An Unexpected Pleasure (The Mad Morelands #4)(83)

She did not ask how they had so quickly found out about the matter. The twins were never far behind any news in the family. Megan suspected that it had much to do with their habit of hanging about in the kitchen, cadging snacks from the cook and listening to the servants’ gossip.

Their suspicion, they were quick to tell her, fell on Andrew Barchester.

“Sounds like a wrong ’un,” Alex confided. “I bet that it’s him who really killed Dennis.”

“But how? He was back at the base camp,” Megan pointed out.

Con shrugged. “Why else would he lie about Theo that way? He must be covering something up.”

“Maybe he followed them,” Alex suggested. “Maybe he didn’t like being left behind while the others went off on the adventure.”

“I wouldn’t,” Con agreed.

“Yeah, and so he sneaked out after them. Spied on them.”

“And dressed up like a priest and killed Dennis?” Megan asked skeptically. “Why would he do that?”

Con shrugged. “Don’t know. That’s what you and Theo’ll have to figure out. My guess is he was stealing stuff, and your brother caught him.”

“Maybe he dressed up like that so they wouldn’t know it was him,” Alex supplied triumphantly. “You know, when he was stealing the stuff.”

“And that’s why they figured it was a priest.”

“He doesn’t really seem like a killer,” Megan opined.

“Well, they don’t, do they?” Alex answered unarguably. “Like that chap that tried to kill Kyria. Seemed regular enough.”

“Someone tried to kill Kyria?” Megan asked, astonished.

“Oh, yes,” Con answered, as if it were quite an ordinary event. “Before she married Rafe.”

“I never knew life in England was so risky,” Megan commented.

“It’s not, usually,” Con assured her.

“It’s something about our family,” Alex added. “We have a bit more fun, I think, than most of the peerage.”

They spent another good portion of their study time regaling Megan with stories of the adventures that various members of their family had embarked upon. It was some time before she was able to pull them back to the subject of medieval history.

After lunch, Theo arrived in the schoolroom. His gaze slid over Megan, and heat began to spark along her veins even though he said nothing. She moved a cautious step back from him as he turned to the twins. Megan had spent far too much of the largely sleepless night before contemplating her relationship with Theo, and none of the answers she had come up with had given her any optimism.

She was far too attracted to him. Even though she no longer believed that he was responsible for her brother’s death, there were too many obstacles between them. A future duke, even in a family as unconventional as the Morelands, did not go about marrying an American nobody. There had been marriages between English blue bloods and American heiresses, where the American money made up for the woman’s lack of appropriate ancestors. But Megan was no heiress, and Broughton had both too much fortune and integrity for the title to be up for sale in that manner.

The truth of the matter, she knew, was that Theo Moreland could not, would not, marry a New York newspaper reporter. And she was not the sort of woman who would settle for anything else. The passion that all too often flared between them, therefore, was destined to go no further.

Megan was too honest not to admit that Theo had an effect on her that no other man had ever had. It took only the sight of him to arouse a heavy ache deep in her loins and a tingling all over her skin. She wanted him. She might even be skating perilously close to falling in love with him. But she was not foolish enough to let that happen.

After all, she was not a starry-eyed dreamer like her sister. She was a woman who knew how the world worked. And she had no intention of getting into a situation she could not handle. She had kept her heart—and her virtue—intact this long, and she intended to continue that way.

Therefore, when at last Theo got the twins shuffled off to their class with Thisbe, Megan turned to him with a businesslike air, ignoring the smile he aimed at her.

“I am ready to talk to Mr. Barchester,” she said briskly.

He raised an eyebrow at her abrupt manner, but said only, “Yes. I’ve sent for the carriage.”

Megan got her hat and gloves and busied herself with putting them on as they went down the stairs, thus neatly avoiding the arm Theo offered her. He looked at her a trifle warily, but again said nothing.

But when she stepped up into the carriage without putting her hand in the one he offered, he swung in quickly after her and asked, “Have you changed your mind about me? Have I become the villain again?”

“What?” She looked at him, but her eyes dropped before his penetrating gaze. “No, of course not. Don’t be absurd.”

“Then why are you acting as if I have the plague?”

“I am not. That’s nonsense.”

“Then why can you not look at me?”

Megan lifted her head in response and looked directly into his face. She didn’t like the way her insides quivered when she looked at him, but she ignored the sensation.

“We are going to interview Mr. Barchester together,” she said firmly. “That doesn’t mean…”