The Lord and the Wayward Lady (8 page)

It was insanity to have relaxed, to have trusted, to have dreamt. She could rely on no one but herself. Ever. To believe anything else was a delusion. How could she have let herself become so weak? How could she have let herself trust?

‘Nell?’ He reached for her and she batted his hand away.

‘No. No. I am tired.
Tired
. I did not mean… How can I trust you? Any of you?’ She turned and ran and knew he stood there watching her go.

Marcus flung himself down onto one of the sofas flanking the fireplace and ran both hands through his hair. His shoulder muscles spasmed with pain, but he ignored it. What had just happened? That had been more than just a kiss and far more than a simple response to a woman who seemed unhappy and confused. Why had he done that? God, he had wanted her. Wanted to comfort her, wanted to protect her and then, compellingly, wanted to take her.

His body was racked with need. Deliberately he set
himself to master the reaction, focusing until his breathing levelled off, the ache in his groin subsided, the demand of his body released its hold.
Think,
he told his intellect.
That’s what you are supposed to be good at.

Nell had been moved by that family portrait.
You know where you come from, where you belong.
So she does not know, any more. Whatever former life had given her the educated speech, the polished manners, the education—that had gone and now she was adrift, fighting every battle alone and aching for comfort.

Comfort, but not the comfort that two bodies entwined together brought each other. He had known, the moment the kiss became more than the desire to soothe her, know her, that he had lost her. That had been outright rejection, not shyness nor the maidenly alarm of a virgin experiencing a man’s passion for the first time.

And yet, he could not believe she was experienced. Those kisses, her reactions, had been instinctive, not tutored. The only explanation that made sense to him was that she was in love with her dark man and to find herself in another man’s arms, responding sexually to him, was a betrayal.

Marcus stretched out his legs towards the fire, ran one hand through his hair and let his head lean onto the back rail of the sofa. Despite his efforts at self-control, he still had an erection that was uncomfortable, his shoulder hurt like hell and he could not decide what to do about Nell. Other than take her to bed. Which was impossible.

He wanted her. He trusted her not at all, but he wanted her. And part of her, a part that she rejected, wanted him. A small hum of satisfied male conceit made him smile mockingly at himself. The smile cooled on
his lips, became a twist of wry acceptance. Whoever Nell Latham was, she was steeped in deceit and lies. While he was ignorant of her secrets, she remained a danger to his family—a danger he had brought into their heart, the better to watch. He had to be certain that was the right strategy to have taken.

Four days passed and Nell began to allow herself to relax. She even learned to ignore the footman who was always hovering outside her door, unobtrusively padding along behind her wherever she went.

Lady Narborough became less distant, more natural towards her, and Nell realized with a jolt that perhaps she had worried at first that her son had brought his paramour into the household. Honoria and Verity simply accepted her as another young female friend. When they remembered her circumstances, they were tactful about their allowances and the difference in their circumstances. When they forgot, they lent her gowns and trinkets with total ease, as though she was a guest of their own station whose luggage truly had gone astray.

Marcus avoided any direct contact if he could help it, but she was conscious, constantly, of his regard. He studied her all the time, watching for what, she knew not. When she walked in the garden—well wrapped, her hands thrust into one of Honoria’s fashionably vast muffs—she would look up and see him brooding on the terrace. When she strummed a few notes on the piano, trying to recall far-away lessons, he was there barricaded behind his copy of
The Times.
And when, defiant, she stared back to let him see she was aware of his
scrutiny, his dark eyes held a spark of the heat that haunted her dreams.

In her turn Nell, from a wary distance, watched Lord Narborough. She was reading a few letters a day—all that she felt able to cope with—working back from that last, shattering message. But there were no clues that she could find to what her father’s supposed crime had been, to the identity of his lover or why Lord Narborough had abandoned him. He was in prison for months, it seemed, and the letters held, for the most part, only anxious enquiries about the family and brave attempts to make prison life sound bearable.

