Paying the Virgin's Price (Regency Silk & Scandal #2)(42)

'It has been so long.' And very little existed from that time before it had all gone bad. 'I remember nothing that was as you described. The contents of the house were sold at auction, just after the hanging. How can you expect me...'

And then he remembered the torn pages of the journal. 'The only paper I bring to you is from Narborough's library. Maybe if we could find the missing pages, there would be some answer in them. Perhaps Carlow had written it there.'

Veryan shook his head again. 'I will make inquiries as to why the book is damaged, but I am sure they will come to naught.'

'But if they do not?'

Keddinton stood to show that the interview was near its end, and came around the desk to put a fatherly hand upon Nate's shoulder. 'I am as interested in the truth as you are, but for a better reason. The safety of England is at stake. Leave your direction with my servant. I will contact you, if anything is found, just as you must contact me if you discover what your father did with the cipher key. But until that time, you must trust me to proceed in the way I see fit. And that will be with caution, and sensitivity. If there is any fresh truth to be gained, after all this time, it will not involve purloining journals, or making wild accusations. Do you understand?'

In truth, Nate did not. What good did it do to employ spies, if they stuck at spying on the people they suspected? But he did not wish to lose the trust of so powerful a man. So he said, 'Of course.'

'Good day then.' Keddinton stepped away from him and signalled the footman to show him out.





Chapter Fourteen





Diana woke with a start to find the sun already high in the sky. She had overslept again. This made the third time in two weeks that she'd had to hurry her toilet to beat Verity to the breakfast table. It was little consolation to insist that this was most unlike her normal behaviour, for she feared that an error made three times must signal a change in character.

Of course, so much had changed around her in the last weeks that she might have reason to fear its effects. The journal had shaken her faith in Lord Narborough, which made prompt attention to the needs of his daughters less appealing to her than it had been.

And after the kisses in the park and all Nathan's talk of secrets, she'd found her own secrets had come back to haunt her. Her normally peaceful sleep was disturbed by dreams. Nightmares might be a better way to describe them, although she was not sure. She awoke more troubled than frightened, and sometimes rose in the night to check the latch on her bedroom door. In her dreams, the past caught up to her with a knock upon that door, and the silhouette of a dark man, pushing his way into her bedroom and whispering, 'It is time to pay the debt.'

Nathan Wardale. If the man was anything more than a ghost, she'd have heard something before now. Or his sister would have known his whereabouts. If he had not already come, he would not be coming and the dreams were nonsense. It was only her closeness to another very different Nathan that was making the old fears reawaken. And the knowledge of his kisses, which were turning some shameful part of her brain to carnality.

For though in dreams of youth, she had woken struggling against the bedclothes, fighting to keep the shadow at bay, the new dreams were different. Now, the dark man came to find her bedroom door unlatched. And when he grabbed her, she did not struggle. When he kissed her, she opened her mouth. And when he pushed her back upon the bed...

What would she do if things went the way she suspected in her waking life? Would she find herself married to one man and submitting to another, in her sleep, night after night? And worse, that she might enjoy the dreams. For she awakened from them with only vague memories of what had occurred, but a licentious desire to close her eyes and escape back into them.

Thank God she had awakened before the end. Suppose he had stepped out of the shadows as the grasping little man that her father had described to her. In reality, he would be ugly and pale as the underbelly of a rat, and he would laugh as he took everything she had, with no thought to her happiness or her future, just as he had with her father.

To dissolve the terrible image from her mind, she rose quickly and splashed the cold water from the basin on her face. A good wash and a cup of tea would clear the foolishness from her head. And perhaps a brisk walk in the park, before breakfast.

It was not her usual day for a walk, of course. It was not Tuesday. She smiled at the secret, and put her fingers to her lips to hide the fact. In all her years of work, she had never longed for her free day, during the other six. In her time with the Carlows, the things she had done on it were rarely any different than the things she did while working. Perhaps it was because she enjoyed the company of the girls, and they did not mind her taking time to herself during the week, as she needed it. She doubted Verity would miss her overly, should she go out on her own this morning.

It was only since the arrival of Nathan Dale that she had felt a need for privacy or a desire to be secretive about any of her actions.

And perhaps that was why she felt a tingling sensation at the base of her neck as she walked along the path this morning. Was it the memory of the dream that still lingered, or of last week's kisses? Or perhaps it was guilt over the theft of the journal.

She did not like to think on that. It could not have been such a terrible thing to take a book that had been untouched in the library for years. If Lord Narborough had wished the secrets hidden, surely he would have burned the thing.