The Viscount's Dangerous Liaison: Regency romantic mystery (Dangerous Deceptions Book 3) Read online

  Ivy and roses, ferns and lilies – a match for the bell-pull at Swinburn Manor. A perfect match. Identical, in fact.

  He laid it back carefully, not looking into her face until he was certain she would not read speculation on his. ‘Exquisite. You must need very good light for that. Do you work from a pattern book?’

  ‘Oh no.’ She was blushing slightly from the praise, or perhaps it was the heat of the fire. ‘I design my own patterns. You see?’ She bent towards the basket, a tendril of her hair brushing against his cheek like a lover’s breath, then she was holding out a paper.

  Theo sat back on his heels and opened it out. His hand shook a little and he took a moment to steady it before he studied the grid of tiny squares, each coloured to show a twisting design along a strip about six inches wide. ‘A bell-pull.’

  ‘Yes, that is just the bottom twelve inches, of course.’ She was looking at her hemming now and he had the impression that he had disturbed her.

  But not as much as I am disturbed. He needed to talk to her, but not here, not now with Mrs Bishop folding away her newspaper and the footmen setting the kitchen to order. And he needed to think, because something very strange was going on here and if he was not careful this young woman was going to run, just as he suspected she had done once before. He touched his fingers to the spot where her hair had brushed the skin and shivered.

  Lord Northam rose to his feet. ‘I am for my bed. Good night, all.’

  There was a chorus of responses, including, Laura supposed, her own. What was it about the man? He was well-looking, but then so were many gentlemen. He was considerate and good-humoured, but then so was Perry and he had never provoked so much as a fluttering of the pulse in her. There were those broad shoulders and the powerful thighs as he pushed himself upright, of course. They were enough to cause fluttering in any female with a pulse.

  Theo Quenten. Try as she might, she could not think about him by his title any longer, although it was a dangerous indulgence. Why did she feel like this? Was it because he was attracted to her and so very carefully hiding the fact? There was a warmth in his eyes when she caught him looking, something in his voice that touched a feminine recognition and response in her that was very different from that first girlish fancy – but he was at pains not to do anything to make her uncomfortable. He was a gentleman and gentlemen did not flirt with their staff.

  It had been as much as she could do, not to reach out and touch her fingertips to his hair as he had knelt at her feet, head bent over her sewing box. Theo. His hair had been cut short but it was growing out now, with just a hint of curl at the ends and a blur of soft hairs at the nape. Did he realise the effect he had on her? She thought she had hidden it well – she had become skilled at disguising her emotions recently, although she had never had to hide desire before. Fear, revulsion, anger, despair – yes, those she had become an expert at concealing.

  ‘Don’t you sit there all night, my love.’ Mrs Bishop, bless her, jerked her out of her thoughts.

  ‘No, I won’t. I am just wool-gathering. I’ll take my hot water and be off, unless there is anything I can help you with.’

  ‘Not a thing, my dear. The lads are locking up, the meat safe is secure, the oatmeal is soaking for the morning. Nothing to do but bank up the fire and snuff the candles.’

  The end of another day in a pleasant, well-ordered household, Laura thought as she checked that the fire under the copper was out and carried her water jug back to her room. A household of decent, hard-working people with a decent guest to look after.

  And to dream about, bother the man. At least disturbing, but pleasant, dreams were a small price to pay for sanctuary away from danger and deceit. Life would be uneventful here until Perry returned; all she had to do was not to let that very decent gentleman see that he brought colour to her cheeks and yearning to her foolish heart.

  ‘Mrs Albright. Might I have a word with you in the study?’ Lord Northam stood in the doorway into the hall.

  ‘Certainly, my lord.’ There was nothing like a brisk morning’s work inventorying the linen cupboard to banish the after-effects of a restless night’s dreaming.

  He held the door for her and politely let her precede him into the room. Petals had dropped from the vase of peonies on the desk and she went to gather them up, a handful of tissue-thin crinkled crimson.

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘Yes?’ She turned, her hands cupped around the petals, smiling before she realised what he had said, how she had reacted. There was no point in pretending, trying to bluff. He knew, how she had no idea, but he knew her name. Her gaze dropped before the intense blue of his and she watched the crimson fragments flutter to the floor, bruised by her fingers.

