Wicked Intentions 1 (29 page)

His mouth hid a definite smile now, and the sight made her want to both slam the door in his face and grab him and kiss him all at once.

It was a rather frustrating sensation.

She cleared her throat. “Would you care to come in for tea before we depart?”

“I thank you, no,” he replied, as formally as she. “The business I have tonight cannot wait.”

She nodded. “Very well.”

Her cloak was ready and she swung it around herself before nodding to Nell, who was pretending not to be eavesdropping at the kitchen table, and left. Caire immediately set off. She hurried to catch up, but they hadn’t gone half a dozen steps before he pulled her suddenly into a darkened doorway.

“What—”

His mouth cut off her startled exclamation. He kissed her thoroughly and possessively before raising his head slowly. “That’s better.”

He sounded very satisfied with himself.

“Humph.”

He set off again, more moderately this time. Unlike their other evenings in St. Giles, she did not know where they were headed. Caire was the one leading now. They followed the back alley out to the crossroads, and Temperance saw his carriage waiting.

She glanced at him, surprised. “Where are we going?”

“To visit the man we saw at Mrs. Whiteside’s house,” he said matter-of-factly.

She halted. “Oh, but surely you don’t need me for that.”

“You have no idea the ways that I need you,” he murmured, and helped her into the carriage.

Well, she really had no choice. At least that was what Temperance told herself as she sat on the carriage cushions. Perhaps the truth was that she liked being with him no matter the pretext.

He sat opposite her, and she tamped down a twinge of regret.

The carriage lurched forward, and she looked down at her hands in her lap, aware of his gaze upon her.

“Are you all right?” he asked softly after a moment.

“Fine,” she replied.

“I meant after our coupling last night.”

“Oh.” She felt heat creep up her neck. He would talk bluntly about the matter! “I’m well. Thank you.”

“And your sister?”

She frowned, the tears too close to the surface. “We haven’t heard anything else.”

“Ah.”

She peeked through her lashes, trying to read his expression in the dim light. He sounded as if he might be worried for her. Did he intend to repeat the events of the night before? Or was it a one-time thing best forgotten? But surely if he was not interested in her, he would not have dragged her along on this ride. Temperance felt heat pool low in her belly at the thought of his hands caressing her breasts again. Of his lips against her neck.

The carriage shuddered to a halt and she looked up quickly. “Where—”

She didn’t have time to finish the question, because the carriage door opened at that moment and a tall man in a gray wig and half-moon spectacles entered.

“Mrs. Dews, perhaps you remember my friend Mr. St. John?” Caire asked smoothly.

“Of course,” she replied, trying to hide her confusion.

Mr. St. John inclined his head. “Ma’am.”

“St. John has kindly consented to join us in our investigations this evening,” Caire said.

St. John snorted softly, making Temperance wonder how his
kind consent
had been obtained. She stared curiously between the two men. Caire and St. John didn’t seem likely friends. Caire was so carefree—but with an air of danger—while St. John looked grave and scholarly.

“May I inquire as to how you two became friends?” she asked.

It was Caire who replied. “St. John and I met at Oxford, where I was spending my time drinking bad wine, and he was attempting to translate obscure Grecian philosophers and arguing politics with other boring fellows.”

St. John interjected another snort here, but Caire continued, oblivious to the interruption. “One night I came across him in the midst of six vulgar toughs who were in the process of pounding him into a sort of puree. I’m afraid I took offense at their chosen pursuit.”

Temperance waited, but both men merely looked at her as if their story was done.

She blinked. “So you met in a tavern brawl?”

Caire looked at the ceiling consideringly. “More a street fight.”

“Or melee.” St. John shrugged.

“And you became friends,” she finished for them.

“Yes,” Caire said while St. John shrugged again, as if the outcome was self-evident.

“I don’t understand,” Temperance muttered under her breath.

Caire must’ve had acute hearing. “I think it was the blow St. John received to the crown of his head,” he said kindly. “Blood all over the place. It has a kind of bonding effect.”

She blinked again. “And you were untouched?”

That presumption was too much for St. John. “He had his nose broken and both eyes blacked,” he said with what sounded very much like satisfaction. “And his lip swelled so much he talked with a lisp for a month.”

