So much for the delightful diversions of a house party. She’d had her doubts from the start, but Joan Dove had assured her that she would enjoy herself immensely. Yes, there are some boring games and conversations and you will have to put up with some obnoxious people, but, trust me, you will find it all worthwhile. The thing about a country-house party, Lavinia, is that no one cares what you do or where you go after the lights are turned down for the night.
Obviously Joan had not anticipated a complication like Aspasia Gray.
A sudden thought sent a prickle of dread down Lavinia’s spine. What would she do if she discovered that the woman was still in Tobias’s bed chamber when she returned?
She was not jealous, she assured herself. She was deeply concerned. Tobias had been in exceptionally good spirits earlier this evening. Whatever had transpired between him and his new client was serious enough to plunge him into that ice-cold mood that she had learned never boded well. It was not the fact that he appeared quite menacing at such times that worried her. After all, he was no threat to her, only to those whose intentions were villainous. Rather, it was that he was inclined to take risks when he was in that frame of mind.
A soft knock startled her out of her reverie. She swung around, hurried back across the room, and yanked open the door. Tobias stood in the shadows of the dimly lit hall, looking even more dangerous than he had a short time earlier. He had not bothered to put on his coat or neckcloth. He had not even refastened the collar of his white shirt. She could see some of the dark, curling hair that covered his broad chest.
“Well, this is a surprise, sir.”
He glanced down the corridor, apparently assuring himself that there was no one around, and then he stalked into the tiny room.
“Do me a favor,” he muttered, shutting the door behind himself. “In the future, if I ever again suggest that we accept an invitation to a country-house party, kindly tell me to go stand out in the rain until the fit passes.”
“How odd that you should say that. I was having similar thoughts.” She went back to her post by the window. “Who is she, Tobias?”
“I told you who she is,” he said quietly. “Her name is Aspasia Gray. An old acquaintance.”
“I collect that the two of you were once quite close.”
“I said acquaintance, not lover.” He came to stand behind her. “Bloody hell. Surely you don’t think there was anything of significance in the fact that she had her arms around my neck when you walked into my bed chamber, do you?”
“Well, as a matter of fact-”
“I can explain that rather unfortunate scene. Aspasia was merely thanking me for agreeing to make some inquiries on her behalf. I did not want to be rude by shoving her away.”
“I see.”
“Damnation, Lavinia, she caught me off guard. I heard you open the door and the next thing I knew her arms were around my neck.”
“Mmm.”
“What is this?” He closed a hand over her shoulder and tugged her gently around to face him. “Surely you do not think for one moment that I was engaged in a serious embrace with Aspasia? I love you. You know that. I thought we had agreed that we trusted each other.”
Some of her tension eased. She touched his face. “Yes, I know. I love you and I trust you, Tobias.”
He exhaled deeply. “Thank God. You had me worried for a moment.”
She raised her brows. “I do not know Mrs. Gray, however, and I have no particular reason to trust her.”
He shrugged. “You need not concern yourself with the subject of Aspasia.”
“Yes, well, I am concerning myself with that subject. Furthermore, the fact that I trust you does not mean that I relish the sight of you standing in your shirtsleeves with another woman’s arms draped around your neck.”
He smiled slowly. “You make yourself quite clear, my dear.”
“You are not to make a regular practice of that sort of thing, sir. Is that understood?”
He raised one hand to trace the engraving of the goddess Minerva that decorated the silver pendant she wore at her throat. “You are the only woman whose arms I want around my neck.”
She got almost no warning, just a brief glimpse of the candle flame reflected in his eyes, before he kissed her. The urgent, driving hunger in him thrilled her senses. But it also made her wonder again about the precise nature of his conversation with his new client.
She had experienced this incendiary desire flowing from him often enough in the past to recognize it. His dark passions had their source in a well of midnight buried deep within him. He kept the channel to that place closed and locked for the most part, but it had been opened tonight. She suspected that was Aspasia Gray’s doing.
“Tobias.”
He locked her hard against him, one arm around her neck, the other anchoring her waist. “When you told me not to bother coming here tonight, I felt as if you had plunged that spear you carried straight into my heart.”
“I did not mean it,” she whispered against his neck. “Indeed, I was only biding my time up here until I went back downstairs to your bedchamber.”
“You had every right to be angry.” He kissed her mouth, her cheek, and then her throat. “But there was no need, I swear it.”
“She did it deliberately, didn’t she? She heard the door open and she put her arms around you at that instant so that I would see the two of you together.”
“No, I’m sure that she meant only to convey a token of her gratitude, because I had just agreed to make inquiries on her behalf. You happened to open the door at the wrong moment.”
“Rubbish.”
“Devil take it, forget that damned embrace. I do not care about Aspasia.” He lifted her off her feet and started across the small room. You are the only one I care about and this is the only embrace that matters.”
“Tobias, the bed-”
“I am getting us there as swiftly as possible.”
“But it is much too narrow for the two of us.”
“You and I are nothing if not resourceful, madam. We have, upon occasion, made do with the seat of a carriage. I feel certain we can manage a small bed.”
