The Lady Chosen (16 page)

Tristan merely smiled.

Colby’s nervousness increased. “What can I help you with, then?”

Tristan told him. Despite his appearance, Colby was the recognized underworld baron of the patch of London that included Montrose Place. Tristan had made his acquaintance,
or rather made sure Colby knew of him, when they’d settled on Number 12 for the club.

On hearing of the strange goings-on in Montrose Place, Colby sucked his teeth and looked severe. Tristan had never believed that the attempted burglaries were the handiwork of the local louts; Colby’s reaction and subsequent assurance confirmed that.

His eyes narrowed, Colby now looked more like the potentially dangerous specimen he was. “I’d like to meet this fine gentleman of yours.”

“He’s mine.” Tristan made the statement blandly.

Colby glanced at him, assessing, then nodded. “I’ll put the word around you’re wanting a word with ’im. If any of the boys hear of ’im, I’ll be sure to let you know.”

Tristan inclined his head. “Once I lay hands on him, you won’t see him again.”

Colby nodded, once, bargain accepted. Information in exchange for removal of a competitor. Tristan rang for Havers, who saw Colby out.

Tristan finished the last of his requests for information, then gave them to Havers with strict instructions for delivery. “No livery. Use the heaviest footmen.”

“Indeed, my lord. I apprehend we wish to make a show of strength. Collison would be best in that regard.”

Tristan nodded, fighting a smile as Havers withdrew. The man was a godsend, dealing with the myriad demands of the old dears, yet with equal aplomb accommodating the rougher side of Tristan’s affairs.

Having accomplished all he could regarding Montgomery Mountford, Tristan gave his attention to the day-to-day business of keeping his head above water with the details and demands of the earldom. While the clock ticked and time passed without his making any real headway in the matter of making said earldom secure.

For one of his temperament, that last irked.

He had Havers bring him luncheon on a tray and continued
to whittle down the stack of business letters. Scrawling a note to his steward on the last, he sighed and pushed the completed pile aside.

And turned his mind determinedly to marriage.

To his wife-to-be.

Telling that he didn’t think of her as a bride, but as his wife. Their association was not based on social superficialties, but on practical, ungilded day-to-day interactions. He could easily picture her by his side, as his countess dealing with the demands of their future life.

He should, he supposed, have considered a range of candidates. If he asked, his resident gossipmongers would be thrilled to provide him with a list. He’d toyed with the notion, or at least had told himself he was, yet appealing to others for assistance in such a personal and vitally crucial decision was simply not his style.

It was also redundant, a waste of time.

To the right of the blotter lay Leonora’s letter. His gaze locking on it, on the delicate script reminiscent of the writer, he sat and brooded, turning his pen end over end between his fingers.

The clock struck three. He looked up, then threw the pen down, pushed back his chair, stood and headed for the hall.

Havers met him there, helped him into his greatcoat, handed him his cane, then swung the door wide.

Tristan walked out, went quickly down the steps, and headed for Montrose Place.

He found Leonora in the workshop, a large chamber tucked into the basement of Number 14. The walls were solid stone, thick and cold. A row of windows high along one wall looked out at ground level toward the front of the house. They would have admitted reasonable light once, but were now fogged and cracked.

They were, Tristan instantly noted, too small for even a child to crawl through.

Leonora hadn’t heard him walk in; she had her nose buried in some musty tome. He scraped a sole on the flags. She looked up—and smiled in delighted welcome.

He smiled back, let the simple gesture warm him; he strolled in, looking about. “I thought you said this place had been closed up for years?”

There were no cobwebs, and all surfaces—tables, floors, and shelves—were clean.

“I sent in the maids this morning.” She met his gaze as he turned to her. “I’m not particularly partial to spiders.”

He noticed a pile of dusty letters stacked on the bench beside her; his levity faded. “Have you found anything?”

