“Do you know what you’re doing?” he breathed into her ear.
“Of course,” she whispered back, fixing her brow into a thunderous scowl. “I have asked him about all his acquaintances in London. He claims to know almost nobody; says he prefers the society on the Continent.”
“Dear God,” he muttered, “you are not meant to be doing the interrogating. Just—go keep him busy on the lake. I’m going to have a look around the house.”
She drew back very suddenly. “Of course,” she said, coldly and loudly. “I am only a toy to you, no? A very pretty wind-up doll.”
He stared at her, undecided on how to reply. She really was a bit too convincing. Richard had certainly had a flair for drama, which he and Alex had employed to good measure when seeking entertainment during their university days, but he’d never suspected it of Gwen. “Of course not,” he said slowly.
Her frown deepened. “Don’t be stupid,” she said, and he heard the double meaning in it. Don’t apologize to me right now.
He sketched her a cold bow. “I wish you a good evening, then. I do not think I will join your little boating party.”
“You will not be missed,” she said, and turned on her heel, stalking away.
He went directly to their rooms, sitting by the window until he saw the procession of guests wind out through the garden. Gwen walked arm in arm with Barrington. She tripped, and he pulled her closer as he helped her gain her balance.
Alex drew away from the window.
It was only a charade.
And yet . . . Gwen was out to live wildly; he himself had rebuffed her last night; perhaps she grew curious—
Only a charade, God damn it. He took a deep breath and left the room.
The house was laid out in the shape of a shallow C, the lobby and grand staircase at the middle of the house, with its high domed skylight, scoring the building in half. From the little discussion he’d initiated at dinner, he’d managed to solicit the location of every one of the female guests’ bedrooms. That omitted the entire lower half of the C in which his and Gwen’s rooms were located, and a good deal of the upper as well. He thought it likely that all the bedrooms were in the west, which left the bottom floor of the east, as he’d determined earlier, devoted to public rooms: morning room, drawing room, dining room, gallery.
Upstairs to the east was where he needed to go.
He walked toward the moonlit lobby on silent feet, wanting to check on the party in the less reputable drawing room. The merriment had grown muted; after two minutes’ wait, he counted only three male voices inside. The women he was less concerned about; it seemed that they had been hired to entertain whichever guests found themselves without easy company this evening—and the guards as well, in the meantime.
The lobby and the main staircase were too brightly illuminated, so he retreated back in the direction he had come, until he found a door covered in baize and studded with upholstery nails. He could not disapprove of the spread of all English customs. This one had proved useful to him more than once, when seeking subtler ways through a house. At this hour, with the remains of the feast still littering the dining room, and the guests outside, the servants would be more intent on shifting plates to the scullery than spying on matters abovestairs.
He stepped into the servants’ passage and climbed the stairs silently, then took a right, moving, in darkness, toward the other side of the house. Only once did a noise come from the distance, causing him to freeze. Belatedly he realized the grinding sound came from a dumbwaiter. Someone was sending china down from the dining room.
He let himself out into the main hallway of the east wing. Yes, this part of the house was clearly not meant for public consumption: the floors were covered not in silk runners but in a far cheaper but harder-wearing tapestry, and the walls were bare. The latter sank his spirits. If Barrington did not spend much time here, there might be nothing of interest on the property.
Or perhaps Barrington had the same philosophy as Alex, and lived and traveled lightly, carrying only those items deemed essential—in which case Alex very much hoped that one of these doors opened onto a bedroom or a study.
The doors were locked, which did not stop him. He withdrew from his pocket two of Gwen’s hairpins, and made quick work of the first tumbler. In his time, he’d reluctantly been forced to employ an industrial spy or two; sometimes there was no other way to discover what had happened to a shipment that had gone missing overnight, or a contract suddenly lost just before the documents could be notarized. And a few of these men had spared him an hour’s lesson, here and there. He’d never master the art of breaking glass without a sound, but there were few door locks that could faze him.
