by Suzi Love
She gasped and wrapped her arms around her body, hugging herself. “I knew something was wrong.”
He longed to haul back into his own arms, if only to offer comfort, but his yearning was too raw to risk any contact. “Yes, it appears your prediction proved correct. Again. How do you know these things? As soon as they happen.”
She shrugged. “Perhaps it’s my grandmother’s Scottish blood.”
“Your brothers seem to think you’ve inherited more than your grandmother’s Scottish blood. They think you’ve the second sight, like her.” She shrugged again, neither agreeing nor denying that she may have inherited pre-eminence. He prodded a little deeper, trying to prompt a response from her. “Perhaps you already knew. Because I’m certain that you still haven’t shared everything you know about these new syndicates.”
“Do you think Longman’s public objections to the methods being used by the new consortium frightened them enough to abduct him?”
“Huh. Another change of subject, Laura?” She dipped her head and broke their connection, the stubborn fool. “If you don’t confide in me, how can I help you? And you know I’ll discover all you secrets eventually anyway.” He growled his frustration when she remained silent. “So far, I know nothing about Longman’s abductors. But the Yard have sent investigators. I’ll visit my friends there in the morning and find out if they’ve discovered anything.”
“It’s going to end up like before. I can feel it.” She threw up her hands and started to pace, though her recording room was so small she ended up walking around him in dizzying circles. “The elite members, the ones in the inner circle, will put pressure on their friends. Anyone who refuses to invest with them will be prodded into joining by other means. With Michael, they applied pressure by threatening to harm us, his siblings. When he refused to give them any information about our forthcoming share trading, the inner circle of the Syndicate harassed us by watching this house, day and night, and following us wherever we went.”
Richard sighed, understanding Laura’s frustration and worried about the dark circles under her eyes. Recent traumas had left them all restless and uncertain and robbed them of sound sleep, and Laura’s crotchety disposition during the past week had only been another symptom of her anxiety. He certainly didn’t blame her for being out of sorts. The wedding, his cousin’s demands to ignore Laura’s protests and stay close to the women, everything was making them wary and contrary. And not only Laura; for their normally serene sister, Lottie, had also seemed on edge at the wedding. The sisters looked in every direction each time they left the house, as if planning their escape routes in case they were accosted.
He reached out and took Laura’s arm to stop her circling, and then led her to the old day-bed which was tucked under the ledge running along one of the angular wall. He seated himself beside her, but was careful to leave a two-foot space between them.
“You’ve been through a lot this past year. Neither you nor your brothers and sisters backed down from the Hetheringtons, even after they had Peggy killed.”
“We had no choice. Scotland Yard needed our help. Becca wouldn’t even have involved Sherwyn if we hadn’t needed to search those houses for evidence. The Hetheringtons were becoming desperate for money.”
“That’s exactly why I want you well away from here.” He shifted closer and took her hand in his. “Let me deal with Lady Hetherington. I’m seeing my friends at Scotland Yard in the morning.”
“No. You don’t know what that woman like I do. She will destroy you if she thinks you’re involved with us.”
“If she knows Sherwyn’s gone, she’ll already have me in her sights. And if this new syndicate hasn’t connected me with your family, they’ll be contacting me anyway.”
“Why?”
“Because they’ll need to recruit every wealthy and highly-titled peer they can, so they have enough leverage to push others into investing with them. Without appearing immodest, I’ll be one of the first they approach. And I can guess at the others they’re most likely to ask. Time is short for them. People in a hurry make mistakes.”
“If you’re right, I hope their mistakes cost them, but not us.”
“Indeed.” He nodded. “And I promise you that if Lady Hetherington is in London, I’ll find where she’s hiding and have Scotland Yard send her back to the asylum.”
“But will we find her in time? Before she brings more grief to our families.”
