I Adored a Lord (27 page)

“Friends with advantages.” He took possession of her mouth again, completely, until there was nothing on the earth but his kiss making her need him, his strong arms holding her to him, and the weightlessness of her body that wanted to fly and join with him all at once. She felt the thrilling hardness of his chest and thighs and needed to be closer. Sinking her hands into his hair, she met his tongue with hers, and pleasure so intense came over her that she gasped. She struggled to get closer, to satisfy the urgency, to feel him
more
. Her heels left the ground as he pulled her up and tighter to him, lifting her as though she weighed nothing. But even that did not suffice.

Her knee stole upward along his leg. Then she jumped. He caught her up easily and she clamped her thighs about his hips and halted his laughter with her mouth. She felt him with her hands and mouth and body, and he met her kiss with hunger like hers, hunger that made her seek the bulge in his breeches with her hand, then press to him. She rocked against him and his hands aided her, holding her fast.

“Ravenna, you drive me mad,” he uttered against her lips.

She bore down on his arousal, needing him, needing to be closer still, needing to be joined in the manner of all creatures. She felt like a clock wound too tightly, like steam pressing at the lid of a pot on the fire. She wanted him desperately. He gripped her to him and she ground against his hardened cock and she
wanted
.

Her pot exploded upon a crashing, unexpected rush, bursting inside her and tumbling, and seizing her throat for a moan of pure ecstasy as she shuddered against him. She gasped. He kissed her neck and she shivered in pleasure. She accepted his lips on hers. Breathless and boneless and warm, all she wanted was for him to kiss her.
Forever
. “What was that?” she whispered.

“That was a dream I have been having lately,” he said deeply, his arms still holding her hard to him, his mouth upon her neck making her wild with tenderness in every hidden crevice. “Rather, part of the dream.”

“What is the other part?”

“We must remove to a more private location for the other part.”

Ravenna lifted heavy eyelids. They still stood in the kitchen yard, entirely visible to a dozen internal windows in the castle.

“I should get down.”

“Are you certain you wish to?”

No
. “Yes.”

He lowered her feet to the ground, then took her hand.

The door opened and she tugged away. His grip tightened, but she pulled and he allowed her liberty.

“Ravenna?” Iona poked her fiery head into the sunlight. “Oh! Guid day, my laird.” Bright blue eyes scanned him then Ravenna, traveling from her cheeks to her skirts tangled about her calves. A grin twitched the corner of her rosebud lips, then her face sobered. “Ravenna, I've got to speak wi' ye. Wi' the both o' ye.”

They went inside and to the servants' stairway and up, all the while Ravenna feeling him close behind her. Her limbs trembled peculiarly now, as though she had run up a hill. But when they entered the empty dining room and he closed the door behind them, he seemed at ease, still elegant despite the somewhat disordered state of his hair from her fingers raking through it.

She could not find her tongue.

Iona filled the silence. “I was with Mr. Walsh the nicht he died.”

S
HE INCHED AWAY
from him, subtly yet steadily putting the dining table between them as Lady Iona spoke. But Vitor knew the signs of her retreat well enough now: averted profile, skittish eyes, balancing upon the balls of her feet in preparation for flight.

When she had gone to her toes and wrapped her arms about him, he'd nearly lost all control of himself. Soft and lush and naturally brazen as only a woman who did not heed society's restrictions could be, she had shocked herself with her own pleasure. With Herculean effort he had yet again forced himself to retreat. The daylight had not stopped him, only his need to show her that the advantages he offered were not to be discarded lightly. Her first real experience making love would not be a hasty outdoor coupling.

Now her eyes lit with confusion. “Why did you not tell me before?”

“I couldna afore! Ye must understand.” Hands extended, Lady Iona moved toward her with the impetuous grace that marked her as a girl of breeding and privilege.

Vitor stepped between them. “My lady, do explain yourself.”

Her lips parted upon surprise, then chagrin. “Aye.” She nodded and looked past his shoulder to Ravenna. “ 'Twas no' long after dinner, perhaps ten-­thirty or eleven o'clock. I grew weary o' that young—­” Her gaze darted to him. “O' conversation in the drawin' room, an' thought to do a bit o' explorin'.” Her eyes spoke meaning to Ravenna that she did not know he understood; she had been heading to an assignation with a lover.

