Suzanne Robinson (23 page)

“I decline to tell you.”

Nightshade vanished. “Damnation, we’re back to that, are we?”

“Sir Lucas, your language.”

“And now you’re going etiquettey on me again.” Luke eased nearer with that unconscious grace that marked all his movements. “Your tongue has gone all starched again, and I’ve just about had enough of you sitting in judgment on me, Miss Primrose blighted Dane. No matter what I do, it’s not good enough. God! You’re more than a man should be cursed with, did you know that?”

Her body trembling, near tears, Prim inclined her head and muttered, “Then I shan’t trouble you any longer, sir.”

“Oy, you come back here, Primrose Victoria Dane!”

Prim stopped and turned slowly. “I beg your pardon?”

“I hate it when you turn your back on me,” Luke growled as his color rose. “You ain’t going to scarper and leave me standing here shouting at you like a fish merchant on a Friday. I ain’t finished talking to you.”

“I, however, am finished speaking to you.”

Turning on her heel, Prim rushed out of the gallery. Her sight blurred by tears, she bolted for the refuge of the Old Library.

“Rot you, Prim, come back here!”

Her speed increased at the sound of Luke’s furious bellow. She raced into the hall and upstairs. Out of breath, she burst into the Old Library, shut the door, and leaned against it. Her chest heaved and her corset pinched her ribs. Pressing a hand to her side, Prim dropped into a chair at the table upon which lay the box holding the insular manuscript.

“I will not give way,” she whispered to herself as she panted. “I will not. Oh, dear heaven, he’s followed me.”

She heard the tap of boots on the stairs and their rapid progress to the Old Library door. The portal burst open and slammed against the wall, revealing Nightshade at his worst. The room seemed to grow dark, as if great thunderclouds formed his escort and sucked the light from every corner. He paused,
bracing his arms against the threshold, his legs apart, as though he would launch himself at her like a black griffin.

When his chin lowered and he directed that Nightshade stare at her, Prim’s tears dried in her eyes. That stare could intimidate a mad dog. It held jungle heat and arctic chill at the same time. And if the effort took ten years off her life, she wasn’t going to allow him to scare her.

“I cannot imagine that you would think I desire your company, Sir Lucas.”

There, she’d managed to speak without a quiver in her voice. The room brightened. To make sure she kept her courage, she scooted her chair into a ray of sunlight. When she looked up, Nightshade hadn’t moved, but his glare seemed to have lost its wicked fury and become distracted.

He gave his head a little shake and said, “I told you I wasn’t finished.”

“Indeed,” she replied. She removed the book from its container, opened it carefully, and began to try to decipher its script.

It seemed to her that he flew across the room like a raven. Nightshade was at her side before she could object. He slammed his hand over the book.

“Sir Lucas, stop that at once!”

“It’s my book. I can burn it if I want.”

Half rising from her chair, Prim met his glare and hissed at him. “It’s over a thousand years old.”

Luke continued to scowl at her, but he lifted his hand with care.

“I got some interesting information about the night you disappeared.”

She hadn’t expected this. Prim covered her surprise by pulling the book toward her and turning a page.

“Seems the traps have caught the blokes who done all the murders that night. Except one. Somebody did for old Pauline Cross that night. You know Pauline Cross, Miss Primrose blighted Dane?”

“No.”

His hand was flattened on the table next to the book, and she tried not to look at it. He leaned closer.

“Pauline Cross was found stabbed and dumped in the Thames. A floater, that’s what we call it.”

“How terrible,” Prim said, not daring to look at him. She turned a page.

“Right. Now our Pauline was a harlot. Not your ordinary tart what walks Hell Corner in cheap silk with a pockmarked face. No, our Pauline was a flash bit O’ dirty lace.”

“Please, Sir Lucas,” she said, squeezing her eyes shut to block her memories of Pauline Cross. “The poor woman was so unfortunate.”

“Thought you didn’t know her.”

