If He's Tempted

by Hannah Howell

  The way he was looking at her, a glint of mischief and unease in his eyes, eyes just like hers, almost made Olympia smile but she knew she had to be firm, serious. “So what did my sweaty, screaming son do then?”

  “Cleaned off the bookshelves,” he said a little warily. “I was aiming as best I could for their heads. Got a good blow in on one of them but the other became all terrified and started praying and ran away. By then the others came in.”

  “You did well, Ilar. Very well indeed. You fought, called for help, and then used what you had to to make certain you did not get dragged out of reach of the help you needed.” She smiled at him. “You also sent for me and began to clean up your mess.”

  “With a lot of kind help,” he said and smiled at both Tessa and Antigone with a sweet charm that had her aching to pick him up and hug him as she always used to when he was small. She frowned and tensed as she heard a noise coming from outside the room. “Now what has happened?” Just as she stood up to go and look, Jones Two walked in, his hand behind his back. “Jones Two? Is something wrong?”

  “We were tending to your luggage, m’lady, and m’lord. I believe you may have had vermin get inside.”

  “Vermin?”

  Jones Two drew his hand from behind his back and held it out. Dangling from his hand and trying to look fierce was a small golden cat. “Vermin.”

  “Lure!” She hurried over and took the cat from her butler. “How did she get in my bag? I was certain she was not even in my bedchamber last night.” Olympia recalled why the cat had not been in her bedchamber and fiercely held back the blush she felt stirring.

  “If m’lady does find out how that creature got in your bag, then it may explain the other one.” He held his hand up and snapped his fingers and a lanky, grinning footman walked in carrying Dinner. “This was in his lordship’s bag.” He looked at Brant.

  “I have one of the lads already brushing the fur from your clothes, my lord.”

  “M’lady?” asked the footman and held out Dinner.

  “Just put her down, Morris,” Olympia said, struggling not to laugh. “I will arrange something for them in my bedchamber after I have finished eating.” She sighed when the kitten wriggled free of her hold, climbed up on her shoulder, and then up to sit on her head. “There goes my dignity.” She joined in with her family and Brant who started laughing. “Someone take this foolish creature off my head, please.” Once her son took the kitten down, she returned to her seat as the servants left, shutting the door behind them.

  “More cats,” muttered Antigone but Olympia saw her aunt surreptitiously drop a small piece of ham down to Dinner.

  “They must have gotten out of Enid and Pawl’s room while we were running around packing things,” Olympia said and then frowned at Brant. “That does not explain how Dinner got into your bag, however.”

  “I set it down in the hall as I waited for you and it was open,” he answered. “I did not notice that until we were in the carriage. I am surprised I did not see a cat that large, however.”

  “A cat is a master of the art of hiding, m’lord,” said Antigone. “And, Olympia, m’dear, why are the cats called Lure and Dinner?”

  Olympia decided to explain Dinner’s name first and then, taking a deep breath, told them how Lure got her name. She put an arm around her son when he quickly moved to sit by her side. It was still a horror new enough to make her shiver in remembrance.

  “So as we rode here, it occurred to me that what has just happened to Ilar could be a part of what is happening to me. It really would not take long for anyone to discover I have a son and where he might be. I just wonder how they knew I would never be able to leave that poor cat stranded there.”

  “That would not be so difficult, either, m’dear. Anyone just needs to speak to someone here or in the village. Even the Warren has its fair share of animals you have collected. Not only animals but many are the sort of animals most people would simply kill or toss away.”

  “That was what I feared. The moment Lady Mallam decided I was Brant’s ally she went hunting for anything she could find on me. She discovered a weakness before she set her men on me and, I strongly suspect, she then discovered you, Ilar.” She lightly smoothed her hand over his hair. “If she had found you first, I think we would have seen this attack much earlier. I am just not all that sure of what she hoped to accomplish by getting her hands on you.”

  “Use him to tame you,” said Brant. “Who can be certain what she would decide was the best way to use your child against you? She saw the possibility of a good, heavy club to beat you into service for her and reached out to grab it.”

  “The first thing we need to do is get some more men here to guard the house,” said Olympia. “Having never had any trouble, it is too easy to get in here, as we now know. So, some guards. Then, back to London to stop this woman.”

  Ignoring the people sharing the table with them, Brant reached out and patted her hand where she rested it on the table, her fist so tightly clenched that her knuckles shown white. He could see a lingering fear in her eyes. This was a true mother, he thought. This was a woman who cared for the child she had borne, would fight for that child, and comfort that child if he needed it. This was a woman such as his mother had never been.

  Brant shook off a moment of self-pity and asked, “Are there strong men in the village that you can trust? This is not forever, merely until we can stop her. There may be some who would welcome the extra coin to act as a guard for your son, Olympia.”

  “There most certainly would,” said Antigone. “Jones Two and I can see to that today. In fact, why do we not all take a walk into the village together. The magistrate has a nice home at the far end of the village and the man who was captured here is locked in his wine cellar.”