The look in her eyes nearly brought him to his knees. Laura might not love him as a woman who had fallen in love with a man, but there was a depth of feeling reflected in her gaze that warmed his soul and pierced his heart. Who was he trying to fool? No matter how many times he told her, or himself, that he wasn’t the man she needed forever in her life, he wanted her to look at him, not as a brother related by marriage, but as the man she desired above all others.
She stared up him, eyes pleading. “Richard, we know how desperate the Hetheringtons were to eliminate us before. Please take care. I don’t want you to be her next victim in her sights.”
He smiled.
“What,” she asked with a puzzled frown.
“I enjoy the times you forget yourself and call me Richard.”
“And I enjoy the times when you forget yourself and kiss me.”
“Touché.” He touched his fingers to her cheek and she bent her head to his hand, nuzzling it like a newborn seeking solace. “If I hear more news of Longman, I’ll send word.”
“No, you’ll come in person.”
He nodded, accepting that he was destined to always do what he could to make her life easier. His news might bring her joy, and he wanted to bring a smile to her face. Or if Longman’s condition had deteriorated, he wanted to be comfort her in her distress.
As she turned to open the door of their secluded hidey-hole he asked, “What is this room? I’ve never noticed it before.”
She laughed. “Good. I prefer my dungeon to remain secret. Solitude is impossible in this household, but I like to be alone when I’m planning a new mixture.”
He chuckled at the picture of brave Laura hiding in here to avoid being dragged to Bond Street by her aunt. In contrast to most women of her age and status, she considered shopping a boorish chore to be attended to only when absolutely necessary.
“Rather prettily decorated for a dungeon,” he said, as he fingered the silk shawls thrown across the back of the day-bed. Hues of every color of the rainbow in cushions and rugs lifted her hidey-hole from a cell to a tasteful and warm haven; so Laura must visit the importers’ warehouses even she resisted the crowds on Bond Street. “A retreat fit for a princess.”
She shrugged. “Sometimes I imagine I’m in the tower of a castle. Sometimes this is a laboratory and I am the first woman scientist to achieve world-fame. Here I concoct potions to wipe out all evil in the world. Depends on my mood.” She dropped her gaze, as if embarrassed by her admission. “Besides which, this is the perfect place to avoid my father on his infrequent visits. The Earl and I disagree on which is more important, aromatic plants or large slabs of Roman rock. He considers growing lavender and herbs a waste of his land.”
“I may have noticed his indifference on the last occasion I encountered him,” he said dryly. “Why does he ridicule your friends and belittle your research?”
She dropped her head and he followed the movement down, noticing her tightly clenched fingers. “Father accepts that Becca and I are labeled bluestockings and prefers to think that is an endorsement of his intellect and teaching. He praises Becca because her share trading provides Papa with money, so he can leave and excavate Roman ruins all over Britain. And Lottie’s physiognomy and phrenology?” She shrugged. “The Earl is unaware that his prettiest daughter refuses to use her feminine wiles to lure gentlemen into revealing their fiscal secrets. He would be horrified to discover she studies facial features and reads head shapes, a mystical science. He accepts brains or beauty in his daughters. I offer him neither.”
“
That is utter nonsense. You have a unique combination of both.”
“Not according to the Earl. He only tolerates Mr. Lyell, because Charles’s interests lie more with geology. A tangible science that an archaeologist can appreciate.”
“Ah. So that is why the Earl encourages your visits to the Geological Society, despite sneering at its members.”
She made a sound of derision. “Father has no interest in the formation of Pacific atolls, or the subsidence of coral reefs. He needs me to report on Charles’s research into obsidian and other rocks. And he clings to the ludicrous ideas of Jonathon becoming the next Curate of the Society, and therefore being able to grant Papa money for more digs.”
“I thought Charlesworth coveted the position of Curate.”
She stared at him, her gaze shrewdly assessing. “For someone who claims to have no interest in these branches of science, Winchester, you are remarkably well-informed.”
“I like to keep abreast of new discoveries in many fields.”
