The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(5)

Setting aside the distant cousins, this was uncomfortably close to the situation Cal had found himself in when his life was under threat, with his heirs his uncle and his cousin, both with a very good motive to murder him. But this could not be about the title. If it was, then Northam himself would be the target, not his wife.

‘Have you enemies, my lord, anyone who would seek to avenge themselves for some slight, real or imagined, by hurting your wife?’ Northam was a tough old man, he wouldn’t hold back on saying what he thought or doing what he believed in and that might cause resentments. ‘Or is there anyone who might profit from Lady Northam’s death or who has a grudge against her?’

‘No. We have racked our brains, but we can think of no-one, no motive for this.’

‘You have discussed it together, then? Lady Northam is aware that she is a target rather than simply believing she has suffered some accidents?’ Many men would have shielded their wives from such a terrifying realisation.

The Viscount snorted. ‘After she had dispatched the adder with a shoe she remarked that she might have been flattered that her enemy saw her as Cleopatra, if it were not for the fact that she considered the Egyptian queen to have been a singularly foolish woman.’

‘Ah.’ The image of a sweet little white-haired lady vanished, to be replaced with that of a sharp-tongued termagant brandishing a stout boot and muttering over her Shakespeare. ‘What precautions for her safety have you already in place? I assume you want me to find the perpetrator, not act as a bodyguard.’

‘Both. I want both.’ Northam thumped his fist on the arm of his chair. ‘Oh yes, I realise that you cannot be in two places at once, Hunt. While she is within this house I have a number of large and reliable footmen outside her door in rotation at all times and there is a pair of armed gamekeepers from my estate keeping guard below stairs, day and night. When my lady goes out, then I will require you to accompany her, whether I am with her or not.’

‘I see.’ That should give him time both to investigate and to supervise the construction work. A lady in her seventies, one who had experienced several near-misses from an unknown enemy, was hardly likely to be out on the Town very much, however handy she might be with makeshift weapons. ‘That should be feasible.’ He folded the bank draft again and slid it into his breast pocket.

‘Excellent. You can start at once?’ Without waiting for Jared’s reply the Viscount levered himself to his feet. ‘I wish this to be dealt with urgently.’

‘Most understandable, my lord,’ Jared murmured, standing back to allow his new employer to lead the way.

That proved to be across the hall, up the stairs and, after a tap on a door, into what looked like a lady’s withdrawing room. Peripherally Jared was aware of quiet, almost severe, elegance. In the centre a woman sat at a small desk, sunlight falling on black hair, gold on a raven’s glossy wing.

‘My dear, here is Mr Hunt to assist us. Mr Hunt is a swordmaster who will protect you, help us puzzle out this mystery.’

After a moment Jared remembered to breathe. Then Lady Northam stood up and he forgot again. If this woman was a day over twenty six then he was the Shah of Persia. She was tall, slender, pale-skinned, with big eyes that were shadowed by tension or lack of sleep and a generous mouth that now was set into a tight line.

He got his breathing under control with the same savage concentration he would have expended in a swordfight and bowed. ‘My lady. I am at your service.’ And at your feet.

‘Mr Hunt.’ Her voice held the bite of an east wind and he wondered if he had allowed his instinctive masculine reaction to show, which was unlikely, or whether she was simply unfriendly on principle.

She is not perfect, he told himself, angry at being made to feel like an awe-struck youth. Her nose was a trifle too long and thin, her height unfashionable, her eyes a disconcerting pale blue, or blueish-grey or perhaps there was green in there… And she was doing nothing to attract, nothing to seduce, merely standing there in the simplest of dark red morning gowns without jewellery or paint or artifice. It was all in his head, this conviction that he was being bewitched or ensorcelled.

Lord Northam, who must be old enough to be her grandfather – great grandfather, Jared thought savagely – was looking from one to the other with a fond smile for his wife, a look of enquiry for Jared. How the hell had he managed to secure this cold beauty? From her voice, her very presence, she was a lady, trained from her earliest years in deportment and confidence. She was not an actress or a courtesan, dazzled by a title and wealth into making this unequal match.

Yet somehow, in seconds, she had bewitched him, because otherwise what was he doing feeling distaste at the waste of this Winter-Spring marriage, becoming aroused by this woman? His entire livelihood, often his life itself, relied on his detachment, his control. This woman’s safety would depend on his ability to think dispassionately, act incisively, make life and death decisions in seconds. Besides, she was a married woman.

She doesn’t like me, he realised. That was no surprise and no matter, either. She had to trust him and obey him in a crisis, but she did not have to like him.

‘I will leave you together,’ Lord Northam said, apparently noticing nothing out of the ordinary on either side. ‘I have to consult my man of business over some urgent matters and you will be able to give Mr Hunt all the details of the incidents, will you not, Guinnie my dear? You will not find it upsetting to speak of them?’