Chapter 23 #3
“None of that matters.” I traced the shape of his jaw with my fingertips, stopping with my thumb on his bottom lip.
He watched me, not seeming to breathe. “You saved me, Alexander Rawlings,” I whispered.
“And I shall never forget it.” I rose onto my toes and pressed the lightest of kisses to his lips.
He let me, his hand going to my waist, pulling me close for one beautiful second.
The cut on my neck twinged, but the pain was distant—unimportant—when his lips were against mine.
Then he stepped back, breath ragged. “Please, Beatrice,” he said. “I can’t. We can’t.”
I blinked. “Why is that?”
“I should not have kissed you yesterday.” He ran a hand through his hair, damp and curling at the ends. “I am your protector, and you are a guest in my home. I will not take advantage of you in that way.”
“Yes, because clearly I find your kisses abhorrent,” I said dryly.
“It is no laughing matter,” he said. “I am trying to be a gentleman. What I did yesterday, how I acted—”
“Heavens above.” I threw up my hands. “We both nearly died tonight, and you are worried about propriety?”
“With you?” His eyes flickered. “Always.”
My head lightened suddenly, my stomach flipping. I took a deep breath and one step forward. He did not back away again.
“If you hadn’t kissed me, I would have kissed you,” I said. “Does that make you feel any better?”
His mouth parted, and he swallowed, and I thought that perhaps I’d gotten through to him and that he would finally take me in his arms and kiss me. After tonight, there was nothing more I wanted in all the world than his arms around me.
The door opened, and Mrs. Rawlings stepped inside with a tea tray, and I could not think of anything so frustrating as being interrupted by the mother of the man one wished to thoroughly kiss.
She saw us standing close together, and there was not one jot of surprise in her expression. She only came to set the tray down on the table in front of the sofa.
“Take some tea, Miss Lacey,” she said briskly. “It will do you good.”
She poured me a cup, added liberal amounts of cream and sugar, and held it out to me. I took it with a sigh and sat again on the sofa.
“The doctor and constable have been sent for,” Mrs. Rawlings said to Alexander. “They should arrive within the hour.”
He nodded absently. How I wished I knew what thoughts were trailing through his head at that very instant.
“They took the body to the coach house,” she said in a quieter tone. “You said you wanted to search it.”
Alexander exhaled. “Yes. I’ll do that now.”
Yet he hesitated, not wanting to leave me, I was sure. I gave him a slight nod. I was well enough here without him, even if it was certainly not what I preferred. His expression loosened slightly, and he strode from the room.
Mrs. Rawlings sat on the sofa beside me and served herself a cup of tea. For a long minute, there was nothing but silence between us, the clink of spoons against teacups almost deafening.
“I feel I must thank you yet again, Miss Lacey,” she said suddenly, setting down her teacup.
“Thank me?”
“For what you did tonight.”
“For luring a dangerous criminal into your home?” I asked, incredulous.
“No,” she said, and there was a tone in her voice I’d never heard before. Softness. “For risking your life to save mine.”
“I didn’t—”
“You did,” she said firmly. “I would never have been able to outrun him. You drew him away.”
I shook my head. “He was there for me. How could I let him hurt you or any of the household?”
She gave a short laugh—not in humor but in disbelief. “What sort of woman are you, Miss Lacey? I cannot, for the life of me, understand you.”
“Perhaps because your foundational beliefs about me were so very misguided,” I said, my tone only slightly sardonic.
“There is truth to that,” she admitted. “I am finding it difficult to reconcile what I assumed about you with what I now know. But what I know, little as it might be, is . . .” She swallowed. “Good. In fact, I think you might be a very good person indeed.”
Tears pricked my eyes, and I dropped my gaze, a lump in my throat.
“And perhaps,” she went on, her voice gruff, “perhaps you might even be good enough for my Alexander.”
I exhaled a little laugh, raw and raspy. “Do not say things you do not mean, Mrs. Rawlings.”
“I never do.”
I met her eyes again. She held her head high, hands clasped primly in her lap.
“Thank you,” I said softly.
She nodded, picked up her tea, and began sipping as if she hadn’t just bared her soul to me.
Alexander returned a half hour later, shaking the rain from his coat. He looked immediately to me, as though reassuring himself that I was safe. Stroud followed him inside, looking rather pale as he closed the door.
I sat up straight, holding my teacup tightly. “Did you find anything?” I wasn’t sure I really wished to know. I was only glad I did not ever have to see that man again, dead or alive.
Alexander’s jaw tightened, and he gestured to Stroud, who suddenly looked as if he’d rather swallow glass than be in this room. “We’ve had another development.”
“What has Stroud to do with this?” Mrs. Rawlings asked.
The butler stepped forward, gulping. “I helped carry the body to the coach house,” he said, his voice weak, though I imagined carrying a body would do that to a person. “And I recognized him.”
I stared. “You knew him?”
“I did not know him,” he clarified. “That is, I spoke to him in London, when I went to—” He stopped, but we all knew. When he’d gone to investigate me.
“He found me in a pub,” Stroud went on, addressing the ground. “Said he’d heard that I’d been asking about you. He told me a few things, which I know now to be false”—his gaze finally flicked to me—“and asked me some questions in return. I thought it was simply conversation, but looking back . . .”