“A sennight,” Caire interjected.

“Six weeks at the very least,” St. John shot back without heat. “You were still lisping on May Day when we, ah…”

“Rowed down the Isis dead drunk at dawn,” Caire said. “With the don’s stolen pug.”

“Quite,” St. John murmured.

Temperance’s eyes widened. “Oh.”

Caire’s mouth cocked up. “So you see why I brought him when I thought we might need another.”

“Oh, yes,” Temperance said weakly.

“I spent the next two years at Oxford trying to get him to drink more wine and study less,” Caire.

“And I spent those two years attempting to keep you from succumbing to your worst urges,” St. John said far less lightly. He glanced at Caire. “At one point, I was certain you had a death wish.”

“Maybe I did, ” Caire whispered. “Maybe I did.”

The carriage jolted and stopped.

Caire glanced out the window, immediately sobering. “And here we are.”

A
FTER THAT LAST
attack in St. Giles, Lazarus had vowed never again to put Mrs. Dews at risk. Yet, at the same time, he needed an excuse that required her continued presence in his life. His inquiries, while dangerous, were perfect.

Hence St. John’s appearance tonight.

Lazarus admitted to himself wryly that a male duenna—whom he’d provided himself—made his pursuit of Temperance somewhat comical. But he’d not compromise either her safety or his… courtship of her.

The word gave him pause. Was that what this was? A courtship? Perhaps. It was the first time that he’d pursued a female without the lure of money. It was a strangely humbling thought: She’d come to him with no regard for what he could give her. He had to use his charm alone.

And that was often in short supply.

“Who is the man we see tonight?” St. John asked as they descended the carriage. He might be a scholar, but Lazarus knew from those days at Oxford that the man could fight if need be.

“George Eppingham, Lord Faulk,” Lazarus said, looking at the crumbling town house in front of them. They were in Westminster. The area had once been fashionable, but now most of the wealthy former citizens had fled west. “He’s fond of blindfolds.”

Lazarus felt St. John’s quick glance, but he ignored it as he rapped on the door. There was a long pause.

“How did you find this man?” St. John asked stiffly.

Lazarus smiled humorlessly. “A brothel madam recommended him to me.”

He caught St. John studying Temperance, but before he could voice a possible concern, the door to the house was opened.

A slatternly maid stood gaping at them.

“May we see your master?” Lazarus asked.

She gulped, scratched at one arm, and turned without replying. The maid led them into a house that obviously had once been better maintained. The worn wooden
floor was dull. Dust had settled into the dark corners. A room was off the hall, and she opened the door without preamble. Faulk was seated inside at a desk, attired in a frayed brown banyan and soft cap to keep his shaved head warm. He wore fingerless gloves on his hands to write, and Lazarus noticed that his fire was meager. In fact, the whole house was chill.

“Who was it, Sally?” Faulk asked before belatedly looking up. He stared at them for a moment, and Lazarus thought his eyes iced over. “I have no monies to give you.”

Lazarus arched an eyebrow. “We’re not bill collectors.”

“Ah.” Faulk showed no sign of embarrassment. “Then what is your business, if I may ask?”

“I wished to ask you about a mutual friend.”

Faulk arched a single eyebrow. He was younger than Lazarus had first taken him for—perhaps no more than forty. He was handsome, but want or hard living had etched lines in his face, and his jawline sagged. In another year or so, his good looks would be gone.

“Do you know Marie Hume?”

“No,” Faulk replied promptly. His gaze never wavered, but his hand fisted on top of the desk.

“A fair woman with a round, red birthmark by the corner of her right eye?” Lazarus asked gently. “She was found dead in St. Giles almost two months ago.”

“Many whores die in St. Giles,” Faulk said.

“Yes,” Lazarus said, “but I never said she was a whore.”

Faulk’s expression blanked.

In the silence, Lazarus took Temperance’s arm and pulled her to sit next to him on a listing settee. St. John remained standing by the door.

Faulk flicked his eyes to Temperance and St. John and then seemed to disregard them.

“What is this about?” he asked Lazarus.

“Marie was a friend of mine,” Lazarus replied. “I’m interested in finding the man who murdered her.”

Faulk’s sallow skin turned waxen. “She was murdered?”

