Chapter 3 #2
Her devoted butler wasn’t the usual lady’s companion, but then again, Lady Mistree was an unusual sort of grande dame. Bull was smiling as he sank down beside her, still holding her hand. “Ye’re looking elegant as always, darling.”
“Pish,” she scolded, sending him a fond smile.
“I look like a walking skeleton, which I might as well be.” She settled back with a faint sigh, her eyes bright as she glanced around the room at all the portraits.
“I wanted to see them all, one last time. Many of them are like old friends, you understand. They deserved a goodbye.”
And for the first time in a long while, Bull wasn’t sure what to say.
He’d been friends with the Countess for a long time, their good-natured flirtation starting even before she’d lost her husband.
Last spring she’d declared she was dying, and used that nonsense as an excuse to start giving Bull’s friends and family—whom she only knew through his stories—their ‘inheritances’, much to everyone’s surprise.
It had seemed like a lark then.
Now?
Now, seeing her like this, he could believe her claim.
Swallowing past the lump of emotion in his throat, Bull squeezed her fingers. “I shall miss ye, ye ken.”
“Good,” the old woman said simply, still staring at the artwork around her with a faint smile. “We can only hope for that; to be remembered and missed by those we love.” She turned her bright gaze on him. “And I do love you, Bull dearest. Never doubt that.”
His voice was all raspy when he managed, “Love ye too, Eliza.”
He’d never known his grandmother, but if he had, he doubted she’d be anything like Lady Mistree. Eliza was in a class all of her own—gallivanting about the world with her True Love Reggie, collecting outrageous trinkets, and giving them away to people she barely knew.
Speaking of which…
In an effort to lighten the mood, Bull squeezed her fingers again. “Ye ken I still havenae received my magical inheritance. Surely ye planned on giving me a enchanted rock? Perhaps in a delightfully naughty shape?”
“Bull, darling, if I had a naughty-shaped rock, you would be the first one I would give it to. But no, you will get what is coming to you. For now, though…” She released his hand, and scrabbled for her reticule.
“I have something in here for you. Do you think it might finally be time to show me those sleight-of-hand skills of yours? Would you like to pick my pocket?”
He smiled a little sadly. “Ye ken I dinnae do that sort of thing anymore, Eliza. I’ve learned that if I’m willing to do it today for a good reason, I’ll do it tomorrow for a bad one.”
When her smile bloomed—still bright on her gaunt face—Bull knew he’d said the right thing.
“You are a good man.” She patted his hand. “Perhaps it is time to share those skills with someone else, and allow them the chance to join you on your adventure?”
Well, that made no sense. Bull shook his head and opened his mouth to ask her to explain, but the old woman thrust her reticule toward him. “Here, open this for me. The ties are so fiddly.”
Obediently, Bull opened the bejeweled bag, noting the delicate stitching and the attention to detail on the handle as Eliza reached a frail hand inside…only to emerge with a small jewelry box.
“Here, my dear boy.” She held it toward him, her gaze intent. “I have been holding onto this for the right moment. Your inheritance from me, Bull. Thank you for being a light in my last years. Never doubt that you make the world a better place.”
When was the last time his hands had shaken like this? Not since he’d gained utter control of them so many years before. His fingers always knew where they were, even when they couldn’t be still. Now, though…
He reached for the small box, his throat tight with emotion. “Carved ivory, eh?” The design was exquisite. “Are ye sure ye want to part with it?” He managed to send a teasing smile her way. “It must be worth a fortune.”
“To the elephant, at least.” She made a little shooing gesture. “Reggie picked it up on a ramble in India. Your inheritance is inside, dear boy.
The lid lifted to reveal… “A ring?” A gold band with a single, small emerald. An engagement band, perhaps. He noticed her gloveless hands as he lifted his eyes to Lady Mistree’s. “Eliza…it’s yers?”
Smiling gently, she held up her hand to reveal an ornately crafted diamond ring. “Oh darling, no. Reggie gave me this one. But that one…” She nodded to the box in Bull’s hands. “That has been in my family for a very long time.”
“I cannae take this, Eliza,” Bull blurted in almost panic, thrusting it back toward her. He was merely a bastard-born detective who lusted over a woman he wasn’t allowed, and scowled at strange mustaches doing him a favor; not the sort of man who should be taking an old woman’s heirloom.
