Long-buried memory intruded; he pushed it aside, only to have the thought that some other man must have seen her like this fill the void.
It was his thought, yet a faint frown tangled her brows; slowly, she lifted her lids and looked at him.
Puzzled. For an instant, he thought he couldn’t have read her look aright, but then she put up a hand to push back the fine curtain of her hair, and said, “That was…strange.”
Her voice shivered, quivered. She looked at him. This time her look was clear—she expected him to explain.
He stared at her. Disorientation wasn’t the half of what he felt; she was the one who’d climaxed—he was the one who felt giddy. But he had to know. “How many men have you been with since…before?” Since before when he’d botched things so thoroughly.
Outrage flowed into her face; she stared at him, then struggled to sit up, but she really was boneless. “None, of course! What a stupid question.”
Not stupid at all. He bit his tongue. She was an attractive, twenty-nine-year-old nonvirgin who he knew had more than her fair share of sexual need—what was he supposed to think?
Suddenly, he wasn’t sure at all.
Hands on his chest, lips setting, she tried again to sit up and push away. He held her easily. “Stop wriggling.”
She knew enough to freeze at his growl.
She frowned at him warily, but he simply drew her closer, settled her more comfortably in his arms. “Just lie there and go to sleep.”
Cradled in his arms, she stared up at him. Opened her lips.
“Shut up, lie there, and go to sleep.”
Her eyes narrowed, but after a moment, she shifted carefully and settled her head against his chest. The last of her fight went out of her. She muttered, “I’ll never be able to fall asleep like this.”
She did, of course, leaving him painfully aroused, yet content enough. Content that she was sleeping sated in his arms. He hadn’t planned the interlude, yet was more than satisfied that it had occurred.
Bringing her to her first climax was another role he’d never thought would fall to him, not after what had happened thirteen years ago. Yet it had.
Which left him wondering why it had.
As the moonlight faded and the shadows closed in, he changed his mind and did what he’d told her he didn’t want to do. He revisited their past, and tried to fill in the gaps to her present.
Penny awoke the next morning, warm and relaxed, snuggled in her bed. She remained where she was, eyes closed, deeply, oddly blissfully comfortable. The brightness beyond her lids informed her the sun was shining. It was another lovely day…
She remembered. She sat bolt upright and stared across the room.
Charles wasn’t in the chair.
She searched, but could see not a single sign that he ever had been.
But she hadn’t dreamed it; he’d been there—he had, they had…
She glanced down. Her nightgown gaped to her waist.
Muttering a curse, she yanked the halves together. Doing up the buttons, she tried not to blush as memories crowded in. She would have liked to lay the entire incident at his door, but, unfortunately, remembered all too well that she had, somehow, succumbed, and been a more-than-willing partner.
It was because it had all been so different—in many ways novel, the sensations so very pleasant and prolonged. Long, slow, sweet caresses—and he’d let her touch him, explore and indulge her own desires, too. So unlike that long-ago grappling in the barn—rushed, heated, frantic, and rather painful.
Last night, she’d enjoyed and consequently encouraged him far beyond what was wise; she couldn’t now blame him for how much further than a kiss the engagement had gone. She was loweringly aware that he could have taken matters much further, but hadn’t. Instead…
Her breasts tingled; remembered delight glowed, then flowed through her veins.
She’d never in her life felt like that—so desperate, and then so blessed. So amazingly alive.
And then he’d asked…
With another muttered curse, she kicked the covers aside, got down from the bed, and stalked across the room to ring for Ellie.
By the time she’d washed and dressed, she’d compiled a long list of questions she ought to have asked last night. Such as where had Charles changed? He couldn’t have gone home, so who else knew he’d remained at Wallingham overnight? Where were his curricle and pair—he had driven himself over, hadn’t he? How had he got back into the house? How had he left again, and when?
Most important of all, just what was he thinking? He’d insisted she leave his house so he wouldn’t succumb to his baser instincts and seduce her—and yet here he was, insisting on sharing her bedchamber.
She wasn’t naive enough to suppose that his baser instincts ran any less strongly at Wallingham than they did at the Abbey.
Sweeping down the stairs, she turned toward the breakfast parlor—and heard their voices. Nicholas’s and Charles’s. She slowed, considering, then picked up her pace and glided into the room.
They saw her; both made to stand—she waved them back. Nicholas murmured a greeting, to which she replied. She nodded vaguely in Charles’s direction; he responded with a polite “Good morning.” Going to the sideboard, she helped herself to ham and toast, conscious of the silence behind her.
When she turned to the table, Charles rose and held the chair beside his. As she sat, he murmured, “Did you sleep well?”
