Chapter Twenty-Eight

It was enough to drive any woman mad, to know her ill and still-recovering husband was intending on investigating an attempted murder when he wasn't even well enough to—

Well, never mind what he wasn't well enough to do. He wasn't doing it and that was that. And if she had any say in the matter, he wasn't going to have a chance to strain himself in an entirely different way.

"Your Graces," Jarvis said as they finally arrived at Norfolk House that evening. "It's good to have you back."

"Thank you, Jarvis," Nathanial said, his voice surprisingly easy, though she knew he was in pain from the tight press of his mouth.

The idiotic man, thinking he was well enough for any sort of intimacy in a moving carriage. If she hadn't enjoyed it so much, and if the warmth of being so desperately wanted wasn't still in the pit of her stomach, she would have told him what for .

"Dinner will be served in half an hour," the butler said. "If that suits Your Graces."

For the first time, irritation escaped into Nathanial's expression. "Of course," he said. "We can dress in that time."

Theo could dress in that time. Nathanial, on the other hand, looked as though he needed to lie down awhile before he would be ready to eat.

"I can order your dinner to be brought up to your room on a tray," she said anxiously as they parted to their separate dressing rooms.

" Our room," he said. "I'll keep my room made up for appearances' sake, but I have no intention of sleeping alone."

Warmth spread across her cheeks, but she just tipped her head back so she was looking full into his face. "Do you think you can contain yourself?"

"Wretch," he said, but his eyes darkened as they dropped to her mouth, and the now-familiar curl of anticipation unfurled in her stomach. "I suppose I can count on you to stop me. "

"I wouldn't be so sure," she murmured. In a bed, which already felt alarmingly intimate, there was rather less incentive to stop than in a rocking carriage. And last time, the only reason she had stopped was because she'd hurt him.

He leant down until his lips were a hair's breadth from hers, and when he spoke, his breath danced across her mouth in an agony of temptation. "Perhaps we should skip dinner after all."

And he had the audacity to call her a wretch. She was but human, and he was too close—or perhaps not close enough.

But he was injured and tired and they'd been travelling all day.

She wanted to groan at the unfairness of it.

As though he sensed her indecision, and nothing less than full commitment would have prevailed upon him to kiss her, he eased back. "We should dress for dinner or we'll be late."

The desire to groan increased. Before she could overthink, she reached up and kissed him lightly, cupping his face in her hands and holding him still as she drew her teeth across his bottom lip. His breath caught.

"A promise," she said, breaking away. "For later." Then, before the blush on her face could reveal how awkward she felt, she fled into her dressing room and shut the door, leaning against it and closing her eyes as she remembered precisely how his mouth had felt against hers. The ghost of his hands as they had come to cup her elbows and draw her into him.

The night before his accident, he had looked at her as though she was the only thing in his world; as though the sun could have burnt and died and stopped shining, and he might never have noticed.

She wanted him to look at her like that again.

She changed quickly and reached the dining room before Nathanial. When he appeared, his movements were stiff, and she wished they had just taken a tray in her room. The journey had suppressed her appetite, and despite the feast before them—honey-roasted duck, vegetables smothered in butter, fish and parsley, sweet and savoury pies—nothing tempted her.

"Excuse me, Your Grace." Jarvis approached her with a note on a silver tray. "This arrived just now. The boy insisted I deliver it immediately."

Theo frowned as she plucked the single sheet from the tray. No one even knew she was back, but the implication was of urgency.

Was her family sick?

"Thank you, Jarvis," she said, dismissing him with a smile she didn't feel. Her fingers only marginally shaky, she ripped open the wafer and read the few lines written in elegant, faintly familiar script.

My dear Duchess, it read .

No doubt you must be understandably worried about your husband's health in the light of recent events. Believe me when I say they are unconnected to your recent illness.

If you should like to know more, meet me at Victoria Gate tomorrow morning at eight, and I shall tell you everything I know. Come alone.

I remain your loyal servant,

A Friend .

Theo stared at it blankly, reading it again but more slowly. A friend? What friend did she have who would refuse to put their name?

