Any Wicked Thing (34 page)

She picked herself up off the cold floor. She could not sit idly by supervising their dig—she'd probably not made sense of the earl's diary anyway. It was a pity that Mr. Ryder had only a copy—it was always better to read source material in its original form. A person's handwriting could reveal so much. The transcriber could have altered the odd word here and there, completely subverting the earl's intention. She may as well return to the library and start from the beginning.

Anything to keep her mind off Sebastian, and what would happen when he left her again.

C
am leaned on his shovel. “I wish I had some work gloves. Is she all right?”

Sebastian shoved his own filthy hands in his pockets and headed for the shaded bench instead of the herb bed. He knew he should just work out his anger by digging, but Cam would pick at him until he had the truth. “No. She's rather shocked at the condition of our backs, if you must know.”

“So she's disgusted? She's not the woman for you, then.”

“I never said she was the woman for me! Stop playing matchmaker.”

Cam dropped his shovel and joined him under the tree. He fished a handkerchief out and wiped the sweat from his neck. “You really need to tell her. You'll feel better.”

“Don't go lecturing me! Freddie used to be my friend, but all that ended ten years ago.”

“How old was she then? Fifteen? How long will you punish her for losing her head over you? You must have been an elegant stripling.”

Sebastian had never divulged the consummation to Cam, whether out of a foolish sense of chivalry for Freddie or plain revulsion, he did not know. But the entrance of their fathers—that had been gone over in minute detail. Ultimately, he was able to laugh over it, but it still remained one of the most ghastly experiences of his life. “I told you. She's twenty-eight now. At eighteen, most girls are married. Freddie was out to snare me. She knew what she was doing.”

Or did she? Alcohol was almost like a poison to her. It fogged the clearest of heads taken to excess, but it seemed Freddie didn't need much for the fog bank to roll in with a vengeance.

“Well, she didn't catch you, did she? Your father was looking out for the succession.”

And how hypocritical that he didn't think Freddie was good enough. She was from a respectable gentry family, though they had fallen on times hard enough for her father to seek employment as the duke's secretary. Phillip Goddard and Joseph Wells had met as schoolboys, and had carried on their forbidden love all that time. Sebastian's letters from his father had been impassioned with explanations. By the time Sebastian understood, it was too late.

A stray honeybee buzzed around them. Cam shooed it away with his handkerchief. The garden was quiet until he spoke again. “When are you getting married, anyway?”

Sebastian pictured himself before an altar, a strange young girl at his side. A strange young
rich
girl. He felt the bleak reality of it. “I don't hold out much hope for that.”

“Nonsense. Turn up in London for the Little Season in September and you'll be married by the end of it in November. You'll have a bit of blunt from the sale of the castle and can afford to visit your tailor. A few Wednesdays at Almack's in knee breeches—the parson's mouse-trap is a fait accompli
.
You're a
duke
, Sebastian.”

“A poor one. And I'm not normal anymore.”

“What's this? You've never been shy about your predilections. Surely you can convince some sweet young thing to don a gag and endure a light caning for the privilege of becoming the ninth Duke of Roxbury's mother.”

“Don't joke. And it hasn't come quite to that. I'm not cruel. I would never be, not after what we went through.”

Suddenly the garden seemed alive with sounds—the chirp of birds, the beating of butterfly wings, the rustle of leaves overhead. Sebastian studied the dappled shadows on his breeches, remembering darker play of light, when he longed to close his eyes but was forced to keep them open, the better to concede his subjugation.

Cam understood. “You feel the shame of it still, don't you? You needn't.”

Sebastian suppressed his urge to stalk off through the garden gate and get lost on the moors. “I still dream of it. As my father's son, it's a bit ironic, don't you think? I spent half my life trying to prove I was all man, only to find myself—” His throat closed. He could not continue.

“I said last night that I was not my father. Nor are you. You did what you had to to survive.”

“And came to enjoy it,” Sebastian said, tasting the bitter truth of his words.

“We are naught but animals, no matter how we try to deny it. Should you have killed yourself over something that was really so inconsequential?”

“At first I thought I would go mad,” he whispered. But the whippings and the balm of opium quickly focused him on the tasks ahead. There was no time for drama or tearing at his shirt. The shirt was long gone in any event.

Cam patted his shoulder. “But you did not, and we made do. I admit I got the better end of the bargain. Unfair, when I am a bastard and you were a marquess. Too bad you revealed that little tidbit. I believe it gave our captor even more glee to debase you.”

Cam and he had been in no ordinary, government-run jail, although that might have been hell as well. As “guests” of an influential relative of Viceroy Muhammad Ali, they had gone to Akhom Ali to have him help broker a business deal with the governor. They wanted permission to excavate a sand-buried settlement and remove what Cam deemed saleable to his network of Egyptian artifact collectors. They'd been foolish enough to think that promising a share of the treasure to the viceroy and his cousin would ease their way. Sebastian and Cam had drunk wine from Akhom Ali's vineyard, ate a feast from his table as his “honored English visitors.” The next they knew, they were tied up and beaten until they provided his entertainment.