Lord Narborough, the man she saw in his own home almost twenty years after the crisis, was kind to his daughters, obviously still deeply in love with his wife and proud of his sons. His attitude to the staff of the big old house was firm, but just, and it was plain that he knew them all, not just by name, but the details of their families too. All qualities that weighed on the right side of the scales with, so far, only his outburst about adulterous husbands on the other side. But most people would echo those sentiments, if perhaps with less heat.

By casual conversation with the girls, Nell discovered that the estates were extensive and prosperous and always had been. Money could not have been a factor in any betrayal, she decided. She was not going to discover more at a distance. Steeling herself, Nell made conversation with the earl, was persuaded into a game of backgammon and found herself liking her host more and more. And he appeared to like her too.

‘Miss Latham would give you a run for your money at backgammon,’ he teased Marcus after a close game
one evening. ‘And she has more patience than you have—no heavy sighs while I make up my mind about my next move.’

‘That is not impatience, my lord,’ Nell observed with a slanting look at Marcus. ‘That is strategy. Lord Stanegate wishes to unsettle you.’

‘He can try! Here, take my place, my boy.’

‘Ah, no.’ Marcus shook his head. ‘Miss Latham will employ her strategies upon me.’

‘I have none,’ she protested.

‘All lies,’ he said lightly, his mouth smiling, his eyes dark as they took in her instinctive flinching at the word. ‘You would sit and regard me with those green eyes until I could not think which way up the board was.’ And he had strolled off leaving his father tutting good-humouredly about incorrigible flirts and Nell thoroughly flustered.

And so the first week passed, and Nell became used to the routine of the house, became part of it: running errands for Lady Narborough, paying visits with the girls when the heavy frosts eased enough to allow the carriage to be taken out, enjoying reading with Miss Price or playing backgammon with the earl. And every morning, before she got up, she would take the key from its chain around her neck and open her mother’s box, take out the next three letters and remind herself who these people were and why she should not trust them.

Marcus had stopped interrogating her, which was almost more unsettling than his questions. She was acutely aware of his presence. On the Saturday morning, brushing her hair, she found herself daydreaming about his arms around her, his mouth on hers, and finally
let herself wonder what it would be like to be made love to by a man like that.

The preliminaries would be…pleasant. She smiled a little at herself for the euphemism. The act itself would not be, of course, but perhaps the pain and the urgent crudity would be compensated for by being held afterwards. She closed her eyes and recalled the feeling of being caught against his chest, of the strength of his arms around her and the gentleness, so much at odds with his size and his temper. Would he lie with her a little afterwards, holding her, stroking her hair, murmuring something affectionate?

These thoughts took her as far as the breakfast room. Lord Stanegate, far from the urgent lover of her fantasy, was demolishing a sirloin while engaged in vigorous political debate with his father, who was peering irritably at the newspaper. The reality was so remote from her sensual daydream that she was smiling, not blushing, as she took her place at the table.

‘The post, my lord.’ Watson directed a footman to place a laden salver beside the earl’s place.

Lord Narborough put down the
Morning Chronicle
and began to sort through, replacing his wife and daughters’ letters on the tray for the footman to take to the countess and passing Miss Price and Marcus their own mail. Nell addressed herself to her omelette while the others began to break seals and exchange items of news.

‘Maria Hemmingford has contracted mumps,’ Lady Narborough informed them. ‘So improvident, just before the Season!’

‘The draper is unable to match that striped silk,
Honoria.’ Diana passed her some samples. ‘He says, will these do?’

‘Do you know anything about the bloodlines of Nutley’s carriage horses?’ Marcus asked his father. ‘Only my agent says that— Father?’

The other women, engrossed in a discussion of the silk samples, had not noticed Marcus’s tone change. But Nell had heard him speak like that before. The earl was staring at a paper unfolded in his hand. Something fell from it, a twig with green needle-like leaves. Then the scent reached her: the peppery fragrance of summer and heat.

‘Rosemary,’ Nell said, identifying it. ‘For remembrance, is it not?’

Both men turned to look at her, their likeness suddenly vivid as two pairs of flint-grey eyes fixed on her face. ‘What do
you
remember, Miss Latham?’ Marcus asked, his voice hard, and she realized that this was another part of the mystery, another threat and, it seemed, she had said quite the wrong thing.

