Clandestine (11 page)

“No, because you've not thought about it very much. But since I'm not very pretty or eligible, your small attempts at flattery only put me very firmly in my place, as a female and a dependent.”

A little flame of anger flared up his spine. “Forgive me, ma'am, but—”

“But I am a female and dependent, of course. I just hoped—” She broke off and dropped her face into both hands. “Oh, goodness! I've only made it ten times worse, haven't I?”

Guy pushed up from his chair and strode away from the table. Jupiter! Of course she wasn't
pretty
, any more than an exotic orchid was
pretty
. But only because Sarah Callaway was the most sensually attractive woman he'd ever met. Enticement frolicked with the freckles on her skin, hiding in shadowed hollows, rioting over her smooth curves.

Though she was not, of course, eligible. She was the cousin of his most recent mistress. For the second day running, he felt like a rat.

“You wish us to work as comrades,” he said, “and instead I've made you uncomfortable. I'm sorry.”

Sarah dropped her hands and looked up. “No. I should crawl beneath the table and stay there.”

He laughed. “Better to have it out in the open. You're quite correct, ma'am. I'm a reformed man as of this instant.”

To his immense surprise, she grinned. “We'll see! You mentioned yesterday that you might go out to find Mr. Harvey Penland's house in Hampstead today?”

“If you'll give me his exact address, yes, I intend to ride out there this afternoon. Why?”

“I can ride,” she said.

He turned to stare into one of the cabinets. Ivory animals marched along the shelves. Her face was reflected in the glass, wavering in front of the carvings as he moved.

“Jack brought some of these back from his travels,” he said.

“The little elephants and birds?” Sarah leaned her chin on her folded hands. “I was afraid that you'd be awkward about this, Mr. Devoran.”

He spun about. “Awkward?”

“In spite of your claim to be so reformed, you're not-so-subtly pointing out that feats of derring-do—like gathering ivory from the far side of the world, or riding out to Hampstead to hunt for clues about the mysterious Daedalus—are hardly the purview of the fair sex?”

“I can track Mr. Penland's existence—or lack of it—more efficiently alone, that's all.”

“You only insult me by suggesting that I cannot handle the truth, Mr. Devoran.”

“What truth?”

She took a deep breath. “I deduced three things as I lay awake last night. The first was that by this morning you'd have decided to exclude me, even though it's my cousin who's missing.”

He opened a glass-fronted door and picked up a little white ivory figurine. Her long flowing robe was intricately carved. Her hands and face bloomed like small flowers.

“And the second?”

“That you thought a little flirtatious pressure on a plain schoolmistress would further that aim by helping to drive me away.”

Reflections multiplied in the open glass door. The shadows of the ivory figures danced away into both past and future.

“Why should you think that I wish to drive you away?”

“Because you and Lord Jonathan fear now that Rachel may be in real danger, and you want to protect me from knowing that. Am I right?”

“Perhaps.” He set the figurine in front of her. “A fragile creature, wouldn't you say?”

“Yes, but she's Chinese. We Anglo-Saxon females are carved from solid chunks of wood and we're much harder to break. I'm wretched with gratitude for your assistance in finding my cousin, Mr. Devoran, but I simply cannot allow you to exclude me altogether. That is what you were planning, isn't it?”

He propped one hip on the corner of the table. The Asian face gazed down at the folds of her dress, her ivory expression bland, though the angle of her head was both coy and flirtatious.

“You're a lady of remarkable intelligence, ma'am,” he said. “Even in the face of the most distressing news, you were able to hone in on a critical question: Were your cousin's hands those of a scullery maid? Meanwhile, you're absolutely correct. I'm quite content to pursue this investigation alone.”

“She's my cousin, Mr. Devoran. If you refuse to help me on my terms, I shall ask Lady Ryderbourne, instead, and I will not allow you to read the rest of Rachel's letters.”

He felt almost amused, though his humor was mixed with the discomfort that, without knowing what she did, she was determined to force him into ever-deeper levels of dishonesty.

“Yet you will first tell me Penland's address?”

“No,” she said, putting both hands firmly on the writing case. “I think not.”

Guy strode to the cabinet to set the ivory lady back on her shelf. No one knew about the house in Hampstead that Rachel had insisted he rent for her in the spring. They had arrived after dark, and she had never gone beyond the grounds. Nevertheless, he did not want to take Sarah anywhere near it—though it would be far more perilous, of course, if she went out to Hampstead alone.

“Do you play chess, Mrs. Callaway?”

“Yes, I have. I'm not particularly good at it. Why?”

“You teach mathematics?”

She shook her head.

He laughed as he closed the cabinet door. Sunbeams scattered from the glass, obscuring the contents.

“Never mind,” he said. “I gave you my word not to abandon this quest, so you know perfectly well that I shan't call your bluff. Otherwise, you'd never have risked making that last move. Yet I wonder why you show me your strategy quite this soon?”

“Because I fear that you're still keeping something from me, Mr. Devoran. Something important. Something quite other than this vague suspicion of danger.”

He froze for a split second, before he turned to face her.

“Yes,” he said. “I am.”

“Will you tell me what it is?”

“No, I will not.”

Sunlight glared around her in an aura of gold. “Is it something that will harm Rachel, or prevent our finding her?”

“No.” Guy strode back to pick up the chair and set it in its place by the wall. “You'll simply have to trust me on that, Mrs. Callaway.”

