The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two Page 13

  ‘Thank you, Mr Hunt.’ Guin held out her hand, no longer wanting to argue or to tease. ‘Thank you for supporting me today and thank you for continuing on with this horrible business.’

  Jared took her hand, his long fingers enveloping hers. It was a conscious effort not to cling. Reaction was setting in again.

  ‘I cannot say it is my pleasure, Lady Northam, because how could it be, under these circumstances? But it is my honour to serve you.’ He bowed, something of the swordmaster in that formality, and was gone.

  Jared walked back to Great Ryder Street thinking of nothing but practicalities, letting his mind clear after the tension of the day. He had known she was grieving, of course, but Guinevere had been as tight as an over-wound spring and he cursed himself for not realising just how frightened she had been. He had no training or experience in understanding women under pressure, he realised. He could read a man’s mood from the myriad of tiny tells, the eyes, the hands, the flickering glance, the very posture, but a lady was trained from birth to present a front of tranquillity and not to show unbecoming or betraying emotions.

  Women and sex, yes, he understood that. Dangerous women, cheerful women, angry women – all well within his field of experience. But ladies, now that was another matter. The only one he had been really close to since he had left home was Sophie, and her focus was almost entirely on Cal. There had been Cal’s first wife, of course, but she had been a Boston merchant’s daughter and not raised with the degree of repression that seemed to be normal for an English lady.

  He was halfway through the door of the salle when he remembered how little he knew about Guinevere. She had married a viscount, her father had been a baronet and her maiden name was Holroyd. That was the first thing to check. Then set Dover on the trail of Mr Theo Quenten’s misdemeanours and while he was doing that Jared would study the maps of Yorkshire, reacquaint himself with the county of his birth, accustom himself to setting foot somewhere he had sworn never to go to again.

  The funeral would be in five days. The Duke of Calderbrook had sent round his highly superior confidential secretary, George Prescott, the third son of Lord Warnley, to assist with the arrangements. To Guin’s huge relief he dealt with the undertaker, making the endless decisions about the things that the man seemed to find essential – the quality of the brass nails securing the baize coffin covering, the height of the plumes on the horses, the number of mutes to walk before and behind the hearse, the exact thickness of the cards to be sent out. It seemed endless.

  ‘Leave it all to me, Lady Northam. I am assuming you require dignity, quality and good taste rather than pomp and show.’ It was a statement, not a question, and she realised that, like Jared, he had scrutinized her rooms and made a judgement.

  ‘Exactly,’ Guin said and applied herself to ordering mourning, writing letters and spending time with Lucinda and Susan, Augustus’s daughters, and their families. It was exhausting, but she was grateful to them because it showed family solidarity with her – she was quite certain the Coroner was keeping himself well informed about who called – and comforting others kept her from giving way to her own grief and fear.

  That worked during the day and into the evening, but in bed at night she wept for the kindly old man who had rescued her and, she admitted in the cold, still hours before dawn, for herself.

  Jared called daily, conferred with the servants and with Mr Prescott, made polite, formal enquiries about her well-being and wrapped the household in a tight ring of protection.

  To her huge relief he made no reference to that afternoon in his rooms. He was a sophisticated man, Guin told herself, one who would have no problem admitting an attraction for a woman and then moving on, completely unaffected, because it was unsuitable and unwise. She should try and be equally sophisticated and not let herself imagine for one moment what it would be like if it was ever not unsuitable, not unwise.

  The day of the funeral passed somehow. The clocks in every room showed her that time was progressing normally and not, as it felt, running backwards. Guin only exchanged five words with Jared, the one figure who did not seem out of place amongst the mourners, familiar in his raven-black.

  ‘The day after tomorrow?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  She turned away, conscious of his warning about their names being linked, and found Theo at her elbow. ‘Where are you going to?’ he asked.

