Chapter Eight
As the marquess had been a respected member and orator at the House of Lords, Lord Butterstone’s funeral was scheduled to take place in London in a sennight. In consideration for Lady Butterstone, dinner had been a sober affair followed by a quiet game of whist after her ladyship had gone to bed.
When their card game ended, they all retired to their bedchambers, and Jack stopped Harry on the stairs. “What on earth are you up to, Harry? You’re playing a dangerous game with a lady’s reputation.”
Harry looked at him coolly. “One might ask you the same thing.”
Jack raised his eyebrows. “One might?”
“The way Lady Althea looks at you could set the room on fire.”
“She is merely grateful. I’m trying to find out who killed her father.” Jack wasn’t prepared to discuss Althea; it would be disloyal to her, although he and Harry were usually frank with each other.
“Ho! And the sun doesn’t rise in the east!”
Jack continued to climb the stairs. “Leave this to me, Harry. I’m riding to London tomorrow. I may have this dealt with by the end of the week.”
“And then?”
Jack didn’t wish to examine his own feelings too closely. “I’ll be on my way, as I planned.”
Harry nodded with a smirk.
Jack grinned, a hand on the banister. “How skillfully you have changed the subject. We were discussing you and Lady Erina. One might ask where her chaperone is.”
“Might be wise to leave that for another day,” Harry said with an eyeroll.
“When …?”
“When I work out what the devil I’m doing.”
Jack laughed and shook his head. “I’ll come down and see you two off in the morning.”
“Have you formed any ideas about Lord Butterstone’s killer?”
“Early days, Harry. But we have learned more from his diary.”
As they walked along the corridor, Jack related what he and Althea had discovered.
“Good lord! There’s some suggestion that the English poisoned Napoleon?”
“It’s possible. Lord Butterstone stumbled onto something he wasn’t meant to know. Then he took it to someone at Whitehall who perhaps he should have avoided. I have to find out who that man is and what has happened to Lord Butterstone’s brother-in-law, Lord Caindale.”
“It sounds like you’re opening a Pandora’s box. Are you sure you should get involved? After all, Bonaparte is dead.”
“Lady Butterstone and Lady Althea deserve to know who killed their husband and father in such a brutal fashion.”
“I see. Take care, Jack.”
“I wish you all the best with Lady Erina.”
“Thanks. I feel I’m going to need it.”
It was close to midnight, but Jack wasn’t tired. Apart from exercising Arion for a few hours before luncheon, he’d done very little during the day. He’d been restless, eager to continue his search for Lord Butterstone’s killer.
He washed and stripped off his evening clothes, slipped between the sheets, and blew out the candle. Resting, he considered his trip to London.
Jack sensed Harry wasn’t sure himself what lay behind his own rash behavior.
For him to squire an unmarried lady about the countryside without her father’s permission was breathtaking in its recklessness.
Even if he planned to marry her, and he wasn’t yet sure Harry did.
Lady Erina, a determined young woman, had made it plain they weren’t to wed.
But even Lady Erina could not make Harry do something he didn’t want to do.
If Harry disagreed with something, he’d dig his heels in, and you knew you might as well save your breath.
He had never lost his temper, to Jack’s knowledge, but he got his own way most of the time, by some means or other.
It was a revelation to find him bending to Lady Erina’s will as meek as a lamb.
It was totally out of character. Curious, Jack wanted to know why Lady Erina would risk her reputation to go to Ireland.
The door opened, and candlelight flooded in from the sconces in the corridor. For a moment, a delectable shape was highlighted before the door closed and the room became dark.
Jack pushed back the covers and reached for the tinder box. He breathed in a familiar scent as a hand found his shoulder. “Don’t light the candle.”
He ran his hand down her arm and took her wrist, then with an arm around her waist, leaned back on the bed, bringing the lady with him.
Althea sighed. “I hope I am welcome?” she asked, half-lying over him.
“Can’t you tell?”
She giggled softly. “I feel like a young girl.”
“Surprising in a woman of middle years,” he said as his hands cupped her perfectly youthful derriere through her thin nightgown.
She gasped, reached up, and touched his hair. “We must talk.”
The room was midnight black; it was impossible to read her expression, but her trembling voice told him what he wished to know.
“And we will, I promise.” He peeled the fine cotton nightgown over her head and tossed it onto a chair.
His lips found the soft skin of her throat.
He cradled her head in his hands and pressed kisses over her cheek and took her sweet mouth.
She softly moaned and stroked her fingers through his hair. “I’ve thought of this all day.”
“As have I.” He enjoyed a tactile investigation of her body.
Without sight, his other senses came to the fore.
The smell of fragrant, aroused woman, the incredible softness and warmth of her skin, the shape of her delicate bones beneath, her perfect, soft breasts.
His hand smoothed down over her gently rounded belly, then the damp warmth between her thighs.
What had begun as a slow appreciation became a rampaging passion, sending his blood thumping through his veins.
He took her swiftly while she moaned, her fingernails leaving a trail of sensation across his back.
They lay quietly afterward as he held her, aware that she was silently crying. She mourned her father and perhaps Lord Charles too. Jack frowned into the dark. The marquess would be avenged.
*
Harry sat up in bed. “Erina! What are you doing here? Go away this instant!”
“Shush.” Erina opened the bedroom door wider and slipped inside. “I have something I must tell you.”
He reached for his robe. “Couldn’t it wait until breakfast?”
“Impossible. We won’t be alone.” She perched on the end of the bed and arranged her pale-green silk dressing gown over her legs. “And I need to explain about our journey.”
