What Price Love? (13 page)

By unspoken accord, they'd taken a route circling the town; no need for any ladies or gentlemen out early to see her. By the time they neared the Carisbrook house and reined in fifty yards from the stable, she felt warmed through, restored to her customary health, her usual decisive temper.

Shrugging out of the coat, she handed it back. “Thank you.”

He responded with a dark look. Taking the coat, he slung it about his shoulders and shrugged into it. She forced herself to look away from the enthralling sight of the muscles of his chest flexing beneath the fine lawn of his shirt.

He should come with a warning tattooed on his forehead.

He settled into his saddle and reached for his reins. She looked at him, calmly met his gaze. “I'll bid you a good day, Mr….” Briefly, she smiled. “Dillon.”

He didn't smile in return; large, lean, and relaxed in his saddle, he held her eyes with a steady gaze she found a touch unsettling.
After a moment, he asked, his voice low, a hint of the sexual seeping through, “When are you going to tell me the truth?”

She didn't look away from that dark stare, heavy with unspoken implications. After a pause she allowed to grow fraught, she lightly raised her brows. “When are you going to tell me what I want to know?”

A minute ticked past as they eyed each other, an acknowledgment they still stood on opposing sides of a fence.

“Priscilla, you are playing a very dangerous game.”

The words were low, precise, uttered with little inflection; they still set something inside her quivering.

Her temper stirred; haughty willfulness infused her as she lightly arched her brows, then, gathering her reins, she turned the mare and started her for the stables—glancing back at the last to say with sultry deliberation, “Until next time…Dillon.”

Y
ou're absolutely sure?” Seated in an armchair in Demon's study, Dillon stared at Barnaby; he didn't know what to think.

Earlier that afternoon, Barnaby had returned from London, found him in his office, and insisted on dragging him out to the Cynster stud to share his discoveries simultaneously with Demon and Flick.

Perched on the window seat, Barnaby nodded. “No question at all—Vane and I had the same story from different sources. The spring races the rumors concerned were the New Plate at Goodwood, and the Cadbury Stakes at Doncaster, and
in both cases,
the losses were sustained on runners from the same stable—horses whose runs were completely inconsistent with their previous form. That stable is Collier's, near Grantham.”

Seated behind his desk, Flick as usual perched on the arm of his chair, Demon looked at Dillon. “Collier's dead.”

His gaze still on Barnaby, Dillon nodded. “Yes. I know.”

Barnaby's face fell. “Dead?” He looked from Dillon to Demon.

“Definitely,” Demon said. “It created quite a stir. Collier was well-known. He'd been in the business for decades and had some fine horses. Apparently he was riding by a local quarry, something spooked his horse, and he was thrown down the quarry cliff. His neck was broken.” Demon looked at Dillon. “What happened to the stable? Who inherited?”

“His daughter. She had no interest in the stable or the horses—she sold them off. I saw the paperwork crossing my clerks' desks.”

“Who bought them—any particular party?”

“Most went in singles or pairs to different stables.”

Demon frowned. “No mention of a partner?”

Dillon studied Demon's face. “No. Why?”

“Collier got into difficulties at the end of the autumn season last year—he bet on some of his own runners and lost heavily. I'd wondered if he'd be racing again, but after the winter break he returned, not only with no cuts to his string, but with two very classy new runners.”

“Not Catch-the-wind and Irritable?” Barnaby asked. “Those were the horses involved in the suspect races.”

Demon described the two horses; Dillon agreed to check. He looked at Barnaby. “Was there any suggestion the horses were stopped—that the jockeys held them back?”

“No. All those complaining seemed certain the jockeys did their best—they didn't want to implicate them, but couldn't see how else it was done.”

Demon and Dillon exchanged a look. “How it was done,” Dillon said, “we can guess. Who benefited is the question.”

“Actually,” Demon said, “the first question might be: how did Collier die? Was it an accident, or…”

“Or given the rumors”—Dillon's voice hardened—“and the likelihood someone would eventually look into them, as we are, was Collier silenced?”

“Silenced? Why?” Barnaby asked.

“So he couldn't implicate whoever had funded the substitutions,” Flick replied.

Barnaby looked puzzled. Flick explained, “The other way to fix a race and make a great deal of money is to run a particular horse that does well until it establishes a sound reputation—excellent form—and then, for one race, switch another horse for it. Your ‘favorite' then loses. After the race, you switch the real horse back. By the time any inquiry is afoot and the stewards think to examine the horse that unexpectedly lost, it's the right horse, and there's no evidence of any wrongdoing.”

