He watched Thora’s cheeks pinken as she stumbled for words. “It was just . . . just that the ladies were asking about him, and I knew so little about him.” She took a moment before frankly asking, “So is he linked to anyone romantically?”
Nyle regarded her in a speculative way before answering. She didn’t fool him with her lame attempt at idle curiosity. She was keen on knowing if Garren had a relationship with someone, but just how keen? “I don’t think it’s my place to tell you. I suggest you ask Huntscliff,” he said, knowing that a lady would never ask a gentleman such a forward question.
Thora’s shoulders slumped.
He had presumed correctly. His sister was definitely interested in Garren, and not as an investigator. He thought for a moment. Thora and Garren. What an excellent match!
Taking pity, he added, “All I can tell you is that I am not aware of his attachment to anyone at the current time.” Thora had never been one to hide her emotions, and he clearly saw his sister’s face brighten when he told her he didn’t know of any romantic involvement in his friend’s life.
Excusing himself from Lord Langless, Nyle left the drawing room and went to his study where he poured himself a generous glass of brandy. In an awakening flash, it occurred to Nyle that his promise to never leave her could very well be broken, not by him, but by Thora herself.
Garren’s eyes immediately searched and found Thora, but to his displeasure, once again, she was chatting with Viscount Simon-North and he was green with envy. Lord, she looked beautiful. The gown she was wearing was a deep sapphire trimmed with silver braid, her mass of chocolate hued curls were pinned to one side, letting a cascade of delectable tresses flow over her one shoulder, and at her ears and throat were shimmering diamonds that paled in comparison to her radiant beauty. “Good evening, Lady Thora,” he greeted cordially while merely nodding to her companion Simon-North.
“Lord Huntscliff, how good of a fisherman are you?” Thora asked sweetly. Then, seeing his confusion, she softly laughed and explained. “Tomorrow my brother is taking the boats out on the lake to do some fishing, and I was wondering if we can count on you to bring in a large catch.”
Garren’s lips stretched, giving her a brilliant smile. “I’m quite adept at catching whatever I go after.”
“That sounds like a challenge to me,” Viscount Simon-North remarked loudly, drawing attention from the others in the room. Quickly the guests gathered around. “Let’s make our little fishing outing a contest and draw teams,” the viscount excitedly proposed. “Each member of each team will put up ten pounds and whichever team brings in the most fish wins the pot.”
“And I’ve got a new Nottingham reel that I will put up as first prize to the man who catches the most fish!” Nyle announced, heightening the group’s enthusiasm.
Lord Langless excluded himself from partaking in the challenge, saying he’d much rather fish from the tree-shaded shore where he could take refreshments from the picnicking ladies, instead of sitting out in a boat in the middle of a lake with the sun frying his skin like bacon in a pan.
Not wanting Lord Langless to be the only male guest excluded from the wager, Thora stated that if there were no objections she would like to team with the elder gentleman on shore. Her thoughtfulness received a grateful nod from Lady Langless.
Ruling her out as any serious competition, there were no protests from the other men. The men wrote down their names on slips of paper and dropped them into a silver bowl. Lady Langless was asked to draw two slips at a time to determine the teams. The first team selected was Lord Flemington and Marquis Brightington. After two more papers were drawn, Viscount Simon-North was paired with an unenthusiastic Sandler Leedworthy, leaving the last team of Garren and Nyle.
Patting Lord Langless on the back, Lord Avery Flemington chuckled. “You are a sly one, your lordship. With Lady Thora the second half of your team, you’ve outfoxed us all by having the prettiest partner to spend the day with.”
“Thank you, Lord Flemington,” Thora said, acknowledging his compliment. “But beware,” she warned, “I am a good fisherman, er, fisherwoman as well.”
While her opponents chuckled, Garren was stung with an arrow of envy at the ease with which Lord Flemington had bestowed his flattery and the geniality of Thora’s acceptance.
A lively discussion ensued, and the ladies, save Thora, excitedly chose teams to rally behind. Floris was giving Sandler Leedworthy words of encouragement, telling him that she had little doubt of him winning Lord Somerville’s new reel. Leedworthy eyed her with less certainty.
As the group proceeded into the dining room, Lauryn Mayfield slid next to Garren, revealing that she had chosen Lord Flemington and Marquis Brightington’s team to win. “If Lord Flemington is as good at fishing as he is at boxing, then he’s sure to win that reel.”
