Before The Scandal (17 page)

“No.”

“If they did belong to Beaumont, can you think of a reason that Smythe would be moving them after midnight, and with half a dozen armed men for company?”

“Phin, you’ve tried to rob him twice.”

He blew out his breath, shifting a little to twine a strand of her hair around his fingers. The sensation made her shiver all over again. “I need help, Alyse,” he murmured. “Something is afoot. In the past year Quence has been hit with far more than a coincidental share of accidents. I know Smythe is part of it. If I knew why, I might be able to put a stop to it before William is forced to sell the estate. It’s affecting his health now, too. Do you know
anything
that might help me?”

For a second she wondered whether all of this had been part of a plan to charm her into becoming a cohort of some kind. Allowing himself to be shot, though, seemed more than a little extreme. The ball might have killed him. “I heard Charles talking with Richard the other day,” she said slowly. “All I could make out was the number forty-seven, and then thirty quid. After we found out about the sheep, I realized that was the number you’d lost.”

Phin nodded. “I sold them to the butcher for thirty quid.”

“It doesn’t mean anything, you know.”

“It means that Richard knew about the attack before I told him about it.”

Alyse lifted her head to look at him. “I’m not particularly fond of Richard, but he has allowed me to have a roof over my head. And over the past year he’s spent a great deal of time helping your brother.”

“And he’s courting my sister. We’ve discussed this. I just…I don’t know how much time I have to resolve this, Alyse. I don’t want you to betray your family, but if you should happen to hear anything you can tell me, please do so.”

She nodded. “I’ll do what I can.”

“Thank you.”

His breathing slowed, his fingers slipping from her hair and relaxing on her shoulder. For a long time Alyse listened to his heart beating, felt his chest rise and fall as he slept. Promising she would do what she could was one thing; if she heard nothing, then her word would be easy to keep. If she actually discovered something, though…

She’d been staying with her hideous Great-Aunt Stevens in Hereford when Richard had appeared to remove her from the house. At first she’d thought that he would simply turn her out, at best giving her a reference as a governess or a companion. At worst, he would just tell her to leave. He’d had some questions about Donnelly House, though, and she’d been able to answer them.

She’d been eager to demonstrate that she could be useful to him. When he’d decided she might serve as a companion to his mother, she’d been relieved—Aunt Ernesta was arrogant and spiteful, but staying with her and Richard meant that she could return home. She could live at Donnelly House again, even if it was in the attic and at her relations’ beck and call. It gave her a place from which to plan an escape on her own terms.

Minding her manners was difficult enough; actually carrying tales about them to Phin could well put her beyond any chance of seeing another Christmas in East Sussex. It might put her beyond any chance of seeing another Christmas, period. She needed another year. That was what she told herself every time she had to bite her tongue against speaking her mind to Richard or Aunt Ernesta.

Phin, though, overwhelmed her. Above his handsome appearance, she simply liked him. She liked talking with him, and listening to him, and she very much liked kissing him. But he was in a hurry to assign blame for Quence’s misfortunes. And when he’d satisfied himself on that count, wherever it left her, he would go back to Spain. He was only on leave, after all.

Whatever happened, she would be alone again. The only question was over how much damage she was willing to see done to herself before then, and how much silence her conscience could bear.

“You’re dressed,” he said, disappointed.

She brushed at her dressing gown. “I’m back in my bedclothes,” she corrected. “It’s nearly five o’clock.”

Five o’clock. In the morning. Phineas blinked.
Concentrate
, damn it all. He’d lost blood, but not enough to prevent him from having some very nice sex—with Alyse. The stiffness in his shoulder caught up to him, and stifling a groan he rotated his arm. Slowly he swung his bare legs over the side of the bed. “Why’d you let me fall asleep?”

“Because you were shot. How do you feel?”

He looked at her, beginning at her feet and taking his time to reach her pretty eyes. Her cheeks darkened, and lust stirred through him again. “I feel hungry,” he said, standing.

“Hm. You’ll have to take care of that on your own. Get dressed.”

Crouching, Phineas picked up his trousers and pulled them on. “Are you angry?” he asked offhandedly. After all, last night he’d told her some things that she more than likely didn’t want to hear.

She shook her head, apparently occupied with gazing at him dressing. If he didn’t get his trousers buttoned immediately, he wouldn’t be able to do so.

“Frightened?” he suggested.

“Why did you stop the coach and take my pearls in the first place?”