  He looked as pale as she felt, Guin thought. ‘Yorkshire, Allerton Grange. That is where this all started. I was going to call on your father tomorrow, if he is well enough for visitors. I haven’t seen him since the day we came back to Town.’

  Theo shook his head. ‘Don’t come, Guin. It would only distress you and he would not know you. The doctors are keeping him heavily drugged now because of the pain. He doesn’t know any of us.’ His face was bleak. ‘At least he has been spared the news about his brother.’

  ‘I am so sorry.’ Guin put her hand on his arm and drew him down to sit beside her on the sofa. ‘Do they think it will be…’

  ‘Long?’ He ran both hands through his hair and Guin thought how much he had aged in the past few weeks. This wasn’t the feckless, careless youth any longer. Augustus’s death and his own father’s illness had sobered him. Unless it was guilt that was weighing on him. She told herself that was foolishness. Theo had much to gain, but all he had to do was to wait for nature to take its course with two elderly men. Risking murder would be insane and, although he was impulsive, surely an impulse would not last long enough to plot such a crime?

  ‘They say weeks rather than days,’ he continued, apparently oblivious to her brooding thoughts. ‘I feel so helpless. Those damnable drugs are so strong he doesn’t know who is there with him. I don’t want to let him go, to lose him, but you wouldn’t let a horse or a dog suffer like that.’

  ‘No,’ Guin said, watching his face.

  ‘Don’t look at me with that question in your eyes, Guin. As if I could… as if I ever would. It is bad enough losing Uncle Augustus. That damn Coroner sent a Runner round, if you can believe it. Wanted details of my meeting with Uncle Augustus, what I did while I was waiting, where I went in the house, who saw me.’

  ‘But that is dreadful.’ And it was: the moment she thought about the Coroner’s suspicions her own uneasiness seemed ludicrous. She liked Theo, for goodness sake.

  ‘For two pennies I’d go with you to Yorkshire, for all the use I am here.’

  ‘It would look as though you are running away.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so. And I can’t leave Father.’ He straightened his back, jaw firm. ‘I’ll be the head of the family soon, I had better start acting like it. Uncle Augustus was right, I’ve been rotting my brain with drink and – well, drink, anyway. Will you recognise me when I’m reformed, Guin?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ she teased, wondering how best she could help him. His mother had died soon after his birth, he had no sisters. Perhaps I should find him a wife, she thought. Goodness, how middle-aged of me to be setting to matchmaking.

  ‘And what can I do about that Bow Street Runner who has been harassing Theo?’ she asked rhetorically two days later as the carriage pulled out of Hatfield. They had stopped there for the second time to change horses, twenty miles outside London. ‘Nothing! None of the servants saw Theo while he was waiting to speak to Augustus and he knows the house inside out, unfortunately. And he knows about the sweetmeats and when they are delivered because he has filched his favourites out of the box often enough.’ She had been worrying out loud about Theo for several miles and thought she had best change the subject or Jared would think she was obsessed with her nephew by marriage.

  He had been listening attentively enough though, even making the occasional note in that sinister little black book of his. ‘You say his father is very heavily drugged?’

  ‘Yes, I asked Doctor Felbrigg about it, because I was so concerned that the poor man is in pain, but he says it will be something very strong which would not be prescribed f
or anyone who was not already dying, so I can only trust it is effective.’

  ‘Hmm.’ Jared made another note and put the book away.

  ‘What do you mean, hmm?’

  ‘You don’t happen to know exactly what the drug is, by any chance? The post-mortem did not identify the poison in those sweetmeats, but I wonder if they were looking for a pharmacist’s concoction.’

  ‘No, I do not know and I do not believe for a moment that Theo would do such a thing,’ Guin said hotly. She had, of course, her conscience reminded her. She had been suspicious, had wondered, and now she was ashamed. ‘If they are investigating him, will they not think to test again?’

  ‘If there is enough to do so. There was only one marchpane ball left and, apologies for my frankness, there is only so long one can keep samples of other matter. Besides, they do not have tests that will definitely identify every drug or poison.’

