by Jo Beverley
“I left a note, of course, begging her to tell the men that we were out somewhere. She must have, for they didn’t catch us . . . Oh, dear.”
“What?”
“I don’t think I said where I was going. Just that I was taking Harry to you. It seemed obvious, but they’ll think I’ve gone to Mrs. Delaney’s.”
“Lord, what a tangle. What could Lord Caldfort have wanted? Jack’s here. In Draycombe.”
Juliet paled. “So I’ve brought Harry into danger?”
“Not particularly, but it complicates everything. But you did do the right thing, love. Thank you. I wouldn’t want Harry at Caldfort House without me. But now we’ll have Father or Ned here soon, and look what they’ll find. We should all return to Redoaks. . . .”
But Laura looked out at the setting sun and knew it would be folly to attempt the journey now, especially with Juliet and Harry so weary.
“First thing tomorrow morning,” she said.
Despite his nap on the journey, Harry’s head was drooping, so Laura went over and scooped him into her arms. “Come on, Minnow. More adventures tomorrow.”
She peeled him out of his grubby clothes and washed crumbs off his face and hands without much help from him, poor darling. Then she tucked him into the big bed. She snuggled with him for a while, singing the songs he liked.
He opened his eyes and frowned. “You look strange, Mama.”
“I know, Minnow. But it’s just a game.”
He wriggled closer. “I missed you.”
She fought tears. “I missed you, too. A lot.”
“Go down to the sea tomorrow?”
Laura almost said yes, but she didn’t make promises she couldn’t keep. “Maybe, love. But if we can’t, we’ll come back to the sea very soon. That’s a promise.” She stroked his hair. “Go to sleep, Harry. There’ll be many more adventures.”
And that’s a promise, too.
She sang some more until he was sound asleep, warm and precious in her arms. She settled his head on the pillow but her hand lingered on his hair, unwilling to break that final connection. She wanted to stay here all night but she couldn’t. There were plans to make.
Especially as her bold venture had failed.
No, failed was too harsh. Chance had been against her, but Henry Gardeyne was not alive and Harry was still the Caldfort heir. Even if no one tried to force it, he would have to spend some time at Caldfort House because once Lord Caldfort died, it would be his property and his home.
Apart from all the other problems, he was too young for that. If it didn’t oppress him, it could spoil him.
She could protect him from that, but the greatest threat would always be Jack. She wished she were the sort of woman who could shoot the man in cold blood.
No, no, that would be evil, and she still had no proof. Even if he’d come to Draycombe to kill HG, that was only slight evidence that he would kill Harry. Jack might be here simply to investigate the letter, in which case he, too, would eventually discover that HG was a fraud and everything would return to the way it had been.
Except that she and Harry now had Stephen on their side—especially if Stephen became Harry’s stepfather.
She smiled wryly. After working herself up to settling it by seduction, she’d left it too late. Did one get credit in heaven for forced virtue?
She leaned down to brush the lightest possible kiss on her unwitting chaperon’s forehead, then eased away. She locked the door into the corridor to keep him as safe as possible, then returned to the parlor.
“Dead to the world,” she said, but then winced at that expression.
“What have you discovered here?” Juliet asked. “Is Henry Gardeyne alive?”
Laura sat with a bit of a thump. “Alas, no.” She told the tale, which made no more sense than it usually did.
“So what will you do now?”
Laura was tempted to lay her ethical uncertainties about marrying Stephen before her sister, but they were even more complex and peculiar than the situation with HG and Farouk.
“Stephen will help. Perhaps Jack can be convinced it will be too risky to try anything.”
“And you and Stephen?”
“Are living in perfect virtue.”
“What a shame.”
“Ju!”
“I’m sorry, but this is a perfect situation for . . . adventures.”
“For follies. And look at me.”
Juliet pulled a face. “I’d rather not.”
“Precisely.”
“I assume you take it off at night.”