Barnaby nodded. “But why couldn't it just have been Collier behind it, with his death an accident as presently thought?”

“Because,” Dillon said, “finding substitute horses is expensive. They have to be specific matches, and Thoroughbreds as well.”

“So,” Flick said, “if Collier was hard-pressed, there must have been someone else involved.”

“More”—Demon caught Barnaby's eye—“someone had to have bailed Collier out.”

Barnaby's brows rose. “On condition he train and race—and arrange, however it's done—the substitutions?”

Dillon nodded. “That seems likely.”

“I see.” Barnaby looked at Demon, then Dillon. “It looks like a visit to Grantham should be my next jaunt.”

Dillon rose. “I'll get the details of Collier's stable from the register, and we can check that the horses Demon remembers were the suspect runners. When are you thinking of leaving?”

“There's a ball at Lady Swalesdale's to night.” Standing, Flick shook out her skirts. “I'm sure her ladyship would be delighted to have you join us.”

“Ah…” Barnaby looked at her, then Dillon. “I'll be off north at first light. I'll need to spell my horses. I rather think I'll give Lady Swalesdale's a miss.”

Demon coughed to hide a laugh.

Flick leveled a severe glance at Barnaby.

Dillon scoffed, “Coward.”

Barnaby grinned. “You're just sorry you can't escape, too.”

 

I
n that, Barnaby had been wrong; Dillon hadn't been interested in escaping Lady Swalesdale's ball. Quite the opposite—he'd been looking forward to observing the lovely Miss Dalling coping with her smitten swains. If he was any judge of her temper, they'd soften her up nicely—for him.

Leaning against the wall of an alcove, concealed by the shadows cast by a large palm, he watched Priscilla Dalling captivate—and, whenever she noticed him watching, flirt with—a tribe of local gentlemen, one and all besotted by her bounteous charms.

While he appreciated the picture she made in her lavender silk gown with its keyhole neckline that, far from being decorous, drew attention even more provocatively to the deep valley between her
breasts, while his eyes drank in the sleek yet curvaceous figure her well-cut gown so lovingly revealed, while his gaze was drawn to the exposed curve of her nape, to the vulnerable line highlighted by the black curls cascading from the knot on her head to bob seductively alongside one ear, it wasn't her physical beauty that held his interest.

She
did. The animation in her face, the grace with which she moved, the laugh he occasionally heard over the rumble of voices, the life he sensed within her.

Beauty had never meant much to him—it was just the outer casing. What was inside mattered more. When he looked at her, he saw a fiery spirit, a feminine reflection of himself. It was that that lured him, that drew him to her.

He continued to watch cynically as she dealt with her admirers. The outcome of her flirting was already trying her temper—serve her right. The gentlemen were a boon in his eyes; they had her corralled; she couldn't slip from his sight without them giving warning.

Two days had passed since he'd encountered her racing for her very life over the Heath. Two days since he'd discovered some man had come far too close to ending her life.

The draining of all color from her face when he'd shown her the hole in her hat still haunted him. She hadn't known how close to death she'd come.

He'd ridden his own temper hard and kept away for the rest of the day, and the next, knowing he'd meet her to night. He'd seen her at a distance in town; since he'd escorted her back to the Carisbrook house, she'd left it only in the company of her aunt and Miss Blake. No one had come to visit her, and she hadn't slipped away to any illicit meeting; he'd had four of his stable lads on special duty, watching the house day and night.

Through the palm fronds, he studied her face—the set of her chin, her eyes—and decided she hadn't yet softened enough for his purpose. It wasn't yet time to offer her an escape.

He'd left Barnaby armed with the direction of Collier's stable, east of Grantham. They'd confirmed Collier's classy new runners had been the horses involved in the suspect races. Over dinner, Barnaby had remembered to mention that Vane had stumbled on similar whispers about a race run at Newmarket a few weeks before, early in the autumn season.

That
had been most unwelcome news. Vane and Gabriel were hunting for more details.

The earlier suspect races had been at Goodwood and Doncaster, under Jockey Club rules, true, but not the same as a race at Newmarket, run under the Club's collective nose. If it was part of the same scheme, the perpetrators were arrogant and cocksure. And there would almost certainly be more to come.

Dillon knew the scheme wasn't targeted at him personally, yet as the Keeper of the Breeding Register and Stud Book, the office responsible for the verification of horses' identities, the scheme was a direct challenge to his authority. More, the Committee had asked him to investigate and deal with the problem, setting said problem squarely in his lap. His past indiscretion, even if now history, only compounded the pressure.

