Candace Camp (11 page)

“Yes, it did. I am very grateful for it.”

“Then I am glad,” he replied simply.

The Hall was only a few minutes from the village church, and it did not take them long to reach it. They approached the house down a long, curving drive. Eleanor had seen grander houses. The Hall had no tier of steps leading up to a magnificent front door, no mullioned windows, no statues ornamenting the ends of the roof beams. It was built of plain gray stone, some of it great matching blocks and others of varying shapes and sizes, some of it blackened by lichen and time. But it had a majestic symmetry, with its massive square gatehouse and battlemented wings stretching out on either side. There was a sturdiness to it, a sense of age and security, that was appealing. Over time, bushes had grown up along the walls, softening their harsh appearance, and a blanket of ivy clung to one side. The sun, now growing lower in the sky, bathed the walls with a warm golden light.

Eleanor could not help but let out a little sigh of pleasure. “How lovely.”

Dario took one look at the Hall and, doubtless comparing it to the graceful red-tiled villas of his homeland, arched an eyebrow. “It looks suited to him,” he pronounced.

Eleanor let out a chuckle. “Yes. It does.” She cast a doubtful glance at her friend. “I hope he does not bother you too much.”

Dario laughed. “Not I. I think
he
is the one who is bothered by
me,
” he commented astutely. “It is, I think, amusing to watch the oh-so-stoic British gentleman struggle with his jealousy.”

“Jealous? I hardly think so. The man disapproves of me.” Yet Eleanor could not deny that the other night she had thought the very same thing.

“It is not impossible to feel both at once. Which makes his struggle even more entertaining to watch.”

Eleanor was glad that Dario found himself entertained by it, for all through dinner Lord Neale was at his tight-lipped British worst where Dario was concerned. It was clear that Dario annoyed him, and Dario seemed to delight in stirring the fires of Anthony’s irritation, his speech and gestures growing more effusive by the minute, his compliments to Eleanor more flowery, his gazes at her more lover-like. Watching Anthony’s tight-jawed face, Eleanor was unsure whether she wanted more to give Dario a kick in the shins or to laugh.

Why, she wondered, had Lord Neale invited them to stay with him? Whatever lay behind his feelings—whether it was jealousy or simply a clash of personalities—it was clear that Anthony did not enjoy Dario’s company. He had made it equally clear what he thought of her, even though he had kissed her the other night and had seemed—at least in her admittedly limited experience—to enjoy it. She had felt the heat surge in him, had known the tight clasp of his arms. She did not believe she was wrong in thinking that he had experienced the same searing passion she had.

But whatever attraction he had felt, he did not like her. Indeed, he obviously held her in disdain. Lord Neale, she thought, had disliked the fact that he had been drawn to her, had despised himself for kissing her. It seemed unlikely that he would want to be in a position where he might be subjected to the same temptation. So it made little sense for him to voluntarily place himself in her company.

So why had he not let Eleanor and Dario stay at the inn? He had done more than simply extend the invitation. He had gone to the trouble of having their rooms prepared before he ever said a word. Was it simply the British insistence on polite behavior? Had he been so embarrassed by his sister’s blatant disregard for courtesy that he had felt compelled to offer his own? No, for if he was to be believed, he had intended for them to stay with him before the issue arose outside the cemetery. And it was true that their rooms were ready for them—fires laid, fresh sheets on the beds, vases of flowers on the dressers. Surely, at a large house like this, they did not keep all the bedchambers in such a state of readiness.

Whatever the reason, she could not fool herself into believing that Anthony was enjoying their presence. His face was like stone most of the evening, and every topic of conversation either of them brought up died a quick death. It was a relief when the meal was over, and she could make the excuse of weariness and go up to her bed.

Once there, however, she had little desire to retire. One of the maids came in to help her undress, but after that, she found herself pacing the floor rather than getting into the large testered bed. She was not sleepy in the slightest.

She went to the window and pushed aside the curtain, but there was nothing to see. The night was pitch black, the sky covered with clouds so that not even the stars or a sliver of moon shone through to illuminate the landscape. Nor was there any book to while away her time.

