‘It won’t happen.’ Brandon dismissed Jack’s concern.
‘It might happen if Witherspoon keeps up his investigation,’ Jack warned, leaning forward. ‘I think you need to take Witherspoon seriously. He will not let this lie.’
‘Then he can chase Eleanor Habersham all the way to York and find nothing at the end of his rainbow,’ Brandon retorted fiercely. He would not let Jack’s misgivings tarnish his happiness.
Jack would not be thwarted. ‘Let me give it to you in plain speech. You’ve got what you wanted. You’ve kept The Cat safe. If she’s caught now, it won’t be on your watch. Your conscience can rest easy on that account.
‘Confidence in the mill is restored. I heard you signed the last-needed investor yesterday. The financial security of Stockport-on-the-Medlock is secured.
‘Brandon, old chap, you did it. You played two games and won them both.’
‘What games would those be?’ Brandon answered coolly.
‘The Cock of the North beds The Cat and saves his factory. That’s audacity if I ever saw it. Now, be smart. Don’t stay in the game too long and risk losing everything.’
Brandon’s gaze narrowed in dislike of Jack’s devil’s advocacy. ‘It wasn’t a game, Jack. It never was. Nora and I are not finished.’ He stood and straightened his waistcoat. He wanted to find Nora and catch her up in his arms, swing her around the dance floor and kiss her silly. She would have to say ‘yes’ now. He was in no mood for Jack’s nay-saying. Where was Nora? She should have been here by now.
Chapter Eighteen
‘You played two games and won them both.’ ‘Nora and I are not finished.’ Nora froze in the dimly lit hallway at the sound of two male voices. It was definitely Brandon and Jack. She could see the back of Brandon’s dark head over the top of a chair.
Brandon had asked her to join them, but now that she had she felt as if she were eavesdropping. Had Brandon meant for her to overhear the conversation? Had he planned this as a cruel goodbye? Or perhaps he hadn’t planned for her to overhear it at all. His ominous last words suggested as much. What else did he have in store for her that could be worse than what she’d heard so far?
How could she have been so wrong about Brandon? How could she have lost such a complete perspective on the reality happening around her? Jack’s comments horrified her. Tears gathered in her eyes. What he said made sense; there was no refuting his logic. Brandon had deceived her.
Nora sagged against the wall for support as the brutal duplicity of his lies hit her. All of it—the soft words, the afternoons spent arguing politics, every touch, every look, every kiss, every caress—was a lie, a trap meant to ensnare her in the cruellest of ways. All along, Brandon had known what he was doing. She should have shot him that night at St John’s.
He’d cleverly used his wit and virility to charm her into thinking of him as an ally. He’d gone so far as to propose marriage and to act as if he meant to see the deed done. He’d given Mary Malone a cottage. He’d lured The Cat on all fronts, pretending to share her cause.
Her stomach lurched. She felt sick. Brandon probably meant to turn her in when he was done with her. But why go through with the public engagement? Why let her wear the diamonds? Wasn’t he afraid she would steal them? Merciless reality struck. Therein lay the answer. His motives with the jewels were clear now.
He probably hoped she would steal them. Then he could go after her and expose her, or let Witherspoon do his dirty work for him. That was more likely.
She wouldn’t let him get away with it. Cold calculation and the chill of heart-hardening anger slowly replaced the ache in her soul. No one used The Cat. She would strike back at the thing Brandon held most dear. Before she left town, she’d pay Stockport and his friends one last visit. He would realise all his contretemps had been for naught. Although he didn’t know it yet, he’d been right about one thing tonight: he and The Cat weren’t finished yet.
Brandon put a finger to his lips in warning. Jack broke off in mid-sentence, his voice dropping to a low whisper. ‘What is it? Did you hear something?’
Brandon gave a slight nod and launched into a discussion of horses in a voice loud enough to carry to the doorway. If anyone had been there, the conversation should prove to be unexceptional to them. Two gentlemen talking about horseflesh was nothing significant. But Brandon couldn’t shake the feeling that the person had been eavesdropping. It was no accident someone had passed by the door. Someone had deliberately come looking for him or for Jack. He’d heard the sound when he’d risen from his chair.
