The Sins of Lord Easterbrook (22 page)

“I have a finite amount of oddness. If I waste it on him, I would not have enough left for you. To ensure I do not squander it, I will retire to my chambers now.”

“You cannot do that! You must stay down here where I can be sure you are available. Good heavens, a fine thing it would be if a man came to ask for permission to propose to Caroline and you sent down one of those rude notes saying you are not in the mood for callers. Most people at least pretend they are not at home, but you make the insult explicit. Do that today and we will never see him again and her future will be ruined all due to your fault.”

Within her rambling scold he heard only one enlightening word. Propose. He looked at Caroline. She blushed.

“Henrietta, I would like to speak with Caroline before he comes.” Whoever the hell
he
was.

“I assure you that he is perfectly presentable and well thought of. He may not have a title, but with over nine thousand a year he is an excellent catch.”

“All the same, I require privacy with Caroline. Perhaps you would wait in the library.”

“The library! I should say not. The locks are enchanted.”

“Then outside this door.” He took her arm and escorted her thence.

Her vexation turned to desperation as he pushed her through the doorway. “You must not ruin this, Easterbrook. She is already in her second season. For once, please, just pretend you are like other men and conduct the formalities without any of your eccentric elaborations. If you scare him off I will never—”

He closed the door on her hysteria. He faced his cousin. “Caroline, when he comes, do you want me to give permission?”

“Yes, I think that I do.”

“You think? It is as I feared. You will accept the first proposal just because the world says you must marry, and because you want to get away from.…well, away from current company.”

To his surprise she stretched up and kissed his cheek. “You are much like Hayden. Not nearly as stern as you appear. Do not fear that I will marry only to get away from Mama. I only said I think because I am a little frightened and my heart is jumping every which way. He is very good, and treats me with great care.
And he knows about last summer and does not think the worse of me for it.”

She referred to a different
he
and a different pursuit with less honorable motives, an experience that broke her young heart when her male cousins interfered.

She frowned a little. “Would you prefer if we wait for Hayden? Mama thought to strike while the iron is hot, as she put it. With Hayden occupied with the child and Alexia, we thought you would not mind. But if you dislike the idea, I can tell him to wait.”

He had not been the best cousin. He was an indifferent guardian at best. He was out of his depths in these domestic matters, but he could probably execute the duty better than most men if he chose to.

“Do you love him, Caroline?”

She looked at him as if he were a charming, quaint cottage. “Mama says any woman can love a man with nine thousand a year.”

“I expect most can find a way.” Only love, whatever incited it, was not really enough. “Do you want him as a lover?”

She turned very red. She glanced to the door, as if expecting her mother to sail through it to decry the scandalous question.

“It does matter, you know,” he said. “Indelicate though the question may be, it is one that should be considered by girls when they face this decision. Since I am sure your mother did not bother to ask, I must.”

She lowered her eyes. “I think so, yes.”

He did not need her response. The echo of a stirring spoke in her more clearly than any words.

“I will be in the library. Send him to me. If I
conclude that he deserves your love, he will have my permission to propose.”

He opened the door. Aunt Hen almost fell into his arms from where she had bent her ear to the keyhole. He stepped around her, to go and wait for whoever
he
was.

T
he full moon cast a beautiful light in Leona's bedchamber. She could see well enough to read if she wanted to.

That might be wise. It would be better to occupy her mind with another's words than to lie abed like this, half dreaming and half awake, plagued by images and thoughts that would not allow her to rest.

She looked down her body to the little writing table not far from the foot of her bed. The quill pen stood at attention, casting a large feather shadow on the wall. Near it, prominently visible in the way it reflected that moonlight, lay her last letter for
Minerva's Banquet.

She had been remiss in her duty. Easterbrook had distracted her badly, and now she had no great revelations to report. Fate had handed her this opportunity to expose the men who quietly profited from opium smugglers, and she had squandered it. Her lessons about the opium trade would have less impact now. They would be remote and abstract problems.

Composing this final letter had been difficult. When
she had completed it, she felt as though she had written “The End” on her visit here. She should complete her family's business, and go home.

Easterbrook did not want that yet. Their love affair was still new and fresh. When his attention had turned to some other woman and he no longer wanted to ravish Leona Montgomery on sight—only then would he be agreeable to her embarking for China. Probably very agreeable.

She opened her eyes and watched the pattern of shadows on the wall. She endured a moment of cruel realism. Her heart hurt from the truth of it.

Would he insult her by giving her jewels, the way he obviously had done with that woman in the park? That necklace must have cost a fortune. One could probably buy a good-sized ship with the money it cost.

A woman knew exactly what could and could not be if she had an affair with a man like Easterbrook. There could be a degree of romantic dissembling. One might lose oneself in the excitement. Ultimately, however, a love affair that would end with a necklace was his intention from the start.

She had been weak with him, especially in his drawing room yesterday. The carnality of the encounter had shocked her once she left that house. However, even in her amazement, an arousal had begun again while she remembered it.

The absence of remorse was another point she pondered tonight. A fallen woman should have at least a little regret, or some anger at her seducer. She could not bring herself to feel either way. She had spent seven years wondering what might have been. Now she knew.

She tried to push images of him out of her head, because they only produced an odd mixture of emotions. Excitement to be certain. A tad of perplexity, because there was still much about him, in him, that she did not comprehend. Sorrow colored all the other reactions, however. Clouds of nostalgia waited on the edges of her heart, ready to drench her.