“Where did you meet him?” Ravenna asked.

“Oh! I didna meet him by design. I'd niver seen the man till that moment. But he was clearly a gentleman, so . . .” Her manner turned diffident and she glanced at him again. “I bid him guid eve.”

“I told him about Lord Whitebarrow in the tower,” Ravenna said. “You must speak candidly now or we will have to consider you a suspect.”

Lady Iona faced him. “Imagine o' me whit ye will, my laird. 'Tis nothin' I've no' borne afore.”

“Where did you encounter Walsh?”

“In the long gallery where there be all the knights on display.” Her nose wrinkled. “Rusty old things. I dinna ken why a man would want them in his house. But yer peculiar beasts, aren't ye, my laird?”

Ravenna moved to his side. “Was he wearing armor when you spoke with him?”

Her eyes widened again. “No.”

For the first time since the kitchen yard, Ravenna looked directly at him. “Then she encountered him before Ann did.”

“Ann?” Lady Iona exclaimed. “But what could a little thing like Ann want wi' a fine man like that?”

“Not, presumably, what you did. I believe she came upon him by chance, just as you, but later. Did you and he speak?”

“Aye, but no' for long. He'd been drinkin' spirits an' though he pawed me a bit, he couldna hold my eye. I've no need o' a man that deep in his cups.” She offered Vitor a defiant stare.

Ravenna's cheeks were aflame, spreading dark along her neck and beneath her gown.

“But it was the oddest thing,” Lady Iona said thoughtfully. “He called me his gracious leddy—­three times he did—­an' though he could barely hold up his head, he went to his knee afore me, as though he were playin' at bein' a knight, like the suits all aboot him.”

“His gracious lady?”

“Aye.”

“And he seemed out of his senses with drink but amorous?”

“Aye.”

Ravenna's throat constricted jerkily. “Could he have drunk the drugged wine?” She meant the wine that Vitor had drunk. Still she did not believe he wanted her, despite all.

“He might have,” he said. “Yes.”

“Drugged wine?” Lady Iona said. “I'd thought the poor man was stabbed.”

“Why?” Ravenna said before he could. She was quick and clever and attentive to detail even as she blushed in embarrassment, and he wanted her. “We told no one about how he was killed.” She turned her dark eyes up to him. “Did you?”

He ought to be concerned with Walsh's death, if only to ensure her safety and the safety of the other innocent ­people in the castle. But all he could think was that she was his and he would not allow her to run from him again.

“I told no one.” He forced his attention to Lady Iona. “How do you know he was stabbed?”

Her brow wrinkled. “Leddy Grace spoke o' a knife, I think. Or perhaps a dagger. I dinna recall. She was lookin' for the thing earlier this week, thinkin' she could aid in the mayor's investigation. I told her it would do no guid, that if the murderer were worth his salt, he'd thrown it in the river days ago. But the lass seemed determined to find it.”

“Grace. The dagger. The river . . .” she murmured. “The wax . . .”

“The wax?” he said.

“The wax seal on the note Mr. Walsh received. The impression in it was that of a small finger. A woman's finger most likely.”

“When did you determine this?”

“The morning before—­ That is to say . . .” Her gaze shot to the Scotswoman, and roses bloomed in her cheeks again. “I forgot to tell you. In fact I forgot about it entirely. But I should not have. Ladies Penelope and Grace have worn gloves at nearly every moment since the murder. Lady Penelope made such a complaint of the drafts in all the rooms that I didn't think a thing of it. And Grace does everything her sister does.”

“Leddies wi' cold bluid wear gloves because they be afeard to touch a man's skin, lass. Poor things, missin' out on the best o' life.”

“I did not think to consider either of them before because of the dark hair. Then after we determined the hair was Ann's, I never seriously reconsidered. What if one of them is hiding the burn mark that hot wax left on her fingertip? What if through my lack of thought the true murderer has gone free all these days?”

