Lynne Connolly (30 page)

“I know you did.” He kissed my cheek, my throat and dropped a gentle kiss on my mouth. “You’ve never stopped since. Not once.”

I laughed and arched up to him when he reached a particularly sensitive spot and grazed it with every stroke. “Oh, Richard, that’s right, that’s perfect!”

He bent his head to kiss me and continued that relentless thrusting, never-ending. I returned his kiss, cupped the back of his head and threaded my fingers into his hair. Curving my hand around his skull, I marvelled that it contained such a brilliant mind, and such a generous one, before he stopped any rational thought I might have had by increasing his thrusts and driving me higher.

I arched my back, cried his name and felt that perfect moment of stillness before the world erupted around me. Brilliant colours flashed around us, and I lost all sense of myself, passing into a different world, which I shared with one other person only.

The sudden cessation of movement and the way his face froze told me he’d reached his perfect moment. Hot jets inside my body followed by shudders gave me the surrender my body yearned for, and to my shock, his orgasm started another in me, and we came together, the apogee we always strived for and occasionally achieved.

I kept a large pocket watch in a stand on my night table, and when I woke from a light, refreshing doze, I could glance over and check the time. Half past three. Past time to dress for dinner, but I didn’t think we’d be going out or even going far. We should appear at various places but they could do without us. I lay on my back and Richard on his side with his arm around my waist and his head nestling against my shoulder, his breath hot on my skin. The clock, a repeater, chimed the half hour. It didn’t disturb me and Richard could sleep through anything, though he’d wake like a cat at an unusual sound or occurrence. I liked the chimes. It meant I could tell the time in the dark, and during the last part of my previous pregnancy, I hadn’t slept well.

We’d enjoyed afternoons together since our honeymoon, when we’d adopted the habit of taking what the Spanish called a siesta. My afternoon rest, approved by my physician, was in reality an excuse at this stage in my pregnancy. I felt robustly healthy at this time, and I don’t think I needed the rest. But I wouldn’t have missed it for the world.

When I turned my head, I saw him watching me, his blue eyes full of soft humour. “We’ll have dinner here, in your sitting room, shall we?”

“Probably best,” I agreed.

He kissed my shoulder and smiled. “You make everything better.”

I laughed. “If only I could.”

The events of earlier in the day flooded through me in an instant and I saw that poor man, laid out, choking. “How is he?”

Richard immediately discerned my meaning. “Elijah Jones? He’s fine. A little weak, and certainly disorientated, but I have him safe. Not so Norris, one of the men Alicia set to guard him.” His mouth settled in a grim line. “Another person whose death we can lay at Julia Drury’s door.”

“You think she did it?”

“I know it. She probably heard we had him and decided to eliminate him. She doesn’t care who else she kills, or what havoc she causes as long as she gets her way.”

I sighed in relief. At last he understood. He’d once refused to believe that a woman could be completely devoid of feelings, unable to understand how Julia could so ruthlessly pursue her own affairs. Blaming much of her misdemeanours on Steven had worked for a while, but no more, it seemed. Steven had behaved spinelessly, but now his conscience had turned. “Do you have our witness and his guard safe?”

“Yes I do. In a place she won’t find them. I’ve given orders to find anyone Julia has a grudge against and warn them or offer to help them. She has to go. We have to do something to stop her.”

A chill invaded my heart. Yes, I knew that. “We can lay information against her?” I asked, heavyhearted.

“If we can persuade Drury to withdraw his alibi. Remember, he said he was with her that night. If he sticks to that story in court, he can condemn the other witness and challenge him, one man’s word against another.” He lifted up on to one elbow and gazed down into my face. “I need him to withdraw that alibi. We’re collecting witnesses to the fire, and I’m hopeful of catching the man who set it. She surely won’t try to kill that one.”

I caught my breath. “It’s what she does. Finds someone disposable and disposes of them.”

He traced around my left nipple with his finger. It obligingly rose to his touch and a little of my interest in the conversation dissipated. “That’s why we have someone watching their house. If she leaves, they’ll follow. If anyone leaves, someone will follow. That man or woman will help us in our case.”