“There's certainly no requirement to strip away all privacy, sir, yet you must also trust me. I shan't become hysterical or difficult. I believe I even have some small courage. So I must insist that you not simply dismiss me. There's no good reason for you not to take me with you to Hampstead.”

“Except that you told me in the bookstore that we mustn't be seen together,” he said coldly. “Was that just the fleeting impulse of the moment?”

“No, not at all. Fortunately, things have changed since then.” She looked up. “Firstly, I had no idea then what kind of man you might really be, so it seemed wiser to accost you first in a public place. More important, Rachel was worried that Daedalus might be a friend of yours. If I had come to your house and run into him there, or if I'd been trying to explain things, and he'd arrived—” She stopped and blushed, though she laughed. “Oh, dear! I've entrapped myself, haven't I?”

Guy smiled, though his less noble suspicions had just been unpleasantly confirmed. “So it was indeed your cousin's idea for you to seek me out?”

Sarah rifled around in the box and pulled out another letter. She unfolded it and pointed to a few lines near the end.

How I wish I might ask Mr. Devoran, the loveliest man I ever met….

Guy stared at the scratched-out lines that followed. Only a few stray words were discernible, yet they were enough to see that they contained hints of longing—even love?

The breath left his lungs as if he'd been thrown from a horse.

How dare she!

He strode to the window and slammed closed one shutter to block the sunlight. The iron bar slapped against the wood with a satisfying clang.

If Rachel wanted to ask for his help, why hadn't she come to him herself? Because of
love
? He felt as if Sarah had just lifted out the first of a set of nested boxes, where each one might contain a more devastating truth than the last.

“Why the devil did you prevaricate about this?”

“Because Rachel might have seriously misjudged you. I didn't know.”

It would be equally satisfying to thrust his fist through a windowpane. Instead he swallowed the rage and stalked back across the room.

“And you do now?”

“Enough, I think. But I also feared that you might judge her too harshly, if you knew she had wanted to impose so deeply on your generosity after such a short acquaintance.”

“So you took the blame for her immodest wishes onto yourself?”

“I care for Rachel as a sister, sir. It's bad enough that you know now how infatuated she was with the memory of meeting you. Any gentleman might judge that improper, unless he also knew how very naïve she could be.”

Guy stared at the urns on the mantel, fighting the temptation to smash them into an agreeable mess of broken china.

“How often do you risk your own contentment to protect her like this?”

“I'm a widow, sir, not an unmarried girl. The risks aren't the same for me.”

“So you avoided approaching me directly because you feared that might reflect badly on your cousin, though now you've decided you may confide in me, at least this far?”

She glanced down. “Lady Ryderbourne loves you like a brother. I can think of no higher recommendation than that.”

He swallowed the caustic rejoinder that sprung to mind. “Yes, we're very fond of each other, which hardly makes her opinion objective. However, in this much you may trust me absolutely: Miss Mansard's reputation won't suffer because of anything you tell me, and I'll certainly bear in mind your assertions of her innocence.”

“Thank you, sir. It's very easy for people to misinterpret Rachel's naïveté for something quite different.”

“Quite. As for Daedalus, even if he does number among my acquaintances, he wouldn't know that there's any connection between Miss Mansard and myself, and I assume that no one in London is aware that you're her cousin?”

She shook her head. “No. No one.”

“So your cousin's fears on that score, also, would appear to be groundless.”

He stalked to the window. A bright sun was breaking through the clouds.

It must take considerable courage to swallow any vestige of pride in order to help the cousin she loved. Could he ever find it in himself to be quite that gracious?

Sarah sat down abruptly and propped her forehead on her interlaced fingers. Her face fell into deep shadow.

“I've thought the same, sir. So, just as I think we may join forces now without arousing anyone's suspicions—even if we are seen together—I'm also afraid that you may be right about Mr. Penland. If Lord Jonathan paid Rachel so large a sum of gold, why would she take the first position she could find, especially a place with six children?”

“I'm quite certain that she did not.”

Her color still high, she traced one finger over the lid of her writing case. “Yet Rachel must have gone to live in Hampstead right after she left you on the yacht, because her letters were all postmarked from there. So I must go myself, sir. After all, no one knows Rachel better than I do.”

“And if I send you away, you won't give me Penland's address.”

Her tawny lashes swept up. “I can only bargain with what I have, sir.”

“Which includes the threat of aid from Miracle, instead? I see that I'm trumped. So if you'll kindly tell me exactly where your cousin received your letters, ma'am, we may drive out to Hampstead together right now.”

She opened the lid of her writing case. “Here,” she said, holding out a paper. “I wrote it down for you.”

He didn't really need the information, but he glanced at it:
Miss Rachel Mansard, care of Mr. Harvey Penland, Five Oaks, Hampstead
. Exactly what he had already surmised.

It was still a calculated risk to take Sarah there. Less dangerous than he had feared, but dangerous enough.

I
T
was a triumph, but an empty one. Sarah gazed out across the meadows as the carriage bowled out of London. Guy Devoran's hands were sure and capable on the ribbons. His chestnut team gleamed as if the horses' coats had been beaten from bronze.

A green afternoon in the company of Blackdown's glorious nephew, driving along one of the prettiest roads in England. The scattering of villas, farm dwellings, and wooded hills formed an ever-changing picture.

Yet sorrow yawned in her heart.

This beautiful man had committed himself to her quest as he might have committed himself to a foxhunt: simply for the adventure of it. As a matter of male pride, he'd follow the quarry until it was either lost or pinned by the hounds.