Sally MacKenzie Bundle (197 page)

“So where is it?” He managed to speak slowly and not raise his voice…very much.

“In a safe place.” She wouldn’t meet his eyes. That must be a bad sign.

“What safe place?” All right, now he
was
yelling. He took a breath and tried for control. “If it’s not in your reticule, where can it be?”

She mumbled something.

“Miss Parker-Roth—” Damn. He
had
to lower his voice. He just hoped he hadn’t attracted the attention of anyone on the terrace. “Miss Parker-Roth, you are not making any sense. We have spent all our time in the garden. Where is this safe place?” Another thought intruded. “Good God, you didn’t stick it back in Pan’s—that is, you did get it out of the statue, didn’t you?” The girl couldn’t be so harebrained she’d left the sketch behind, could she?

John and Stephen were bright—rather more than bright—but he didn’t know their sister. Mrs. Parker-Roth had an admittedly odd reputation—perhaps lunacy ran through the distaff branch of the family.

She was glaring at him now. “If you must know,” she hissed, “it’s in my bodice.”

“What?” He couldn’t help himself—his gaze dropped to her dress. Well, not her dress precisely. To her…he bit his lip.

She had such lovely small breasts. He remembered with a jolt of painful clarity how they had felt through her nightgown in Clarence’s study. He’d love to touch them now without any distracting cloth in the way; he’d love to lift them out of her dress and run his fingers over her smooth, silky skin—

He jerked his attention back to her face. “Oh. I see, er, that is, ah, you can show me them—I mean
it
—you can show me it when we get to Motton House.”

She lifted her chin. She was remarkably flushed. “Perhaps I won’t.”

He was definitely dealing with a lunatic. “No, I must see them—
it
—immediately. Er, that is, soon. This evening. When we can be private—ah, I mean when we don’t have a terrace full of the
ton
staring down at us.” On further reflection, perhaps he was the mad one. Reality as he’d always known it was especially elusive this evening. “I expect I’ll be able to discover the identities of a few other members of the
ton
who are involved in this situation, and I’m hoping Clarence has drawn another clue that will lead me to the third Pan.”

“Lord Motton, you say ‘I’ and ‘me’ as if you are intending to continue this search by yourself. I thought we had already addressed that issue. You need my help.”

Now what was the matter with her? “Your help? I don’t believe I agreed to your help—and I don’t need it.”

“You don’t need it?” She almost spat the words. “As I said before, you would never have found anything without my help. I expect to be included in every step of the search. We will look at the sketch together and solve the puzzle as a team.”

“My God, you
are
a Bedlamite!”

“Ooh!” For a split second he truly did think she was going to slap him, but she stamped her foot instead and then thrust her index finger into his waistcoat. “You are the biggest coxcomb I have ever had the misfortune to meet.” She poked him to punctuate each characterization of his idiocy. “You are a colossal cod’s-head”—poke—“a beef-witted, mutton-headed clodpoll”—poke—“an unbelievable—”

He believed he’d had more than enough of her spleen. He captured her hand against his chest. “Miss Parker-Roth—”

“Lord Motton”—she waggled the index finger on her free hand in his face—“I will not give you this piece of the sketch if you do not give me your word you will include me in all your efforts.”

Did she intend to force him to her will? She obviously did not know him well. “By God, woman, you are trying my patience. Surely you must know I can have that piece of paper from you whenever I choose.”

“Oh, really?” She narrowed her eyes and jutted out her chin in a distinctly challenging fashion. “I should like to see you try.”

“You would, would you? Well, then, Miss Parker-Roth, I’ll just—” Blast and damn! He’ll just what?

He couldn’t help it—his gaze dropped back down to her bodice. It would take but a moment to spear his fingers in between her lovely, rounded…

Mmm. A moment was far too short. Once his fingers touched her skin, he would not be thinking of bits of paper. He’d be thinking of touching and kissing and tasting and licking and sucking.

Her bosom had turned a lovely rosy shade. She drew in a sharp breath and made her tempting bodice rise, her delightful breasts swell.

One of his organs was swelling to uncomfortable dimensions.

“Er.” Her voice sounded breathy and uncertain. His eyes flew back up to her face. Yes, her bravado was gone; she looked adorably confused. A slight bit of intimidation might be an excellent notion—only to remind her that she was a woman and so weaker than he. She needed to be guided by him—protected.

