The Edge of Desire (11 page)

The view at the best of times was a lonely one. Mile upon mile of low, flat fields with the sea a distant silver-gray glimmer on the horizon. What houses there were were cottages, built low and largely swallowed by the never-ending fields.

The abbey was built at the very edge of the fenland, on a slight rise, with its back to the limestone cliff that marked the boundary of the low lying land. The house dominated its surroundings, a large Palladian mansion of perfect proportions built on the old abbey ruins by his grandfather.

Christian stood at one long window and looked out across the fields, into the deepening twilight. He owned much of what he could see, highly fertile land that guaranteed his and his family’s financial future.

Yet the huge house around him lay empty. For the first time since returning from the Continent and properly taking up the mantle his father had bequeathed him, he felt the weight of it. Sensed in his new life, as in this house, a lack,
a hollowness wrapped in elegant calm, peaceful, serene, but empty.

Barren.

Folding his arms, he leaned against the window frame and looked out as the light faded and night slowly crept across the land.

This house—his house—was waiting. Ready, in perfect condition, fully staffed with people eager to serve. Yet he’d made no move to claim a bride, to bring her there, and start a family that would—once again—fill the corridors with laughter and gaiety.

The house was made for that, for an active, bustling family. Something his aunts, Cordelia and Ermina, would certainly remember with fondness, and look forward to seeing again.

That was what lay behind their disapproval, increasingly severe, of his continuing unwed state. They’d offered to help, of course, but when he’d refused, politely but categorically, they’d been wise enough to desist; stubbornness wasn’t solely a Vaux trait.

Not surprisingly, that thought brought Letitia to mind. Into his mind, filling it.

For long moments she was with him again; she was the only woman he’d ever envisaged there—standing beside him, her arm linked with his, looking out over his fields.

She was the only woman he’d ever imagined making a life with—making a family with.

The only woman he’d ever wanted in his bed—there or at Allardyce House.

He’d known the truth years ago, and it still remained true. She was the one his heart and soul desired.

Unbidden, the dreams he’d had of them long ago rolled back into his mind, dreams he’d spent years embellishing, building them, clinging to them through all the long years he’d spent deeply embedded in an alien culture, an enemy land. They’d been his inner refuge, his strength.

The emotions wound into those dreams roiled through
him, unexpectedly intense. Reawakened and given new life by his recent hours with her, the her who’d stood at the center of those lost dreams.

For they’d been false…as had she.

His reaction to that fact was as violent as it had ever been. He still didn’t understand how, or why, she’d done as she had.

All that mattered was that she’d married Randall.

And killed his dreams.

Lowering his arms, he went to push away from the window frame, but stopped.

Looked out across the quiet night and wondered how much he still wanted those dreams.

She was now a widow; she still responded to him as she always had.

He no longer knew what she felt for him—something, certainly, even if it wasn’t what he’d thought. She hadn’t been in love with him as he’d been with her.

But did that matter?

The truth was…

For long minutes more he stood looking out unseeing, wrestling with the question of how much he was willing to give—to bend, to forgive, to accept—to recapture a semblance of those long-ago dreams.

H
e bowled through the Nunchance Priory gates at mid-afternoon the next day. The long, winding drive was, he noted, in excellent repair, the trees shading it old but well-trimmed. The lawns and gardens that surrounded the house were neat, but not rigidly so, comfortable and colorful with rambling roses tumbling over walls, their perfumed blooms nodding in the warm breeze.

Beyond the changes expected of the years, all was as he remembered it.

He pulled up in the circular forecourt before the huge, rambling, late Tudor mansion. It had indeed been a priory, one linked to the abbey at Dearne; whereas the abbey hadn’t withstood the ravages of time and the various assaults visited upon it, the priory had escaped the old wars relatively unscathed, and succeeding generations of Vaux had preserved and added to its red-brick magnificence.