Could a man pretend a change in skin color? Lazarus thought not. “She was found bound to a bed, her belly cut open.”

Faulk stared at him and then abruptly shifted his weight in his chair, slumping back. “I didn’t know.”

“You saw her?” Lazarus asked.

Faulk nodded. “A half dozen times or more. But I wasn’t the only man she entertained.”

Lazarus waited, not saying anything.

Faulk’s color—what there was of it—was returning to his face. “She had several callers. She was willing to do, ah, unusual things.”

He looked knowingly at Lazarus, as if they shared a dirty secret. Except Lazarus had held his “secret” so many years he’d lost any shame he’d once had in it.

He stared back stonily at the man. “Do you know the names of any of her other callers?”

“Perhaps.”

Lazarus studied the man a moment, and then said without looking at St. John, “Take Mrs. Dews to the carriage, please.”

Temperance tensed beside him, but she went without protest as St. John led her from the room. He shut the door behind them.

Lazarus hadn’t taken his eyes from Faulk the entire time. “Now. Tell me.”

* * *

“S
HOULD WE LEAVE
him alone with that man?” Temperance whispered anxiously to Mr. St. John.

He didn’t break stride as he descended the town house steps. “Caire knows what he’s doing.”

“But if Lord Faulk should call more servants? What if he overwhelms Lord Caire?”

Mr. St. John handed her into the carriage and then sat across from her. “I expect Caire can handle himself. Besides, it didn’t look like Faulk had any more servants than that half-witted girl.”

Temperance gazed nervously out the window, not exactly convinced by this vague reassurance.

“You worry about him,” St. John said softly.

She looked at him in surprise. “Well, of course I worry about him.”

She saw suddenly by the satisfaction on his face that
worry
had a far more significant meaning for him.

She looked down at her hands and repeated more softly, “Of course I worry for him.”

“I’m glad,” he said. “No one has worried about him for a very long time, I think.”

“Except for you,” she said quietly.

He frowned a little, and she noticed for the first time that his thoughtful gray eyes were rather lovely in a remote sort of way. “I worry about him, but it isn’t the same, is it? I have my own family.” He blinked suddenly and his head jerked as if he’d remembered something. “Or I had one, at least.”

There was an awkward silence then, for he was obviously suffering from some kind of grief and just as obviously didn’t want to discuss it.

After a bit she inhaled. “He still hasn’t come out.”

St. John crossed his arms. “He will.”

“Did you know her?” she asked suddenly. “Marie?”

Mr. St. John’s cheekbones were high and sharp, and she saw them pinken slightly now with flags of color. “No, I never met her.” The color deepened. “He kept—keeps—that part of his life well hidden.”

“And he’s never married?”

“No.” He frowned, thinking. “As far as I know, he’s never even been interested in a respectable woman.” He looked up at her. “At least not until now.”

It was her turn to examine her hands while her cheeks heated.

She felt more than saw St. John sit a little forward. “Look here. He may seem hard and cynical and, well,
brutal
sometimes. But remember, there’s a part of him that’s vulnerable. Don’t hurt him.”

Her head jerked up, appalled at the very thought. “I would never hurt him.”

But he was already shaking his head. “You say that now, it’s natural, but keep it close to your heart. He
can
bleed. Don’t make him.”

The carriage rocked as Lord Caire threw open the door and entered.

St. John shot her a warning look, then sat back against the squabs. “Did you get what you wanted?”

“Indeed.” Caire thumped against the roof and settled himself beside St. John. “Faulk knows of at least three other men.”

St. John raised his eyebrows doubtfully. “It’s not much to go on.”

“But it’s more than I had before,” Caire replied.

St. John scoffed. “And how do you propose going about finding these fellows?”

“I’ll inquire,” Caire said loftily.

“Dear God,
inquire.
”

They were bickering, but Temperance had the idea that both men enjoyed it, thought they’d die a thousand deaths before admitting it. She looked out the window and half drifted as she thought about what St. John had said earlier. Surely he must be mistaken? How could a man like Caire have any vulnerabilities at all? She glanced at him from under lowered lids. His attention was on some point he was making to St. John, but he caught her look nevertheless. His eyelids drooped and a corner of his mouth curled sensually even as he argued with his friend.