Her eyes flew open, but she directed her gaze at the half-uncial script before her. “Any woman who is forced to take up such an occupation is unfortunate.”

“Well, something we agree on. But you miss my point. According to my agents, Pauline rented good rooms and made a living off the toffs. She had regulars of good quality what saw her provided for, you see.”

Prim turned another page, although she didn’t see
what was on it. “Sir Lucas, I have no interest in the particulars of Miss Pauline Cross’s business affairs.”

“Listen anyway. My agents say Pauline had been bragging lately that she’d found herself a real blue-blooded toff. She boasted that she’d be leaving the trade soon and for good.”

“I’m sorry she didn’t.” He was so close she could feel the heat of his body, and it made her want to scream with frustrated anger and desire.

“Wait,” Luke said. “The thing about Pauline is, she wasn’t above a bit o’ blackmail, was our Pauline.”

He paused, but Prim kept her eyes fixed on the Irish half-uncials and refused to speak.

“So, my agents think, and the police think, that Pauline was done for by some toff what she tried to snaffle.” His voice lowered and he leaned down. “The way I see it, that night Pauline met her bloke in some alley, and he knifed her. There was blood all over her dress.”

The half-uncials curled and writhed and swam. She felt sick and too weak to fight the vision of a woman with her mouth open in an ugly scream. Prim cried out as Luke pounded the table.

“That’s it! I knew you saw something. You saw the toff that did for Pauline Cross, and Fleet was there too. Who’s the bloke?”

Prim wet her lips. “I decline to tell you.”

She gasped as Luke grabbed her arms and dragged her out of the chair. “Whoever he is, he’ll hunt you down, even in America.”

“He won’t know I’ve gone there.”

She winced as he tightened his grip.

“You ain’t leaving until you tell me.”

“Sir Lucas, you’re hurting me.”

He released her so quickly she fell into the chair.

Nightshade bent down to capture her gaze with his. “I won’t let you go.”

Don’t let him intimidate you, Primrose Dane
.

“Then we’re at an impasse for now. However, you will lose eventually.”

She didn’t understand why his voice went soft. “I never lose, Primmy.”

“You will lose this time.”

“What makes you think so?”

“Because, Sir Lucas, Lady Cecilia is going to accept your offer of marriage. She intended to from the moment she saw you. And if you think Lady Cecilia Randolph will stand your playing host to me on her wedding night, you are much mistaken.”

Luke was still furious with Prim on the afternoon succeeding their quarrel. Yet he was forced to behave as if he were free of care when in the company of Lady Cecilia. This proved to be a triumph of will over inclination, for Cecilia had begun to lose her appeal within half a day’s acquaintance. He had persevered in his duties as host to the lady despite his growing distaste for her, and what had been his reward?

“Cringingly subservient,” he muttered. “Obsequious!”

Luke took a swipe at some reeds that grew on the bank of the stream beside the abbey. Behind him lay the soaring ruins, and beneath them, on the grassy meadow that led to the stream, his guests were engaged in a picnic. The weather had bestowed upon them a false summer day. Upon beholding the clear sky, Lady Cecilia had insisted upon an outing, and had
bullied his mother into acceding. Even Prim had been forced to come, although she had vouched many protests of letters to write and studies to complete in the library. All had given way before the locomotive of Lady Cecilia’s will.

His fiancée had commandeered the finest of his china, his best tables, chairs, and linens, and arranged a tableau on the grassy slope. She declared the abbey the most picturesque setting. Since everyone knew her taste to be the finest, having been assured of it by the lady herself, her arrangements prevailed.

Luke glanced at the group sitting at the table before a stone wall broken by the remains of arched windows. Lady Cecilia sat in state at the head of the table in the best chair, with velvet cushions. His mother and father flanked her. Both were keeping their gazes fixed on their plates while Mrs. Apple, in her guise as Prim’s chaperone, did her best to make conversation with Cecilia. It was an easy task. All she had to do was nod her head every once in a while and let the chatter flow over her in a continuous inundation.