But she clutched her reticule to her chest and leaned away. “You will. Do not take it for yourself, dear boy, but for your future. When you meet the right woman, that band will fit perfectly on her finger and you will know she is the one for you.”
Och, nay.
Bull shifted on the wooden bench, trying to keep his expression from screwing up into disbelief.
He’d grown up surrounded by couples deeply in love, and in the last year he’d seen some of his closest friends and relatives find love—somehow helped along by Lady Mistree herself.
But Bull had never, not once, felt the need to settle down.
He wasn’t lonely. He’d found love in all sorts of places, all guises, in his life.
He’d had lovers from every walk of life and continent, and had enjoyed himself immensely.
Why would he ever feel the need to restrict himself to one person, when variety—meeting and learning about new people? —was far more fun?
A quiet voice in his head whispered: Uncle Thorne felt the same way before he’d met Aunt Kit, remember?
Aye, but Aunt Kit had been dressed as Thorne’s valet when Thorne found himself falling in love, and that had been amusing as hell to watch. What a fool, not able to see the obvious: a woman dressed as a man.
Still, in all his thirty-six years, Bull had never met a woman he wanted to bind himself to for the rest of his life. Someone who could match him, someone who wouldn’t eventually become boring? He’d never met the like.
“Ye…” He cleared his throat. “Ye actually think I’m going to get married one day?”
“Oh, dear boy…” Eliza leaned over and patted his hand. “I know it. Keep the ring in that box and hold onto it. You will know when the moment is right. Now, introduce me to your intriguing friend.”
The command, given so casually, derailed Bull’s planned argument that he had no intention of marrying. Instead, his attention was yanked across the room to where Hoyle was striding toward them, a new kind of energy in his step Bull hadn’t seen before.
In fact, for the first time he could see some of the other man’s expression clearly behind that ridiculous mustache.
Hoyle’s shoulders weren’t drawn up so his scarf wasn’t hiding his chin and ears, and his head wasn’t tucked down.
Bull couldn’t see his eyes, not beneath that hat, but he seemed… excited about something.
As Lady Mistree struggled to rise, Bull leapt to his feet, shoved the ring box in his pocket, and offered her his hand, without moving his gaze away from his excited art scholar.
“I found it, Bull!” Hoyle blurted as he skidded to a stop on the marble floor, his head tipped back to stare up at Bull, green eyes sparkling. “I found another painting by the same artist!”
This is generally considered the point at which ye say something in return.
But Bull barely heard the man’s words, much less comprehended, much less had a response.
Because those eyes…
That itchy irritation was back. Forget a nagging sensation that something was wrong about Hoyle: now it was a full-on suspicion kicking Bull in the back of the head, urging him to fooking pay attention.
Did he know Hoyle? Had he met the man before?
Why were those eyes so familiar?
Beside him, Lady Mistree cleared her throat delicately, and Bull shook himself. Time enough to dwell on those eyes later.
“Uh…Lady Mistree, allow me to present Mr. Robert Hoyle. Hoyle is a scholar of portraiture and he’s helping me on a case.” He tipped his head toward the old woman, his gaze still on the other man. “Hoyle, the Countess of Mistree.”
Eliza lifted her hand toward the scholar, who’d suddenly paled. “Charmed, I am sure.”
“Y-Yes, my lady.” The little man fumbled, reaching out to shake her hand even as he averted his gaze, as if she were another scholar. “Delighted.”
Well. Maybe he just wasn’t used to interacting with titled elderly dames.
Lady Mistree hummed in what might have been amusement as she tucked her reticule against her side and settled her cane in her other hand. “It was lovely seeing you, my dear,” she said to Bull, then nodded once, regally, to Hoyle. “Robert.”
She called him by his first name? Clearly Hoyle was astonished too, because he twisted to stare after the old woman as she hobbled toward the row of portraits Hoyle had most recently been studying.
When Jones, Eliza’s butler, materialized at her side, Bull breathed a sigh of relief, feeling as if he could focus on the case once more, now he knew she was being watched over.
He turned his attention to Hoyle. “Well? Ye said ye found a portrait by the same artist?”
