A Lady of His Own

CHAPTER 7

LATER, OVER DINNER, SHE WONDERED IF HE’D KISSED HER to distract her from his evening’s appointment, or perhaps make her sufficiently wary about returning alone with him late at night to change her mind about accompanying him in the first place. Either way, he’d misjudged.

When they rose from the table, she went with him to the library. Selecting a book of poetry, she settled in one of the chairs before the fire.

He eyed her darkly, then picked up a book left on a side table, sprawled with typical loose-limbed grace in the chair that was the mate of hers, and settled to read, too. The hounds collapsed in twin heaps at his feet.

She noticed he began some way into the book; the way he was holding it, she couldn’t read the title. After ten minutes of reading the same ode and not taking it in, she asked, “What is that?”

He glanced at her, then murmured, “A Recent History of France.”

“How recent?”

“From the beginning of Louis XIV’s reign to the Terror.”

That span included many of the years during which her father had been “collecting” pillboxes.

Charles continued without prompting, “It’s by a French historian, one who belonged to the Academie and was quite pleased to see the end of the aristocracy. There’s a lot of detail here from the French point of view.”

“Do you think you’ll find any reference to Amberly, or to secrets he and Papa sold?”

“No. I’m not sure I’d recognize what might have been a secret all those years ago.” He returned his gaze to the book. “I’m looking for mention of some covert source-that’s probably the most we can hope for.”

She watched him read for a minute, then returned to her ode; this time, it drew her in.

He didn’t stir when the clock struck nine, but when it started to chime the hour again, he shut his book, looked up, and caught her eye. “Time to go.”

They went upstairs to change; she hurried, not wanting to risk his losing patience and riding off without her, but he was waiting at the head of the stairs when she rushed into the gallery. She slowed. His gaze raked her from her crown, over her jacket and breeches, to her boots; his lips tightened as she joined him, but he said nothing, merely waved her down the stairs.

Ten minutes later, they were mounted and cantering along the road to Fowey. The Fowey Gallants were the oldest, largest, and best-organized smuggling gang in the area, not least because the group included all those who sailed as privateers whenever matters of state permitted it. In many ways they were a more professional crew, yet equally only one remove from pirates.

Charles fitted right in. Penny saw that the instant they set foot in the Cock and Bull, the dimly lit tavern on Fowey’s dockside that the senior members of the Gallants frequented when not on the waves. Three of Mother Gibbs’s sons were there, in company with five others. None were gentle simple souls like Shep and Seth; these were seafarers of a quite different ilk.

They’d all turned, suspicious and wary, to eye the new arrivals; at sight of Charles, their closed faces split into wide grins. They stood to welcome him, clapping him on the shoulder, asking all manner of questions. She hung back in Charles’s shadow, wary of being clapped on the shoulder, too. Such a blow from one of these ham-fisted men would probably floor her.

It was Dennis Gibbs who, looking past Charles, noticed her. Nearly as tall as Charles and broader, his hard eyes narrowed. “What’ve we here, then?”

The other men shifted to look at her, eyes widening as they took in her garb. Before she could step back, as she was tempted to, Charles reached behind him and manacled her wrist. “Lady Penelope,” he said, “who you haven’t seen.”

All eight Gallants looked at him, then Dennis asked, “Why’s that?”

Charles gestured to their table and the deserted benches. “Let’s order another round, and I’ll tell you.”

She was again squashed into a corner; this time she could barely expand her lungs enough to breathe. But the Gallants weren’t anywhere near as friendly as Shep and Seth, nor even the Bodinnick crew, even though they knew her rather better. She recognized the son of the head gardener at Wallingham; he worked on the estate, yet there he sat, scowling blackly whenever he glanced her way.

This time it was Charles who carried the day. The Gallants listened to his explanation of his mission, then answered the questions he put to them freely; they knew and, it was patently obvious, respected him. She was relegated to a mere cipher; Charles explained her presence in terms of reassuring them over any reticence they might feel over speaking ill of her dead brother. They looked at her; all she was required to do was nod.

Their attention deflected immediately to Charles.

