In Your Arms Again (4 page)

He opened one and set the rest on his desk.

North lifted his astonished gaze to Spinton’s eager face. “These are love letters.”

Spinton nodded. “From an anonymous admirer.”

Still frowning, North gestured at him with the letter. “Are they all like this?”

“More or less.”

North tossed them onto his desk. “So, why have you brought them to me?”

Spinton looked confused. “Because I know your reputa
tion for solving mysteries and I want to know who is sending them. I am concerned about Octavia’s safety.”

I’d be more concerned about who was in her bed.
That wasn’t fair. Just because Vie was receiving love letters, didn’t mean she actually had a lover. And as the man who had originally relieved her of her virginity, it wasn’t his place to cast stones. This man didn’t write like someone who knew her intimately—good thing, or North might actually be tempted to hunt the blighter down.

Quickly, he scanned the rest of the letters the earl offered him. As Spinton had said, they were all in the same vein. Nothing threatening, unless unfettered romanticism had become more dangerous than irritating.

He gave the letters back to Spinton. “I cannot help you, my lord.”

Spinton blinked. “Whyever not?”

North regarded him for a moment. “Does Lady Octavia know you brought these to me?” As soon as he asked, he knew the answer.

“No.” If Spinton got any redder, he’d look like a pomegranate. “As I told you, she does not believe there is any danger.”

North smiled—a real one this time. No, Octavia wouldn’t be threatened by mere words on paper. “You are a good man to be so…concerned, my lord. Your protective nature does much to recommend you, but if Lady Octavia is not concerned, I do not think you need be either.”

The fair lord nodded, tucking the letters back inside his coat pocket. “I must seem foolish to you.”

“Not at all.” That was true, North realized as he rose to his feet. He seemed like a man very concerned about the woman he was going to marry. There was nothing foolish about that.

Spinton stood as well. “Have you ever been in love, Mr. Sheffield?”

North swallowed the lump in his throat. “Once.”

“I do not know if you have ever met Lady Octavia, but she is the kind of lady—a rare and wonderful lady—that most men would count themselves lucky to possess.”

Damnation, but he didn’t have to tell North that. North
had
possessed her, for one brief and faraway night.

“You are a very fortunate man, my lord.”

The earl left then, but not until he’d made North promise to reconsider taking the case should it take a more sinister turn. There was very little chance of that happening, so North consented.

“So you believe eventually these letters will stop?” Spinton asked, his hand on the door. “That this admirer of Lady Octavia’s will move on and find someone else to pine for?”

Smiling, North nodded. He didn’t bother to tell Spinton not to hold his breath waiting for that to happen.

He knew all too well how difficult it was to get over Octavia.

Evening cast a dark and moody gloom over the city as Octavia sat in her drawing room, sipping a glass of sherry. Spinton was going to be taking her and her cousin Beatrice to the social club Eden for dinner and socialization, but he had yet to arrive, and Beatrice was still above stairs. This was one of those rare moments of silence Octavia treasured above all else.

Growing up in the theater had accustomed her to noise of various natures and degrees, but there was nothing more soothing than the sound of silence so pure one could listen to the rhythm of one’s own breathing. Of course, silence could be torture at times, as well. There were days—although few and far between—when she missed the excitement. Most of all, she missed sharing that commotion with North—or at least, she did now that she had seen him two nights before.

She sat alone, in the center of the salmon pink sofa, her wine silk skirts carefully arranged around her, a keepsake book balanced on her lap. Pasted onto the pages were letters, newspaper clippings…anything that marked some important moment in her life. Her grandfather hadn’t known about her book. He wouldn’t have liked her keeping it. There were notices about her mother, letters from Beatrice or other friends, but the newspaper clippings were about North and his daring adventures as a Bow Street Runner, and then running his own operation. He had made quite a reputation for himself over the years. It didn’t surprise her, the degree of notoriety he had achieved. He’d always sworn he was going to change the world, and he was.

