Chapter Thirteen
Lawrence sighed heavily as he threw down another letter. Well, he’d been doing his best, hadn’t he? Stuck it out here when Society wondered in the gossip pages and tattle sheets where precisely the Duke of Penshaw was?
Subjected himself time and time again to being punched on the nose so hard, he saw stars?
Tried to live like…like this?
Lawrence looked around, disgruntled. It wasn’t that bad, he supposed. At least, it could have been worse. The place was clean, even if it was small, and it was not as though he would be required to do much hosting.
He almost snorted at the thought. Hosting! Here!
Lawrence Madgwick didn’t host. There wasn’t anyone he wanted to host in the first place, unless one counted…
He swallowed, forcing down the thoughts of the woman he most certainly should not have kissed a few nights ago, or the time before that, and certainly not the time before that, which had started off all this nonsense.
“Shall we return to Rotten Row, or do you wish to kiss a little longer first?”
And in her mother’s house, too! God, if he had been known to be a duke at the time and they had been discovered…
Well, they’d be marching up the aisle before anyone could say “responsibility to make good.”
Lawrence watched the flickering candle on what could just about be described as a desk. He had been unable to afford the very best wax, on account of him losing the last three fights.
On account of Julia being in the crowd.
“You’re losing your touch,” Alan had said bad temperedly only yesterday. “And it’s all because—”
“Because I am looking in the crowd for a murderer,” Lawrence had supplied, guiltily suppressing his conscience.
It was almost true.
It should have been true.
The candle before him flickered and almost died.
Lawrence rose, pulled open a drawer, took out the last candle, and carefully lit the wick before he allowed a little wax to drop onto a saucer.
Then he delicately placed the candle upon the cooling wax, waited for it to solidify, then returned to his chair.
John Mortimer. That was the person who should be consuming his thoughts every moment of the day. Had done, for months.
Before Julia appeared in his life.
When was the last time he had truly looked out into the crowd and searched for that sneering smile? Days? Weeks? Oh, it couldn’t be a month, could it?
“Damned fool,” Lawrence muttered to himself, leaning back in his chair and wishing he had more beef than potato in the pie he’d bought for his dinner that evening.
What did it take, eh? A man had killed his own brother, his sister was alone and unprotected—goodness knew what sort of louts had been circling her, a duke’s daughter—and he, Lawrence, had done almost nothing the last few weeks to seek out the blaggard.
Lawrence’s jaw tightened. He needed to focus. He needed to forget Miss Julia Dryden, a woman he certainly could not have—not until this business was over.
And surely this pit of anger in his stomach would never cease until Mortimer was brought to justice. Until he saw him in chains. Until—
“Hello?”
Lawrence blinked. A trick of his hearing, surely. There was no possibility he could have heard…
Ears pricked, he leaned forward and waited, head cocked like a dog. The walls were thin here; his landlady had tried to warn him about it when he had taken the rooms. It had not bothered him then.
The staircase went right along the side of this room—the room that was everything save bedchamber. And he had been certain…
Lawrence hesitated. Certain, yes, but there was no repeat of the mysterious voice. Perhaps he had dreamt it. Perhaps—
“Hello?”
It could not be Julia. It was a common enough sound, a woman’s voice, Lawrence tried to tell himself. Absolutely no chance it was her. He had been thinking of her, that was why the voice had sounded familiar.
He snorted and leaned back in his chair. Julia, here? God, it was bad enough that he was here, let alone a young lady, still with her reputation to lose—
“Hello?” A knock on the door, genteel but insistent. “Lawrence, are you in there?”
Lawrence’s mouth went dry. What in God’s name did she think she was—surely her brother was keeping a closer rein on her than this!
Before he knew what he was doing, before he could stop himself or reason that if her being here was foolish, then opening the door—
He opened the door. “Jules.”
Lawrence’s voice sounded weak to his own ears, but it did not seem to matter to Julia. She beamed to see him as his heart rocketed in his chest.
Julia. She looked so out of place here, he almost laughed.
Wearing an elegant gown that did nothing but accentuate those delicious curves, Lawrence tried not to stare at the heavily rising chest. Evidently Julia had grown a little out of breadth, climbing all those stairs.
There could be no other reason that she was so breathless, could there?
“Lawrence,” she said with a smile.
He continued to stare, hardly able to believe she was here. How had she found out where he—but then it would not have been hard, would it, to ask? Who would worry about giving such information? Who would suspect what she would do with it?