The tale the Gallants told was similar to what they’d heard at Polruan and Bodinnick, except that the Gallants were more specific about the lugger-a French vessel running no colors and always holding well back from their faster, lighter ships, ready to turn tail if they’d made any move to draw near.

“Always hovered nervous, and hoisted sail the instant their man was back aboard.”

“Did you ever get any indication of what Granville was doing?”

Dennis looked around the group, then shook his head. “Truth be told, I always assumed they-the Selbornes-were taking in information. I never imagined it was going the other way.”

Jammed against Charles, she felt him still. Then he murmured, “Actually, we don’t know which way it was going, not for certain. That’s why I’m here, trying to work out what was going on.”

“What about this new bugger, Arbry, then?” Dennis described the overtures Nicholas had made to the group, somewhat more definite than with the other crews, not least because, as Dennis put it, the Gallants had strung him along. “A good source of ale, he is, when he comes in.”

Charles made a less-than-civilized comment, then, laughing, called for another round. As earlier, he didn’t order anything for her. Although she was thirsty, she wasn’t game to mention it.

“You can rest assured, though”-for the first time, Dennis met her eyes-“we ain’t told Arbry anything. Nor likely to.”

Penny nodded, not even sure she was supposed to do that.

Charles asked, “Have any of you ever been involved in, or ever heard tell, of how Granville set up these meets? We’ve learned he went out with one or other of the Fowey gangs, and therefore at different points along the coast, twice or three times a year, yet each time the lugger was there, waiting.”

The eight Gallants exchanged glances, then shook their heads.

Charles persisted. “Could the lugger have been on more or less permanent station?”

“Nah.” Dennis lifted his head. “If that had been the way of it, we’d’ve come across it often enough, and we never did-not once except it was a run for Master Granville or the old earl.”

“It was the same arrangement even back then?”

“As long as I’ve been leading the Gallants, and even in my da’s day, back before then.”

Charles nodded. “So there had to be some way Granville sent word to the lugger to meet him.”

“Aye.” There were nods all around.

“It’d be through the Isles, most like.”

Charles grimaced. Attempting to trace any connection through the Channel Isles would be almost certainly wasted effort. Besides…“There still has to be some connection here-someone who took the message to the Isles, if that was how it was done.”

The Gallants agreed; they offered to ask around. “Quiet-like,” Dennis said. “Just a friendly natter here and there. We’ll see what we can learn. Meanwhiles, do you want to know if Arbry asks to do a run?”

“Yes. I doubt he will, but if he does, send word to the Abbey.”

With assurances all around, the men stood. She slid out of her corner; absorbed with farewelling Charles, none of the Gallants so much as registered her presence, then she remembered they weren’t supposed to see her.

She slipped through the shadows to the door and waited there. Two old sailors, long past the age of going to sea, had been hunched over a table a few feet from the Gallants; they watched her-when she noticed, one bobbed his head her way. Uncertain, she nodded briefly in reply.

With one last slap on the back for Dennis, Charles joined her.

“Come on.” He gripped her arm and hustled her outside, releasing her only when they were in the stable yard.

She headed to where her mare was tethered, then spotted a rain barrel; it even had a dipper. She detoured. Lifting the heavy lid, she ducked her shoulder under it so she could pour water into her hand. Charles appeared beside her; with exceedingly thin lips but not a word he held the lid for her.

When she’d drunk her fill, she glanced at him as he replaced the lid. “Why the devil are you all glowering? Brendan Mattock scowled at me the entire time we were in there.”

Charles looked at her, she sensed in exasperation. “I’d scowl at you the entire time if I thought there was anything to be gained by it. The only difference between Brendan and me is that I know you and he doesn’t.”

With what sounded like a suppressed growl, he swung away, striding toward their horses. She was about to follow when the old sailor who’d nodded to her hobbled out of the shadows. He raised a hand; when she hesitated, he beckoned.

“Charles…”

He was back by her side in an instant. “Let’s see what he wants.”

Together they retraced their steps to where the old man waited, leaning heavily on his cane.

He ducked his head to them both. “Couldn’t help but overhear ye in there. You was asking after how young Master Granville might have got messages to a French lugger.”

Charles merely nodded.

Penny asked, “Do you know something?”