Mentally, Brandon replayed the conversation in his head, trying to decipher what might have been overheard and how it might have been perceived. It was a risky conversation to fall into the right hands. The mention of his ‘supposed plan’ and mention of The Cat would raise eyebrows if the person knew enough—someone like Cecil Witherspoon or St John.
‘I think we had better head back to the ballroom before anyone takes our absence seriously,’ Brandon suggested. ‘If someone did overhear anything damaging, our quick return should put paid to any suspicion that we’re running a conspiracy.’ He also hoped he would catch a glimpse of those who were mingling in the corridor closer to the ballroom. Perhaps the eavesdropper hadn’t had time to get too far.
‘You might not have heard anything either,’ Jack reminded him as they rose. ‘It is just as likely that a branch scratched the window. It is easy to develop paranoia when you keep secrets.’
‘I would like to think that is all it was,’ Brandon conceded, eager to get back to the ballroom and back to Nora’s side. He didn’t like the notion of leaving her alone in close proximity to Witherspoon, although she was more than capable of handling him.
Brandon breathed easier as he and Jack gained the brightly lit dance floor. No suspects presented themselves in the harmless crowds mingling in the corridor outside the ballroom. Jack was probably right, the sound he’d heard was a branch brushing the windows. Jack clapped him on the shoulder and melted into the crowd, instantly adopting his foppish demeanour as he effortlessly insinuated himself into a group of people.
Brandon scanned the room for Nora, looking for the rich green gown amid a sea of reds and pinks. He could not find her. He quartered the room with his gaze and tried again. The dress, the diamonds and her above-average height should have drawn his gaze immediately, let alone the fact that he was always aware of her presence. She wasn’t in the room. He forced himself not to panic. There were any number of places she might be. She could be strolling on the terrace or sitting in the refreshment room. She could be in the ladies’ retiring room. She could have been the one strolling down the corridor and overheard your conversation, or, rather, Jack’s cynical diatribe.
That brought Brandon up short, his panic renewed. What would Nora think if she had heard Jack talking about the plan? Would she realise Jack was wrong? There had never been a plan. He loved her and meant to marry her. But The Cat was not used to believing the best of people. He had to find her fast before she did something that severed their relationship completely.
Affecting a casual stroll, Brandon moved through the ballroom towards the terrace doors. He nodded to those he knew as he double-checked the clusters of people chatting on the sidelines. He studied the dancers whirling past on the floor in a country polka.
He slipped out the doors to the terrace. His perusal didn’t take long. The evening was cold and few people braved the weather to walk the wide verandah. The lanterns were lit in the garden beyond the terrace, but it, too, was virtually empty. Brandon mentally checked the verandah off his list of possible places. The retiring room would be harder to check since he couldn’t obviously go in.
Brandon returned inside and climbed the elegant walnut staircase to the retiring room. He motioned to one of the young ladies he knew and asked her to check for Nora. Even as he asked, Brandon knew it was futile. Already his search had taken the better part of twenty minutes. If she was in the ladies’ room, she wouldn’t still
be there. The young lady returned and confirmed his thoughts. Nora wasn’t there either.
Back downstairs, he beckoned to Jack and informed him of Nora’s disappearance in a low voice. When Jack’s survey of the card rooms turned up nothing, Brandon sought out the Squire.
‘Lost your wife already?’ The Squire laughed at Brandon’s pensive expression. ‘You’re in luck. She left half an hour ago. Said she had a headache and didn’t want to ruin your fun. She took the carriage and was going to send it back for you.’ The Squire scratched his head. ‘I assumed you knew. The plan seemed so organised. I thought the two of you must have agreed on it together.’
Brandon suppressed the dread that rose in him. It seemed deuced odd that Nora would leave without joining him first when she knew he’d gone off to speak with Jack on business that concerned them both. He would have thought her curiosity would have compelled her to wait before leaving, no matter how her head felt.
