Lady Rosabella's Ruse

‘What is so important about this picture anyway?’ he grumbled while he tested the boards at the other end of the room.

‘It is the only picture we had of my mother.’

‘Why would someone hide it away?’

The man just couldn’t leave well alone. ‘My father couldn’t bear to look at it after she died. He put it away in a safe place for us. When we left, it was forgotten.’

‘It sounds like a very bad play,’ he said. ‘Who can’t bear to look at a picture?’

‘My father loved my mother very much.’

‘As I said, a very bad play,’ he scoffed.

She frowned at him. His gaze was fixed on the floor, but the smile on his lips was not merely mocking, it was bitterly cynical.

‘I suppose you are one of those men who does not believe in love,’ she said, flipping down one corner of the rug and moving to another carpet corner on her side of the room.

‘Love is a fairy tale created by females with nothing better to do than create fantastical events in their heads.’

‘Don’t you love anyone? Your family? Is there no woman you have ever loved?’

‘Family is a duty. I fulfil my responsibilities. I believe in friend ship. It also has responsibilities.’ He looked up, his dark gaze shadowed and unfathomable. ‘But all this emotional talk and poetry about hearing music, the sky being brighter, because you love someone is just so much claptrap. It isn’t possible.’

The vehemence in his tone took her aback. ‘I will admit there are different kinds of love. Love of family is quite different from romantic love. But why would so many people, men and women, write about it, if they have never experienced it?’

‘Because they are in lust. People don’t like to think of their baser urges as the same as unthinking beasts, so they call it another name.’

She gasped. Baser urges. Is that how he saw love? ‘Then what about familial love?’

‘Family members care about each other as long as it benefits them. If it doesn’t, then they don’t.’

Never had she heard anything so cold. What on earth could have caused such a chilly outlook? She flung the carpet back in place and put her hands on her hips. ‘I feel sorry for you, Lord Stanford, if that is how you feel.’

He kicked his corner of the carpet flat. A puff of dust rose up. ‘Indeed, Mrs Travenor. Well, I am not the one searching a stranger’s home for a stray picture that a widower no longer wanted to look at and promptly forgot about because he probably married again to assuage his baser instincts.’

How had he guessed Father had married again? ‘My father never forgot my mother. Never.’

He gave her a dark glance. ‘Are we done here? Are there any other hiding places you can think of?’

‘The study.’

He groaned and pulled out his fob watch, bringing it close to the lantern on the table. ‘It is almost two. After the study, we will leave.’

‘After the study, there is nowhere else to look.’ She’d searched all the other rooms. Oh, how she hoped the study held the answer.

She blew out the candles she’d lit, picked up her lantern and marched along the corridor, all too aware of Stanford trailing behind.

She was aware of his presence all the time. It was like having the devil sitting on your shoulder, whispering tempting words in your ear, because she kept remembering their almost-kiss, kept feeling a glimmer of the heat that had ripped through her body, each time their gazes met. And she had the distinct impression, when he looked at her, that he was remembering it, too.

‘You certainly seem to know your way around,’ he said as she went to the study and flung back the door.

‘Because I lived here,’ she said, not quite disguising the triumph in her voice.

‘Or because this is not the first time you have searched.’

The room was bare of furniture. Not even one picture remained.

‘Oh,’ she said, recalling her father’s oak desk and the heavy wooden chairs. ‘Where is everything?’

Stanford shrugged.

If only Inchbold was here, he would know. She glanced around the oak-panelled walls. Could they hide a secret place? She tried tapping on the wall nearest the door.

Stanford groaned. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘Not to me, it isn’t,’ she said fiercely. Her sisters were depending on her to find the will. They all were. The debts were mounting by the day. Debts to the school. Debts to the doctor. She’d managed to stave them off, but she had borrowed against the certain knowledge they would inherit something by way of her father. When no will was found, everything had gone to his new wife and their son and the debts had remained. Growing more crushing by the day as interest piled on top of interest. She clenched her hands. She would not believe her father had broken his promise.

‘If you want to help, then do so. If not, please stand back.’

She pushed past him to get to the wall on the other side of the door. Her tapping revealed nothing out of the ordinary. With a long-suffering sigh, Stanford inspected the floorboards.

