go? Divorce her? Or choose a more permanent method of ridding himself of his unwanted wife? If he took Beth with him now, would he be saving her or continuing the risk to her life, to his own life, to the reputation and integrity of all Tobias Brockman had built?
The temptation to kill Monterne here and now was nearly overwhelming. Terence felt his already surging blood flash close to the boiling point. End it now, this minute, his inner voice urged. To hell with the consequences.
But of course he couldn’t. For the same reason he couldn’t put Beth into his coach and simply drive away. There was too much at stake. Her severance from her husband had to be legal. And had to keep Terence and Tobias from disaster as well. There was a murderer to catch—for Will Jenks’s death had been as much murder as if someone had slit his throat with a knife. And only Fate had saved Beth from two attempts on her life—not counting her husband’s acts of violence. A mystery he must solve, but he also had an obligation to protect Tobias’s power and wealth. Nothing but scandal and ruin would result if he took Beth and ran.
Terence O’Rourke didn’t run. Not now. Not ever.
But what if she died? What if he stalled for time, fighting his way through the maze of treacheries and, meanwhile, Beth died?
It wasn’t going to happen. He wouldn’t allow it.
Yet following the devious path of a “fixer” required him to swallow his pride, grovel before a monster hiding behind a handsome nobleman’s façade. Bile rose in Terence’s throat, even as the cold, calculating mind-set of the Managing Director of Tobias Brockman & Company took charge.
Breaking his belligerent stance, Terence crossed the room, poured himself a brandy. With insolent grace he sank into one of the green leather wingchairs—his actions, his body language clearly indicating a change in the tone of his conversation with Viscount Monterne. “You should know,” he said, keeping his voice low, just on the verge of apologetic, “that Beth was placing flowers at the site where the groom met his death. She was overwrought. I was merely offering comfort. There is no need for you to be offended. I have known Beth since birth. If there was anything between us, I never would have let her marry you.” Easy enough to sound sincere, a glib tongue being one of the great gifts of being Irish.
Silence reigned, tension wavering on a knife edge, the strain so intense Terence could almost smell it. Would Monterne accept his explanation? Or would he be leaving with Beth within the hour, making a run for the New World, leaving Tobias to pick up the scattered pieces of his empire?
Monterne tossed off the last of his brandy. His boot left the andiron, hitting the floor with a thud. A flick of his wrist and his brandy glass shattered on the black marble, the pieces tinkling. Once again, the room settled into silence. Terence waited, keeping a wary eye on his adversary.
“You may stay the night,” Monterne conceded. “We’ll talk again tomorrow. I believe I must put her aside. She does not suit me. But I will think on it, and we shall see.”
Put her aside? Like Henry VIII putting his wives’ heads on the chopping block? For the first time Terence wondered if Monterne was mad. Not simply a violent husband, but well and truly touched in the head. Perhaps it was going to be a run to Louisiana after all.
No, not as long as he had men who could make sure the bloody bugger didn’t live long enough to cause mischief. Damnation! He was considering assassination. Never had he stooped so low. There had to be another way.
Terence stood up. “’Til tomorrow then,” he said. “Do you prefer that I dine in my room?”
“By no means,” Monterne replied smoothly. “I look forward to seeing both you and my wife at dinner. I assume she is vastly improved if she managed to walk as far as the bridge?”
“She insisted on doing so, but I fear she found it tiring. A tray in her room would be best, I think.”
“Nonsense.” The viscount inclined his head in something close to an imperial nod. “I shall expect to see you both.”
“Until dinner,” Terence agreed, wondering if poison was on the menu of the day. The situation had gone past dangerous to bizarre. Even the great fixer, Terence O’Rourke, was finding the slope slippery, the rush to disaster threatening to outrun his ability to stay on his feet.
Dinner was hell, a charade of polite manners, not-so-polite innuendos, false smiles, and intimations of violence to come. Beth ate almost nothing while Terence polished off his food as if eating a fulsome helping of every dish were part of a personal duel between himself and Lord Monterne. Nell Archer made a sincere effort to direct the conversation to innocuous topics, but finally trailed into silence, reduced to anxious looks at the faces around her as she absorbed the animosity filling the room.
Beth couldn’t wait to excuse herself, to run back to the shelter of her room. Nell would come, and she’d pour
out the story of her afternoon walk, her dread of what Rodney might do. Her fear for Terence. Her certainty that, alive or dead, her future was doomed.