L
ord Narborough sat quite still for a moment, the fragrant sprig in his hand. Then he dropped it back into its wrapper, gathered up his post and rose. He was pale, but steady, and Marcus, who had reached out a hand to take his elbow, dropped it away.

‘Excuse me, my dear,’ the earl said to his wife. ‘Would you join me in the study, Marcus?’

‘Of course.’ Nell, after her bright remark, had fallen silent. If she knew anything about this, then she was a good actress. He frowned at her, angry with himself for wanting to trust her.

The threat to his family, now that the initial shock of the rope was over, had strengthened his father, made him resolute, Marcus realized, watching the older man’s firm jaw. He set himself not to fuss.

‘As Miss Latham says, rosemary for remembrance,’ he remarked, closing the door. ‘Does it mean anything to you, sir?’

‘Oh yes.’ The earl sat behind the oak desk and waved Marcus to the chair in front of it. ‘That night, when Kit
Hebden died, I found him and Wardale together, locked in each other’s arms just outside my study window. I told you.’ Marcus nodded. ‘There had been a great storm. A cloudburst. Everything was soaking wet, but the air was hot despite that and all the scents of the garden were intense. There was a big rosemary bush, under the wall just by the long window.’

‘It is gone now.’ Marcus struggled to recall the planting in the town house garden.

‘I had it pulled out. They had crashed into it, the leaves were everywhere, we were all covered in them by the end. I could never smell it again afterwards without remembering.’ He lifted the sprig and held it to his nose as if to defy its power. ‘That and the scent of blood like hot metal.

‘I was expecting them both to meet me in Albemarle Street to talk about the search for the spy—the traitor in our midst—who we were pursuing together. Then I got a note to go to the Alien Office. Some clerk had made a mistake over a message that could well have waited until the morning. Or perhaps it was a deliberate ploy to lure me away—I have wondered often about that.’

‘You got back home, went through and found the long study window open.’ Marcus nodded. His father had told the tale before Christmas when Veryan had brought his new assistant to visit and the young man had asked about the old mystery.

‘Hebden died on the wet stone, in my arms. All he said was,
Verity…veritas
. It made no sense, he was rambling, Verity was a babe then. All Wardale could say for himself—standing there with the knife in his hands and the man’s blood all over him—was that Kit had
been stabbed when he arrived and he had pulled the knife out to try and help him. He wouldn’t say where he had been earlier. I could guess. He had been with Amanda, Kit’s wife.’

‘The adulterer you spoke of at dinner was William Wardale, Lord Leybourne?’ His father had not repeated that piece of incriminating gossip before.

‘Yes. Hebden was no saint himself, of course. When he thought her barren, he had forced his wife to raise his own bastard son, which gives you some idea of his character. He was a clever devil, with a chip on his shoulder wide enough to make a refectory table. He was the one with the brains, but only a barony. We two earls, he was convinced, had the status but not the intellect to match his.’

His father shrugged. ‘Mathematics and codes were never my strength. But arrogant though he might be, and neglectful and inconsiderate of his wife as he most certainly was, he was our colleague, our friend. Wardale had no call to seduce Amanda.’

‘Perhaps she wanted comfort and he gave it to her,’ Marcus mused aloud, thinking of another woman entirely. ‘Was that enough motive for murder? One would have thought Hebden, the wronged man, would have struck the blow.’

‘If Wardale was the traitor, it could have been a motive,’ his father said slowly. ‘We both knew Kit was getting very close to cracking the intercepted coded letters. At least, that was what he would have us believe. And when he had done that, the man’s identity would be revealed.’ He held out the rosemary to the candle flame and it caught with a dry crackle, burning
into scented ash. The earl brushed his fingers fastidiously. ‘We never found Kit’s notes or the letters after his death. The trail went cold and the spy ceased his activities.’

‘As you’d expect if he was in prison,’ Marcus commented.

‘Exactly. How could I defend Wardale? How could I not say what I had seen? He was my best friend—but he killed a man in front of me, he was apparently betraying his country. What should I have done?’

It was the old torment that had stolen his father’s peace of mind, his health; and it had never left him.