“Ju,” Laura warned, but added, “Except for the mole. It’s stuck like a barnacle.”
Juliet reached over and squeezed her hand. “He’ll be more enthusiastic when you look your normal self.”
More enthusiastic than that searing kiss? Heaven preserve her.
Chapter 40
Laura went to the window, searching for Stephen, but the light was going and she couldn’t tell if he was still out there on the beach. Avoiding her.
“I wish he’d return,” she said. “We need to sort out our plans. You, Harry, and I need to leave at first light, but I wish I could see HG safe first.”
“It’s the sort of thing you can leave in a man’s hands.”
“But I want to see this adventure through.”
Stephen walked in then and stopped dead. “What on earth . . . ?” Then he closed the door. “Trouble?”
Laura, heart suddenly spinning, tried to tell him the story but her words became tangled and Juliet took over. Stephen’s return seemed to have changed the air in the room. There was either too little or too much.
“Caldfort?” he said, sitting at the table and helping himself to a scone. “I don’t believe he would want to harm Harry, but even so, you were right, Juliet. Though this certainly puts some extra knots in the rope.”
“Especially,” said Laura, coherent again, “as my father, my brother, or both are doubtless on their way now to Redoaks, expecting to find me there. I can’t get there before they do.”
Stephen thought for a moment, then rose. “I’ll send a message to Nicholas telling him to report that you’re visiting . . . Crag Wyvern, I suppose. Another message to Kerslake to cover that. You can go there first thing tomorrow.”
“Goodness,” Juliet said. “Instant brilliance. I am impressed.”
So was Laura, but she told him with only a smile. “But what about Juliet?”
He’d brought his traveling desk into the parlor and was beginning to write. “Can’t smooth that over entirely. You’ll have to tell your father about your fears. When Juliet turned up at Redoaks, Nicholas sent . . . No, I think Nicholas had better theoretically escort Juliet to Crag Wyvern. If he can’t, he’ll send her with a groom. Check it over to see if it makes sense,” he said, and settled to writing.
“I think so,” Laura said. “So I was never here.” But then she asked, “Why did I go to Crag Wyvern alone?”
“Blast. All right”—he rolled a paper and tossed it into the fire—“Nicholas, Eleanor, and Arabel will have to travel there tomorrow and have their servants say they went today. Thus you went with your hosts to visit the peculiar place. Juliet was taken on by a groom to join you.”
“But Stephen,” Laura protested, “that’s a terrible imposition.”
He looked at her. “They’re Rogues.”
Laura shared a look with Juliet, but she supposed if the Delaneys cooperated the plan might work. Her time here as Priscilla Penfold would never be known.
He finished the letters, then sealed them. “I’ll take these down and send them by grooms.”
He was soon back. “That’s done, and Topham says that tomorrow, assuming the weather’s fine, the best way to Crag Wyvern will be by boat. It’s true that it’s either a long road inland or a rough way over the top.” He let out a breath. “Right. Anything happening next door?”
“Nothing. But of course, Farouk went out. HG was hardly likely to take to soliloquy. �
�Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I,’ ” she quoted from Hamlet, but the combination of rogue and slave made her chuckle.
“What are you talking about?” Juliet asked.
Laura rose. “Come and see.”
Juliet was delighted with the listening device, but soon lost interest when there was nothing to be heard. Laura led the way back into the parlor, astonished at how this latest turn had already settled into a sort of normality.
Juliet yawned. “I think I need to go to bed, too.”
“We can all share my bed, Ju.”
“No.”
Laura stared at Stephen.
“You snore, Juliet—”
“What?” Laura exclaimed, looking between the two of them.
Stephen burst out laughing, and after a moment, Juliet joined him. Clearly they hadn’t been lovers, but Laura didn’t like being laughed at.
“Don’t be a goose, Laura,” Stephen said. “I was creating a convenient excuse. Juliet snores, and you, as Mrs. Penfold, can’t abide that. Therefore Juliet and her child, which is how it must appear, will have a separate room.”
