Any Wicked Thing (33 page)

Frederica took the book from the desk. “And he copied the earl's?”

Mr. Ryder grimaced. “I didn't ask him to do that, I'm afraid. I thought it was enough to simply get the information, not the curlicues.”

Frederica felt a stab of disappointment. One could sense a great deal about a person just examining their handwriting. She knew Sebastian's was nigh onto impossible to read. Pulling her spectacles from a pocket, she flipped quickly through the book. “It seems pretty straightforward. Just a jumble of random things. It's not in any obvious sort of code, is it?”

“I don't know. There are appointments with his tailor and whatnot. I did follow up on those. Some of the tradesmen are dead—it was all long ago—but most were legitimate. I found it odd that there is so much about the castle and his family mixed in with dinner parties and races. Of course, it's not a proper daily diary, and seems to have been written over several years.”

“I know you've done this sort of work for my father, Freddie—making sense of other people's scribbling. Will you do it for me, too?”

Frederica looked over her lenses at Sebastian. He looked every bit as earnest as his friend.

“Why should I? If you both go away, I'll be left with everything.” The looks on their faces were priceless. Frederica waited a beat to torture them. “Of course I'll do it, you silly man. I only wish I had the primary document, but I'll make do with this. But do go away for the rest of the day. Go shoot something or ride something and leave me in peace. And tomorrow, too. I must do my own work, and do it
unobstructed
.”

“That will be three days in a row, Freddie,” Sebastian said sotto voce.

“That's correct. If you want my cooperation, those are my terms.”

He stood up. “Very well. In the meantime, Cam and I will make an unofficial reconnaissance of the castle. Put ourselves in the old devil's shoes and see what we can kick up.”

Frederica breathed a sigh of relief as they exited the library. She shoved her glasses back up and began to read the Earl of Archibald's notes. Page after page seemed to be random lists of activities, interrupted by chunks relating to the castle. It looked as if he had plans for renovations, which had sadly not come to fruition. There was a footprint of the ancient foundation, with simple architectural plans to build upon them. Really, if the man buried anything on the grounds, the three of them could dig for the rest of their lives and never find it.

Her head pounded from reading the cramped transcription. She was still distinctly unwell. Placing the little book aside, she went back to her own notes for
Roxbury's Middle Ages
. She immersed herself in Edward IV's military exploits to destroy the House of Lancaster. For the next hour, she alternated between the recent past and the distant past, making little headway in either. Feeling cloistered in the library and longing for fresh air, she stopped in the solar to pick up her sewing basket, slipped the diary into it and went out into the walled lady's garden.

There was a lengthy list of plantings for the garden in the earl's book, and a detailed diagram of the herbs that were still flourishing years later in the brick-heated sun trap. Really, this sort of information was more likely to be written by a chatelaine of the castle than its lord. Most men couldn't distinguish sage from rosemary, or a daisy from a rose for that matter. Frederica had made her own additions since moving here, but many of the plants had probably been in the garden for centuries. According to the diary, the earl had made a point of planting a thick bed of catmint all along the wall to the garden entry door to “keep rats away from the building.” It was an old method of rodent control, and when steeped in water, catmint leaves were useful to spray on plants to discourage insects, too. She'd made use of the leaves herself.

What if he had put something other than catmint in the ground? Her heart beat a little faster. There would be no harm in digging up the plants. The bed was not more than twenty feet in length, and would not be so very difficult for two well-muscled men to remove the herbs and then return them in place.

Frederica went back inside to get her hat and find Sebastian and his friend.

S
he felt somewhat useless sitting on the shady bench, stitching as Sebastian and Cam dug on either side of the castle's garden door. And dry beneath the brim of her old straw hat. Perspiration was rolling off both of them, their linen shirts soaked and clinging to their skin. It was not an unpleasant site, but could be improved upon. The catmint had been uprooted, and they were each making a trench. At each sound of their shovels hitting something solid, there was an expectant pause, but so far they'd overturned only rocks, no coffin filled with livres.

“Why don't you two remove your shirts? You must be dreadfully hot.” She herself was hot and bothered at the sight of such prime specimens exerting themselves with such determination.

“I'm fine,” Sebastian ground out, flinging a chunk of dirt on the grass.

“We wouldn't wish to offend your maidenly sensibilities, Miss Wells.”

“You gentlemen are always deciding what's best for the ladies. I for one should like to see a bit of male flesh this morning.”

Sebastian knew it was her day, and the rules were clear. What she wanted, she got. He was honor-bound. The muscle jumped in his cheek, and she stifled her urge to gloat. It would be interesting to compare Sebastian to his friend. Simply in the interest of anatomical research, of course. Science at its finest.

With a grunt, Sebastian threw his shovel down and pulled his shirt over his head. Frederica realized she'd rarely seen him in bright sunlight—most of the time, they were in the dark, she was blindfolded or her eyes were closed in bliss as he lay with her in the grass. Her eyes were open now, and the bliss remained. He was lean yet muscled, just a smattering of dark hair on his chest with a faint trail disappearing under his breeches. They dipped low at his waist and for one moment she wondered what he'd do if she asked him to remove those, too. But that would give the game away to Mr. Ryder.

That gentleman was a bit slower to divest himself of his shirt, but when he did, his back was turned to her. She gave an involuntary gasp.

