Letters to a Lover, page 20
“Your valet,” Trench blurted.
“Yes, Jessop,” Darchett confirmed.
“Tall, thin fellow?” Tizsa guessed. “Spry on his feet, with a top hat?”
“Yes…I gave him my old hat a couple of months ago, in lieu of payment. He wanted it…”
“Did you perhaps take him to the theatre with you last Wednesday?” Tizsa asked.
“Yes. Not in the box, of course. I suppose he lounges about in the pit, for I’ve no real need of him in such a place. Look, what is it you think he has done?”
“Is he here in the club?” Trench asked. He realized his fingers were clenched so tightly around his glass that he was about to break it, and hastily loosened his grip.
“No,” Darchett said. “No point. He can’t eat here, and there’s nowhere for him to lounge around.”
“So, when you go to your clubs,” Tizsa said carefully, “such as on the night of the Braithwaites’ soiree in Grosvenor Square, he is, basically, at leisure to do as he wishes?”
Darchett’s eyes were darting from Trench to Tizsa and back. “I suppose so… Look, what exactly is it you think Jessop has done?”
“Did he, by any chance, have any bruise or similar mark on his face when you got home on Friday night?” Tizsa asked.
“Why yes. He said he tripped and fell against something in the box room.”
Trench dragged his gaze back to Tizsa’s and smiled with rare savagery. “Got him.”
*
When Franny had gone, easily sworn to secrecy, Azalea paced the room, her thoughts swirling and planning impossible punishments. She paused only when Morris helped change her out of her gown into her night rail and robe and brought her dinner. She picked at the meal alone, without tasting it, before jumping up and continuing her pacing from the window to the door, into the bedroom for a quick circuit and back again. She barely registered where her footsteps led. She could not be still, and neither could her mind.
She kept peering out of the window for Eric’s return, desperate to talk things over with him. But though she peered up and down the street each time, she saw no sign of him. In her heart, she knew he might not come in until very late, in which case she thought she would burst.
She even contemplated sending a note round to White’s, asking him to return, but that could give him a terrible fright, make him think she was being attacked again.
At last, just as she was reemerging from the bedchamber for the umpteenth time, she heard the sound of his voice on the stairs and ran to the sitting room door, before backing off with the self-reminder that she was supposed to be ill.
Hurry up! She screamed silently at the door. And at least the footsteps she heard in the passage were rapidly approaching. Don’t dare go into your room! If he did, she would just have to charge down there and hope no servants were passing.
But no, the hasty steps were still coming, and the door almost flew open.
“Zalea, we’ve got him!” he exclaimed, striding in at the same time as she flew toward him.
“I know who it is, Eric!” she cried before she fell into his arms, and they both laughed. He swung her up, still careful of her wounded arm.
“Darchett’s valet,” she said urgently. “I’m sure of it. He goes everywhere with Darchett, he’s tall and thin, and he was at the Roystons, where I apparently wrote that thrice-damned letter. He could easily have purloined it, for the house servants were all too busy to pay attention to him. And I was clearly so dazed, I could even have walked right past him.”
Eric was grinning. “We’ve come to the same conclusion. We can account for his presence everywhere we know the blackmailer to have been, including last night when he was with Darchett at his mother’s house in Charles Street. He could easily have taken Darchett’s key, slipped out, and returned just ahead of Griz and me.”
His smile began to fade as he searched her face. “Tizsa wants to change your dressing. Can he come up now?”
“Of course! I thought he must have gone home.”
“No, he’s desperate to tell Grizelda, but he is a man of strong duty. Wait a moment…”
Releasing her, he went out again and, in a moment, she heard him shouting over the banister to a servant to ask Tizsa to step up to her ladyship’s sitting room. That, too, would add to the story that she was ill. If they still needed to keep the pretense going now that they knew who the blackmailer was.
Of course, they still had to catch him.
Dragan came in briskly, carrying a decanter and three glasses, which made Azalea laugh.
He grinned. “Celebrating. I suppose Trench has told you the gist of what we learned from Darchett? Come, let’s see to your arm so that you can be comfortable again.”
Obediently, Azalea shrugged off one sleeve of her robe and sat down, resting her bandaged arm on the table. While Dragan unwrapped the wound, Morris appeared with fresh water, and Eric poured brandy into the glasses.
“She wrote the letter at the Roystons’ ball,” Eric said when Morris had departed once more with permission to retire for the night. “Jessop could easily have walked away with it.”
“That makes sense. It all makes perfect sense,” Dragan agreed. He inspected the wound carefully and reached for the water. “It’s still looking good, but we need to keep taking care of it.” For a few moments, he concentrated on gently washing and drying the neatly stitched wound.
“I remember walking out of the Royston’s library without the letter,” Azalea admitted, trying not to sound too foolish. “I felt…disoriented. It seemed important to prevent talk by returning to the ballroom. Only, I obviously forgot about the letter altogether. The only thing I can’t remember remotely is the letter itself, why I was writing it in the first place in someone else’s house at such a time. That makes no sense whatsoever. Not to me.”
