Meet Me at Midnight (9 page)

Slowly she pulled out the key and looked at it. He hadn’t wanted to give it to her, but he’d done so anyway. Of course, he’d also claimed that she wouldn’t want to use it for long. With a sniff, Victoria put the key into the lock and turned it. The click wasn’t as satisfying as she’d hoped, but it did make a point.

“The blue muslin, or the green silk, my lady?”

She started. “Hm? Oh, the green silk, I think. I’m not certain how formal one is supposed to be for a first meal with one’s spouse, but I’d rather be overdressed than undressed.”

The maid looked at her. “Underdressed you mean, don’t you, my lady?”

Victoria scowled and returned to the bedchamber, flopping onto the bed. “For heaven’s sake. Of course I do. Underdressed.”

“Though since you are married to a very handsome gentleman,” the maid mused as she laid the dress across a chair, “the other seems sure to arise, as well.”

“Jenny!”

The maid blushed. “Well, it’s true, my lady.”

“This is not a real marriage, Jenny. Not as far as I’m concerned.”

“I wonder what his lordship thinks about that?”

“I’m sure I have no idea. And even less concern.”

Despite her pronouncements, by eight o’clock that evening she had spent an inordinate amount of time considering the delicious, heady quality of her groom’s kisses. Though she was used to the layout of London’s largest town houses, she still managed to get lost on her way to dinner, detouring into the library and the music room before she found the main dining room. He’d said the house was hers now, but that wasn’t quite true; legally, she had just become an ad
ditional piece of his property, and he owned her as much as he owned Grafton House.

She arrived at the dining room before Sinclair did. Half a dozen footmen and the butler stood ranged in the room, waiting for someone to wait upon. “Good evening,” she said, moving to the seat at the foot of the table.

“Good evening, my lady,” Milo responded, hurrying forward to hold her chair for her.

“This must be very odd for all of you,” she continued in her friendliest tone, as she sat down. “First a new marquis and now his wife, all in less than a month. Have you been in the Graftons’ employ long, Milo?”

“Yes, my lady. More than half the staff remains from the previous Lord Althorpe’s residence.”

“He was a good man.”

“A very kind man,” Milo stated, so emphatically that she smiled up at him.

“Lord Althorpe must be pleased to see such loyalty to his family. How long did you serve Thomas?”

“Five years, my lady. And if I may say so, the…bastard who killed him deserves a good hanging.”

The other servants nodded their heads in agreement. Victoria had to wonder, though, whether they more regretted losing their old employer or gaining a new one.

“There you are,” came from the doorway.

The slight, familiar shiver tingled down her spine at the sound of his low drawl.

“Good evening, Sinclair,” she said, his name on her lips sounding foreign and familiar all at the same time. She wondered if she would ever grow used to saying it.

“You look stunning,” he said, circling around behind her before he took his seat at the opposite end of the long, formal table.

“Thank you.”

He inclined his head. “I went to fetch you, but you seem able to navigate on your own.”

“One house is very like another.” She knew she sounded arch, but with the way her tongue seized up in his presence, she was relieved just to be able to utter a coherent sentence.

“I suppose they are. I haven’t visited many since my return. I should pay more attention, I imagine.”

“It hardly signifies. There’s always a servant about to guide an infrequent visitor, and the frequent ones have already visited enough to know where they’re going.”

His expression grew intent for the length of a heartbeat, and then he was Sin, the rake with the dark, sensual smile again. “I seem to fall under the category of infrequent visitor.”

He also seemed to have completely forgotten that she was a first-time visitor to Grafton House. “I feel that way, myself,” she said, just to remind him that he should have been making supportive comments to her—not the other way around.

“We’ll have to remedy that. I think I’ve become familiar enough with the place to give you a tour. Whenever you’d like. Tomorrow, perhaps.”

“Perhaps. I do have a charity luncheon to attend tomorrow.”

He lifted an eyebrow, jaded and cynical again. “I was under the impression that you thought we were going to be out of town tomorrow.”

Drat
. “So I was. But the luncheon has been set for months—and I agreed to participate long before I met you. If I’m in London, I have to attend. You said I shouldn’t alter my social calendar.” She looked down at her plate as Milo served a very delectable-smelling roast pheasant. “You may accompany me, if you wish.”

Sinclair snorted. “Me—at a charity luncheon? I’m surprised you let yourself be pulled into it, but I’m not that daft.”

That was just about enough of that. “I didn’t get pulled into anything, my lord,” she retorted, clenching her fork. “I volunteered. That’s what charity is, you know. Giving of yourself.”

