Johanna Lindsey (6 page)

We worried ourselves sick over her whereabouts. I think that contributed to my father’s decline. He died several years later.”

“I suppose you blame his death on me, too?” he asked sarcastically.

She scowled at him. “I could. It’s all related, after all. But I don’t.”

“I won’t bear the guilt for your sister’s death either,” he insisted.

“I’m not surprised. You’ve obviously divorced yourself from all meaningful responsibilities,” she said derisively. “But as I was saying, Eleanor finally got around to sending a letter, explaining that she just couldn’t bear to live with us anymore, so close to Giles’s home, visiting his grave every day. It was killing her, she said.”

“Yes, but where did she go?”

“Not very far, actually, to live with a distant cousin on my mother’s side who settled in Scotland.

Harriet was her name and she was a bit of a wild card, if you know what I mean. She married down, which caused a scandal in her day and was why my father would have nothing more to do with her and made sure I had a guardian before he died. He greatly admired your father, you know. Anyway, Harriet was a bad influence on Eleanor, apparently, since my sister married down as well, then died in childbirth because there were no doctors nearby to deal with the complications of that birth.”

“Which could have happened regardless of where she was or why she was there.”

“Yes, but she was there because you killed the man she loved.”

“A man who’d already married someone else,” he reminded her. “Why the devil do I get the blame here instead of Giles?”

“Because he would have come to his senses.”

“Supposition.”

“Hardly,” she replied dryly. “You made Juliette an adulteress, if you’ll recall. D’you really think he would have stayed married to her—if he’d survived that duel?” She’d gone for blood and had succeeded in drawing it if his expression was a guide. The blasted man deserved it, though. Why was he being so stubborn about this? She couldn’t have made it more clear that he was needed at home.

Even though she’d stabbed home her point, he still said, “You should have just laid your cards before the local constable.”

“With what evidence?” Margaret countered. “Mere suspicions? Yet your father was nearly run over in London, and dangled from the bloody cliff for nearly an hour before someone found him, and, well, the list goes on, but even he thinks his accidents were just that, accidents.”

“Which is probably all they were. You’ve overstayed your welcome, which you didn’t have to begin with.” And then he added coldly, “I’m done with my family. Why the bloody hell do you think I’ve stayed away from England all these years?”

“Must I hire you to discover if the accidents were truly accidents or something more sinister?”

“A hundred thousand pounds,” he said.

Margaret gritted her teeth. He’d named that outrageous figure just to prove he wasn’t available to her. She knew it and wasn’t going to let him get away with it.

“Done,” she replied without inflection. “Shall we leave in the morning?”

“Wait just a minute. I wasn’t serious.”

“Too bad. I was. And if you renege now I will have you discredited. Word will spread immediately that The Raven isn’t trustworthy.”

“You’re going to regret this,” he said ominously.

“No, you will, if you do nothing after my warnings. Your brother and sister-in-law might despise each other, but I fear they are in agreement on having Edgewood to themselves. Someone has to put a stop to these accidents before someone actually dies, and I think you’re the only one who can do it.”

“I’d say they deserve whatever befalls them.”

“Even if she instigated the duel that sent you packing?”

E
VEN IF SHE INSTIGATED THE DUEL THAT SENT YOU PACKING?

Once the notion had taken hold, Sebastian couldn’t shake it. Had he been set up? Was it even possible to manipulate a situation that far in advance? Carry out a seduction to cause a duel that will bury your husband? Inconceivable. Juliette had only just married Giles. Even if she wasn’t happy with the arrangement, there were simpler ways to end it.

Sebastian paced the kitchen floor, a bottle of brandy in hand. John sat in a chair, quietly watching him. He’d offered Sebastian a glass at one point, though he should have known from experience that he would decline it. It didn’t happen often, but anger tended to make Sebastian lose all semblance of nobility.

John waited, probably worried that Sebastian might do something rash in his current state. He’d seemed pleased when he’d entered the kitchen. Sebastian wouldn’t be surprised if he’d listened at the door and so already knew they were going home. John had missed England as much as Sebastian had.