  ‘I am not going to betray you, I swear. Are you hiding from Giles Swinburn? Has he tried to assault you?’

  ‘No.’ Laura sat down with an inelegant bump on the nearest chair. ‘He looks, he passes remarks, his hands are always just a little too… No, it is not that. Not yet, at any rate. My Aunt Swinburn is my father’s sister and my uncle is the trustee for my affairs. There is quite a lot of money, I think. And I suspect that he has been spending it,’ she added bleakly. ‘And now they are pressing me to marry Charles.’

  ‘That block!’

  ‘He is the heir,’ she said simply. ‘But he does not have to father the next in line after him.’ She said it fast, that nightmare idea that had taken hold, the product of hints and whispers and snatches of overheard conversations.

  Theo sat down too and stared at her. ‘You mean – ’

  ‘I mean that Giles is the favoured one, the one with the brains and no scruples. The son who has no desire to settle down and be a dutiful spare to his hopeless brother. He wants to be free and he needs money for that.’

  ‘You can refuse to marry Charles. Good grief, this is 1813, not the Middle Ages. They can hardly drag you to the altar.’

  ‘Giles tried to get into my room at night, a week ago. That was when I knew I had to run. If he forces me they must think I would be only too glad to marry anyone. But they will be getting desperate, because it is my birthday in three months time and then I have control of my money and may marry as I please.’ The words came tumbling out, the effect, she supposed, of finding someone she trusted.

  ‘So you came here. To Mrs Bishop?’

  ‘To Perry. He will help me. And all his staff know me and I know that none of them will betray me. I hope he can get me to London and can find a good lawyer who will be able to challenge my uncle’s management of my money.’

  ‘Perry. I see. You are confident he will risk the scandal for you?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ she said. ‘We have been friends for ever. But six months ago Uncle forbade me to come here. I suspect he thought we were becoming too close and that might be why I was refusing Charles. As though any woman in her right mind would not prefer Perry!’

  ‘Quite,’ Theo said. ‘So Perry has no idea you are in so much trouble?’

  ‘No, or he would never have left and gone off wandering. He can be the most infuriating creature sometimes.’ She smiled fondly, then bit her lip when Theo’s expression darkened. He would not like her making fun of his close friend.

  ‘Which leaves us needing to conceal you here until he returns.’ Theo got up and began to pace between desk and window.

  She had hoped, for a fleeting moment, that he would offer to take her to London himself. He must know as many good lawyers as Perry did. But, of course, he had a fiancée in London who would be decidedly unhappy if it came out that he was helping a runaway female.

  Laura gave herself a brisk mental shake. So much for dreams and fluttering pulses. ‘You do not mind me being here? I mean, I am asking you to engage in a deception, perhaps even to tell untruths.’

  ‘I think my duty to protect a lady outweighs any amount of lying I might have to do.’ He was sounding sardonic again, which probably meant that by questioning his willingness to help she had insulted his male honour, always a touchy an
d mysterious thing to deal with, in her experience. Not that her uncle or Giles appeared to possess any.

  ‘Thank you. How did you discover who I was?’

  ‘Last night at the Manor, a sewing basket was knocked over and I helped pick it up. The work inside matched what you were doing when I came back, although I was told it belonged to Laura, a niece who is away tending an elderly relative in Bath. When I saw your embroidery it seemed to me improbable that two such fine pieces of work with an identical pattern were by different hands.’ He sat down behind the desk and looked at her. ‘You had best tell me your full name.’

  ‘Laura Darke.’

  ‘Well, Miss Darke – ’

  ‘Call me Laura, please.’

  ‘Very well.’ He grinned, a sudden flash of white teeth. ‘This is hardly a normal social situation after all. I am Theo.’

  I know.

  ‘Do you trust Will Thwaite, the curate? Only it occurs to me that another conspirator might help, if only to discuss plans with.’

  ‘Why yes, I like him very well. But would it be fair to involve him?’