“You won’t—”

He bent and kissed me, touching his lips on mine softly, sweetly. “Not if I can help it. Julia Drury can’t continue. I thought Steven had more to do with it, but I’m satisfied that without her, he won’t.” He grimaced. “I can hardly believe that I’d contracted to marry such a person. I thought marrying a cold, hard woman meant that the philandering I intended to continue with after my marriage wouldn’t hurt her. She assured me it wouldn’t. We made a cold bargain, that she’d bear me two sons who were indisputably mine and then we’d leave each other alone.”

“Instead you got me.”

His solemn expression momentarily turned into a smile. “How lucky can a man get?” He kissed me again, but returned to his previous pose, leaning on his elbow. “I won’t let anything harm what we have. Not even the making of heirs. If this little one is a girl, I don’t want us to try again unless you’re perfectly well. I’ve seen women worn down with trying, marriages destroyed by the lack of an heir. We have an heir to the estate in my cousin and his child. It might not suit my mother, but I want you safe. I
need
you safe.”

After an interval of soft caresses and love talk, I brought up the subject of Julia again. “I don’t want you to kill her or be responsible for her death.”

He shook his head. “I can promise to do everything I can to avoid it. That’s why we’re collecting witnesses. We have Elijah Jones safe, in the house Freddy usually uses for his stable of mistresses, actually, a little house in Richmond. Jones is dressing as a servant and keeping indoors. The servants I’ve put in place there are actually his bodyguards. If we find the person who set the fire who can swear that Julia paid him or her, I’ll put them somewhere else, find a different house. To put all our assets under one roof doesn’t make sense.”

“Expensive.”

“Worth it. She’s killed more people than Jonathan Wild.”

“An exaggeration, surely.”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. We’re looking for Abel Jeffries’ widow too. I’m sure she’ll bear witness that Julia Drury had her husband killed.”

“So you want to bring her to justice?”

He nodded. “It’s always my preference. Her death will hurt no one but her father, and that can’t be helped. If we don’t stop her, she’ll ruin him, so he’d suffer from that. Steven is spending more time with him. He can’t bear witness, she’s his wife, but he can keep out of the way while we build our case.”

“What about Susan?”

“I want to keep her out of it too. She needs a clean slate to marry her Sir Andrew.”

Chapter Seventeen

The next day brought us Susan, without Sir Andrew. Richard had come home to share a pot of tea and his news, which wasn’t a great deal, but he had hopes of tracking the fire-setter down before Julia did. We were preparing to go upstairs to dress for dinner when Patterson brought us the startling news that we had a visitor. Richard quirked a brow when I picked up the scrawled note and told him who it was.

“We’d better see her.” He sighed. “Though I had meant to wear my new emerald green coat, but I need time to match it to a waistcoat and jewels.”

So I laughed as Susan made her entrance. The expression on her face made my laughter fade into nothing. I’d never seen her so open, so vulnerable. Tearstains marked her cheeks and her red-rimmed eyes told that it was no sudden and swift burst of sobbing. She’d been crying for some time. Her pale face, free of paint or powder, appeared drained, and her eyes showed a lost openness that made my heart ache.

“Susan, please, come and sit down.”

She moved across the room as if walking on hot coals and sat on one of the two sofas our parlour contained. Richard occupied an armchair, although he’d risen at his daughter’s entrance. “Can I get you anything? Tea, brandy perhaps?”

I daren’t ask what had brought this grief on to her, afraid it might be her brother’s death. She’d known him up to the age of fourteen, and then they’d separated, and he’d only reintroduced himself recently, but Richard and Gervase had spent twelve years apart and still had a bond nothing could break this side of death. I exchanged a telling glance with Richard. Should we tell her? I thought not. It would only make matters worse.

“I didn’t know you cared for him so much,” I tried, desperately hunting for something to say. I glanced at Richard again and received a small nod. Dear God, this was difficult. He wanted to tell her about John. It was her right to know, but I didn’t think it would help. She opened her hand and revealed a soggy, balled-up handkerchief. I groped for mine, but Richard got there first, handing her a surprisingly serviceable cloth. Richard usually carried handkerchiefs heavy on lace, light on linen, to touch to his nose after he took his nearly imaginary pinch of snuff. He’d found one that inverted his usual selection.