The first room was a small library, with no desk or chest of drawers to pique his interest. Nevertheless, he did a dutiful scan of the bookshelves. For a man who preferred his springs in France, Barrington appeared an ardent admirer of his home country. He had over a hundred books on the history of England, its natural habitats and geological history, its flora and fauna.
Alex plucked out one of the books. A Natural History of English Sediment. Christ. Could there have been anything more boring?
On the other hand, Gwen would probably deem this far more interesting than his trade journals. He ran an eye again over the volumes on flora and fauna. He sincerely hoped Barrington stuck to seductive flirtations. If he mentioned anything to do with parkland, Gwen would probably jump on the topic like a kitten on catnip, and the Barbary Queen would make a very odd admirer of landscape architects.
Although he supposed that if anyone could pull off such a Barbary Queen, Gwen could.
The thought was so startling that he proved clumsy in refitting the book into its slot.
The book safely stowed, he stood looking at it. She was a chameleon, wasn’t she? He had always suspected she had potential in her. Had been tempted, even, to tease it out of her, once or twice. Had denied himself the urge because she was Richard’s sister, and her path had been set.
But now her path had changed. And still he hesitated, fickle as a cowardly little debutante, as she’d put it.
No, he thought wryly. She’d never called him cowardly.
He reminded himself of what he’d been thinking so intently last night, as he’d watched her stir so sweetly beneath his touch. Humans were not technologies. They did not prove amenable to radical adjustments. Their essential traits always reclaimed them, and hers would pull her back to the narrow path, no matter how much she might come to genuinely revile its constraints. Better, then—honorable—to act on his understanding; to do nothing to prevent her from reclaiming the life she would inevitably be drawn back to.
The logic was sound, of course.
It was also fueled by fear. Old fear. A very specific one.
And, God damn it—if, after all this time, he was going to let fear dictate his actions, then he might as well trade in his lungs right now, and his legs to boot. He might as well be wheeled back to England to suffocate quietly in some cloistered little village rectory. Had he listened to fear, that would have been his life.
And so, too, if he had accepted others’ visions of him.
He had always known that others were wrong about him, but Gwen had only just discovered that others were wrong about her. That was the only difference between them. And yet he’d dismissed her revelation, forcing her to remain within the mold she wished so much to break. And why? Only because it was easier for him that way. Otherwise, were he to take her at her word and behave accordingly, he would have no choice but to confront certain things he had hidden from himself.
What a bloody, self-righteous, blind coward he’d been, last night.
Well, he knew how to rectify that quick enough.
He walked out and tried the next door. This room looked more promising at first glance—a study of some sort, with framed prints on the walls, more of these bloody naturalist’s diagrams, a dozen of them stacked on the desk. The large picture window had a breat
htaking view of the ocean, and the moonlight filtering through the window lit the desktop quite clearly. He flipped through the documents. They meant nothing to him. Next to them were notes on—God above, various sorts of vegetation indigenous to Suffolk.
He recalled again the way that Barrington had drawn her closer when she’d stumbled. A sinking feeling was in his stomach. Wouldn’t it be rich with irony if he had inadvertently driven her into the arms of a man who would actually sit down across from her and nod enthusiastically when she started talking of her goddamned gardens? Instead, of course, of making some mocking, juvenile remark about pressing flowers into a scrapbook—
A noise in the hallway made him freeze. He looked quickly around the room, but there were very few places to hide. A handsome wooden screen seemed the best option, not because it provided real cover—it was too finely filigreed to conceal his body entirely—but because it was positioned in the shadows, away from the window, near the door. Opening the door, walking in, a person would have to turn around and peer hard into the darkness until their eyes adjusted before they could distinguish a man standing in the shadows.
He stepped behind it just as the door opened with a soft click. “—been locked,” said Barrington. “How curious. Ah, no matter. Come in, do.”