The other man blinked, then pressed his fingertips to his mustache and glanced away. “Er…yes. I believe so. It appears to be a later work, perhaps the artist had matured in his style somewhat, so I cannot be certain.”
“Then why do ye look so excited?” Bull growled, irritated he’d gotten his hopes up.
“Because the portrait must be the same woman. The ruby necklace is the same, and I remembered the book where I read about the mystery artist.”
A sudden calm settled over Bull, the way he felt whenever he exhaled and convinced his fingers to cease their fidgeting. This was the addictive feeling of a case on the cusp of being broken open; the calm before the most exciting storm.
One side of his lips drew up. “Ye’re certain? The verra same woman?”
Hoyle had glanced away, back toward the row of small portraits which Lady Mistree was now admiring, and Bull couldn’t see his face. “She is older in this piece, the backdrop a garden instead of a studio. But yes, I am certain it is the same woman.”
The other side of Bull’s lips pulled up. “Excellent.” He reached out and closed his hand around Hoyle’s upper arm, turning him fully toward the wall of paintings. “C’mon man—which one?”
The other man had stiffened at the touch, bending away from him. Bull, for his part, hadn’t been certain why he’d grabbed the scholar in the first place, but he now tightened his hold to keep him from scuttling off.
“Which one?” he repeated, more threateningly.
Hoyle had removed his gloves since they’d stepped into the room and the shaking hand he now raised was too slender, too delicate to do anything besides flip the pages of a book. Pitiful. The lad looked as if he hadn’t done a day’s labor in his life.
“There,” the scholar whispered. “The one your friend is studying.”
Almost as if it had been planned, Hoyle’s words triggered a flurry of movement across the room.
A masked man burst from a small door on the opposite wall, hurtled across the room, and yanked a small portrait from the wall.
Lady Mistree and the young sketch artist both screeched in surprise, Jones stepping forward to catch his lady as she stumbled back from the thief.
Bull had already released Hoyle as the masked man turned toward the door, moving to intercept him—but the man surprised him, running toward the middle of the room and planting one foot on the row of wooden benches where Bull had so recently been sitting, before running along them and launching himself toward the door to the main foyer.
Whirling around, Bull knew he wouldn’t be able to intercept the thief, not from this far away. But Hoyle—he was standing in the man’s path, his eyes wide, his hands out.
“Hoyle!” Bull bellowed. “Catch him!”
He should have known better. The other man was too small, too weak to stop a determined thief.
But to his surprise, the slight scholar did try. Bull saw the moment Hoyle realized he was the only one in the masked man’s way. He stepped toward the thief, arms wide, chin up, mustache bristling…
And the man barreled into him, not slowed even a moment by Hoyle’s weak attempt. Nay, instead the art scholar’s hat flew in one direction and the man himself went flying a different way—directly into Bull’s path.
Without thinking Bull reached out to grab the other man to keep him from harm.
His arms closed around Hoyle’s torso as their chests slammed into each other, and he tightened his hold for just a moment before dropping his hands to the other man’s upper arms before setting him aside so he could chase after the thief.
At least, that had been his intention.
Because sometime around the point when he had intended to thrust Hoyle away from him and run down the masked man, Bull’s brain caught up with his instincts and he realized what he’d felt.
Or rather, what he hadn’t felt.
When he’d clasped Hoyle to his chest, Bull hadn’t felt a man’s body, not even a slight man’s body.
Two decades of experience had taught his fingers exactly how it felt to hold a woman.
Mind spiraling, Bull’s instincts abandoned him, and he whipped his head back to where Hoyle was steadying himself, putting the escaping thief from his mind.
“Hoyle?” he rasped, reaching out to grab the man—the woman once more.
His—her eyes widened as he yanked her to him, her head tipping back to stare up at him, fear in those bright green depths.
And in that moment, Bull knew.
He knew, with all certainty, why she’d hidden her identity. He knew why Merida had been so relaxed with the scholar, knew why he’d been so antsy around this particular art scholar, knew why she’d manufactured this ridiculous costume and even more outrageous mustache.
Knew why his body was reacting to holding her in his arms even now.
Bull was already growling with rage when he managed to utter her name. “Rosie.”