A Kiss to Remember (13 page)

Laura’s heart stopped,
then stuttered into an uneven beat. The old man must be mistaken. As far as she knew, Halford Tombob hadn’t left Arden since George II had sat on the throne.

“I mean no disrespect, Mr. Tombob,” she said, tucking her gloved hand in the crook of Nicholas’s arm, “but that’s quite impossible. This is my fiancé’s first visit to the village.”

Tombob’s papery brow crinkled in a frown. “Are you quite certain? Why, that’s most peculiar. I would have sworn …” He shook his woolly, white head. “My mistake, I suppose. Neither my eyesight nor my wits are what they used to be.” Still shaking his head, he started to turn away.

“Wait, sir.” Despite his respectful tone, Nicholas’s command rang with an authority that was impossible to disobey. The old man turned back to find Nicholas peering into
his
face. “Can you tell me why you thought you knew me?”

Tombob planted the tip of his cane firmly in the grass. “You put me in mind of a boy I once knew. Can’t remember the lad’s name. But he was a generous and good-natured soul—not an ounce of cheekiness in him.”

A smile slowly curved Nicholas’s lips. “Then the lady must be right. I cannot be that boy.”

Both Tombob and the crowd burst into laughter at Nicholas’s jest. Laura tugged at his arm, certain her nerves had suffered enough shocks for one day. “Come, Mr. Radcliffe. We really mustn’t dally any longer. Cookie will be waiting lunch for us.”

When their battered barouche came rolling into the manor’s cobbled drive a short while later, it wasn’t Cookie but Dower who was waiting for them, fresh from his expedition to London. Since the old man possessed only two expressions—grim and grimmer—it was impossible to tell if he bore good tidings or ill.

Before Nicholas could offer a hand to assist her down, Laura came spilling out of the barouche, nearly shredding her hem in her haste. “Welcome back, Dower. Have you any word on that ram we were thinking of purchasing for our flocks?”

“I might,” he said cryptically.

“We’ve been getting along perfectly well without a new ram.” George shot Nicholas a sullen look. “I don’t see why we have need of one now.”

“Unless we can roast it over a nice hot spit,” Lottie concurred sweetly.

“Come, Dower,” Laura said, smiling through clenched teeth. “Since it’s livestock we’ll be discussing,
it would probably be best if we conducted our business in the barn.”

Before the children could further stir Nicholas’s suspicions, she started for the barn, dragging Dower along behind her as fast as his bandy legs would allow. She’d barely gotten the barn door closed and latched before she whirled around to face him. “What have you learned in London, Dower? Is there any word of a missing gentleman?”

“Don’t ’urry me, gel. Give me time to catch m’breath.”

Despite her impatience, Laura knew there was no rushing Dower when he didn’t want to be rushed. Cookie had once nagged him into carrying a freshly baked mince pie to one of their neighbors only to have it arrive a week later with three pieces missing and a moldy crust.

She stewed in silence while he propped one foot on an overturned bucket, drew a pipe from his pocket, lit it, and took a leisurely draw. Just when she thought she might start tearing at her hair or his, he pursed his lips, blew out a mouthful of smoke, and said, “There’s a missin’ gent, all right.”

Laura sank down on a bale of hay, her legs going weak. “Well, that’s it, I suppose. We’re all going to prison.”

Dower took another deep draw on the pipe. “ ’E went missin’ less than a week ago. Started out for one o’ them fancy gambling ’ells, but never arrived. ’Is wife’s been screamin’ foul play ever since.”

“Oh.” Laura hugged her stomach, feeling as if one of the cows had just kicked her. It seemed that Nicholas wouldn’t be needing a wife after all. He already had one.

A leer twisted Dower’s thin lips. “Of course, there’s some wot say ’e mighta sailed to France with ’is mistress.”

Laura’s head flew up. “He has a wife
and
a mistress?”

Dower shook his head admiringly, smoke streaming from his nostrils. “You got to ’and it to the bloke. ’Eaven knows I’ve enough trouble keepin’ one woman ’appy, much less two.”

Remembering the husky endearments Nicholas had whispered in her ear and the delicious heat of his mouth against her skin, Laura could not quite keep the bitter note from her voice. “I’m sure he knows just what to do to keep a woman
happy.
Such skills come very naturally to some men.”

