Regency Scandals: Touch Me, Tempt Me & Take Me Box Set

by Lucy Monroe

  Those who had seen it described the carriage the same way as the postboy, dark and without any identifiable markings.

  When Ashton came into the tavern several hours later, Jared’s mood was as black as the mystery woman’s carriage.

  Ashton didn’t look much happier as he sat down across from him. "If this table were any filthier, they’d have to take it outside and burn it as refuse."

  Jared felt the corners of his lips tilt slightly. "What’s the matter, Ashton? Have your proper sensibilities been upset by our host’s lack of interest in cleanliness? I thought only women got upset about such matters."

  Ashton’s black brows came together in a pretty damn fine frown. "I’ve been in worse dives than this, but I’m hungry and my horse is being watered in a trough that looks as if it hasn’t been washed out since the place opened."

  Jared was hungry too. He had convinced his host to wash an ale mug for him in fresh water, using soap, but he hadn’t trusted the food that would come from the man’s kitchen. "Your horse will survive. Caesar’s there to keep him company, but I persuaded the postboy to bring a new bucket of water from the well for him."

  Ashton grinned. "I should have used some of your methods of persuasion when I arrived. What about food?"

  Jared shrugged. "I’m willing to wait until we get back to Rose Cottage."

  Nodding, Ashton sighed. "It’s for the best."

  "I’m surprised Mrs. Jensen didn’t feed you. Most ladies fall all over themselves being nice to you."

  Ashton’s eyes narrowed. "She offered me food."

  Jared let out a bark of laughter. "That bad, huh?"

  "Her cook rolls or sprinkles everything in colored sugar crystals." Ashton shuddered. "I couldn’t stomach the thought of sweet rarebit."

  Jared felt sympathy nausea at the thought. "What did you find out? Has she given her rose petal candy to anyone lately?"

  The proprietor came rushing over with a full mug of ale and put it down in front of Ashton. He shot Jared a glance from the corner of his eye and then rubbed his hands down the front of his brown twill waistcoat. "I ‘ad me wife wash it good and proper like you wanted yours, your lordship."

  Jared inclined his head and gave the man a coin to cover the cost. Ashton eyed the mug suspiciously. "Proper like?"

  "With soap and fresh water, heated on the stove."

  "Ah." Ashton’s expression lightened. He took a drink.

  "Well?"

  "Not too bad."

  Jared contemplated how his brother-in-law would look wearing the ale rather than drinking it. Ashton knew damn well he wasn’t asking about the ale. "Who the bloody hell did she give her candy to?"

  "Several members of the nobility, to hear her tell it. When pressed, however, she admitted that was over the past two years. Recently, she has only had occasion to share her little delicacy with another squire in the district, a countess she met at a house party in the north and your wife."

  "My wife? Mrs. Jensen’s a bloody liar!"

  All sound in the tavern ceased at the sound of Jared’s roar of outrage.

  "Calm down. I haven’t told you the details yet."

  Jared glowered at the other man.

  "Just getting a little of my own back," Ashton said with mocking politeness that nevertheless reminded Jared that for all his fancy manners, Ashton was a man to be reckoned with.

  He grunted his approval. "The details," Jared demanded.

  "She said that your wife had sent a boy with a note requesting some of Mrs. Jensen’s candy to use as comparison with her own recipe."

  "What boy?"

  "I asked and she didn’t know. She didn’t recognize him, but she wouldn’t recognize Calantha’s stableboy either. It’s not uncommon for a woman of quality to hire local village boys to run messages for them."

  "I know that, man." Jared hit the table and the two mugs of ale shook precariously. "But it leaves us with bloody nothing to go on. I suppose she sent the candy with the boy right then?"

  She must have because there was no way it could have been delivered to Rose Cottage without first Thomas, then Cali knowing about it.

  "Yes."

  "Damn." His gut told him the duke was guilty, but everything led back to Cali. She was going to be upset to learn that someone had used her name in procuring the candy for the attempt at poisoning Hannah.