He no doubt hated all the attention. He never had been one for wanting to be the focus of a crowd—that had been her vanity. Odd how life twisted and turned. Here she was, the one who loved attention, living a quiet life of little import. And there was North, who was so content to stay in the background, who couldn’t even leave his house without someone writing about it.

Then again, at one time he would have been happy to see her in a crowd. He would have held out his arms for her to run into. He wouldn’t have shaken his head and pretended not to know her.

Glancing around the room, at the cream and golds used to offset the warm pinks, Octavia wondered—and not for the first time—what her life would have been like if her grandfather hadn’t come for her, if she hadn’t discovered that she was actually the legitimate daughter of the deceased youngest son of the Earl Spinton. Would she have ended up with no one to answer to but herself? Or would she have ended up dependent on a string of “protectors” for her well-being?

Such foolish thoughts were hardly worth entertaining. It
did not matter what might have been. All that mattered was reality, and the reality was that her grandfather had come for her, and he made her into a lady and gave her everything a young girl dreams of, except for the freedom to live as she wanted.

She was a bird in a cage—a gilt and pink cage, but a cage nonetheless. And she had entered it willingly. She promised her mother she would honor her memory by adhering to her wishes, and her mother wanted her to inherit her birthright. She made promises to her grandfather, out of gratitude and out of duty, and even though Mama and Grandpapa were both dead, Octavia was a woman of her word.

It was just another one of her many flaws.

She picked up a miniature watercolor tucked between two pages. Painted over a decade ago, it was of a grinning young man with pale blue eyes and unruly dark hair. Color bloomed high on his chiseled cheeks, and the painter had captured the mischief in his eyes. They’d each had a portrait done—Christmas gifts for each other. Did North still have the likeness of her? Did he ever look upon it?

“Oh, Norrie,” she said with sigh. “I have missed you.”

Several heartbeats passed as she stared at the tiny portrait, committing every detail to memory.

“What are you looking at?”

Shoving the watercolor between the pages once again, Octavia closed the book with a resounding snap. She forced a smile as Spinton entered the room. He was such a regular fixture in the house that the servants rarely bothered to announce him anymore. She was going to have to remedy that. The new earl he might be, but this was still
her
house. No doubt it was Spinton’s imperious attitude that kept it from feeling like a home.

“Just some old keepsakes.”

Her grandfather would no doubt have demanded to see it,
but Spinton was nothing like his predecessor. He merely smiled and nodded and seated himself in the dainty chair across from her.

He wanted to marry her, and they were alone. Wouldn’t a normal man take this time to press his suit? Sit beside her on this fish-hued sofa and perhaps sneak in a few kisses? Not Spinton. He would never take such risks, such liberties. Perhaps if he did Octavia might be a bit warmer to the idea of marrying him. Their other incompatibilities she could overlook, but a lack of passion? She had been raised among people of volatile temperament—passion was an absolute must.

So was honor, so she would keep her promise to marry Spinton, but she just couldn’t bring herself to accept his proposal—not now.

“Beatrice will be down shortly,” she informed him, if for no other reason than to break the silence that a few moments ago had been so delicious.

Spinton seemed uncomfortable, shifting in his chair as though he had a rash in a most embarrassing place. His cravat and shirt points were perfect—not too starched, not too elaborate or too high. His buff pantaloons and blue jacket complemented the shades of the room, unlike her gown, which clashed in a most unflattering manner. Normally she liked this room and all the colors in it, but not tonight, it seemed.

“What is the matter?” If nothing else, she and Spinton had known each other long enough not to stand on ceremony. For that matter, they’d known each other long enough to use their Christian names, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it on a regular basis.

He flushed. He colored as easily as a schoolgirl. “I have something to confess to you.”

He was already secretly married. He preferred the company of men. These possibilities and more raced through Oc
tavia’s mind. It was not lost on her that every one of them was a reason that she and Spinton couldn’t wed.

“We are old friends,” she reminded him. “You may say anything to me.”

He drew a deep breath. “I saw North Sheffield yesterday.”