‘There’s nothing here,’ he said after he’d covered every inch of the floor and she had done the same with the walls. She’d even looked up the chimney, which was an old-fashioned one, probably built when the first house occupied the estate.

Her shoulders slumped as defeat washed through her. ‘You are right. There is nothing here.’ And disaster loomed closer.

He shot her a considering look.

She forced a careless shrug. ‘He must have put it somewhere else. Perhaps his second wife has it.’

His mouth tightened. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Me, too. There is no point in searching any longer. It is time we went home to our beds.’

The hot look he sent her way seared her skin everywhere it touched and it roamed her at will. As if he’d like to eat her up. Or kiss her.

The thought of comfort in a pair of strong arms was very tempting right at this moment. It seemed like years since she’d had anyone to lean on. She forced her gaze away. ‘Let us go.’

Outside, she locked the door and put the key in her pocket. ‘I will return it to the servant tomorrow.’ In an oppressive silence they walked across the lawn and into the woods, with only the light of the lantern to guide their steps.

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ she said. ‘About the miniature?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t the owner give you permission to look?’

‘He took the furnishings in lieu of rent,’ she said. ‘He would say the miniature also belonged to him.’

‘In that case, I’m afraid it does.’

She halted. ‘Have you no compassion at all?’

His gaze searched her face, the light from the lantern emphasising the starkness of his features, the high cheekbones, the angular jaw. The bleakness in his eyes. ‘None.’

‘Heaven help you, then.’

He gave that short laugh of his. ‘It won’t.’

She wanted to shake him. Then realisation flooded through her. ‘You are going to contact the owner, aren’t you?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you are lying.’

‘How can you say that?’

His lips twisted. ‘Do you want to know how I can tell when a woman is lying?’

She stared at him. ‘How?’

‘Her lips are moving.’

She recoiled. ‘What cynicism, my lord. Perhaps you have been mixing with the wrong kind of women.’

He inclined his head a fraction. ‘Perhaps.’ He took her arm firmly and urged her forwards. ‘But you are lying, nonetheless.’

Blast the man, she was, but not about what was important in this matter. ‘What I seek is rightfully mine.’

‘If so, you would not be sneaking around in the dark.’

Implacable. She jerked her arm free of his hand. ‘If I had any other choice, do you think I wouldn’t take it?’

Oh, dash it all, were those tears she heard in her voice? She despised tears. She swallowed the hot lump in her throat. ‘Fine. Tell whoever you wish.’ She broke into a run, slipping and sliding on the sodden ground, hearing his heavy steps behind her. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?

‘Mrs Travenor,’ he said in low impatient tones. ‘Stop. You will fall and hurt yourself.’

She broke through the trees and saw the light of the house ahead. She lifted her skirts higher, ran faster.

A hand caught her arm. Swung her around. Held her upright. And then she was pressed against a hard wall of male chest. It rose and fell from running. As did hers. Heat invaded her breasts and thighs. She struggled to free her arms. He drew her closer, using only one hand, and lifted the lantern. Grim-faced he glared down at her. ‘What in hell’s name do you think you are doing?’

‘Let go of me.’

If anything he tightened his grip. The heat of the day before swirled around them. She stared at his mouth. At the lips that once more tempted. She could not tear her gaze away.

‘Rose,’ he whispered.

He bent his head and took her mouth.

She grabbed his lapels, stood on tiptoes and pressed against him, kissed him back. It seemed the only way to quench the fire in her blood.

A groan rumbled up from his chest. Her breasts tingled and tightened. She put her arms around his neck.

On a gasp, he broke the kiss.

A sense of loss engulfed her. Longing.

Retaining his grip on her shoulders, he blew out the lantern and set it down. ‘Now,’ he murmured, ‘where were we?’ Both arms went around her, one hand at her nape, the other around her waist, and once more their lips melded.

She felt as if she was flying ten feet off the ground. A dizzying, exciting sensation. Her body hummed with a longing to burrow against him. His tongue slipped through her parted lips and into her mouth. Her limbs became heavy and languid, her mind empty of all but the heat and the hunger. When his tongue retreated, she followed it with her own, tasting the darkness of his mouth, the brandy and pleasure.

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