Ripe for Pleasure (14 page)

Leo took Meteor by the reins and led him toward the stable. Squire Watt should be arriving at any moment. The man had cast
a covetous eye toward several of Leo’s hunters last season, and Leo could think of nothing better than having the legendary
man spend the upcoming season mounted upon an animal from his stable. It would be good for his reputation, and that in turn
would be good for business, crass as it was to admit.

And Dyrham was going to have to be a business. It didn’t have the vast acreage necessary to support itself. There was no coal
or iron or other valuable resource. What it had was location and reputation. It was in Melton territory, prime hunting all
around it, and at the moment, he had one of the best strings of hunters anywhere in England eating their very expensive heads
off in his stables.

It had been one thing for his grandfather, the duke, to support such an establishment. It was something else for him to try
to do it without the resources of Lochmaben to draw upon.

If he could maintain the estate for a few years, he could set himself up as a breeder and trainer. Most of his hunters were
worth more than a pair of perfectly matched carriage horses, more than your average vicar, barrister, or doctor made in a
year, more than the grooms who cared for them made in a lifetime.

But in order to make such a dream a reality, he had to have money, far more than his younger son’s portion. Without the prince’s
treasure, he’d have to sell off all those magnificent horses, might have to sell off Dyrham itself in a few short years.

His first attempt to search Viola’s house had been interrupted by the fire in the mews, and though he’d tasked the League
to make a more thorough attempt, he’d received no letter announcing success.

He’d have to invent an excuse to return to town sometime in the very near future, an excuse that would allow him to leave
Viola safely—and ignorantly—tucked away at Dyrham.

CHAPTER 14

A
loud, repetitive, and most determined thumping echoed through the house. Charles smiled to himself and continued to explore
Mrs. Whedon’s bedchamber.

The footman must have regained consciousness. His men had overpowered him with a blow to the head and locked him in the kitchen’s
small cellar. They’d reinforced the door with the large chopping block after shutting it. There was very little chance of
Boaz getting loose anytime soon.

There was nothing here in her room. No secret panel in the wall. No hidden passageway behind the clothespress. There wasn’t
even anything worth stealing. No silver brush set. No jewelry. The house had been quite carefully packed and closed before
she’d left.

The sound of a large piece of furniture being shifted caught his attention, and Charles wandered down the corridor to find
his men dragging a large bookcase away from the wall. Books were scattered in piles across the room, open, closed, pages bent
and torn. His uncle, the duke, would have apoplexy on the spot.

“Nothing, sir,” Cooper said.

Charles turned slowly about, looking the room over. She obviously used it as a study. A small writing desk sat under the window,
framed by curtains. The walls were lined with bookshelves. A watercolor of some ancient Mediterranean ruin hung above the
fireplace.

“You’ve checked behind them all?”

“All the ones as ain’t built in, sir.” Cooper’s partner, a shambling ex-pugilist whose name escaped Charles, pointed at the
chaos they’d created.

Charles raised one brow. “And which of them are built in?”

“Them two.” The pugilist pointed to the small shelves flanking the fireplace.

Charles crossed the room and ran his hands lightly over the seams where both cases met the wall. There was a slight gap around
the left one. It could be nothing but poor craftsmanship, or it could be something more. No, there it was, an almost imperceptible
draft.

He tossed all the books over his shoulder and ran his fingers slowly over each shelf, looking for anything that could be a
trigger. Nothing.

Charles set his shoulder and shoved. A groan, but no movement. There was something there.

“We could rip it out of the wall, sir,” Cooper said.

Charles brushed off his hands and stepped back. “It may well come to that, but let’s not be hasty. If the trigger’s not in
or on the case itself, it must be close by… No, not one of the floorboards. Not the baseboard either. Nothing behind the painting.
No bell pull in the room. That would be too damn easy, wouldn’t it? No, but it really has got to be close.”

He cocked his head and studied the fireplace. No fanciful carvings. No roses or roundels to make a button out of. He ran his
fingers under the mantel, behind the small lip. Yes, there it was. A knob. He fiddled with it until it moved, sliding to one
side. There was a distinct
snick,
and the bookcase wobbled slightly.

Charles pushed it with his foot, and it slid back into the wall. Cold, musty air flooded out. He slipped in, shoulders scraping
the sides of the narrow passage. A few steps and he was in a small room. A dark oubliette.

“Fetch a candle,” he yelled back over his shoulder.