“It is clear that he was searching for Miss Lacey,” Alexander finished tightly, the muscles in his neck drawn tight as a bowstring. “In fact, I am quite sure he followed Stroud to Briarstone. If so, he was likely here for days.”
I blinked. “Days? But then . . .” My voice cut out.
“What is it?” Alexander asked, brow furrowed.
I tried again. “Two days ago, before you left for London, I thought I saw someone watching the house.”
Alexander’s gaze sharpened on mine. “And you did not tell me?”
“I should have,” I said. “I’m sorry, truly. But I convinced myself I imagined it. Now I can only assume that was how he knew where my room was.”
Stroud hung his head. “I must beg your forgiveness, Miss Lacey,” he said, remorse clear in his voice. “And I shall resign my post immediately.”
The room was quiet, the crackling of the fire the only sound. Mrs. Rawlings gaped at Stroud.
I was past feeling, exhaustion catching me in its hold. I could not summon any amount of anger. “You’ll do no such thing,” I said tiredly. “You acted out of loyalty to Mrs. Rawlings and to Mr. Rawlings. I see no reason why such a thing should be punished.”
Alexander raised his brow. “Near death is not reason enough?”
I shot him a look. “That is hardly what Stroud intended.”
“I think I can manage my own household,” Alexander replied.
I sat back, waving him forward as if to say by all means.
He narrowed his eyes at me but turned to face Stroud. He paused a few seconds. “I do not trust you, Stroud,” he said finally. “Not now, at any rate. You must earn that back.”
Stroud nodded, his expression sober. “Yes, sir. I will do everything I can.”
Alexander sighed. “Very well. We’ll speak more of this later. You may go.”
Stroud left, sending me a look of gratitude as he exited. But Alexander gripped my attention once again as he turned to face me.
“I found something else,” he said, “when I searched the body.”
“What?” I asked, feeling as if I could not quite handle any more revelations tonight.
“A note,” he said, “addressed to a Jasper Rowde. I assume that was his name, though we will make further inquiries in London.”
Jasper Rowde. My mouth twisted to one side. I did not like that the man had a name. It made him human, and I did not want to think of him that way.
“The note was also signed,” Alexander said, “with the initials C. H.”
My eyes flew to his. “Clarissa Haythorne.”
It took a moment for the name to settle in his mind, then he stared at me. “The woman who threatened you? Why would she be writing to this man?”
I held a hand to my forehead. I was just realizing, in the jumble and rush of the night’s events, that I had forgotten entirely what I’d discovered earlier.
“They are working together,” Mrs. Rawlings cut in. “Those robberies you have been investigating were undertaken by Miss Haythorne and this man. Miss Lacey made the connection not an hour ago.”
I nodded, grateful as she explained everything I’d told her tonight. Alexander listened with a furrowed brow, shooting me an occasional glance until she finished.
“I admit I was skeptical when she came to me,” Mrs. Rawlings said finally. “It sounds rather fantastical. But I think now we have little reason to doubt. The man proved it himself.”
I remembered suddenly, sitting forward. “He mentioned Clarissa tonight.” The memory was foggy at best, blurred and warped by the terror I’d felt in the moment. “I can’t quite remember what, but they are certainly in league together.”
Alexander pressed his lips together, crossing his arms. “It actually makes a great deal of sense,” he said finally.
“I kept wondering why the man attacked us at Vauxhall when he might have followed me to any dark and quiet corner of London in the midst of my investigation. But if he was after Beatrice, then Vauxhall was the perfect place to ambush her. Anywhere else, she was too well protected.”
Alexander clasped his hands behind his back and paced the room. I followed him with my eyes, drawn by his steady stride and fierce brow.
“But we have no proof,” he murmured. “Nothing tangible to tie Rowde to the thefts.”
I bit my lip. “There is someone else who could provide that proof, though she won’t do so willingly.”
He turned my way. “Miss Haythorne.”
I nodded. “I would not be surprised if she was indeed the true mastermind.” She’d always been cunning. I could only imagine how she’d been swept up in this affair.
“Then we need to go to London,” he said. “Right away, before she has word of what’s happened.”
My stomach leaped. We. He saw my reaction, and his stern mouth softened.
“We’ll leave at dawn,” he said, confirming my hopes.
“We can leave now.” I sat up straight.
“No, you cannot,” Mrs. Rawlings protested. “The doctor is on his way at this very moment to tend to you, and the constable will need words with you both, I am sure. And you must sleep. I will hear no arguments. There will be no starting off in the middle of the night.”
I was taken aback by the motherly protectiveness in her voice. It appeared that once Mrs. Rawlings decided one was worthy of her approval, she gave it wholeheartedly.
“Very well,” I conceded.
“And,” she said, “I will be coming with you, as Miss Lacey’s chaperone. One must do things properly.”
I opened my mouth to argue but realized quite quickly that it would be pointless. Mrs. Rawlings did not easily give up a position. Besides, in this case, she was right. We should do it properly, considering how vastly everything had changed between Alexander and me.
I nodded, meeting Alexander’s eyes. “At dawn.”