Ruined by Moonlight (18 page)

A skilled merchant knew the beau monde in this district, though Ben had to admit he’d only been in this establishment once or twice. Yeats took care of the wine selection and did all the purchasing. In the past he’d had an operative do this sort of thing for him, but time was an issue, and, besides, he no longer had operatives. Yes, he could call in favors, much as Wellington had done with him, but, truth be told, he was now no more than the Earl of Heathton.

He smiled affably. “I was wondering if you happened to have a rare sort of whiskey from Northern Scotland. I forget the name but I had a glass recently with my friend, Viscount Andrews. I must admit I am yearning to try it again.”

Unfortunately, when he’d seen Janet Raine to her carriage and inquired, she had not remembered the name of the distiller but had helpfully recalled where her nephew purchased his stock.

The owner of the shop was a small wiry man with a shock of gray hair and a slight accent. “The Blaven? Twenty years old and smooth as silk, but not for every palate. Aye, my lord, the viscount does do his business here, but I regret to say I sold the last bottles a few days ago.”

Before or after Andrews’s disappearance?
Ben tapped his fingers on the counter and did his best to imitate disappointment. “I see. Mayhaps Andrews will allow me to purchase it from him.”

“It wasn’t to his lordship, I’m afraid.” The proprietor frowned. “Which I’ll admit is unusual. Aside from a
few…ahem…discerning gentlemen like yourself, that particular whiskey does not appeal to many people.”

“Do you happen to remember who bought it?”

“Aye, I keep most careful records, my lord. My clientele can expect for me to remember their preferences.” Industriously, the shopkeeper bustled to the back and returned with a ledger. “A Mr. Stone came in and asked for it specifically. I noted his address, as he asked for the purchase to be delivered because he was on foot.”

It could be nothing,
Ben thought later when he emerged from the building, the address in his pocket. Perhaps this Stone was simply another connoisseur of the distinctive Blaven, but the owner of the shop had informed him that usually he went months at a time without selling a bottle to anyone but Andrews. He wouldn’t even stock it in his store as it was expensive to have it brought down from Scotland, but the viscount was a regular customer and paid well.

So was it a coincidence someone bought the reserve of this unique beverage right as Andrews disappeared?

Ben was not sure he believed in chance quite that much, and at the least it merited investigation. So even though it was rather late in the day to make a call, he instructed his driver to take him to the mysterious Mr. Stone’s address.

Ran had taught her to gamble and apparently he was an excellent mentor. The soft sound made them both look up from their card game, Ran in the act of taking a drink from his glass of whiskey, her fingers letting a card slip to the surface of the table as she discarded a poor one in the hopes of receiving a better draw.

The lamp was at low ebb, and Elena had already
caught the intensity of his gaze more than once, the anticipation of the coming night adding to the ambience of the game. But since their dinner had been served and cleared, the unexpected scrape of the bar lifting on the door jolted them both out of the moment.

Instead of the usual two servants, this time it was a girl, not more than fifteen or so, who opened the door, her eyes wide, face blanched. “My…my lady,” she stammered. “Monsieur LaSalle sent me.”

That proved Ran had been correct about the chef’s nationality. Off guard, Elena was unable to respond, but she needn’t have worried because the smooth and articulate Lord Andrews had no trouble talking to a female of any age.

“I’m Viscount Andrews.” His smile was pure male charm and he’d risen, as if noblemen normally gave such courtesy to servants. “Do you work in the kitchen here?”

The girl nodded, her gaze furtively touching the still-disheveled bed, her cheeks holding a hint of ruddy color.

Elena would normally be more embarrassed but she was too elated over the idea that the note had worked.

“The food has certainly been excellent.” Ran’s voice was casual, but Elena knew him well enough after these past days in close company that she registered the tension in his tall body. If the guards weren’t there…his gaze was fastened on the now open door.

Perhaps escape was possible.

“Thank you…it has…has all been monsieur, of course…” The girl stammered again and caught herself, for she said with a touch of desperation, “He invites my lady down to his kitchen.”

