Black Silk (9 page)

“Who have you questioned, Swansborough? Who, on the hunt?” Sir William had drawn out a linen handkerchief to clean his spectacles.

“You think I made someone nervous—that they retaliated with this?” Dash let his glove-covered knuckles brush the woman’s cold face. Facing death—his own death—was something he could bear. He’d done it before. But he couldn’t stand this—was this defenseless women killed just to hang a noose around his neck?

“Twenty couples are now taking part in this blasted hunt,” Dash continued, his voice raw and hoarse. “Hadrian has dropped out, but I took his place with—” He broke off. “I have a list of each peer, his partner, and how far they’ve progressed in the hunt.”

He straightened, with the cravat draped over his open palm.

Sir William inclined his head. “Let us walk, Swansborough. Talk of this.”

Out of the corner of his eyes, Dash saw the other men bundle the body to move it as he walked toward the spot where the balloonists had been the night before.

“Who is taking part? Would any of those involved have reason to want to throw suspicion on you?”

“You want to know which ones might have a particular grudge against me?” The park was quiet; the morning hour was early, and many of the
ton
were in the country. “Difficult to speculate,” he growled. “Craven was there. As you know, I’ve been investigating him for involvement with a draper’s son named Barrett in the white slave trade. And Craven’s one of the few with a worse reputation for debauchery than me.”

Dash’s strides lengthened as they reached the clearing. Sir William walked silently, hands clasped behind his back.

“Ashton was there with Sophia—Lady Yardley. He’s likely never forgiven me for putting a ball in his leg in my first duel, even though that was ten years ago, when I was…about twenty. Each time he limps, I’m certain he thinks about killing me. But then, so do many.”

He laughed at that. Remembering…

He’d never understood why his uncle James hadn’t just done the job with a knife or a pistol. Easy enough to blow him away. Instead, Uncle James had arranged accidents—and when he’d survived, his uncle had stopped for a while, only to create another ingenious death trap months…or years…later.

He had to remember it like this. Dispassionately, as if it had happened to someone else. He couldn’t let himself really remember what it had been like….

“Jack Tate was there.”

“Aye.” Sir William nodded. “I heard the rumors he owes you a king’s ransom from the gaming tables.”

Dash shrugged. “He had to lose, even at his own tables, just to prove he wasn’t cheating. I’ve got a pocketful of his vowels, worth twenty thousand pounds. It’s possible he thinks he can avoid paying the debt if he can force me to flee England. But it’s a mad way to go about it. A shot in my back would be more expedient there. No reason Tate couldn’t arrange to have my throat slit on a dark night.”

“Anyone else?”

“Several ladies who took offense to me leaving their beds, but nothing worth murder. The most likely man is my cousin Robert. Growing up with my uncle would turn anyone mad—I can attest to that. Since he believes I murdered his brother—” Dash broke off. “Uncle James still wants the title for himself, but he has to kill me to get it. It would be much easier to have a footpad slice my throat than to kill innocent women and hope to hang the crime on me.”

He stood in the center of a circle of crushed grass, where the balloon’s basket had rested. Metal hooks protruded from the earth where the tether lines had been knotted, where the ropes had strained as he and Verity had soared to the stars—

“Blast! Verity!”

Sir William, unlit cheroot in hand, paused at the edge of the circle. “Verity?”

“A woman I met last night. The woman who joined me on this task in the scavenger hunt.” Dash’s hand tightened on the cravat. “I spent the night with her, which meant I wasn’t out murdering Miss Charmody. But now I realize blasted Verity was sent to distract me.”

Sir William, who had struck a light for his smoke, yelped as the flame burned his fingers.

“And bloody fool that I was, I didn’t get a look under her mask. Or learn her real name.” Instead he’d wanted to bury himself in her warmth, hold her breasts, feel her heart hammer beneath his palm, and use pleasure to make him forget.

Would she be here tonight?

That night, hours after he’d come here to see Eliza Charmody’s body, Dash was in Hyde Park again. Blowing a wreath of smoke into the crisp, still night air, he strolled amongst the couples waiting for their turn to have sex in the balloon’s basket.