He’d never said anything, but Sebastian knew he’d be glad to return. Sebastian wasn’t.

There wasn’t much that could disturb the iron control he’d mastered over the years, which was necessary in his line of work, but he’d really had to work at it today when faced with Lady Margaret’s obstinacy. Blasted hard-nosed bluestocking. He’d bet she was an accomplished horsewoman, too. And wore those new masculine-looking riding habits. Probably an avid gambler. A good shot. Some women just had to compete with men. He couldn’t imagine why, but they did, and he didn’t doubt Margaret Landor was one of them.

And she reminded him of home. God, did she ever, which brought it all back so vividly, the last few days he’d spent there. If only he’d known that Juliette was Giles’s new wife, or anyone’s wife, for that matter. If only she hadn’t been such a promiscuous whore. Giles wouldn’t have married her if he’d known. Sebastian could have resisted her if he’d known. He didn’t trifle with married women.

He’d actually considered himself lucky. There was the irony. Juliette was extremely lovely, vivacious, a bit too flamboyant for his usual tastes but so charming he’d been unable to resist her. He’d always enjoyed women, certainly didn’t turn down such blatant offers like Juliette’s. It wasn’t the first time he’d left a party with a rendezvous arranged.

But it was the last time…

Even if she instigated the duel that sent you packing?

Good God, why? So she could marry him instead? Had that been her plan? She’d already seduced him, so she might have been confident that she could woo him to marriage as well—if Giles was out of the way. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t marry a divorced woman. The upper crust were still sticklers about that. A widow was acceptable, though. But did she really think he’d marry his best friend’

s widow after he’d killed his best friend?

He wouldn’t have, and that’s why the notion that he could have been set up had never occurred to him. But Juliette might not have known that, or she could have been counting on her charms to sway him.

If that had been her plan, it had definitely gone awry when his father disowned him because of the duel and he’d left England. So had she settled for Denton instead? And perhaps Denton was on to her?

Margaret said they fought all the time. That could be why.

“Should I be packing, sir?”

John had to repeat the question before Sebastian finally heard it and joined John at the table. “So you were listening?”

“Of course.” John grinned. “Part of my job, don’t you know.”

“Yes, we’ll leave in the morning. And maybe I will refurbish this place when we get back. I’ll need something to spend Lady Margaret’s money on.”

John started to laugh. “You’re really going to charge her?” Sebastian raised a brow. “When this job was forced down my throat, as it were? I see no bloody difference in what Margaret pulled off due to a slip of my tongue and what that tyrant in Austria tried to do. Neither job would I have accepted without their blasted machinations. So you’re damned right I’m going to take every copper she’s got.”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it a job, finding out what’s happening at home.”

“No, but if I don’t treat it as one, then I won’t go. It’s that simple,” Sebastian said, then added, “I don’t exactly give a bloody damn if she blackens my name across the breadth of Europe.” He said it without anger, but the anger was there. You just had to know him really well to detect it.

And then he shrugged.

“It’s my own fault for being sarcastic with her. She wasn’t supposed to agree to that ridiculous price, but she did, so I’ll live with it.”

“I don’t recall Lady Margaret as a child,” John remarked offhandedly. “Turned out to be quite a handsome woman, though, didn’t she?”

Sebastian grunted noncommittally. He remembered little Maggie Landor as a precocious, daring chit who’d been snooping on her sister’s friends at Eleanor’s engagement party and had interrupted him while he’d been kissing one of them—deliberately, he didn’t doubt. She hadn’t shown the promise of turning out this pretty. Her sandy brown hair wasn’t remarkable, though her eyes were a striking dark brown, almost black. Rich sable came to mind. Her complexion wasn’t quite ivory but a blend of snowy cream. She wouldn’t tan well in the summer was his guess. She wore no makeup. Like many highbrows, she probably considered it too artificial. But then she needed none. Her dark lashes were naturally thick and long. Her dark brows were narrow, delicately arched. Her lips had their own rosy tint and a fullness that almost demanded a taste…

She was on the petite side, her head barely reached his shoulders. But she wasn’t a narrow wisp of a chit. Some women starved themselves so they wouldn’t have to fight with their corsets. Margaret didn’t appear to be one of them. She wasn’t plump by any means, but she was sturdy and curvaceous…very curvaceous. A man wouldn’t have to fear she’d crumble in his hands.

