Sweet Enemy (38 page)

He gathered the contents of the box and stood, tucking it beneath his arm in possessive challenge. He raised his chin and pressed his shoulders back in a rigid stance. “I want you out of my sight.”

A lone tear slipped down Liliana’s cheek, and Geoffrey felt it like hot acid stripping a trail down his soul. She stood, a bit shakily, but only nodded and turned to leave.

A sick panic gripped him. “Liliana?”

Wide eyes turned back to him, a wealth of emotion churning in them.

He steeled himself against it. “Don’t you dare leave Somerton Park until I say you may go.”

She flinched, keeping her eyes downcast as if unable to meet his.

Part of him wished she would look up—whether to plead with him or so that he could rail at her, he did not know—but she left without another word.

Geoffrey told himself that he’d given that command only so that she would be nearby if he needed more information from her. But as he watched her walk away, he could no longer deny the painful truth he’d been holding at bay. Cursed love bloomed inside him with rough petals that scraped and stung no matter how hard he tried to stem it.

Just like his father, he’d fallen in love with a cunning, untrustworthy female.

G

If only she could float away on the breeze like one of those famed contraptions. Yet her desire to leave her heartbreak behind was tethered by a sad combination of her love for Geoffrey and her ever-present need to finally know the truth. She couldn’t leave Somerton Park without closure on both fronts.

Where had Geoffrey gone? Should she remain here at the stable until he returned? She hadn’t really expected he’d be here to meet her for their morning ride, but she’d run out of options. She’d already looked for him in his rooms and his study using the key he’d neglected to take back. The image of his face when he’d realized she’d used that key to search the family wing had haunted Liliana all night. Remorse ached inside of her, sharp and poignant, not blunted even by the conviction that she hadn’t set out to hurt Geoffrey specifically. She’d only been seeking justice.

She had to see him. Though her chances to convince him of the veracity of her feelings were slim, she feared
how painful the regret would grow if she didn’t at least try. She also needed to tell him of the old valet’s suspicions regarding his father’s death. He deserved to know everything she did.

Her heart constricted. Geoffrey mustn’t feel the same, however. He was keeping something from her. Something important. Something that strangely enough had to do with where her father’s letters had been found, but she couldn’t fathom what it could be.

An impatient whinny and the irregular prancing clop of hooves drew Liliana’s attention to the neighboring stall. Amira must have sensed her presence and been anxious to run the countryside. Liliana’s turbulent emotions ceded a bit at the thought. A good hard ride might be just what she needed, and there was always the chance she’d come across Geoffrey on the grounds.

Liliana entered Amira’s stall and stroked the mare’s nose. In short time, she saddled the horse and galloped off toward the eastern sunrise with no destination in mind. This morning, of all mornings, she craved thoughtless escape.

Shortly after the sun broke the horizon, Liliana spotted Geoffrey’s stallion in the distance. Relief and trepidation rose in her. The beast was tied to a post outside the folly—the folly Geoffrey had offered for her laboratory as an inducement to marry him.

Liliana tried to picture that moment, the tender look upon Geoffrey’s face when he’d made his sweet proposal. But all she could dredge up was the pained betrayal in his eyes when he’d tossed her out of the library. She squeezed her eyes shut on her wretched emotions. They’d get her nowhere.

She slowed Amira as they came around the lake, bringing the mare to a halt next to Gringolet. The horses nickered in greeting. Liliana dismounted, secured Amira to the post and walked over to stroke Grin’s flank. Cool and smooth. He hadn’t been run in some time and had
clearly been brushed down after arriving. Had Geoffrey spent the night out here, then?

She glanced at the shuttered folly, which looked empty and lifeless. Had she not seen Grin, she would have ridden right past…

Deciding on a plan, she untied the horses and led them around the back of the structure, where they were hidden from view, and found a tree sturdy enough to secure them to. The morning had handed her the perfect opportunity to hash things out with Geoffrey away from the prying eyes and ears of the manor.

As Liliana mounted the front steps, she was grateful it had been hours since she’d eaten. Certainly nothing would have stayed in her stomach with this nervous churning. But she vowed she wouldn’t leave the folly until she discovered what Geoffrey was keeping from her. And until he heard her apology. She couldn’t force him to accept it, nor did she expect him to. She could only hope saying it would be enough to release her from this gnawing guilt.

She didn’t knock, simply tested the handle, which turned easily. She pressed the heavy wooden door just wide enough to slip through, blinking as her eyes adjusted to the relative darkness. Dim slivers of light cut the shadow through the ancient slatted shutters but did little to illuminate the interior of the folly. The air seemed still. Yet Liliana’s body tingled with awareness. Geoffrey was definitely here.

She felt her way toward the daybed, trying vainly to shut out the memories that assaulted her. Geoffrey, smiling wickedly as he’d teased her to the breaking point in this very spot. The glorious bursting release of her very first orgasm. The swelling of tenderness she’d felt afterward that she only now recognized as love…

The daybed was empty. If her memory served, there was a chair and writing desk off to the left in the “corner” of the round space. She moved silently that direction.

The soft snippet of a snore broke the silence, and Liliana tensed, coming to a halt. Then she relaxed her stance. He was asleep.

By the time she reached him, her eyes had fully adjusted to the dimness. Liliana easily made out Geoffrey’s sleeping form, lithe even in repose. She shook her head. His back would be killing him when he woke. One shoulder was scrunched down and wedged between the back and side of the wingback chair, one leg was propped with the ankle resting on the opposite knee, and his head lolled back and to the right. Yet his hand still gripped a pencil, as if he’d leaned back to contemplate something he was writing and had nodded off before he could complete the thought.