“Ah.” He found his shirt, sticking a finger through the blood-lined hole in the back, then pulled it over his head. “At the assembly I saw Smythe put something in his pocket. I wanted to get a look at it. I had no idea you would be inside that coach. If I hadn’t…taken something from you, the others might have suspected something about me.”

Phineas reached out and caught Alyse’s hand, drawing her up against him. Slowly he brushed the hair from her face, then kissed her again. His heart stopped beating until she began kissing him back.

“I came to see you as The Frenchman,” he whispered, sliding his hands down to her hips, bending her back so that she had to wrap her arms around his shoulders to keep her balance, “because I had to give them back. I know how much they mean to you.”

“Why demand a kiss for them, then?” she returned in the same quiet voice.

“Because I wanted to kiss you,” he countered, releasing her again to retrieve his waistcoat. “Why the questions now?”

“I’m still trying to decide where I figure into this after you’ve rescued Quence.”

Phineas scowled. That same thought had been troubling him. “Did you sleep at all, or did you spend the night looking for reasons not to trust me?”

“I didn’t have to look very hard. I even had time for a nap.”

He shrugged into his jacket, wincing as the tight material pulled at his wound. Next he swept up his greatcoat and jammed on his discarded hat. The mask went into his pocket. He didn’t intend to be seen. “Give me everything with blood on it,” he said shortly, tossing the pillows off her bed and removing her stained bedsheet. He appreciated the evidence that he’d been her first, but he didn’t want anyone else to know what had happened. He’d broken his word not to make trouble for her, but he could minimize it as much as possible.

She bundled various cloths and bandages into the sheet and wrapped them all up into a solid lump. His blood and her blood, together. For some reason that seemed…significant to him.
Later
, he ordered himself. He could consider it later. “I’ll burn them when I get back to Quence.”

Finally he sat on the stripped bed and pulled on his boots, careful not to stomp them against the floor. As he stood she went to the door and unlatched it, leaning out to look up and down the short attic hallway. “It’s clear,” she whispered.

As he passed her, he leaned down and kissed her again. After the night he’d had, it seemed vital to do so. “I know you don’t entirely trust me,” he breathed. “But you will.”

“I hope so.”

It was barely audible, and he pretended not to hear it, but he did. And quiet as it was, or perhaps because it was so quiet, it troubled him. Alyse enjoyed his company, but she didn’t quite believe he knew what he was doing. He wanted her to. In some ways, that became as important to him as helping his own siblings. And the price of failure could be just as high.

He slipped down the staircase and out the side door through the orangery. Fog hung close to the ground, rendering earth and sky the dull gray-blue of fading moonlight. Pulling his greatcoat closed against the chill, Phineas hurried through the garden and down along the river through the trees.

Smythe and his riders had probably given up the hunt hours ago, but he kept to the thickets just in case. Saffron still stood in his glen, snoring softly. Phineas clucked at him, not wanting the gelding to spook and draw the attention of anyone who might be about. Shifting the bundle of bloody rags beneath his coat, he climbed stiffly into the saddle.

“Let’s go home, boy,” he muttered, urging Saffron into a trot. The motion jolted his shoulder, but he clenched his jaw and kept going. Back at the Quence stables he woke Tom to tend the gelding, then made his way inside the house and up the stairs to his private rooms.

“Where the devil have ye been, lad?”

He jumped as Gordon practically leapt on him. Pinning the sergeant with a raised eyebrow, he stepped away. “Beg pardon?”

“I mean t’say, where’ve ye been,
sir?
I nearly paced a trench in th’ floor, worryin’ over ye.”

Phineas went to the fireplace and tossed the bundle of cloth onto the flames. “I had to get myself bandaged up before I could make it back. Any trouble with Smythe?”

The sergeant shook his head. “Nae. Led ’em on a merry chase. They could be halfway to Wales by now.”

“I hope not. I want him close enough that I can wrap my hands around his throat.” He pulled off his greatcoat. Sticking his finger through the hole at the back of the shoulder, he tossed it to Gordon. “Can you mend this?”

“Swate Jasus,” the Scot ground out, dropping the coat and striding forward to grab Phineas’s shoulder. “Ye call this a graze?”

“Ouch,” Phin snapped, twisting away. “I’ve dealt with it. You’ll have to dispose of these clothes for me, though. A pity I could only wear them once.”