“Oh, you were telling the truth,” came Gwen’s low voice. Alex pressed himself farther against the wall to still the impulse to leap around and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, breaking away from the larger group to enter a disused area of the house with this man. Moreover, her consonants had a slight slur to them. Had she drunk more wine at dinner than he’d noticed?
Barrington put his hand at her waist—far too familiar for a host with a young lady, although just about right for a man with a music hall singer—and guided her to stand in front of the window. In the cold light, her profile was as pale and smooth as marble, her expression lit with clarity. “Oh,” she said softly. “The waves breaking—it’s very beautiful.”
Something ugly stirred in Alex’s gut. She did not look as if she was pretending enjoyment. The view truly enraptured her.
Barrington stepped up behind her. He delicately fingered a stray wisp of her hair. “I am surrounded by beauty,” he murmured. “But nothing so compelling as the woman here before me, right now.”
Alex was going to rip his arm off. Step away from him. Gwen. What the hell are you doing?
She turned toward him, in the process dislodging his hands from her waist and hair—by design, Alex wanted to think, but God damn it, he could not be sure. She gave Barrington a mysterious little smile, perfectly designed to madden a man with its indecipherable promise, and then brushed past him, walking around the room, trailing a casual hand across the furnishings. At the desk, she came to a stop. “Drawings!” she said. “Are you an artist?” She spread out the pages casually.
Barrington followed her and caught up her hand, lifting it to his mouth. “Alas, no. I’ve lacked proper inspiration until now.”
She gave a light, tinkling laugh. “I find that difficult to believe,” she said as she walked onward, letting her hand remain in his as long as possible, until her arm was fully outstretched. Barrington trailed after her rather than release it. She was examining the walls, now—a series of masks hung in a row on the back wall.
If she kept strolling the perimeter, she was going to lead Barrington straight to him.
Turn around, Alex willed her. Leave.
But Barrington was growing bolder now, his hand skating down her rib cage, his head bowing to place a kiss upon the top of her head. It occurred to Alex that her casual stroll was actually not so casual: she was making a circle back toward the door, and had he not been hiding there, her facsimile of interest in the furnishings would have been a very clever route of escape.
But the screen was too damned lovely to ignore.
He saw the moment she spied it. Her mouth opened to make a comment.
And then her eyes met his and flew wide with realization.
He held his breath. He had no idea how his discovery could be smoothed over by talk. An unpleasant conversation followed by eviction never harmed any guest, but the fact that Barrington had armed guards strolling his property did put a different light on matters, greatly diminishing Alex’s hope that they would be turned out with a simple round of scathing words.
He would have to immobilize the man. The prospect would not have bothered him if they’d met in a salle d’armes, or if he’d had proof that Barrington had harmed Gerard. But right now, all he knew was that he disliked the man. And he’d never been particularly interested in punishing people for failing to charm him. He’d left that role to the bullies of the world.
Gwen interrupted his silent deliberations by making a choice of her own. She turned away from him, spinning on the ball of her foot and launching herself directly into Barrington.
For a split second of disbelief, Alex thought she meant to attack the man. Perhaps Barrington had a similar idea; taken off guard, he grunted and staggered a pace backward. But he caught the idea before Alex did—and caught something else, besides. Hauling Gwen up by her arse, he smashed his face into hers.
Well, Alex thought. Well. This was . . . clever of her. A clever distraction.
Her arms twining around his shoulders, she forced Barrington around, putting his back to the door.
Also just to distract him.
Alex was beginning to see this scene through a peculiar red haze.
Gwen loosed a moan, a sound that really did not belong in the hearing of any other man that Alex had or ever would meet, and then clawed her fingers into Barrington’s hair, yanking his head down toward her breasts.
Barrington obliged quite happily.
Her eyes found Alex’s over the man’s shoulders. Go, she mouthed. Go now!
He stared back at her. The little idiot. Did she really think that he was going to slip out of this room and let Barrington have what she had offered to him but he’d been too much of a goddamned unforgivably thickheaded cowardly idiot to take?