But when Nell came, she offered nothing more than the comfort of one who listened with suitable gravity, but could only advise her to trust Terence to handle the matter. Beth nodded, as if in agreement, while her heart despaired. In the long hours that followed her friend’s departure, her fears reared up into nightmare proportions.
How could she trust Terence? His first loyalty was, as always, to her father, to Tobias Brockman & Company. Save the company, then worry about Beth. That was what Terence was thinking, she knew it. A madman like Rodney was incomprehensible to a man of business, a man whose world was ruled by logic and money. Terence was here to help her, but he could never comprehend just how far Rodney was willing to go. Even she didn’t understand. But she knew enough to realize anything was possible.
Beth waited, listening for Terence’s steps in the hallway outside her door. The hours passed. No one came.
Terence cursed as his foot stumbled on a stair riser. He never allowed himself to drink to excess. Well, possibly a time or two with Jack. More than a time or two with Jack. But when in danger, never. Yet here he was stumbling up the bloody stairs, head swimming, pain already nagging behind his eyes. They might as well have been in a pissing contest, the pair of them trying to drink each other under the table. Hadn’t done anything so bloody stupid since he was fourteen or so.
How many bottles of port had they breached? Too bloody many. The only consolation, it had taken two footmen to carry Monterne off to bed. I won, by God. Bloody bugger deserved a sore head. At least he wouldn’t be accosting Beth tonight.
Blearily, Terence gazed at Beth’s door, which seemed to waver in and out in the flickering flame of the wall sconce outside her room. Never wake her in his condition. No, indeed. Not good form. Not approved by the gentlemen’s code, nor the merchants’ either. Mustn’t upset the women. Not good . . . not good at all.
Terence staggered slightly as he turned to his own door. Lord, but he was a fool. Monterne could have the room filled with assassins for all he knew. Awkwardly, he reached for the small pistol he had tucked into his back waistband. Though well hidden by his tailcoat, it had forced him to sit forward all night lest it continually jab him in the back. There was also a small knife hidden inside a breast pocket. But his reflexes were impaired, his hand not as steady as it should have been. He was in poor shape to deal with whatever trap might be waiting in his room. His darling Beth, Tobias’s empire under attack, and here he was, drunk as a lord, standing in a hallway wondering if his next breath would be his last. The curse of the Irish, that’s what it was. A taint of the blood. Come right down to the wire . . . and scratched. Not up to the weight of the burden put upon him.
Standing to one side, Terence turned the knob, thrust the door open. The soft hiss of a fire taking the chill off the April night. Nothing more. Pistol in his hand, Terence eased into the opening, shoving the door all the way back against the wall. By the light of the fire and his single candle, the room appeared to be empty. Wavering only slightly, he lit a brace of candles to increase the room’s light, then proceeded to check every inch, including inside the tall wardrobe and under the bed. Nothing. Was Monterne a gutless wonder, after all? Or so cocksure he could force his enemy to run back to London, leaving Beth behind, that he had no need for further action?
Jesus, but he was tired! Terence groaned. Had he made another mistake, thinking he could fix it all? Should he give up, knock on Beth’s door, tell her they were leaving? Now, this very minute. Her husband had drunk himself into a stupor. It was time to go.
Fantasy, boyo. Pure fantasy. Life didn’t work that way. The reasons for not running away tonight were the same as they were this afternoon. They’d be running for the rest of their lives. If the Americas weren’t far enough, it might be all the way to Antipodes.
Was it wrong to want to keep the life he had in London? Wrong to want Tobias to see his grandchildren? Wrong to want to save what Tobias Brockman had built?
If so, he was guilty as sin. Guilty, dammit, guilty. Beth was entitled to the life she’d been raised to. The life of a princess. Not the life of a brood mare and punching bag for an ennobled monster. Nor the life of constantly fearing an assassin.
Terence laid his pistol on top of the dresser, added the knife beside it. In an effort to keep the family’s dirty linen as private as possible, he’d come without a valet. Therefore he had to get himself undressed, no matter whether his all-too-lax muscles wanted to respond or not. After numerous contortions and an equal number of epithets, he stood naked before the dying fire. The candle flames seemed to be shooting colored waves of light around the room. His stomach had a few waves of its own. Bloody idiot! Was it really necessary to play Monterne’s game? What was the point of winning a drinking bout? What the hell had he gained?
Terence picked the brace of candles off the table by the door, eyed the distance to the bed. Determined not to weave his way across the room, he set one foot carefully before the other. Steady, straight, that’s it now. You’re not as foxed as you think.