She made quite the pretty package indeed, enough so that he’d actually found himself hoping during those few moments before she stated her business that she was one of the tavern wenches come to win the bet, because she would definitely have won it. It was too bad she had that stubborn chin, which had proved to be an accurate prediction of her nature.

He wondered why she hadn’t married. She was a prime catch, after all, very pretty, an earl’s daughter, and apparently rich, if she could frivolously squander one hundred thousand pounds. She hadn’

t even blinked at his price, blast it.

But he also wondered if her breasts were really as firm as they’d seemed, pushing against the velvet of her spencer jacket. Probably. He even had a feeling she’d fit very nicely beneath his sheets.

Bloody hell! The brandy must be getting to him at last. Margaret Landor infuriated him. She was the last woman he wanted to see beneath his sheets.

M
ARGARET WAITED INSIDE HER COACH. It was toasty warm with a brazier burning and a thick lap robe, so cozy that Edna had fallen asleep on the seat across from her, the hour being so early. Oliver was driving them as usual. It was her father’s coach, crested, and so comfortable she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of traveling without it, so she’d had it shipped to the Continent with her.

It had cost her two extra days’ wait in England for a ship that would agree to take on such a large piece of cargo without prior warning, but she’d been adamant and had waited. She hoped there wouldn’t be another delay in shipping the coach back home, especially now that she’d be traveling the rest of the way with him.

Edna and Oliver had certainly been relieved to find out who The Raven actually was when she’d told them last night. Much better in their minds that she’d be traveling with the disgraced son of an earl who was at least known to them, rather than a deadly foreign mercenary who wasn’t.

There was no light visible from inside the ruins, but then there probably wouldn’t be even if the lamps were lit. The only windows in the livable rooms didn’t face the front, after all. It was barely dawn.

Margaret rarely rose so early, but she didn’t want to be accused of being late and give him an excuse to beg off from their arrangement.

The road to the coast and the nearest harbor at Le Havre wound near Sebastian’s ruins. They hadn’t said where they would meet, so she’d taken it upon herself to start the journey and collect him on the way. She could just make out one of the horses inside the great hall, so she was sure she hadn’t missed him. He was in there, and she hoped not still asleep. She’d give him twenty minutes more before she sent Oliver in to get him.

Twenty minutes later there was still no sign of anyone stirring within the old ruins. It had begun to occur to Margaret that her expectations could well be dashed. Sebastian had had time to sleep on it, after all. He’d probably changed his mind, the dratted man. He was going to come out and rudely tell her to leave again.

And then the boy came out, leading a placid mare. He waved toward the coach and flashed a grin so wide that Margaret couldn’t help smiling. Such a likable young lad. She wondered what he was doing living with such a dour fellow as Sebastian Townshend. He was a bit young to have been hired as a stableboy, but she supposed he could be no more than that.

John Richards followed him, leading his horse as well. He stopped to adjust a few straps on the animal. There was no baggage of any sort that she could see. Surely they traveled with a few changes of clothes—or perhaps they weren’t planning to come with her.

She wasn’t going to be assured that Sebastian hadn’t changed his mind until she actually spoke to him. She’d forced his hand, after all. He hadn’t been the least bit serious about accepting the job, no matter the unheard-of price he’d arbitrarily tossed out as the deciding factor. And she’d been temporarily insane to accept that price. She didn’t exactly have that kind of money lying around to pay him with. It could very well pauper her to come up with it.

She should have just accepted his refusal and gone home alone. She’d been gone for four months.