Eleanor thought about slipping downstairs to the library to get a book to read, but the possibility of running into Anthony kept her from doing so. It would be far too embarrassing to be caught roaming about his house in her nightclothes, even if the dressing gown over her nightshift was far less revealing than many evening gowns. He might even think she was there hoping to run into him, that she wished to lure him into an indiscretion.

Finally she gave up, blew out the candle and got into bed. But she did not sleep. Instead, her mind ran round the same issues in a most aggravating way, and it was close to an hour before her eyes finally closed and she drifted into sleep.

She awoke sometime later with a start, blinking in confusion, unsure what had roused her. The room was very dark, the furniture only vague darker shapes in the general blackness. The only light came from the hallway, a dim glow that shone through a thin strip between the opened door and the doorjamb.

At that realization, Eleanor’s sleepy brain jolted fully awake. The door had been shut when she went to bed, not standing open a crack. Heart pounding, she turned her head, looking across the room.

A dark form stood hunched over in front of her dresser.

E
LEANOR FROZE
, and for a long moment she could not breathe or move for the fear coursing through her. She watched as the figure moved stealthily across the room toward her baggage and bent over it.

Outrage overcame the momentary paralysis, and she reached over to the small table beside her bed, grabbing the first thing she could find. It turned out to be a candlestick, and she hurled it at the crouched form with all her might, letting out a loud yell as she did so.

The heavy metal candlestick landed on his back with a satisfying thump. There was a muffled exclamation of surprised pain, and the shadowy figure jumped up and ran for the door.

Eleanor scrambled out of bed after him, but her legs got tangled in the bedcovers, and she stumbled and fell to the floor. She pulled the sheets away and jumped up, running after him, screaming, “Stop! Come back!”

She ran out into the hallway, but the intruder had already disappeared from sight. She ran down the corridor to the staircase and stopped, looking down into the darkness below. She could make out nothing, and she realized that the man could be hiding anywhere down there, waiting for her to come along so that he could knock her unconscious. Or worse.

She turned and looked back down the hallway to her bedroom. Past her chamber, a door opened, and Anthony charged out. “What is it? What happened?”

Dario popped out of his room, too. “Eleanor?”

Anthony ran to Eleanor, taking her upper arms in his hands. “Are you all right?”

His hands were like iron on her arms, and Eleanor could feel their heat through the sheer muslin of her nightshift. Nor could she escape the realization that Anthony was half-clothed. He had obviously thrown on his breeches hastily, the top button left undone, and they rode low on his hips. His feet and his torso were bare. He was half-naked and only inches from her, and it seemed to Eleanor that she could look nowhere that she did not see bare flesh.

His eyes, scanning her face, dropped down her body, and it was then that Eleanor realized she was wearing nothing but her nightshift. She blushed to the roots of her hair.

“What happened?” Anthony barked.

“Why did you scream?” Dario asked anxiously, coming up beside them. He, too, had obviously just come from bed, his hair rumpled and feet bare, shirt hanging outside his breeches and open halfway down.

“There was someone in my room,” Eleanor told them. “I threw something at him, and he ran. But I don’t know where he went. By the time I got out here, he was gone.”

“Did he hurt you?” Anthony’s brows rushed together in a fearsome scowl.

“No. No, I’m fine, just startled.”

Anthony released her arms and took off toward the staircase. Dario followed, pausing long enough to duck back into his room and get a candle before he followed Anthony down the stairs.

Eleanor hurried back into her room. The first thing she did was grab her dressing gown and throw it on over her nightshift. Then she lit a candle, and went over to her dresser and her baggage to see what the intruder had done. But even as she did, her mind kept going back to Anthony.

She had never before seen a half-naked man, and the truth was, the sight had been decidedly distracting. It was obvious that the superb fit of Anthony’s clothing was not owed to any judicious padding by his tailor. His shoulders were wide and his chest broad, his arms tautly muscled. Even though she had just been scared out of her wits, even though her primary concern was catching the man who had been in her room, when she had seen Anthony, she had felt a fierce jolt of desire.