  "Someone is doing a remarkably thorough job of casting suspicion on your wife." Ashton said, mirroring Jared’s own thoughts.

  "When I get my hands on him, there won’t be anything left over for the gallows."

  "There’s a woman involved somewhere. For all you know, the whole plot has been devised by her."

  "But why, damn it? Hannah’s no threat to anyone. All the duke has to do is deny Hannah’s existence. There’s no reason for him to attempt to kidnap and then kill her. It’s too big a risk to his reputation among the ton."

  "Perhaps he is more concerned with his consequence than the threat of exposure. His brother committed an unconscionable act in begetting his daughter. Raping a servant is not unheard of, but it is damaging to one’s reputation."

  The laws of England gave practically no protection to the servant classes from a lord of the realm, particularly a duke, but society was not so forgiving. The nobility were expected to act with a certain amount of decency, or at least not get caught doing otherwise. Frequent affairs were not frowned upon amidst the ton, but flagrant affairs were. Still, as motive for such monstrous behavior, protecting the Clairborne family’s name was a weak one.

  "We’ll know more after calling on him tomorrow."

  "Yes." Ashton pulled a pieced of folded notepaper from his coat. "I convinced Mrs. Jensen to let me take the note. I told her that someone had played a joke on your wife and we were trying to figure out who. I don’t know how well the story will keep gossip down, but there aren’t a lot of explanations for the types of questions I was asking."

  Jared didn’t care about gossip. He wanted to protect his daughter and his wife. "Let me see it."

  Ashton handed him the paper. It was written on thick white parchment, scented with roses. It had been sealed with the Clairborne crest. Jared had to force his hands not to wad the note into a crumpled little ball at this further sign of the villain’s perfidy. He read it and it said just as Ashton had claimed. There was a stiltedness to the speech that reminded him of Cali when he’d first met her, all starchy and prim.

  Remembering the way she’d reverted back to her prim little ways with him did not improve his mood. "I need to see something else she’s written to compare the handwriting."

  "Yes." Ashton took another drink of his ale. "I hope Thomas finds his list of instructions from Saturday as well. We can compare them too."

  Jared stood. "Your horse has had enough time to rest. We need to get back to Rose Cottage."

  Ashton followed him without a word. Both men wanted to get back to their wives.

  ***

  Calantha tucked Hannah into her narrow bed and kissed the child’s forehead. Inhaling the sweet scent of her daughter, she savored the moment. "Goodnight, love. God bless and keep you and may your dreams be sweet."

  Hannah’s eyes drooped sleepily. She’d spent the day playing with her cousins and puttering in Calantha’s conservatory and now she was worn out. "Mama?"

  "Yes, sweeting?"

  "I want to kiss Papa goodnight too."

  Calantha stifled a sigh. She wished Jared had returned too. She was anxious to hear what he had learned. "I’ll ask him to come in and kiss you when he gets home."

  "What if I’m sleeping?" Hannah asked and then yawned.

  Calantha was sure the little girl would be asleep as soon as she let her eyes close. "He can kiss you anyway."

  Hannah nodded, her eyelids dropping to hide her deep brown eyes. Her breathing turned shallow and even, indicating slumber, almost immediately. Calantha remained where she was, watching her daughter. She should rejoin the Drakes and Irisa in the parlor, but she could not pu
ll herself away from the sight of Hannah’s sleeping form.

  She had thought never to be a mother and now she had a four-year-old daughter who would perhaps one day be a big sister. Calantha laid her hand against the flat of her stomach and contemplated the miraculous possibility of carrying Jared’s child. Even now she could be pregnant. Unlike Irisa, the prospect did not frighten her. She wanted it more than almost anything in the world...except Jared’s love.

  Loving a man who doubted her honor hurt too much to contemplate and yet she could not chase the knowledge from her head. She had thought he finally believed her that morning when she made her case about the color of candy, but then he had left his sisters and Drake to watch her. He had not trusted her to care for Hannah alone. That truth hurt deep in her heart, causing another wound she did not know how to heal.

