Yorkshire (14 page)

“That had occurred to me, too,” I said a trifle tartly. “Shall I take you in the morning?”

“Yes please.” She might have an ulterior motive. If she went with me, I couldn’t meet Richard again, if I’d planned to. I was grateful for her help, but annoyed with her for interfering. After all, she had shown no interest in the coach accident earlier in the day.

Chapter Nine

Lizzie was as good as her word. The next morning we went to the coach house together. After seeing the strap, she agreed with me the break looked too clean to be merely wear and tear. Someone had deliberately cut it.

A worried frown marred her perfect features. “We must tell James. But only when we can speak to him privately.” At last, we were in total agreement, and it put me in better temper with her.

We decided to go back in to find our brother, but as we turned to leave the doorway darkened, and Richard came in. My heart sank. Perhaps he’d hoped to find me alone. Then I saw that James was close behind him. They bowed good morning while we returned the courtesy, giving me time to order my thoughts.

Richard glanced at me in warning. “I see someone else had the same idea as we did. It may serve to confirm my suspicions. Did you notice anything amiss, ma’am?” he said to Lizzie.

Lizzie indicated the bit of leather. “My sister noticed a problem with this strap yesterday. I wanted to see it for myself, before bothering James. You have so much on your mind at present.” She smiled placatingly at James. “We didn’t want to bother you with it if we had any doubt.”

“I, on the other hand, have no doubts, about this.” Richard took the strap from Lizzie’s unresisting hands. “See for yourself, sir.” He held it out to James. “The other side only confirms it. The strap has been severed nearly through, and left to finish the job for itself. The coach is in such a state of disrepair the perpetrator relied upon no one bothering to examine it. After all, you can’t repair such a wreck, you can only have it destroyed.”

James looked cynical, but he walked forward and examined the strap.

Eventually, he put a hand up to his mouth, rubbed his chin and sighed deeply. This problem settled on his shoulders. “There’s no doubt about it. The strap has been cut. It’s certainly the direct cause of the accident. I think this family owes you an apology, Strang. Someone in this household wanted someone on that coach dead. Whoever it was, he caused your injury.”

Richard shook his head. “I need no apology, sir. After all, it was entirely my fault I was aboard the coach. My mother always said my curiosity would kill me, and this time she was very nearly right.” He gave a wry smile. “I can’t think, however, that the news would give her very much satisfaction.”

A thought occurred to me, and without thinking first, I blurted it out. “Why use such an uncertain way of doing it? The accident might have injured people but not killed anyone at all. There was no glass in the windows to increase the danger, and coaches overturn every day with less serious results.” Richard gazed at me steadily, an arresting expression on his face.

I looked away hastily, as he continued with my thought. “Then…. someone may have only wished to harm the occupants, or to give them a fright?”

We all paused, as we tried to work out the implications of this. “Who on earth could have wanted to do that?” James turned away from the coach, to face Lizzie and me, dropping the strap as if it burned him.

“With your permission, that’s what I would like to try to find out,” said Richard. “If you call in the authorities, the thing must reach the press, and I’m afraid the resulting publicity might do your family a great deal of harm.”

“Oh God.” Lizzie turned pale. With such a scandal, she would find things even more difficult in London. “So close. So close to everything I ever wanted. This could take it all away.” She blushed in shame when she caught Richard’s gaze. “I—I’m sorry, sir, it must seem so heartless to you. It’s just that—that I’ve dreamed of a season for years, and when I realised it might be possible it drowned out everything else.”

Richard patted her hand. “Society cannot be denied the opportunity of your company, ma’am. But if this thing should become known, I’m afraid the papers would make hay with it.” He released her hand. “You’re unknown to society, and if it becomes known that any suspicion exists about the deaths of the previous earls of Hareton, I’m afraid it will be the next
cause célèbre.
My reassurance that you had nothing to do with it won’t count for much, I’m afraid, unless we can find out more about it.”