“Bandaged or not, Colonel, ye can’t leave the ball in there.”

“It’s not. Now help me out of my jacket, will you? I need some damned sleep.” He looked sideways at Gordon. “And no one—
no one
—can know I was hurt. Everything depends on that.”

“Aye. What of Lord Charles’n his hounds?”

“The dogs will be well away from here or drowned by now.” His jaw clenched as he spoke; he’d found the easiest, most straightforward way of proving that intentional mischief had been done, and he’d lost it just as swiftly. He’d blundered badly last night, and more than once. The best way to demonstrate that he cared for Alyse would have been to stay as far away from her as possible.

“What do we do next, then?”

“Smythe doesn’t know it’s me who discovered him with the dogs. The Frenchman and I may each have an advantage of sorts—if I can figure out how to use it.”

“And how not to get one ’r the other of ye killed.”

“That, too.”

The sergeant checked his bandage and reluctantly declared it fairly done. As soon as Gordon left the room, Phineas collapsed on the bed. He fell asleep with the scent of Alyse soft on his skin.

Warmth spun deliciously down her spine. She was far too old for an infatuation, especially when she’d seen—and now knew—the worst about him, but she didn’t feel infatuated. Her eyes had been wide open, and she’d seen in him the same loneliness and frustration that she felt every day. And for a time last night she hadn’t felt lonely.

Her floor thudded. “Alyse, you lazy girl! Come down here!”

She blew out her breath. If Phin had said it was Aunt Ernesta who was terrorizing Quence, she might have believed it. Slipping into her shoes, she unlatched her door and hurried downstairs.

“Good morning, Aunt,” she said, offering a bright smile. “Might I fetch you some tea?”

“I will take my tea downstairs at breakfast. I want you to go into Lewes with Cook right away and make certain she purchases everything we need for dinner this evening.”

Dinner. She’d nearly forgotten that the Bromleys would be joining them for dinner tonight. A shiver ran through her muscles. She would see Phin again. “Of course.”

“Richard has also invited Beaumont’s guests, so remind Cook that there will be nine of us.”

Oh, dear
. Phin and Lord Charles, dining together. “But Beaumont and Quence have never dealt well toge—”

“We are aware of that,” Aunt Ernesta cut in. “That is why Richard only invited the young people. They are his friends, after all.”

“Will they be staying the night, as well?”

“No. Only the Bromleys will be. Though why that awful brother of theirs can’t ride a mile home at the end of the evening, I have no idea.”

“Perhaps he prefers to stay with his siblings,” Alyse suggested, glad she could keep her voice steady at the thought of Phin spending a second night at Donnelly House.

“It seems to me that his siblings were doing quite well before he decided to return from the Continent.”

“Hm,” Alyse responded. She certainly couldn’t say anything aloud about it.

After she and Harriet had helped her aunt dress and gotten her downstairs to breakfast, Alyse made off with a buttered roll and headed to the back of the house to find Cook. As soon as she left the breakfast room, though, she literally crashed into a tall figure coming from the foyer.

“Ph—For goodness’ sake,” she muttered, staggering backward. Phin certainly would not still be lingering about the house at this hour.

A hand grasped her elbow, steadying her. “My apologies, Alyse,” Lord Charles Smythe said with a faint smile.

Once she’d regained her balance, she shrugged free of his grip. “Oh, no, it’s my fault,” she managed, stifling the abrupt urge to strike the man who’d shot Phin. “I simply didn’t expect to see any visitors up and about this early.”

“It certainly wasn’t my idea.” Lord Anthony brushed past his friend to take her hand and bring it to his lips. “Saunders said Richard would be in his office.”

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen him yet today.” She dipped a curtsy, nervous in their company, and blaming Phin for that, too. “Excuse me.”

“Certainly.” Lord Anthony smiled at her.

“Alyse,” Lord Charles countered, capturing her arm again before she could escape, “be cautious if you leave the house today.”

She frowned. “What? Whatever for? You don’t think The Frenchman would strike by daylight, do you?”

“That would depend on how desperate he is.”

Oh, she didn’t know how to play this game. She didn’t want to have to play this game. Naming Phin Bromley as The Frenchman, though—she simply couldn’t do it. “Desperate for what?”

“Help, I would imagine. I shot him last night.”

Alyse gasped, hoping she sounded convincing. “You—”

“Are you certain about that, this time?” Richard asked, as he stepped out of his office. “Because I’m fairly certain you made that claim before.”