‘Nothing, in all honour,’ Marcus said, as he had said when he had first heard the story. And he believed it. ‘So. The silken rope a peer is hanged with, a sprig of rosemary from that last desperate fight. There is no doubt now that they refer to Hebden’s death, the search for the traitor and Wardale’s execution.’

‘But who is sending them—and why now?’ The earl ran his hands through his hair as though to force some answers into his head.

‘We’re back to Wardale’s son again, aren’t we? That’s the only way I can make any sense out of the timing—a child grows into a man, a long-held resentment festers into an obsession with revenge.’

‘And your Miss Latham is his accomplice? I find that hard to believe. She’s a delightful young woman.’

‘So was Lucrezia Borgia, by all accounts,’ Marcus remarked darkly. It was important not to let his guard down, not with his body telling him to trust her and his mind half inclined to follow it. ‘She’s hiding something, more than one thing, if I’m any judge.’

‘This wasn’t franked.’ The earl flipped over the folded sheet. ‘No postal marks on it at all.’

‘Hand delivered. It could have been her; we have rosemary growing all over the garden here. I’ll ask Watson about it.’

‘Marcus.’ He stopped, halfway to the door. ‘There is no need to let your mother know about this.’

‘Of course not, sir. Are you…all right?’

‘Yes, thank you. Better than I’ve felt for a long time, strangely.’ His father shook his head, a rare smile on his lips. ‘It’s like the old days, having someone to confide in, think with. I’m glad you’re here.’

Something twisted inside Marcus. ‘I’ve always been here, Father.’

‘I know, and I’ve leaned on you harder than I should have done. But this isn’t estate business, this is a mystery, danger. And, damn it, it is painful remembering, but do you know—I’m enjoying it.’

‘Good.’ Marcus swallowed, suddenly fearful that the sensation behind his eyes was tears. ‘Good,’ he said again, gruffly, and left while he was still in command of himself.

Nell closed the door into the flower room quietly behind her. She had managed to shake off her persistent footman escort by dint of joining Lady Narborough in her sitting room and had just completed an errand for her to the gardener to ensure there were more evergreens included with the hothouse flowers.

Now, there was nothing to stop her thinking about the sprig of rosemary that had so shaken Lord Narborough. What on earth had that been about? It made no sense.
At least she understood the silken rope, for that was what a peer of the realm was hanged with. Although why someone was trying to terrorize the Carlows now with that reminder of her father’s death was a total mystery.

And what had possessed her to quote that foolish old saying when it should have been apparent from the men’s faces that something was very wrong? Something else that Marcus would blame her for, no doubt.

‘Watson?’

There he was. Nell drew back into the cover provided by a massive suit of armour as Marcus stopped the butler in the middle of the Great Hall.

‘My lord?’

‘This letter that came for his lordship this morning. Delivered by hand, I assume?’

‘Indeed, my lord. It was handed in at the kitchen door by young Francis, Potter’s son.’

‘The under gamekeeper? Find out who gave it to him, will you, Watson.’

‘I have already ascertained that, my lord. I do not appreciate post for the family arriving in such a manner. According to Andrewes, who took it from the lad, it was handed to young Potter with a small coin by a man early this morning.’

‘A stranger.’

‘Just so, my lord. Do you wish me to make further enquiries?’

‘If you would. A fuller description would be helpful.’ Nell took a cautious step backwards and then froze as Marcus continued. ‘Was Miss Latham about early on? Perhaps taking the air before breakfast?’

‘You think she may have seen the transaction, my
lord?’ Being well trained, Nell thought bitterly, Watson did not ask the obvious question: why did Marcus not speak directly to her? ‘To the best of my knowledge Miss Latham did not leave her room between retiring last night and breakfast this morning, but I will enquire.’

She waited until the butler left, then, not giving herself time to think, stalked out from her hiding place. ‘Marcus!’

He turned on his heel to face her, a frown on his face as she said the first thing that came into her head. ‘Do you never stop scowling?’

To her surprise, he laughed, transforming himself from a handsome, hard figure of authority into a charming, and much younger, man. ‘I have much to scowl about, Nell.’

‘Is your father ill again? That rosemary was another threat, was it not?’