She rose from the hay bale and began to pace between the stalls. It was hardly fair of her to condemn Nicholas’s character when her own was so lacking. She ought to be heartsick with guilt, not heartbroken. “His poor wife. How she must be suffering wondering what terrible fate has befallen him!”

Dower nodded his agreement. “I daresay them squallin’ brats o’ ’ers is more of a trial than a comfort.”

Laura halted, then slowly turned to face him. “Brats?”

“Aye. Five of ’em, there are, each more sticky and shrill than the last.”

Laura groped behind her for the hay bale, forced to sit again.

Dower drew a crumpled broadside from his pocket and held it out to her. “They been circulatin’ these all over town in the ’opes o’ findin’ out wot ’appened to ’im.”

Laura took the broadside from Dower, bracing her-
self to study a sketch by an artist who couldn’t possibly do justice to his subject. Surely not even a master like Reynolds or Gainsborough could have captured the roguish slant of her fiancé’s smile or the winning way his eyes crinkled in the bright sunlight.

She smoothed the broadside over her knee to find a pair of small, piggy eyes set deep in fleshy pockets squinting up at her. She leaned closer to the sketch. A bushy set of side whiskers did little to disguise the man’s ample jowls. His brow was crowned by a head of black curls so lush as to be almost feminine.

Laura recoiled from the sketch. No artist, not even a blind one, could be
that
inept.

Springing to her feet, she shook the broadside at Dower. “This isn’t him! This isn’t my Nicholas!”

Dower scratched his head, looking genuinely baffled. “Never said it was, did I? You just asked me if there was a missin’ gent.”

Laura didn’t know whether to kick him or kiss him. She compromised by throwing her arms around his neck. “Why, you wretched, wonderful old man! What would I ever do without you?”

“Steady now, gel. If I want the life choked out o’ me, I’ll go provoke me wife.” Squirming out of her embrace, Dower stabbed the bowl of his pipe at the broadside. “This still don’t prove that young gent o’ yours ain’t goin’ to murder us all in our beds in the dark o’ night.”

A curious flush traveled through Laura’s body. She might not know Nicholas’s real name, but she did know that if he came to her bed in the dark of night, it wouldn’t be with murder on his mind.

But Dower’s words succeeded in putting a damper
on her relief. She’d been so overjoyed to learn that her fiancé wasn’t a philandering husband and the father of five squalling brats that she’d momentarily forgotten they still hadn’t a single clue to his identity.

“You’re absolutely right, Dower. You’ll simply have to return to London in a few days and make more inquiries. If I’m to be married on the Wednesday before my birthday, we haven’t much time.” She threw open the barn door, flooding the shadows with sunshine, and stood gazing wistfully up at the second-story window of Lady Eleanor’s chamber. “I can’t imagine why no one has missed him. If he were mine and I lost him, I’d search day and night until he was safely home again.”

“Your cousin has gone missing.”

For eleven years, Diana Harlow had waited to hear that voice. Had dreamed of the moment when its owner might stroll through the door of whatever room she happened to be occupying at the time. She had imagined a thousand different variations of her reaction from gracious welcome to aloof dismissal to withering disdain. But she had never dreamed that when the moment finally came, she would be powerless to do anything but continue to stare down at the ledger in front of her on the desk, even as its neat columns and rows of numbers blurred to an indecipherable jumble.

“Your cousin has gone missing,” her unannounced guest repeated as he crossed the study and halted before the desk. “Have you any notion of his whereabouts?”

Diana slowly raised her head to find herself looking into the crisp green eyes of Thane DeMille, the marquess
of Gillingham and Sterling’s most devoted friend. Although time and the self-indulgent excesses expected of any high-living young buck had stamped their mark on his boyish features, his hair was still the same rich russet she remembered. His shoulders and limbs had lost their gangly awkwardness, nicely filling out a gray cutaway coat, a silver-and-burgundy striped waistcoat, and a pair of fawn trousers. He balanced a top hat and walking stick in his elegant hands.

She returned her attention to the ledger, keenly aware of the limp strand of hair that had escaped her chignon and the smudges of ink on her fingers. “My cousin has never made his whereabouts a matter of my concern. Have you made inquiries at all of his usual haunts—Almack’s? White’s? Newmarket?” She dipped her pen in the inkwell and began to inscribe another neat row of figures. “If he’s not to be found in any of those places, I suggest you try the drawing room of the sisters Wilson.”