It was the light. The bloody wavering candles. They were making him see things. Not the liquor, couldn’t be. He hadn’t drunk enough for hallucinations, of that he was sure. He looked again. The buggering bedcover was moving. A soft, almost undetectable undulation of the quilted coverlet below the area where the maid had turned back the sheet. Almost . . . almost he could blame his imagination, his port-soaked brain.
But, even with more port in him than any man should drink, Terence O’Rourke could distinguish truth from imagination. The bedcover was moving. Correction. Something beneath the bedcover was moving.
Terence backed up to the dresser, set the candelabrum down. Keeping his eyes on the bed, he opened the top drawer, withdrew a flat case, which he thumbed open. He’d come to Dartmoor prepared for anything. Both dueling pistols inside were primed and ready, as was the small pistol he’d worn in his waistband at dinner and while he drank Monterne under the table.
With a long-barreled dueling pistol in each hand, he walked back toward the bed. Not a sign of movement now, yet he never doubted the evidence of his eyes. It wasn’t the liquor. He’d seen what he’d seen. He reached out, got a good hold on the bedcover and top sheet, swiftly drew them back, all the way to the end of the bed.
Something slithered into the pocket of bedding at the foot of the bed. Something brown and black and scaly. Big around as his wrist. Terence, an Irish lad grown up in the city of London, had never even seen a snake until he’d gone to Louisiana. Never wanted to either.
His hand was surprisingly steady, his brain shocked to some semblance of cold and sober. If he could see the blasted snake, he could shoot it. But the fucking creature had disappeared. Terence circled the bed, cautiously looked beneath. Nothing. Gone to ground in the nest of covers between the end of the bed and the footboard, had it? Well now . . . it was one shot to scare the beast out, leaving him with two bullets for the kill. No way in this world did he want to take on the bloody thing with his knife!
Straining for any sign of movement, Terence crept close. Buggering snake was probably as scared as he. Poor creature hadn’t gotten himself into this mess, that was for sure. There! Was that the flick of a tail? He squeezed the trigger. His ears rang, his head screamed, his stomach threatened to rebel.
No time to be sick! The snake came out of hiding more like a rocket than the proper slithering viper it was. It was making for the dark cavern of space beneath the dresser. The dresser where he’d left the small pistol with his third shot. If he’d had sense enough to put on a robe with a pocket instead of prancing around, snake chasing, as naked as a jaybird . . .
Dropping the spent pistol onto the bed, Terence grasped the remaining dueling pistol in both hands, aimed and fired. The snake jerked, slowed. Terence dashed to the dresser, keeping his eyes on the snake. Grabbing the small gun, he fired point bla
nk. The snake’s head disintegrated, the long brown and black body twitching within inches of his bare feet.
Could have done it with one shot if I’d been sober.
Terence lowered the gun just as the door burst open. Beth took one look at the scene and launched herself at him. Ferris arrived, followed by two footmen, with Mrs. Ferris, Nell Archer, and Ellie Freeman hovering in the background as Terence O’Rourke clasped the nightgown-clad Lady Monterne to his naked body.
Fortunately, there was no sign of Rodney Rexford d’Arcy Trevelyan Renfrew, Viscount Monterne.
Chapter Twenty-three
“Sir . . . sir! Mr. O’Rourke, sir!”
Terence, who usually woke to instant clarity of mind, struggled up from the port-soaked pit into which he had fallen. Snake . . . dead. Beth in his arms . . . himself as naked as the day he was born. He’d refused a change of room. Had to stay in this one, close to Beth. He blinked, focused on Ferris’s face, the butler’s agitation apparent even in the dim gray light. Dawn. Or not long after. Bugger it, his head had barely touched the pillow.
Trouble! Terence sat up, swearing, as his brain clicked into place. He’d missed something. Something vital. Possibly more deadly than the snake.
“They’re gone, sir,” the butler babbled. “My lord and his lady. Not in their beds. I sent to the stables and Tam Davie, the head groom, sir, says he was told to have my lord’s horse at the south door at dawn.” Ferris drew a ragged breath. “Curious Tam was, so he watched and waited. My lord came out of the house carrying Lady Monterne over his shoulder. In her nightdress she was, a cloth about her mouth. Or so Tam says. He came straight to me, sir. Fond of our lady, we are. She’s a good mistress.” The butler, torn in his loyalties, looked close to tears. “Mrs. Ferris, she agreed with me. Nothing to do but come straight to you.”
O'Rourke's Heiress Page 28