Lawrence’s stomach twisted. He would have to discuss that with Alan, now he came to think about it. They couldn’t have the whereabouts of the Duke of Penshaw so easily located, even if he was living under cover.
“May I…”
His heart skipped a beat. “What?”
Julia’s smile broadened. “May I come in, or is it your custom to entertain guests on the landing?”
Guests? Lawrence had only welcomed, if one could call it welcomed, Alan to these pokey rooms. Entertain?
“Erm,” he said, with no clue what he would say next. “I was not expecting—”
“Well, of course you weren’t,” said Julia smartly, taking a step closer and making it even harder to concentrate—if that was possible. “I thought I’d surprise you. That’s all.”
Lawrence nodded. What else could he say? She knew him as Lawrence Madgwick. She was hardly going to be shocked at the paltry conditions he was forced to live in, was she?
Stepping aside but not too far away that he could not breathe her in as she crossed his threshold, Lawrence watched Julia step into his room.
Her eyes widened with astonishment as he closed the door behind her.
That was the trouble with a room this small, wasn’t it? It did not feel that bad when the door was open, when there was a sensation of greater space. But as soon as the door closed, when one was enclosed…
“Ah,” said Julia helplessly. “How lovely.”
Lawrence almost grinned. She was very well bred, indeed. It took someone with impeccable manners to find something pleasant to say about these rooms.
His gaze drifted across the small fire, lit with coke rather than coal—far cheaper. The bookcase he had ripped half apart for the wood. The plate, still dirty from his pie. The bottle of brandy that was half empty, no glasses visible.
What need he for glasses? Alan had called it medicinal, and Lawrence saw no point in arguing.
There were a few clean clothes scattered about the place, even more unclean ones, and his coat was hanging on a nail in the wall.
“Lovely,” Julia repeated.
If only she had arrived at Penshaw Place, Lawrence found himself wishing. It was not like him to be snobbish, but really, this hardly reflected well on him.
Perhaps he should have attempted to keep it more tidy.
But the mansion, that was a far greater exploration of his wealth, his taste.
The elegant Long Gallery, lined with ancestors in various fashions throughout the centuries.
The sword his great-great, perhaps a few more, grandfather had wielded at the Battle of Bosworth.
The lantern one of his relatives had used to aid Charles in his escape to the north.
Richness, splendor, pageantry.
Not a pair of moldering boots he really needed new laces for.
“Please, let me—”
“Oh no, I’ll—”
Lawrence hesitated as Julia’s chest brushed up against his and he halted, hardly able to breathe.
She should not be here. He should never have permitted her to enter, but now she had, he was swiftly becoming intoxicated by her presence. The beauty. The powerful charm she emanated, perhaps without even realizing.
The way she looked at him—
“I should have sent a note,” Julia said with a smile, her eyes glittering. “But then of course, you may have said no.”
He could hardly fault her there. “I probably would have done.”
“There you are then.”
“That doesn’t mean you can just—”
“I suppose that is your chair,” Julia said, stepping away from him.
Lawrence realized he had been holding his breath and hastily took another one to cease the fire in his lungs. She was pointing at the armchair. “Yes, it—”
“In that case, I will take this one.”
Before he could say anything, Julia had picked up a few of the letters he had been reading before she had arrived and settled herself on the stool. “What’s all this, then?”
“Nothing,” Lawrence said hastily, snatching them from her hand and turning wildly to put them somewhere.
Dear God, if she were to spot a few words on those pages…would not the terms “murderer,” “spy,” and “duke” raise a few unfortunate questions?
“You surprise me.”
Lawrence managed to ignore his racing heartbeat as he settled in the armchair, papers stuffed into the only book in the place, wishing he had thought to offer her the armchair.
As a gentleman should.
“I do?”
Julia flushed prettily at the statement. Lawrence cursed his own mouth for allowing himself to say such a thing.
The words a man might say to a woman, just as pretty as this, but in a church…
“Yes,” said Julia, recovering herself sufficiently to continue the conversation. “I mean, I was under the impression that…well…”
Lawrence said nothing. It was not as though he knew what she was attempting to say, but it evidently was causing her more than a little embarrassment.
“Well, I thought you could not read,” Julia managed to say, her cheeks a dark red now. “Forgive me, I just thought—most men of your class, of your background—”