  Just as it had hurt last night when he had not answered her question about taking their baby away. He had demanded she sleep beside him, had made love to her with reckless passion and still he had not had an answer for her charge. She had lain there in silence, hoping he would dismiss her worries, saying he knew she was not capable of such devious maliciousness.

  He hadn’t. He’d rubbed her back in a strangely soothing gesture until she felt herself falling asleep, his lack of verbal response a heavy weight between them.

  She leaned forward and kissed the soft skin of Hannah’s cheek. She understood Jared’s desire to protect his daughter. Calantha would give her life to protect the child as well. What she could not understand, what she fought to forgive, was his distrust of her. She reminded herself that Jared had never claimed to love her. He did not know her well enough to trust her that deeply and without the bonds of love, it would be impossible for him to do so.

  Yet, he demanded her trust without knowing of her love for him. She remembered their wedding night. He had ordered her to trust him, had insisted she tell him of that trust. She had given herself into his keeping, only to be betrayed the next day by his lack of belief in her.

  At least no one had insisted on accompanying her to put Hannah to bed. That was something, she told herself as she stood and blew out the small lamp by Hannah’s bed. She made her way to the door with the aid of the light spilling into the room from the hallway. She left the door cracked in case Hannah woke frightened and then went downstairs.

  The Drakes and Irisa sat at the small table, playing a game of Euchre. Thea had put her children to bed in the single guest bedroom when Calantha took Hannah upstairs.

  Irisa looked up from the play and smiled. "Would you like to join us, Cali? There’s room for one more and we’ve only just begun this hand. We can re-deal."

  Calantha did not think she could concentrate on the cards while waiting impatiently for Jared’s return, so she shook her head. "I’ll just check on dinner with Cook. She was all in a pucker at the thought of serving full table."

  Drake smiled. "If the tea tray earlier is any indication, she’s more than equal to the task."

  "I’ll tell her you said so. She’s very proud of her rose-hip scones. My mother taught her the recipe."

  Cook had worked for her parents until their death and returned to Rose Cottage when Calantha moved in.

  Thea smiled. "Does she use roses in her meal preparations too? Jared’s cook does some amazing things and eating at Raven Hall is always an adventure."

  "Yes."

  She turned to go when noise from the hall stopped her. Jared and Ashton had returned. Irisa tossed her cards on the table and jumped up with obvious eagerness at the sound of her husband’s voice outside the door.

  When Ashton walked into the parlor, she rushed across the room and threw her arms around him. "I was so worried. I hate the thought of you traveling after dark, particularly by horseback. I’ve been on tenterhooks this past hour, waiting for your return."

  Ashton’s face, which had been cast in grim lines upon his arrival, now relaxed into an intimate smile that made Calantha want to look away. She shifted her attention to Jared. He had been looking at his sister and Ashton too. When he met her gaze, his eyes reflected a yearning she did not understand. Tense, she waited for him to tell her what they had learned about the person who had hired Willem.

  She was destined to go on waiting because Thomas came into announce dinner at that moment.

  Ashton broke away from Irisa. "I need to clean up."

  Jared took him abovestairs while Calantha instructed Thomas to wait dinner ten minutes.

  Later, at the table, she waited until Jared had eaten his soup before asking the question that was burning inside her like a torch lit at a Guy Falk’s ceremony. "Did you find out anything?"

  She’d asked the question quietly, but since they were at opposite ends of the table, the others all heard and stopped to listen to what Jared’s answer would be. It was unheard of for a lady to address her husband during a meal, even if the table was small like the one in her unpretentious dining room. She should confine her discussion to the Drakes, sitting to her right and left. But she could not make herself care about decorum when she had waited hours to hear Jared’s discoveries.

  "The woman who hired Willem never went inside the Blue Goose. She waited in the yard in her carriage and sent a boy inside to fetch the scoundrel. No one else saw her." Jared sounded disgusted by that fact.