“You imagine that the incident with the guard in the armory had something to do with his assistance in killing Walsh, perhaps?” he said.

“Or in seeking to harm you. And Lord Case was brought into it by accident simply because he was present when the guard attacked you.” She spoke with outward calm but her eyes glittered with distress. “One of the guards might have killed Mr. Walsh, or both of them that have now disappeared. But why would they have? His traveling bag seemed intact.”

“Seemed.”

“But if they had stolen something of his, why wouldn't they have run away then?”

“A foot o' snow upon the ground might o' stayed them,” Lady Iona said.

“I don't believe it,” Ravenna insisted. “The guards had no reason to imagine we would consider them suspects until after I found the man with Lady Grace in the armory. Everybody has known all along that you and I were investigating the murder. Monsieur Sepic himself said he'd heard it from the others, and I haven't made a secret of it that I dislike the Whitebarrow twins.” She twisted her hands in her skirts. “Perhaps whichever of them did it—­or both—­imagined I disliked them because I suspected them of the murder.”

“It seems unlikely,” Lady Iona said.

“Yet not impossible.” He wanted to wrap his arms around Ravenna and assure her that she had not caused any of the violence, that she was blameless. “Why do you imagine either Lady Grace or Lady Penelope would wish to murder Oliver Walsh?”

“I don't know. But I don't know why anybody else would wish to either, other than the most obvious person,” she added, “and we know it was not him.”

Lady Iona's eyes went wide. “Who?”

“He might have done it to divert our attention from him,” Vitor said.

“You don't believe that. I don't believe that. He was shot. You were both—­” Her voice broke. “And he told me why he came to the stable that night.”

“Ye met Lord Case in the stable, lass? But—­”

“What did he say to you?”

Ravenna shook her head. “It doesn't matter. He didn't do it. I don't believe he likes me but I also don't believe he wished to harm either of us.”

“I showed the bottle to Monsieur Brazil. He himself had placed it in Lord and Lady Whitebarrow's chambers before guests began to arrive last week.”

“He did? Lord and Lady Whitebarrow's chambers? Why didn't you tell me that?”

“I learned of it only this morning.” Then he'd taken a moment in the chapel to prepare to see her. But she had fled into the sunshine, throwing into disarray his carefully rehearsed speech.

“Then the murderer must be Grace, for a reason as yet hidden to us. Or . . .” A new spark lit her eyes. “Penelope. Yes! Have you observed her? Grace, that is? The day everyone arrived here, and the next in the drawing room that evening and at dinner, she was the shadow to her sister's practiced nastiness. You saw it with Ann. There was cool disdain in her face then. But that changed the next morning after the prince announced the murder. After that, she grew entirely silent, almost grim.”

“But, lass, all o' us were stunned by the news o' the poor man's murder, an' frightened that we might be next.”

“Of course. But Grace's shock has seemed to me so . . . so . . . personal. As though she were . . .
grieving
,” she uttered as if she were only at this moment understanding, and understanding too well.

Vitor moved a step closer to her. “You believe that when she realized that her sister murdered Walsh, her fear for what might happen to Lady Penelope if her crime was discovered—­”

“Or the horror o' it.”

“—­might have shocked her beyond her ability to dissemble?”

“Twins have a particular bond. Everybody knows that. Grace is clearly the weaker of the two, the follower to her sister's lead.”

“But why would Penelope wish a man dead?” Lady Iona said.

Ravenna chewed her lip. “And if she did do it, how could we prove it?”

“Gather ev'rybody together an' accuse Penelope. Mebbe ithers have evidence o' her guilt but havena yet thought o' it as evidence. Then make her remove those silly gloves an' inspect her fingertips.”

Ravenna looked to him. He nodded. She started for the door, Lady Iona following.

Vitor caught Ravenna's arm. “You will not speak,” he said quietly, firmly. “I will.”

“I don't understand. I must.”

“You will not place yourself in further danger by revealing that you know every detail of the murder.”

“But—­”

“You will not.” He could not bear it.

Without assenting, she drew out of his grasp and followed Iona.