Laura didn’t need to know that his interest in these scientific societies was more about the nature of the men who frequented them, than any compulsion to classify rocks or which Pacific atoll was likely to sink first. Sherwyn did the same, as Richard had encountered his cousin at the Academy and the Geological Society and several of other scientific haunts. His cousin had laughed off Richard’s declaration that Sherwyn embarrassed the family name with his love-sick following of his intended to all the most boring places in London. His large and looming presence at Becca’s side, the Duke had explained, was a visible warning to the large groups of men his beloved exchanged ideas with: that the Duke of Sherwyn would personally deal with any man who looked twice at his lady-love or touched a strand of Becca’s magnificent red hair.
Laura’s opinions closely mirrored Becca’s regarding men who ruled their women’s lives with a whip hand. Both ladies would blacken the eye of any man who blocked their thirst for knowledge. For women were barred from university lectures, that left discussion groups at various houses or note-taking at in lecture halls across London. Richard justified his own presence by using his two sisters, younger versions of blue-stockings, as his excuse. He was nothing more than a devoted brother, who liked to keep a close eye on his sisters and their whereabouts.
Only a week ago, Sherwyn had raised his haughty brows and asked, “You’re only here to watch over your sisters? No one else?”
He’d shrugged it off and replied, “Sherwyn, you and I know that, deep at heart, all men are rakes. When a desirable woman crosses their paths, good intentions often fly out the window.”
“All well and good to mistrust other men’s motives for befriending your sisters, Richard, but don’t lose sight of your own good intentions when you’re with any other desirable woman.”
Considering how few women visited these meeting halls, Richard should have asked Sherwyn to clarify which woman he referred to, though at that moment he’d been distracted by the sight of one of Mr. Darwin’s associates—was it his cousin?—who had leaned towards Laura and bent his head close enough to listen to her, so that his nose had practically bumped her chest. Richard hadn’t been near enough to see exactly where the scoundrel was looking, but he had a pretty good idea that his gaze was directly down the front of Laura’s bodice.
Only after Sherwyn had moved away, had Richard considered the incident. Had his cousin noticed how many times Richard and his sisters bumped into Laura at these places? Could Sherwyn suspect Richard’s relationship with Laura—on the surface that of combatants—was not as it appeared? He’d caught the speculative look in Lottie’s eye more than once, when she’d appraised the way he and Laura circled each other in public. Perhaps, despite his downplaying an amicable relationship between them, the entire family suspected his feelings were quite the reverse. That he cared far more for Laura than he showed in their prickly conversations.
“Apart from which,” Laura was saying, “Father considers me the most boisterous of his children so, by assigning me this thick-walled room, my noise wouldn’t rattle his ears or distract the servants.”
Time someone advised the old Earl and his narrow-minded stupidity about the way he treated his middle daughter, and Richard had many powerful ways to make him listen. A letter might take weeks to reach the Earl, but Richard would feel much better after he’d written it.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” he muttered, knowing her father considered Laura a nuisance and her studies insignificant and blight on the family name. He looked around. “You don’t store your oils and herbs here.”
“No. Another wise move on my father’s part. After I burned down the gardener’s shed–”
He chortled. “Another of your small mishaps?”
She scowled at him, looking as ferocious as the gargoyle that would have guarded her castle’s fore keep in yesteryears. “My mishaps are few and far between, yet everyone is determined to recall them whenever something goes awry. The gardener wasn’t pleased to have lost part of his shed, so my father decided to allocate me my own dispensary. This way, I can distil my oils and brew lotions to my heart’s content, and if I inadvertently cause any small fires or explosions, twill be only me who is injured.”
He disliked the indifferent way she announced the possibility of her own demise. “I’m certain your father didn’t intend you any pain by his actions.”
“Papa never intends pain. He simply cannot deal with real people in a living world. Which is why he escapes to his archaeological digs whenever possible and leaves us all to our own devices.”
“Suddenly, I see things a lot more clearly.”