The Wilson sisters were notorious Cyprians, their fondness for wealthy gentlemen of the ton surpassed only by their skills at pleasuring them.

If Thane was shocked that she knew the name of such an establishment, much less was bold enough to mention it in mixed company, he hid it behind a mocking smile. “It just so happens that I spoke with Miss Harriette Wilson only last night. She hasn’t seen Sterling since he returned from France.”

Diana’s pen slipped, turning a zero into a nine. She slowly closed the ledger and peered up at Thane over the top of her spectacles. “I sincerely doubt that there’s any great cause for alarm. Like you, my cousin is a man
of varied interests and a low tolerance for boredom. He’s probably just off indulging one of his many appetites.”

Thane’s mouth tightened. “I might be inclined to agree with you if it weren’t for this.”

Striding to the door, he slipped two fingers into his mouth and let out a most ungentlemanly whistle.

Sterling’s mastiffs came padding into the room, their enormous heads drooping and their eyes downcast. They bore little resemblance to the magnificent creatures that had trotted into the study at their master’s heels only a few short days ago. They milled about the room aimlessly, as if lost without Sterling’s voice to guide them. Not even the small white cat napping on the hearth could stir their interest.

“Down, Caliban. Down, Cerberus,” Thane commanded.

The dogs spared him little more than a morose glance before wending their way to the window. They nudged aside the brocade draperies and settled back on their hindquarters, pressing their noses to the window as they gazed down upon the fog-shrouded street.

“I don’t understand,” Diana said, frowning.

Thane threw himself into the leather wing chair opposite the desk.

She had forgotten that about him. He never sat. He always sprawled. “They’ve been moping about in this manner ever since Sterling disappeared. They won’t eat. They won’t sleep. They spend half the night whimpering and whining.” Scowling, he flicked a brindle hair off of his lapel. “And they shed abominably.”

Diana couldn’t quite bite back her smile. “Perhaps you’re in need of a competent valet, not a duke.”

Thane leaned forward, fixing her with a penetrating stare. “Have you ever known Sterling to go anywhere for any length of time without those two beasts at his side? Even the French called them his
chiens de diable
— his devil dogs—and swore they’d been sent to escort his soul to hell if he should fall on the battlefield.”

As Diana considered his words, she felt her first tingle of apprehension. She shuffled a stack of papers to occupy her unsteady hands. “Just how long has he been missing?”

“Nearly a week. Thursday morning around ten o’clock he informed one of my grooms that he was going for a ride in Hyde Park. It was the last anyone has seen of him.”

“Surely you don’t suspect he’s been the victim of some sort of foul play?”

“As disagreeable as it may be, I fear we must consider the possibility.”

Diana fought her growing panic. Despite their constant quibbling, she adored her roguish cousin as much as he adored her. He might play the devil for the rest of the world, but to her, he would always be the guardian angel who had borne the brunt of her father’s displeasure so she wouldn’t have to.

“There’s no need to fear the worst, is there?” she asked. “He could have been the victim of a kidnapping.”

“A likelihood I considered myself. But there have been no threats, no demands for ransom. And besides, if someone were foolhardy enough to abduct your cousin, they’d probably end up paying us to take him back. Why, that scathing tongue of his alone would break the spirit of even the most dastardly of villains.”

Diana was too worried to be cheered by his grim humor. “But who would seek to do Sterling harm? Does he have any enemies?”

Thane arched an eyebrow, making her realize just how ridiculous her question was. “Well, let me think,” he said, drumming his fingernails on the arm of the chair. “There’s the two hapless young fellows he winged in recent duels before they could even get a shot off. Then there’s Lord Reginald Danforth, former owner of a charming country estate in Derbyshire that now belongs to your cousin thanks to a winning hand of whist. Oh, and I nearly forgot his passionate dalliance with the lovely Lady Elizabeth Hewitt. To Sterling’s credit, he didn’t realize the lady in question was married until after their liaison. But I’m afraid her husband didn’t appreciate the distinction. He would have called Sterling out himself if he hadn’t heard about the earlier duels and feared suffering a similar humiliation.”

Sighing bleakly, Diana slipped off her spectacles to rub the bridge of her nose. “Is there anyone in London who wouldn’t wish him ill?”