Even now, remembering the sight of him, heat blossomed in her abdomen. He had looked, she thought, the elemental male—raw and powerful. And she had wanted him, her swift hunger just as elemental.

It was mad to feel this way about him, she told herself. The two of them were at odds. He had thought her too low of birth to marry his nephew; certainly he would never consider her good enough for himself. Not, of course, that she would ever think of marrying him, either. He was the last thing she would want in a spouse—controlling, snobbish, cold.

Cold? She thought of his kiss. No, he was not cold. Underneath his exterior, fires raged. And after all, one could have a lover rather than a husband.

Sighing, she shook her head, firmly dispelling her wayward thoughts. Sitting around mooning about a man who despised her was not helping her discover who had been in her room.

Eleanor turned her attention to her dresser. It was perfectly clean, except for her silver-backed brush and mirror set. She went over to the bags that he had been searching when she startled him and squatted down beside them. They were empty; the Hall maids had efficiently unpacked everything and laid it away in drawers for her convenience.

Just as she closed the last bag, it struck her that something had been wrong about the dresser. Her locket! She had not seen her locket! With a cry of distress, she jumped up and ran over to the long mahogany dresser. Holding her candle over it, she searched up and down the length of it, then stepped back and examined the floor, thinking that he might have knocked it off the top. She even got down and looked underneath. The locket was not there.

She let out a moan. The locket had been a simple thing, not worth a great deal, but it had held a little portrait of Edmund. He had given it to her on Boxing Day, and since his death, it had taken on new importance to her.

Eleanor hurried out into the hall, and found Anthony and Dario coming back up the stairs. “Did you find anyone?”

Dario shook his head. “There was no one.”

“Tell me what happened,” Anthony said. “No. Wait.” He disappeared into his room and emerged a moment later, shrugging into a shirt. “Now. What happened?”

“Something woke me up. I suppose he made a noise. Anyway, I opened my eyes, and I saw someone over at my dresser.”

“A man?”

“I didn’t really think. I assumed it was a man.” She paused for a moment, thinking, then went on. “Yes, I am fairly certain it was a man. His attire was male, and though I could not see him clearly, I think he was larger than most women.”

“Tall?”

Again she paused, thinking back. “I’m not sure. He was bent over the dresser at first, and then, when I screamed, it all happened very fast. And the light was poor. I never saw his face. His back was to me.”

“Was anything missing this time?”

“This time?” Dario asked. “This has happened before? Why did you not tell me? Has someone tried to hurt you?”

“No. I was not even there the other time. I was with friends. But someone went through my jewelry, though I could not tell that they took anything other than an inexpensive brooch.” She looked at Anthony. “This time he took my locket.”

“The one you wore today?” Anthony asked.

Eleanor nodded. “I took it off this evening when I went to bed and laid it down on the dresser. It was gone when I looked just now. I searched all around on the floor and I could not find it. But I cannot imagine why anyone would break into my room to steal a locket. It was not very valuable, except to me.”

“Whoever it is obviously is not looking for something of monetary value,” Anthony commented.

“Surely it is not the same person,” Eleanor protested.

“You think it is a coincidence?” Anthony asked skeptically. “Someone breaks into your bedroom at home and searches through your jewelry. Someone breaks into your bedroom here and steals a piece of jewelry.”

“But how could anyone even have known I was here?” Eleanor asked. “I myself didn’t know I would be here until a few hours ago. The man tonight surely was a local thief.”

“Who happened to pick tonight to break into my house?” Anthony retorted. “Who walked past my safe and my silver and went only into your bedroom?”

“Then tell me how he knew I was here,” Eleanor challenged him. “Unless you are suggesting it was you who entered my bedchamber.”

A light flared in his gray eyes and as quickly vanished. He said in a mild voice, “There is Mr. Paradella, of course.”

At that statement Dario burst into a stream of excited Italian. Anthony turned his cool, measuring gaze on him.

“Calm down, sir. I am not actually suggesting that you took the lady’s locket.”

“I think not!”

“I think if you would consider the question, my lady, it is easily answered,” Anthony went on. “The intruder knew you were here because he followed your carriage.”

A shiver ran down Eleanor’s spine. “That’s absurd,” she said hastily.

