Mistaken Identity (Saved By Desire 3) (7 page)

Just the thought of uncovering all of Jessica’s secrets made his body start to twitch. He shut those particular thoughts out before he embarrassed himself, and went in search of a drink.

“I will go and help myself then,” he said gently but felt strangely reluctant to leave her.

There was something indefinable in the air. A crackling tension, bristling with desire. Expectancy, maybe? Anticipation? For the first time in a long time, he wanted to take the time to get to know a woman, and it had nothing to do with the investigation.

How does she do it? You have been in the house all of five minutes, and am already distracted by her;
he mused as he left for the safer confines of the sitting room.

Jess watched him go with a mixture of relief and consternation. Wariness warred with disbelief that anybody could make her forget her mind so quickly. This powerful response to anybody had certainly never happened before. But then, none of the other guests were as handsome as this one.

“I had better be careful around you, I think,” she whispered.

“What’s that?” Ben called.

She threw a dark glare over her shoulder at him, silently warning him that their conversation was far from over, then hurried upstairs to remove her belongings from her bedroom.

Dinner was a very odd affair. Marcus had never seen such an eclectic group of people gathered in one place in all of his life before. He was used to his colleagues from the Star Elite. They were who he dined with if he wasn’t alone. They were rambunctious, lively, always teasing and jocular, and always talking.

The group of men seated at the dining table tonight was nothing short of peculiar. Not least because they clearly didn’t want to be there and hardly talked about, well, anything.

To his left was Mr. Gillespie, a rather aged man who appeared to be as blind as a bat. How on earth he could bird watch during the day as he claimed to do was anyone’s guess because he could barely see the plate Ben set before him. Whatever the man did, Marcus doubted it was ornithology. Although his hair was white, his face was relatively unlined; youthful even. At first appearance, his age was around sixty. However, the more Marcus studied him, the more he suspected the man was more likely in his early forties.

Bemused, Marcus moved on to the next man, Mr Brammall.

He was nothing short of effeminate. Even down to the pink cravat he wore, and the rather vacant look on his face. He fluffed his hair every two or three minutes and tended to ramble on in a way that most ladies would have associated with should there have been any. He didn’t work, but couldn’t explain what he did with his day.

Overall, Mr. Brammall appeared to be a seemingly helpless individual who posed little threat to anyone.

The quiet, studious man beside him, Mr. Ball, had yet to take his eyes off his food. He ate with a careful precision that defied belief. The small neat squares dotted at equal lengths on his plate were placed that way by a man who had a little too much time to think as far as Marcus was concerned. He watched the man cut each piece of his food to precisely the same shape and size as the others. He then lined up the pieces on his plate and then proceeded to eat from the top left corner down to the right bottom as one would read a book.

Seated directly opposite Marcus was Mr. Abernathy, a banker’s son who had just returned from a day’s work as a clerk in Retterton, apparently. As if to prove this, his fingers were liberally stained with ink. Marcus had tried several times to find out where the man worked but received nothing more than vague answers. Mr Abernathy appeared to be in his forties but at times seemed considerably older. His shoulders had become stooped from long hours bent over a desk, and there was an abstract vagueness about him that was intriguing. It was clear from the bespectacled way he peered at everyone that he was struggling with his eyesight. How he managed to work with books and paperwork was anyone’s guess.

With eyesight as bad as his, there is no possibility he would be able to pick his way through an uneven forest floor in the dead of night;
Marcus mused as he watched the man peer at his food.

What he had observed throughout the evening, and what bothered him the most, were the rather cautious looks everyone threw at each other whenever they thought nobody was looking. The furtive flicker of eyelids didn’t leave Marcus, himself a man who was always watchful, with any ability to sit back and simply enjoy the meal.

Thankfully, the delicious repast was well cooked, and Marcus ate his share. His only criticism was that the amount they had was hardly plentiful. Just enough had been served to feed each man what they could eat, but very little had been to the kitchen.

In spite of this, he was now warm and fed, and eager to get some sleep.

Making his excuses to the table at large, he pocketed an apple and a pear from the fruit bowl beside the door and went in search of the landlady. He found her scrubbing down the empty kitchen table.

