Chapter 13
Chapter Thirteen
Morning brought no peace.
Olivia had slept as if in a dream, only to wake with her body still thrumming from Gabriel’s touch. His cologne lingered on her nightgown. The faint ache between her thighs stirred memories of his voice, his hands, the hunger in his eyes when he brought her to completion.
He’d been right to urge caution.
Such intimacy did more than blur boundaries. It left her tethered to him in ways she couldn’t explain. She felt him still, as if he lived beneath her skin. As she dressed, the whisper of fabric over her thighs made her catch her breath, as though he were there, touching her again.
When he appeared at breakfast, immaculate in his dark blue coat, their eyes met and her heart stuttered. Heat unfurled in her belly, a want she dared not indulge.
He came to her, his fingers finding hers as he brushed a chaste kiss across her knuckles. The fleeting contact, the charged awareness between them, had her clenching her thighs beneath the table.
“I thought I’d come down to find you finishing your coffee,” she said, conscious of his gaze on her body.
“It took me a while to settle after I left you last night.”
Oh, she was back there in a heartbeat, her shoulders pressed to the wall, moonlight softening his features but doing nothing to tame the rough sound in his throat as he pushed into her.
A blush warmed her cheeks. “Troubling thoughts about the case?”
“A man’s mind wanders in the small hours. It’s difficult to rest when one is plagued by hard problems.”
“Let’s pray Mrs Hodge can tell us something useful today.” She didn’t hold out much hope. There was every chance she had been used as a pawn in this game too. “It’s impossible to know who to trust.”
“Indeed.” He took his seat at the head of the table, dismissing the footmen before they poured his coffee. “I don’t care for gossip, and someone in this house has a loose tongue.”
“You refer to Miss Bourne and her knowledge of our sleeping arrangements?” The woman wormed her way into every conversation. Would it always be this way? “She obviously feels comfortable enough to come and go as she pleases.”
“We’ll visit her aunt on our return from World’s End. Ensure Miss Bourne knows she’s not welcome without an invitation.”
Olivia glanced at her plain grey dress and almost groaned. “I can’t call on a neighbour looking like the newly hired governess.”
Her husband leaned back in the chair, his thumb brushing his lip in languid appraisal. Anyone would think she wore nothing but Chantilly lace and silk stockings.
“You look like passion wrapped in mystery. I doubt any man would find a more tempting combination.”
Her composure faltered for a heartbeat. For someone who claimed to live behind stone walls, he said the most beautiful things. She touched the gold band on her finger, wondering what he had inscribed inside.
“Commanding a room is about presence, not clothing,” he added. “You put Miss Bourne in her place last night while wearing a nightgown.”
“I did have a pistol in my pocket.”
He smiled. “Then carry it with you today. Your secret weapon.”
He was her secret weapon. But she did as he suggested, tucking the pistol into her reticule before they set out for World’s End. They had barely reached the gravel drive when Gabriel spotted Mr Kincaid’s new assistant and swore.
“I told you to bring someone with an excellent aim, not a twelve-year-old boy from the stables.”
Poor Alfie, who’d been sitting proudly atop the box, slumped in his seat. “On my oath, milord, I can shoot better than any man here. Ask Mr Kincaid. I split a bottle top from ten yards.”
“I feel uneasy about bringing the lad too,” Mr Kincaid said, nudging the boy and offering an encouraging smile, “but he reckons he’s got a debt to pay and a point to prove. And he’s a better shot than me, I’ll give him that.”
“I won’t have a child in the line of fire. What the devil were you thinking?”
“That he’d nae forgive me if I left him behind, my lord.” Mr Kincaid gave a discreet jerk of his head towards the boy. “’Tis important to feel at home. Every soul needs a hearth to belong to, else he’s naught but smoke on the wind.”
Alfie dragged off his cap, his freckled face earnest. “I swear I’ll be no trouble, milord.”
“But can you swear you’ll stay alive?”
“Happen the point is to make sure you and Lady Rothley come to no harm, but I’ll do me best.”
Gabriel sighed. “Very well. But it will be Kincaid’s neck on the block if anything happens to you.”
They set out for World’s End.
Gabriel sat opposite, composed as ever while the countryside rolled past in a blur of green and grey. Olivia tried to focus on the view, not the man. Yet her gaze wandered of its own accord, tracing the long lines of his body, the strong hands resting on his knees.
