An Heir of Uncertainty (18 page)

He smiled a roguish, slightly crooked smile. “Shouldn’t you tell me that?”

Her heart beat faster, and a score of teasing replies flitted through her head—the when, the where, the how. If she played his little game, she could tell him everything she longed for, the stuff of her fantasies, how diligent and how skilled and how often. All she had to do was set aside her caution for a little while.

And part of her wanted to play along. But how reckless would that be, when there were so many dangerous places it could lead? He was exactly the kind of charmer who would have turned her mother’s head. Perhaps if she told him her secret desires, he’d use the knowledge to weaken her defenses. Or perhaps what she thought of as private and intimate would be nothing but fodder for his amusement, and he would brag about their flirtation the next time he was in masculine company. Who could say, when it came to men?

Refusing to squirm in her seat, she pretended to examine one of the fabric squares before her and said coolly, “I don’t think you need my advice.”

“Is that a rebuff or a compliment?”

Drat the man for being so ridiculously handsome, and drat the warmth in his voice. She stared fixedly at the fabric. “Take it whichever way you like.”

“What are you so afraid of, Lina?”

She glanced up sharply. His tone had shifted from teasing to probing. “What do you mean, ‘afraid’?”

He gazed at her with a gleam in his gray eyes. “Is it men in general you don’t trust, or is it me specifically?”

She gulped. “I don’t—I never said—” She stopped to gather her thoughts. “I don’t know what makes you think I’m afraid of you. I did let you kiss me that night in your room, didn’t I?”

He smiled faintly. “Indeed you did—but as I recall, I was rather the worse for laudanum at the time. That’s not quite the same as dealing with a man on equal terms.”

“I’m not afraid of anyone.” Her chin lifted. “I just know better than to make the kind of foolish mistakes my mother made.”

“And I strike you as a mistake in the making?”

“No.” She frowned. “Or—perhaps. I can’t say yet.”

“I think you can say, but you feel safer telling yourself I can’t be trusted.”

It took a moment for her to puzzle out what he meant, and then the words echoed in her ears, the truth of them like a reproach.
You feel safer telling yourself I can’t be trusted.

Good Lord. He was right. Despite the strange occurrences at the abbey, she had no good reason to doubt him personally. He’d been unswervingly on her side, even saved her from certain injury or death. She sometimes suspected—no, she knew—she was falling for him.

And she
was
afraid. Afraid to trust him, afraid of being proved a fool, afraid to risk being hurt.

She met his eyes and tried to counter his frankness with her own. “I want to trust you. At first I thought we’d be enemies, because you came here to take Edward’s place, and because my child may stand in your way. Now I’m convinced you’re not my enemy. But...”

“But?”

“But it still feels reckless to me, trusting a man. They always
want
something.”

He stood, and for a moment she was afraid she’d offended him again and he meant to go storming out. Instead he came around to her side of the table. He pulled out the chair beside hers and sat down on it sideways, facing her.

She gazed at him warily.

He leaned forward, slipped a palm around the back of her head and drew her in for a kiss. His hand in her hair was firm but gentle—a request, not a demand. Anything less would have tempted her to refuse. Anything more would have forced her to retreat.

At first he kissed her with his mouth closed. The faint scent of bergamot shaving soap clung to his skin, fresh and aromatic. She set her hands on his shoulders, not sure whether she wanted to push him away or cling to him. Her body made up her mind for her. A shiver of pleasure ran through her as his lips brushed hers. Her nipples tightened and she pressed closer.

He parted his lips slightly, and she followed suit. His drew his fingers through her hair until his palm came to cup the side of her face. The sound of their breathing filled the room. His tongue in her mouth was slow and stirring, exploring, teasing her, sending desire flooding over her in waves. All the qualities she admired about him were in his kiss—patience and strength and expertise. He was in no hurry, he suffered no doubts, he knew exactly what he was doing...

By the time he broke off the kiss, she was breathless and trembling. Her breasts ached to be touched, and there was a telltale slickness between her thighs. At that moment, he could have asked anything of her, and she would’ve been helpless to refuse him.

Instead he pushed back his chair. It wasn’t that the kiss hadn’t affected him—he was at least half hard beneath his clothes, that much was obvious. Even so, he heaved a deep, resolute sigh that pronounced the interlude at an end.

