Lisbon: Richard and Rose, Book 8 (18 page)

“I have put matters in train, my lord. We will do our best to track him down.”

He gave Carier a brisk nod. “I know you will, Carier. But there is another possibility. Barber would have known an elaborate dish like the lemon cream was meant for table that night. He might not have known it was a favourite of either Lizzie or Rose, though he could assume that you had a good chance of taking it.” He paused and leaned forwards, his eyes gleaming. “But think for a moment. Assume that Barber wasn’t the culprit, and he left early to attend to business in Lisbon. Several other people in this household would know Lizzie’s partiality for lemon cream. They heard her discussing it in the kitchen, or they knew it already. We cannot disallow that possibility. Who else would want one of you dead?”

The word
simmered in the air, but nobody spoke it.

Silence fell. A bird sang in the distance, but other than that, the only sound was the breeze in the box hedges. And I knew why Carier had come out to me and then Richard had followed. We weren’t overheard here.

I took a deep breath and said the name we were all thinking. “Joaquin. He ordered the dish and he knows Lizzie likes it. He might also have known that Lizzie may be
enceinte
, and decided to—to get rid of her before she produces any more possible heirs to bar his way to the title.”

I caught my breath. Lizzie loved lemon cream as much as I did, and whoever poisoned the dish might have known that. Joaquin was responsible for the dish being made. He had ample opportunity to poison it. And if Lizzie were dead, he could control young Paul more easily, or even get rid of him in time.

Richard gripped my hand. “I don’t want you put in any more peril. If an accomplice knows we have realised the sweet was poisoned, and it wasn’t a simple case of food going bad, he or she will be on his or her guard and likely to do something in a panic. It will make our task of uncovering the culprit much harder. I want us to go about as if we didn’t suspect a thing, as if the poisoning were an unfortunate domestic incident, no more. You must keep your trusted servants close about you. And we will institute a new regime for mealtimes, although I doubt the perpetrator will attempt to use that avenue again.” Richard paused. “It shouldn’t be for long. Hopefully there will be traces to follow. How many people know of your experiments with the rats, Carier?”

“One, my lord. The gardener’s boy whom I bribed to supply the creatures to me, instead of disposing of them in the usual way. I didn’t tell him why I wanted them, only that I wanted to try an experiment. I disposed of the corpses myself.”

“We should assume that the gardener’s boy gossips,” I said. “It doesn’t do to underestimate the servants’ network. If he said nothing, all well and good, but if he did, someone might wonder.”

Richard released my hand and reached for my glass. He took a reviving draught. I thought he was probably relieved that he could do something. He had me safe here, and he would do his best to track down whoever was attacking me. And through me, him.

“An excellent point, my love.” Richard handed me my glass with an apologetic smile. I kept his attention long enough for him to see me take a drink from the same spot on the glass that he’d used, and he rewarded me for my gesture with a smile and a definite thaw in his gaze. “You will, sweetheart, keep Nichols, Carier or one of those two footmen over there with you at all times. That’s when I’m not with you.” However gently he put it, I didn’t mistake the command for a suggestion.

“So I won’t want for company, then.” I smiled, trying to make light of the situation. But I saw the sense of it. Despite valuing my independence, I didn’t cavil at the restrictions. To do so would have been foolish and headstrong.

Anger simmered through me, heated my blood. I wouldn’t have my life so constrained that I couldn’t live it properly. I wouldn’t allow anyone to do that to me. “I want this cleared up quickly. I’ll do everything I can to sort out this matter, then I want to go back to enjoying my visit here. It could be a grudge, something small, an idiot servant. Anything.” We had defeated our worst enemies. Surely nothing else so bad awaited us. But deep in my heart, the events spoke of a conspiracy, someone who bore more than a casual grudge against us.

“I agree.” Richard’s touch on my hand was warm and reassuring, but I saw the edge of anxiety in his eyes, an expression I’d do anything to dispel. He turned his head to confront his valet’s patient gaze. “What kind of poison do you think it was?”