For one dangerous moment, she imagined herself straddling his lap, skirts to her thighs, her husband moving inside her, each—
“Rein in your imagination, my lady, at least until tonight,” he said in that velvet voice she loved. “As much as I want you, I won’t indulge in reckless behaviour with Alfie aboard.”
She laughed to hide her mild embarrassment. “You sound so sure of yourself, my lord. I was merely daydreaming about—”
“Having me, Olivia. Your tongue brushes your bottom lip when you’re thinking about the things we do together.”
Forced to admit it, she said, “Isn’t that what you intended? To introduce me to the sensual art of seduction. To make me want you.”
He didn’t have to try too hard.
“You need to want me when I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”
“Then I shall bear that in mind.”
By the time they reached World’s End, the windows had fogged, and Olivia had counted every beat between his glances and hers. Not once had he looked away first.
Mrs Hodge’s red-brick cottage stood silent, its shutters drawn. Weeds choked the path, and the garden had run wild. An eerie stillness had Olivia glancing back at the coach, wishing they’d left Alfie behind.
Gabriel rapped twice on the weathered door and waited.
No answer.
“She should be home from the market by now.” A prickle of unease raised the hair at her nape. What if Mrs Hodge had been dealt with too? “Mr Harper always gives her a ride in his cart.”
Gabriel tried the door and found it locked, then opened the shutters, cupping his hands to the glass as he peered through the grimy pane.
“She’s not inside,” he said, stepping back from the window. “But it appears she had visitors last night. There are cups on the table, two chairs drawn to the fire, and signs she left in haste this morning.”
Strange. In the weeks Olivia had rented the cottage, she had never known Mrs Hodge entertain.
“While Mrs Hodge is away, perhaps we should visit the mausoleum.” Standing idle would do little to stem her nerves or the feeling they were being watched from the trees. “I brought the key, and it’s safer in the daylight.”
“Agreed. And it may be worth checking the cottage next door. Mrs Hodge, or the careless watch, may have left it unlocked.”
He told Kincaid to keep his eyes peeled and decided Alfie would be better off waiting in the carriage. “You can catch any bandits by surprise and give us an advantage.”
The doors to Olivia’s old cottage were locked, yet Gabriel stared at the narrow path that ran from the back garden to the graveyard. He crouched, his trousers pulling taut over his powerful thighs, and touched the ruts too deep to have been washed away by rain.
“The man found dead in your cottage was killed in the graveyard and dragged through the gate, not carried,” he said.
She came to stand beside him and studied the deep grooves in the earth, marks left by the heels of a man’s boots. One person had killed Mr Lovelace and staged the scene.
“I’m not strong enough to drag a man through the garden and up the stairs.”
“But why blame you?” He stood and brushed the soil from his hands. “They must believe you have something that could expose them. Seeing you in Newgate achieves two goals. It keeps you from running, and gives them the chance to bribe a guard to beat the truth from you.”
A shiver traced her spine. The logic was sound. Too sound.
“Then why try to kill me?”
“I doubt killing you was the plan.” He looked about, wary as a wolf on the scent. “More likely, he meant to frighten you into giving him what he wanted.”
The words dragged her back to that night, the cold press of stone, the scrape of boots behind her. Her stomach tightened. She forced the images away, clinging instead to the memory of Gabriel’s commanding voice.
He’d not abandoned her.
He’d come back.
“I’m just so grateful you came when you did.”
His eyes found hers. “I knew you needed me.”
Perhaps he needed her too, though she didn’t say it aloud. “Then we must believe fate is on our side.”
That thought stayed with her as they walked past crooked headstones, overgrown grass peppered with wild violets, and a rotting wooden bench slick with algae. When they reached the steps of the mausoleum, they found the door ajar.
“Someone has prised the damn thing open.” Gabriel stepped forward, forcing her to remain behind him as he pushed the door wider and glanced cautiously inside.
She caught hold of his coat. “Well?”
“Everything is as we left it.”
She exhaled, not realising she’d been holding her breath. She’d expected to find… who knew what. “Mr Daventry believes the answers lie here, but it’s hard to know what we’re looking for. Why not just hide a list of names? Why the complex puzzle?”
“It had to be cryptic. Hidden from everyone but you. Your father knew they’d kill you once they had it. If only we knew what it was.”
They stood in silence, reading the epitaphs on the two stone tombs, but decided against moving the lid of the wooden coffin on the floor.
“There’s every chance that’s what made you ill,” he said.
“What if the clue is inside the casket?”
He seemed unwilling to accept the possibility. “A man who cared for you wouldn’t ask you to examine a corpse.”