And their claim to know something about Nathanial's attempted murder . . . Could it be true? Did this person have the key to unlocking this entire mystery? Or was this merely a hoax, to either waste her time or put her in some danger? After all, she had been poisoned.

But the streets would not be empty at eight o'clock, even in the morning. There would be witnesses, and Victoria Gate led into Hyde Park, which was hardly an inconspicuous location.

She would be foolish to even consider it. The note was almost certainly a trap.

"Theo?" Nathanial asked, a sharp note to his voice. She glanced up, noting as she did the paleness of his face and the strain in his eyes. This was probably not the first time he had said her name.

The choice whether to tell him or not was made before she'd even considered it. Nathanial could never know about this note. Not when telling him would result in him forbidding her to leave the house, most probably, and hurting himself to discover the letter-writer.

She hadn't yet decided if she was going to obey the letter's summons, but if she did, she would at least make that decision herself .

"Oh, it's nothing," she said airily, folding the letter again. Her voice didn't quite obey her, and her fingers shook like autumn leaves in a wind, so she gave him a bland smile she hated. "Annabelle writes asking if I can visit her tomorrow."

"How did she know you would be back?" The suspicion hadn't lightened on his face.

"Oh, I wrote to her a few days ago suggesting we might set off soon. Perhaps she saw the carriage, or delivered the note here in hope."

"Is there something wrong with your family? Your mother's health, perhaps?"

Theo's heart lurched uncomfortably against her chest. How many lies would she have to tell? She wasn't even particularly good at lying. "My mother has a trifling cold and wishes to see me. This is the longest I've ever been away from home, you see." She kept her voice light, and eventually Nathanial turned back to his plate, a frown pulling at his mouth.

As soon as this was over, she would tell him everything, and while he would probably be angry—well, there was no ‘probably' about it; he would be angry—she would have relieved her soul of its burdens and they would be free to live their lives without the threat of danger lurking overhead.

"You seem distracted," Nathanial said as the meal finally ended. "Is your mother's health worse than you're letting on?"

"Unlikely." Theo's smile was lamentably fake. Why had she never learnt that young lady's trick of lying through her teeth? "But Annabelle does love to worry."

"And you?" he asked, his gaze piercing. "Do you love to worry?"

"Me? No, of course not." She forced another smile and glanced away. His suspicion and concern cut away at her until she almost lost her resolve.

Would he ever forgive her for this ?

Perhaps she could show him the note, after all. What was the worst he could do? Strain himself going after the letter-writer? Do the exact same thing she was considering, but in poorer health?

There was a possibility he would recognise the handwriting, of course, and so he might be able to inform her decision. But if he didn't, and he prevented her from making this meeting, she might never learn whatever it was this person knew about the accident.

And they had to know something. No one outside of her and Nathanial, and perhaps the doctor who had attended her, knew that she had been deliberately poisoned. For the person to mention that the two events weren't connected suggested they had intimate knowledge of the situation.

Her head was spinning and the food turned to ashes in her mouth.

"Theo?" Nathanial asked, his voice gentle. "Are you quite well?"

"The journey tired me," she said after a moment. She might as well find a reason for her sudden preoccupation, and if she retired now, she would have a few more minutes to herself before Nathanial came up to bed, as he would.

"Of course." His brow didn't clear, but concern now replaced the uncertainty in his expression. "I should have thought—it's been a challenging few weeks for you, too."

She rose, the letter clenched in her fist, and approached him. A gentle smile touched her lips at her nearness. The letter burned her hand.

"Goodnight, Nate," she said, looking down into the face of the husband she had grown to love so dearly. The grey eyes, the dark hair, the softness that she knew she could bring from him like nectar from a flower.

He reached out and stroked the back of a knuckle along her cheek. "You'll see me soon," he said, a teasing note in his voice, although there was still that wariness around the tight corners of his eyes. She smoothed them with the pads of her fingers, feeling the strangest urge to cry.

Her resolve faltered, and she clung to its frayed edges. If she gave Nathanial the letter and absolved herself of all responsibility, she would be opening him to danger. That, she could never do.

Before she said something to incriminate herself, she picked up her skirts and walked from the room, feeling Nathanial's gaze on her back with every step.