Leaving his curricle and horses in the care of a suitably reverent groom, Christian looked up at the long facade, at the many leaded windows that winked and blinked at him. The Allardyces and the Vaux were neighbors of sorts; while they didn’t share any boundaries, they were the two most senior families in the area and throughout the generations had been close acquaintances, if not always as close as friends.

That had been one reason both families had looked upon his and Letitia’s long-ago romance with benign approval, if not outright encouragement. No Vaux and Allardyce had
married before, but once the idea bloomed, everyone had concurred that it was high time the families established a closer bond.

Then he’d gone to war, and Letitia had married Randall, and all thought of closer ties in this generation had faded. But the underlying acquaintance had not.

Climbing the shallow front steps, Christian tugged the bellpull.

When the butler, a thoroughly imposing specimen, opened the door, Christian smiled easily. “Good afternoon, Hightsbury. Is your master at home?”

Hightsbury recognized him and unbent enough to return his smile. “Indeed, my lord. Do come in. And may I say what a pleasure it is to see you here again. If you’ll wait in the drawing room, I’ll inquire as to the master’s pleasure.”

Christian consented to cool his heels in the elegant, formal drawing room; naturally, being a Vaux domain, it was also a cornucopia of rich and colorful visual and textural delights.

He barely had time to absorb their combined impact before Hightsbury returned.

“If you’ll come this way, my lord. His lordship is in the library.”

Following Hightsbury down the long, wood-paneled corridors, remembering what little Letitia had said about Justin’s falling out with their father, he considered how to approach the coming interview.

Hightsbury opened a tall door, went in, and announced, “Lord Dearne, my lord.”

“Heh?” A white-haired figure hunched over a large desk swung around to peer at the door.

Christian was momentarily taken aback; the earl appeared swathed in a dressing gown—then he realized it was a long, soft, dun-colored coat of the sort serious scholars wore to protect their clothes from ink stains.

He smiled and went forward.

The earl peered at him from under bushy white brows.
His hair stood up in tufts, as if he’d tugged at it; Christian saw the odd ink stain in the tumbled locks. All in all, the earl’s reputation as an irascible, unpredictable eccentric appeared well-founded.

But there was nothing at all vague in the sharp hazel eyes that met his.

The earl inclined his head; his expression was relaxed but his eyes were watchful. “Christian, my boy—good to see you again.”

Christian half bowed. “Sir.”

Lord Vaux studied him, increasingly intent. They exchanged a few words about Christian’s aunts, then the earl waved him to a chair to one side of the desk. “And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, heh?”

Christian sat, his gaze skating over the papers scattered across the long desk. Most appeared to be rough notes, others looked more like treatises, extensively annotated and overwritten. He returned his gaze to Lord Vaux’s face. “I’m unsure how much you’ve heard from London, sir, but I believe Letitia informed you of her husband’s murder.”

Lord Vaux nodded, his gaze increasingly sharp. “She did. And I’ve since heard that some have cast my son as the murderer.”

Christian inclined his head. “Unfortunately, that ‘some’ encompasses the better part of the ton, and, I believe, the authorities.”

“Nonsense!”
Lord Vaux scowled. “My son may be many things, but a murderer he is
not
.”

“Indeed. However, it appears Justin has deliberately cast himself as the most likely candidate.” Christian smoothly went on, “I understand you and he have had a falling out.”

When he waited, pointedly polite, for some response, the earl’s eyes sparked and his lips thinned. Eventually he barked, “We don’t speak. That’s common knowledge. The why concerns no one but ourselves. What’s that got to do with Randall’s death?”

Christian inclined his head placatingly, hiding his surprise
at the strong undercurrent of bitterness in Lord Vaux’s voice. “I have no idea. However, I believe you should know…” Sticking strictly to what he knew for fact, he outlined what he’d discovered and why he’d concluded that Justin had acted as he had to divert suspicion from Letitia.