She’d fallen asleep in his arms. “Indeed.” She glanced at him as he resumed his seat; he must have carried her to her bed and tucked her in. “And you?”
He met her eyes. “Not, perhaps, as well as I might have.”
With a light, ostensibly commiserating smile, she gave her attention to her plate; she wasn’t going to comment.
Charles turned to Nicholas. “As I was saying, I haven’t been out on the waves since I returned last September, but I’m sure the Gallants would be happy to take you out sometime.”
Nicholas waved his fork. “It was just a thought—a passing fancy. Purely hypothetical. Why”—he paused, drew breath—“I’m not even sure for how much longer I’ll be here.”
Penny glanced up, startled not so much by the words as the undercurrent rippling beneath them. Nicholas sounded rattled, not his usual coolly distant self. Indeed, now she looked, he appeared even more tense than he had the previous evening, and distinctly more ashen. Of the three of them, he looked to be having the greatest trouble sleeping.
“Is your room quite comfortable?” The question was out before she’d thought.
Nicholas stared at her blankly. “Yes—that is…” He gathered himself. “Yes, thank you. Perfectly comfortable.”
Grasping the opening she’d unwittingly created, she looked at him encouragingly. “It’s just that you seem rather under the weather.”
Nicholas’s eyes flicked to Charles, apparently engrossed with ham and sausages, then returned to her face. “It’s just…I have a lot to do, and there’ve been more details to attend to here than I’d foreseen.”
“Oh? If I can help, please ask. I used to run the estate, so I’m acquainted with most of the arrangements.”
He looked uncomfortable. “It’s not so much any difficulty, as the pressure of what I need to attend to back in London.”
She brightened. “Elaine mentioned you were with the Foreign Office. Have you been there long?”
He stilled. “Ten years.” His tone was hollow, his expression grim and grave, his gaze fastened on some point beyond her.
She stared, then recollected herself and gave her attention to her toast.
Nicholas said no more; after a moment, he resumed eating.
Charles said nothing at all, but when he sat back and reached for his coffee cup, he caught her eye.
Interpreting that look with ease, she kept her tongue between her teeth. They finished the meal in silence. Rising together, they parted in the hall. She announced she would speak with Figgs about the menus.
Nicholas inclined his head and declared his intention of returning to the library.
Charles halted beside her, waited until they heard the library door shut. “I’m going to the folly—come up when you’re finished with Figgs.” He caught her gaze. “Whatever you do, don’t say anything more to Nicholas. I’ll explain later.”
He raised her hand to his lips, kissed it, and, with an arrogant nod, left her.
She let out an exasperated breath. Obviously, she’d missed something. What had he done?
The fastest way to find out was to finish her household duties; turning on her heel, she marched off to find Figgs.
An hour and a half later, she toiled up the grassed slope of the long sweep of man-made bank on which the folly stood.
She knew why Charles had chosen to lurk there; she’d often wondered what had prompted her great-great-grandfather to create the bank and the folly itself, screened by trees from the house—any part of the house—yet commanding unrestricted views over both the front drive and forecourt as well as the stable yard and the area between it and the house.
If one wanted to keep an unobtrusive watch on all arrivals and departures, the folly was the place from which to do it.
In true folly style, it was fanciful in appearance, designed to look like a carousel. The rear was actually set into the escarpment behind it, but viewed from the front it was all graceful, ornate arches and delicately worked pillars, the roof rising to a point like a conical hat with a gilded ball atop it. In white-painted wood on a stone foundation, the structure exuded a fairy-tale lightness but was in fact quite solid, with a scrollwork balustrade filling in the arches, forming a deep semicircular porch, open but protected from the elements. Beyond the porch was a room created by glass panes set between the slender columns that, had it been a carousel, would have supported seats for riders.
The inner room, big enough to accommodate a chaise and two chairs with a low table between, was well lit, courtesy of a ring of windows set into the folly roof.
From their earliest years, she and Charles had taken refuge in the folly often. Memories circled as she climbed the wide steps and stepped onto the tiled floor.
As she’d expected, he was sitting in his usual masculine sprawl on one of the wicker chaises on the porch. It was where people most often sat; the inner room was used only in inclement weather.
The day was fine, the faint breeze off the Channel barely ruffling his black locks as she walked toward him. His gaze flicked to her, but then he returned to his contemplation of the house’s approaches.
He was frowning, brooding. As she sat beside him, grateful that he shifted and gave her more space, she read enough in his face, his pose, to know he was brooding over something to do with his investigation.
Not to do with her.
