Chapter 9 #2
But oh, she couldn’t find it in her to care, not when the sweetest ache was building in her womb like an unquenchable fire. And then it hit her, lights bursting across her vision, like a keg of gunpowder exploding. Unimaginable pleasure obliterated the last of her rational thoughts.
“Oh, Darius.” She whimpered in joy, still on a cloud. “Darius…”
Suddenly he stiffened above her. Darius’s head jerked up. In the dark, his usually bright blue eyes were a sliver of midnight sea, but she could still see the shock upon his face.
“Meredith?” He jerked away from her as if she’d turned into a snake lying in his bed. “What… What the devil are you doing in my bed?”
Shame and anger brought her crashing back to earth.
“I … I was just trying to wake you, but you pulled me into the bed.” She hastily jerked at her nightgown and nearly fell out of bed trying to put space between herself and a very naked Darius.
He stared at her as if she were the mad one. “I did what?”
“You pulled me into your bed,” Meredith said. Her shame deepened. It was clear from his reaction he’d been dreaming about some other woman. She was a fool. An absolute and utter fool.
“I should go—” She started for the bedchamber door, but he leapt out of bed, bedsheet pulled up around his hips, barely covering his backside as he caught her arm with his other hand. His grip was firm but gentle.
“Wait… Why did you want to wake me?”
Oh lord! She’d completely forgotten the reason she’d come here.
“There’s someone in the Crells’ garden. I saw a light. I wanted you to come with me and investigate.”
“What sort of light?”
“A lantern, I believe. But I can go alone if you do not wish to accompany me.”
“You absolutely will not go alone. Wait for me in the corridor. Put on your house slippers and a dressing gown. It will be cold.”
Meredith hastily returned to her bedchamber to fetch her dressing gown and slippers. It was a relief to have a reason to forget what had just happened in Darius’s bedchamber.
He joined her a few minutes later, wearing trousers, a shirt, and boots.
“Let’s move quickly. We may have already wasted too much time as it is.”
She flinched. That moment of exquisite passion in his arms…in his bed… had been a waste of time? But then he grasped her hand, lacing his fingers through hers, and the pain in her chest eased.
He led the way, his long legs taking the distance so quickly that she had to run to keep up with him. They exited the house and moved quietly toward the back garden wall. They stopped by the heart-shaped hole in the wall.
“I can’t see anything from here…” Darius’s voice was barely audible as he pulled her close to him. “I need to look over the wall.”
They climbed up onto the bench, with Darius grasping Meredith’s waist and helping her up. Darius peered over the top of the wall. Meredith held her breath, waiting for him to speak. He was still for a long time. He lowered himself back down so that they were face-to-face.
“As far as I can tell, it’s not Crell. I believe it is Dobbs, his butler. He’s either just dug something up or finished burying something.”
Meredith leaned closer to Darius, placing a hand on his arm as he stood up again and peered over the wall. “Is he still there?”
“No, he walked off just now. Wait here.” Darius leapt off the bench and headed for the distant garden shed. When he returned, he held a shovel. He climbed back up onto the bench and gave her the shovel.
“Hold this.”
She took hold of the shovel’s shaft and Darius half jumped, levering his body over the wall and then dropped down to the ground on the other side.
“Pass me the shovel!” His whisper came over the wall. Meredith stood up on her tiptoes and handed the shovel down to him as best she could.
“Got it.” Darius replied, and she let go of the shovel on her side.
While she waited, she searched Darius’s garden shed and found a wooden crate.
She put it on top of the bench before she climbed up onto it.
It put her at a height to see over the stone wall herself.
It was so dark that she could just make out Darius’s form beneath the light of the silver sliver of the moon above.
He dug, turning over the dirt. Then he knelt by the soil, digging with his hands before he froze.
Meredith’s heart hammered so hard that her blood was roaring in her ears. He’d found something.
He very slowly stood up again and began putting the soil back on the spot where he been digging. She wanted to speak, but the night was so quiet she didn’t dare risk being heard by anyone that might be nearby.
“Take this.” Darius said when he came close to the wall and spotted her. He held up the shovel’s handle for her.
She grasped it and lifted it back over. “How will you get back over the wall? There’s no bench and the window in the bricks isn’t big enough for you to pass through.”
Darius studied the wall, then backed up quite a few feet.
Then suddenly he sprinted toward the wall and leapt up, his hands scrabbling on the stone.