“Nothing specific.” She closed the book; a cloud of dust puffed out from the pages. She gestured to the wooden rack, a cross between bookshelves and pigeonholes covering the wall behind the bench. “He was neat, but not methodical. He seems to have kept everything, stretching back over the years. I’ve been sorting bills and accounts from letters, shopping lists from drafts of learned papers.”

He picked up the old parchment topping the pile. It was a letter inscribed in faded ink. He initially thought the script a woman’s, but the contents were clearly scientific. He glanced at the signature. “Who’s A. J.?”

Leonora leaned closer to check the letter; her breast brushed his arm. “A. J. Carruthers.”

She moved away, lifting the old tome back to the shelf. He squelched a flaring urge to draw her back, to reestablish the sensual contact.

“Carruthers and Cedric corresponded frequently—it seems they were working on some papers before Cedric died.”

With the tome safely stored, Leonora turned. He continued
flicking through the letters. Her gaze on the pile of parchments, she moved closer. Misjudged and moved too far—she brushed, shoulder to thigh, against him.

Desire ignited, flamed between them.

Tristan tried to breathe in. Couldn’t. The letters slipped from his fingers. He told himself to step back.

His feet wouldn’t move. His body craved the contact too much to deny it.

She glanced fleetingly up at him through her lashes, then, as if embarrassed, eased fractionally back, creating a gap of less than an inch between them.

Too much, yet not enough. His arms were rising to haul her back, when he realized and lowered them.

She reached quickly for the letters and spread them out.

“I was”—her voice was husky; she paused to clear her throat—“going to sort through these. There might be something in them that will point to a discovery.”

It took longer than he liked for him to refocus on the letters; he’d clearly been celibate for too long. He breathed in, exhaled. His mind cleared. “Indeed—they might allow us to decide if it’s something Cedric discovered that Mountford’s after. We shouldn’t forget he wanted to buy the house—it’s something he expected would be left behind.”

“Or something he could gain access to by virtue of being the purchaser, before we moved out.”

“True.” He fanned the letters over the bench top, then looked up at the large pigeonholes. Stepping away from temptation, he turned down the room, following the bench, scanning the shelves above it, searching for more letters. He pulled out all he saw, leaving them on the bench top. “I want you to go through every letter you can find, and collect all those written in the year preceding Cedric’s death.”

Following him, Leonora frowned at his back, then tried to peer around at his face. “There’ll be hundreds.”

“However many, you’ll need to study them all. Then make a list of the correspondents, and write and ask each one if they know of anything Cedric was working on that could have commercial or military significance.”

She blinked. “Commercial or military significance?”

“They’ll know. Scientists may be as absorbed in their work as your uncle and brother, but they usually recognize the possibilities in what they’re working on.”

“Hmm.” Gaze fixed between his shoulder blades, she continued following at his heels. “So I’m to write to each contact he made in his last year.”

“Every last one. If there was anything of significance, someone will know.”

He reached the end of the room and swung around. She looked down—and walked into him. He caught her; she looked up, feigning surprise.

Didn’t have to fabricate her leaping pulse, her suddenly thudding heart.

He’d focused on her lips; her gaze fell to his.

Then he glanced at the door.

“All the staff are busy.” She’d made sure of that.

His gaze returned to her face. She met it but briefly; when he didn’t immediately move, she wriggled her hands free and reached up, sliding one to his nape, curling the fingers of the other into his lapel.

“Stop being so stuffy and kiss me.”

Tristan blinked. Then she shifted in his arms, unintentionally teasing that part of his anatomy most susceptible to her nearness.

Without another thought, he bent his head.

He escaped nearly an hour later, feeling distinctly bemused. It had been years—decades—since he’d indulged in any such mildly illicit behavior, yet far from boring him, his senses were smugly content, luxuriating in the stolen pleasures.

Striding down the front path, he raked his hand through his hair and hoped it would pass muster. Leonora had developed a penchant for thoroughly mussing his normally elegant cut. Not that he was complaining. While she’d been mussing, he’d been savoring.

Her mouth, her curves.