He stepped a little closer so their bodies were almost touching. “Shall I take it from you, Jane? Now?”

“Er…”

Did he see a shadow of fear in her eyes? She should fear him—he was dangerous. But he didn’t want her to fear him. He wanted her to lov—

Damn and blast. His head snapped up and he took a quick step backward. What the hell was he thinking? Aunt Winifred must have addled his wits with her talk of marriage.

“I, ah”—he swallowed—“that is, well…” What should he say? What
could
he say? He should apologize for causing her discomfort, but hell’s bells, she was causing him discomfort—acute discomfort—at the moment. Thank God his nether region was in deep shadow. And the shock of his behavior with regard to Miss Parker-Roth was working rapidly to decrease the size of his…problem. “I didn’t mean—”

“What didn’t you mean?”

Motton’s head snapped around. Stephen was striding up the path from the terrace.

Miss Parker-Roth jumped back. She caught her heel on her hem and started to fall; Motton caught and steadied her. “Must you sneak up on people, Parker-Roth?”

Stephen snorted. “You were only surprised by my arrival because you were far too focused on my sister.” Stephen frowned at Miss Parker-Roth. “As you were far too focused on Motton here, Jane. The idiots on the terrace were getting quite the eyeful. What were you thinking?”

“Ah.” Miss Parker-Roth shrugged. “Er.”

Stephen’s eyebrows shot up. “Damn it, Janey, you don’t have a tendre for Motton, do you?”

Miss Parker-Roth closed her eyes as if in pain. “Stephen, when do you leave for Iceland?”

Stephen laughed. “Friday. And yes, I do realize I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Thank God for that,” Motton said. It was definitely time to change the subject. “Stephen, I was going to come looking for you. There’s been a break-in. It’s time to move your sister and mother to my home.”

“You must be exhausted.” Lord Motton’s Aunt Winifred—Miss Winifred Smyth—grasped Jane’s hand and patted it in a comforting fashion. Miss Smyth had just accompanied Jane to a lovely bedroom painted a very restful shade of blue. It could have been painted bright orange; restfulness was not a state Jane was going to achieve anytime soon.

“I don’t know what I am.” Jane gently detached herself. She was too agitated to be comforted; she was too agitated to stand still. She wandered over to the dressing table. Lily, the maid she and her mother shared when they came to Town, had dumped all Jane’s things in a mish-mash there, complaining vociferously all the while how London was such a heathen place that ruffians would break in to a gentleman’s house.

Clarence’s study had looked horrible—books torn and scattered everywhere, the drawers of his desk pulled out and thrown on the floor, anything breakable smashed into hundreds of pieces. “How could anyone be so destructive?”

“They were obviously looking for something, my dear, and had little time to find it. They had to choose the most expedient method. And of course they did not care about Clarence’s things. They might even have enjoyed destroying them, I suppose.” Miss Smyth shrugged. “I can understand how men who live in desperate situations, in the darker parts of London, might have little patience for such fripperies as books.”

“Books aren’t fripperies.”

“They are if you’ve no money for food or shelter.”

Miss Smyth was right, of course. And Jane wasn’t naïve. She might come up to London only for the Season, and travel only in the wealthy parts of Town, but she knew there was plenty of poverty and despair here. She’d just never encountered its existence so forcefully.

She shuddered. She did not wish to encounter it again. What would have happened if she’d been in the house when the men had broken in? True, no one was hurt, but that thought wasn’t very reassuring. If she’d come upon these men in the same way she’d stumbled upon Lord Motton…well, the outcome would have been vastly different.

Perhaps she was wrong to insist Edmund include her in the search. Perhaps she only wanted an adventure when it was in a novel and she could skip to the last page to be sure all ended well.

No, she was not so poor spirited…was she?

Miss Smyth was by her side again, putting a hand on her arm this time. “Don’t worry, Jane—I may call you Jane, mayn’t I?”

“Yes, of course.” At this particular moment, Miss Smyth could call her the Queen of Sheba for all she cared.