“I do want something,” he said, his gray eyes gazing steadily into hers. “I want you to trust me. I want that trust to be so complete, you lose the fear of being hurt.”

She stared back at him, still slightly out of breath, taut with unsatisfied desire. “I’m not sure I can ever do that.”

She expected him to turn defensive or argumentative, but he only offered her one of his blinding, heart-stopping smiles. “O ye of little faith...”

A lifetime of church services made the words as familiar as an old friend.
Why are ye fearful, o ye of little faith?
Only, unlike in the scripture, Win hadn’t calmed a great tempest, but stirred one up inside her.

Having allowed himself time to cool off, he rose and reached for his hat. “Well, good day to you then, Lady Radbourne.” He bowed respectfully. “I can see myself out.”

“But—”

Still wearing a faint smile, he strolled from the room without waiting for her reply.

Chapter Thirteen

This fell sergeant, death, is strict in his arrest.

—William Shakespeare

By the time Friday arrived, Win was far from confident that Lina still intended to serve as his hostess. Despite the bravado of his call two days before, he hadn’t heard from her or seen her since taking his leave.

But to his relief, she not only came as promised, but arrived with her sister as he finished dressing for dinner, a full hour before the first guest was due. While Freddie remained upstairs changing, Miss Douglass took the opportunity to practice the pianoforte. Win once more had Lina to himself.

They sat across from each other, chatting while her sister played.

“I appreciate your doing this.” Win leaned in confidentially. “You’re the one bright spot in what promises to be a thoroughly trying evening.”

She hesitated before leaning in just as he’d done. “I hope you won’t take this amiss, but I wouldn’t do this for anyone but you. The gentlemen you’ve invited aren’t exactly my staunchest supporters.”

“How could any man take that amiss?”

She glanced down, her green eyes veiled. “You know, I’ve been thinking about what you said, about my being afraid.”

“And?”

“And there was some truth to it.” She spoke softly, so that he had to bend even closer to hear her.

“There
was
, or there
is?
”

She lifted her head, and her eyes met his. “Was. More and more, was.”

A spark of satisfaction warmed him from inside. “I’m glad to hear it.” When she blushed faintly, he regarded her with his head tilted to one side. “Do you know, every time we meet, you’re lovelier than you were the time before.”

Her blush deepened, and she smoothed an invisible wrinkle from the skirts of her evening gown. “That would be a good deal more flattering if I hadn’t been nauseated and swooning the first day you saw me.”

He grinned. “I wish I could take credit for making you swoon, though nauseated is a different matter.”

“You really mustn’t joke about it. I was quite embarrassed about that episode on the stairs.”

“Were you really? I can’t think why. I could teach you a thing or two about embarrassment, believe me.” At her doubtful glance, he said, “I
did
faint once, flat on my face and in front of my commanding officer. It was the night my division retreated from Roncesvalles Pass. I’d been winged earlier in the day by a French ball but didn’t realize I’d lost enough blood to make me light-headed. I came to attention before Lieutenant General Cole, saluted, and then swooned like a schoolgirl.”

She laughed but protested, “That’s rather like Cassie claiming to be embarrassed when young men line up to partner her at the Malton assembly. It doesn’t count as an embarrassment if it stems from doing something heroic and manly.”

“Very well, then, if you’re going to hold my feet to the fire... When I was new to the army and a freshly commissioned lieutenant, my comrades and I were summoned to report to headquarters. It had been raining, and our camp was at the top of a hill. I came rushing out of my tent, in such a hurry to be the first to arrive that my feet went out from under me on the wet grass, and I ended up sliding and then ultimately rolling all the way to the bottom of the hill. When I picked myself up and climbed back to camp, I was mud from the top of my head to the soles of my boots. There was nothing the least bit heroic or manly about that, believe me.”

Her green eyes sparkled. “I had my own embarrassing encounter with mud. When I was no more than ten, a bigger boy called my brother Malcolm a loathsome name, so I jumped into the fray. It became an actual fistfight. After I pulled out whole clumps of the boy’s hair, he pushed me into a mud puddle. I was so filthy there was no way to hide what had happened from my grandmother. Fighting a boy was rather
too
heroic and manly, at least for a girl, and I wasn’t allowed to play outside for an entire month.” She shook her head. “Do all embarrassments end up making one laugh, I wonder, once enough time goes by?”

“No, unfortunately a few cut a bit too deep for that.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Such as?”