“The whole thing sounds absurd,” Dario put in. “Why would a thief break in and take nothing? Why would someone steal your locket?”

Anthony shrugged. “Just because we cannot see it doesn’t mean there is not a reason.” He turned to Eleanor. “And just because you don’t like the idea that someone was following you does not mean it didn’t happen.”

“But why?” Eleanor flung her arms wide.

“Obviously you must have something this chap wants. Think. Is there nothing you possess that would be important to someone else, even if it’s not really valuable? A…a letter, perhaps. Or something that would incriminate someone.”

“Incriminate them in what?” Eleanor asked sharply. “Do you think I have evidence of crimes lying about my bedroom?”

“I have no idea,” he retorted with some asperity. “But it is not my bedchamber that people are breaking into. It is yours.”

“You think this is my fault, don’t you? You think I have done something that has brought this upon myself?”

“I did not say that.”

“You did not have to!” Eleanor cried. “It is written all over your face. I know what you think of me.”

“I doubt that,” he replied calmly.

Beside them, Dario cleared his throat. “Eleanor…I am sure Lord Neale did not mean that you had done anything wrong.”

Eleanor cast him a dark look. “You obviously do not know his lordship. He thinks me an adventuress, a fortune hunter.”

“A fortune hunter!” Dario turned a shocked gaze on Anthony.

“What do you think it is?” Eleanor swung back to Anthony. “A passionate letter from some married lord? Some evidence of scandal that no doubt I was involved in, as well? Or maybe the man is one of my former cohorts, and he thinks I took his share of whatever we swindled out of some poor widow or orphan.”

“My, you have thought of more things than my poor imagination could come up with,” Anthony remarked, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.

Eleanor glared. She longed to slap him, but she remembered how easily he had fended her off the last time she had tried that.

“Eleanor, you must calm down,” Dario said soothingly, reaching out to take her arm.

“Oh, don’t tell me what to do,” Eleanor replied irritably and shook off his hand. “I do not think, sir, that anyone took my locket with Edmund’s portrait inside because they thought it would incriminate them.”

To her dismay, she felt tears well up in her eyes, and she whirled angrily and stalked back into her bedroom, slamming the door behind her.

Angrily she dashed the tears from her eyes. She wasn’t sure if the tears were from anger at Lord Neale or sorrow at the loss of her locket, but it humiliated her that he had seen them. She hated for him to think that he had scored some sort of triumph over her.

She took off her dressing gown and threw it on the chair. Lord Neale was the most infuriating man she had ever known. She hated him. But more than that, she knew, she hated that he thought of her what he did.

There was a knock on her door, and she swung around as the door opened and Anthony walked in. She stared at him in amazement.

“What the devil do you think you’re doing here?” she snapped.

“Bearding the lioness in her den, I believe,” he offered with a faint smile. He came a little farther into the room. “Actually I came to apologize.”

Eleanor’s eyebrows vaulted up. Nothing he could have said would have surprised her more.

“Your room was entered while you were a guest in my home. I must bear the blame for not protecting you well enough. I let my anger at that lead me to say things to you that I should not have.”

He had not said, she noticed, that they were things he did not believe.

“I apologize for both,” he went on.

“You apology is accepted,” Eleanor replied, unbending a little. “You did not realize, after all, that you were bringing in a guest who was being stalked by a thief.”

“Then you agree that it is the same man who broke into your house a few days ago?” he asked, coming over to stand in front of her.

Eleanor nodded and sighed. “It seems foolish to believe anything else. And I doubt that the culprit was you or Dario…the man in my room was scarcely naked.”

This time it was Anthony whose cheeks reddened. “I apologize for my attire. When you screamed, I…well, I thought haste was in order.”

She smiled a little, somewhat gratified that she had managed to embarrass him.

They stood for a moment; then Anthony said quietly, “I am sorry that your locket was taken.”

“It was dear to me,” Eleanor told him, sorrow lacing her voice. “Edmund gave it to me last Christmas. It had a portrait of him inside it, the only one I have of him.” She looked away from him, feeling the tears threatening to well up once more.