Scraps of vellum littered the desktop. Off to the side, open bundles of letters, the ones from their fathers, lay spread out by date. Had Geoffrey been trying to break the code? Did he not think she’d properly checked all variations?

She leaned over the desk to see what he’d been writing.

M A R C N T O Y B D E F G H I J K L P Q S U V W X Z

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Warm, strong fingers clamped around her wrist, and Liliana jumped with a startled gasp.

“What are you doing here?” Geoffrey demanded, his voice gravelly and raw. It also brooked no dissemblance.

She nearly blurted out that she’d been looking for him, but then indignation burned through her. “What are
you
doing here?”

“Last time I checked, this folly belonged to me,” he said drily, releasing her wrist and scrubbing a hand over his eyes.

“That’s not what I meant,” Liliana snapped, glancing down at his masculine scrawl. She slammed a finger down on the cipher.
MARCNTOY…Could that mean
Marc Antony?
“Is there a password? Is that what you’re thinking?”

Geoffrey’s face went blank, but his eyes sharpened and his lips pressed together tightly.

Her burst of anger turned, and Liliana experienced the sting of betrayal herself. She swallowed, and her voice sounded very small when she said, “You’ve figured it out and you weren’t going to tell me.”

Geoffrey exhaled a resigned sigh accompanied by the rustle of wool as he straightened in his chair.

Liliana withdrew her finger and drew her hands together, clasping them in front of her. She brought her shoulders in, too, lowering her head. She’d given him all of the evidence she had, hoping he would see, as she did, that their best chance to learn the truth would be to work together. Even if he hated her. But obviously he’d intended to shut her out.

Geoffrey rose and walked away without a word.

Could she blame him? Liliana fought the sting of tears—hurt tears, but also ones of frustration. Yes, she
could
blame him. Certainly she’d shocked him with her admission. Even wounded him. But did he have no care for her feelings? For her situation? Could he not understand that her father had been
murdered
, for goodness’ sake?

Geoffrey returned bearing an oil lamp and a wooden chair and arranged them so that two people could work side by side at the desk. He seated himself in the primitive chair, indicating she should sit in the more comfortable cushioned one.

She did—before he could change his mind—and tried not to squirm beneath his scrutiny.

After a long moment, he said, “I thought I had, but I was mistaken.” Liliana listened carefully as he explained his theory about a key and told her that he’d thought he’d found it in the name of the book his father had kept the secret letters in.

“But nothing I tried worked,” Geoffrey concluded, his voice flat and impersonal, businesslike. His tone scraped
her heart, but she was glad that he was sharing the problem with her. That was something. Perhaps even enough to build a future on when all of this was over? She tried not to hope, yet it stole into her heart all the same. “And with both men having been dead so many years, I have no expectation that we will be able to break the code.”

Liliana took in a deep breath. Hope mingled with despair as she considered the possibilities. Focusing on a problem had always been her escape, her saving grace from troublesome emotion. She tried to reason out what she knew. Knowing her father, the password could be any manner of things, yet
not
knowing Edmund Wentworth, she was at a loss as to a word the two men might agree upon. But…if what Geoffrey said was true, that his father had been absentminded and would have left himself a clue…

“What if you weren’t wrong?” she asked suddenly, the tingling excitement of discovery pushing out the feelings she couldn’t deal with right now.

Geoffrey frowned. “I told you, I’ve—”

“Tell me how the password is supposed to work again,” Liliana said, grabbing a scrap of vellum and his discarded pencil.

“Take the key word and write it out, omitting letters you’ve already used. Then fill in the rest of the alphabet,” he said.

Liliana started writing.

M A R C U S N T O I B D E F G H J K L P Q V W X Y Z

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

She wrote the cipher out again on a different scrap of paper. “Here,” she said, thrusting it toward him as she reached for one of the letters. “Try this.”

Geoffrey took the cipher, glancing down. “What is this?” he asked, a winged brow rising—not in challenge, she thought, but in curiosity.

“My father was a scientist,” she answered. “He would have insisted on Latin.
Marcus Antonius.
”

A corner of Geoffrey’s mouth rose a fraction as his head bobbed a sharp nod. “Of course,” he muttered, and grabbed a letter of his own.

Liliana gauged the length of the letter she held. The words flowed in narrative, which would be terribly difficult to construct if each word was used in the message. “Try the first letter of the first word of each sentence,” she suggested, and bent her head to her task.

A trucelike silence swelled between them, broken only by the scratchings of lead on vellum. Given all that had happened in the last twelve hours, Liliana was amazed by the feeling of comfortable camaraderie that settled over her. Being married to Geoffrey would have been like this, she knew, both of them passionately working together toward common goals…

A terrible ache formed in her heart and she shook her head to disabuse the notion. She couldn’t think of what she’d tossed away by foolishly keeping the truth from him for so long. Instead, she jotted letters by rote, not paying attention to any patterns until she reached the end. As she finished the last mark, she sat back in the chair and held the message before her eyes.

FRMTYESPRICEARRMIDOCTWTHPCEFORXCHNGE

Liliana straightened. Not perfectly formed, but definite words stood out. This was the right password, she was certain.
FR.
Father? No, that didn’t feel right.
FRM.
Farm? Firm? No. From? That could be. She looked at it again.
From ‘T,’ yes
price. ARR…
arrive?