Picking his way with care and taking his cue from her, he said, “Very well. If you don’t wish to marry me, since as you’ve pointed out, it is your decision to make, I shall withdraw my offer.”
Ignoring the twist in her heart, her initial burst of anger disappearing, she mumbled, “Thank you.”
“And what occurred between us?” Asher asked with a cocked brow. “Do we pretend that it never happened and forget about it?”
“Of course!”
He shrugged. If she wanted to play it that way, so be it, but it was going to be a hell of a long time before he forgot what her mouth tasted like and how that temptingly curved body felt pressed next to his. He didn’t think he’d ever wanted a woman as badly as he wanted her. He wasn’t used to being denied and remembering how close they’d come to joining, he felt pressure build in his groin.
Suppressing a curse, he turned away from her and said, “Now that we have that out of the way, you want to tell me why we’re here? And what Ormsby has to do with it?”
More to give herself time than anything else, Juliana reached down and picked up her cloak where it had fallen to the floor. Her eyes on her cloak, she folded it neatly over her arm and said, “You were in Ormsby’s library to rob him, weren’t you?”
“Perhaps. Why do you want to know?” He swung back to face her and his gaze narrowed. “You were there to rob him yourself, weren’t you?”
She swallowed and nodded. This was the moment she’d dreaded. It had seemed so logical when she had first considered the idea, but now that she was faced with telling another person how foolish Thalia had been, she hesitated. Did she trust Asher enough? Would she be exchanging one blackmailer for another?
No, she decided firmly. She had proven embarrassingly incompetent when it came to sneaking about undetected and attempting theft. A shudder went through her as she remembered that moment of sheer terror when Ormsby had almost caught her in his library. She had had every right to be in Ormsby’s house and even with that advantage, she hadn’t been successful. Uninvited, Asher had managed to find his way into Ormsby’s London house, which she admitted, showed a certain amount of skill. Skills she didn’t possess. He was male, too, which also gave him an advantage that she didn’t have.
For her to make another attempt to find and steal Thalia’s letters, unless she was foolhardy enough to break into his home, she’d have to wait for Ormsby to invite her to his country house and hope that an opportunity presented itself, but Asher…Asher obviously didn’t suffer from those constraints. He’d already broken into Ormsby’s London residence—why would he balk at breaking into another house owned by Ormsby?
His voice gentle, Asher broke into her thoughts. “Is he blackmailing you?”
She shook her head. “No.”
Pushing her down onto one of the wooden stools, Asher took the one across from her and said, “Tell me.”
She stared into his dark face for several seconds, studying him. It was her sister’s future she was risking. Did she dare? Could she trust him?
Her gaze dropped and, twisting her hands in her lap, she realized she had no choice, that she’d known the moment she’d written him that she’d have to trust him. “Suppose Ormsby did have something,” she hedged, “say some indiscreet letters that he was using to blackmail someone with, could you steal them from him?”
“Of course.”
Her head jerked up. “You sound very confident.”
“I got into his London town house, didn’t I?”
“Asher, getting into his house would be the least of your worries,” she replied tartly. “How will you find the letters? How will you know where to look? He could hide them anywhere.”
He pulled on his ear. “Most people are creatures of habit. Ormsby probably has one particular hiding place that he keeps…things that are valuable to him. I’m not saying I could find the letters my first time into the house, but it wouldn’t take me long. There are only so many places someone like Ormsby would hide certain things.”
When she didn’t say anything, he leaned forward, caught one of her twisting hands between his, and said quietly, “I can help you, if you’ll let me. Tell me.”
And so she did.
Chapter 5
Asher didn’t say a word for several minutes after Juliana finished speaking, but his expression said more than enough.
Juliana stood it as long as she could and then a little angrily, she said, “I know it was wrong of Thalia, but you have to remember how young she is, was.”
“Your sister,” he finally said in tones of great disgust, “would deserve it if she found herself married to Ormsby. Of all the addle-brained—”
The martial light in Juliana’s eye made him think better of what he had been going to say. He held up a hand and muttered, “Pax!” When Juliana gave him a curt nod, he asked, “Do you know how many letters we’re talking about?”
“Yes. Three.”
“And how long do we have to get them back?”
Juliana bit her lip. “I’ve been able to postpone the house party until the end of the first week of August—a month from now. Caswell will no doubt be angling to see Thalia before then, but with Thalia not feeling well”—she half smiled—“and covered in spots, I don’t think we have to worry about him for at least two weeks, perhaps even three. I believe the same would apply to Ormsby, although he will be harder to keep at bay, since his motives are entirely different than Caswell’s.”
“Not so very different,” Asher said dryly. “They both want to marry Thalia.”
Juliana sighed. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. The difference is that while Caswell would accept a rebuff from Thalia and retire with a broken heart, Ormsby has no intention of having his suit rejected. He means to marry her by fair means or foul.” She watched him anxiously. “You do understand that Thalia and Caswell are truly in love? And that Thalia can barely stand to be in the same room with Ormsby? She was foolish in what she did, but no one expected Ormsby to continue to press his suit after my father told him that Thalia did not want to marry him. What sort of man wishes to marry a woman who cannot abide him?” Not expecting an answer, she concluded angrily, “No gentleman would act as Ormsby has.”