“If that’s the definition,” he said around a mouthful of pheasant, “then this bird committed charity. It’s certainly given of itself. And damned tastily, too.”

She glanced at the assembled servants. If he wasn’t concerned about the impression he made in front of them, then she didn’t care about how oafish he looked, either. “If you confuse eating a bird with charitable works, I can see how your loyalties became so confused in Europe.”

He froze, then slowly set down his utensils, his gaze all the while on her face. “My loyalties?”

“Yes. Why else would you gad about France when the rest of England was at war with it?”

For a long moment he said nothing. Then, his shoulders perceivably relaxing, he resumed eating. “My loyalties in Europe were never unclear. They were always to myself.”

“And that is even more sad than if you’d chosen the wrong side.” Angry and disappointed, she pushed
away from the table and stood. “Excuse me, but I think I’ll retire early this evening.”

This time he didn’t look up at all. “Good night then, Victoria.”

“Sinclair.”

S
inclair paced his bedchamber, pausing each time before the dressing room door and then resuming his stalking again. He’d be damned if he would try the door, or if he would enter her room—not until she begged him to.

So she questioned his loyalties.
She
, a frivolous, flirtatious, and spoiled London beauty, had questioned
his
loyalties. Of course, that had been the idea: to give everyone—especially Bonaparte—the impression that he was too self-absorbed to care about politics, and that he would do anything so long as it amused and benefitted him. Those same qualities were supposed to give him equally free rein in London, to find Thomas’s killer.

Obviously, he was becoming demented. Victoria was supposed to think him a boor, but now that she did, he didn’t like it. “Idiot,” he muttered. “Jackass.”

The clock downstairs chimed twice. With another oath at his inattention, he grabbed his discarded coat and slipped out to the dark hallway. Swiftly he made his way downstairs, avoiding the step with the nasty creak, and slipped into the first-floor office. Even in
the dark it took only a second to unhook the latch and swing open the window. It moved silently; he’d made certain of that the day he’d returned to London.

Once over the casement, he dropped to the ground and, hugging the deep shadows close by the house, crept out to the stable. “Bates,” he whispered.

“’Bout time,” a lower, more guttural voice answered from behind him.

Sin swung around, in the same fluid movement pulling the pistol from his pocket and aiming it.

“Jesus!”

Sin froze, the muzzle of his pistol pressed against the man’s forehead. “Don’t move.”

“Not likely to, with that cannon pointing at me. For God’s sake, Sin, it was a joke.”

Sinclair slowly lowered the pistol and pocketed it again. “Doing poor impressions of dead assassins really isn’t that amusing, Wally.”

“I told you,” Bates said, coming around the corner of the building with a tall, muscular man beside him. “Not funny.”

Wally ran a hand through his thinning blond hair. “Well, if you hadn’t been late coming out here, I wouldn’t have had time to think it up.”

Sinclair nodded. “I lost track of the time.”

“That’s expected,” Bates said, his teeth glinting in the moonlight as he grinned. “It being your wedding night and all.”

“I’m surprised you left that warm, soft bed at all,” Wally contributed.

As he had no intention of informing them that he and his bride had spent their first night of matrimonial bliss in separate bedchambers, Sinclair merely shrugged. “Just tell me it was worth it.”

The tawny-haired giant with Bates stepped forward. “That supposed witness we tracked down turned out to be an old, drunk squire with no more sense than pence.”

The soft Scottish accent didn’t make the news any more palatable. “Nothing at all?”

“Nae. He heard that I was offering money for information, but I don’t think he knew your brother from Prince George.”

“I didn’t think offering a reward would work,” Sin acknowledged softly, “but we had to try.”

Wally was shaking his head. “If money was the key, somebody would have flushed the bastard out two years ago.”

“I know. We’re just going to have to do it the old-fashioned way. We can’t eliminate any of our suspects without proof to the contrary.”

“That could take a very long time, Sin.”

He looked at Bates. “You’re not obligated to join me.”

The younger man scowled. “Don’t start with that damned nonsense again.”

“Where d’you want to begin?” Crispin added.

The little quip Victoria had shot at him stuck in his mind. He’d thought of it before, but in a more nebulous way. “We have two extremes to choose from,” he said slowly. “Most of the servants were gone, and none of the ones working that night remember seeing or hearing anything unusual. So—we have either a complete stranger who sneaked into that huge house and managed to find, surprise, and kill Thomas without running into anyone else; or, we have someone familiar enough with the house and its inhabitants to do the deed and escape unnoticed.”