“Please don’t worry. You are very safe here, you know. Edmund will take good care of you.” She smiled. “And the villains weren’t after you, were they? They were after something of Clarence’s.” She patted Jane’s arm. “I don’t mean to offend your mother—I know Clarence’s sister, Cleopatra, is her friend and I think Cleopatra seems perfectly nice—but Clarence…” Miss Smyth shook her head. “I always felt there was something not quite right about Clarence.” She shrugged. “With luck, the miscreants found whatever they were looking for and are done bothering anyone.”

“Mmm.” Jane nodded noncommittally. The housebreakers had
not
found what they’d been searching for—the newest piece of that puzzle was still poking into the underside of her breast. Given the interest she and Lord Motton had provoked at the ball this evening, she’d say her safety was very much in question.

“But in an excess of caution,” Miss Smyth was saying, “and because we truly are full-up, what with all the aunts in residence and now you and your mother, I’ve put you right next to Edmund”—Miss Smyth gestured toward a door that obviously connected this room with its neighbor—“so if you become alarmed or…upset during the night, you need only call out and he can be in to help in an instant.” She gave Jane a rather sly grin. Jane would swear Miss Smyth had more than a touch of mischief in her eyes. “Doesn’t that make you feel more secure?”

“Ah.” It certainly made her feel more…something. She stared at the connecting door. Edmund’s bed was on the other side. And tonight Edmund would be in that bed.

Did he sleep naked?

Damn. She squeezed her eyes shut. Where had that thought come from?

“I’ll take you down to Edmund’s study, shall I? I’m sure you could stand to have a nice glass of brandy, and Edmund did say he needed to speak with you as soon as you were settled.”

“Oh.” The thought of seeing Lord Motton in the flesh—no, not in the
flesh
—made her stomach flop around like a dying fish. “I should see how Mama—”

“Your mother is fine. She’s not easily upset—she did raise six children, didn’t she? Though I suppose the two youngest girls can’t be considered raised quite yet, and Nicholas is still at Oxford.”

“Y—yes. When he isn’t being sent down.”

“Precisely.” Miss Smyth tugged on Jane’s arm and directed her toward the door to the corridor. “I must tell you, Jane, that I’ve always admired your mother’s strength of character.” She grinned as they stepped out of Jane’s room. “And I should also tell you at the moment she is down in the drawing room with all the other aunts. I can assure you most sincerely you do not want to subject yourself to the aunts right now. Edmund is definitely the better choice.”

“Oh.” Yes, she would agree with that. Lord Motton’s aunts—especially en masse—would be very intimidating. Stephen had obviously thought so. He’d fled as soon as he’d seen her and Mama safely moved in.

And she did need to talk to Lord Motton. She still had the sketch piece in her dress. She’d intended to remove it when she got to her room, but Miss Smyth had not given her the privacy to do so. It would have been very hard to explain why she was fishing around in her bodice or why she’d needed to hide the paper there in the first place. She would just have to attend to the matter when she reached Lord Motton’s study.

Unless, of course, Miss Smyth was intending to stay and chaperone them, but surely Lord Motton would not permit that. He would want to discuss the sketch, and he couldn’t do that with his aunt present. No, Jane was sure to be quite alone with him—with all his aunts and her mother just a few rooms away.

“I’m sure Edmund has worn a path in the carpet, Jane,” Miss Smyth said as she stopped in front of a door. “He is most anxious to see you. I wonder why.” She waggled her eyebrows.

“Ah, er, we merely have some business to discuss.” Good heavens, did Miss Smyth think there was something of a romantic nature afoot?

She did. She waggled her eyebrows some more and then winked. “I bet you do.”

“No. Ah, that is, we have
business.
Things of a business nature. Important topics…” She couldn’t have Lord Motton’s aunt believing that she and he…that they…oh, blast. Her relationship with the viscount was odd, to be sure. Complicated. But romantic? No. Not romantic, though she wished…

No, no, no. She did not wish…anything!

Miss Smyth smirked at her, and then pushed open the door. “Miss Parker-Roth is here, Edmund.”

Chapter 7

“Do you have the paper?”

Jane frowned at Lord Motton. A few pleasantries would have been nice, or at least a token show of concern. She
had
just had the house she’d been staying in ransacked. Well, not the entire house, of course—just Clarence’s study. It would have been much, much worse, now that she considered the matter, if the reprobates had invaded the room she’d been staying in, pawing through her clothing, throwing her books and sundries everywhere…