Chapter Fourteen

C HAPTER F OURTEEN

Who knows how long such a strange contretemps might have continued—Christina meeting Sabinus to give him letters written by Lady Long-Nose, only to have him demand more, thus forcing Christina to return to Lady Long-Nose so that lady had to write again—if something hadn’t intervened.

Unfortunately, the intervention was Sabinus being kidnapped and taken to the fairy court.…

—From Lady Long-Nose

Late that night, Julian threw yet another accounts book across the library. The book hit the fireplace mantel and ricocheted off to fall where Plum was lying asleep. The dog bounded up and gave Julian an accusing look.

“What of it?” Julian snarled. “I don’t know why you’re here with me instead of with your mistress.”

Plum ignored him and moved to the other side of the hearth, presumably because, in his dog mind, it was safer.

Julian sighed.

His frustration had risen to the point that now he was frightening innocent animals.

What was he to do if he never found the book Mother had written in? He’d pinned his hopes on the damned book since he’d found out about its existence. If he couldn’t act against Augustus with some sort of blackmail material, some secret the duke was hiding, then…

Then he’d have no recourse left.

Messalina was safe with Hawthorne and his men. Lucretia, God willing, was far from London with the Crow woman and presumably safe for now. But that still left Quinn exposed. His brother was a man quite able to defend himself in a physical altercation, but a shot from a hidden sniper?

Julian remembered Westminster Abbey and that bit of stone chipping off the statue before he’d even registered the sound of the shot.

No man could guard himself from a bullet.

And in the future? When Messalina or Lucretia or Quinn had children? What then? Would they all be held hostage to his uncle’s whims?

Julian let his head drop to his hands. He mustn’t give up hope. He’d find a way—somehow—to stop Augustus. If nothing else, he’d kill the old man. Perhaps he’d have time to flee England. Perhaps he’d hang. But in either case, his family would be safe without his uncle. They’d be disgraced, unable to mingle in society for at least several generations with a murderer for a relation, but they’d be alive.

Julian felt something wet touch his cheek and jerked his head out of his hands. Plum sat beside him, head cocked inquisitively.

Even Elspeth’s dog felt sorry for him.

Julian reached out, offering his fingertips, and Plum poked his head under Julian’s hand, begging for a pet.

“Where’s your regard for Elspeth?” Julian muttered under his breath, Plum’s fur soft under his fingers. “You can’t let your guard down just because I seem harmless now. How do you know I won’t turn on your mistress?”

The dog merely groaned, his body leaning heavily against Julian’s side. An animal could be so easily swayed by honeyed words and a gentle hand. Elspeth needed a better guardian. She might be able to defend herself against an open attack, but she too could fall to a bullet.

Or to betrayal.

The thought sent a sharp ache through his chest. He could almost see the pain and confusion Elspeth would feel if she learned he’d lied about Ran murdering Aurelia. She’d turn away from him. He’d never touch her again.

He couldn’t bear the thought.

Plum grumbled under his hand, and Julian realized he’d stopped petting.

“So greedy,” Julian said absently as he resumed scratching behind Plum’s ears.

Elspeth wanted to be independent. She wouldn’t care for his protection. Once she’d finished searching Adders’s library and returned to London, would he even see her again?

Better that she didn’t, a cruel voice in his head said. He was dangerous to be around, a man twisted by his past sins and his unnatural desires. He had ruined her brother and her family in an unforgivable act.

Julian closed his eyes.

He was her enemy. Even if she didn’t know it.

Plum suddenly stretched out his legs before him, bowing his back before standing upright again and shaking. The dog seemed to give Julian a significant look before trotting to the closed library door and sitting expectantly.

Julian glanced at the clock. It was well past midnight. “Yes, all right. It’s past time for you and me to retire.”

He let the dog outside at the kitchen door, offered him water, and then climbed the stairs, Plum’s nails clicking against the hardwood floor. The upper hall was silent, no light beneath Elspeth’s door.

Julian hesitated, but Plum impatiently scratched the door.