“You may be right,” Garren replied, sensing she clearly wanted Flemington to win. Inwardly, he was perplexed.
What magic does Flemington possess? First he has Thora listening to his dreadful poetry recitation. Now Lady Lauryn is anxious for him to win the fishing contest.
Perhaps he should take up pugilism, or at the very least have his nose broken.
Conversation at dinner continued to be centered on the fishing tournament. The contest seemed to entice everyone’s interest and dull the memory of Cecilia’s unfortunate accident.
Yet there were two at the table who seemed less enthusiastic, Nyle sharply observed. Thora and Garren both seemed to have other matters on their mind. He fought back a grin. There was something definitely brewing between those two.
If she could read Nyle’s thoughts, Thora would have had to confess that her brother was right. Fishing was the furthest thing from Thora’s mind. Stealing furtive glances at Lord Huntscliff, she wished she was sitting beside him instead of Lady Langless. There was something about Lord Huntscliff that made her quiver inside. It was a strange attraction, the likes of which she had never experienced before. As shameful as it sounded, she wanted to be near him, for him to touch her, to feel his large, warm hand at the small of her back, pressing her body to his, molding her to his hard, muscular frame. She wanted to see his dark eyes full of passion, wanted to kiss his lips that were so tender yet demanding, beckoning her to disregard her inhabitations. Her thoughts had wandered too far for she suddenly felt herself blushing. The heat of her burning cheeks bid her to take control of her wayward thoughts, which proved difficult. Though her eyes remained on her plate, she could feel Huntscliff’s heavy stare upon her. Forcing herself to remain composed, she lifted her gaze to give him a somewhat trembling smile.
Thora’s smile brought a brief pause to his Garren’s yearning. Sitting just a few chairs from Thora was torment. He longed to have her near, to be able to smell her scent and hear the softness of her voice and gaze into eyes so blue that he could drown in their depths. Only it was Viscount Simon-North who was having that pleasure. Remembering what Mason had learned about the man, of the letters from the brokenhearted women Simon-North had used and callously tossed aside, prompted a surge of animal rage that had Garren wanting to leap across the table to bury in the center of the man’s face. A woman’s voice reached his ear, bringing him back to sanity. It was Lady Langless.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow and the contest,” she confessed. “My Floris has chosen Viscount Simon-North’s and Mr. Leedworthy’s team to win. I, of course, as a loyal spouse, chose my husband and Lady Thora, but my other three younger daughters have already decided the winners will be you and Lord Somerville,” she said.
“I hope we won’t disappoint them,” he said, smiling at the youngest Langless females who blushed and giggled.
When dinner ended, the men rose from their chairs respectively as the ladies left their seats and slowly retreated to the drawing room. As Thora passed the now-standing Lord Huntscliff, a whisper reached her ears.
“The back terrace in an hour?”
She gave him a discreet nod and walked past, wondering how she was going to endure waiting those excruciating long minutes.
After an hour of boring chatter with the ladies, Thora was able to slip away from the drawing room on the pretense of checking with the kitchen staff for tomorrow’s outing. Once she had closed the door to the drawing room, Thora lifted her skirts above her ankles and swiftly ran to the back terrace. Anticipation had her heart beating like a drum. The sparely lit back terrace was long, took up nearly the width of the manor, and was disappointingly empty. Her only accompaniment was a thick cloud of fog stretching up from across the lawn to wrap its ghostly arms around the manor. Not the ideal setting for listening to poetry.
Projecting out from the walls of the upper floor were several widely spaced oriels, each creating a patch of darkness beneath them so black that one could easily disappear into their shadowy depth. Mischief taking hold of her, Thora slipped into one such pocket of blackness, her arms stretched out like that of a blind man until her hands felt the wet, mist-coated stones of the manor’s outer wall. Hidden, but still able to see someone approaching, she decided to wait until Lord Huntscliff came by, thinking it amusing to suddenly pop out and give him a good scare and teach him a lesson for keeping her waiting. It wasn’t long before she heard footfall. Someone was coming. The fog and darkness cloaked the figure’s face but she could tell by the form cutting though the gray mist that it was a man. Lord Huntscliff.