Absurdly, Elena’s first reaction was that she had nothing to wear that was appropriate for leaving their intimate
prison. They’d been provided with hot water and clean robes each day, but a dressing gown was still not proper attire for any place besides the bedroom, and at some time in the comings and goings of delivering food and the other necessities, someone had taken her chemise and also Ran’s breeches.

“
We’d
be honored. I am her protector and she goes nowhere without me,” Ran said with steely inflection.

Protector?
The word conjured forbidden images of mistresses and secretive liaisons, and Elena opened her mouth to object in outrage, but she had no desire to actually go on her own so she stifled the response.

The girl hesitated for only a moment as if she would argue and then nodded and acquiesced to his air of authority. “Follow me, milord.”

“Thank you.” He did Lord of the Manor very well, but it was difficult to resent male privilege when moments later Elena found herself on a set of curved narrow stairs and for the first time in five days out of captivity.

Or at least out of the tower room. The scullery maid lifted the lamp she’d brought and guided them down, and there was another door at the base of the stairs that she gently pushed open. The hinges must have been well oiled, but that wasn’t too much of an assumption, because they’d not ever heard the servants approach until the lifting of the bar outside the door.

Elena inhaled deeply as they passed into a darkened corridor. A hint of lemon and beeswax and old wood hung in the air.

“Take my hand.” Ran didn’t wait but clasped her fingers with reassuring firmness, the low light from the girl’s lamp ahead of them not providing enough illumination
to make it easy to see her way. “I don’t want you to stumble.”

He was gallant, but she’d already discovered that—and many other things—about him. Elena obeyed and followed, finding that two long hallways led to another flight of stairs, this one elegantly curved, and then into a great hall and through what was a servant’s doorway, obviously. The first hint the kitchen was nearby was a whiff reminiscent of the succulent pork with brandied cherries they had been served earlier, the aroma lingering along with an undertone of bread baking, probably for the next day.

For such a large house it seemed very quiet, which did not surprise her. All along she’d thought it felt as if it might be unoccupied except for the servants there to serve them.

The mystery merely deepened, but one fact she was certain of: Ran was not going back to the tower room in a docile fashion, so while they weren’t precisely free, they had one proverbial foot out the door.

“Monsieur?” the young woman murmured as she pushed open a door, pulling a light blue shawl closer around her shoulders, though it was not at all cold. “Her ladyship is here.”

In contrast to the rest of the house the kitchen was warmly lit, a large scrubbed table in the center of the space, pans hanging from hooks on the walls, the ceiling low and darkly timbered. A man glanced up from a pot he was stirring on the fire, his face registering nothing as he took in first Elena with her loose hair, robe, and bare feet, and then he assessed Ran in a long, measured look. He said curtly to the little maid, “
Merci
, Beatrice. Leave us.”

Monsieur LaSalle did not match Elena’s impression
of a French chef, to the extent he was almost slender in build and very fair, even to his eyebrows and eyelashes. His angular features were too sharp to be handsome, but he nonetheless had a presence that had nothing to do with his pristine white apron and more due to a singular self-possession. They were in his domain, of course, so that made sense.

“I received your note, mademoiselle. You enjoyed the pudding
de
chocolat
, yes? Tell me what impressed you the most.”

Elena blinked. “I suppose I found the texture to be smoother than any other I’ve tasted,” she answered after a moment of a reflection, thinking this was a bizarre way to begin this conversation. “But I—”

“Not too light? The English, they like their food so…dense.” He made a moue of disapproval and set the spoon in a cup by the hearth. “Dessert should be sublime, uplifting, a gift to the senses, not a rock in the stomach.”

While under other circumstances she might have taken a bit of umbrage to the insult to English cooking, she didn’t think that was wise. “There is something to be said for subtlety, monsieur le chef.”

“Exactly.” That won her a smile of approval. Then he nodded toward the table. “Though I am sure neither of you are used to sitting in the kitchen, it is a comfortable place, no? Please choose a chair and then explain to me why I receive praise for my food—which I agree is magnificent—and at the same time pleas for help.”

Ran politely pulled out a sturdy chair for her but remained standing. “The food has been superb, and, yes, we needed your help.”