Meredith acted on instinct, leaning over to grasp his nearest arm and she braced her body, pulling hard as she helped him climb upward.
He reached the top of the wall and hauled himself over it.
He then dropped onto the bench, breathing hard.
Darius covered his stomach with his hand as he hissed out a painful breath.
“Are you all right?” Meredith urged him to lean on her shoulder.
“It’s that bloody knife wound. My flesh is scarred there. The doctor warned me it would have a terrible time healing. The flesh underneath is hard and can tear if I move a certain way.”
“Tear?” Meredith’s voice pitched in alarm.
“He said it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, just that scar tissue would be stretched out and it would feel awful when it happens. Give me a moment and I shall be well.”
Meredith stroked his arm, hoping to soothe his pain even for a little while. He closed his eyes, breathing deeply for a few seconds.
“What did you see over there?” she dared to ask.
Darius’s eyes open again. “A bloody sheet, rolled up, and inside it was a leather pouch containing a small handful of jewels, a few rings, and some necklaces.”
Meredith let out a breath, her body tensing. “You’re sure?”
“Unfortunately, I’m quite sure. Blood, when it is still fresh has a terrible smell. I am unfortunately quite familiar with that scent.” He covered her hand on his arm with his own palm as he met her worried gaze. “Tell me again what you saw in the mews that night and what you heard. Every detail.”
* * *
It was a few hours past midnight when they returned to the house. Darius’s body was on edge as he grappled with the truth. Crell had possibly killed someone that night, and Meredith had witnessed it from his coach.
“I shall go to the Bow Street Runners first thing tomorrow morning and tell them what we found.”
Though that seemed to reassure Meredith, she was still trembling, and he knew it wasn’t from the cold. When they stopped in front of her room, he caught her chin in his.
“Will you be all right tonight?” he asked.
She nodded, but those beautiful hazel eyes warned him that wasn’t true.
“Meredith.” He breathed her name and pulled her into his arms. She buried her face against his chest, her body shaking with silent sobs that tore at his heart.
He had forgotten how one could be so innocent of the wickedness of the world.
He had grown used to murderers, blackmailers, and thieves in every dark corner of the city.
But Meredith had never known any of this darkness.
He now realized why his uncle had sent her to him.
It wasn’t just to find her a husband. Darius would know how to protect her from the evil in the world.
“There now.” Darius stroked the loose hair around her shoulders, which was soft and silky beneath his hands. Comforting her comforted him in return.
When she finally stopped quaking, he lifted her chin. “Dry your eyes.” He offered her a handkerchief from his trouser pocket. She wiped her tear-streamed face before handing it back.
“You’ve had such a terrible scare tonight, darling. You need to rest.”
“I ca—can’t. Too afraid.” Meredith’s confession was muffled against his chest.
“Then I will stay with you until you fall asleep.” They reached her bedchamber and he ushered her inside. She was so like a child at that moment, trusting him as he tucked her into bed.
“How can you be so calm?” she asked, her hands clutching the sheets as she gazed up at him.
“I have trained myself to focus on the matter most important in the moment. Right now, that is keeping you safe. That sense of purpose and focus keeps me calm.”
“Oh…maybe you could teach me how to do that someday,” she replied.
“I’d be glad to.”
He waited for her to get comfortable before he blew out the lamp, then settled in the chair facing Crell’s house.
He kept his gaze on Meredith until she drifted to sleep. In the dark, with only a sliver of moonlight to see, his mind drifted back to the dream that he had been with Meredith in his bed—a dream that had become the sweetest reality when he’d woken up to her climaxing beneath him.
He’d wanted nothing more in that moment than to take her again, this time with something other than his fingers, and see her face in the glow of the lamps as she experienced that exquisite pleasure in his arms.
But he couldn’t take advantage of her like that, not when she was destined to marry someone else. He’d taken enough from her as it was. He couldn’t steal that final moment of intimacy from her, no matter how desperately he wanted to be the man she shared it with.
He forced himself to turn away from Meredith and look at the Crell house beyond the garden wall.
What he’d seen there tonight proved that Meredith’s fears were no longer fanciful, but likely a terrifying reality.
Crell had done something to his wife…but they needed to prove it to the authorities.
Tomorrow at first light, he would send a message to Doyle at the Bow Street offices.
Sliding down a little in the chair to get comfortable, Darius crossed his arms over his chest and sighed. It was going to be a long night, and there was much that weighed upon his mind, as well as his heart.