Verity had taken the clue—which belied the suspicion she’d been sent to distract him. Why not leave him the clue so he could follow it to the next event, where she could entice him into another mind-melting fuck?

Bitterness touched his throat. Would another woman die tonight, gruesomely arranged with clues pointing to him? Hell, this was madness.

Drawing on his cheroot, Dash paused in a cool pocket of darkness beneath an oak. From here, on a slight knoll, he could scan the crowd.

No sign of his cousin—though, of average height, with brown hair and brown eyes, Robert Blackmore was difficult to spot in a crowd.

Jack Tate was in the thick of the group, kissing a buxom woman with abundant henna-red curls. His hand roughly caressed one of the plump tits, his other groped her bottom. Ashton wasn’t here. Sophia and Ashton must have completed this event last night. Were they trying to decipher the next clue, or was the duke plotting murder?

After exhaling, Dash took another long draw on his cheroot, a pleasure he normally savored, but he barely tasted the smoke tonight.

Hell, what if it
was
Ashton?

Sophia had refused to believe she was in danger. Dash had gone to see her today. She’d had him sent up to her music room. As her fingers had danced precisely over the keys, she’d listened. Then had insisted, with a woman’s loyalty, that Ashton couldn’t be the murderer.

Dash groaned as he remembered. Against the dark crowd in the park, he could almost see the scene….

Her fingers had lifted from the keys. “I’m not in danger,” she had whispered. “But you are.” In that moment of pain for him, her age had shown on her lovely face.

“If it’s Ashton, my dear, you could be.”

“He doesn’t bear a grudge over an ancient duel, I can assure you. And you are certain that all this is true—”

“Would a magistrate and a friend lie? He’s been trying to protect me. If it is my uncle or cousin, we’re dealing with a madman, and, yes, sweetheart, you could be in danger. You were one of the few who recognized how insane my uncle is—you believed me then. Believe me now, Sophia. Let me protect you.”

She’d thoughtfully played a series of high notes, the sound as delicate as bird song.

A cold dread had washed over him. “Do you think I did it? Do you think I’ve gone mad?”

The last note held, shivering in the air. “Of course not. But you must be very careful. So very careful.”

She knew more, he was certain, than she was willing to reveal….

Dash jerked himself back to the present. Sir William had sent runners, or hired men, to watch Sophia’s home, to follow her wherever she went, to protect her.

From the shadows beneath the thick oak branches, he spotted blond hair beneath a tall beaver hat. Craven.

The lady on Craven’s arm was heavily veiled. They walked with arms linked on the edge of the gathering. With a glance in all directions, Craven abruptly turned, and the couple hurried between the trees.

Dash dropped his cheroot to the path, ground it with his boot heel. A man detached from the crowd and followed Craven and his lady. A man who moved calmly but deliberately through the moonlit dark.

He had no choice but to follow. He’d been a voyeur at countless orgies, and he’d always enjoyed watching other people find pleasure. He’d needed to immerse himself in sex and sin until he couldn’t think. But, tonight, following Craven while hiding in the shadows left him feeling damned dirty.

As Craven and the woman reached a small grove hidden by closely spaced trees, Craven wrenched off the lady’s veil.

Dash bit down to stifle the hiss of surprise. Harriet. Lady Evershire. Sister to his brother-in-law Moredon. Married, of course, but Dash was surprised by his shock. By the spurt of indignation he felt.

Craven wasted no time. He pulled Harriet into a rough kiss, mouth open, as he yanked his breeches wide. He pulled out his cock with equal roughness as she desperately tugged up her skirts.

Blast Harriet. Was she without sense? If Craven was involved in the white slave trade, he was callously having children—female and male—stolen from their homes, brought to London, and shipped off to live in harems. He sold children to service masters who no doubt killed them when they grew, when they were an encumbrance, not a pleasure. What in blazes had possessed her to choose London’s most perverse rake for a lover?

A crunch of twigs had Dash drawing back into the cover of the bushes. The other man sauntered up to Craven and Harriet, undoing his own trousers. Moonlight splashed onto the scene, painting the sexual agony on his sister-in-law’s face and revealing the identity of the third.