“So we need to keep this to ourselves,” James said grimly. “Do you think I should destroy the coach?”

Richard held up a restraining hand. “No. It’s your only proof. If I can find who did this, and it was, as I believe, nothing to do with you or your family, it might be as well to bring the attention to the authorities to it, and have it cleared up. You’ll still carry a certain amount of notoriety, but it won’t do you any harm in the long run. Especially once people get to know you.”

“But—we can’t appear like that.” The thought of appearing in society frightened me enough, without this complication.

He smiled reassuringly and met my eyes. I tried not to catch my breath. “Everything will be fine, but we must be careful.”

I took comfort from his words, but it seemed Lizzie did not. “Fine for you to say. We’ll never be accepted now.”

Richard smiled reassuringly. “I’m sure it won’t come to that,” he said in soothing tones, as he might to a child thwarted of a toy. “I’ve been of some service in matters like this before, and I’ve seen far worse than this. Polite society prefers to keep its dirty linen away from the public eye.”

I understood my sister better than he did. She would think first of others, but in this case the only people who stood to lose were us. And she had longed, year after year, for a society presentation, a life at the centre of affairs. To receive it, only to have it cruelly snatched away would devastate her.

James rubbed his chin again; his habitual gesture when he thought hard. We waited for him. He sighed again. “I don’t like to put you to such trouble, my lord. Our sorry business is hardly your concern.”

“Please don’t think of it like that,” Richard answered. “Such problems divert me.”

James’s brow cleared. “In that case, my lord, name your terms.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it. Although,” he continued quietly, “I may ask a favour of you some time.”

He didn’t look at me, but I prayed that the favour would include me.

“I’m glad we’re to keep this private,” James said. “Apart from the public implications, it would worry my wife very much, and she already has too much to do.”

“Of course,” Richard answered. “I’m afraid I’ve already told my brother and one other, but I can vouch for their discretion. I’ll tell no one else until we can get to the bottom of this problem.”

We all agreed to keep this conference quiet, then James thanked him again and said we had better get back to the house before we were missed.

Only one half of the double door to the coach house stood open, so we had to pass through it singly. Richard somehow contrived to be between Lizzie and me, and walked a little slower, so by the time James and Lizzie had reached the house, we had dropped a little way behind. Having manufactured the slight distance, he took my arm and steered me in another direction. By the time Lizzie realised I had gone there would be nothing she could do about it.

Richard took me to a door near the room we’d been received in when we first arrived. “This corridor leads to the chapel. I found it yesterday when I explored this wing a little. I like to know my way around.”

He opened the door on the left, which led into a small, sparsely furnished, but clean room. “I think Lady Hareton used this as a morning room.”

Indeed, with a little more comfort it would be a pleasant room in the mornings. It must face east, for the sun streamed in through the windows, and gleamed on the polished floors and hard surfaces.

He looked at me. My heart rose to my throat, and I found it hard to breathe. I didn’t find the feeling entirely pleasant, although it was undoubtedly exciting. His presence made me respond so rapidly, it unnerved me.

I turned away from him to stare out of the window in an effort to regain my composure, but he put his good arm on my shoulder and turned me firmly back to face him. He drew me closer and bent his head to kiss me. He gave me a gentle, closed-mouth kiss, but one full of fondness and longing.

“Good morning, my love.” His smile turned my heart over.

I found my voice with difficulty. “Good morning,”

He kissed me again, outlining my lips with his tongue until I opened for him so he could dip his tongue inside and taste me.

But he drew back after one, brief taste. “Yesterday I promised myself I’d do my best to avoid your company until I can speak to you openly, without censure. But much to my dismay, I find I can’t. I can’t be close to you without wanting to touch you.”

“Lizzie knows,” I said unhappily. “She thinks I must be mad.”

“I agree with her. We must both be mad. This whole affair is madness. I don’t know you, you don’t know me, but I’m as sure as I’ve been about anything in my life that I don’t want to let you go.”

