by C. J. Archer
"You need to see if any of your father-in-law’s associates have been in touch with your wife," Ash said.
Nicholas thought telling Ash about the note he’d found in the herbal would do no one any good, least of all Isabel. "Or with the person who is setting her up."
Ash raised an eyebrow. "I think there’s more here than you are going to tell me today." He clapped his friend’s shoulder but didn’t let go. His grip tightened. "But I trust you to do the right thing."
"She’s innocent," Nicholas said again, as much to himself as to Ash.
After a long moment, Ash’s grip lessened. "If you believe it, then so do I."
Nicholas watched the earl for any sign of sarcasm but could detect only sincerity. "However I think she’s keeping a secret from me."
Ash frowned. "That may have nothing to do with this case. Maybe she’s not telling you about a lover."
"Thanks. That makes me feel so much better."
Ash drained his cup and stood. "I must go. But before I do, you should know the man in the hooded cloak over there has been watching us."
Without looking in the direction he was referring to, Nicholas nodded. "Spotted him earlier. He entered right behind me, took that seat and has been casting glances our way ever since. I haven’t seen his face yet."
"Should have known you’d be a step ahead of me in this game. Take care, Merritt."
"I don’t need to. There won’t be any danger," Nicholas said, lightly. "I’ve been discreet in my investigations. That fellow is probably just a footpad and will attempt to rob me as I leave."
Ash scoffed. "I meant be careful with your wife. I think you’re in grave danger of falling in love with her. And that would be a tragedy for me. I’d miss these drinking sessions."
Nicholas stood and slapped the earl on the back. "Then you’ll just have to find a woman of your very own."
Ash grunted, turned, and nearly walked straight into Isabel. She looked him over quickly then smiled the way she did at her customers.
Ash apologized and bowed. "Good evening. You must be Lady Merritt."
Isabel glared at Nicholas. "I suppose I am," she said, her smile tightening at the edges. "But then so is Nick’s mother so to avoid confusion, please call me Isabel. And who are you?"
"Just call me Ash."
"Actually, he’s Richard Savoy, the earl of Ashbourne," Nicholas said.
It was Ash’s turn to aim an unconvincing smile in Nicholas’s direction. He shrugged it off. Isabel should know what kind of company her husband kept nowadays. He’d come a long way since she left him and it wouldn’t hurt to let her know it.
Ash opened his mouth to speak but Nicholas cut him off. "And he was just leaving."
With a shrug and another bow, the earl left.
"Well, it seems Lawrence was wrong," Isabel said, taking Ash’s seat and removing her gloves. She was dressed simply in a green gown, unadorned with jewels or embellishment of any kind. Her golden brown curls were pulled up tightly beneath her hat, showing no evidence of their soft bounce. Nevertheless, she was the most beautiful woman in that room and every man there had noticed her. Heads had turned when she entered, and even now some still glanced her way.
Nicholas did his best to ignore them. "Shawe? Why?"
"Let’s just say he would never have guessed that you’re friends with an earl. Mind you he doesn’t know you’ve been knighted."
"And I prefer to keep it that way." He signaled for Nelly, the landlord’s wife, to bring more wine.
She must have been waiting for his sign because she already had a bottle in hand and wasted no time reaching them. She gave him a wink behind Isabel’s back and he regretted not meeting his wife elsewhere. Somewhere he wasn't known.
"Hello, Nicky, got a lady friend with you today?" Nelly said, placing the bottle and another cup on the table. She was a large, plain girl with a ready laugh when she was happy and a vicious temper when she wasn’t. Fortunately for her husband’s business, she was usually in good humor.
"Isabel is my...apothecary," he said.
Nelly grinned. "Lucky your apothecary’s a woman then, eh?" She turned to Isabel. "You want to watch this one. He can talk a maiden out of her hose and into his bed without raising a sweat."
"I don’t doubt it," Isabel said. Her face was blank but there was a note of danger in her tone.
Nicholas quickly ordered two trenchers of the inn’s roasted pork and watched with growing unease as Nelly left to serve the hooded man.
"She was joking," he said to Isabel without taking his gaze off Nelly’s mysterious customer.
"About the maiden or the sweat?"
The man kept his hood low while he spoke to Nelly. It appeared he wasn’t going to let Nicholas catch even a glimpse. "Both," he said, turning his attention to pouring the wine.
"In six years?" She lifted her cup to her lips but didn’t drink. She gave him a skeptical glance over the rim. "It’s all right, Nick. I hardly expected you to remain celibate. It’s none of my business anyway," she added quickly before sipping.
He got the feeling from her blush that she cared more than she was willing to admit. Good. "My wife is the only woman I’ve bedded since my wedding day. Nelly was just having a bit of fun. She’s like that."
"You obviously know each other well," she said, studying the table cloth. "Which means you must come here often. Is it near your lodgings?"