Prim sat next to Mrs. Apple. Luke scowled at her, but her attention was fixed upon Cecilia. As he watched, she stiffened at some remark of that venerable lady’s. She bent and retrieved the parasol she had propped against her chair. It was one Luke had seen in London and sent for after they came to Castle Beaufort. After being persuaded to accept the parasol, Prim had vowed to repay him for the trunk of clothing he’d provided. Not that he would ever accept her money.

Prim narrowed her eyes at Lady Cecilia, who was oblivious. Then she snapped open the parasol and
hoisted it over her head. It jerked once more and tilted so that it formed a delicate screen between Prim and Lady Cecilia. In spite of himself, Luke grinned. He had never seen a finer sight than Primrose Victoria Dane driven to abandon propriety and insult an acquaintance.

His good humor faded when he remembered how she had reproved him for being a gentleman to Lady Cecilia. After all their lessons, all his practicing, she had censored him. And all because she didn’t like the woman. Not because she was jealous.

Luke slashed at the reeds again. He would never be able to forget how he’d felt when she’d burst out with that tirade against Lady Cecilia. It was as if fireworks had burst inside him. If Prim was jealous, then she must care for him. And if she cared for him …

Kneeling at the edge of the water, Luke picked up a stone and tossed it into the stream. He liked the way it went
plop
as it entered the water. In the distance he could hear Cecilia’s hornlike fanfare interspersed with Mrs. Apple’s determined comments. He couldn’t decide if Lady Cecilia sounded more like a trumpet or a bugle. Whatever the case, he wasn’t going to listen to that raucous concert for the rest of his life.

He’d been wrestling with the problem of how to extricate himself from her. He wasn’t certain exactly when he decided Lady Cecilia was unbearable. Perhaps it was when she scurried off to hunt down Oswald and prevent him from taking exercise. Or perhaps it had been the first time he’d intercepted that appraising look of hers. There had been something in Lady Cecilia’s hard gaze that reminded him of Larder Lily.

Tossing another stone into the water, Luke murmured to himself. “Oh, admit it. You knew she was a hard piece the moment you saw her. You looked at her and realized you’d been expecting another Prim. Luke Hawthorne, you’re an ass.” He hurled a stone with such violence that he was sprayed by the water it displaced. “You know what you want, and this time Nightshade can’t get it for you.”

But he could save himself from Lady Cecilia Randolph. He would suggest a drive before dinner. Cecilia liked to ride in his open landau, bowing and nodding to the villagers and servants like a queen. He would take her for a drive, and when they came back from the village through the park, where there was privacy, he would tell her he was withdrawing his offer. She would be furious, but she’d have to accept his decision. He just hoped she didn’t screech at him. He had a feeling Lady Cecilia could screech like a braking train engine.

What an odd thing. He had thought marrying Lady Cecilia would wipe out the memories of his childhood. He had wanted to do away forever with that little boy who had stood at the back door of the baker’s shop and begged for scraps. Sometimes he still dreamed of that shop.

In these dreams he was small again, so small he had to reach up to work a pump handle. His feet were dirty inside his cracked leather boots; his whole body was dirty. His coat was too thin to keep out the cold, and he had no cap. But he had to wait in the dark of early morning for the baker to open his shop, and
when the man arrived he must make himself presentable, tugging at the bottom of the coat that was too short for him. He had to make a low bow and speak humbly as his fellows had taught him. “If you please, sir. Can you spare any old crusts?”

He woke from these dreams feeling that terrible burning hunger and shivering, not from cold, but from humiliation. Luke looked over his shoulder at Lady Cecilia, who was waving her hand at Featherstone and trumpeting orders. Funny thing about Cecilia. She reminded him of the baker’s shop. Constantly. If he married her, he would forever feel like that dirty little boy tugging at his coat, looking up into the hard eyes of the baker and trying so very hard to be humble and polite.