As she waited for him to draw near, she readied herself to jump out and surprise him when she realized something was amiss. The height wasn’t right to be Lord Huntscliff. It wasn’t Huntscliff. The realization brought icy fingers of fear. The lone figure seemed to be searching for something . . . or someone.
Thora gulped. Was he looking for her? Was it the killer? Had he seen her leave the manor and followed her? Then she remembered the police rattle. She started to reach for it when it hit her. The gown she was wearing had no pockets and she had left it upstairs. What a fool! She chided herself. She had been so sidetracked by her meeting with Huntscliff that she forgot it. Where was Huntscliff? Why wasn’t he here?
Frozen with terror, Thora pressed herself against the cold, rough stones of Mannington Manor, too afraid to breathe but unable to take her eyes off the figure creeping closer. He stood barely an arm’s length away from her. Suddenly, and to her great relief, the figure moved past her, quickening his pace and disappearing into the fog. Thora took a deep breath, exhaling it slowly and waited for her heart to stop racing before she darted out of her concealment and right into the arms of a man. Huntscliff.
“Lady Thora, what’s wrong?” Garren asked, momentarily startled by Thora’s leap out of the shadows. “Did something frighten you?”
Not wanting Huntscliff to know she’d narrowly escaped becoming a victim of the mysterious figure, which would lead to the question of why she hadn’t used her police rattle, Thora quickly replied, “I thought I heard the sound of some sort of animal moving about.”
“Oh,” Garren uttered with an unbelieving tone that grated on Thora’s nerves.
“What took you so long?” she snipped.
“I would have been here sooner but Viscount Simon-North insisted on giving me the opportunity to recover from my loss at billiards.” With the tips of his long fingers, he lifted her chin. “Are you so eager to hear my sonnets?”
Even in the dim light, Thora could see the sparkle in his eyes.
In a voice deep and smooth, he murmured,
“You lie in all my many thoughts, like light, like the fair light of dawn or summer eve
On rippling stream or cloud reflecting lake, the sheen from eyes so blue it destroys my will
And makes me slave to thee, my fair, my lovely Thora.”
The poem was familiar, the tone beguiling. It was one she had read, but Garren had changed a few of the words and made it his own. How clever. His thoughtfulness stirred her. When he dragged her toward him, she melted against him. Like clay in a sculptor’s hand, she let him brush her lips with the pad of his thumb and then delicately tilt her head to the perfect angle for their lips to meet. His kiss was tender and loving, one that sent tingles down to her toes. When their lips parted, he asked, “Won’t you please call me Garren?”
Thora looked up into a face that defined the meaning of masculinity, but before she answered, there was something she needed to know. “Did you kiss me to keep me quiet?”
“No,” Garren chuckled.
So that is why she was miffed!
The excuse he’d used for kissing her in the boathouse had upset her, as if kissing her had no significance at all. Good Lord, if she only knew the power she possessed. “Did my poetry surpass the recitation you heard earlier today?”
“Oh yes,” Thora said, causing him to puff out his chest in pride, but it quickly shrank with her next words. “But you must commend Lord Flemington for his effort in attempting something so alien to him.”
Thora disentangled herself from his embrace. “I better go inside. I don’t want to worry my brother should he discover I’m missing and send Mr. Greenstreet out to look for me.” She started to go back when she turned and smiled. “Goodnight, Garren.”
Garren took her hand, preventing her from leaving. Moving close to her, with her hand still clasped in his, he raised it to his lips and planted a kiss in her palm. “Sweetest dreams, Thora.”
After Thora had returned inside, Garren stood alone on the back terrace and knew that he had found the woman he wanted to spend a lifetime with. He just had to convince her of it.
As Garren returned inside, a figure emerged from the misty shadows. A figure that had seen and heard all and now knew he would have to make his move soon. Very soon.
Garren watched as Thora made her way among the guests to bid them goodnight. It was early but he heard her use the excuse of wanting to get an early start the next morning. With menacing disapproval, he watched as the men in the room smiled just a bit too seductively, sought to entice her with flattery to have her linger by their side a few moments longer, or, most enraging, admiring her retreating form with hungry eyes as she turned her back to them. Not wanting to raise any brows, he waited a decent interval before following her upstairs. It would allow time for her maid to assist her in preparing for sleep. He had timed it perfectly. As he reached the top landing, he passed Molly in the hall.