“May do, not that I’m sure, mind, but I doubt there’s many left would think of ’em to tell ye.” The old man regarded her through eyes still sharp and shrewd. “ ’Twas your father, m’lady, what brought them over-or rather, it were just the one man, a Frenchie he was, but from somewhere on the coast-Breton, maybe. Came here with your pa when he came home from abroad years ago. Smollet was the name he went by. François, or something frenchified like that.”

“Is this Smollet still alive?” Charles asked.

The old man shook his head. “Nah. Married a local lass he did, but then she up and left him-left their lad, too, but the lad-Gimby he’s called-he’s still here. He ain’t all that bright. A bit slow, you might say. Not dangerous, but not one for company.”

The man paused to draw in a wheezy breath. “Anyways, the reason you put me in mind of ’em was that they, father and son, were both weedy-like, not much brawn to ’em-none of the gangs would’a looked twice at ’em. But I tell you, they could sail. Soon a’ter he came back here with your pa, Smollet the elder left the Hall and went to live in a cottage by the river, near that marshy bit by the river mouth.”

He looked at Charles. “You’d know it, like as not.”

Charles nodded. “Go on.”

“Don’t know where he got ’em from, but Smollet had two boats. One was just a rowboat, a dinghy he used to fish from, nothing special. The other-well, that was the mystery. A sleek little craft that just flew under sail. Didn’t often see it out, but when I did, Smollet would have it running before the wind.”

“Where did he run it to?” Charles asked.

The old man nodded encouragingly. “Aye, you’ve twigged it. I caught a glimpse of it a time or two, well out and headed for the Isles. Not many hereabouts would risk it in such a small craft, but those Smollets, they was born to the waves. No fear in ’em at all. And I do know your pa”-he nodded at Penny-“kept in touch. He was there when they buried Smollet the elder some fifteen years ago. Not many others at the graveside, but I’d gone to remember a good sailor.”

“Did you ever see my brother with the Smollets?” Penny asked.

The man’s nod was portentious. “Aye. Gimby was a year or so older than Master Granville-it was he taught your brother to sail. Gimby was as close to your brother, mayhap even closer, than his pa had been to your pa-well, they more or less grew up together on and about the water. Howsoever, not many others would know. My cottage is on the water’s edge, just around on the estuary, so I see the Smollets more than most. Otherwise, they was always next to hermits. Don’t know as many of the younger ones”-with his head he indicated the tavern and presumably the Gallants inside-“would even know they existed.”

Penny realized she’d been holding her breath; she exhaled. “Thank you.”

“Here.” Charles handed over two sovereigns. “You and your friend have a few drinks on the Prince Regent.”

The old man looked down at the coins, then cackled. “Aye-better us than him, from all I hear.”

He raised a hand in salute. “Hope ye find what you’re looking for.” With that, he turned and shuffled back into the tavern.

Penny stared after him.

Charles caught her hand and pulled her away. “Come on.”

The marshy stretch by the river mouth lay just off their route home.

“No!” Charles said. “I’ll come back tomorrow.”

Tomorrow, when she was safely stowed at Wallingham. “No. We should go there tonight.”

From the corner of her eye, Penny glimpsed the opening of the track to the river mouth coming up on their right. She didn’t look that way, but kept her gaze on Charles’s face.

He was frowning at her. “It’s nearly midnight-hardly a useful hour to go knocking on some poor fisherman’s door.”

Riding on her right, he and his mount were between her mare and the track. She had to time her move carefully. “If he’s a fisherman, it’s the perfect time to call-he’ll almost certainly be in, which is more than you can say during the day.”

Exasperated, Charles looked ahead. “Penny-”

He whipped his head around as she checked the mare, swore as she cut across Domino’s heels and plunged down the narrow track. It took him a moment to wheel the big gray. By the time he thundered onto the track she was a decent distance ahead.

Too far for him to easily overhaul her, too dangerous as well.

He knew the track; it remained narrow for all its length, wending this way and that as it tacked between trees and the occasional thick bush. It led to the river mouth, then an even narrower spur angled north, following the river bank. The Smollet cottage had to be along there. He could vaguely remember a rough stone cottage, rather grim, glimpsed from the river through the trees.

