if hes wicked (31 page)

She could see him struggling to heed what she said and understood how hard it was for him to do so. His feeling of responsibility for the people of

Colinsmoor ran deep and it would be a while before he could break free of a guilt he did not deserve to suffer. But, she thought, at least he had listened to her.

“You need to stop thinking about it.” She slid her hand down his stomach and stroked his manhood, feeling it immediately rise up to welcome her

touch.

“That certainly might help to clear my head,” he said, and ran his hands down her back until he could gently squeeze her backside.

“Wel , is that not what a wife is for? To clear the troubled thoughts from her husband’s head? To soothe his worries?”

“Do you expect me to argue with you when you are doing exactly what I want?”

Chloe laughed and kissed him. She knew the guilt he felt would return, but she hoped it would lessen with time and thought. For now she would do

her best to keep him so dazed with passion that he forgot his own name. That was what wedding nights were for.

“Fools. Look at them down there smiling at each other and acting as if al is right with the world.” Arthur slipped around the tree so that he could get

a better look at the smal group gathered in the graveyard by the chapel. “Told you we should have buried those bodies better and deeper, Beatrice. They

have gone and buried them in Kenwood land. Right near you, which I have to admit is a clever twist. They are burying that girl whose babe you took now.

From what little I could learn, she was the new countess’s sister. Made a mistake there.”

Arthur thought about his dead lover and sighed. He missed her from time to time, which amazed him. She had made so many mistakes, ruined al

his plans, and he had enjoyed watching her dance at the end of that rope, yet he stil found himself talking to her. One of those puzzles of life, he decided, and growled softly when he saw Julian put his arm around his new wife.

How dare he marry again so soon after burying Beatrice. She must be stomping around in hel right now demanding some sort of punishment for

him. If she was stil alive he would not have been able to take a bride, and the fact that now he could must make dear Beatrice livid. That was something

he would do for her, Arthur decided. He had money now that he had sold al of Beatrice’s jewels. Not as much as he would have had had the fool woman

not left the Kenwood jewels in the safe in the manor, but enough to hire a gang of thieves and cutthroats. They would help him end his brother’s line for

once and for al .

He straightened and glared down at his wife as she joined the group in the churchyard. Traitorous bitch. She would pay, too. Hiding with the

enemy, consorting with them, could not be forgiven. Al he had ever asked of the stupid woman was that she give him a son, and she had failed him three

times. He would make sure she saw those failures die first, right before her eyes. He wanted her to grieve as he had each time she had pushed yet

another cursed daughter out of her useless womb.

They had al failed him, cheated him, and destroyed him. His plans had been perfect and they had thwarted him at every turn. No more. He might

not gain the prize he had once sought, but he was a man who could adjust. Now he just wanted them al to pay for his losses. Let the cursed earldom go to

some far-flung cousin or, even better, to the crown.

Arthur rubbed at the pain in his head and decided he needed a drink. Drink was the other thing that eased the constant pain. He did not like how it

made him act, but it would do until he had rid himself of al the sources of his pain. Slipping back down the hil away from the graveyard and his family of traitors, Arthur made his way to his horse. It was time to go back to the inn, have a few drinks and a meal.

Then, when the pain was eased, he would gather his men and make plans. Al he had to do was divert a few of the men guarding Colinsmoor and

he and his men could easily get inside the manor. The bastards he was paying to fight for him could loot the place to their heart’s content while he took

care of al those interfering women. Then he would help himself to the real treasures at Colinsmoor and slip away. With a ful purse and a little luck he

would be able to avoid Simone’s people and start a new life.

“Thank you so much for this, Julian,” Chloe said as she wiped the tears from her cheeks with one of the embroidered handkerchiefs Phil ipa had

given her as a wedding present.

Suddenly she smiled for she realized that, skil ed though Phil ipa was, there was no way she could have embroidered Chloe’s new initials on a

dozen lovely handkerchiefs in the few days al owed before the wedding. Sneaky Lady Evelyn, she thought. The woman had plotted and planned to get her

and Julian together from the beginning.

“I am pleased it makes you happy,” he said, “although you stil appear to be crying.”

“Happy tears. You have a mother and two sisters, Julian. You must understand what they are.” She laughed when he sighed, and decided she

would not tel him how his mother and sisters had plotted to get him married. “This is right. This is where Laurel would want to be, her and her baby, not in the crypt.”

“Outdoors, under the sky.”

“Exactly. And Henry, too.”

She looked at the three headstones and sighed with a mixture of grief and happiness. Her sister and her men were al together again. The smooth

little marker for the unknown child whose bones they had used was also there and she knew that her sister would love that child, too. She prayed their

spirits had found each other wherever they were.

Chloe suddenly tensed. She felt as though two wasps were stinging her right between her shoulder blades. Turning around, she looked behind her

but could see nothing.

“Something wrong?” Julian looked in the direction she seemed to be searching in but saw nothing.

“Just an odd feeling. As if something hot was poking me in the back. I just wondered if someone was watching us.”

“Good or bad watching.”

After considering that for a moment, she said, “Bad. That would explain why it felt as wasps were stinging me.” She looked al over the hil side

again. “I see no one, however.”

“I could send some men out to search the area.” Julian had quickly learned to respect Chloe’s instincts and decided he would send a few men out

to search anyway.

“There is no one there, Julian.”

Chloe turned back to the graves and stepped closer. She lightly traced her sister’s name with her fingers and said a silent farewel . Then she

turned back to Julian, grasped his hand, and tugged him after the others who were already heading back to the house. Someday she would tel Anthony

the story of Laurel and his birth, when he was old enough to understand and not be frightened by it. She deserved to be remembered by the child she had

helped to save. She would also send her brothers a letter to tel them who she had married and where their other sister was buried. Chloe felt certain that they would wish to visit Laurel’s grave and, she hoped, her as wel .