The scheme might not have been conceived with a personal aspect, yet for him it had assumed one; he felt as if he were facing an as-yet-unsighted enemy who had a lethal arrow nocked and aimed at him—he had to cut the bowstring before the arrow could be loosed.

He refocused on Pris Dalling. Far from being on the side of his enemy, he was convinced she was presently standing somewhere in the mists between him and the opposition.

A moment passed, then he stirred, impatient to act, wishing she'd dismiss all the others and come his way.

She started edging from her admirers. He straightened. Watching more intently, he noted her sudden nervousness, the way she sidled to keep the shoulders of her attentive swains between her and someone farther up the ballroom.

Dillon scanned the guests. Lady Swaledale had assembled a small multitude, all the locals of note as well as many owners who belonged to the ton. He glanced again at Pris; to his educated eye, panic was rising beneath her glib surface, but who was inciting it was impossible to guess.

He was about to quit his sanctuary when she acted. Brightly smiling, she dismissed two gentlemen; the instant they left, she excused herself to the remaining three—judging by the wilting hand she raised to her brow, unimaginatively claiming a sudden indisposition.

The three were disheartened, but in her hands so malleable. They
bowed; with what Dillon knew would be perfectly sincere thanks, she left them and headed his way.

She walked purposefully, casting swift, sharp glances up the room, taking good care to remain screened from that direction. She drew near the alcove, then to his surprise, stepped into the shadowed opening, simultaneously beckoning a nearby footman to attend her.

The footman came hurrying to bow before her. “Ma'am—miss?'

“I'm Miss Dalling. I wish you to take a message to my aunt, Lady Fowles. She's seated on a chaise at the top of the room. She's wearing a pale green gown and has ostrich feathers in her hair. Tell Lady Fowles that I've been called away and am returning home. I would rather she remain and enjoy the evening—she shouldn't return early on my account. Please convey that to her immediately.”

Pris listened while the footman repeated the message, and nodded.

“Do you wish me to summon your carriage, miss?”

“No, thank you. Just deliver my message.” She bestowed a brilliant smile on the footman; he bowed and all but charged off on his quest. She glanced up the room, drew in a breath, and slipped out of the shadows.

Quickly, as unobtrusively as she could, she tacked through the guests at this end of the room and slipped out through a secondary door. The corridor beyond was presently empty, but the ball was barely an hour old; guests were still trickling in through the main ballroom doors farther down the corridor, near the front hall.

Those main ballroom doors were propped wide; she couldn't risk walking past them—couldn't risk Lord Cromarty seeing her. The last glimpse she'd had of him he'd been standing with a group of similar gentlemen, unfortunately facing those doors.

Until he'd walked in, it hadn't occurred to her that in going about in Newmarket society she risked meeting him. Cromarty had met her, exchanged a few words with her; Rus had been with her at the time, less than a year ago.

There were drawbacks to being so physically notable; it made her very recognizable. She couldn't risk Cromarty getting even a glimpse.

She hadn't forgotten a single word of Rus's letter; if he'd found
anything untoward in what Harkness was doing, Rus would have gone to Cromarty. While she wasn't going to jump to conclusions regarding Cromarty, neither was she willing to endanger Rus by letting Cromarty know she was there.

If Cromarty was involved, he'd know she'd either find Rus, or he'd find her. All Cromarty needed to do was watch her, and eventually he'd have Rus.

Partly hidden by a tall lamp, she hovered in the hallway until another footman crossed to the ballroom. Stepping into plain sight, she beckoned imperiously. “My cape, if you please. It's lavender velvet, waist-length, with gold frogging.”

The footman blushed, stammered, but quickly fetched the cape. She allowed him to set it about her shoulders, then dismissed him, giving the impression she was waiting for someone.

The instant the footman passed into the ballroom, she turned and hurried down the corridor, away from the ballroom and its lurking danger, deeper into the body of the house.

At the end of the corridor, she found a secondary staircase; descending to the ground floor, she peered out of a window and saw a side garden with paved paths leading away toward a band of trees.

Swaledale Hall was only a mile or so from the Carisbrook house. She knew the direction; the moon was rising, shedding enough light for her to see her way.

Who knew? She might even bump into Rus; she knew her twin was out there somewhere. Alone.

The thought cut at her. Finding a door to the garden, she pushed it open and stepped outside.

She glanced around, but there was no one else about. Closing the door, she took her bearings. A cool breeze ruffled the creeper that grew on the walls. Selecting the most likely path from the five that led from the door, she set out, walking along the silvered flagstones toward the shelter of the trees.