  ‘I had it in mind to offer him one of the livings at my disposal – there is at least one free. I was going to wait before mentioning it so I could make certain I was not mistaken in his character, but if you vouch for him, then I am very inclined to trust him. If he runs foul of the Reverend Finch over this, then he will not be out of a position. Besides, Perry might be happier if he knows you have the chaperonage of a clergyman, as it were.’

  ‘Why would Perry – ’

  She broke off as the door was flung wide to reveal Mrs Bishop. ‘Oh, my lord! Such awful news – Mr Thwaite has been taken up for dead in the churchyard!’

  Chapter Six

  ‘Dead? Are you certain? Which churchyard?’ Theo was on his feet and Laura found she was too.

  ‘They say he was alive when they found him but he is not expected to live, there was so much blood. It was Fellingham church, so they have taken him to his lodgings at the churchwarden’s house. Doctor Sinclair has been sent for, but it sounds terrible bad, my lord. Blood everywhere.’

  ‘Blood is no guarantee of a fatal wound and head wounds always bleed badly. It might look worse than it is. But I have no confidence in the churchwarden or his wife to look after a badly injured man, not judging by how thin Thwaite is on her cooking. Mrs Bishop, tell my groom to harness up my travelling coach and put blankets and a pillow in it. Laura, if you can prepare a room – ’

  ‘Laura?’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Bishop, he knows.’ Laura pushed the cook in front of her towards the kitchen when she stopped to gape at them. ‘I will do that immediately, one of the ground floor rooms will be best. We’ll light a fire – hurry, Theo.’

  Laura set the maids to make up a bed in a small chamber off the hallway, filled the warming pan with coals from the kitchen range and ran it between the sheets, then told Terence to light the fire in the room while Mrs Bishop began to make beef tea. She could only pray they were not making preparations in vain and that that such a good man would survive.

  ‘How did he know?’ Mrs Bishop demanded when they finally sat at the kitchen table and began to check over the contents of the medical cabinet.

  Laura did not have to ask who he was. ‘He saw my embroidery at the Manor and then here last night and realised it was the same design. I told him everything and he was very… understanding.’ And I had obviously misunderstood the warmth I thought I had seen in his eyes. He is just as friendly and distant as he was when he believed I was the housekeeper. And that will teach me to dream about an unobtainable man. I’m no longer a giddy girl just out of the schoolroom who has read too many romances.

  ‘Fine young man that,’ Mrs Bishop observed, peering at the faded label on a dark brown bottle. ‘Nice manners and a pleasant way with him. Good-looking, too.’

  ‘Yes,’ Laura agreed. She thought she managed to sound quite dispassionate. ‘I am sure his betrothed thinks so too. This bascilicum powder looks fresh and there is a supply of willow bark for a pain-killing tea.’

  ‘You’ll be safe until Master Perry is home, then.’ Mrs Bishop was not to be diverted. ‘He doesn’t seem to want to rush back to his young lady.’

  ‘Oh yes. Quite. I am not at all worried.’

  ‘No, I didn’t think you were.’

  Laura shot her a suspicious glance, but Mrs Bishop was back at the range stirring the simmering beef stock without the slightest suspicion of a smile on her lips. ‘Listen – is that the front door?’

  The front door – and the sound of voices, of urgent orders and some brisk, responses from the footmen. ‘They must have brought him, which means he is alive, thank goodness.’ Laura ran out to the hall in time to see Terence manoeuvring the end of a makeshift stretcher through the chamber door.

  ‘How is he?’ she asked as she entered on his heels to pull down the bedcoverings so the men could lift the unconscious curate, clad in a thin nightshirt, on to the mattress.

  ‘He’ll live, I think.’ Theo straightened as she pulled the blankets up and ran one hand over the bandages to make sure nothing had slipped. ‘He was hit over the head with a heavy object and then stabbed in the back when he was on the ground, poor devil. The head wound bled badly as they always do, but the doctor thinks the knife hit his shoulder blade, which deflected it from his heart. We’ve to keep him warm and get liquids down him once he regains consciousness.’

