The Suspect's Daughter (21 page)

She was sincere and resourceful and brave and kind. He admired her devotion to her father, her concern for the downtrodden, and her strength as she faced danger and tragedy.

But surely, if he spent enough time in her company, she’d reveal something that would restore his unshakable knowledge that women were chock full of wicked schemes, and intelligent men should avoid them.

Even as he formed the words, he knew he was lying to himself. The fact was, he only had proof that one particular woman was full of wicked schemes. In his bitterness, he’d lashed out at all females to punish them for the actions of one.

Perhaps he’d been wrong.

He almost swore out loud. The plot. How could he get invited to the plotters’ meetings? What of the conversation he had heard two nights past when he’d attacked Jocelyn again and he’d told her of his investigation? And what of the conversation Jocelyn had overheard? Someone here knew something.

A chorus of voices reached a crescendo. “Dance? Oh, yes, let’s dance.”

Grant groaned out loud. No. Anything but dance.

Jocelyn appeared at his side. “You don’t enjoy dancing, I presume?”

“No,” he said flatly.

“You did learn how, didn’t you?”

“A long time ago.”

She eyed him with a solemn gaze shadowed by her heartache over today’s loss. “Do you not wish to dance because you don’t remember how, or do you not enjoy it?”

“Both.”

She nodded slowly. “Just as well. You probably ought not engage in anything quite so vigorous as dancing so soon after injuring your head. As it happens, I’m not in the mood for dancing, either. But I’m willing to play the pianoforte so the guests can do so. Would you turn the pages of my music for me?”

He nodded and followed her to the pianoforte. She settled on the bench, carefully arranging her skirts, and patted the seat next to her before leafing through books and sheets of music. After a moment’s hesitation, he sat next to her on the narrow seat that forced them so close together that her body heat warmed his thigh. Her feminine, subtle scent invited him to lean closer and take a deeper breath. He resisted. Still, his focus drifted to the fine hairs that grazed her cheek.

Fairley headed up the line with Lady Everett whom he’d been favoring throughout the house party. He turned a fond gaze on Miss Fairley. “A Cotillion, I think, princess.”

She opened a thin book of sheet music, and placed her graceful fingers on the keys, running a grand arpeggio. Her small hands, so unmarred and scrubbed free of stain, gave no indication that they had given so much to help a tenant.

As she played, the guests performed complex formations that tickled the back of Grant’s memory, the same steps he’d so blithely danced with
her
, before he knew her true identity, her true desire. Her mocking, spiteful words tore through his head and conjured searing pain in his face, a foretelling of what he would yet suffer as a prisoner...

“Turn the page, please,” Jocelyn said softly.

Her words brought him back to the drawing room. A light breeze blew in through a nearby open window, cooling perspiration on his brow and down the sides of face. As he released his breath, he turned the page with a shaking hand. He was safe in England. War and prison and all their horrors fell behind him. Breathing in through his nose and deliberately relaxing his hands, he watched the music notes, trying to follow Jocelyn’s progress. The tightness in his chest eased. As she reached the bottom of the next page, he turned without her prompting.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the curve of her mouth. Without missing a note, she said, “You read music.”

“A little.”

A few measures later, she asked, “Do you play?”

“I did as a child.”

Her smile formed fully. “That surprises me.”

“I’m sure you think me completely without culture.”

Her smile turned rueful. “I never said that. Did you enjoy it?”

“After a time, I did. I started because my mother wanted all of us to play. My older brothers complained so often she finally gave up on them. But I continued—mostly to please her, but also to show up my brothers. Then I learned to like it. For a while.”

“What changed?”

“My baby brother Christian took to it. I couldn’t stand to do anything he did; he was so smugly virtuous about everything. Such a mama’s boy. So perfect.” He glanced at her. “That probably sounds childish, doesn’t it?”

“It sounds like normal sibling rivalry. I would love to still have that with my oldest brother James. But he never came home from the war. I already told you that, didn’t I?”