Harry slipped from the bed, tightened the belt of his dressing gown, and sat on the sofa near the fireplace. “Dare I hope you’ve changed your mind and wish to return home? Our fathers could be persuaded not to make this public and keep your reputation intact.”
She eyed him for a minute. His tawny-brown hair was all tousled, rather endearingly. “I want to explain my reasons for going to Ireland. And if you prefer not to take me, Harry, you can help me get a seat on the stagecoach, if you will.”
He smoothed his hair back with both hands. “You expect me to put you on a stagecoach and go off home to confess all to my father and yours?”
“Well, yes. I admit that might be difficult.”
“‘Difficult’?! Not quite the right word, is it? Shall we say impossible?”
Erina was getting a crick in her neck. She left the bed and came to sit beside him on the chaise longue. “Don’t shout. Someone might hear.”
He made a strangled noise in his throat and moved to a chair. “You woke me up to make this appallingly foolish suggestion?”
She glanced at bare thighs through the gap in his dressing gown. Men are so hairy, she thought, feeling unsettled. “Don’t you wear a nightshirt like my father?”
He sighed. “That is none of your business.”
“There is no need to be so cross. You weren’t asleep. Your candle was alight.”
“Maybe I like to leave a candle burning while I sleep. Maybe I’m frightened of the dark.”
She giggled nervously. “I don’t believe that, Harry. Now listen while I tell you about the letter.”
He folded his arms. “What letter?”
“Please just listen.”
Erina explained about Cathleen’s predicament.
How after her mother had died, and her father had begun to gamble and drink heavily.
And how the neighbor had taken advantage of him.
When they had lost everything, her father had shot himself.
This neighbor, who now claimed to own their property, insisted she marry him or be cast out into the street.
Harry listened without comment.
“So, will you still agree to take me?” she asked, a plea in her voice.
“That’s a very sad story. I am deeply sorry for your cousin, Lady Erina, but I fail to see how you arriving at their home unescorted and with little money can be of help to her.”
“We won’t stay there for more than one night. I’ll just fetch her and bring her home. I’ve brought a select number of pieces of jewelry with me. I can take them to a pawnbroker in Dublin to pay for our fare.”
He paused. “What happens when you arrive home with Miss…?”
“Sullivan.”
“Miss Sullivan. Just suppose you do make it home safely? Will all be forgiven? Do you intend to spend your days caring for your disgruntled father with Miss Sullivan as your companion?”
She shook her head, eased off her slippers, and tucked her cooling, bare feet beneath her dressing gown. “No one will know how we fetched her. My father won’t put it about. My cousin will attend balls and dances with me.”
“And fall in love with a handsome prince and live happily ever after?”
She narrowed her eyes. “You are making fun of me. I’m certain I can do this.”
He leaned over, took her hand, and squeezed it. “If our fathers hadn’t forced this engagement on us, would you have attempted this?”
“I would still have tried.” She frowned.
“I must. Cathleen is my mother’s niece. Mama would expect me to do something to help her.
The trouble is that my father dislikes my mother’s family.
He believes the Irish are beneath us. I suspect Grandfather forced Papa to marry Mama, although she didn’t come with a big dowry.
” She brightened. “What about Captain Ryder? Doesn’t he intend to go to Ireland when he leaves here?
He would be a strong and capable escort, and then you needn’t worry about me. ”
Harry pushed himself out of his chair with a sigh of frustration. “Jack has his own concerns. Go to bed, Erina. I will take you.”
Did he mean just to the ferry or all the way? She would ask that question later. She jumped up. “Thank you, Harry.”
“Don’t mention it. Now, shall we get some sleep? We’re going to need it.”
“Yes. We must make an early start. Shall we breakfast at seven o’clock?” She opened the door and peered into the shadowy corridor, the candles guttering in the wall sconces. No one about. She turned to say goodnight and bumped into Harry, who was right behind her.
His hands on her shoulders, Harry pulled her toward him. He pressed his mouth on hers in a firm kiss. For a moment, her head spun, and she placed a hand on his arm to steady herself.
“Think about that.” He gave her a gentle push into the corridor and shut the door.
Erina stood staring at the closed door with a hand to her mouth. Her heart was pounding. Harry had kissed her! She turned and hurried to her room.
Safely back in her bed, Erina considered what had just happened.
She trusted Harry. In a way, he was like the brother she’d never had.
But that kiss! What was she to make of it?
Did he think her forward? No, he knew better than that.
Could it be that he wanted to marry her, after all?
He’d never flirted or given her reason to suspect he wanted to.
Until the kiss. Which hadn’t exactly been flirtatious? The kiss had been more like a… a declaration that he was in charge. She should have been annoyed. Very annoyed. And yet she wasn’t.
Did he want to make her change her mind and return home?
She turned over onto her side. And then onto her back.
She touched her lips where the imprint of his mouth seemed to remain.
As they continued to Holyhead, she must explain to him that there never could be anything like that between them.
They were ill-matched. It just wouldn’t do.
And the resentment she felt at being pushed unwillingly into a paper marriage was still raw.
As if her father, whom she’d always loved, suddenly didn’t care for her feelings.
That she was just a means to improve his finances.
She huffed and bashed her pillow, a strange, heavy feeling in her chest. Because she hated to hurt Harry.
Erina groaned. Everything was suddenly at sixes and sevens.
Tomorrow at breakfast, she wasn’t at all sure what she should say to him.
Should she refer to the kiss? No, that would be awkward.
She sighed. Would he treat her differently now?
She was surprised to find she wanted to be treated as a potential lover.
But that was foolish, surely, when he’d made it clear he didn’t want to marry her.