“Not to anyone,” Eric agreed, taking the final seat at the table, while Dragan wound bandages round the fresh dressing and helped Azalea put her arm back into the loose nightrail and robe.
“There is one other slight problem,” Dragan said at last, sitting back and picking up his glass. As one, they all clinked glasses, and Azalea enjoyed the satisfying burn.
“What?” she asked.
“We have no evidence,” Dragan said.
Azalea stared at him, her glow of euphoria fading.
Dragan shrugged. “It makes sense to us, and I’m convinced we have the right culprit in Jessop, right down to the bruise Darchett saw on his face the evening Trench punched him. But that is not proof.”
“What would be?” Azalea asked, although she knew.
“Your letter in his possession.”
“How are we going to get that?” Azalea asked doubtfully.
“Well,” Eric said. “As it happens, we have come up with an idea about that…”
*
When Dragan left, Eric gazed into his empty glass, unblinking.
“Would you like more?” Azalea asked, rising to perform the duty.
He half-smiled, shaking his head, and caught her hand to stop her.
“Just thinking about tomorrow?” she guessed, feeling strangely nervous. She had always loved his hands. Strong and deft, and yet slender, elegant and sensitive to her every desire.
He looked up, meeting her gaze. “No, not yet. I was thinking about today and tonight.”
He set his glass on the table and stood, still holding her hand. “Azalea, did you ever think I loved you only for your beauty?”
Her brow twitched at the oddity of the question. “I was glad if you noticed it. Why do you ask such an odd question?”
“It was something Tizsa said, made me wonder. We have been very close, you and I. And sometimes far apart. It is the way, I think, in marriage. But I never imagined you would believe I looked no further than the outer shell, lovely as it is.”
Since his free hand brushed lightly over her cheek and chin, her skin began to tingle. But still, he waited for an answer.
“I know the way I look attracted you,” she said honestly. “As the way you look attracted me. It still does, and I see nothing wrong with that. But you are so much more…” Strong and protective, gentle, funny, clever, charmingly undignified in his love of their children. A private man who hid his powerful passions beneath a veneer of urbanity. Do I do that, too?
“As are you,” he said, his fingers lingering at her throat. “We have had eight years of marriage to learn about each other, to love more and more deeply, through the good times and the less good. Do you really imagine that I count all of that for nothing because of this one week?”
Her fingers clung hard to his. “It has been a good week in many ways,” she managed. “I have loved being close to you again.”
“And I to you. So why, since we spoke to the vile Ned, do you throw up this new barrier?”
“I don’t mean to,” she whispered, lowering her head to his chest where, for some reason, it seemed easier to speak. “I hate to think of myself wandering about the Roystons’ house, dazed, unaware. I hate the weakness. I hate what I did and what I might have done. How I might lose you even yet, lose everything…”
He drew her hand up to his cheek and let his own fall to stroke her hair. “You never will, Zalea. Dear God, there is no weakness. You stood up to an armed bully, protected a girl who could not protect herself, have fought every step of the way to discover and defeat this other bully, this blackmailer. I know you, Azalea, so I will be amazed if there is anything to forgive. But you should also know, I always will.”
She lifted her damp cheek from his coat to gaze up at him. “Always?” she repeated.
“Always.” His head dipped. “I love you, remember?”
Her mouth opened to speak, to sob. She wasn’t sure which, but it was covered with his own, and kissing was better, for it spoke without words.
In time, when the elation of pure happiness had flowed into growing desire, he released all but her hand, and they walked together around the sitting room, turning off the lamps, and then they moved as one into the bedchamber.
He eased off her robe and handed her into bed, covering her carefully to avoid her damaged arm, which throbbed in rhythm with her heart. She barely noticed the pain as she watched him undress and climb under the covers with her.
He leaned over, and she parted her lips for his kiss. Excitement spread downward, sweet and urgent.
But his mouth left hers, and he whispered an oddly desperate “Good night” before he turned out the bedside lamp and lay back on the pillow, shoulder to shoulder with her.
Stunned disappointment paralyzed her, and for several moments she lay still, listening to his breathing. Listening as he tried to calm his rapid breathing. She smiled into the darkness, understanding his reticence. Because of her injury, he would not risk hurting her.
She turned onto her side, then deliberately laid her cheek on his naked chest, listening with growing delight to the thundering of his heart. She moved one leg over his thighs and felt the hard proof of his arousal.
She spread kisses across his chest and lower, following the fine line of hair down toward his stomach.
“Zalea!” His hand clamped over her neck, drawing her gently but inexorably upward.
That was fine, too. She kissed his mouth until he caught her face between his hands and detached her.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he whispered in something very like anguish.
“The only hurt will be if you don’t love me, now.”
He stared up at her, and she was afraid to breathe. And then, thank God, he smiled, and it was not a gentle smile, but a voracious one. Still, he rolled her onto her back with a care and tenderness he never lost, all through the long, sweet loving, even at the hectic, joyful conclusion.
“I love you,” she whispered into his ear.
She thought he wouldn’t hear for his thunderous breath, but she saw him smile into her hair before he heaved his head up once more and kissed her mouth.