“You don’t really want to know that.”

“But I do—if you don’t mind telling me, that is.”

He hesitated. But if he wanted her to trust him, shouldn’t he trust her? “A week before my wedding, I was in St. James Street, one of the busiest and most fashionable thoroughfares in London, and my future father-in-law made a loud scene in which he enumerated all the many reasons I wasn’t good enough to marry his daughter. Every head in the street turned my way to see what a ‘damned fortune hunter’ looked like.” He shrugged. “I doubt I’ll ever find that amusing, no matter how long I live.”

She’d been smiling, but as he neared the end of the story, her smile faded. Her eyes grew stormy, though whether with sympathy or shock, he couldn’t tell.

Now that was a piece of idiocy, dredging up the most galling moment of his life and making no secret of his bitterness about it. Gentlemen had actually emerged from White’s that day to see what the commotion was about. The only thing worse than the sneering looks he’d received had been failing to prove his father-in-law wrong in the end.

Across from him, Lina drew a deep breath. “When I was just getting to know Edward,” she said, her hands clenching in her lap, “I was so poor that the second time he came to call I served him a stew I’d made with two squirrels my brother had killed with a slingshot, and I pretended it was chicken.”

It was a humbling confession, but also a very human one. Their eyes locked and a moment of understanding passed between them. She’d told him the story as a show of support—to let him know he wasn’t the only one of them who struggled with pride, or had felt the shame of failing to measure up. She’d been poor, too, and she didn’t think less of him for it.

No wonder he was falling in love with her.

Falling in
love
with her? The realization startled him. It wasn’t that long since they’d first met, and there was still the matter of the Radbourne fortune to be decided. He wasn’t usually one to look before he leaped. But she was loyal and honest and compassionate, to say nothing of the most beautiful woman he’d ever met. For her sake, he would jump in front of a thousand speeding mail coaches.

He had an almost overpowering urge to pull her into his arms, sling or no sling. Only her sister, playing the piano across the room and occasionally glancing in their direction, kept him sitting where he was, gazing at Lina, his heart full.

* * *

Win caught Lina’s eye from across the room. He gave her a questioning look—
Are you having as miserable a time as I am?
She smiled and gave him a tight nod.

It had to be the strangest party he’d ever attended, let alone given. Though he’d asked her to serve as his hostess, most of the guests seemed to assume he and Lina were feuding. But more than that, few of them were shy about indicating which side they supported.

Dr. Strickland was clearly on Lina’s side—or Miss Douglass’s, at least, which amounted to the same thing. “You didn’t tell me Lady Radbourne and her sister would be at this dinner,” he said in an aside to Win shortly after his arrival.

Win arched an eyebrow. “Is that a problem?”

“No, not at all.” The doctor glanced across the room toward the ladies. “I’m delighted to see them here. I’m simply surprised that you should be on such good terms with the countess given that she and her baby are the primary obstacles to your becoming the next Earl of Radbourne.”

“I can’t see how being unfriendly would improve my chances,” Win said with a bland smile.

“A good point.” The doctor laughed uneasily. “It’s laudable of you to look at it that way.”

Sir John Blessingame apparently hadn’t expected to find Lina at the dinner, either—though he was considerably less approving. “I see she’s wheedled an invitation from you,” he said, directing a sour look Lina’s way as they all intermingled before dinner.

“There was no wheedling involved,” Win said, politely but firmly. “Despite being in mourning, she’s doing me the favor of playing hostess here tonight while workmen make repairs to the dower house.”

“So she talked you into improving the dower house for her, did she?”

“I offered, actually.”

Sir John all but sneered. “I’d be careful if I were you, Colonel Vaughan. Didn’t I tell you she was a bold one?”

Win glanced over his shoulder to where Lina stood talking to Mrs. Channing. He trusted Freddie, and he liked Miss Douglass, but Lina was the only person in the room on whom he felt he could truly rely. Not that his feelings were merely practical. He’d thought his marriage to Harriet had destroyed his faith in romantic possibilities, but Lina had restored even that.

He turned back to Blessingame. “Lady Radbourne? Doing me a courtesy, dressed in mourning? You have an odd notion of
bold
, Sir John.”

The baronet frowned. “Aye, you might think that now, seeing her here, pretending butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. But don’t let her fool you. She does what she likes, when she likes, with whom she likes.”