Muttering resigned curses, he urged Domino forward, closing the gap, then settled to follow in Penny’s wake. She glanced back; realizing he wasn’t pressing to overtake her, she eased the mare to a safer pace.

Ahead, through a screen of trees, the river glimmered. Penny slowed even more as the track became steeper. It ended in a small clearing above the river; beyond lay lowlying, reed-infested marsh.

Penny swung left onto the even narrower path that followed the bank upriver. Lined on the landward side by a stand of thick trees, it was reasonably well surfaced but barely wide enough for a cart. She cantered along through the shadows, searching for a clearing.

She was almost past the cottage before she realized. Alerted by a glimmer of moonlight on stone, she abruptly drew rein, wrestling the mare to a halt, peering through the trees at a single-roomed cottage-more a hovel-gray and unwelcoming; any paint that might once have brightened the door and shutters had flaked away long ago.

Not a flicker of light shone through the shuttered windows, but it was after midnight.

Charles, coming up hard on the mare’s heels, swore, rearing and wheeling his big gray.

She glanced at him; for an instant, in the silvery moonlight with his curling black hair, he appeared a black pirate on a moon-kissed steed, performing a dramatic maneuver that should have demanded his full attention-yet his attention was fixed on the cottage.

His horse’s front hooves touched ground; Charles urged him under the trees screening the front of the cottage. She turned her mare and followed.

Charles halted under the trees between Penny and the cottage. His senses, honed by years of danger, had tensed, condensed; something was wrong.

He took a moment to work out what. Even at night, even if there was no human about, there were always insects, small animals, always a faint, discernible hum of life. He couldn’t detect any such hum in or around the cottage. Even the insects had deserted it.

He’d seen death too often not to recognize its pall.

He dismounted. “Stay here with the horses.” He tossed his reins to Penny, briefly met her eyes. “Don’t follow me. Wait until I call.”

He turned to the cottage, went forward silently even though he felt sure there was no one there. The door was ajar; his sense of foreboding increased.

Glancing back, he saw Penny, dismounted, tying the reins of both horses to a tree. Looking back at the cottage, he put out a hand, pushed the door wide, simultaneously stepping to the side. The door swung inward, almost fully open before it banged on something wooden.

No other sound came from within.

Charles glanced inside. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the deeper darkness, then he saw a form slumped unmoving on the floor.

He swore, scanned with his senses one last time, but there was no one else there, then stepped to the doorway. The smell told him what lay in the cottage wasn’t going to be a pretty sight. He sensed Penny drawing nearer. “Don’t come any closer-you don’t need to see this.”

“What?” Then, more weakly, “Is he dead?”

No point pretending. “Yes.”

He saw tinder and a candle on a rough wooden table. Hauling in a breath, he held it, then stepped over the threshold. The wick caught, flared; he shielded the flame until it was steady, then he lifted the candle and looked.

His senses hadn’t lied.

He heard Penny’s sharp, shocked gasp, heard her quit the doorway, slumping back against the cottage wall. His gaze locked on the body strewn like a broken puppet on the rough plank floor, he moved closer, holding the candle up so he could better see.

After a moment, he hunkered down, through narrowed eyes studied the young man’s face.

“What happened?”

He glanced at the doorway, saw Penny clutching the jamb, looking in.

“Is it Gimby?” she asked.

He looked again at the face. “I assume so-from what the old man told us, he’s the right age and build.”

Putting out a hand, he unfurled one of the youth’s slack, crumpled hands, and found the calluses and ridges marking him as one who earned his living from the sea. “Yes,” he said. “It’s Gimby Smollet.”

Again his gaze went to the youth’s face, noting the ugly weals and bruises. He recognized the pattern, could predict where on the youth’s body other brusies would be found-over his kidneys, covering his lower ribs, most of which would be broken. His hands and fingers had been methodically smashed, repeatedly, over some time, hours at least.

Someone had wanted information from Gimby, information Gimby either had refused to give or hadn’t known to give. He’d been beaten until his interrogator had been sure there was no more to learn, then Gimby had been dispatched, his throat cut with, it seemed, a single stroke.

Charles rose, his gaze going to Penny. “There’s nothing we can do, other than inform the authorities.”