I stumbled, unsure on my feet. It was most unlike me. Richard put his arm around my shoulders and led me to an oak settle by the wall opposite the fire. We sat close together, his arm still around my shoulders. I leaned against him, enjoying his steadying presence until I felt a little better. The soft cloth of his coat lay under my cheek; I smelled the faint scent of citrus and knew I had come home. It would be so easy to relax, let him take control, but while I knew I loved him, I didn’t know if I could trust him.

I took a deep breath. “You have a great advantage over me, sir. I’ve never felt anything remotely like this before in my life. I don’t know how long it will last, why I feel like this, or even what it is, for sure. It frightens me, it excites me, and it gives me thoughts I don’t know what to do with.”

I lifted my head to meet his perceptive gaze. He stared back at me, no artifice left. Just a man, listening. “You must have felt this before,” I said, imploringly, despairingly, “You might even be trifling with me for all I know.”

He protested, “No—” but I carried on. I had to have my say before I lost my nerve.

“On the one hand, my sister says you’re an unreformed rake, and I shouldn’t listen to a word you say, and on the other, when I look at you I can’t imagine you doing anything wrong, but—” In my agitation, my inability to express myself, a lump formed in my throat. Angrily, I dashed away a tear from the corner of my eye before he could see it.

He recognised the gesture. Taking his arm away from my shoulders he took my hand instead. “Look at me.” I sniffed, and fought to control my wayward emotions before I looked up to meet those icy blue eyes.

“Do you think I wanted any of this?” His quiet tones sounded very much like anger. “I don’t know you any better than you know me. When I first set eyes on you last Monday, you could have been as cold and stupid as Julia, but I wanted you just the same. Now I know you a little better I want you more. Yes, I want you, desire you, and yes I’ve felt that way before, but I’ve never felt such a foolish desire to let someone into my life the way I want you to share mine. Please trust me, and I promise I’ll do my best to get us out of this mess, and into the light.”

“I have to trust you, I can’t do anything else, can I?” I hated feeling so helpless.

He kissed me again, gently. It felt like a promise. “All I can say for certain is I’m falling in love with you. Now, today. I don’t seduce innocent, respectable females, though I know many who do. My prior philandering mainly involved married ladies looking for a change, or high flyers. I thought that would be my lot for the rest of my days.” He shrugged. “It has been that way for most of my acquaintances. Now I’m not so sure. Believe me, if I wanted a little light relief, I wouldn’t be here now. I would have gone to my parents’ house. A large country house and a multitude of guests masks any amount of frivolity. We could have turned around and left, that first day. But I stayed here because of you. I planned to let you know of my interest, see if you might one day return my regard, extricate myself from Julia and then return to court you properly. But that’s changed. You’re in trouble now and I have to help.”

“Is it bad?”

“It could be. Your family arrived and the next day the earl and his brother die in an accident which is no accident. If we don’t discover who is responsible, your family will enter society under a cloud. Suspicion will always lie over you, rumours and innuendo follow you, until we can determine the truth.”

“Will it really put paid to Lizzie’s ambitions?”

“What about yours?” he asked, smiling.

“I have none. I’ve been on the shelf since Lizzie made her come-out.”

He lost the smile and his brows lifted. “How so? I can see something in you that should draw suitors to you. You have grace, you’re beautiful—”

“No.” I looked away, ashamed at his teasing.

He put his hand under my chin and turned me back to look at him. “Yes. You just won’t let yourself be as beautiful as you are. Stand up straight and be proud of your height and your figure. Your hair will be glorious, with the right attention—” I grimaced and put my hand up to my unruly locks, already tousled and coming loose although still early in the day, “—and your eyes, your eyes…” He looked at me in silence for a heartbeat. “Your eyes hold everything I need.” He leaned forward to kiss me again, a reverent gesture of affection. He drew back, gazing at me. “Whatever happens, I want you, scandal or no.”