“With a thunderstorm for cover, I can’t think why either one couldn’t be plausible,” Bates said thoughtfully.

“We’ve had this conversation before,” Wally grumbled, hunching his shoulders against the cool night breeze.

“And we’ll continue to have it until we find the damned murderer.” Sinclair glared at him. “I measured: the study desk is twelve feet from the door. It’s closer to the window, but one casement is painted shut, and until a few days ago, the other had a squeak loud enough to raise the dead.”

“Plenty of warning for your brother, whichever direction the gunman came from,” Crispin said with his usual astuteness, “but he didnae see the need to stand up or to reach for a weapon.”

“Exactly. I’m willing to wager that Thomas was well acquainted with his killer. And I think we have to proceed from there.”

“No changes to the list, then?”

“Not by much. I want a sound alibi with witnesses before we dismiss any of them. Wally, you take Mr. Ramsey DuPont. I doubt he’s our man, but he seems to have a mean streak. Bates, you luck into Lord Perington, who likes to drown cats and has a successful export business. And Crispin, the Earl of Kilcairn Abbey is yours.”

“Lucky me,” the big Scot muttered. “Lucifer Balfour himself. Ye didnae suspect him before.”

“I do now.” That wasn’t quite true, but he couldn’t forget Victoria’s delighted reaction to Kilcairn’s presence. He’d be more than pleased to discover anything unpleasant about Lucien Balfour.

“We’ll keep communicating through Lady Stanton,”
he continued. “If I don’t hear from you before Thursday, we’ll meet at Jezebel’s Harem at midnight.”

Bates narrowed one eye. “Uh, Sin, are you certain about that?”

“Yes. Why?”

“A married gentleman at Jezebel’s might raise a few eyebrows, you know.”

Sinclair cursed. “You’re right. Damnation. Boodles’, then. Are you still in good standing there, Crispin?”

“Aye. A bit proper for us, but we’ll manage it.”

“I’ll see you then. And be careful.”

“Take your own advice, Sin,” Crispin said. “You’ve done some mad things in your life, but getting married because you need a sound list of suspects—that’s daft, even for you.”

“Or it just might be my most brilliant strategy yet,” Sinclair countered.

“Aye. Or it might be for some other reason entirely.”

Sinclair scowled. “Like what?”

Crispin just smiled. “G’night, Sin.” A moment later, the three men vanished into the darkness.

Sinclair stood where he was for a moment, then turned back to the house and the open study window. Whether Victoria wanted to share his bed yet or not, she’d already answered some questions about three of their suspects and a logical method of entry. On one route, at least, the path looked nicely clear.

Victoria stepped back from the window and let the curtain fall closed again. She hadn’t seen them all that well, but she was fairly certain those three gentlemen were the same ones Sinclair had conversed with at
their reception. Funny, they had seemed hopelessly silly and drunk then, but out in the Grafton stable yard they all looked as sober as she was. It had been several hours, of course, but it still seemed odd.

She sat on the edge of her bed and absently stroked Lord Baggles. She wasn’t aware of any rakes who went lurking about their own stable yards in the middle of the night, armed and apparently quite proficient with their weaponry. And that wasn’t all. The straight, attentive line of his body, the spare way he spoke and gestured—they reminded her of a different Sinclair Grafton, the one whose kiss had sent her headlong into marriage.

Victoria sighed, tired down to her bones. It was his fault she was spying on him, though, because she’d only been looking out at the moonlight. He’d been the one providing something for her to see.

In all likelihood he had a perfectly logical explanation for his odd little meeting. Asking, though, would mean admitting that she’d been watching him out the window. She didn’t feel ready to hear or render explanations just yet, not when she hadn’t even sorted out how she’d ended up married.

Sin had already left to go riding the next morning when she went downstairs to the breakfast room. Generally, by the time she made her appearance at Fontaine House, two or three young men would already have gathered in the morning room with invitations for picnics and carriage rides, just on the chance she might have a spare moment during the day.

Grafton House seemed completely devoid of young, admiring men, including her husband. Except for the edge of annoyance at being ignored and disregarded,
she rather liked it. There was no one to be clever for, no one to converse with about the same things she’d discussed a hundred times before.

“Milo,” she said as she buttered her toast, “I am expecting a few more things this morning. How does Lord Althorpe feel about animals?”

“Animals, my lady?”

She smiled at his puzzled look. “Yes. Animals.”