“I suspect it’s a mixture, my lord. You can buy poisons to take almost any effect, and you can get them on most street corners. It won’t help us catch whoever has done this thing.”

Exasperated, I put down my glass, stood and brushed my skirt down, more for something to do than from a real need. “I’ll go inside and ensure the children are settled. Nobody goes near them but the nurses and their guards from now on, and everything they eat is to be tasted by someone else first.”

“You won’t allow me to have that done for you and yet you insist on it in the children?” Richard got to his feet and held out his arm for me to take.

“They are smaller and in more danger if someone should decide to strike at us through them.” I grimaced. “I would rather we went about the business discreetly and quickly.”

“In that we are totally in accord, my love,” he said.

Back in my room that night after dinner, I washed, and with Nichols’s help undressed and climbed into bed. When she left, I dragged my night rail over my head and tossed it by the side of the high bed. It was higher than the kind we usually used. It had interesting possibilities.

I was contemplating some of those possibilities when I heard the connecting door open, and I glanced up to see Richard, sumptuously robed in a dark blue banyan decorated with a riot of oriental figures, enter the room. He responded to my smile somewhat mechanically, but I was delighted to see that he had nothing on under his robe.

He undid the froggings at the neck, unhooked the inner fastenings and discarded the robe on a nearby chair, the white lining flashing a reminder of the surprising nature of inner secrets. He let me view him, and I took the opportunity to scan him thoroughly, just to ensure everything was there and in the right place. As I watched, his cock stirred. A good omen of future loving.

He smiled and climbed into bed, using the little footstool set by the side. Interesting to watch the play of his muscles on his arms and chest while he did so. He caught me looking, and his gaze met mine. He froze, one knee on the mattress, the other still on the footstool. He touched my chin, the only part of my face he could reach across the expanse of sheet.

I flicked my tongue over his finger and loved his responsive shudder, which he made no effort to hide. “Tonight, my love,” he said, “we finish what we started. I have to stay with you now, else I’ll get no sleep at all, and I can’t be with you without making love to you. Not now.” He groaned. “It kills me, but I can’t resist you anymore.”

He lifted his body onto the high mattress without effort. His nipples were already peaked, as were mine. I sat up and let the sheet slide down my body, enjoying the sensation when it caught on my nipples before it fell to my waist. He reached for me, grasping my waist and tugging me flush against his body.

“I’ll never tire of the way you feel against me,” I told him. “You feel so strong, so, well,
masculine
.” I laughed. “I’ll never make a poet.”

“You hold all the poetry I’ll ever need,” he assured me, his lips so close to my temple that I felt the air pass between us as the words left him. He punctuated the sentence with a kiss, and when I lifted my head, he pressed a gentle salute to my lips. His eyes, half-lidded as he stared down at me, darkened as the pupils grew with his arousal. “So beautiful. A world in a world in a world.”

“What do you mean?” We shared a love of John Donne’s poems, but I couldn’t recall that line in any of them.

“Your body is a world to me, all the world I need. It sustains me and gifts me with its presence. It contains your soul, a world inside. We’re in this bed, a world of its own. We’re inside a room, inside a house—”

“Inside an estate, inside a country…” I laughed. “I see. You are my world too, my love. All of it.” I thought of the children, people we had created from our love and now beings in their own right, and I remembered Helen’s delight in the garden today. Not very romantic, but so much a part of married life that it seemed natural.

I didn’t voice my thought, but he must have seen something in my eyes, for he laughed too. “Tell me. It’s about the children, isn’t it?”

“Just that I thought of you today. Helen scrambled towards a bush, one I’d already moved her away from because it had prickly leaves, and the glance she gave me, to see if I was attending to her—it was pure you.”

He raised a brow. “In what way?”

He wasn’t letting me off lightly, then. “The mischief and the calculation. That girl is already working out how far she can push us. And it’s likely she’ll push you further than she should.”

“Highly likely, my love. How can I deny her anything? Just as I can’t imagine refusing you whatever you want.” Trouble put creases between his brows. “You understand why I’m so careful with you?” He touched his lips to my nose, and then my mouth, but released me so I could answer. His arms remained cinched around my waist.