“I certainly won’t argue with you there. My mother loathed him and referred to him often as a blackguard and a scoundrel.” He flashed a smile. “From what you’ve told me tonight, it would appear that Mother was right.”
Curiously, she asked, “Is that why you dislike him so? Because of your mother?”
He started to deny it, but then he said slowly, “That’s probably the beginning of it. She never had a good word to say about him, so even as a very young child, my opinion of him was never high. As I grew older and I ran afoul of him a few times, I was quite capable of loathing him on principle—with no help from my mother.”
Juliana frowned slightly. “I wonder why your mother held him in such low esteem? Ormsby has always been friendly with your stepfather and most people in the neighborhood hold him in respect, if not affection. Ormsby has often dined at Kirkwood and until recently my father considered him a friend. I’ve always thought him a bit cold and arrogant, but I would never have expected him to act as he has. Father is shocked and disillusioned.” Her lips drooped. “By Thalia as much as Ormsby. It is a dreadful situation.”
“Not as dreadful as it would be, my girl,” Asher mocked, a faint smile on his mouth, “if I wasn’t around to pluck your chestnuts from the fire.”
She sent him a look. “And how do you intend to do that?”
His smile faded and he stared off into space. “I don’t yet know precisely how I will get the letters back, but I will.” His eyes met hers and, taking her hand in his, he said softly, “I swear to you that I will get Thalia’s letters back.”
There wasn’t much to be said after that and shortly they were riding through the forest heading toward Kirkwood. Once the stables and outbuildings of the home place came into view, Asher halted his horse at the edge o
f the forest and said, “You go on. I’ll watch from here.” He studied the main house, not far from the stables. Spying a light in one of the upper windows, he asked, “Where the light is? Is that your bedroom window?”
“Yes. I left a candle burning when I left.”
“Good. Once you dowse your candle, I’ll know you’re safely inside. Now run along.”
Ignoring the mixed feelings of amusement and insult at his cavalier dismissal, she warned, “Remember, no one must know what we are about.” She hesitated, then asked, “How will we manage to see each other without causing speculation?”
He grinned at her, his teeth a brief gleam of white in the darkness. “I suspect that my grandmother is going to be coming to see you often to help nurse Thalia. I shall, of course, be a dutiful grandson and accompany her.”
Juliana shook her head, a rueful smile crossing her face. “I should have known you’d already have a plan. Even as a boy you were always planning.”
“Only fools,” he said harshly, “rush in blindly. Having a plan tends to limit the damage.”
The note in his voice troubled her and she cast him a look, but the darkness hid his expression—not that his face would tell her anything even if she could see it. She realized that he hid much of himself behind what she was coming to believe was a deliberate facade of mockery and indifference. One thing she was sure of: if anyone could save Thalia from Ormsby’s designs, it was Asher.
From his position in the forest, Asher watched as Juliana rode to the stable and disappeared into the long, low building. He cursed the opaque gloom that allowed him to see only eerie shadows, but the steel band of tension coiling in his gut lessened when he spied the dark shape that left the barn a few minutes later and hurried to the Kirkwood mansion. Waiting for her to reach her bedroom, he wasn’t aware of how taut he held himself until her window went dark and he felt a sense of ease.
With Juliana safely in her room, he sat there in the darkness, considering what he had learned. His physical reaction to Juliana, something to be studied later, he forcibly pushed to the back of his brain and focused his powerful intellect on Ormsby and the finding of Thalia’s letters. His thoughts drifted to Ormsby’s reasons for pursuing a woman who had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. That Ormsby might be in love with Thalia he rejected immediately. If Ormsby loved her, he’d want her to be happy and Asher couldn’t see any happiness coming to either one of them if Ormsby claimed Thalia as his bride. His lips thinned. Especially if that same bride was in love with another man. Christ! What was Ormsby thinking?
His horse moved restively under him and, deciding he wasn’t going to solve the problem or come to any solutions immediately, he was on the point of turning his horse around when movement near the Kirkwood stables caught his attention. A large, dark shape was moving swiftly away from the stables and heading down the driveway toward the main road. Frowning, he watched from the concealing forest as a horse and rider sped by. Now why, he wondered, was someone riding away from Kirkwood at this time of night?
He glanced in the direction of Juliana’s windows in the main house, but beyond the vague, dark outline of the house, he could see nothing. Could the rider be Juliana? His gaze narrowed. Had she waited long enough for him to leave and was she now on her way to another rendezvous? A rendezvous, perhaps, with Ormsby? Was everything she had told him tonight a lie? Part of a scheme concocted by Ormsby to spring some sort of trap on him? Instinct told him, no…but he wasn’t taking any chances.