  “A splendid idea, Auntie. I will finish this fine food, put those foolish cats away in my bedchamber, and then we shall all go to the village,” Olympia said, sighing when Lure pulled her small golden body up her skirts to sit on her lap. “I think I am going to have trouble with this one.” She smiled when Ilar began to lightly stroke the cat and it began to purr its very loud, too-big-for-its-body purr. “Aye, I am definitely going to have trouble with this one.”

  Olympia wanted to hold Brant’s hand as they followed Peter Jenkins down into his wine cellar but knew she could not. This was the local squire, a man who might live on the fringes of society but still moved within it. He would not be able to resist telling his wife about the baroness and the earl, about how they held hands. His wife would tell her sister, who would tell her dearest friends, who would tell their dearest friends, and so on until the whole of society would begin wondering just what was going on between “that strange Wherlocke girl” and that wretched, dissolute child of Lady Letitia Mallam. She stiffened her spine and hoped her face held the calm, sweet expression she was struggling to hold.

  “Here he be, m’lady,” Peter said. “Real sorry I did not get there to catch the other one but your lad did himself proud.”

  The man in the cell stood up and stared at Olympia. He was of medium height, thinning brown hair, and pale hazel eyes. She saw fear in his eyes and knew he saw her son when he looked at her.

  “Why did you try to take my son?” she asked.

  “The lady told Jake that she wanted the boy so she could rule the mother.” He looked around. “You find Jake?”

  “No,” answered Peter. “He left you here to hang for him.”

  “Better to hang than go back and tell that cursed bitch that we failed.” He looked back at Olympia. “You got yourself a brave lad but I be thinking he be a might strange, too. Best you keep that boy out of that bitch’s hands.”

  “What is the woman’s name?” asked Brant.

  “You think you can stop her?” said the man. “Think you can make her go away? Nay, lad. She be a coldhearted devil of a woman and she means to rule. Best you and the lass stay tucked up here because of the lady who has your eyes. She hates men, that she does, but sh
e sure hates you, lad.”

  “Now you be quiet,” said Peter. “They were asking for a name.”

  “We have it, Peter. We have it,” Olympia said and gave up on discretion by taking Brant’s hand in hers. She knew this had to hurt. At the very least it had to pick at the wound in his heart that had never had the time to heal properly.

  “Fine then. I will be judging this fellow on the morrow and I suspect he will be hanging from the tree in the square soon.”

  “No, he must stay alive, Peter. I may have need of him when I capture that woman. She came into my home and touched my child, and I mean to see her pay dearly for that. This fellow, since he knows who she is, could prove to be a great help in the doing of that.”

  “M’lady,” the man in the cell called when Olympia turned to leave.

  “Are you about to tell me that you cannot help me?”

  “Oh, I can help you but the magistrate there should also have himself a few new guards.”

  “Are you threatening him?”

  “Not at all. Seems a good fellow. Nay, her ladyship is not fond of leaving folk around who can talk. I can talk. The magistrate there can talk. M’lady prefers silence. Jake has not gone back to tell her he failed. He is running for his life.”

  Olympia was silent all the way back to the house and then joined her son in putting away the books he had used in his fight to save his life. She was sitting on the floor in the middle of several stacks of books and wondering which ones should be put back on the shelves first when Brant arrived and sat down next to her. He looked thoughtful but no more. She had to wonder if he had become used to hearing bad news concerning his mother.

  “You threw all these off the shelves?” he asked.

  “I did.” Ilar looked at Olympia and she nodded, silently giving him permission to speak of what he could do. “It was all I could think of. I had no weapon.”

  Looking around at all the nearly empty shelves and the books on the floor, Brant shook his head and smiled. “Oh, I think you did.”

  With Brant’s and Ilar’s help, they had returned nearly all the books to the shelves when the dinner bell was rung. Olympia hurried to her bedchamber to clean the dust and dirt off. As she washed her hands and face, she told herself not to find anything hopeful in how well Brant and Ilar got along. It could simply be because Brant had a skill at talking to a young boy on the cusp of manhood and Ilar was hungry for some male company.

  By the time she reached the dining room everyone else was there waiting for her. She took a seat next to Brant and across from her aunt, Tessa, and Ilar. It was a pleasant meal and Olympia enjoyed hearing all of the latest news about various family members but she could not stop thinking about the man the magistrate held.

  “Do you think that man meant that your mother will kill them because they failed? That he wants extra guards for the magistrate mostly because he is afraid of someone coming into the magistrate’s and killing him for it?” Olympia truly wanted him to say no.

  “Yes, I fear so. Oh, she will not dirty her hands with such a job, but she will know someone who would.”

  “We should warn Peter more firmly so that he understands that there is a real threat to him.”

  “The man Peter is holding will tell him.”

  “I hope so because Peter is a good man.”

  “If my mother sends someone to silence that man, she will have it done in such a way that Peter will know nothing about it until he goes down in that cellar to see a body there instead of the man he had brought in.” Brant helped himself to some roast beef, realizing that he liked the way the Wherlockes had no servants standing silently at their backs as they ate. The servants came in, set the food down on the table, and left the sorting and serving of it to the people at the table. It let everyone be at ease while at the table.