“Of course I do.” I couldn’t imagine his tender care ever leaving me. “You’re afraid for me. There’s no need. We brought the highest level of servant with us, didn’t we? And it’s too early to jump to conclusions. Not until we know where John Kneller is. I imagine he’s having a fine time abusing slaves and bedding plantation owners’ wives and daughters.”

He
tsk
ed. “I hope not.” He drew me closer, so my breasts pushed against his chest. “It whirls around my head sometimes that I’ve done wrong. I had to let him live, to give him a chance. He had so much potential and he’s young yet. He could prove a great man, if he overcomes his tendencies for revenge and retribution.”

“Don’t.” I smoothed my hand over his cheek, feeling the stubble gathered there. Sometimes he shaved before coming to me, but I liked the stimulation of the short hairs on occasion. They could hardly be seen because of his fair complexion, but now they glinted in the starlight and the light of the two candles I’d left burning, set in the holders above our heads. I wanted to see him, to glory in his male beauty as we made love. Now I saw his concern, and although I wanted nothing more than to soothe him, I rejoiced that he felt secure enough in our love to hide nothing. It had taken him some time to learn that. I wouldn’t let that go. “Don’t think of it. Don’t think of him. Concentrate on the facts, what is happening, until we know for sure.”

He sighed. “You’re right. I worry for you, and now I worry for our children too. I think it’s become something of a habit, and I have to unlearn it. Maybe here, in this lovely country, without the duties I’m usually subject to, I’ll find a way to relax.” He smiled. “I have the most beautiful woman in the world in my arms and the best family in the nursery.” His smile broadened, but I saw the trouble still lurking in his eyes. “I’m sure I’ll learn to live with any imperfections.”

When his lips touched mine, I let them open, let him tilt his head to increase the connection between our mouths. He tasted me, his tongue flicking around my lips, then deeper, rimming my mouth and touching my teeth in a sensuous caress that made my skin prickle under him. My nipples hardened further, pressing against the hard muscles of his chest and I moaned, wanting more and now.

His tongue delved, and I met it with my own, stroking, caressing, pressing closer so I could suck on it with a delicacy that wouldn’t last long. He opened his mouth wider, urging me closer. The muscles in his back flexed against my open palms as I swept my hands up and down the length of his body, eager to experience and share every part of me with every part of him.

Finishing the kiss, he kept my gaze with his as he laid me on the crisp sheets, my hair tumbling against the white pillows. He grasped a handful of it, let the unruly curls sift through his fingers. Lifting them so the candlelight gleamed against the strands, he watched them fall against the linen. “So beautiful. None of the silk in all China compares to this.” He rubbed his nose against the waves, inhaling as he did so. “I love the way you rinse with lavender and rosemary. I never experience that particular scent without thinking of you. It brings you to mind, like this.” He gazed at me, drinking in my curves and my skin. “Lying back, waiting for me to share my body with you, to love you. And I do. So much.”

“I love you too.” It was all I could find to say, but it sounded inadequate to my ears. I wanted to say so much more, but words failed me, so I showed him instead.

When we were first together, my innocence was only matched by his eagerness, but he’d taught me to be unafraid, unashamed. We brought so much to each other now, and I knew him so well that he said we met as equals these days. However true that was, I don’t know, but I loved that he said it and I tried to bring him all the honour he did to me. I wouldn’t show him any reticence. So even though my body wasn’t what it could be, even though fine silvery lines marked some places and my curves were less ample than they used to be, I knew I still gave him pleasure, so I wouldn’t hide from him. Ever.

The evening being mild, I threw back the sheets and kicked them aside. No doubt we’d need them later, but not now. The light caressed his sleek curves and the powerful lines of his body like a lover. I traced the highlights with my fingers; his broad shoulders, usually so carefully disguised by his coats; his slim waist and hips, the bones perceptible to my hands; and his shaped muscles, firm with exercise and health. He remained still for me, leaning on one elbow and his hand, half-covering my body, watching me take pleasure in him.