As Elena sank down she saw LaSalle register the past
tense in that statement. “Ah, now that you have been released—”

“I have no intention of being imprisoned again.” That statement was flat and unequivocal. “Unless you also intend to produce a gun and threaten me with it, and even then I am not sure I would comply. For almost a week I have been taken out of my life entirely.”

“I see.” The chef frowned, his brows drawing in. “I was informed you were two lovers on a tryst, sneaking away for a chance to be alone together.…It was very romantic. However, I did start to wonder at the guard. It seemed to me a manservant and a maid would have been more in order than two armed men who patrol the grounds. And as much as you could play at
Je t’aime
, why would you never emerge from that room? The rest of the house is not used at all, and while I understand passion, even to me, that seemed a bit excessive.”

The reference to love gave Elena a moment of disconcerted chagrin.
No, not love,
she thought. Though she supposed those tender kisses and intimate touches were at least a play at lust.…

And she certainly understood how a woman might fall for the devastatingly attractive, charming, and erotically skillful Lord Andrews, but she somehow doubted it was a wise idea.

“We were kidnapped.” She looked at the chef steadily, hoping he registered her sincerity. “When I woke in the tower I had no idea where I was and neither did Lord Andrews. We’d never even been introduced to each other.”

It was slightly irritating that the man’s gaze immediately flickered to Ran for confirmation. “Is this so?”

“She is not only distractingly beautiful, monsieur, but absolutely truthful.”

The compliment mollified her slightly. “We were locked in.”

“That is not what I was told.” The Frenchman’s voice held a hint of outrage, but she couldn’t tell if it was over their imprisonment or the deception practiced on him. “I thought I was preparing food for a rich lord who desired utter and complete privacy so he could enjoy his beautiful lover.”

“Complete privacy? Where the devil
are we
?”

LaSalle frowned. “You do not even know—”

“Monsieur, we know nothing.” Ran interrupted, the lamplight giving his face planes and hollows. His hands were in the pockets of his dark dressing gown, but there was nothing casual in his stance. “How far are we from London?”

“About two hours by carriage.”

So close. Elena let out a small relieved breath. Since neither of them knew precisely how long they had been under the influence of the drug, she had worried they were anywhere from the rugged coast of Cornwall to the Yorkshire dells. “Two hours,” she murmured, glancing up at Ran.

“We could be there before midnight.” He looked not quite jubilant but definitely lighter.

“No,” the chef disagreed, “you cannot. There is no carriage here, I’m afraid. The one that brought me won’t be back for two more days, at which time my services are no longer needed, or that was the agreement.”

A setback, but if Ran was daunted, it didn’t show. “So we were going to be released in two days anyway?”

“I had no knowledge you were captives in the first place, so how can I say?” LaSalle theatrically spread his hands and gave a Gallic shrug. “This is all very confounding, as you can imagine. I would assume you are cherished guests since my instructions were to give you the finest of dishes.”

A good point, but Elena had to admit she wasn’t anxious to simply stay and test the goodwill of whoever had them drugged, kidnapped, and held hostage for almost a week.

“Condemned men get a last meal also,” Ran said with a grim edge in his voice. “I am inclined to leave now, even in the dark.”

A
licia looked in the mirror and adjusted her coiffure slightly, draping a curl over one shoulder. It was flattering because her hair was so dark—unfashionably so—and she had been fortunate to inherit her mother’s very English ivory complexion, and the contrast was striking. Her gown, too, this evening was a deep, rich amber shot silk with tiny amethysts sown on the neckline and a deeper-than-usual décolletage. She wasn’t at all sure Ben would notice she was being more daring; but maybe she would be proven wrong. A part of her understood he noticed
everything
.

It was what
mattered
to him that was the true mystery. Her attire? She doubted it. His volatile reaction to her absence had been gratifying, so who knew?

She rose, turned, and nodded at her maid. “Thank you, Winnie.”

“You look glorious, my lady.” The young woman smiled and then gathered up Alicia’s discarded dressing gown. “His lordship will be fair struck with your beauty.”