She dropped her gaze to the carpet, and absently ran her hand along the spines of the leather bound volumes arrayed on the bookcase fronting the door.
“There is nothing for you to see, Winchester. I know you and your persistent ways. You never leave a thing alone until you unravel the entire mystery. Well, there is no mystery here.” She flung her arms wide. “What you see is what you get.”
“It’s obvious that not only do you suffer from an insecurity about not living up to the high and exacting standards set by other members of your family–”
“I’m not jealous of my family.”
She looked so defiant, so alone, that his heart broke for her. In a flash of intuition, her motives became apparent to him. Why she drove herself so unrelentingly and why she pushed herself to do more and more.
“Not jealous, no. Constantly comparing yourself to them and finding yourself coming up short. Yes. Your father’s defection possibly started you on this path, but your own insecurities have taken hold. For no reason, either. Sweetheart, never think that if anything happened to you that people would not grieve.”
“Would you?” As soon as she spoke the words, she looked shocked at herself. She shook her head. “No, no. Please. Do not say anything.”
He took her hands, willing the trembling in his limbs to cease so she wouldn’t notice the abject fear the idea shot through his being. “Sweetheart, if anything happened to you, my heart would forever be empty.”
She nodded, and turned to walk him back to the door. The slump of her shoulders, usually held so high as an act of bravado against every detractor who stepped in her path, told the story. This fearless woman, still of an age when life should be treating her like a princess, and when compared to his years of experience barely an adult in age, deserved more. He wanted to make her promises for the future. To vow to take care of her, help her understand she was worthy of being fêted and protected and—
He stopped, shocked at where his thoughts were headed. Naturally, if someone asked, he’d say he loved Laura. He’d make the same declaration regarding her two sisters, even her madcap aunt. But what he’d almost admitted placed a different perspective on the idea of loving someone.
She looked at him quizzically.
His erratic behavior confused him. What must it do to her? She should hate him, revile his attitudes, yet tonight she’d offered hersel
f to him with such sweet innocence, he’d been shaken to his core. Then and there, he vowed to hasten the process of locating Lady Hetherington. To uncover her financial center and take strong steps to shatter any plans she had, long before they came to fruition. Long before any of the dirt clinging to these evil people came within a whiff of Laura.
At the door, he turned, lifted her chin. “You’re brave, strong and beautiful. Any man will be lucky to have you as a wife, Laura, remember that.”
Unable to help himself, he dipped his head and touched his lips to her pursed mouth.
Once, twice, and again. He brushed back and forth, savoring her sweetness, and locking the memory away to be pulled out at future times, lonelier times without her.
“Goodnight, little temptress.”
Chapter Eight
The next day, the Earl of Winchester leaned back in his desk chair at Martin House Minor in Berkley Square, so named in jest by the family to distinguish it from Martin House in Mayfair, the residence of his cousin, the Duke.
He linked his hands behind his head, faced his man of all work, Whittaker, and tried to concentrate on the present conversation, rather than dwell on what might, or might not have happened in the early hours in Laura’s hidey-hole. For the past hour, he and Whittaker had been hammering out strategies for upcoming investments: coal mines in Wales, factories in Birmingham and new railway lines across England.
A few minutes ago, they’d moved on to a discussion of the new consortium, which was the main gossip around the Exchange and its surrounding cafes on Threadneedle Street. Financiers were abuzz with news of several new syndicates being formed, and everyone was guessing as to who the mastermind was this time. Had Lady Hetherington truly managed to escape the asylum? Was London going to be safe if she made some sort of triumphant return to the underworld?
Dammit, they still seemed to be behind the eight ball. Running to catch up to Lady Hetherington, or whoever was the new mastermind pulling the strings. The wedding had been disrupted by shots, people could have been killed, and Richard was frustrated they’d made so little progress in their hint for the shooter. Either his reactions were slowing down, or this group was incredibly well-organized. Not that he was about to admit that to Laura and her family.