  Calantha bit her lip. "Is that all?"

  "No one knew the boy, so he wasn’t a local lad," Jared’s scowl deepened, "and everyone who saw the carriage thought it looked like it had been hired. There were no distinguishing marks on it, no coat of arms or anything else. It was dark. Probably black."

  She could not hide the disappointment in her voice as she said, "I see." There was nothing to indicate the woman had not been her. She could have hired a carriage. She could have sent a boy to fetch Willem out of the tavern.

  Jared met her eyes, his own sending a message she could not understand. "The barkeep says Willem has poor eyesight and would call most any woman dressed decently and smelling better than a barnyard an angel."

  He was trying to comfort her.

  "I didn’t speak to him." She said the words, doubting they would have any impact on the others around the table, but needing to speak the truth anyway.

  "I know you didn’t." Jared’s words of affirmation surrounded her like a comforting cloak, warming the edges of the cold that had invaded her heart the day before.

  "Did you call on the squire’s wife?" Drake asked.

  "I did," Ashton replied, "while Ravenswood was talking to the proprietor and patrons at the Blue Goose."

  "What did you find out?" Irisa demanded.

  "Someone sent a boy with a note to Mrs. Jensen asking for the candy on behalf of the angel."

  The warmth seeped out of Calantha, leaving her colder than before and she shivered. "I don’t understand."

  Jared’s expression had turned murderous. "Someone, probably the bit— the biddy that hired Willem, wrote a note and signed it with your name asking for the candy."

  "But no candy was delivered here." Thomas would have known about it if such an occurrence had taken place.

  "The boy took it with him," Ashton said.

  Calantha could not breathe. She was back to where she had been that morning, charged with a crime she had not committed and no way to prove her innocence. She stood up and pushed her chair back. "Excuse me..."

  She rushed around the table, needing to escape the room before the accusations started.

  Jared’s strong hands wrapped around her and pulled her into his body. "It’s all right, Cali. We’ll find whoever is doing this to you. You’ve got to trust me."

  She stared at him, his first words not penetrating the fog of despair clouding her mind. But she heard his admonishment to trust him and something inside her snapped.

  She twisted violently against his hold. "Should I trust you like you have trusted me?"

  He wouldn’t release her. "Calm down, angel."

  "Don’t call me that! You don’t think I’
m an angel. You think I’m a demon, someone capable of murdering not one, but three children. Let me go." She was practically screaming in her fury and desire to get away from him.

  She would not remain in the room to be chastised again by his family. She wouldn’t. Managing to get one arm free, she swung it in a fierce arc that connected with his cheek. The loud slap of skin against skin and the stinging sensation in her palm acted like a bucket of cold water on her senses.

  What had she done?

  She looked at him with stricken eyes, the entire room silent around her. The red imprint of her hand formed against his cheek and she felt as if she were seeing it from a great distance.

  "Please, release me." The words were quiet, controlled, completely at odds with her heated action and near screaming only a moment before.

  She was once again in command of the emotions threatening to devastate her.

  Jared shook his head. "No. Dam— I won’t. Not until you explain why you’re so upset."

  He wasn’t going to punish her for hitting him. That realization came at the same time as the understanding that he did not comprehend her anger. Was he so arrogant that he could not fathom her hurt at his lack of trust and the awful position she found herself in?

  "Someone is trying to destroy my life and kill my daughter." She spoke each word slowly, as if addressing a lackwit and Jared’s eyes narrowed.

  "I know and I’m pissed as hell, but that doesn’t explain why you’re trying to get away from me. You’re understandably distraught at the circumstances. You are a woman, delicate of feeling, but I’m not the one trying to hurt you."

  His words didn’t make any sense to her. Of course he was hurting her. He didn’t trust her.

  "I’m not a murderer." Once again, she spoke without tone or inflection as she’d learned to do when dealing with Deveril in one of his rages.

  "I know that." Now he was looking at her as if her brains had gone to let.