“Hello,” he murmured.

Jess jumped and whirled to face him. She hadn’t realised she was no longer alone. It shocked her at just how stealthily this big man moved. Making a mental note to be a little warier when he was in the house, she nodded politely to him.

“Is my room ready yet?” Marcus asked without preamble.

He eyed the small tendrils of hair that had slipped out of the loose top-knot she wore and fought the urge to touch them. He suspected that if he did, she would scurry off like a frightened rabbit.

“This way,” Jessica replied briskly. “It isn’t up to our usual standards, you understand, but it is the best we can manage at short notice.”

It was clear from the tone of her voice that she still wasn’t happy at having to accommodate him. Marcus wondered if she was usually this surly with people, or whether it was just him.

Did she object to having a stranger in the house because she knew her brother had something to hide? Did
she
have something to hide? Or was it just that she was tired and incredibly worried about something?

Oh, you are most definitely worried,
Marcus mused as he eyed the deep grove between her eyes her smile wasn’t able to erase.

His fingers itched to smooth it away. He wanted Jess to tell him about what was troubling her. It wasn’t that he could help her. In fact, he knew that he could very well prove to be the one person in the world who could make her life considerably worse. It was just that he knew she was carrying a heavy burden and, for the sake of his investigation, he needed to find out if it involved stolen jewels or not.

“This is it,” she said as she pushed open a door to a room at the back of the house.

Good, it affords you a good view of the woods her brother uses,
Marcus thought as he stepped across the threshold and took a look around.

The bed was large, and located against the far wall, a few feet away from the window overlooking the back gardens. An aged but well-loved dresser sat opposite, the top of which contained a wash bowl and jug. There was very little in the way of décor. The walls had been whitewashed some time ago but had now turned a dark cream colour. The only spot of colour within the rather brown and white room was the small rug beside the bed, and the floral curtains clinging desperately to the window.

It was just like the rest of the house. Well worn, but clean.

Jess was desperately sad to leave her old room and turned her gaze away from it before she started to cry. She had left a candle lit inside. It bathed the room in a homely glow that made her want to lie down on the bed and rest for a while. But she couldn’t. Not only did she have chores to do, but this was not her room for the time being. It belonged to
him.

“I have placed a bowl of fresh water on the dresser and found a nightgown that was my father’s from the attics. It is old, but it is clean, and should be serviceable enough until your luggage arrives. I meant to ask how long you will be staying.”

Marcus looked at her. At first, he wanted to apologise for kicking her out of her room. He had no doubt this was her bedroom. It reminded him of Jessica; gentle, soft, and fragrant yet feminine and homely. He rolled her name over in his mind as he wandered around the room.

“I don’t know yet. A couple of weeks, maybe longer,” he replied absently.

Night had already fallen. It was impossible to see much outside apart from his reflection, and that of the delightfully intriguing woman behind him. Marcus tried to remind himself that he was in the house for professional reasons, but it was difficult with such sweet temptation standing so alluringly behind him. Bathed in candlelight, she stood in a golden halo that emphasised her very feminine curves. She looked darkly mysterious, but also sultry and alluring. It was so tempting to turn around and uncover all of her secrets that Marcus had turned to face her without even realising he had moved.

Before he could speak, Jess took the opportunity to leave.

“I will say goodnight, Mr Cauldwell. There is plenty of ale in the jug downstairs if you get thirsty. Just help yourself. Breakfast will be at eight. Goodnight.”

Jess didn’t bother to wait for him to respond, and quietly let herself out into the darkened hallway with a sigh of relief. Without a candle, the shadows were darker, but she knew her way around well enough to be able to find her way back downstairs blindfolded if she had to.

“Maybe it was something I said,” Marcus muttered around a yawn as he eyed the closed door. He was tempted to rattle her a little, but the sweet temptation of the freshly laundered bed was too much for his tired old bones to resist. With another huge yawn, he lay down, still fully dressed, and promptly fell asleep.

Jess slammed her way into the kitchen and glared at Ben, who was still in the process of washing the dinner pots.