Susan needed it. She buried her nose in the cloth and blew, before lifting a teary-eyed countenance. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come here. I promised not to, and I’ve kept my promise, haven’t I?” Her appeal sounded like a child’s, pathetic and desperate.

“Yes you have.” I felt terribly old. Would I mourn for a brother that I knew had done such terrible things? Probably. I thought of James and Ian, and even my nephew Walter, and although I couldn’t imagine any of them in John’s place, I could understand how one could grieve for an evil person. “Susan, it doesn’t matter. We told you to come if you needed to.” I had to tell her, and I thought it might be better coming from me. “Susan. Susan, look at me.”

She lifted her head and stared at me, her eyes bleak.

“John isn’t dead.”

She blinked. “He isn’t?” Her voice sounded hollow.

I leaned forward and took her hands. “John had a scar on his hand, remember? The dead man didn’t have one.”

She nodded. “He told me you’d done it.” She glanced at Richard, who took over the difficult task.

“I did, but he would have killed Rose had I not stopped him. I had little choice.”

“I’d have killed him.” She shook her head. “He exploded back into my life and ruined it.” She wasn’t glad to hear our news? She sniffed and took a deep breath, a hiccup marring it. “Where is he, then? Waiting to burst out again and wreck even more lives?”

“Pressed,” Richard said. “He’s on a ship, heading for the colonies, I believe. It sailed a few days ago. That body wasn’t him. The body was close in appearance and dressed in his clothes, but it wasn’t him.”

“But the papers all report that he died, that they’re looking for his murderer.” She blinked, dry-eyed. We’d distracted her from her real troubles. Whatever they were, they didn’t include losing her brother. “Why haven’t you told them?”

“Because we consider he’s better dead. You’ll inherit his estate, what there is left of it, but don’t hope for too much.”

She shrugged. “I don’t care.”

“It could come in useful. Add to your portion.”

And she burst into tears again. “I don’t need a portion. Not anymore.”

Ah. “Sir Andrew has gone?”

She nodded. “I won’t cry anymore.”

Richard interrupted. “Can we do anything for you?”

She shook her head, pleating the handkerchief between her fingers. “I don’t think so. You were very kind. It turned out that I wasn’t having a baby, not this month, anyway. Then I told him about John, and when the rumours started to circulate he grew more nervous, and then he said he had to go into the country for a few days. I got his letter this morning. He’s not coming back. He sent me some money, for my trouble, he said.”

“Sir Andrew?” Richard’s voice echoed my own amazement. “You loved him?”

She nodded and sniffed. “I thought he loved me. He said he did. Oh, I know he wanted an heir, and I promised to try to give him one, but I thought he wanted me. Me!” She lifted her face, tragic and gaunt. “A whore off the streets! Have you ever heard of such a thing? I must have been mad. And I shouldn’t have come here, I know, but I wasn’t thinking properly.”

“I’m glad you did.” I’d rarely heard Richard so gentle, outside our bedroom. “You’re not a whore off the streets, you’re my daughter.”

She choked. “And you refused to acknowledge John, and yet you say that so carelessly.”

“You didn’t try to destroy my life. He did. I told him the truth, that I didn’t know anything of your conception and birth, but he refused to believe me. Either that or revenge burned him so badly that he couldn’t listen.”

Susan nodded. “He was burned up, you’re right. He rarely thought of anything else. He said you’d cheated him of his birthright and he’d make you pay for it.” She lifted her head. “You didn’t. I think it’s because I knew my mother and he didn’t. He accepted her stories when we were children, when she told us the stories of the princess whose father refused to acknowledge her. Then when she told us about you, I accepted it as something that might have happened. I only knew for sure when I saw you. Even then I realised it wasn’t unusual, a maid falling pregnant to one of the family in the house. I shrugged and got on with life. Even when the Drurys took me in and tried to use me against you, I didn’t really care. I just thought that I’d get something from it.” She bit her lower lip, but Richard’s expression didn’t change. He sat at ease, one leg crossed over the other at the knee, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, propping up his chin. “I talked to you, I listened. He never would. I don’t think he could think properly where you were concerned. And then he told me what he’d done, and I said I wanted nothing to do with his stupid plans. I told him that he didn’t know you, that you wouldn’t allow it. I told him you didn’t deserve it. He wouldn’t listen.”