Waving her back, he joined her, pulling the door closed on the dead youth, careful to keep buried all signs of the deep unease flooding him.

“He was murdered, wasn’t he?” Penny said. “How long ago?”

A good question. “At least yesterday, possibly the day before.”

She swallowed; her voice was thready. “After we started asking questions.”

He reached for her hand, gripped hard. “That may have nothing to do with it.”

She glanced at him; he saw in her eyes that she believed that no more than he. At least she didn’t look to be heading for hysterics.

“What now? Who should we tell?”

He paused, considering. “Culver’s the local magistrate-I’ll ride over and inform him first thing in the morning. There’s no sense in rousing him and his staff at this hour-there’s nothing anyone can do now that won’t be better done in daylight.” He looked at Penny, caught her eye. “Incidentally, you aren’t here.”

Her lips tightened, but she nodded. She glanced back at the cottage. “So we just leave him?”

He squeezed her hand again. “He’s not really there.” He drew in a breath, filling his lungs with cleaner air, noting the faint breeze rising off the estuary. “Before we go, I want to look at his boats.”

Leaving that to the morning was a risk he was no longer prepared to take. Someone else was there, someone with training similar to his own.

Someone with a background similar to his own.

He didn’t let go of Penny’s hand. Towing her with him, he checked she’d tied the horses securely, then crossed the track to the river. They were both local-born; they knew what they were searching for-a tiny inlet, a miniature cove, a narrow gorge cut by a minor stream-some such would be the Smollets’ mooring place.

They found it a hundred yards upriver, an inlet carved by a minor stream just wide enough for a boat and heavily overhung by the arching branches of the trees that at that spot marched down almost to the river’s edge.

The rowboat, moored to a heavy ring set in a tree trunk, bobbed on the rising tide. A quick glance inside revealed nothing more than the usual fisherman’s clutter-ropes, tackle, two rods, assorted nets, and two lobster pots.

Charles turned his attention to the second boat, hauled up out of the water and lashed to trees fore and aft. One glance and his eyes widened; the old sailor hadn’t been embellishing-the craft was a superb piece of work, sleek and trim. Under sail, it would fly.

Penny had already gone to it. When he came up, she was sitting on a log beside the prow; with one hand she was tracing, it seemed wonderingly, the name painted there.

Charles hunkered down beside her. Julie Lea. The name meant nothing to him.

“It’s my mother’s name.”

He glanced at Penny; he couldn’t see well enough to read her eyes. He reached for her hand, simply held it.

“Her name was Julie-everyone knew her as that, just Julie. Only my father ever called her by both her names-Julie Lea.”

He stayed beside her, let a few minutes tick by, then rose. “Stay there. I need to search inside.”

Not as easy as with the rowboat; the yacht, for it was that, just a very small one, had a canvas cover lashed over it. The knots were sailors’ knots; he unraveled those at the stern, then peeled the cover back.

Mast, rigging, sails, oars-all the necessary paraphernalia. But he suspected there would be more. Eventually, he found what he was looking for; leaning into the yacht, reaching beneath the forward bench, he pulled out a crumpled bundle of line and material, a set of signals.

Penny saw; she stood, dusting off her breeches as he strung out the line. She came around the boat to peer at the flags, colored squares carrying various designs. “What are they? I don’t recognize them.”

He hesitated, then said, “French naval signals.” He recognized enough to be sure. “Flying these, the yacht wouldn’t need to make actual contact with any French ship, just come within spyglass sight of them.”

Penny reached out and tapped one flag. “And this?”

Charles paused, then said, “You know what that is.”

She nodded. “The Selborne crest.” Drawing breath was suddenly difficult. “How could they?”

He regathered the flags, bundling them up. Evenly said, “We don’t yet know exactly what they did.”

She felt her face harden. “Yes, we do. Whenever Amberly gave Papa a secret worth selling, he sent Smollet out to sail close to the Isles, running these signals in sight of some French ship. The flags told the French when and where to send the lugger, and then Papa went out with one of the smuggling gangs and spoke with some Frenchman and gave our enemies English government secrets in exchange for pillboxes. Later, when it was Granville, he sent Gimby to fetch the French-and now Gimby’s been murdered.”