“You did.” The words
I’m sorry
poised on his lips, but they didn’t help. He’d learned that first-hand. Nothing helped. No trite phrases or brief epitaphs such as “he was a wonderful person,” or “my condolences” or even “I’m sure you miss him” helped.

If she were a man, he would have gripped her shoulder. But he couldn’t touch her, not like that, not again. That he wanted to do so just proved what a sentimental idiot he was going to become if he continued to spend time in her company.

“Were you close?” he asked.

“No.” Sorrow and regret weighed her words.

He waited to allow her talk about it if she wanted to.

Apparently, she did. “I wish we had been close, because then I could hold onto fond memories of him, but he went away to war when I was so young that I barely knew him. He came home for holidays sometimes, and he was a lively, vivacious young man, but—” She played a wrong note and fell silent for several minutes while she focused on playing. Then, “I understand you lost a brother, too.”

“Jason. We were close. He died right in front of me.” He clamped his mouth shut and tried to focus through suddenly blurry vision.

Why in Hades he’d revealed so much, he couldn’t explain—perhaps all the talk about music lessons and his brothers—but revealing that much came as a surprise. He swallowed, found his place in the music, and turned the page just in time.

Softly, in almost a whisper, she said, “I heard about that.” She glanced at him, and understanding and compassion caressed him in an almost tangible touch.

He wanted to scowl, utter a sarcastic rebuff, anything to shake off her offered sympathy and free himself of the threads of affection she wove around him like a soft blanket. It would surely turn into a perilous net that would hold him fast until a great, ravenous predator consumed him.

But he couldn’t seem to muster any alarm. Or sarcasm.

They sat in comfortable silence, her playing and him turning pages, for the duration of the evening. Comfortable. In the presence of a woman. Clearly the blow to his head caused long-term side effects.

As the evening waned, the guests called a stop to dancing and began games of whist. A few said their good nights. Grant glanced at Jocelyn. She gave him a soft, intimate smile. He almost returned it but pressed his lips together instead and settled for a brief nod.

As he stood, the base of his head started to ache. Perhaps a good night rest would restore his sanity.

As Grant headed for the main staircase to seek his bed, the butler, Owen, hailed him. “Mr. Amesbury, this just arrived by special messenger. He said it was urgent.”

“My thanks, Owen.”

He broke the seal. Barnes’s writing raced along the page
.

Motives are often unclear. Also consider that we were misled. Evidence can be planted. However, I’m certain our informant was truthful. Proceed as you see fit.

B

Grant folded the note and tucked it in his coat breast pocket. As he returned to his room, he turned over the words in his mind. Deliberately misled. Planted evidence. If someone deliberately misled Bow Street, they would assume Fairley would be under investigation. He hadn’t found anything in Fairley’s words or character, nor in those of his friends, except possibly a conversation taken out of context, to suggest these men were conspiring to assassinate the prime minister…except the partially burned note in his London study, and the note someone slipped into his pocket—possibly without his knowledge.

If some other person or group wanted to assassinate the prime minister, and decided to blame Fairley, they could have left incriminating evidence knowing Bow Street would send someone to investigate. Grant had made enough arrests that a few members of the seedy side of the law might know him and might be leaving it for him to find. As he headed down the corridor toward the stairs, he turned it over.

A pounding in his head and sudden dizziness sent him staggering against the wall. He fought for balance. Pushing through the pain and light-headedness, he waited for the room to stop spinning. He closed his eyes. Steadier, he returned his thoughts to the case, searching for a solution.

Fairley. Was he really a member of the conspirators as Barnes believed? Or could someone else, someone both ruthless enough and smart enough, have planned not only a conspiracy but to blame Fairley? In order for this kind of plot to work, the two criminals who’d named Fairley were involved and were devoted enough, or fanatical enough, to allow themselves to be arrested. It also meant the man outside Parliament who’d passed the notes was one of them. And someone inside Fairley’s house was helping. That took a plot of a grand scale.

But who? And more importantly, when did they plan to strike?