  Three hours later they were still traveling steadily north. It should have been a relief to get away from London, to be out of the house and to have the stimulation of travel and changing scenery, and in a way it was. But being shut up in a closed carriage with Jared when Faith was there to listen to every word, was a strain Guin had not anticipated. Not that she knew what it was she would have talked about if she had been unconstrained. Any reference to the awareness that sparked between them was impossible, they had agreed about that days ago. She hoped that Jared would believe it had been an aberration on her part brought about by shock and fright, even though she knew it was not. No aberration, not instinctive desire for human contact, simply desire for this man.

  Not that there was anything simple about desire. Why should the precise outer curve of an ear, the way one tendril of hair lay against his neck as it escaped from its queue, the set of his shoulders as he relaxed into the corner, make her breath come short, her pulse stammer? Jared had not touched her, had hardly spoken to her, all morning.

  Even during their noonday meal at Baldock she might as well have been a stranger chance-met on the road with whom he was forced to share a table, except that Jared never quite relaxed, never stopped watching, thinking, guarding her.

  ‘How far do you intend travelling today?’ Guin asked. She had abandoned the planning and the arrangements entirely to Jared, too weary after the funeral to even think about the detail of the journey.

  ‘To Stilton and the Bell Inn,’ he said, shifting to face her more fully. ‘Another two, two and a half hours.’

  I want to stop now, she thought, sounding to herself like a peevish, travel-sick child. I am so tired.

  To Jared’s relief Guinevere picked up the book from the seat beside her and began to read. There was something about the atmosphere in the carriage that was making them both tense.

  Guinevere shifted on her seat, making herself comfortable in the corner as she became immersed in her novel. Jared moved to the opposite side and leaned out of the window to check the road behind them. No-one was following them, or if they were, they were keeping a safe distance back. But at the funeral Guin had made no secret of where she was going and anyone could have set out and be ahead of them by now.

  He leaned back and let his mind focus on the situation. There had been no further attacks on Guinevere. Did that mean her enemy had been satisfied with the death of the Viscount, whether or not they were responsible for it, or were they biding their time to strike again? And were there two enemies, or one? He wondered about Theo Quenten, the young rake with the run of the house, easy access to a powerful drug and motive for hastening his uncle’s death.

  But Theo and Guinevere seemed genuinely fond of one another in a perfectly harmless manner and there seemed no reason for him to be behind the attacks on her. Which meant that if he had poisoned Lord Northam, then –

  Jared lost the thread of where this was taking him and it took a moment to realise why. Guinevere was completely lost in her book, making soft unconscious noises as she read. There was a low hum of pleasure, a little gasp, a catch of the breath, a murmur of amusement. The very tip of the index finger of her right hand was between her lips and as he watched she made a little, ‘Ooh,’ of surprise, her lips pouting around the fingertip for a second.

  It was almost unbearably erotic – the sounds, the finger, those lips – and his body reacted predictably. It knew where it wanted Guinevere’s mouth, it knew what it wanted to do to provoke those breathy little sounds, and for once his will was not strong enough to control either it or his imagination.

  Jared crossed his legs, picked up his notebook, laid it on his lap and was duly grateful that Faith seemed to be dozing and that Guinevere was utterly engrossed in her book. Lusting after Gui – Lady Northam – was professionally unacceptable, was turning his brain into porridge and could well blunt both his judgment and his reactions. What he needed was hard physical exercise, but for the moment all he could do was to rehearse in his mind complex moves from one of the manuals his swordmaster had made him learn by heart. The feint une-deux-trois, commonly called the double feint is but a disengagement more than at the feint une-deux…

  He was halfway through the section on over-arm feints from Olivier’s Fencing Familiarised when the sound of the wheels the cobbles brought him back to the present. This must be Stilton at last, the coach was slowing.