“Oh, I see . . . But Harry’s already asleep in mine.”
“Then you can move into mine, and I will move down the corridor.”
Was he, Laura wondered, attempting to make it possible for them to tryst in the night? It both tempted and shocked her. To do that with her sister and her child so close?
“That,” he continued, with wicked delight in his eyes, “will mean that I will share a wall with HG’s bedchamber. Perhaps they talk of secrets there.”
“Oh, how clever!” Juliet declared.
Oh, how damnably practical, Laura thought.
“What is the point in listening?” she demanded. “We know enough.”
“There’s no such thing as knowing enough.”
In moments, it was arranged. Juliet joined Harry in Laura’s bed and was almost instantly asleep. Stephen, along with his clothing, his brush, and his shaving things, moved down the corridor.
But his essence remained. Laura had deliberately brushed aside any question of changing the sheets. At least tonight she would be able to nuzzle his pillow without need of explanation.
They ordered dinner and sat to it, just the two of them again. They ate in companionable harmony, reviewing their plans.
“At least we solved the mystery posed by the letter,” she said at the end, and raised a glass to him.
He drank, but said, “Without finding a new heir to Caldfort.”
“Knowing HG isn’t Henry Gardeyne is important.”
“Your work entirely.”
She understood then that he wanted to be the dashing hero.
“You found the Auricular Enhancer.”
He didn’t swell with pride. “Which actually revealed little of that we didn’t already know.”
“It confirmed Algeria.”
“Which you’d already discovered in corsairs.” He toasted her. “You are the hero of this story, Laura.”
She reached for his hand. “Heroes. We are equal. Or are you demanding the greater part by nature of being a lordly male?”
As she’d hoped, that brought a touch of humor to his eyes. “Checkmate?”
“I could have done none of this without you. Without you, I would probably have stayed at Merrymead, worrying to no purpose.”
He turned his hand to hold hers. “I suggested this plan almost entirely to get you here alone with me.”
She blinked at him. “That was very clever.”
“Clever, I am.”
“I like clever. And you know, comparisons are hardly fair. You’re here as Sir Stephen Ball, MP, watched, admired, and having to take tea with the Grantleighs and the vicar. I’m infernal Mrs. Penfold, able to poke, pry, and pester. If you’d come here as a warty groom, you’d doubtless have had a lot more fun.”
“I would have liked to be that kind of hero.” But he stood and paced away to look down into the fire. “That is irrational. My friends—particularly Nicholas—have suffered in their heroics. It has sometimes spilled over to hurt their dearest ones, as with Arabel. I would never want that.”
She was trying to think of the right thing to say when he turned to her. “But I wish they wouldn’t exclude me.”
She recognized a secret feeling offered to her. “ ‘They also serve who only stand and wait,’ ” she said, quoting Milton.
“That, if you remember, was a bitter commentary on his blindness.”
“You are Sir Stephen Ball, MP. It must be a wearisome burden, but it’s a noble calling and the Rogues recognize that.”
His lips were tight. “Is that how you see me? As a saint to be preserved from taint? Would you be acting differently if I were sinful Hal Gardeyne?”
“Of course I would.” Before she could continue, words spilled out of him.
“Hal Gardeyne! One among hundreds of English sporting bucks who are as much use as drones in a hive. They create a new generation, then kill themselves in one stupid activity or another.”
She was speechless.
He turned away, pressing hands to his face. “I’m sorry.”
All kinds of soothing words rose to her lips, but she had to remind him, “Hal was Harry’s father, Stephen. He must be allowed to be proud of his father.”
He lowered his hands, but stayed staring into the fire. “I know. I apologize. I would never say such things to your son, but it is probably as well that this is over.”
Laura thought of arguing, but what was there to say? Walking backward, trembling slightly, she retreated to her room, his room, and closed the door.
Stephen’s assessment had been cruelly accurate, but what did that make her? A queen bee? No, just a skylark, another creature with no purpose except to sing and breed.