It was not for admiration, although he was broad and well formed, a little heavier than Sebastian but fit. But his back was striped white, a crisscross of healed-over cane marks. Even if he shared Sebastian's predilections for domination and submission, surely he could not have enjoyed its resulting scars. He had been brutally used.

Sebastian was playful in his discipline. He used his whip to tease her. He spanked her the once, and she supposed she had deserved it for spying into his trunk. But then he'd kissed her bottom in worship, and she had been unbearably moved.

She knew that men were sometimes thrashed at school by cruel masters. In the British navy, too, but to her knowledge, Mr. Ryder had spent his life ashore treasure hunting. How could he have come upon such abuse?

She didn't dare ask, and he didn't seem to notice the sound she made or her look of horror. She went back to her needlework, sorry she had ever pushed the men this far. They dug in concert, bantering with each other like two fellows who didn't have a care in the world, so whatever had transpired, it was long forgotten.

When she looked up again from her pillowcase, the embroidery hoop slid from her hands to the grass.

Sebastian had changed position. The lines on his back were equal to—no, worse than—his friend's. Frederica realized she'd never seen his exposed back. The days they made love outdoors, he'd either been dressed or lying on the ground. He'd been careful to angle himself away so as not to reveal the torture.

For torture it must have been.

He had joked about being in gaol, but always changed the subject. Sebastian and Cameron Ryder had been imprisoned together. It had resulted in their easy friendship, the way they sometimes telegraphed their thoughts to each other when Frederica had no idea what was transpiring. She'd been a little jealous of it. Now she was only grateful she had not shared their hellish experience, for it was obvious from the patterns on their backs they had shared the same fate by the same hand.

No wonder he would not discuss his incarceration. She bent to pick up her sewing, a wave of dizziness overtaking her. In her mind's eye she saw their backs, bloody and festering. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the image only became more vivid. She had thought Sebastian a perfect wastrel, going from bed to bed across most of Europe and northern Africa, presenting his immaculate, charming front to dazzle the unsuspecting. He was insouciance itself, quick with wit and practiced seduction. Chronically lighthearted, even when he was engaging in his dark fantasies.

No man who had survived what he had would be untouched. She didn't know him at all.

She felt bile rise, and took a deep breath. The air was sweet with spring and the scent of damp, overturned earth. The fruit trees were budding, and the clumps of herbs with their blend of scents should have cured her of her urge to be sick. But she smelled fear. Despair. Waste. She saw darkness. She felt the lash on her own back.

“Sebastian.”

He didn't hear her, stepping on his shovel and rocking it into the compact earth as a flock of crows wheeled above. Mr. Ryder said something to him and he laughed.

Frederica needed . . . something. She could not sit out here under the bright blue sky and pretend everything was normal.

“Sebastian!”

He turned to her, holding a hand over his eyes. “What is it, Freddie? You're as white as a sheet.”

“I—Could you walk inside with me?”

“With the greatest of pleasure. Let Cam do all the work for a change. He's been slacking, you know.”

Frederica rose from the bench. For a moment she thought she would be missish and faint, something she had never done in her entire life. Sebastian wiped his face with the sleeve of his shirt and shrugged into it again.

“Mustn't give the servants a show.” He strode across the lawn and picked up her basket. “Are you all right? Or are you just so inspired that you must act on a wicked impulse with me in the stairwell?”

“I must talk with you.”

“Well, that's disappointing. My hopes are dashed. Do you intend to be respectable the entire day?”

She clutched at his arm. “Don't joke, please.”

“That's what I do, Freddie.”

“I know. But you needn't right this minute.”

They walked through the open door to the cool, dim hallway that led to the kitchens. Frederica immediately sank down on the floor.

“Freddie! Are you sick? Let me get Mrs. Holloway.”

She reached up to grasp his hand. “No, I don't need anyone but you.”

“I have no objection to fucking you here on the floor, but I must remind you that Cam is right outside and any one of our people can come upon us.”

“Please sit with me.”

He gave her a crooked grin. “I must do as you command. Today, and tomorrow, too. You drive a hard bargain.” He was cross-legged in one smooth movement, never letting her hand go. “Now, tell me, what is troubling you so?”

“Your back. And Mr. Ryder's.”

Sebastian's face shuttered. “I am disfigured. I assumed you'd already noticed.”

Frederica shook her head. “How?”

He dropped her hand. “I don't talk about it. It's over and done.”

“It happened to both of you. While you were in prison?”

“Yes.”

He uttered that one syllable with finality, but Frederica could not let it go. “How long were you in that gaol?”

“What difference does it make?”

“I need to know.”

His hands clenched in his lap. “No, you don't! Don't go all weepy on me, Freddie. Or, worse yet, vomit on me. Life is full of bloody inconveniences. That was one of them.”

“It was more than an inconvenience, Sebastian. You—you were mutilated! You could have died!”

“And wished I could, night after night, but here I am.” He sprang back up. “I've got to go outside and finish. Talking to you about this is one thing I will not do, even if you are in charge today. And don't go hounding Cam.”

“And if I do?”

“I won't sell you the damned castle, Freddie. I'll sell it to Cam instead. And you'll have wasted a few days on
your
back for nothing.” He slammed the garden door behind him.

And it had been only a few days, yet Frederica's entire life had changed. There were three weeks more to go. How could she pretend that everything was the same between them? Sebastian was angrier with her than he had been ten years ago, which was saying something. She should have withered under his glare, but all she wanted to do was cup his face and kiss him.