"I have rooms around the corner within a grander residence," he said. "Although my landlady and her house have fallen on hard times."
"I’m surprised we haven’t crossed paths in the last few years." She sounded so cool, like a new acquaintance rather than the woman who knew him better than anyone. She still didn’t look directly at him.
"I’m rarely ill," he said. "I’ve no need for an apothecary."
Finally she glanced up. "That reminds me, how is your sore throat? Recovering nicely?"
He tried to determine if she was teasing him, if she knew his illness was a ruse, but again he couldn’t determine anything from her closed face. It used to be easy to know what she was thinking, but it seemed she had learned to control her expressions.
"Thank you for coming, Isabel," he said to avoid entering into a discussion in which he’d need to be very careful.
"You make it sound like I had a choice."
Her sudden annoyance surprised him. "You did," he said. She was the last person he had any hold over—hadn’t their history proved that? He could in no way force her to meet him than he could have made her stay six years ago. Of that he was certain.
"Is that what you think?" she said, choking back a laugh. "The way I see it is, if I hadn’t come, you would be back in the shop this very afternoon. And tomorrow and the day after and every day until I agreed to see you." She cornered him with a frosty glare. "Is that not so?"
She was entirely correct of course, but he felt no inclination to yield the point. Instead, he smiled and reached across the table and touched her hand. Her long, fine-boned fingers had the tell-tale signs of a shopkeeper—ink stains, roughened tips and short nails. He wondered if they would smell like the herbs in her shop. He wanted to know. Desperately. He lifted her hand to his lips.
He stopped before he kissed it. Frowning, he checked her fingers. No cut. He glanced at her other hand but there was no cut on that one either.
"That’s amazing stuff!" he said.
She snatched her hand away. "What is?"
"Whatever salve you used on the cut. It’s completely healed. Not even a mark."
"There is," she said, without showing him. "But it’s faint. And stop changing the subject. That’s twice now. I asked you if you would have left me alone if I hadn’t come here today."
"You're quite correct," he said with a shrug. "I would have returned to the shop. However I like to think there’s another reason why you’re here."
Isabel squeezed her hands together in her lap. She tried to keep her gaze steady on her husband, but he was so arrogantly confident that
she dreaded what he was about to say.
Because he had most likely guessed the real reason why she had gone to the Four Feathers to meet him.
He leaned forward and gave her a crooked smile. "Because," he whispered, so low she had to lean forward herself to hear him over the noise, "you want me."
After the briefest of moments in which her blood turned to a thundering torrent between her ears and her face grew hot, she managed to regain her composure. She threw her head back and laughed.
"Don’t fool yourself, Nick. That brief encounter was...refreshing. Thrilling even. But it was no more than that."
His smile broadened. A knowing, clever smile. "If you say so," he said, sitting back, not taking his bright blue eyes from her.
She swallowed a mouthful of wine then swallowed the rest. When she returned the empty cup to the table, he was still smiling. Damn him. It had been bad enough that he’d noticed her cut finger was healed, but to have him know that she ached for him was too irritating. And dangerous. Because if he knew, he’d do everything he could to lure her into bed.
She didn’t have enough defenses to resist him.
"Tell me," she said, shoving aside her desire and focusing on distracting him, "why were you asking several of my fellow apothecaries about poison?"
CHAPTER 5
Isabel had the satisfaction of seeing Nick shocked. The moment was fleeting but there was a definite tightening around his lips and a paling of his complexion.
"I went to Pullman’s for rat poison," he said.
"And what about the others?"
One side of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile. "Jealous I didn't come to you?"
"Call it what you like, Nick, but I want an answer."
He leaned back and stretched out his long legs, brushing the hem of her skirt with his feet as he did so. He opened his mouth just as Nelly arrived with two trenchers of pork and vegetables so instead of answering, he said, "Ah, smells wonderful as usual, Nell. And your timing is perfect—I’m starving."
"Yes, perfect," Isabel echoed with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
Nelly winked at Isabel. "Keep a man well-fed and he’ll never stray, that’s what I always say. Works for my Jebediah." She nodded at an enormous-bellied man talking to a diner. He didn’t look like he could stray anywhere in a hurry.
"Thank you," Isabel said with a wink back at Nelly. Perhaps if she got this woman on side, she could learn some things about Nick. Like who he met in the inn and how often. "I’ll bear that in mind. I wonder if it works in reverse—starve a man and he’ll leave."
Nick frowned at her. She smiled back.
Nelly leaned down, causing her considerable bosom to strain against her bodice. "When I want to get rid of my Jebediah, I’ll let you know."
After Nelly left, Isabel waited until Nick had finished his meal before she broached the subject again.
"Are you going to answer me," she said, "or will you find something else to distract you?"
