Chapter Five
Felix was beyond excited—or as excited as he could manage—to have Caroline in his closed carriage and driving through Mayfair even though the desultory rain turned to snow and back again with alarming regularity.
“I told my driver to take us out to St. Paul’s cathedral.” Perhaps only two miles away from their current location, the trip wouldn’t take long unless there was heavy traffic, so he would need to make good use of their time.
A slight frown turned down her lips. “Why?”
“It is one of my favorite places in London.” Then, not able to remain parted from her, Felix joined Caroline on her bench on the opposite side of the enclosed space.
“God, I need to kiss you, touch you,” he whispered as he quickly pulled her onto his lap so that she straddled him, and just as fast claimed her lips with his.
The damned shallow brim of her bonnet prevented him from deepening the kiss as he wished, but this was better than nothing.
“So easily I can become addicted to you,” she whispered against his mouth before she returned his kisses and twined her hands behind his neck.
“A very real problem.” Nearly drunk on her with that little action, Felix manipulated the buttons of her full-length ivory spencer coat and then cupped her breasts through the fabric of her dress.
Damn, but he wished he weren’t wearing gloves, for the wool blend of the garment seemed soft with its cranberry color.
“I’ve been a fool to stay away, I think. ”
“I quite agree.” She furrowed the fingers of one hand through the hair at his nape, but with the gloves, it wasn’t as sensual as it could have been. When he teased her nipples into hard peaks through the fabric, she moaned, and her eyelids flickered. “You will see me undone soon.”
“That is the general idea.” Unable to help himself, he dipped his head and put his lips on one of the nipples, dared to nip it through the fabric, which had Caroline writhing on his lap.
Would that they were somewhere more private, for he wasn’t content with such benign teasing.
Instead of being able to pleasure her breasts as he wished, he contented himself with plundering her mouth as he aggravated the nipple as best he could.
“Make me fly, Major, since we were interrupted yesterday from just that,” Caroline whispered. When her back arched, it put her breasts more firmly into his care.
“I’ll try.” Heat pushed its way through his veins, for she was a temptation he couldn’t ignore. After a bit more kissing, he had barely put a hand beneath her skirting to skim over her outer thigh when the driver tapped on the roof.
“Approaching St. Paul’s, Major.”
Damn it all to hell.
“Thank you, Daniel.” With mounting regret and unfulfilled longing, Felix urged Caroline off his lap and settled her on the bench beside him. Once more, he was plagued with a cockstand, twice in as many days. Heaving a sigh, he glanced at her. “Thwarted again.”
“So it seems.” But she smiled. “Sooner or later, our timing will prove better.” While she glanced out the window on her side of the carriage, she did up the buttons of her coat.
Felix, too, looked outside the carriage. The chilly rain softened the iconic landmark of London. It blurred out the oftentimes harsh lines of the city with so much disparity amidst its citizens. “Would you like to know why this is one of my favorite spots?”
“Yes, of course.” She nodded as she clasped her hands in her lap.
As the carriage slowed, Felix sought out her gaze. “It was one of the first places I went to upon my return to London after my stint in the military. Something about the steps and the dome made me feel that I was exactly where I needed to be.”
“That’s beautiful.”
He nodded. “I think so too.” It was also how he felt while in her company.
She brought him peace. Though he wasn’t an overly religious man, he knew he was a fortunate man, and that perhaps an otherworldly power might have had a hand in his surviving the war, as well as putting Caroline into his life.
Then why don’t you do something about it, old man?
Once they left the carriage, Felix addressed his driver.
“Please wait for us. We shouldn’t be long since it’s raining.”
Daniel, a middle-aged man with two children and a wife at home, nodded. “I don’t mind the rain, Major. It’s a part of London, and London is a part of me.”
“Good man.” As he turned away, he drew a gloved finger over the pocket in his greatcoat where the small box containing a ring rested.
Deep down inside, he knew this was the place to ask for Caroline’s hand.
It didn’t matter that it was raining. Just as Daniel had said, Felix thought along the same lines.
Rain would always fall in life, but Caroline had the power to light up his path, regardless.
And he hoped he had something, anything, positive to offer her in return.
“Come this way.” While holding an umbrella over her head in case the rain got past the brim of her bonnet, he also jostled it to keep some of the precipitation from him as well, but he primarily wished to protect her.