Urging his horse out of the forest and onto the road, he raced after the departing rider. As the miles passed, the rider ahead of him held the horse at a hard gallop, never once slackening the pace or looking at the road behind him. Which was as well, Asher thought with a grim smile. At this time of night, the road was deserted, with respectable folk tucked in their beds, and beyond a few broad curves and a slight dip or two, the road offered little chance of concealment. Without losing the rider ahead, he kept a careful distance between them, the sound of his own horse’s passage covered by the pounding hooves of the other horse, but Asher knew that one quick glance backward by the rider and the jig would be up.
Long before the horseman slowed and turned the horse from the main road, Asher had guessed the destination. Ormsby Place. He halted his horse and stared at the massive, ornate gateway that graced the main entrance to Ormsby Place.
His face set, he stared at the faint outline of the gateway in the darkness. Could it be Juliana ahead of him? Was she even now meeting with Ormsby? Something implacable crossed his face. Would she be coming from his arms and crawling into bed with the marquis? Laughing at how cleverly she had embroiled him in their scheme? He brushed those ugly images aside and kicked his horse forward. He didn’t believe Juliana capable of such deceit, but there was only one way to find out.
Familiar with the layout of the area from previous visits, Asher directed his horse from the road and cut through the huge swath of parkland that surrounded Ormsby Place. The woodland not only hid him from the other rider, but the soft ground muffled the sound of his horse’s hooves as they galloped through the night. He slowed the animal as Ormsby Place rose up in the distance ahead of him. Stopping again, he listened intently, pleased when he heard the thud of hoofbeats only a short distance in front of him. Following the sound, he kept pace, but once the rider swerved away from the grand circular driveway in front of the house, and rode in the direction of stables, he increased the speed, arriving ahead of his quarry.
Leaving his horse tied at the edge of the parkland, Asher slipped through the night, keeping low and running toward the sprawling stable area. He reached the first of several stables and pressed himself up against the side of the building just as the horse and rider came trotting up. Edging around to the corner he watched as the rider halted the horse and leaped out of the saddle. Not Juliana, he thought cheerfully. This person was definitely male if the height and lanky build was anything to go by; Asher sensed that he was young. So who? And why?
The man opened one of the wide double doors of the stable and disappeared inside, shutting the door behind him. Asher waited a second, carefully scanning the area, listening intently. Sensing no danger, he glided around to the front of building. At the double doors, he slowed checking for any opening that might give him a glimpse inside. Finding none, he wasted another moment, pressing his ear to the stout wooden doors. Only the faint sound of horses moving around in their stalls came to him. He hadn’t expected to be able to see anything—even if there had been a slit or a knothole, it was pitch black inside the stable. He looked at the doors for a long minute, then dismissed any notion of opening them. There was no use alerting his quarry to his presence.
Leaving the doors behind, he crossed to the opposite corner of the building and glanced down the side. Nothing but shadows met his eye and he stopped in place, thinking of his next move. From his position he could see the front area and a slight tilt of his head allowed him to look down the other side of the stables. His head resting back against the boards, he considered what he knew of the Ormsby stables.
Not often, but upon occasion, either with his stepfather or his grandmother, he’d been a guest at Ormsby Place and more than once, the marquis had proudly shown off some of his much-sought-after blooded stock. Asher’s mouth twitched. He didn’t fault the man for having an eye for a good horse or for knowing how to breed for one and if he could admire Ormsby for anything it would be for his undeniable talent for breeding some outstanding horses. He owned one himself.
But it wasn’t horses that Asher was thinking about tonight. He was trying to recall the exact layout of the building he leaned against. He remembered that a wide alleyway ran down the center with several spacious stalls opening onto it. There was a grain room, a tack room, an office, and if he remembered correctly, a large room on this side at the far end where the head groom slept. Since his quarry had not reappeared and it was unlikely there was anybody else inside…Whoever he had followed, he conclude
d, had to have come to see the person asleep at the other end of the stable.
Asher froze as the muffled noise of something falling or being tipped over and the startled snort of several horses came from inside the building. Someone cursed loudly and a second later a small light bloomed near the end of the long building, the light shining out from the window into the darkness. There were more curses, two voices now, and neither sounded very happy to Asher. After a last glance around the area in front of the stables, Asher slid around the corner and swiftly covered the area that separated him from the source of the light.
He ducked down as he ran past a row of windows and stopped just before he reached the last window in the building where the light flickered. His back pressed against the wall, he crept nearer the window.
The night was warm and the window was open and the voices of the two men inside carried easily outside.
“What the hell are you doing here this time of night?” snarled a voice Asher didn’t recognize.
“You told me if I saw anything queer at Kirkwood I was to let you know straightaway. Said there’d be money for me,” whined the other man. Asher didn’t recognize the second voice either.
There was another curse and the first man said, “Damn your eyes! I didn’t mean at bleeding three o’clock in the morning!”
More whining and grumblings were exchanged.
“This had better be bloody good,” warned the first man. “I ain’t paying for some cock and bull story.”
The whining man mumbled something and then reported the odd behavior of Kirkwood’s oldest daughter.
“And you didn’t follow her when she left?” demanded the first man. “Find out where she went? Who she met?”
The whining-voiced man must have shaken his head no, because there was a blistering string of curses from the first man.
Passion Becomes Her Page 7