He spilled her carefully onto the cot and came down on top of her.
She felt herself crushed into the bedding. The skirts of her expensive new gown, purchased especially for the jaunt to the country, were getting crushed, but in that moment she did not care a jot.
Tobias lowered her bodice and kissed her until her skin burned hot. She framed his face between her palms and responded with a passion that never failed to astonish her. Until she met Tobias, she had not dreamed that she was capable of such intensity of feeling. Even at times like this, when he was in the grip of his darker passions, she responded to him. No, it was more than that, she thought, she needed to respond to him, especially at such times.
On these rare occasions when he opened the path to that deep wellspring of midnight inside himself, she glimpsed an aspect of his true nature that he allowed no one else to know. She recognized the powerful, elemental force within him all too well because it called to an opposite but equally strong aspect of her own being.
In the past few weeks she had slowly begun to accept that she and Tobias were linked in some metaphysical fashion that she did not yet fully understand. Perhaps she would never entirely comprehend the nature of the connection between them, but she knew now that she could no longer deny it.
She had not dared to speak of these matters to Tobias. She knew that he had no use for metaphysics and would not welcome such a discussion. But sometimes, when he was deep inside her, holding her as though he would never let her go, not even in death, she wondered if he, too, sensed the bond between them.
He pushed her skirts up with a rough, impatient motion of his hand and slid his fingers between her thighs. She was aware of the hunger pulsing through him. Her own need rose to meet his. She opened his shirt to his waist and flattened her palm on his chest, glorying in the feel of him.
&n
bsp; He probed gently until he found the exquisitely sensitive bud. When he stroked slowly, she heard herself whisper the most shocking words, words she would never have used in polite company, words that, until she had met Tobias, she had not realized she knew.
He let his finger glide deeper.
“Tobias.” She tightened and moved against his palm.
He reached down to unfasten his trousers.
A blood-freezing scream sliced through the summer night, shattering the moment with the impact of a thunderclap. Lavinia flinched and opened her eyes just in time to see a dark shadow plummet past the open window.
“What the bloody hell?” Tobias rolled off the bed and onto his feet just as the dreadful cry ended with appalling finality.
“Dear heaven, what on earth was that?” Lavinia scrambled up off the bed. “Some sort of night bird? A large bat?”
Tobias was already at the window, having covered the distance in two strides. He gripped the edge and stood looking down into the gardens.
“Merciful God,” he whispered.
“Lavinia hurried toward the window. What has happened?”
Somewhere in the distance, another scream rent the night. A woman this time. Lavinia leaned out the window and glanced to the left, seeking the source of the second scream. She saw the occupant of a neighboring bed chamber, clad in a dressing gown and nightcap, standing on a stone balcony. The woman stared, transfixed, into the garden.
Lavinia braced herself and looked down. A figure garbed in formal evening attire lay crumpled on the grass like a broken clockwork doll. Horror turned her stomach ice-cold. The shadow hurtling past the window a few seconds earlier had been a man.
“He must have fallen from the roof,” she whispered.
“I wonder what he was doing up there?” Tobias said. “He is certainly not a member of the household staff.”
Lavinia looked down again and saw a bald pate gleaming in the moonlight. “Oh, no. Surely not.”
She heard more windows thrown open. Shocked exclamations echoed in the night. Down below, a footman, lantern in hand, appeared and walked with great reluctance toward the dead man.
“I will go and see if there is anything to be done.” Tobias turned away from the window. “Wait here.”
“No, I am coming with you.”
“There is no need,” he said gently. “It will be extremely unpleasant.”
She swallowed. “I cannot be certain until I get a closer look at him, but I fear that there may, indeed, be a reason for me to accompany you.”
He paused at the door and glanced back, frowning. “What is that?”
“I may have been one of the last people to see him alive.” She adjusted the bodice of her gown and reached up to feel for her hairpins. “Except for the maid, of course.”
“What the devil are you talking about?” Tobias opened the door and went out into the hall. “Do you know that man?”
“Not exactly.” She followed him out into the dim corridor and paused to close the bed chamber door. “We were never introduced, but I believe I saw him a short while ago, when I went to meet you in your bed chamber. To be more precise, I hid behind the staircase while he went by in the company of one of the maids.”
That got his attention. “He was with one of the servants?”
“Yes. I got the impression that they were on their way up to the roof to engage in what the gentleman referred to as a bit of sport. The maid seemed quite cheerful about the prospect. He no doubt promised her money.” She paused. “I wonder if Lady Beaumont knows that sort of thing is going on in her household.”
“I suspect there is a good deal of that sort of thing going on at this affair.”
They reached the top of the staircase and started down. Lavinia heard doors opening in the hall behind her. Bewildered and curious people began to emerge from their bed chambers to ask one another what had happened.
“I wonder how he came to fall from the roof,” Tobias said.
“It was no doubt an accident. He was quite drunk when I saw him.”
More doors opened on the floor below. People in various stages of dress and undress appeared. Some joined Tobias and Lavinia on the staircase. Most chose to remain in the hall, speculating on events with their neighbors.