Nothing could have shocked her more—not even an announcement that he liked to dress up in women’s clothing and sell oranges in Covent Garden. He had seen North?
Her
North?
She
had yet to see him for heaven’s sake!

He flashed her a sheepish smile, and Octavia bit her tongue, waiting for him to continue. A lady, her grandfather had taught her, did not make demands of a gentleman unless he was her husband, and even then she must be careful not to seem like a fishmonger’s wife.

Devil take it. “Why in the name of God did you visit him?” That was a fishwife if ever she heard one.

He was surprised by the ferocity of her outburst; it was written plainly in his eyes. “Well, I…er, wanted to discuss your…
admirer
with him.”

She could strangle him, the stupid, well-meaning dolt. “After I asked you specifically not to investigate the letters?”

Another sheepish smile. “I am afraid so.”

He was afraid so. What had happened? Had some invisible force pushed him to North? Had someone held a pistol to his head and made him do the one thing she’d asked him not to do?

“Why?” she managed to ask in a civil tone. “Why did you go to him?”
Of all people.

“Because I am concerned for your welfare, and as your future husband it is my business to look after you.”

Octavia couldn’t stop herself; she leaped to her feet, tossing her book on the sofa. It bounced once and then lay silent. “You are not my husband yet, Spinton, and you never will be if you go against my wishes again.”

His thin lips twitched, then parted, and finally his entire jaw dropped, creating a great gaping hole where his mouth once was. She’d shocked him, that was evident. In all the long years of their acquaintance, he had never seen her temper provoked, but he had crossed the line with her, and she was very tempted to say promise be damned, and tell him where to stick his marriage proposal.

Spinton’s mouth worked, but nothing came out. Sighing, Octavia pressed the fingers of her right hand to her forehead. The left went to her hip. “Forgive me, Spinton. I forgot myself.”

Speech eluded him for several more seconds before he finally nodded. “Of course, my dear. But it is I who should ask forgiveness. In my desire to protect you, I obviously ignored my promise to you, and I am sorry for it.”

He had such a way of making her feel so horrible—as though she was the one in the wrong, not he.

Then again, he had gone to North out of some misguided gesture of affection. His intentions had been good, even if utterly stupid.

She was saved from having to apologize further, or from any questions her outburst might have raised in Spinton’s mind, by the arrival of her cousin Beatrice.

Beatrice Henry was a few years younger than Octavia. However, where Octavia’s wealth and position made her unmarried state pardonable, Beatrice’s lower circumstances had the opposite effect.

Beatrice was an attractive woman, with dark hair and eyes and a beautiful English complexion. She was much shorter than Octavia, rounder in all the right places, and as softly spoken as a summer breeze. She looked lovely in a gown of soft rose silk—a perfect English rose. Ordinarily Octavia would hate her out of sheer spite, but they were family and, above all else, friends. Beatrice was the one family member—other
than her late grandfather—who knew anything about her mother and her past.

Beatrice didn’t know Octavia had seen North, however.

“Am I not the luckiest man in London,” Spinton announced with a smile as he stood to greet Beatrice, “to escort the two loveliest ladies in the city this evening?”

Beatrice blushed under the praise while Octavia merely smiled. She was accustomed to the earl’s lavish compliments, and perhaps a little spoiled by them now. It was nice to see someone appreciate them and take them for genuine praise rather than mere politeness.

“Let us go,” Octavia said as she rose, shooing both of them toward the door. “I do not want to be late.”

Spinton chuckled, but allowed himself to be herded like so much cattle. “I have never understood your fascination with punctuality, Octavia. We do not have to be there as soon as the club opens.”

It took all of Octavia’s resolve to not to remind Lord Spinton that she had sent word around days ago securing a special table for this evening. It would be rude not to arrive at the prearranged time. She merely smiled. “I suppose I am simply anxious to enjoy the diversions Eden has to offer.”

“As am I,” Beatrice spoke up, casting a supportive glance in Octavia’s direction. “I find it all terribly exciting. I hear they have games of chance and all manner of exotic entertainments.”