“We’ll go up the steps and view the surroundings from there.
Sometimes, a different viewpoint can do wonders. ”
“I have never been here before, but I do have a weakness for churches.” A tiny laugh came from her. “It’s a dream of mine to visit famous churches around the world if that will even be possible.”
“One never knows what we can achieve if properly motivated.” If it was within his power, he would help her achieve that dream.
But as he escorted her up the steps toward the church building itself, he frowned.
A dark heap rested against one of the Roman-style columns at the front of the edifice that flanked the doors. “What the devil is that?”
“Hmm.” Caroline peered in that direction through the rain. “It almost looks like a crumpled cloak. Perhaps someone abandoned it, or it slipped from the shoulders without anyone noticing.”
“I could see that during the night, but it’s nearly two in the afternoon. There should have been at least someone nearby.” As he looked about, no one lingered in the immediate vicinity, no doubt due to the rain. A few pigeons walked over the steps, but they flew away as he and Caroline approached.
“Ah!” A cry from her alerted him to the fact that something wasn’t right. “Oh, Felix, I think that’s a man! See the boot sticking out from the cloak?”
“The devil you say!”
They both rushed up the remainder of the steps and went closer to the dark heap. Quickly giving the umbrella to Caroline, he moved to examine the crumpled mess.
“By Jove, it is a person.” One who was dressed in a dark cloak that hid the features.
“Quickly, determine if they are dead. We might need to render assistance.”
“Perhaps, but…” With a hand on the man’s shoulder, he gave it a gentle jostle on the off chance he was only asleep.
When his head lolled to one side, Felix eased him down onto the step despite the rain that fell on them both.
As he pulled the folds of the cloak’s hood away, a shock went through him, for he recognized the man as Lord Withington.
And then, as the garment slipped further, his gaze focused on a knife’s hilt, the blade of which had been plunged deep into the man’s gut.
Blood stained the light green waistcoat and the top of the tan-colored breeches.
What was more, the blood was still quite wet, and not from the rain. “Damn.”
“What?”
“The death is recent.”
Good God.
“Death?” The color drained from Caroline’s face. She peered at the man lying on the steps. “So, then this man is clearly dead?”
“Yes.” The more he stared at the knife, with its nicks in the leather grip and the divot on one side of the hilt—where a ball had been stopped before it hit Felix’s body—the more the urge to cast up his accounts grew.
Over the years, he’d missed having that piece in his pocket, for he’d carried it throughout the whole of his commission in the military.
“In fact, from the looks of him, he’s been murdered, in quite a foul way.
Perhaps in the past two hours, possibly less. ”
A frown tugged at the corners of her mouth, but there was an odd light of interest in her blue eyes. “How? Beyond the stabbing?” Had she been hungering for a case?
“I believe so.” Leaning over the body, Felix pointed to the waistcoat.
“Look there. The blade had been jostled about after it was rammed inside the body. No doubt the killer wished to hit as many organs as it could. There are tears in the fabric of the waistcoat to either side of the blade that serve as testament to that fact.” Which meant the killer had been highly emotional or motivated by severe hate.
“That’s terrible. But it does explain the copious blood loss.
” She pointed to the pool hidden beneath the corpse.
“Looks to be fairly fresh, yet there is no crowd of onlookers gathered about. I find that strange. Nothing brings the citizens of London together more than a hanging, government cruelty, or a murder.”
“You’re not wrong.” The fact she knew that and had spoken it aloud raised his respect for her. He nodded, and there was no more time to delay in telling the truth. “And what’s more, that knife used to belong to… me.”
“What?” A gasp issued from her throat as she stared at him from beneath the umbrella. The hand holding it trembled. “Your knife? But how?”
“It’s a mystery.”
“Don’t be coy, Felix. This is important and a bit troubling.” Then the darling woman stamped a foot in apparent frustration.
“Obviously, I shouldn’t joke. I don’t have the personality for it.” The last he’d seen of said weapon had been on the dead man’s desk the day he’d told off the man and said he would quit the organization. “Truly, I’m baffled as to how the knife came to be here and lodged into this man’s gut.”
“What are you not telling me?” When he remained silent, she huffed. “Felix, do you know this man?”