“Shush,” Julian ordered the dog. “Don’t wake her up.”

He let the dog into the darkened room, the light from his candle barely reaching the foot of the bed. For a moment, he stood there, listening to the dog settle until all he heard was Elspeth’s gentle breaths, sighing in and out. Somehow the scent of wild roses lingered in the air, and he imagined the nape of her neck, the skin humid from sleeping, vulnerable and waiting for him in the bed if he walked closer. She would be warm and soft, drowsy and pliant, and if he lifted the covers to crawl next to her, he’d smell her, the scent of Elspeth distilled in her warmth, calling to everything male inside him.

Julian shook his head, stepping back silently, and closed the door gently as if locking away a treasure.

He stood there, his forehead resting against the door, trying to hear her breathing.

But the door had blocked both the sound and the scent, a barrier firmly between them.

He sighed, lifting his head. He’d lived three-and-thirty years without hearing Elspeth sleeping. He could survive another night. And another. And then another. All the days of what remained of his life, one night at a time, alone.

A scrape came from the stairs, and Julian turned to see a light ascending.

Julian just had time to step several feet away from Elspeth’s door before Vanderberg came into sight.

The valet smiled, the candlelight casting weird shadows over his face. “I’ve found you, sir!”

When Elspeth walked into the kitchen the next morning, it was to the sight of a golden-haired man chattering animatedly to Mrs. McBride as the cook chopped potatoes.

He immediately jumped up from his chair and bowed. “Good morning, my lady. Would you like for me to serve you breakfast in the dining room?”

Elspeth raised her eyebrows. Up until now, she’d had her breakfast in the cozy kitchen or in the library with Julian. She hadn’t even been aware that there was a dining room.

The man looked abashed, perhaps taking her pause as a reprimand. He bowed again. “Oh, of course! I haven’t introduced myself yet. William Vanderberg, Mr. Greycourt’s valet, at your service.”

Elspeth darted a glance at the cook and saw her shake her head minutely before Elspeth smiled at the valet. “Thank you, Vanderberg. I would indeed like my breakfast, but in the library, please.”

“As you wish,” he chirped, bowing again.

Elspeth eyed the man. His constant bowing seemed a bit excessive. She smiled at Mrs. McBride and turned to make her way to the library.

There she discovered Plum, already sitting next to Julian as the man absently scratched the dog under the chin with one hand while he paged through a book with the other.

He glanced up and tossed the book aside. “Bound pamphlets describing men condemned to execution at Newgate. One of my ancestors must’ve had a macabre mind.” He looked away. “Where would you like to sit while I bring you the books?”

“By the window, please,” Elspeth said, pointing to a chair in the sunlight. “But I haven’t had my breakfast yet. Your—”

The door opened to reveal Vanderberg holding a tray.

“I’m playing footman today,” he said cheerily as he walked in, setting the tray on the small table before turning to Julian. “Would you like some more tea, sir?”

Julian shook his head, his eyes on another book. “No thank you, Vanderberg.”

The little man—for he couldn’t be much over five feet—nodded and left the room.

Elspeth went to sit at the table, and Plum got up, coming to lie at her feet, although she wasn’t foolish enough to think it was she that drew the dog. The ham on her plate gently steamed next to a mound of shirred eggs.

She took a bite, eyeing the dog. “You’ve somehow seduced my dog in the night.” She cut off a tiny piece of ham and surreptitiously fed it to Plum under the table. “Were you plying him with scraps all last evening after I went to bed?”

“No,” he said shortly, not even glancing up from another book. “But I see you have that bad habit.”

Her eyes rose at his dispassionate tone. Was he trying to put her off conversation with it?

Ha! More fool he. Elspeth had grown up with two older sisters who used to hide from her when they tired of her chatting. Not that it had saved them. She’d always found Freya and Caitriona in the end.

“It’s so nice to see the sun out,” she murmured now. “Do you have a garden somewhere? I’d think Adders would be perfect for one of Mr. Brown’s romantic scenes. All you’d need is a hermitage right there.” She pointed to a small hill in the distance, nearly hidden in the trees.