But what was so wrong with that? Anger stirred, and she turned to go back, to debate, but thought better of it. He was right. People were not animals and should contribute more to the world.
She knew that wasn’t even the point. Stephen’s uncontrolled outburst spoke of his feelings for her, feelings even more intense than she had guessed. Like a stick roll on a drum, they resonated in her, especially here where his presence lingered. She hugged herself, trying to confine a pounding desire that combined physical want with a need for everything that was Stephen.
Chapter 41
When he heard a door open and shut, Stephen turned to confirm that Laura had gone.
That had certainly done it.
How peculiar that he’d thrown away the one thing he’d dreamed of for years. The one thing that he’d devoted a year of careful thought and planning to winning. Better his opinion of Gardeyne had spilled now rather than later, after he’d cleverly coaxed her to the altar.
He laughed. His bitter words had been accurate, but quite unwarranted. He knew dozens or more of such drones and hardly gave them a harsh thought. Sometimes he even enjoyed their company.
Hal Gardeyne’s sin had not been his wasteful way of life. It had been marrying Laura Watcombe.
Stephen settled to duty, since it would seem he had nothing else left. He summoned the maid to clear away the dinner. He considered staying on guard here, but there was no need. Jack Gardeyne had no notion that Laura and his nephew were here, so he wouldn’t creep in to attempt murder.
Stephen knew that he wanted to hover near Laura, but he wouldn’t embarrass her by being here if she came out of the bedchamber. He put out the candles and made sure the logs in the hearth were safe, then left the parlor. After consideration, he took the key and locked the door as an additional safeguard, but pushed the key back under the gap beneath the door.
In his new room, which totally lacked that hint of Laura that had tormented and delighted him for days, he rang for his water. When it came, he stripped and washed. Not the faintest likelihood of being disturbed tonight, so he didn’t bother with a nightshirt and just put on his banyan.
Now what?
All that remained was duty, so he p
icked up the Auricular Enhancer, though he doubted the two extortionists would reveal anything new. The instrument worked as well from this wall, and the two men were in the bedchamber. Their voices were muffled, however. Perhaps they had the bed-curtains drawn.
They slept together?
Personal servants often shared a bed with their employers, though he’d have expected Farouk to sleep on the trundle bed. Because, he realized, Farouk was dark-skinned and therefore inferior. It was an attitude Stephen fought. Shameful to be caught by it here.
People did often reveal more in darkness in a bed than they would in daylight, so Stephen strained to hear what was said.
He only caught fragments.
“. . . fair . . .”
“... when ...”
“. . . care of you, nuranee.” Stephen assumed that must be Arabic. A term of respect? Or how an owner addressed a slave?
Oh, what did it matter?
“. . . love . . .”
Love? It was then that Stephen interpreted the pattern of what he was hearing, and it was confirmed by a gasping cry.
He stepped back, staring at the wall.
Great Zeus. HG was a woman? Laura had said he was delicately made, but it must be a brilliant impersonation to have convinced her, convinced everyone. It explained a lot—Captain Dyer’s lack of knowledge of military matters, for example—but made other details more mystifying than ever.
An Englishwoman who’d been a slave in a harem? Had she been rescued by Farouk? It ran too close to the storyline of Byron’s Corsair, but he supposed it was possible.
It might explain why the pair had avoided Lord Exmouth, who would want to return the lady to her proper home. No matter how heroic, Farouk would hardly be acceptable here as a husband. Especially if HG’s home really had been a stern Methodist one. Stephen laughed at the thought.
Perhaps the situation wasn’t so mystifying, except for this attempt to defraud the Gardeynes.
As he put away the Auricular Enhancer, he supposed this might make sorting out the situation simpler. If the lady wished to be with Farouk . . . but marriage between a Christian and a Mahometan?
Lord above.
And what would they live on, lacking Lord Caldfort’s ten thousand guineas?