  ‘Terence, please ask Mrs Bishop to heat some bricks, would you?’ When he had gone to do that, Edward had left carrying the stretcher and Pitkin had taken away Theo’s coat and hat, Laura sat down and took Will Thwaite’s hand in hers. Under her fingers his pulse beat faintly, but it was regular. ‘Poor man, who would do such a thing? He works so hard and does so much good, no-one could bear him a grudge. And surely he had too little to tempt a robber?’

  ‘Not a robber. This was an unlucky assassin.’ Theo pulled up a chair to the other side of the bed. ‘I believe this attack was intended to kill. His pockets were turned out, but he still had money on him. It wasn’t much, but enough to be worth taking, yet the coins and a banknote in his wallet were still there.’ He lifted the limp left hand. ‘And he has a decent gold signet ring and a watch – that’s old and worn, but still gold. Both family pieces, I imagine.’

  ‘This was attempted murder?’

  ‘Oh yes. The blow to the head might not have been intended to kill, but no-one sticks a knife in an unconscious man’s back simply to rob him. And it is my fault.’ Theo’s expression was grim. ‘The conversation last night at dinner turned to smuggling, which produced a distinct chill amongst the company, and then, in an effort to change the subject, I told them that I had been talking to Thwaite about a tomb in Hempbourne Marish churchyard and that he was going to investigate the old records he had found. This strikes me as rather too much of a coincidence.’

  ‘You mean that monstrous chest tomb with the fat, cross cherubs? Why should anyone object to some antiquarian research about that?’

  ‘I have no idea. The atmosphere became very strange, most uncomfortable. There was obviously a difference of opinion about the rights and wrongs of free trading and that might have been what caused the tension. But I definitely felt I had put my foot in it when I mentioned the tomb and that Thwaite and I were investigating it, although no-one actually said anything. You would think that it might provoke a few comments, but other than Mrs Gilpin saying that she recalled the tomb, no-one else said anything.’

  ‘I suppose the Rector might have objected to his curate being distracted from his duties, but the poor man is entitled to some spare time to pursue his own interests, surely? And a word of reproof to him would be all that was called for, even if he did disapprove.’

  ‘Yes, it is hardly cause for a clergyman to run amok with a bludgeon and knife.’

  Laura shivered. ‘Don’t, Theo. That is a horrible idea. Might it just be coincidence? A passing lunatic, perhaps?’

  ‘I suspect a homi
cidal stranger might be somewhat visible in a community of this size. It could be someone in the smuggling community, I suppose – he preaches against the free trade, apparently.’ Theo laid the back of his hand against Thwaite’s forehead. ‘He seems warm enough, but not feverish. I wish he would wake, though.’

  I do like you, Laura thought, noticing the concern with which he looked at the curate. You really care about a man you hardly know. ‘Is it not better that his body rests?’

  ‘Perhaps. But if he is conscious we can get some liquid into him – and see if he knows who hit him. I brought all his stuff from the Sexton’s house.’ Theo nodded towards a small collection of valises that the footmen had heaped in a corner. ‘He doesn’t have much, poor devil and I did not want to risk leaving something he needs.’

  They sat in silence for a moment, both frowning at the man on the bed, as though willing him to wake and give them answers.

  ‘How well can you trust the two footmen here?’ Theo said. ‘I think I recall them from last time I was here staying with Perry, so they have been with him some long time. I do not like the thought of leaving Thwaite unguarded.’

  ‘I agree. If someone was desperate enough to try and kill him once, they are desperate enough to keep trying. And yes, Edward and Terence have been with the family for an age. I think they are cousins and Terence was a boot boy here. They would not betray Perry’s trust, I’m certain. They have kept my secret and they must know my uncle would pay well for news of my whereabouts.’

  ‘Excellent. Then we have Jed Tucker and Tom Waggett, my groom and coachman. And Pitkin of course. We’ll set guards and I’ll get them to spell me at the bedside throughout the night – we need to stay fresh and alert.’

  ‘I can sit with him too,’ she suggested. ‘If you and I alternate in this chamber and the men take shifts as guards patrolling inside and out, he will be well protected.’

  Theo stood up and moved restlessly away from the bedside. ‘I should not have brought him here, Miss Darke. I should have realised it would put you at risk also.’