“A hermitage,” he said, his voice flat.

“Mm.” She swallowed a bite and took a sip of her tea. “Caitriona says they’re quite fashionable on grand estates. Apparently, English lords and ladies hire hermits to live in their hermitages. Picturesque, you know.”

He blinked as if coming out of a daze. “No, I’m afraid I don’t know. I don’t have either the money or the time for such ridiculous pastimes. I can’t believe it’s even true. Where did your sister hear about such things living way up in Scotland?”

“Newspapers, mostly, on gardening and land management,” Elspeth said brightly, remembering Cait, her brows furrowed ferociously behind her spectacles as she bent over some paper. Elspeth felt a sudden pain in her chest. When would she next see her sister? She didn’t even know.

She sighed and continued, “You wouldn’t believe how boring gardening papers are to read. I only tried once. But when Caitriona would tell Freya and me what she’d learned, it was always interesting.” She shrugged and cut off another bite of ham for Plum. “I was amazed by what the nobility got up to in England.”

He gave her a dry look. “As opposed to the Scottish nobility being raised to become Amazons.”

She grinned at him, delighted. “Oh, is that how you see me?”

He glanced away. “Not exactly.”

The urge to poke him was nearly overwhelming, but she refrained out of a suspicion she might not entirely like what he’d say.

Elspeth inhaled. “Well, you must admit some of the mores of polite society in London are quite puzzling.”

“Such as?”

She waved her fork vaguely. “Valets, for instance. Oh, and lady’s maids. Whyever would you want to employ someone to dress you? It seems rather awkward.”

He was silent a moment before replying quietly, “You mean Vanderberg, I take it.”

“Well, not specifically,” she prevaricated. “But in general, yes. For instance, did you arrange for him to meet you here? And if so, how have you managed to dress yourself in the meantime?”

“I have no trouble dressing myself,” Julian replied dryly. “A valet is most useful in London, helping to dress for parties and balls. And I didn’t ask for him to come here. He must’ve been confused.”

Elspeth returned thoughtfully to her eggs. In truth, she was quite curious about the valet, turning up as he pleased at his master’s home. She might be new to the English ways and not fully understand quite a lot of them, but she rather thought such independence in a servant was frowned upon.

“And I don’t find being dressed by a servant uncomfortable,” Julian said. The corner of his mouth kicked up in a cynical way. “You might tell me that’s because I was raised with servants, and you’d probably be right. But in any case, Vanderberg isn’t like other valets. He came to me when I was fifteen. My father hired him when he was only sixteen. He’d worked under another valet in the house of a friend of my father, but I was his first proper situation. He’d been with me for two years before that awful summer.” He inhaled. “And Vanderberg stayed with me. Even when I went to London to live with my uncle. Even when I’ve not always had the funds to pay him properly.”

She thought about that as she poured herself another cup of tea before saying carefully, “You said once that you didn’t trust any of the servants who lived at Windemere House. That they were in your uncle’s pay to spy for him.” She glanced up. “But you trust Vanderberg?”

He pressed his lips together. “I’m not so naive as to think that any man is above bribery, and I suppose Vanderberg has more cause to need money because of me. Nevertheless, I trust him. He knew secrets about me when we lived at Windemere, and he never betrayed me.”

“And here?” She sipped her tea before setting the dish down and looking at him. “Does he know the secrets you keep at Adders Hall?”

He stiffened, his voice clipped when he answered, “I’ve never told him explicitly, but he’s an intelligent man. He must know that what I do is illicit at least.” He watched her carefully, his gray eyes clear. “You need not fear him. I’ve made pains to tell him that you’re only here because you are a friend of Messalina and were stranded in Dydle. Of course, that story wouldn’t help you if word gets out in society that you stayed with me alone for several days. But I have confidence Vanderberg won’t talk. He won’t betray you.”

Elspeth looked down at her empty teacup. Julian had made the consequences clear to her should people in London find out about their sexual activities at Adders Hall. Yet she couldn’t help thinking, But what if it is Julian who is betrayed?