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The light caught only the heels of black shoes, the shadow of dark trousers disappearing around a corner.

“Brice!”

He had one foot already poised to follow, even as a warning clanged through his spirit. Whomever it was knew these passages, and Brice most assuredly did not. To pursue would no doubt mean being pounced upon. But how could he let the man get away?

“Brice, it’s Davis!
Please
.”

Rowena’s plea brought him surging back through the hidden doorway. His lamplight now illuminated what he had missed in his rush through the room—his valet sagging unconscious on the floor. Rowena was bent over him, her fingers at his neck.

Relief colored her face when she looked up at him. “Alive, and his pulse is steady.”

“Praise God.” He slid the lamp onto the table and knelt beside her. “Davis? Davis, can you hear me?”

Davis muttered something that sounded akin to “newfangled butterflies” and rolled onto his side.

Brice rocked back on his heels. “Odd.”

“Laudanum, perhaps? My mother used to take it now and then when she had trouble sleeping, and I remember her muttering the strangest things.” Rowena pushed herself back to her feet. And froze. “Oh, gracious.”

“What?” But he needn’t have asked, only to have looked around. Every drawer was opened, emptied. Every one of his belongings turned out. With a sigh, he shoved himself upright too. “Ducky.”

Rowena meandered over to the chest of drawers and picked up a roll of pound notes. “Not a random theft, for certain.”

Something about the gaze she settled on him, cool and accusatory, made his breath catch. “I need to get Davis onto the bed.” And give himself a moment to consider how much he should tell her. And wonder at what Catherine and Rushworth had told her.

He found himself wishing he employed a slighter man as he slid his arms under Davis’s and levered him up. His head lolled, more nonsensical murmurs nearly making Brice forget himself and grin. Knowing Davis, he would be aghast at himself for appearing in such a state to Brice.

And for sleeping in his bed, but there was little help for it. Brice dragged him that direction, making no complaint when Rowena took the valet’s feet and helped settle him onto the mattress. Davis mumbled something about swimming strangely and rolled onto his side.

Rowena turned toward the lamp. “Ye should check him for injuries. I canna think how someone would have got him to take laudanum, if that’s what it is.” She lifted the light from the end table and brought it over to the one beside the bed, where another lamp sat, ready to be lit.

In the added glow, Brice noted the blood on Davis’s knuckles—not his own, as a dampened handkerchief soon proved—and he also found a knot on the back of his head.

Rowena had folded her arms across her middle. “I can find someone. Lady Pratt or the butler. The constable ought to be fetched.”

“No.” He pulled a blanket over his unconscious valet and turned to face his wife. “I’ll not have the whole house in an uproar over it, nor alarm Mother and Ella if it can be avoided.”

She stared at him as if he were daft. “Someone just attacked your man! Rifled through your things—”

“Yes, and praise God he seems all right despite it.”

Her nostrils flared, and she squared her shoulders, looking more the Highland countess than terrified lass. “And your things? Are ye not the least bit concerned that he found what he was looking for, whatever it may be?”

“No, I’m not concerned.” He might have been, could he not hear Cowan humming on the other side of the door that connected their rooms when he stepped near it, clearly oblivious to all transpiring on
this
side. He stopped before the chest of drawers. Diamond cufflinks, his money, and a rather pricey tie clip all lay scattered across the top. “What they’re looking for isn’t here.”

“The diamonds.” Rowena snatched up one of his shirts from where it lay in a heap on the floor and folded it with a few precise, economical, furious motions. “They said ye have them, that Catherine watched Brook give them to you.”

He swept the valuables back into the drawer open beneath them. Said nothing.

“Ye’ll not even deny it?” She shoved the folded shirt into his chest. “Why? Why would ye take them, Brice?”

She wouldn’t understand. Even the Staffords didn’t understand. They had only granted him what they deemed his insane request to humor him. “They were having a baby. They didn’t need to worry with Catherine and her brother coming after them.”

“I daresay it’s more her brother than the lady.” She snatched a waistcoat from the chair it had landed on. “But regardless. Ye’re a fool or worse, Duke, if ye know there is danger attached to them but take them anyway.”

“She would have come after me anyway. I was only—”

“Ye brought a curse into yer house!” She kept her volume low, though there was no hiding her furor as she slapped the waistcoat into a drawer. “And for what?”

A chill skittered up his spine. “The only curse is the greed of man. The lust the jewels inspire in them.”

She spun from him with a sound of disgust. “Oh, aye, ye English with your logical ways. Ye canna understand it, so ye dismiss it out of hand.”

He caught her elbow, though he released her again in the next second when she jerked at his touch.
Blast.
It was going to take a lifetime to figure out how to behave with her. “Rowena, please. I dismiss nothing. And I wrestled with the Lord for months over this before I accepted the jewels. It was what He asked of me.”

“Ye’re playing with fire. Can ye not see that?” She sank into the chair by the door, sitting atop another of his shirts.

“It is a risk, but a controlled one.” He held out a hand, pleading with her to understand. “But I promise you, I will keep you safe.”

“As you did Davis?” She folded her arms across her middle and shook her head. “There are powers beyond human control, Brice. Powers ye best not fool with. Get rid of the diamonds. I beg you. Wherever they are,
please
, get rid of them.”

His hand fell to his side. “I can’t. They’re not mine to dispose of.”

“Well, I havena such qualms.” Now
she
held out a hand. “Give them to me.
I’ll
be rid of them, and pray that the curse goes with them before anyone else can get hurt or worse.”

“Rowena.”

She surged back to her feet, thrusting that outstretched hand his way. “I canna live under a curse. I canna. Dinna ask it of me. Get rid of them, or let me.”