Lowering his arm, he noticed a smear of dust on his sleeve. He brushed it off. The maids had dusted all surfaces; they hadn’t dusted the letters. When they’d finally separated, he’d had to brush telltale streaks off both himself and Leonora. In her case, not just from her clothes.

The image of how she’d appeared at that point swam across his mind. Her eyes had been bright but darkened, her lids heavy, her lips swollen from his kisses. Drawing his attention even more to her mouth—a mouth that increasingly evoked mental images not generally associated with virtuous gentlewomen.

Closing the front gate behind him, he suppressed a wholely masculine smirk—and ignored the effect such thoughts inevitably had. The afternoon’s discoveries had improved his mood significantly. Reviewing the day, he felt he’d gained on a number of fronts.

He’d come to view Cedric’s workshop determined to move the investigation into the burglaries forward. Impatience was sharpening its spurs; it was his duty to marry, thus protecting his tribe of old dears from destitution, but before he could marry Leonora, he had to nullify the threat to her. Eliminating that threat was his top priority; it was too immediate, too definite to give second place. Until he successfully completed his mission, he’d remain focused first and always on that.

So having escalated his own investigations through the various layers of the underworld, he’d come to assess what avenues for advancement Cedric’s workshop might suggest.

Cedric’s letters would indeed be useful. First in eliminating his works as a potential target for the burglar, second in keeping Leonora amused.

Well, perhaps not amused, but certainly busy. Too busy to have time to embark on any other avenue of attack.

He’d accomplished a great deal for one day. Satisfied, he strode on, and turned his mind to the morrow.

Devising her own seduction, or at least actively encouraging it, was proving more difficult than Leonora had thought. She’d expected to get rather further in Cedric’s workshop, but Trentham had failed to close the door when he’d entered. Crossing the room and closing it herself would have been too blatant.

Not that matters hadn’t progressed; they just hadn’t progressed as far as she’d wished.

And now he’d lumbered her with the task of going through Cedric’s correspondence. At least he’d restricted their search to the last year of Cedric’s life.

She’d spent the rest of the day reading and sorting, squinting at faded writing, deciphering illegible dates. This morning, she’d brought all the relevant letters up to the parlor and spread them on the occasional tables. The parlor was the room in which she conducted all household business; sitting at her escritoire, she dutifully inscribed all the names and addresses onto a list.

A long list.

She then composed a letter of inquiry, advising the recipient of Cedric’s death and requesting they contact her if they had any information regarding anything of value, discoveries, inventions, or possessions, that might reside in her late cousin’s effects. Instead of mentioning the burglar’s interest, she stated that, due to space constraints, it was intended that all nonvaluable papers, substances, and equipment would be burned.

If she knew anything of experts, should they know of anything the least valuable, the idea of it being burned would have them reaching for their pen.

After luncheon, she commenced the arduous task of copying her letter, addressing each copy to one of the names on her list.

When the clock chimed and she saw it was three-thirty, she set down her pen and stretched her aching back.

Enough for today. Not even Trentham would expect her to get through the inquiries all in one day.

She rang for tea; when Castor brought the tray, she poured and sipped.

And thought of seduction.

Hers.

A distinctly titillating subject, especially for a twenty-six-year-old reluctant-but-resigned virgin. That was a reasonable description of what she’d been, but she was resigned no more. Opportunity had beckoned, and she was determined to play.

She glanced at the clock. Too late to call at Trentham House for afternoon tea. Besides, she didn’t want to find herself surrounded by his old ladies; that would not advance her cause.

But losing a whole day in inaction wasn’t her style, either. There had to be some way, some excuse she could use to call on Trentham—and get him to herself in appropriate surrounds.

“Would you like me to show you around, miss?”

“No, no.” Leonora crossed the threshold of the Trentham House conservatory and cast a reassuring smile at Trentham’s butler. “I’ll just amble about and await his lordship. If you’re sure he’ll return soon?”

“I’m certain he’ll arrive home before dark.”

“In that case…” She smiled and gestured about her, moving deeper into the room.