That, she decided, was a very good thing. Instead of learning from experience and steeling themselves against him, against the effects of his nearness, her witless senses were doing the opposite. Now she’d fallen asleep in his arms and survived—more, had been unexpectedly entertained—her defenses against him seemed to be melting away, fading like ghosts into the woodwork as if convinced she had nothing to fear from him—and even more, everything to gain. To look forward to…
Jerking her wits from that dangerous track, one she remained determined to avoid, she forced her mind to focus. “What upset Nicholas?”
Charles’s gaze remained fixed on the view. “I mentioned, by way of passing on local news, that a young fisherman, apparently a friend of Granville’s, had been found foully murdered.”
“How did Nicholas react?”
“He turned green.”
She frowned. “He was shocked?”
Charles hesitated, then said, “Yes, and no. That’s what’s bothering me. I’d take an oath he didn’t know Gimby was dead. I still don’t think he’d met Gimby—I don’t think he knew his name. But he wasn’t surprised to learn Granville had a fisherman as a close associate. Gimby’s existence didn’t surprise Nicholas, but the news of the lad’s demise and the manner of it shook him badly.” After a moment, he added, “If I had to define the primary emotion the news evoked in Nicholas, I’d say it was fear.”
She stared unseeing at the landscape. “Where does that lead us?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. Nicholas came here asking after Granville’s associate—he at least knew enough to guess there was one. There are two reasons he could have had for searching for Gimby—either to ensure his silence now the war is over, or to use him again to make contact with the French because something new has come up.”
“If Nicholas had located or heard of Gimby, and sent some henchman to…” She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Indeed. Neither of Nicholas’s reasons would call for Gimby to be killed unless Gimby had been trying his hand at blackmail, and not only is there no evidence nor even much likelihood of that, if Nicholas had desired Gimby’s death, he wouldn’t have been shocked and shaken to hear of it.”
“But he was…you don’t think it was an act?”
“No act. Nicholas might have perfected a diplomatic straight face, but it’s under severe strain and crumbling. You saw it yourself—he was visibly upset.”
“So he’s frightened…of someone else.”
Grimly, Charles nodded. “Someone else, and that someone isn’t under Nicholas’s control. He’s not a henchman. If Nicholas had learned of Gimby and sent someone to treat with him for his silence, and something had gone wrong ending in Gimby’s death and Nicholas hadn’t heard about it until I told him, he might have been shocked, perhaps a little shaken, but I can’t see any reason for fear. He’d have been calculating where that left him, and feeling free of Gimby’s threat. Yet I detected not a glimmer of satisfaction—he was appalled, and struggling to hold himself together, to not show that the news meant anything to him.”
Penny humphed.
Leaning forward, Charles rested his elbows on his thighs. “There’s someone else involved. Someone acting independently of Nicholas. Some other player in the game.”
He’d suspected as much when he’d stood looking down at Gimby’s broken body. He’d hoped it was Nicholas’s work; he was now convinced it wasn’t.
“Does Nicholas know who this other person is?”
The crucial question. “I don’t know—at present there’s nothing to say either way.”
Penny glanced at him; from the corner of his eye he saw her gaze flit over his hunting jacket, note his cravat, then rise to his freshly shaved chin. He’d ridden home at dawn, bathed, changed, attended to business, then ridden back in time to shake Nicholas over breakfast.
“Have you heard anything from London?”
“No—it’ll be tomorrow at the earliest.” He straightened. “Filchett knows to send word to Norris if anything arrives unexpectedly, but I’ll go back every morning to check. I’ve alerted both my stablemen and yours to ferry any messages that might arrive to me.” He glanced at her, lips curving. “There are some benefits to being a mysterious war hero.”
“Hmm.” She held his gaze for a moment, then looked away, over the gardens. “That leaves us with this unknown someone lurking about—presumably he’s Gimby’s murderer. How do we flush him out?”
We don’t. He kept his lips shut, said nothing at all.
She frowned. “Perhaps we can raise a hare? Create some situation that would lure him out—that would prompt him, if he knows Nicholas, to contact him. Or perhaps”—she warmed to her theme—“we could start a rumor that there’s some secret something to be obtained at a certain time and place—”
“Before you get too carried away, we’ll need to wait on the information from London before we play any more hands in this game.”
His dry tones had her turning his way. “I thought you were the reckless one?”
“The years have taught me wisdom and restraint.”
Her humph was derisive; he hid a smile.
She glanced at
the stables. “Do you think Nicholas will go out today?”
“If he’s feeling half as rattled as he looked, I doubt it—not unless he does in fact know who the murderer is.”
After a moment, she said, “It has to be one of those five visitors, doesn’t it?”
He hesitated, then agreed. “I don’t know of any local who would have known to do what was done to Gimby.” Except me. He stirred. “One of the five visitors would be my guess.”
“Which one? The Chevalier?”
“There’s no way to tell, not from the faces they show the world.”