Disgust and revulsion colored her words, the emotions so strong she could almost taste them.

“Actually”-Charles’s voice, in contrast, was cool, his tones incisive-“while your mechanism is almost certainly correct, we don’t yet know what they were passing.”

“Something the French were willing to pay for with jeweled antiquities-you’ve seen the pillboxes.” She looked away.

“True, but-” He thrust the bundled flags into her hands, then caught her arms, forcing her to look at him. “Penny, I know this type of game-I’ve been playing it for the last thirteen years. Things are often not what they seem.”

She couldn’t read his eyes, but could feel his gaze on her face.

His grip gentled. “I need to send a messenger to London-there’s a possibility Dalziel might not have checked. You heard Dennis Gibbs. Your father might have been involved in something deeper than the obvious.”

He was trying to find excuses so she wouldn’t feel so devastated, so totally betrayed by her father and brother. It was an actual pain in her chest, quite acute. Charles was trying his best to ease it, but…numbly, she nodded.

She watched while he covered the yacht and lashed the canvas down. Grateful for the dark; grateful for the quiet. She felt dreadful. She’d had her suspicions, not just recently but for years; over the last months, it seemed every few weeks she’d discover something more, uncover something worse that painted her father and brother in ever-more-dastardly shades.

In some distant recess of her mind, she was aware that her deep-seated reaction to the whole notion of treason was tied up with what she’d felt-if she was truthful still felt-for Charles. The idea that her father and brother could, purely for their own gain, have done things that would have put Charles and those like him in danger-even more danger than they’d already faced-rocked her to her core, filled her with something far more violent than mere fury, something far more powerful and corrosive than disdain.

Charles straightened, checked his knots, then tested the ropes holding the yacht. She wondered vaguely at the fate that had landed her there, a hundred yards from her brother’s fishing friend who’d almost certainly been murdered for his part in their scheme, with the evidence of their perfidy in her hands-and it was Charles beside her in the night.

“Come on.” He lifted the signals from her, took her arm. “Let’s go home.”

He meant the Abbey, and she was glad of it. Wallingham Hall was her home, yet her thoughts of her father and Granville were presently so disturbing she doubted she’d find any peace there.

Reaching the horses, Charles tied the signals to his saddle, tossed her up to hers, then mounted and led the way, not back but on. A little farther along, the river path connected with another wider track leading back to the Lostwithiel road.

They clattered into the Abbey stable yard in the small hours. Again Charles waved his stableman back to his bed. Catching the mare’s reins, he led both horses in and turned them into their stalls.

Penny went to unsaddle, only then realized she was shaking. It was, apparently, one thing to speculate and wonder, even to acknowledge and investigate, but quite another to find a recently murdered henchman along with indisputable proof of her father and brother’s complicity in treason.

Her mind felt battered, oddly detached. Dragging in a breath, she held it, and forced her hands to work, to unsaddle the mare and rub her down.

Charles glanced her way, but said nothing.

When he finished with his horse, he came to help her, without a word taking over rubbing the mare down. She relinquished the task, checked the feed and water, then leaned against the side of the stall and waited.

He’d left the tangle of signal flags on top of the stall wall. From amid the jumble, the Selborne crest mocked her. She turned away.

Charles came out of the stall, shut the door, picked up the flags, with his other hand took hers. They walked up to the house and entered through the garden door; in the front hall, he tugged her away from the stairs. “Come into the library.”

She went, too exhausted even to wonder why. He towed her across the room, paused beside his desk to thrust the signal flags into a drawer, then towed her farther-to the tantalus.

Releasing her, he poured two glasses of brandy. Catching one of her hands, he lifted it and pressed one glass into it. “Drink.”

She stared at the glass. “I don’t drink brandy.”

He sipped his own drink, met her gaze. “Would you prefer I tip it down your throat?”

She stared at him through the shadows, wondered if he was bluffing…realized, rather dizzyingly, that he wasn’t. She sipped. Pulled a face. “It’s ghastly.”

Nose wrinkling, she held the glass away.

He shifted nearer.

Eyes flaring, she whipped the glass back to her lips, and sipped.