The headache bit niggled at him too. Nora was the halest person he knew. She scaled trees, wielded weapons and ran around the countryside at night. That was not the behaviour of someone prone to evening-ending headaches. It all confirmed what he’d intuitively known earlier. She had been the one in the hallway. She’d overheard Jack’s damning remarks. What a cad she must think him, a man no better than her late husband.
‘She must have heard us talking,’ Brandon said as the Squire moved off to mingle with another group. ‘She felt fine when I left her after the first dance. You and I weren’t gone more than a half-hour.’
‘Try not to appear agitated,’ Jack counselled. ‘Witherspoon is looking over here.’ With that, Jack laughed a bit too loudly and slapped Brandon’s shoulder as if they’d shared a grand joke. Witherspoon looked away in disgust. ‘He doesn’t like me much.’ Jack pouted.
‘No one of a puritanical nature likes you, Jack. You’re too idle.’ Brandon grimaced. ‘Let’s go check on my carriage. It may have returned.’
Brandon shoved his hands in his trouser pockets as the footman brought the bad news. His carriage was still missing. ‘There’s been plenty of time for it to come back,’ he mused out loud.
Jack nodded.
Brandon paled as the last vestige of hope slipped away that perhaps Nora had left for other reasons. The idea that she believed he’d manipulated their relationship to protect the mill and to put The Cat out of action sickened him. If she’d heard that, she would bolt. ‘I have to find her and explain, Jack.’
‘A carriage, fast as you can!’ Jack barked to a waiting groom, sending him scurrying for any available conveyance.
‘No, a horse, it will be faster.’ Brandon said and set off after the groom. He’d saddle the beast himself and be off all that much quicker. Time was of the essence. Nora was an expert at disappearing. If she vanished, it would be hard to find her again unless she wanted to be found.
‘Where are we off to?’ Jack queried at his heels.
‘The house,’ Brandon said with little conviction. She would have gone there first to retrieve The Cat’s clothing and to leave the jewels. She would have bargained on having enough time to do that before he realised she was gone and before he could reach her in the absence of his carriage. The little liar had no intentions of sending the carriage back for him. The longer it took him to follow her, the better her chances for escape.
Brandon flung a saddle over the back of one of the Squire’s fastest hunters. Escape! It hurt to think Nora viewed leaving him as an escape. Escape implied so many negative things—stolen freedom, held captive against one’s will.
Brandon leaped into the saddle and spurred the horse out into the night, not bothering to wait for Jack. Every minute counted. He did not know where Nora would go after she left the house and he didn’t dare think of what she’d do.
The mile to his door seemed interminable, even though Brandon knew he was pushing the horse as fast as he dared in the moonlight. The big hunter hardly stopped before Brandon slid off its back and tore open his front door, bellowing, ‘Nora! Nora! Sweetheart, are you here?’
He gained the staircase and heard the sound of running feet on the boards. Hope soared in him. He wasn’t too late. She was still here.
‘My lord, is that you? Thank goodness you’ve come.’ Harper stood at the top of the stairs with a brace of candles along with Ellie and the butler. Brandon’s heart plummeted. It had been their footsteps he’d heard.
‘Is she here?’ Jack burst into the entry.
Brandon swallowed his disappointment. ‘No. We’ve missed her.’ He turned to Harper. ‘How long ago did she leave? Did she say anything?’
Ellie spoke up, her voice trembling. ‘She was only here a few minutes. She stuffed some clothes into a valise and took off her jewels. She didn’t bother to change her gown.’
Brandon nodded grimly. It was as he’d expected. ‘Call the groom in, I want to know if she took her horse.’ He gestured for Jack to follow him and together they mounted the stairs to Brandon’s rooms.
All was as the staff had reported. Her gowns hung in the wardrobe. The personal items he’d purchased for her still lay on the bureau. The Stockport diamonds shimmered on the vanity next to the blue velvet box. Brandon shut his eyes and groaned, not caring if Jack witnessed his distress. The evening had started off with such promise. Now, their vibrant coupling on the floor seemed a lifetime ago.
‘I am sorry, my friend,’ Jack said softly. ‘I can see you’re in pain over this.’