“I shouldn’t worry if I were you,” Win said coolly. “I try not to let anyone fool me.”

Even Freddie had an opinion on the gathering. Win had no sooner ended his conversation with Sir John than Freddie slipped up beside him. “Miss Douglass keeps trying to talk to me,” he said in a whisper Win feared might be a shade too loud for confidentiality.

“She’s just being friendly.”

“I know.” Freddie’s face was anxious. “Can you make her stop?”

Win gave him a smile that was meant to be both sympathetic and bracing. “Try to be gracious, just this once. She and Lady Radbourne are doing us a service, looking after the ladies present.”

“I’m always gracious.”

“Then try to be
especially
gracious.”

Freddie heaved a doleful sigh. “If you insist.”

“I do, though I’ll talk to her about it after tonight if you still consider it a problem.”

While Win was happy to chat with the gentlemen present and to meet their wives, he hadn’t forgotten the point of the gathering—namely, to get to the bottom of the abbey’s financial irregularities. To that end, he spoke to each of the trustees in turn. There were two in addition to Mr. Channing: the retired Archdeacon of Cleveland, Mr. Baillie, and a banker called Mr. Pease. All three agreed on one point—the account books they had seen were quite different from the ones Win had examined the week before.

“You’ve obviously made some mistake,” Mr. Pease said when Win broached the topic with him. “Mr. Niven presents the account books to us at our quarterly trustees’ meeting, and I can assure you there’s never been any discrepancy between one quarter and the next.”

“You’re quite certain of that?”

Mr. Pease’s tone turned frosty. “Really, sir. Pease, Dunn and Company is the most respected bank in Malton, and branches of my family own banking interests throughout Yorkshire. I trust I can recognize when two figures agree.”

Channing was a good deal more blunt. “Do you have windmills in your head, Vaughan? Of course we compare the quarterly figures. Do you take me for a fool?”

The Rev. Charles Baillie’s reply was no less adamant, if rather more jovial. “You’d best have another look at your books, Colonel Vaughan. As Mr. Niven can tell you, Mr. Channing, Mr. Pease and I always go over the accounts with him most thoroughly.”

“You check the receipts against the ledger?”

“Naturally. We go over all the rent figures.”

“No, not the rents—what about the bank deposits?”

“We review the figures, though I suppose now we’ll check the actual receipts as well.”

“What do you mean, ‘now’?”

“I mean now that Lord Radbourne is dead they’ll come to us, at least until the matter of the succession is settled.” At Win’s questioning look, he explained, “Formerly the bank receipts went directly to the earl, or to Sir John during his tenure as Radbourne’s guardian.”

Satisfied, Win glanced across the room to where Mr. Niven stood talking to Dr. Strickland. So there had to be two sets of books, then—the set Win had seen, and a second set Niven showed to the trustees, in which he purported to deposit the full amount of the quarterly proceeds. Meanwhile, a portion of those proceeds went straight into the solicitor’s pockets. A harried guardian with no direct responsibility for financial oversight and his inattentive young ward would have been easy enough to hoodwink, especially with Niven’s smooth manners and air of cool authority. Once Sir John was out of the picture, Lord Radbourne must have been an even easier target.

The question was, what should he do now that he knew Niven was responsible? Win considered the matter, nodding along without listening as Mr. Baillie went on at length about the great age of a yew in his churchyard.

“One account says the tree was already old when the monks who built Belryth Abbey settled here...”

He would have to take the matter to Mr. Channing in his capacity as magistrate. There was no question about that. Niven would have to resign as Belryth’s solicitor and estate agent, and likely give up his practice completely. Still, Win would give him a chance to explain himself, and to offer to make restitution if that was possible, before he approached Mr. Channing. Perhaps there was some explanation Niven could offer that might mitigate his wrongdoing.

Across the room, the butler entered and whispered something to Lina. Apparently dinner was served.

As Dyson bowed himself away, Win extricated himself from his one-sided conversation with Mr. Baillie and slipped up beside Lina. “I know who’s behind the discrepancies in the account books,” he told her in an undertone. “I mean to have a word with Mr. Niven before we go in to dinner. Would you mind covering for me for a few minutes?”

She threw him a look of surprise, but answered readily enough. “Not at all.” Turning to address the room, she cleared her throat and spoke in a voice loud enough to attract the company’s attention. “Shall we go in to dinner, everyone?”

The group sorted itself into order.