As he spoke, Lord Vaux’s bitterness receded, but his scowl grew darker. He did not, Christian noted, find Justin’s supposition of Letitia’s guilt of sufficient note to comment. Indeed, his lordship followed and accepted his son’s logic without protest.

Christian ended his recital with a summation of their lack of success in locating Justin. Somewhat to his surprise, Lord Vaux’s expression turned thoughtful; he cast a quick, surreptitious glance at a bookcase across the room. From the corner of his eye, Christian saw a gap—a space where a tome was missing from the regimented row.

There were books aplenty lying on various tables and chairs around the room, but he would have taken an oath that Lord Vaux knew where every single volume in his extensive library was—except for the missing book.

Remembering the book left open on the table in Randall’s library, Christian longed to ask if the missing work was Seneca’s
Letters from a Stoic
, but he was as yet unsure—all personal feuds aside—just where Lord Vaux stood when it came to protecting his son.

Indeed, once he’d reached the end of his report, Lord Vaux regarded him with a wary, faintly suspicious air. “If I might ask, just how did you come to be drawn into this, Dearne?”

Not his name, but his title. Christian held his lordship’s hard gaze. “Letitia, realizing—correctly, as it transpired—that Justin was going to be the prime suspect, appealed to me for help in proving his innocence.”

“She did?” That information had Lord Vaux regarding him in an entirely different light; hope, along with blatant interest and curiosity, now colored his tone.

Although he’d never formally spoken, never asked for Le
titia’s hand, his interest in her had been common knowledge twelve years before. “Indeed.” Studiously bland, Christian continued, “She and I have been working together, both to locate Justin and, as I believe will become increasingly necessary, to discover who killed Randall.” He considered his now relaxed host. “Apropos of the former, I thought it might be useful to visit here and ask if you have any idea where Justin might be.”

The earl’s eyes started to shift toward the gap on the shelves, but he suppressed the impulse. He fixed his gaze on Christian. “No.” His gaze remained steady and direct. “I have absolutely no notion where my son might be.”

He was telling the literal truth, but, as Christian now did, he suspected his son and heir was somewhere close by. At the very least he’d dropped in on his way to wherever he’d gone.

Christian felt certain Justin hadn’t gone far. “I fear that you might shortly hear some rather distressing reports from the capital.”

“Faugh!” Reverting to his usual Vaux temperament, the earl pulled a face and made a dismissive gesture, conveying his absolute contempt for such reports. “I’ve friends in the capital—I know what’s being said. Absolute
poppycock
! The very notion…”

Christian inwardly smiled, and settled back to enjoy his lordship’s more colorful side.

When Lord Vaux realized he wasn’t in the least perturbed by his blunt and in some cases rather strong language, the earl relaxed even more and continued his rant, encouraged by having an appreciative audience.

Christian listened and learned; his lordship had much the same style of temper as Letitia and, if his memory proved correct, Justin—sharp, incisive, informed by a ruthless ability to see beneath most people’s surfaces. It seemed increasingly obvious that the earl cherished his scholarly life and had used his supposedly infamous temper to protect his privacy. And still did. Ruthlessly and relentlessly, with a full measure of Vaux stubbornness.

He eventually ran down, appearing oddly energized from having vented so much spleen on the distant ton. He eyed Christian approvingly. “A great pity you and Letitia didn’t tie the knot all those years ago. But…well, water under the bridge, I suppose.” He looked down, and with one liver-spotted hand, shuffled his papers.

When Christian made no comment, the earl glanced at the windows, beyond which the shadows had started to lengthen. He looked at Christian. “I would take it kindly if you would consent to dine with me—and remain for the night, of course. I don’t get many visitors.” He snorted. “Well, the plain truth of it is I neither encourage nor abide many visitors, but you’d be doing me a favor if you would stay—Hightsbury and the rest of them worry so when I go for long periods without speaking with anyone. Must be…well, weeks since anyone called.”