A few minutes later, a wavering light licked past him, shivering over the dusty room and its scant contents. It was nothing
but a priest’s hole. Large enough to have contained a strongbox, but if it ever had, the box and its contents were long gone.

Charles cursed and flung the candle down. The room pitched into darkness. He thrust Cooper out before him, nearly sending
the smaller man sprawling.

Damnation. So close. He’d felt success burning just beneath his skin. If it wasn’t there now, it certainly had been. It had
to have been.

He lashed out with his foot, sending a book flying across the room. It fell facedown, open, pages bent out at odd angles.
Charles stamped on it for good measure.

Leo and his whore weren’t going to win that easily. If the money was no longer here, and Leo was still dangling from her apron
strings, that could mean only one thing: She had it.

Charles glanced around her well-appointed study. Someone had spent a small fortune on this house, its furnish
ings, and maintenance. And Mrs. Whedon had quit the field quite abruptly, if his memory served.

Almost as though she’d come in to some kind of windfall.

He picked up the poker and swung it at the wall. Plaster gave way like the chalk cliffs at Dover. Charles swung again, raining
dust down onto the books.

Damn her. He swung again, and again.

CHAPTER 15

V
iola clamped her arm to her side, pinning the unruly skirt of her habit up and out of her way, and resolutely walked down
the path that led to the stable block. She’d been so sure of her plan to wear breeches, but one look in the mirror had laid
that plan to rest.

Leo’s buckskins, nobly handed over the night before, had clung to her thighs but sagged about her waist and hips, and the
less said about the baggy horror of the seat the better. She was well aware that breeches were always somewhat full in the
backside, but clearly they needed to be matched up with the posterior for which they’d been cut and paired with a coat for
cover.

As she reached the stable block, she could see Leo running his hands over a gray with a long tail tipped in black. The horse
swung its head to look at her, ears swiveling about.

Leo turned. His eyes widened, and his lips quirked with mirth. “No breeches?”

“No, I—”

“Don’t think for a moment that I’m going to put on skirts because you changed your mind.”

Viola wrinkled her nose at him. “God’s honest truth? They didn’t fit.”

“Vanity won out, did it?”

Viola dropped her skirt and gestured down the length of her oatmeal habit. It strained across her bust, swung about her waist,
and had a stain down one side of the enormously long skirt that appeared to be a mix of ruddy earth and grass. “When I tell
you this is better, you’ll understand the full implication of what I mean when I say the breeches were worse.”

He grinned widely. “Beau’s a good bit taller than you, but none of that will matter for what we’re doing today. Your maid
can winkle about with it later if you don’t break your neck.”

“Your sister won’t mind if your mistress steals her habit?”

“I don’t think Beau’s worn that since she was a hoyden of fifteen. I doubt she’ll even notice it’s gone, and if she did, no,
I don’t think she’d care. Come and meet Oleander. She’s a sweet-tempered little goer, and I fully expect the two of you to
become fast friends.”

Viola eyed the mare. Oleander stared back, large brown eyes surveying her with clear contempt. “Do you have something smaller?”

Leo laughed, and the horse blew out a loud and derisive-sounding breath, nostrils fluttering rudely. “The only other horse
in the stable trained to carry a lady is Quiz, and since my goal today is something other than cementing your affection for
sedan chairs, I’ll not put you
anywhere near him. Now come here and let me boost you up.”

Viola suffered a moment of pure panic as Leo grasped her about the waist and tossed her up into the saddle. She wobbled, and
his grip tightened, shoring her up.

“Get your knee around the pommel. Yes, like that. Now other foot in the stirrup.” He let go of her waist, hands sliding down
her hips and legs, and guided her foot into place. “You want to keep the pommel firmly between your knees and the ball of
your foot balanced across the bar of the stirrup.”

Leo took the reins from the metal ring they’d been looped through. “Just hold on. Get a feel for the rhythm. No, no. Don’t
twist about. You’ll unbalance yourself and tumble over.”

Viola blew a drifting curl out of her eyes and glared at Leo. “Whoever invented the sidesaddle should have been murdered on
the spot.”

Leo laughed and set her firmly back into position. Blood pounded in her ears, making it impossible to think.

“You can thank Good Queen Bess for having taken a shine to them.” His hands pushed up under her skirt, found the naked flesh
of her thigh, and checked the placement of her knee over the pommel with ruthless efficiency. Heat flooded through her, bringing
a ridiculous surge of longing. The man had bewitched her. They’d made love twice the previous evening and again after breakfast
and still she wanted more.