“But this time I found blood,” Charles replied. “We need to talk.”

“Breakfast first.” Richard gestured them toward the doorway. “Have you eaten yet?”

“Absolutely not,” Anthony commented. “Will you be joining us, Alyse?”

She lifted the roll in her left hand. “I’ve an errand,” she said.

“I think any errand can wait until you’ve eaten.” Her cousin stepped back to allow her to return to the breakfast room.

“But your mother—” she muttered.

“Don’t worry about my mother. Come and sit with us.”

Aunt Ernesta glared at her, but didn’t say anything as she led the way to the sideboard and selected a breakfast. After the night she’d spent she was absolutely starving, but since she wasn’t supposed to have been there to eat breakfast at all, she chose sparingly. No sense risking having her aunt say she was eating more than she was worth.

“Did Richard tell you that dogs attacked one of Quence’s flocks two days ago?” her aunt asked conversationally once the men were all seated around her.

Alyse sent a quick glance in Lord Charles’s direction, to find his gaze on Richard. “Yes, he did. Horrible.”

“It was probably that highwayman’s doing. He’s going to kill all of us in our beds—I’m certain of it,” Aunt Ernesta continued.

“I shouldn’t be at all surprised,” Richard supplied. “There were certainly no wild packs of dogs roaming about before he appeared.”

Oh, dear
. “But where would he keep them?” she ventured, trying to be the voice of reason. “He must be hiding out somewhere during the day. A pack of dogs is hardly conducive to silence.”

“Aren’t you the smart one?” her aunt said. “If you have it all figured out, then where is this Frenchman?”

“I’m certain I haven’t the slightest idea. I’m only saying it’s unlikely that he would have a pack of barking dogs with him.”

“And I’m saying that he’s already hiding that monstrous black horse somewhere, you silly girl. A few dogs wouldn’t be much more difficult.”

“Alyse, you’re more familiar with the local geography than the rest of us,” Richard said with a smile. “Can you think of anywhere he might be stashing himself?”

She was absolutely going to kill Phin for making her a party in this mess. “Not off the top of my head. I didn’t do much hiding from the authorities as a child.”

“Richard said you used to play in some old Roman ruins,” Lord Anthony put in. “Tell us about those.”

“The ruins? They’re on Quence land, but they’re right in the middle of a huge meadow. No one could hide a horse there.” She glanced at her aunt. “Or any large dogs.”

“Then what was their attraction?” Lord Charles asked, as he buttered a thick slice of toasted bread.

“We think it was an old Roman bath,” she answered. “At least that’s what we used to pretend. The water in the spring was certainly warm enough.”

“I rode by it just the other day,” Richard took up between sips of tea, “checking on the irrigation system for Quence. Steam rises from the ground all around it still. It looks to have been a fairly large complex, nearly twice the size of the Great Bath at Bath.”

“You and those hot springs,” Aunt Ernesta said, snorting delicately. “You talk about them so much, you would think they’re on Donnelly land.”

Richard’s smile deepened. “I can’t help being fascinated.”

“If they’re so wonderful,” her aunt went on, “why hasn’t Quence done something with them?”

Alyse frowned. “We used to play in them,” she repeated. “The ruins are pretty enough, but I’m certain William’s barely thought of them in years.” Except for the fact that he had lost the use of his legs there—which was undoubtedly part of the reason the family ignored them. Of course she hadn’t learned that until last night, but it made sense.

“I believe Lord Quence has enough matters on his plate for just about anyone,” her cousin seconded. “And that’s without his brother stepping in to counter all of the decisions we’ve already made.”

“He is a part of their family.”
And you’re not
, Alyse added, not daring to do so aloud. For heaven’s sake, they made it sound as though Phin were not only unhelpful, but detrimental to his family’s well-being. While she might have doubts about his methods, he’d certainly gotten the attention of Lord Charles—and his two friends.

“Alyse, we shouldn’t keep you from your errands any longer,” Richard said. “And once you return, you’ll need to air out the guest rooms and prepare fresh bedding for Lord Quence and Beth.”

“And Phin.”

“Yes, and Colonel Bromley.”

Eyeing her half-eaten breakfast regretfully, Alyse excused herself and left the table. All speaking up for Phin got her was dismissed from the conversation. No one here liked him—except for her, and she still had to measure her growing affection against an expanding quantity of trouble.