Christian muted his grin to an easy smile of acceptance. “I’d be delighted to join you. Better than driving back to Dearne in the dark.”

“Indeed. Precisely. Obviously you should stay.” That settled, the earl pointed to a bellpull on the wall. “Ring that, would you? Hightsbury will show you to a room. Tell him we’ll dine at seven.”

With that, the earl turned back to his papers. Letting his grin widen, Christian rose and crossed to the bellpull, having achieved exactly what he’d intended when he’d arrived.

He waited until he was walking down a corridor from the gallery in the majestic Hightsbury’s wake to ask, “Hightsbury, have you or any of the other staff seen Lord Justin recently?”

The tension that instantly infused the butler’s already rigid spine was answer enough.

Halting beside a door, Hightsbury set it wide, revealing a comfortable bedchamber. He fixed his gaze on a point above Christian’s head—no mean feat—and replied, “No, my lord. We haven’t seen Lord Justin for some time.”

“I see.” Christian nodded amiably and walked into the room.

“I’ll have your bag brought up immediately, my lord.”

Walking to the wide window, Christian looked down, then glanced back and smiled. “Thank you, Hightsbury. I believe I’ll go for a walk around the grounds until it’s time to dress.”

That news did not make Hightsbury happy; the struggle he waged to find some acceptable way to dissuade Christian—a marquess—from a perfectly acceptable pastime showed in his face. Eventually accepting that there was nothing he could do, he bowed low. “As you wish, my lord.”

Christian watched as Hightsbury departed, pulling the door closed behind him. Brows rising, he turned back to the window and looked out on the extensive gardens and, beyond that, the even more extensive park that he now recalled surrounded the priory. “You’re here somewhere, Justin—the question is where.”

He started his search in the stables, using the excuse of checking on his valuable pair to confirm that Justin hadn’t left his precious horses—apparently his sole tonnish vice—or his curricle in the care of his father’s stableman.

Christian wasn’t surprised to discover that he hadn’t; that would have been foolish, and Justin was no fool.

Nevertheless, judging from the head stableman’s dark looks, Justin and his horses were not far away.

Leaving the stables, Christian walked toward the house, studying it from the rear. It was not a true Elizabethan manor, lacking the classic E shape. Instead it had many and varied wings and additions, making it difficult to be sure, once inside, just where in the structure one was.

Lots of unexpected rooms tucked here and there in which to hide.

And that wasn’t taking into account priest holes and the like.

Resigned, Christian strolled slowly around the house,
taking note of every window. Most on the first floor—all the bedchambers and apartments—had their curtains drawn to preserve the furnishings inside from the sun. He located only two sets of uncurtained windows on that level—those of the bedchamber he’d been given, and a set at one end of a short wing, no doubt the earl’s apartments.

On the second floor, some windows were curtained, others not. He would have to check the rooms on that floor. Many of the uncurtained rooms might be empty, stripped of furnishings, yet others…

He changed direction and headed for the house. The attic rooms, above the second floor, were universally uncurtained, but they would be servants’ quarters, nurseries and the like; aside from all else, he didn’t like his chances of finding his way through the maze that was certain to exist up there.

Going in through the open front door, he climbed the main staircase to the second floor and, taking due note of landmarks so he wouldn’t get lost, started to work his way through the rooms.

It didn’t take long to realize the staff were keeping a eye on him. A procession of maids with empty chamber pots, footmen with extra tapers, and in one case an empty coal shuttle, all passing him on the way to nowhere in particular, was a fairly clear sign. At first he considered it encouraging, but as the minutes passed, he realized that they were more curious than concerned.

The conclusion was obvious: Justin wasn’t inside the house, or at least not on the second floor.

Quitting that field, he started down a secondary stair. Glancing out of the landing window, he saw a conglomeration of buildings tucked away behind a stand of mature trees. The buildings—barns and similar structures, most likely the home farm—weren’t visible from the house except from certain vantage points.