Brandon sighed, pushing a hand through his hair. ‘The thing is, Jack, I am hurting more for her than I am myself. I cannot begin to fathom the depth of betrayal she must be feeling. The level of deceit she thinks me capable of must be devastating.’
‘Now, stop right there.’ Jack took a seat on the edge of the bed and looked stern. ‘I think you might possibly assume too much. She might have been playing you the whole time. According to your arrangement, your association expired after the ball. For all you know, she was leaving tomorrow anyway. If she overheard us, she might have felt it was safer to leave immediately instead of waiting for you to pull a fast one and have her arrested in the morning.’
‘God. I am an idiot.’ Brandon swore softly, sinking on to the bench in front of the vanity. When had he stopped thinking about her as The Cat? At what point had he started seeing her only as Nora? He’d been blind to all the nuances outside their relationship. She’d so cleverly used sex and self-disclosure to weave a web of intimacy around them that cocooned him from all else going on under his nose. He had loved her. Had she ever loved him? At any point had she cared for him?
He thought of her resistance to his proposal. He’d been a fool not to see it for what it was—the oldest trick in the book of female wiles. It had been nothing but a clever rendition of playing hard to get. She’d kept him panting after her right up to the end with her bed tricks. Even tonight, just hours ago, she’d writhed beneath him in hot passion on this very floor, making him believe she cared, that she might stay, that she might accept his honourable proposal.
‘Brandon, I’m not saying that’s how it was,’ Jack cajoled. ‘I simply believe it bears thinking about. I don’t want you torturing yourself with unnecessary guilt.’
A knock sounded and Harper entered. ‘The groom’s downstairs, my lord.’
Brandon looked up, all business. ‘I’ll be there in a moment. Have him wait in my study.’ Brandon stood up and brushed at his trousers. ‘There may be some truth in what you say, my friend,’ he said to Jack. ‘I suspect we’ll know soon enough what The Cat really felt for me.’
‘I hope I am wrong.’
‘I don’t hold much hope at all.’
His words proved fortuitous. By eleven o’clock the next morning, the whole village knew, in spite of the late night of dancing at the Squire’s, that The Cat had appeared in Manchester and hit the homes on Cheetham Hill. Not just one house, but three. All three homes were occupied by major investors in the mill and all three of the homes’ occupants had been away
from home at the Squire’s ball in Stockport-on-the-Medlock. Expensive items were missing, far beyond the usual prey of silver candlesticks and small pieces of jewellery.
Brandon speculated as to the reason for such a large-scale robbery. The Cat was getting ready to move on and needed enough funds to start over in a new place. She would need enough time to establish her new identity and to study the terrain. His careless conversation with Jack had forced her to it—or maybe Jack was right and it was inevitable.
Either way, the outcome pained him. He could not bring himself to go into town and hear the news first-hand. Instead, he sent Jack so he could stay hidden away at home, wallowing in self-pity.
Footsteps and a voice in the hallway alerted Brandon that his sanctuary had been invaded. Moments later, the butler announced the arrival of St John and Witherspoon. There was no denying them. He had to see them.
‘Gentlemen, please come in.’ Brandon gestured to the empty seats in front of his desk. He decided to address the issue head on. It would be useless to pretend he didn’t know why they’d come. ‘I hear The Cat has been busy again. I had hoped we’d seen the last of him.’
‘Or her, as the case may be,’ Witherspoon did not hesitate to put in. ‘We mean to catch The Cat once and for all. I’ve spent the morning putting together a watch crew. Each of the investors’ homes will be heavily guarded from now on. Additionally, we’ve organised a patrol to guard the mill. Now that the framing has begun, the construction site is more vulnerable than ever. There’s actually something there now that could be burnt down or blown up. St John has organised a little militia to roam the countryside.’
‘A militia?’ Brandon repeated, trying to sound cool. He trained a gimlet eye on St John with the intent of intimidating him with his hauteur. ‘Isn’t that word a little exaggerated?’ He could only imagine how absurd the farmers would look armed with their pitchforks and scythes.
Bronwyn Scott's Sexy Regency Bundle Page 22