Barrett.

The handsome, charming draper’s son who was the worst bloody blackguard Dash had ever encountered.

Christ, was Harriet to be a victim?

Was he going to have to stand guard while she had her naughty threesome, to ensure she didn’t end up being strangled and slit open?

As Barrett and Craven wasted no time in pulling up her skirts, he knew he was. Harriet obediently positioned herself on all fours, and Craven slid into her from behind, pumping wildly while she suckled Barrett. He thrust fiercely at her face, smothering her cries of pleasure.

Dash turned his back on the scene, his heart pounding in arousal at the sounds of Harriet’s delight. Harriet’s moans and shrieks floated to him—the sound of a woman in ecstasy had him hard and aching immediately. And ratcheted up his irritation.

Bloody fool, Harriet.

Her final squeal brought a terse command from Craven. “Switch positions. I want to pound my rod into her luscious mouth.”

Dash groaned in frustration.

Dash stumbled into his bedchamber and fell onto his back, shutting his eyes against sunlight. At least Harriet had enjoyed her night. He bloody well hadn’t. He’d been forced to stand in the bushes for half an hour, while they engaged in three raunchy bouts, trying not to watch but act as protector.

There had been no sign of Verity, not even at the next location on the scavenger hunt—a private box at the theater where two twin courtesans provided oral delights for the hunting couple.

What more did he know for spending the night on the hunt? Nothing. One of Sir William’s most trusted, most effective runners had spoken to Phibbs. Stevens was the name he’d given as the man who had employed him.

Dash raked his hands through his hair. Stevens would likely point them to some other insignificant name; the man at the top, the man behind the hunt, would have surrounded himself with a maze of underlings and lackeys to remain hidden.

And finding the man who had organized the scavenger hunt might tell him nothing. He might be innocent himself. One of the participants could be using the event to capture women.

Dash let his hand rest on the silky covering of his pillow. With eyes shut, he felt as if he were with Verity again—blindfolded while she matched wits with him, surprised him, and sucked his cock deep into her mouth. And made those delicious sounds of pleasure.

Hell. With his eyes shut, Dash gave a coarse, deep laugh. He needed Verity. And not just to find out who she worked for and whether she had been paid to distract him. He needed to escape in a rowdy sexual bout with her.

He forced himself to sit up, to open his eyes to daylight.

Eliza Charmody had had no escape. The poor lass must have been terrified. Just as the virgins were who were loaded on boats, taken to the East, and sold.

There was no longer any escape for him. Dash knew that now.

Groaning, he reached for the bellpull and gave it a yank. But instead of his valet barging in and disparaging him for his late hours and bleary countenance, someone rapped at his door.

“Enter,” he barked.

The door swung open, and Manning stood there, salver in hand. The salver trembled. “A letter, my lord. From Lady Moredon.”

“Good news, I pray,” he muttered as he strode over to take the letter.

Had the baby come? Or was she still waiting its tardy arrival?

Damn, why couldn’t he just open it? Cut the seal and read.

His hip brushed the chair by the secretary, and he stopped. The letter opener lay on the blotter, sunlight a gleam along the blade. The handle was a cool weight in his palm, but he still could not bring himself to slice.

In her last letter, she had begged him to stop his worrying and had demanded that he let her make her own decisions. But he knew Moredon was too indulgent, too doting. Anne should have been attended by a London physician. She should not have been relying upon a country midwife. But it was her wish, and Moredon indulged it.

It would be good news. She would have a boy…or a girl…to hold in her arms. To dote upon. To love. It had to be.

Have courage.
He slid the blade between linen edges and cut through the seal. A flick sent the folds tumbling open.

Lancelot…

His heart lurched—her last letter had been written with a tone of reprimanding. To use his middle name…she was begging to reconcile.

His gaze dropped. Which would it be? Son or daughter?

There was nothing that could be done.

They say it is a miracle I lived. But it isn’t. It hurts so much. I don’t understand what I did wrong. I keep thinking and thinking…

Nigel said I was not to write…I was to rest. But I had to let you know.

Lancelot, I lost the babe. She was stillborn.