“It is not worth troubling anyone. I see no one and you see no one. So I must have imagined it or whoever was looking is now gone.”

She was not surprised when he very nicely slipped away once they were back inside the house. Chloe knew he was going to go and look. It would

make him feel better and she supposed it was the wise thing to do. The fact that he heeded her warnings, trusted in her instincts was such a gift, she

would not complain if he was a little overprotective.

“You happy now, Mama?” asked Anthony as he skipped up to her.

Chloe could not stop the smile that lifted her lips if she tried. Hearing Anthony cal her Mama was music to her ears. It had never felt uncomfortable,

had felt right from the first moment he said the word. Final y she could claim the child openly as her heart had claimed him three years ago.

“I was happy before, Anthony,” she said. “Those were happy tears.” She laughed when he made a face very similar to his father’s. “Do you want to

walk in the garden?”

“Can I bring my bal ?”

“Of course, but do not expect me to be as good at playing bal as your father or your uncle. I have long skirts that make it hard for me to run about.”

“Tuck ’em up like Lady Mildy and Granmere do.”

“I just might do that,” she said as she took him by the hand and started toward the garden, idly trying to imagine the two older women with their

skirts rucked up playing bal with a little boy.

“Someone was here, m’lord,” said Jake, who was revealing some real skil s as a tracker. “Do ye think it was your uncle?”

Although the question was asked in a calm voice, Julian caught the flash of fear in the man’s eyes. He could not blame Jake for fearing Arthur. His

uncle was certainly a man to fear, especial y now. No one could easily judge what a madman might do. That was what made them so very hard to catch.

He looked up at the wind-contorted tree at the top of the smal hil and frowned. Someone had stood there and watched them gather in the

graveyard. It was what Chloe had said she had felt that made that seem ominous. So did the fact that whoever it was had done his best to remain hidden

and hide his tracks as he left. Who else could it have been but Arthur or some hireling of his? The stealth of the whole matter was what troubled him. That and the fact that if it had been Arthur, the man had come far too close to his family without being seen.

The question was, why was the man stil lingering around Colinsmoor? Why was he even stil in the country? It did not make sense and that

disturbed Julian. Arthur was a smart man with a lot of cunning, who knew how to commit al manner of crimes yet not get caught or banished. To stay at

the scene of so many of his crimes did not seem smart or cunning.

“It could be, but we cannot know for certain unless we can track him back to wherever he came from,” Julian said.

“Damnation, I thought he was gone for good.”

“So did I, Jake. So did I. Let us take another look round just to be sure.”

It was late when Julian final y returned home. He rushed up the stairs and hurried to prepare for dinner. It was a little disappointing not to find Chloe

waiting in their bedchamber for him, but he knew she was spending as much time with his mother as possible. Julian did not think Chloe needed any

lessons in how to be a proper countess, but if it made her feel more confident in who she was now, he had no objections.

When he reached the salon where everyone waited to be cal ed into dinner he had to grin. With two older women, one newly married woman,

three young women in the process of looking for a husband, and two that were old enough to join them for dinner but too young for an introduction to real

society, family meals had become a raucous affair. Leo sat in a chair set near the fireplace and just smiled. If the man could endure this with such calm,

Julian suspected he was ice under fire. He made his way toward Leo thinking that the man ought to know what should be done about the mysterious

watcher.

After accepting a drink from the footman, Julian said, “Someone was on the hil overlooking the graveyard. They watched the burial of Laurel, her

child, and her husband. Jake and I could see that he had been there, see where he walked to his horse, but when we tried to fol ow the hoofprints they left, the damned things faded away only a few feet from the tree.”

“Did you travel along a ways in each direction to see if they turned up again?”

“Yes, and there was nothing. It was as if whoever had been crouched there climbed on some sort of Pegasus beast and flew away.”

“Too careful to hide his tracks. Always a bad sign.”

“That is what I thought.” He told him about what Chloe had felt as it had been the reason he had gone looking in the first place.

“Then it was definitely not a friend up there. But was it Arthur? That is the question, eh? I would think Arthur would be as far away from here as he

could be, even out of the country. My people tel me that he sold Beatrice’s jewels and walked away with a very heavy purse. It would have been more than

enough for most men to sail away into a fine new life. Another question—would Arthur think it was enough? I was also told that some of Simone’s people

are lurking about also looking for Arthur, and not to kindly thank him for al his help. That would be another reason any sane man would leave, go as far

away as he can.”

“And here the question becomes—is Arthur stil sane? If he ever was.”

Leo nodded. “One has to question his sanity when he coldly plans to murder three of his closest family so that he can take the title. It has

happened before, however. Cold and unfeeling but not necessarily insane.”

“Talking about Arthur again?” asked Chloe as she walked up and curled her arm around Julian’s. “Think he was my watcher?”

“There is a chance,” said Julian. “It is just that it makes no sense. He was always smart, always cunning, and yet he lingers in the very place where

people hunt him down?”

“But you have not been able to catch him yet, thus stil smart and stil cunning. He also needs money to get away and live somewhere else in the

comfort he craves.” She looked around the large salon. “A lot of expensive things here, and I wager you have a safe which holds even more. Probably

much easier to carry and sel , too.”

“Like Beatrice’s jewelry,” murmured Leo.

“It is possible that Arthur would know how to get into the safe. He would certainly have found where it is with al the time he had to look for it over

the last few years. But, Chloe, it is not just us who are looking for him. Simone’s people are, too. He promised them something and he did not get it for