That pending sorrow would only increase with every encounter. She should explain to him, in a letter if necessary, why it would be unwise for her to allow this affair to continue. If she did that, the rest of her missions might be expedited. He would no longer put off helping her due to his desire to have her nearby for a while.

The feather beckoned. Now would be a good time, while the truth kept girlish flutters at bay. She would write to him and—

Her chamber door opened abruptly. A ghost suddenly appeared. Not a ghost. Isabella. Her long hair flowed and her white nightdress hung in diaphanous pleats.

“You must come,” she whispered with urgency. “He is hurt and someone is here and I do not know what to do.”

“Who is hurt?”

“Mr. Miller. You come now. I do not know what to do!”

Leona jumped out of bed. She grabbed a shawl and hurried after Isabella.

“What do you mean someone is here? Stay with me. Do not go on your own!”

“Hurry. I will show you.” Isabella flew down the stairs.

Leona's bare feet hardly felt the carpet beneath them as she rushed to keep up. Panic beat in her chest and she did not try to be quiet. If someone had intruded, she trusted that knowing the whole house had been roused would urge him to flee.

“Here he is.” Isabella stopped at the doorway of the library.

Leona drew up beside her. A chilled breeze billowed the drapes at one window, allowing enough light to see Mr. Miller's form on the floor. Deeper darkness outlined his head and formed a blotch on the back of his blond hair.

She bent down and felt Mr. Miller's pulse. “Light a lamp, Isabella. Bring some water and rags, then run to the carriage house and wake Mr. Hubson. Tell him to go to Easterbrook's house and ask for help.”

Isabella tended to the lamp, then ran away. As soon as she returned with a basin of water, Leona knelt beside Mr. Miller. She pressed a damp compress to the wound on his head where someone had hit him hard.

She glanced around the chamber again. A drawer of the desk stood open. She got up and ran over and saw that the few pounds she tucked there were gone.

Then she saw the object on the floor.

Its wrapped base stuck out from beneath one of the drapes. She pulled the fabric back and lifted a crudely formed torch about a foot and a half long. The straw was damp along most of its length, but not at its end. Charred edges indicated it had been lit.

The intruder must have used this to see what he was
about. She knew a moment of paralyzing relief that it had gone out when he dropped it in his escape, before it set the drapes on fire.

A muffled groan broke into her attention. She dropped the torch on the hearthstone and went to Mr. Miller again. “Do not move, please. You are badly hurt and help is on the way.”

She gently pressed the damp rag to the wound. He nodded subtly and closed his eyes again.

Easterbrook arrived with three footmen. As he strode up the stairs to the library, he ordered his servants to search the house and property.

Leona had never been so relieved to see anyone in her life. He joined her by Mr. Miller's side and examined the wound with amazingly gentle hands.

“Are you awake, Miller? If so I am going to sit you up against this chair here.”

Mr. Miller proved both awake and angry. He allowed his lord to help him to sit, then scowled at the blood pooled five inches from his legs.

“I'd noticed that window could be reached from the small tree in the garden my first night here. I did not expect a thief to attack me if I found he'd taken advantage of it, though.”

Easterbrook turned to Leona with a question in his eyes.

“A few pounds are missing from the desk,” she said.

“I do not think that they came for a few pounds. A second intrusion, Leona. It does not bode well.”

“We do not know for certain that there was a prior intrusion.”

“We do now.” He turned to Miller. “What brought you here?”

Miller's face found some color. “I heard something, I thought. I came to investigate and next thing I knew I was out.”

Easterbrook gazed at him long and hard. Mr. Miller's face turned to stone. Easterbrook's attention shifted to the wall against which Isabella stood.

“You found him. Did you hear or see anything?”

Isabella's gaze remained fixed on the floor. “I thought that I heard a movement when I opened the door. Then something falling. I could be wrong. I am not sure. I saw him on the floor and became very afraid and confused.”

“So a sound did not bring you here to begin with? It was only once you were in the chamber that you thought someone was in the house?”

Her head lowered more. “I—it is all confused now—perhaps I heard something before—I am not sure now.”

The three footmen entered the library to report that no one was hiding in the house or in the garden.

“Help Miller back to Grosvenor Square. You will let them support you, Miller. Do not leave your chamber until a surgeon has seen that wound and given permission for you to be up and about. Take the carriage, then send it back to me in the morning.”

After the servants left with Miller, Easterbrook spoke to Isabella. “It was fortunate that you raised the alarm. I must speak with your mistress now.”

Isabella hurried away. Easterbrook paced the edges of the library, containing his anger with difficulty.

The hardness that he normally buried was having its way, and anyone who entered this chamber would feel it. He was thoroughly Easterbrook now, to an extent he had never allowed her to see before.

“It might have just been a thief looking for a few pounds,” she said.

“Unlikely. If you doubted your instincts about the first intrusion, there is every reason to trust them now. The money was only taken to give others a reason to think that you were wrong if you claimed there was more to it. Which there was.”

His pacing took him near the fireplace. He stopped and scowled at the object near his boot. “What the hell is this?”

“A torch, I think. I found it near the open window. Fortunately it went out.”

He picked it up. He strode to the window and flipped the drape's fabric. There, on the inner surface, one could see soot.

Leona's nape prickled. Images invaded her head, of Miller being a bit longer in arriving here, and of drapery aflame, and fire spreading.…