  “You think she is that good?” Olympia simply could not see Lady Letitia Mallam killing anything.

  “I think she knows who to hire who will be that good. If not for Ilar’s gift, those men would have gotten away with him.”

  “That is very true,” said Ilar and then stuffed his mouth with some tender roast beef.

  Olympia shivered. If she had known how far Lady Mallam’s reach was and how lethal the woman could be, Olympia was not sure she would have been so eager to help young Agatha. A moment later she decided she was fooling herself. No matter what the risks she knew she would not have been able to stand by and watch a young girl be forced to marry a man as filthy and lacking in morals as Lord Sir Horace Minden.

  “This mess just keeps getting messier and more complicated,” she muttered and sat back in her chair when Jones Two and two young maids came in to clear away the meal and leave the varied desserts for them to choose from.

  “My mother has always been efficient and thorough in every endeavor. She will be an efficient and thorough criminal. I know only one thing for a fact, have no doubt about it, and that is for as long as she has people she can use, she will never dirty her own hands. What she will do when we rob her of all those carefully chosen accomplices, I do not know.”

  “She will become very angry,” said Antigone as she spooned some stewed apples into a bowl and poured some thick cream over them.

  Brant looked at the older woman with her thick black hair lightly sprinkled with gray and her handsome features, the most striking of which was a pair of bright green eyes. “I suspect so as we will be robbing her of her source of income.”

  “Nay, you will be robbing her of her power.”

  It was hard but Brant bit back the string of curses that rose to his tongue. The woman was right. His mother would never accept a loss of her power. She had spent her entire adult life gathering that power, something she had always craved.

  “Pick a dessert, Brant,” Olympia urged, pulling him free of the anger that was twisting his insides.

  He served himself some cake, covered it with some of the stewed apples, and then stared at it for a moment. There was one good thing he could see in all the trouble that now swirled around them. They were very close to breaking his mother. Brant was just not certain how he should prepare himself and the others for that eventuality. This time it seemed he was not only going to fail to keep those close to him safe, but was bringing that trouble right to their door.

  Olympia smiled as she relaxed on Ilar’s bed and listened to him read to her from The Taming of the Shrew by Shakespeare. He had always liked the plays even as a small child. Glancing at him where he sprawled at her side, she could see more of the man in him now than the child he had been.

  “You are leaving tomorrow,” Ilar said as he set aside the book, turned on his side, and studied his mother.

  “I must, love,” she said. “I gave Brant’s sister a promise. Her mother is planning to marry her off to an evil man who is old enough to be her grandfather. She came looking for help and I said I would do it. I cannot leave her at the mercy of that woman and we are too far away from the city here for me to rush to her side if she is in peril.”

  “Then take her away from the woman.”

  “We are working on doing just that. Brant has hired Cousin Andras to bring the girl under his guardianship.”

  “Oh. That is very good for Andras is very smart.” He yawned.

  Olympia got off the bed and kissed him on the cheek. “Rest, love. You used your gift a lot lately and that steals a lot of strength from ones like us.”

  “I will. I am glad you came home for a little while.”

  “So am I, Ilar. So am I.”

  She slipped out of the room and headed for her own bedchamber. The need to get up and start the journey to Myrtledowns at such an early hour and then rushing around trying to sort out what had happened and what needed to be done had exhausted her. She stepped into her bedchamber and smiled faintly at the sleeping cats. Then she saw that she had company for Brant was sprawled on top of her bed. Since he was fully dressed she suspected he was not there to try and seduce her into making love, something she could
not do when they were in the home she shared with her son.

  “How did you get into my room with no one seeing or hearing you?” she asked as she walked to the bed and settled herself beside him.

  “I can be very stealthy if I wish.” He tugged her into his arms and kissed her.

  “Brant, I cannot,” she began.

  “I know but I wished for a good-night kiss.”

  She laughed and gave him one. It quickly turned into a deep, passionate kiss and she was breathing very unsteadily when she finally pulled away. “This is very unwise.”

  “Probably but I will not misbehave. Is your son as calm as he appeared?”

  “I believe so. He was more startled than frightened or hurt. He also discovered that his gift gave him the strength needed, the weapon he needed to use, to free himself and that is a heady thing I believe. He could have made a more tempered strike at his attackers, but this was good.”

  “I can see why you are cautious about bringing him to the city.” He kissed her again, then got off the bed before he gave in to the strong urge to help himself to far more than kisses. “I am more sorry than I can say about how my mother threatened your son.”

  She sat up and took his hand in hers, placing a kiss upon his palm. “No more apologizing for what is none of your doing. This wrong belongs to your mother. Never you.”

  He was not sure he believed that but he smiled, brushed a kiss over her mouth, and left her room as stealthily as he had entered it. It was hard to leave her side. Brant surprised himself with the realization that he liked curling up with her in bed for the night. He had never spent a full night with a woman except for the few times he had been so drunk he had taken his pleasure and fallen into a stupor almost immediately.

  “Are you dishonoring my mother?”