The man's only daughter had been victimized by the notorious Henry Kipp, and it seemed Sebastian and Cam were substitutes for his revenge. Because Sebastian had the misfortune of previously working with Kipp, he received the brunt of the punishment.

But he had not fared worse than Akhom Ali's daughter. Her father had killed her for bringing shame upon the family. That act had unleashed his every sadistic impulse. Ali was unhinged and unrepentant in the creative torture he devised for his two Englishmen. It was a wonder they emerged with their offensive male equipment still attached.

Of course, that had been a constant threat. What they had been obligated to do with said equipment was bad enough.

“Maybe we'll find your father's stash and I won't need to marry for money after all,” Sebastian said, yanking the discussion back to something slightly more palatable.

“Not at the rate we're going. From the composition of the soil, I don't think it's been disturbed to do any more than insert catnip plants into the upper layer. It's packed and solid as iron. Where are the castle's cats, anyway? They'd have a field day with the mess we've made.”

“My father never kept animals, save for the odd horse. As a boy, I wanted a dog in the worst way.”

“There must have been kennels here once, judging from the old earl's portrait. All those adoring spaniels at his feet.”

“If there ever were, they're rubble now. Really, Cam, you know a week won't be long enough to find anything, if there's anything to find. The property's more than a thousand acres. Archibald could have buried the gold on any one of them.”

“Why all the notations on the castle and the gardens? No, I've got a hunch. I'm hardly ever wrong.”

It was true. Cam seemed to have a knack for turning up valuables in a rubbish tip. He'd earned his reputation as a treasure hunter. Sebastian wondered what they would have found had they been allowed to dig in Egypt, but once they escaped, they didn't wait around to find out.

“Who's that fellow?”

Young Kenny was standing at the castle door, his horror over the destruction they'd wrought around it almost comical.

“It's all right, Kenny. We just wanted to tidy up the garden.”

“That's my job.”

“You're welcome to help us put the plants back if you like. We got a little carried away.”

“Catmint's good for tea. And headaches. I was coming out to get some for Miss Frederica.”

“That's thoughtful of you. Is she still feeling poorly?” Sebastian asked, trying to be friendly.

“She has not been herself since—” The man's face screwed up. He'd been nice-looking once, but his usual slack-jawed expression took precedence. “For a while.” He still had the wit not to accuse the duke outright for ruining their little castle community.

Kenny must view Sebastian as a bad influence, which he was. And he'd threatened Freddie in the hall in his anger, which must have upset her further.

This whole castle contract should be dissolved. The longer he stayed here, the more complicated his emotions were becoming. Cam was acting like a catalyst, making him see that his gamesmanship with Freddie really served no purpose. It was not her fault he'd been lied to and neglected his whole life. It was not her fault he'd been abused and now sought his pleasure in ways no decent woman would sanction. He had proven his point with Freddie—even a bluestocking spinster was prey to his methods. He was a master at sexual manipulation. But he felt no pride.

The three of them returned the catmint bed to order. Cam whistled to rival the birds, filling the awkward silence. Kenny took an edging tool from the little shed at the bottom of the orchard and expertly marked the grass so no trace of upheaval was evident save for the men's filthy hands and faces.

“You two get cleaned up. I'm going to check on Miss Wells.”

And what would he say to her when he found her? His conscience, always so casually rumpled, was becoming as regimented and straight as Kenny's flower beds.

S
hamefully, Frederica had fallen asleep at her desk, after finding nothing else anomalous in the notebook that leaped to her attention. Perhaps the earl was an avid gardener as well as a traitor. When she felt the hand on her shoulder, she awoke with a start, her headache back with a vengeance.

Sebastian stood over her, covered in dirt. “It's time for some nuncheon, Freddie.”

“Did you find anything?”

“Just worms. If we dig any deeper, we'll get to China. Now I know I can find work as a grave digger if need be.” He paused. “I'm sorry I was short with you earlier.”

“It's all right. None of my business anyway. I feel—awful.”

“Perhaps you need a hair of the dog that bit you.”

Her stomach lurched. “Oh, God, no. Never, ever again. I don't think I'm up to lunch, Sebastian.”

“Cam will be disappointed. He's scrubbing up even as we speak.” He picked the leather-bound book up. “Any other bright ideas gleaned from this?”

She shook her head, regretting the movement. If anything, she felt worse now than she had when she had woken up this morning, with the addition of a crick in her neck.

“Here, now, go on back upstairs. I'll clean up and bring you a tray.”

“What about Mr. Ryder?”

He tucked a loose curl behind her ear. “He can fend for himself, Freddie.”

“Tell him I'm sorry. About the lunch. And all that wasted digging. You both must wish me to the devil.”