When they reached the ground floor, Tobias led the way outside into the gardens. A small group had gathered around the body.
Lord Beaumont, short, round, and bald, rushed out of a side door. He was partially dressed, in trousers, slippers, and a silk dressing gown. He stopped abruptly when he saw Tobias. Then he altered course to intercept him.
“March. Thank you for coming down. Vale told me that you were an excellent man in a crisis.” Beaumont belatedly noticed Lavinia and bobbed his head. “Mrs. Lake. There is no need for you to put yourself through this ordeal. Please, you really must go back inside.”
She started to explain why she had come downstairs, but Tobias interrupted.
“Who is it?” he asked quietly.
Beaumont glanced uneasily at the crowd around the body. “The footman who came to fetch me said it was Lord Fullerton.”
“Have you sent for the doctor?”
“What? No. Everything has happened so quickly. I hadn’t even considered Beaumont broke off and made a visible attempt to gather his wits, Yes, of course. The doctor. He will know what is to be done with the body. Certainly cannot leave it here in the garden.
“Yes, yes, I shall summon him immediately. Excellent notion, March.”
Obviously relieved to have a specific goal, Beaumont turned and beckoned frantically to a footman.
“I want to take a closer look,” Tobias said softly to Lavinia. “Are you certain you wish to do this?”
“Yes.”
They walked to where Fullerton lay on the damp grass. Lavinia was not in the least surprised when the cluster of people gathered around the body parted to make way for Tobias. He often had that effect on others.
A thin man was on his knees beside Fullerton. Hands clasped, he rocked back and forth, moaning.
“Disaster,” he muttered. “Disaster. What am I to do? This is a disaster.”
Tobias glanced at Lavinia. “Are you all right?”
“Yes.”
It was not the first time she had found herself in the proximity of violent death, but she knew that she would never grow accustomed to the sight. In this case there was no blood, but Fullerton’s neck was twisted at an unnatural angle that caused her stomach to churn. For a few terrible seconds she was afraid she might be ill.
She forced herself to concentrate on details and immediately recognized the bald head, the plum-colored coat, and the elaborately tied cravat. This was, indeed, the man she had seen going down the hall with the blond maid a short time ago.
“Well?” Tobias prompted softly.
“Yes, that is the man I noticed earlier,” Lavinia said.
The thin man continued to rock and moan. “Disaster. What will I do?”
“Odd.” Tobias studied the body. “He is fully dressed.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You said that he and the maid were evidently intent on a rooftop tryst, but he is still entirely clothed. His breeches and shirt are fastened and his neckcloth is knotted.”
“Oh, yes, I see what you mean.” She considered that for a few seconds. “Perhaps they, uh, did not have time to pursue their plans before he fell.”
Tobias shook his head once, coldly certain now. “He was up there for some time. Plenty of time to get his breeches open, at least.”
She looked up quickly. “Are you implying what I think you are implying?”
“I’m not sure yet.” Tobias raised his voice and spoke to the keening man. “Who are you?”
The thin man regarded him with a dazed expression. “Burns, sir. His lordship’s valet. That is to say, I was his valet. It was an excellent position. We had just finished placing an order for several new coats and a dressing gown. His lordship was to be wed, yo
u see. He wanted to appear in the first stare of fashion for his new bride. I wonder what will become of all his fine clothes?”
“You will pack them up and return them to his family, of course,” Lavinia said.
“Oh, no, madam, I shall not do any such thing.” Burns scrambled to his feet and took a step back. “There is no one to pay me now. I must find a new position.”
“When did you last see his lordship alive?” Tobias asked.
“This evening, when he went downstairs to the costume ball. He looked his best tonight, I saw to that. He was very pleased with the knot in his cravat. I invented it and named it for him, you know.”
“You did not see him after that?” Tobias pressed.
“No. He instructed me not to wait up for him.”
“Was that unusual?”
“No, sir. His lordship was fond of a bit of sport with a willing wench before he went to sleep. He did not like me to be in the way.”
“Come.” Tobias tightened his grasp on Lavinia’s arm and steered her away from the scene.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
“I want to take a look at Fullerton’s bed chamber.”
“Why? What do you expect to find?”
“I have no notion.”
Tobias stopped the partially dressed butler and asked him which room had been assigned to Lord Fullerton. The man gave him directions. Lord Beaumont, still quite agitated, trotted forward.
“What is it, March?” he asked. “Has something else happened?”
“No, sir,” Tobias said. “I merely wish to have a look around Fullerton’s bedchamber. Perhaps it would be best if you accompanied us.”
It was a thinly veiled command, but Beaumont did not appear to be aware that he was being ordered about by a man who was his social inferior.
“Yes, of course,” Beaumont said. He turned quickly and led the way back toward the house.
When Tobias spoke in that deep, resonant, utterly sure voice, people tended to obey without question, Lavinia thought. He had an uncanny ability to assume command at times when others were dashing about mindlessly. She suspected that the subtle skill was more complex than he knew or would ever acknowledge.
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