The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two(63)
‘That sounds exceedingly tempting, with the addition of several bottles of best brandy.’ Jared sounded amused, the darkness seemed to have lifted for him, if only for a while. ‘But we must not give way to temptation, not now we have our blindfolds off and we know who it is that is our enemy.’
‘Ours?’ She leaned back in his embrace to study his face.
‘I am beginning to have my suspicions – ’
‘My lady.’ Porrett stood on the step. ‘Lord Northam is in the drawing room.’
‘Who?’ Guinevere blinked at him. Was this some kind of dream and Augustus was not dead at all? She must be losing her mind.
‘What the devil is he doing here? I thought he understood that he needed to keep his distance,’ Jared said, cold anger in his voice. ‘This is the last thing we need.’ When she stared at him he snapped, ‘Theo.’
‘Oh. Theo. Of course.’ Guin gave herself a little shake. No ghosts. ‘When did he arrive, Porrett?’
‘An hour since, my lady. I have prepared the Chinese rooms for him.’
‘He should have the master suite by rights, but I suppose he will not mind for one night. I really cannot face the upheaval of moving now.’ She stepped away from Jared and mounted the steps. ‘Ask the maids to draw us all hot baths, including for Faith and Dover. And send up tea trays. I will greet Lord Northam. Faith, you and Dover go to your rooms, bathe, rest.’
She was conscious of Jared on her heels as she went down the hall to the drawing room door. Surely now he did not suspect Theo of anything?
Her nephew by marriage was pacing up and down the room but he turned with an audible sigh of relief when they entered.
‘Theo, what on earth are you doing here?’
‘Escaping the law, I suspect,’ he said grimly. ‘No sooner had the funeral guests gone than that da – that confounded London magistrate turned up at Felling Hall along with our local man. He was waving an anonymous letter that had advised him to search in the clothes press in my dressing room in London. He’d bullied his way in past the staff and was unsurprised to find two empty bottles that had held my father’s medicine hidden in a pair of old boots.
‘There was easily enough gone to have killed Uncle Augustus if boiled down to a syrup and then mixed with marchpane, apparently. I asked him why, if I was a parricide, I had not removed the bottles from there? I enquired if I appeared to be a complete idiot. He advised me not to take that tone with him.’
Theo stopped, took a deep breath and continued rather more calmly. ‘I enquired – in much the same tone – who was supposed to have written the letter. I produced my valet, and Perkins pointed out that with the house in turmoil during my father’s last days and death half the Household Cavalry could have trooped in and out concealing bottles and not been noticed.
‘Sir Andrew Hewson, the local magistrate, who had the benefit of hearing the tale fresh from beginning to end and having no axe to grind, pointed out that what I said had some merit. His colleague then demanded to know whether you had access to my dressing room, Guin.’
Jared said something savage under his breath and Guin discovered that cold fury had a remarkably energising effect. ‘What did you say to that?’ she enquired.
‘I hit him. Quite a good left hook, actually.’ Theo’s grim expression was at odds with his tone.
‘And why are you not under arrest for assault on a magistrate, if nothing else?’ Jared enquired. ‘Lady Northam, do sit down, you must be exhausted.’ He stalked over to the sideboard, poured a glass of brandy and brought it back to her.
‘Sir Andrew appeared to think that I had the right to defend the honour of a lady and that Spurgeon – that’s the London man – had gone too far. They retreated to consider the situation and the moment they were out of sight I left. I don’t know what, if anything, you have discovered, but I am damned if I am going to sit at Felling and wait for them to turn up and drag me off in chains.’
Guin gulped a mouthful of brandy. ‘I have a very strong inclination to give way to hysterics,’ she said, wondering why she wasn’t.
‘We need a council of war,’ Jared said. ‘But you and I are going to bathe and change first. It is time to take control of this situation, to turn and set the hounds on our pursuers.’ He held out his hand to Guin. ‘Lady Northam? You have had a long and difficult day but I think you have it in you to join our council.’
‘Certainly, Mr Hunt.’ She let him draw her to her feet, feeling his strength and his anger flowing through to her. His instinct, his duty was to protect her, but he believed in her, that she had the intelligence and the strength of will to cope with this. I could love this man, she thought as they walked up the stairs leaving Theo pacing again. Perhaps I already do.
When they assembled again, clean and refreshed, Faith and Dover appeared, both saying that they too were revived and wanted to be involved. Jared waited for the footmen to deposit plates of food by each chair, poured wine all round and then, with no protest from Theo, took control.
‘We have two strands to this persecution. If I am correct, then both Lady Northam and the late Lord Northam – and by extension you, the new, Lord Northam – are targets.’
‘Me?’ Theo began, then subsided at a gesture from Jared.
‘Lady Northam unwisely eloped with, and married, Francis Willoughby, a man in need of money and completely unscrupulous about how he earned it. He thought his new father-in-law would give him funds, either to maintain the marriage or, perhaps, to buy him off. He was sadly disappointed, almost penniless and, I suspect, desperate because moneylenders were after him.