He stood there, a foot away, sipping his own drink, watching her until she’d drained the glass.

“Good.” He took it from her, put both glasses down, then took her hand again.

She was getting rather tired of being towed, but on the other hand, it meant she didn’t have to think.

Her acquiescence worried Charles. He knew what she believed, knew it was eating at her. He didn’t like seeing her in this state; she seemed so internally fragile, as if something inside might shatter at any moment. He’d always seen her as someone he should protect; for that very reason, he couldn’t utter the platitudes he might have used to calm another. He couldn’t offer her false hope.

He would send a rider to London tomorrow; although there shouldn’t have been any contact with the French that Dalziel hadn’t known about, hadn’t, indeed, been in charge of, it was possible there had been something going on that Dalziel hadn’t got wind of.

A long shot, but a possibility, one he needed checked.

Meanwhile, Penny’s state of mind was only one of his worries, and potentially the easiest to address.

His state of mind was even more uncertain.

He pulled her to a halt in the gallery, in front of a window so the moonlight, now fading, spilled in and lit her face. He studied it as, surprised, she blinked up at him.

Foreseeing the battle looming, he hissed out a frustrated breath. Releasing her, he raked a hand through his hair. “I’m no longer sure it’s a wise idea for you to go back to Wallingham Hall.”

Her attention abruptly refocused; she frowned as she followed his train of thought. “You mean because Gimby was murdered?” Her frown grew more definite. “You think Nicholas did it.”

“Other than you and me, who else has been asking after Granville’s associates?”

“Why?”

“To stop us learning whatever Gimby knew-whatever he presumably learned from Gimby before he killed him.”

Slowly, she nodded; her gaze went past him-he couldn’t see her eyes, couldn’t imagine what she was thinking.

Reaching out, he caught her chin and turned her face back to him. “You should remain here. We can set up a closer watch on Nicholas-”

“No.” She lifted her chin from his hand, but kept her eyes on his. “We agreed. If I’m there, I can keep a much more comprehensive eye on him, and you can visit freely as well. The more we’re about, the more likely he’ll grow rattled-”

“And what happens if, growing rattled, he decides perhaps you know too much?”

He thought she paled, but her gaze didn’t waver. If anything, her chin set more mulishly.

“Charles, there are two very good, very powerful and compelling reasons why I should return to Wallingham. The first is because keeping a close eye on Nicholas, especially if he was the one who killed Gimby, is vital. We need to know what Nicholas is doing, and I’m the person best able to learn that from inside the Hall, which also gives you a reason for visiting often and generally being around. Moreover, there’s the fact it was my father and brother who were running secrets to the French. It’s my family’s honor that’s been besmirched-”

“It’s not up to you to make restitution.” Hands on his hips, he loomed over her. “You don’t have to do that. No one would expect-”

“I don’t care what anyone else expects!” She didn’t budge an inch. “It’s what I expect, and it’s what I’ll do.”

“Penny-”

“No!” She fixed her eyes, glittering belligrently, on his. “Just tell me one thing-if you were in my shoes, wouldn’t you feel, and do, the same?”

His jaw set so hard he thought it would crack. Lips tightly compressed, he made no answer.

She nodded. “Exactly. So I’ll go to Wallingham in the morning as arranged.”

“What was your second oh-so-compelling reason?” If he could find any weakness, he’d exploit it.

She thought, then thought some more. He simply waited.

Eventually, her eyes steady on his, she said, “Because you were right. It’s not at all wise for me to stay under the same roof as you. You are a far greater threat to me than Nicholas is likely to be.”

He looked down into her stormy gray eyes, drank in the directness, the blatant honesty in her gaze, and felt the inevitable reaction to her words-to her admission-rise through him. He clenched his hands tight on his hips. Slowly said, “I would much rather you were at risk from me than from any other man. I, at least, am not interested in murdering you.”

But what you could do to my heart would hurt even more. Penny held back the words, forced herself to take a long slow breath before saying, “Nevertheless, I’ll leave for Wallingham in the morning.”

She went to step back.

He swore, and reached for her.

She’d been watching, but was far too slow; he grabbed her, jerked her to him, then his lips came down on hers.