  Faith was awake, Guinevere was asleep, the book open on her knee. ‘My lady.’ The maid leaned over and shook her gently by the arm. ‘We have arrived.’

  ‘Thank goodness for that.’ She sat up blinking and reached for her bonnet. ‘I do apologise for being such poor company.’

  ‘You need your rest.’ Jared swung down from the carriage and surveyed the main street with an unexpected jolt of recognition so powerful that he held on to the door handle for a second while he got his balance. So this was where he had ended up all those years ago, hungry, exhausted and furiously, bitterly, miserable. He had been in no state to ask the name of the village where the last cart on his journey had tipped him out, but it had been here, and thank Fate for it.

  Now a rapid scan showed nothing more threatening than several other vehicles changing horses or putting down passengers, a flock of geese being herded by a very small child and several women with baskets gossiping in front of what looked like a general store.

  He went into the inn while one of the grooms helped the women down. That was not familiar, of course. He had bedded down in a hayloft belonging to the inn opposite, the rival Angel, and that decision had changed his life.

  Now a big man with a stomach to match and the practiced smile of an experienced innkeeper came out to meet him. ‘Cooper Thornhill, at your service, sir.’ He sounded as though he expected his name to be known.

  ‘I require your best room for Lady Northam, with her maid, and a chamber for myself. My name is Hunt, her ladyship’s courier. And, naturally, a private sitting room for her ladyship. Dinner in an hour.’ He stripped off his gloves as he spoke, projecting the absolute assurance that his requirements would be met.

  ‘We are very booked up, Mr Hunt, but I will see what I can do.’

  ‘Not good enough. Perhaps the Angel can be more accommodating.’ Jared began to turn away.

  ‘You misunderstand me, sir. It will be but the work of a moment. I will just move a gentleman, meanwhile if her ladyship would like to come through to the private parlour my good lady will attend on her.’

  ‘That poor man,’ Guinevere scolded in a whisper as Jared held open the door to the sitting room for her.

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘The landlord and the man he is throwing out of the best bedchamber.’

  ‘The best room in the house is probably the most secluded and the most secure.’ And I’d rather not have to sleep across your threshold if possible. Although he would if he had to.

  Chapter Fourteen

  The bedchamber proved to be excellent from the point of view of one weary female traveller and, apparently, met whatever criteria Jared was applying. Guin watched the inspection, telling her
self that it was amusing, not worrying, that her bodyguard found it necessary to assess how someone might climb in through the window, come down the chimney or force the lock.

  She picked at her dinner, retired to her chamber and took a bath, sent Faith heavy-eyed to her rest in the adjoining dressing room and climbed into her own bed. Then discovered that she could not sleep.

  Guin got out of bed again, wrapped her robe around her shoulders and went to sit in the window seat looking out over the yard at the rear of the inn. It was quiet now, dark but for the spills of light from the windows and from the stable door where an ostler’s whistling floated faintly to her ears.

  Someone walked diagonally across the cobbles, white shirt stark in the dim light. She would know that figure anywhere from the way it moved, even in this light, but why was Jared prowling around outside in his shirtsleeves, rapier in hand? The shadowy form disappeared through the dark mouth of the barn that made up the far side of the yard and after a moment a light bloomed, as though a lantern had been lit. She watched as it vanished.

  Thoroughly intrigued and completely awake now, Guin found the dress Faith had laid out for the morning and slipped it over her head, blessing the ease with which the simple walking dress fastened. No underwear, no stockings, but she found some shoes, threw a shawl around her shoulders and tiptoed out.

  The door to the private parlour was locked, as was the door from there into the passageway. Guin turned the key in that door as she closed it, leaving Faith safe inside, then ran down the backstairs to the kitchen passage and out into the yard. There was the sound of laughter and talk from the taproom and from the kitchen but otherwise all was quiet. Even the ostler seemed to have finished for the evening, the light was out in the stables and the doors closed.