Jesus Christ, what had ailed him? This was what he had planned by refusing her, wasn’t it? For her one day to be in some asinine Englishman’s arms, with him apart, elsewhere, claimless, no one to blame for it but himself?
She widened her eyes dramatically. Lifted her hand and pointed emphatically toward the door. And then rotated her hand and made a come-hither crook of her finger.
What the hell did that mean?
Barrington lifted his head. She gave a breathy gasp and pushed his head back down. Now her leg started to wrap around Barrington’s calf.
The meaning of the gesture suddenly penetrated. God above, he was a fool. He slipped out from behind the screen and opened the door, sliding silently into the corridor and pulling the door noiselessly shut behind him. And then he lifted his fist and banged. Once, twice, thrice. No more. Not waiting for an answer, he threw the door open so loudly that it cracked against the jamb.
“You little trollop,” he spat.
Gwen slapped her hands over her mouth and leapt away from Barrington—but rather than springing toward Alex as he’d envisioned, she instead raced to stand behind the desk.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Mr. de Grey—please, it was—not at all what you think!”
“It was exactly what you think,” Barrington said. He yanked down his suit jacket. “What do you mean, poking about up here?”
Alex fixed him with a grim stare. He had no idea what Gwen thought she was achieving by loitering across the room from him. Did she want to witness bloodshed? He felt unusually willing to deliver it. “I will ask you,” he said icily, “the same question. Did I not make it clear that Miss Goodrick is off limits to your attentions?”
Barrington worked up a smirk. “The lady does not seem to agree. Perhaps we should consult her in this matter.”
“Oh!” Gwen put her hands behind her back and looked at her toes. “Oh,” she said softly. She looked up to Alex, eyes woeful, almost p
leading. “I’m so sorry, Mr. de Grey. But it is such a hard decision. On the one side, you’ve been everything good to me. On the other, Mr. Barrington . . .” She trailed off and sighed, as if his magnificence were too large to be put into words. “I begin to understand,” she said hesitantly, “why ladies used to insist that knights joust for their attention. If only one victor were left standing . . . it would be so much easier to decide, wouldn’t it?”
For a brief moment, Alex actually felt in sympathy with Barrington: the man’s sneer was fading into a puzzled frown. “Miss Goodrick,” Barrington said, “I would joust any number of men for you, were we knights.”
“But I don’t think you’d win against Alex,” she said pointedly, and gave Alex a sudden urgent look.
Oh, Christ. He understood where she was going with this. He hoped she had a good reason for it. He sighed and cracked his knuckles to loosen them. Fists were not his forte, of course, but the week in Paris had sharpened him up after the laziness of the sea journey.
Barrington reached into his jacket, outright scowling now. “All right, enough,” he said, and as he withdrew his hand, metal glinted in the light. Alex went very still. “I must say, I’m disappointed,” the man continued to Gwen. “I’d hoped you were merely a talented trollop along for the ride.” He lifted the gun, then turned it on Alex. “Time for some truths,” he said evenly. “I waited for you to approach me, but now I begin to think you never intended to do so. Which leads me to ask: what the hell are you doing in my house? Weston wises up, discovers shit where his liver should be? That’s a fine specimen of manhood.”
Alex distantly registered Gwen’s gasp. A cold calm descended, just as it did in the training salon. His thoughts felt clear and sharp. “I have no idea what you mean,” he said flatly. Guns were tricky beasts. A kick could disarm the man or it could cause the gun to discharge. And Gwen had no cover to take.
Barrington gave a sharp laugh. His grip on the gun did not waver. “You think me a fool? I thought I recognized you that first night. Something familiar about the eyes. But it took a bit of inquiring to confirm it. The ruthless Mr. Ramsey. Curious choice of an emissary—I never heard Weston speak highly of you.” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “But if it’s dirty work he’s designing, I can understand the choice.”