Jocelyn bade goodnight to her father who partnered Lady Everett in whist, and to the guests still playing the game, and left the drawing room. Normally, she’d remain up until the last guest went to bed, but her emotional day had sapped her strength. Of course, sitting next to the ever-surprising Grant Amesbury as she played pianoforte had an unexpectedly restorative effect on her.

Just outside the drawing room, she stopped short. The object of her thoughts stood leaning heavily on one arm braced against the wall, his shoulders slumped and his head bent.

She went at once to him and touched his shoulder. “Grant? Are you unwell?”

He snapped to attention. “I’m fine.” He swayed and leaned his shoulder against the wall.

She slipped a supporting arm around him and guided him to a chair. “I am persuaded you are not as fine as you suppose.”

He sank into the chair and pressed his hands over his eyes, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “A little dizzy.”

“Shall I summon Dr. Blake?”

“No. It comes and goes. He said it would.”

She knelt in front of him, suppressing another desire to stroke his hair—such thick, black hair, shining in the lamplight like the glossy wing of a raven. But she should not be so familiar with him again.

Softly, she asked, “Can I bring you anything? Water? Tea? Brandy? Coffee, if you prefer?”

“Nothing,” he murmured. “I just need a moment.”

Aching to offer comfort without making him uncomfortable, she touched his sleeve. He lifted his face and met her gaze. Silently, he studied her. She returned his stare, admiring the lines of his handsome face, noting every shade of gray in his eyes. He would be remarkably attractive if only he’d smile, a true, genuine display of mirth or pleasure. And she just might fall under his spell. What would it take to win a smile from the cynical Grant Amesbury?

A faint scent of mint and bergamot wafted to her. She almost smiled as she recalled that even when he’d threatened her in the father’s study that first night, she’d noticed that trace of upper class even when he was in disguise.

In the soft lighting, the scar on the side of his face barely showed. She ached a little more at how much pain he must have suffered. Softly, slowly, she reached up and touched his scar with one finger. He held his breath but didn’t pull away. She traced the raised smooth pink line from the corner of his eye down to his jaw. What would make such a ragged injury? It looked like it had been torn rather than cut with a blade.

Her attention focused on his mouth. Would a man like him kiss roughly, like his hard exterior, or would he be gentle, like the soft heart she’d seen in brief glimpses in between the chinks of his emotional armor? She’d been kissed before, stolen kisses when chaperones weren’t watching. Such kisses had been pleasant but empty and disappointing.

No doubt Grant’s kiss would be worlds different. Her face warmed in embarrassment, for thinking of him by his given name, and for craving his kiss.

Aching loneliness crossed his features and settled into his eyes. Then something inside shifted, and wariness took its place. He said huskily, “You aren’t just being kind to me because you’re trying to convince me to stop investigating your father, are you?”

Stunned, she dropped her hand and sat back. A rush of cold hit her face. “I can’t believe you’d think that of me.”

“I don’t know what to think of you.” He parted his mouth as if to speak again but stopped and swallowed hard.

With a growing pain in her heart, she climbed to her feet. Clearly, he felt none of the attraction for her that quickly grew inside her for him. He was so closed up that he probably felt nothing.

She motioned to the young liveried footman at the other end of the great hall.

He hurried to her, tugging the jacket of his livery into place. “Miss?”

“Mr. Amesbury is unwell. Please accompany him to his room—make sure he doesn’t get hurt. And find his valet.”

“Yes, miss.”

She strode away before the stinging in her eyes turned into tears. Stupid, stupid, stupid. She should never mistake moments like the one they shared at the pianoforte for true fondness. A man as prickly and wounded as Grant would not yield his affections so easily. Surely he’d always question or reject her attempts to reach his heart.

Jocelyn almost stumbled. Is that what she wanted? To reach Grant’s heart?

She would not think of reaching anyone’s heart now—least of all, his. She had to clear her father’s name, match him with Lady Everett, and help him win the election. In addition, she had guests to entertain and tenants who needed her care—far too much to do to make wild and unwise investments of time and heart on a man incapable of accepting or returning love.

Yet as she sought her bed, his words echoed in her head so much that by morning, she felt little more rested than when she’d retired the previous night.