“How much did he pay you?” she demanded before he could speak.

Ben shrugged, dried his hands, and dug around in his pocket. Before he could answer, Jess’ attention was caught by a small package resting beside the hearth.

“What’s that?” She didn’t wait for him to reply and hurried over to it.

Ben didn’t speak as she unwrapped it, but he winced when she turned to glare accusingly at him.

“Please tell me that you purchased this from the butchers,” she pleaded as she held the package out. Her hands physically trembled as she wrapped it back up carefully and put it back where she found it before Ben could answer.

“I have,” Ben replied. “Well, not the butchers exactly, but this was from someone who won’t get me arrested.”

“Where did it come from?” Jess dropped the joint of beef back onto the hearth and stepped cautiously away from it as though it carried an infectious disease.

If the meat had been stolen, she was going to throw it into the fire and hope all trace of it vanished. In spite of her best intentions to ignore it, her stomach rumbled hungrily. Her mouth began to water at the thought of being able to eat roast beef for once. It had been so long since she had tasted any that she had forgotten what it tasted like. Still, her conscience wouldn’t allow a morsel to pass her lips if it was from the kitchens of the Priory, or something.

“It didn’t come from the big house, did it?” she gasped in horror.

“No, it didn’t. You aren’t going to get arrested or stuck by lightening if you eat some,” Ben assured her. “We can cook it in the morning. For now, leave it there. I don’t know about you, but I am tired, and I need my bed.”

“Your bed, I hope,” she warned darkly.

Ben grinned at her. “I am not going there tonight,” he assured her, completely unrepentant at his less than holy association with the daughter of the church warden across the valley.

“You will panic if you get caught,” she worried. “If you don’t get up in jail, you will end up in front of the vicar. Either way, you are doomed. We can’t afford another mouth to feed.”

“I shudder at the thought,” Ben teased with a theatrical shudder. “Well, I am off to bed. Good night, sis.”

Jess watched the scullery door close behind him and sighed. The silence within the kitchen was deafening. Night-time was usually her favourite time of day. A time when her chores had been completed, and everyone in the house was well-fed. A time when she could close up the house, and retire to her room so she could return to being herself for a while. She didn’t have to worry about food and the endless round of chores that she had to do.

Today, though, not having her bedroom any more stung. She felt at a loss, especially given that she had a lot to mull over. She needed that sanctuary to think in because she suspected that Ben was up to something, and it wasn’t just stealing game from the local estate, or bedding the warden’s daughter. There was something else, something a little more sinister. She just wished she knew what that was.

In addition to that, the rather unusual mix of guests in the house at the moment was starting to give her the collywobbles. They were all odd in their own right and, while she usually didn’t have a problem with people’s individual eccentricities, there was something a little curious about them all. She had yet to be able to engage any of them in a full or meaningful conversation about, well, practically anything. Not only that but while all of them had a reason to be elsewhere throughout the day, their explanations about what they did all day didn’t fit their characteristics.

The birdwatcher appeared to be nearly blind. The accountant appeared to be poor sighted as well. But, he had been able to see a penny someone had dropped in the corner of the hallway the other day and had scooped it up like a hawk swooping on its prey.

Then there was the new guest.

“How stupid,” she whispered as she thought about the wild flurry of attraction she had felt at first seeing him. “He is a guest. Not only that but you have no idea why he is in a quiet, out-of-the-way place like this. What brought him to the village? You don’t know. Why is he here? You don’t know. Does he have connections in the area? You don’t have a clue.”

“Go to bed, Jessica,” Ben murmured.

Jessica gasped and whirled to face him. She hadn’t realised he was there but knew he had overheard her talking to herself. She shook her head at him.

“Do you know?” she asked as she studied the casual way he stood in the doorway.

While he had been in the room he had taken his shirt off, and how stood bare chested with one shoulder propped against the door jamb in an entirely masculine pose that made him look like a man rather than her little brother.

“I know as much about him as you do, Jess. We will find out, though, in the fullness of time. For now, stop worrying. Put the money away and get some sleep. The morning will be upon us soon enough. We can ask him what you want to know then,” Ben replied.