‘It was. And, curiously, I believe he is invigorated by the puzzle.’

‘My lord.’ They turned as Watson advanced down the length of the hall. ‘I have spoken to young Potter myself; he was loitering in the kitchen. The man was unknown to him, but he assumed from his dress, speech and general demeanour that he was a groom. A short, wiry individual with brown hair, so the lad says.’

‘Thank you, Watson.’ Marcus put one hand under Nell’s elbow and steered her through the nearest door into a small panelled chamber. ‘Not your dark man, then.’

‘His agent perhaps?’ Nell perched on the edge of a great oak chest, her feet dangling. Sinking into one of the deep chairs would make her feel trapped, she sensed, yet standing around stiffly felt awkward. ‘My lord—Marcus. What have I to do to convince you that I know nothing more of this?’

But she did, of course. She knew of a dark and painful episode in the Carlows’ family past. She knew that Lord Narborough had known her father, had been involved, in some way, with his death. It was certain her family tragedy was linked somehow to whatever lay behind this persecution. Had Lord Narborough gone through life making enemies? Surely it was too much of a coincidence that she had been the messenger. If she told Marcus who she was it would probably help him solve the mystery—and she would be handing him the most perfect motive for her involvement.

‘I am just a milliner,’ she said. ‘I do not know who is doing this. If I could help you, I would.’ As she said it, she almost believed it, crossing her fingers behind her back.
It all depends what the letters show,
she qualified to herself. Did Lord Narborough simply fail to help her father—or was his role more sinister?

‘You have to let me go home.’ Marcus was staring out of the window, hands thrust into his breeches’ pockets, seemingly paying her no attention. ‘I cannot stay here. I must earn my own living.’

‘Go home to that garret?’ he asked, swinging round. ‘To scrape a living working long hours while your fingers are still nimble and your eyes sharp? And then what? Where will you be in ten years, Nell? Twenty?’

‘I will manage. I must. Thousands of women have to.’ Nell tried to keep the desperation out of her voice, not to listen to the little voice, the one that kept her awake at night, the one that murmured about insecurity and poverty and a slow slide into destitution.
You are all alone,
it would insist.
All alone.

‘There are alternatives,’ Marcus said.

‘Domestic service?’

‘You are an attractive woman. If you were not so thin, not so anxious, you would be a beautiful one.’ There was a note in his voice that reached inside her, a hint of husky desire that twisted a hot ache low in her belly.

‘You suggest I should sell my body?’ she demanded harshly.

‘Find yourself a protector.’

Nell made herself meet his eyes, her chin up. ‘Are you offering me a
carte blanche,
my lord?’

‘Perhaps.’ He moved closer, almost touching her knees. Nell gripped the edge of the chest and fought with herself.

Marcus Carlow was strong and powerful. He would protect her—for as long as she was his mistress. He would be generous, and if she was prudent, she could save. He was attractive.
Oh God, so attractive. And that is why you are giving even a second’s thought to this insanity,
she argued with herself.
You are discussing selling your body, putting yourself in a man’s power. Ruining yourself.

But she was so tired of being alone, of fighting every day for food and respectability and some semblance of a decent life. ‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘Why me? I thought you had a new mistress.’

‘Not yet.’ Marcus moved a little closer, his thighs pressing against her knees as she perched on the high chest. ‘Why? I wish I knew. I tell myself I do not trust you and yet I read more fear than cunning in your eyes. You are too thin, you throw out no sophisticated lures to attract me—and yet, when I have kissed you, there has been a spark of such fire in you that I am in danger of burning up.’

As she stared back into the intent, dark gaze, her throat tight, her heart banging against her ribs, he nudged his leg between her knees, parting them. And then he was standing between her thighs, the heat of him soaking into her trembling limbs, the scent of his body filling her senses, the breadth of his torso filling her sight.

‘There is a kind of purity about you, Nell,’ he murmured as he lifted his hand to run the back of it down her cheek. She shivered, turning her face against his knuckles, trying to control her breathing as a primitive pulse began to beat where the heat of his body met the aching warmth of hers.

Purity. He thinks me a virgin. I can’t… I want him. Is this so wrong if I want him? But I must tell him.