He sighed and pushed his empty trencher aside. "There’s nothing sinister going on if that’s your concern. I was merely pricing the rat poison on offer at several different apothecaries. Pullman had the best price so I decided to buy it there."
He was lying. She couldn’t say how she knew it, she just did. Too tired to hear any more excuses, she stood and gathered up her gloves.
Nick sprang up too. "Where are you going?"
"Home."
"So soon? I thought we’d talk for a while and then..." He shrugged.
"And then take what is legally yours?" she finished for him. She didn’t wait for his answer, but strode away.
Nelly handed Isabel her coat at the door. "Enjoy your afternoon," she said with a chuckle and a lascivious glance back at Nick who was paying Jebediah.
Outside, the cold air stung Isabel’s eyes and burned her cheeks. She hunched into her coat and walked off down Bishopsgate Street, leaving the muffled sounds of the inn behind her. The sun hung pale and sickly over the buildings, valiantly bathing the paved street and the impressive houses lining it in wan light.
"Isabel! Wait!" Nick caught her arm and she stopped. She could have shrugged him off, probably should have, but she didn’t want to make a scene in front of the passersby hurrying to be out of the cold. So she told herself.
"Isabel, what’s wrong? What did I say?" His voice sounded strangely disembodied in the still, cold air, like a player upon a stage.
She shivered and instantly wished she hadn’t because he rubbed his hands up her arms to warm her. His touch made her skin tingle beneath the layers of clothing and longing tugged deep down. Flushing, she remembered why she had really come to the Four Feathers. He was right. She wanted him. Every part of her desired him, ached to feel more of his touch.
"You’re cold," he said. He must have been cold himself, having left his coat behind at the inn in his haste to leave.
She pulled away and began walking again, trying hard to stop shaking. He stepped in front of her. She tried to maneuver around him but he blocked her way. Giving up, she glared at him.
He glared back. "I’m not moving until you tell me what’s wrong," he said.
"You’ll freeze out here without a coat. Go back and get it."
"No." His lips flexed into a mischievous smile and he crossed his arms. A challenge albeit a teasing one.
"All right then, I’ll freeze out here. Move!"
"Come here and I’ll keep you warm." His smile widened. He seemed to be enjoying the banter, and that annoyed her even more.
"Fine! I’ll tell you what’s wrong. You’re lying, Nick. Just like when we were married."
"Are married, Isabel," he shot back, the smile vanishing. "Are, not were."
A gasp echoed through the stillness. It didn’t come from Isabel or Nick, but somewhere in the shadowy recesses of the nearby buildings.
Nick shoved her behind him. "Who’s that?" he called out. "Show your face."
No answer.
"Maybe it was just a rat," Isabel said, trying to peer past Nick’s bulk without luck. "Or the wind."
"There is no wind." He began to turn towards her when a cloaked and hooded figure flew out of the shadows like a bat from a cave. The metal of a blade flashed in his gloved hand.
"Nick!" She flung her hands up in an instinctive move. Power surged down her arms to her palms, its heat bursting from her fingertips like sparks.
The knife veered off course. It had been heading straight for Nick’s heart but missed and would have struck his arm if he hadn’t side-stepped out of the way. The sudden movement caused him to lose his balance and nearly topple into her, distracting her from doing more than merely deflecting the dagger.
The knifeman paused, grunted then ran off. Righting himself, Nick chased after him but stopped only a few paces away.
"Go back to the Four Feathers," he ordered her. "Wait for me there." He took off again.
Isabel watched as the hooded attacker rounded a corner with Nick in pursuit. With her heart pounding and her throat dry, there were many choices Isabel could have made. In the end, she made the hardest one—she did as she was told.
***
Nicholas had chased after many shadowy figures in his time but none so swift or nimble as this hooded knifeman. If he hadn’t been so familiar with the city’s laneways he would have been hopelessly lost, but he recognized many of the livery company halls and other landmarks. Once they crossed over Thames Street he knew they were heading down to the river. Unless his quarry intended to take a wherry across to Southwark, Nicholas had him—the lane ended at the water stairs.
The sunlight seemed to avoid the narrow, muddy lane with its houses packed side by side as if propping each other up. Nicholas had to follow the sound of his quarry’s footsteps and rely on occasional glimpses of the cloaked figure. Twice he stumbled over dark objects that could have been sleeping dogs or drunks or merely rubbish.
Nicholas silently cursed the man for taking so long to be caught. All he wanted to
do was go back to Isabel and finish the day the way he’d intended it to end—with her in his bed. But now he had to chase down the hooded figure—the same one who'd been watching him in the inn.
When the lane suddenly ended at the river bank, the attacker halted at the top of the water stairs. The cries of the watermen drifted across the stillness but none waited at the stairs. Unless the knifeman intended braving the freezing water there was no way out.