“Never forget it,” he commanded hoarsely. “Nor that I love you, always and forever.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Azalea froze with her coffee cup halfway to her mouth. “The new governess is coming today!”
“That cannot be bad,” Eric observed, propped up on the pillows beside her. Without a word of instruction, Morris had left a tray with coffee for two in the sitting room. One could never keep anything from servants. “I’m sure everything is prepared for her.”
“Yes, but there is so much else to do today…”
“That can all be arranged without you. You are ill, remember? Your part comes later on.”
“She will think she is employed in a madhouse,” Azalea said ruefully.
“Then she had best get used to it.” He drained his cup and set it down. “I must go and dress and set things in motion. Tizsa will be here shortly to see to your wound.”
“I know. I meant to be dressed by now.” She smiled with a hint of shyness and a good deal of remembered pleasure. “I just felt too comfortable.”
He paused with his long, muscular legs out of the covers and leaned over to kiss her. “So did I.” He rose with gratifying reluctance and covered his nakedness with the robe he had found in the sitting room before strolling off along the passage to his own room.
While they were in the country, she thought, ringing for Morris, they should have a connecting door made between their chambers.
While Morris helped her to dress, the maid said, “The servants are worried about you, my lady. It goes against the grain not to reassure them.”
“I imagine it does,” Azalea said sympathetically. “For me, also, but it is only for one more day, and we would not ask it if it weren’t necessary.”
Morris partially fastened her gown, leaving her injured left arm free. “I suppose it has something to do with that.”
“Yes,” Azalea said bluntly. Another thought struck her. “Perhaps they were reassured by his lordship’s presence here last night.”
“On the contrary. They believe he feared for your life and would not leave you.”
“Oh dear,” Azalea said shakily, unsure whether to laugh or be grateful. “Well, I shall have to hide up here for today and again receive no visitors. Except for Miss Farrow, the new governess, who will be here at any moment. You had better bring her to me here.”
While Morris was pinning her hair, a knock on the door heralded Dragan’s arrival.
“I’ll bring fresh water,” Morris said resignedly and departed.
“Good morning,” Dragan greeted her. “Any changes? Are you still feeling well?”
“Yes, I and my wound both feel fine.” Eric had been so gentle last night she was confident the stitches remained in place.
He unwound the bandage and grunted approval. “It seems to be healing cleanly.”
“You are a good physician.”
“I’m a former army surgeon with too much experience of gunshot wounds. Cleanliness wasn’t always possible on the battlefield. But I am confident you will be fine.”
“Then you won’t forbid me from my duties this evening?”
“Not if Trench does not.”
“I think he is glad that I’ll be out of the house,” she confided.
A smile flickered across his face, but he did not answer, merely took the water from Morris with a murmur of thanks and set about his familiar care of the wound.
“Where is Griz?” she asked.
“Fending off your family, in case they have heard rumors of your imminent demise.”
“That will be helpful! And where is your next call this morning?”
“Scotland Yard,” said Dragan.
*
An hour later, Inspector Harris scowled across his desk.
Dragan didn’t blame him. The first time they had met, the policeman had been interrogating him over the murder of a housemaid. The last time they had met had been at the trial of her murderer, whom Dragan and Grizelda, not Harris, had discovered.
“I hesitate to ask,” Harris said, “but what can I do for you?”
Dragan took the invitation from his pocket and passed it across the desk. “Come to a party this evening at the home of Lord Trench. Sadly, Mrs. Harris is not included, for it is a male-only party.”
“I don’t go to those,” Harris said shortly, not touching the card. “And I am not acquainted with Lord Trench.”
“He’s Lady Grizelda’s brother-in-law. And you need not fear. He does not hold those kinds of parties either. It will simply be a gathering of gentlemen, with wine and cards and an excellent supper.”
Harris lifted the card and read it before raising his gaze once more to Dragan’s. “He wishes me to arrest someone for cheating at cards? I’m afraid that is not within my role at the Metropolitan Police.”
“Oh, I think we can promise you a bit more fun than that. Let me tell you a story, Inspector…”
*
At about the same time, Griz had managed to collect both her parents and her brother Forsythe in the library of Kelburn House.
“What is the fuss, Grizelda?” the duchess demanded, bustling into the room. “I am on my way out to call on Azalea—”
“Don’t,” Griz said at once.
“Don’t what?” her mother demanded.
“Go to Azalea’s. She isn’t receiving.”
“I’m her mother,” the duchess said flatly. “And I hear she is extremely unwell. Of course I shall go to her.”
“She isn’t unwell,” Griz stated. “Well, she has a slight injury to her arm, but Dragan says she is in no danger, and he does know about these things.”
“Then why,” asked His Grace, who generally got straight to the heart of most matters, “is Azalea not receiving callers? It sounds most unlike her.”
“She has her reasons, but it isn’t sickness.”
“What reasons?” Forsythe asked carelessly. He didn’t much care, Griz thought, being able to spot a storm in a teacup when he found one.
“It doesn’t matter,” Griz told him, “but she needs us not to visit and not to dismiss anyone who asks about her health. Just say you are keeping in close touch with Eric or something.”