“I don’t know, my lady. He has purchased several horses since his arrival, if that helps.”

Victoria paused, the toast halfway to her lips. “You said ‘arrival.’ Not ‘return.’ Didn’t you know Lord Althorpe before he came to assume the title?”

The butler intercepted the teapot from a footman, signaled the servant to leave, and refilled her cup himself. “I met him on one prior occasion, my lady, shortly after I began my employment here. His visit, however, was quite…brief, and quite correctly Lord Althorpe did not introduce us.”

Hmmm. That was exceedingly interesting. Though the butler hadn’t said anything definitive, nor would he if he had any intelligence, she had the distinct feeling that he didn’t like his new employer. Since Sinclair didn’t seem inclined to tell her anything about himself, she would simply have to find an alternative means of learning.

“That’s a shame, considering the present circumstance,” she continued, spooning sugar into her tea. “Was the late marquis fond of his brother?”

“I wasn’t privy to his private ruminations, of course, but I can say that they quarreled that one time, and that afterwards the former Lord Althorpe rarely spoke of his brother—except when he read the morning newspaper.”

“The newspaper?”

“Yes. Several times as he took his breakfast, I heard him exclaim about the foolish chances Sinclair took.” He cleared his throat. “Those were his words, of course. I would never pass judgment on either Lord Althorpe.”

“Oh, no. What a pity, though, that the brothers didn’t get along. I often wished I had had a sister with whom to chat.”

“Well, there is young Christopher. Lord Althorpe—the former Lord Althorpe—doted on him.”

She favored him with a warm look. Men were so easy to deal with. “You seem fond of young Christopher, yourself.”

“He is a fine young man.”

“I met him yesterday. He seemed quite charming to me, as well. I was surprised that…my husband hadn’t mentioned him before.” Calling Sin her husband seemed so odd, but constantly referring to him as “the marquis” and “Lord Althorpe” was wearing thin.

“It’s my understanding that the grandmother, Lady Drewsbury, didn’t approve of the new marquis’s long delay in assuming the title. That is mere speculation, of course.”

Victoria put a hand on Milo’s arm. “Of course. I appreciate your assistance.” She chuckled. “I’m afraid I have a great deal of catching up to do. I think I’ve found my tutor.”

A movement at the edge of her vision caught her eye, but when she looked toward the hall doorway, no one was there. She fleetingly hoped Jenny hadn’t allowed Lord Baggles to escape. A moment later the front door rattled and opened, and she jumped.

“If you’ll excuse me, my lady,” the butler said hurriedly, exiting.

He nearly slammed into the marquis as Sinclair strolled into the room. “There you are, Milo,” he exclaimed, handing over his hat and black greatcoat. “See that Diable is put up, won’t you?”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And good morning, Victoria.” Althorpe sidestepped the butler and sank into the chair beside her, ignoring the place that had been laid at the head of the table. The servants rushed to move the place settings.

“Good morning.”

A wave of shivers cascaded along her skin as he leaned his chin in one hand to gaze at her. The sensation wasn’t at all unpleasant, and neither was the sight of his deceptively lazy amber eyes taking her in.

“‘Diable’?” she repeated, mainly to turn his disconcerting attention away from her.

“Seemed the fashionable thing to name the beast. His real name’s Frederick the Dependable. Hardly awe-inspiring at all.”

She chuckled, relieved that he seemed willing to forget their poor parting last night. “I’d have to agree.”

His return smile made her heart race. “Did you sleep well?” he asked softly as a footman poured him a cup of coffee.

He didn’t seem to be making any attempt to dissemble about their relationship in front of the servants. The most likely reason, though, was that the household already knew. She hadn’t exactly been tactful, either, last evening.

“Yes, I did. And my rooms are lovely. I should have told you that before. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like them, but you certainly don’t need to thank me for them.”

“Even so, it was thoughtful.”

He straightened. “Well, it’s my understanding that females like to have a private area where they can escape from the bustle of the household.”

And there he was again, categorizing her when he didn’t even know the first thing about her. If it wasn’t for those occasional compelling looks and words, she was certain that she wouldn’t like him at all. “Well, if a man’s home is his castle, it follows that a woman needs at least a room or two,” she said, sipping her tea and watching him over the rim of the delicate porcelain cup.

He lifted an eyebrow. “I can’t quite tell, but I almost think you’re arguing with me about something.”

“You’re mistaken. I don’t know you well enough to argue with you.”

“Back to that again, are we? You are persistent.”