“If the curse were only some disembodied power out to get us, perhaps I would. But it’s not. It’s
people
, Rowena,
these
people, and they would never believe us if we said we’d tossed them into the sea. If I let them stand to watch, they would insist I had thrown imitations.” He took her fingers slowly in his. “There’s no point in getting rid of them. We must end it, once and for all.”

Her eyes, large and dry, shouted sorrow as she slipped her fingers free. “Then give them to Lord Rushworth. Let
him
have the curse o’er his head. We can help Catherine break free of him, we can—”

“She is no innocent!” He shoved his now-free hand through his hair and half-turned back toward the bed. “She does not want to be free of her brother. She wants the Fire Eyes—nothing less.”

“Do ye know her so well?”

“Do
you
? After, what, a five-minute conversation?”

She lifted her chin. “I know men like her brother. I know how they treat the women in their lives. That tells me enough.”

From what
he
had seen, the sister was every bit as conniving and cruel as the brother could possibly be. But there would be no convincing Rowena of it, not tonight, anyway. He drew in a long breath, made himself go still. “I’ll not hand the diamonds over to them. I can’t. Justice must be served here, once and for all.”

“Justice.” She shook her head, backed away, fumbled for the door latch. “Ye’ll not find it. Ye’ll find only the curse, and ye’ll drag us all down with you.”

“There is no—”

“I dinna expect ye to listen to me. Why would you?” She tugged the door open. “Ye barely know me. So be it.” She stormed into the hallway. “
You
talk to him. Perhaps he’ll listen to another cool, logical Sassenach.”

Brice flew to the door, ready to be horrified to see whoever lurked in the hallway. Mother? Ella? The last people he wanted drawn into this. But it was only Miss Abbott who stood there with wide eyes and obvious confusion, her hand resting on the latch to Ella’s door across the hall.

Her gaze focused on the room behind him and must have caught sight of the melee still within. “What happened to your room?”

Rowena’s door slammed, making him wince. “Just someone trying to ruffle me. It’s nothing.”

Miss Abbott’s brows arched. “Your wife seems to disagree.”

“She does.” But she didn’t understand. She hadn’t been fighting this battle as long as he had. Brice pasted a weak smile onto his lips and stepped back into his room. “We will work through it. Good night, Miss Abbott.”

He closed the door against her soft “Good night, Your Grace.” Then turned to face the mess that had been left for him.

Fifteen

C
atherine, Lady Pratt
. The lady behind the name hadn’t disappointed. Lovely. Charming. Seemingly sweet.

But Stella Abbott didn’t miss the cold calculation in the lady’s eyes. The steely, unrelenting something in Lady Pratt’s stare said clearly she would do anything—
anything
—to have her way.

Exactly the sort of something needed in a good ally.

Stella cast one more glance over her shoulder to be sure no one followed her and turned down the quiet corridor. Lady Pratt had excused herself half an hour before, and Stella had noted where she went, though she didn’t follow immediately. Best to go unnoticed.

The house party had spread itself over the entire estate. Some of the guests were out on a foxhunt, others putting together a play they would enact the final night. Others probably taking advantage of the plethora of open rooms at Delmore to betray their spouses and pretend it didn’t matter, since their spouses were likely betraying them too.

Sickening, all of them.

But it meant Catherine, Lady Pratt was alone—or mostly. She sat in the solar at a small writing desk, her brother resting in an armchair near at hand, a book open in his lap. The brother, if Nottingham’s word on the matter could be trusted, was as dangerous as the lady. Another good ally, in that case.

Stella tapped on the open door, making sure her face reflected what it should. A sweet smile, a bit of the bashful guest who knew well she was inferior to her hosts.

But not for long.

Lady Pratt looked up, lifted her brows, and put on that careful society smile that perpetuated the lie that she was an innocent. “Good morning. . . . Miss Abbott, isn’t it? Have you lost your way, or can I help you with something?”

Stella closed the door behind her with a satisfying, muted
click
. Her smile faltered though. If Nottingham discovered she had sought out his enemies, purposefully to cause him trouble . . . But it was for his good, their good. She must remember that, must keep her focus on the goal. “It is
I
who can help
you
, I think.”

The lady put down her pen and turned on her chair, a bit of her feigned innocence eclipsed by calculation. “Oh,
really
.” Condescension dripped from her tone. “And how, pray tell, can you do that, my dear?”

Chin held high, Stella took a few more steps into the room—she would have to let Catherine think herself superior, but Stella knew better than to show any intimidation. Not in the company of a predator. “Perhaps I should say we can help each other. If you meant to unnerve Nottingham last night with that search of his room, you’ve missed the mark. He was expecting something like that, I think.”

The lady’s gaze flicked to her brother, though other than that she made no response. “I’ve no idea what you mean. Cris, dear, have you heard of anything that transpired in the duke’s room last night?”

Stella looked to Lord Rushworth, but he didn’t so much as glance up from his book in response to his sister’s question. “I’ve heard nothing to that effect, no. And one would think the duke would make some noise about such a thing.”

Now Stella smiled, though it felt small and rather mean. “That just shows how little you know him. I will give you enough credit to assume you realize he’s only here to draw you out. Please return the favor and don’t assume me stupid. I assure you, I am not.”

Now the lady leaned one arm onto the back of her dainty little chair, her regard heavy and intense. “And yet you expect me to admit to guilt for something I didn’t do?”

Stella’s smile froze, but she refused to let it fade. She wouldn’t cower . . . but she reminded herself to let the lady think herself in control. “What could I possibly do to you, even if you
did
admit something to me? You could destroy me—don’t think I’m unaware of that. One word from you, and I could lose the position I’ve worked so hard to attain.”