Feeling immeasurably better, she rose, then froze, staring at the dog. “I wonder . . .” she whispered, then took off at a run, heading back to the library.
Etta in tow, Margery ran into Bennett’s study and smiled when he bolted up from his desk. “What are you doing here?” he gasped.
They met halfway, his mouth dear on hers, the kiss wild despite her old nurse’s presence. Her fingers twined into his long dark hair, and his arms went around to clutch her close.
When he finally broke the kiss, she was breathless. “I told you I would come to you again, did I not?”
“Well, yes, but—”
“I’ve been combing the countryside for witnesses.
Rand had promised to do that, but then he took off for Oxford and has yet to return.” She ran her hands up and down Bennett’s back, frantic to touch him, to feel the strong muscles beneath his thin shirt, to convince herself he was here, he was real, he wouldn’t die, that somehow they’d end up together. “I cannot just sit in my uncle’s house and pray anymore. I have to do something. I have to find someone who saw Alban come after you.”
His hands clenched on her waist. “I feel so helpless, stuck here in this house. All I can do is write letters.” His gaze flickered to the papers littering his desk, then met hers once more, the pale green laced with despair. “Letters and more letters. But I know no one with influence greater than the marquess’s. No one who can save me.”
“Did you get
my
letter? The one where I explained Uncle William’s promise to spare your life if I marry Rand?”
The look in his eyes—misery—told her he had. “Do you suppose you could come to love him?” he asked, his voice so harsh she pictured each word being forced through his throat.
“Not like this. He’s my brother—”
“Then you cannot do it. I will not allow you to sacrifice your life for mine. You’ll be unhappy all your days.”
“Not as unhappy as if you were
dead
.” She wasn’t going to let him argue this point. “I’m going back out—I just stopped here to tell you what I’m doing. God willing, I will find someone able to vouch for your innocence in this matter. Either way, I will be back tonight.”
“Tonight?” She saw his heart leap into his eyes.
Her own heart pounded at the thought of a night in each other’s arms. One precious night. She’d never thought to feel like this, hadn’t considered herself a woman driven by lust. Until Bennett.
“Yes, tonight.” She nodded toward Etta. “Uncle William thinks we are staying overnight in Windsor. Ordering a wedding gown—as though I would care what I wore to wed Rand. Sackcloth would do.” She snorted.
“For all his power, sometimes my uncle can be blind to a woman’s wiles.”
“He’s a man,” Etta put in with a nod of her curly gray head. “His wife could outwit him just as easily. A crafty woman she was, although she loved him too much to play him the fool very often.”
Although Margery had seen a loving side of Uncle William in the past, right now she found it hard to summon loyalty. “Am I wrong, Bennett, for going behind his back?” She’d warred with herself for days. Perhaps Rand’s mother had been the crafty sort, but Margery had always prided herself on her honesty.
Until now. Now she was hiding a pregnancy and sneaking off to meet her lover, and she couldn’t find it in herself to feel guilt for either dishonest action. But she was also contemplating ruining two other lives to save Bennett’s, dooming both Rand and Lily to loveless futures . . . and that sparked enough guilt to make a nun dread the Day of Judgment.
One of her hands left Bennett’s body and went to her own belly as she prayed her child wouldn’t suffer for the sins of its mother.
Bennett’s gaze dropped to her middle and then flicked toward Etta.
“She knows,” Margery said. “She guessed.”
Etta’s big green eyes took on that wise-old-nurse look.
“There are signs. Another woman would know.”
Bennett nodded. “No, you’re not wrong,” he murmured in answer to Margery’s earlier question. “The marquess is being unreasonable. He claims to love you, yet he plots to deprive your child of its father.” One of his hands slipped from her waist to cover her fingers. She wished he could feel their child move, but even she hadn’t felt that yet.
’Twas too early. Were it not for the signs Etta spoke of, she’d have a hard time believing she even carried a babe.
And yet she knew in her bones that Bennett’s child grew under her heart. And she could only be joyful for it.
“Uncle William doesn’t know I’m with child,” she said softly. “Because it wouldn’t make a difference. Should the unthinkable happen, I would want him to believe the child Rand’s.”
The last word was said with a sob—a sob Bennett smothered with his mouth. Heedless of Etta watching, they both poured themselves into the kiss.
It wouldn’t be their last, Margery consoled herself when they finally parted. They still had tonight.
But what of the days and nights after that?
“I have an idea!” Lily shouted as she burst into the library. “Maybe Rex can find the diary.”
Up on a ladder, Rand turned to look down at her. “Rex?
You mean Rex the dog, otherwise known as Attila?”
“Yes, Rex the dog. And no, I have not gone mad. Animals have a keen sense of smell, you know.”
Kit’s lips twitched. “I didn’t realize journals were smelly.”
Lily was so hopeful, she only laughed. “Alban’s diary would carry a specific scent. Come, let me show you what I mean.”
Rand and Kit exchanged a dubious glance but followed her out of the library. On their way back through the Long Gallery, Lily glared at Alban’s image.
He wasn’t going to come between her and Rand and their happiness. Rex wouldn’t let her down.
Downstairs in the Back Parlor, Lord Hawkridge was examining the mastiff. When they walked in, he looked up from where he knelt—a very unlikely position for such a dignified man.
Lily liked him the better for it. There was always hope for a man who loved animals.
He smiled, an expression that sat rather oddly on his face. “Attila appears to have fully recovered, Lady Lily.
I’m very grateful. My thanks to you.”
“I would do my best for any living creature, but you’re quite welcome. He’s a special dog. In fact, I am wondering if I might borrow him for a while.”
He rose to his feet. “Gratitude extends only so far, my lady. Attila lives here.”
Rand spoke up. “She doesn’t mean to take him away.
Only to use him to help find the diary.”
“He’s a fighter, not a hunter.” A more skeptical look had never graced a man’s face. “And there is no diary to be found.”
Rand crossed his arms, appearing ready to do battle, but Kit cleared his throat. “’Tis a harmless enough request from one who has done you such a favor. Attila will stay in the house. The exercise will do him good after his ordeal.”
“Exercise is all he’ll get—he’ll not be finding any diary. But I suppose ’tis harmless enough. So long as he stays indoors. I plan to keep him inside overnight.”
Lily beamed. “A kind and wise decision, my lord.” She snapped her fingers. “Rex, follow me.”
“His name is Attila,” the marquess called after them.
She led Rand, Kit, and the dog across the marble-floored Great Hall and through to Alban’s suite. Once there, she patted the bed. “Up!” she commanded, and the huge animal landed where she wanted—with a leap that made the bed ropes groan.
Rand grinned. “My father would kill you if he saw this.”
“Nonsense. Your father adores me. I saved his favorite dog.” She grinned in return, stroking the animal’s stiff fur. “Kit, would you run to the kitchen and fetch some meat? Cut into cubes, if possible.”
He made her a mock bow. “By all means. Even the exalted marquess believes you walk on water, so your wish is my command.”
As he marched to do her bidding, she giggled. In spite of everything, she giggled. “This is going to work, Rand; I know it.”
Holding one bedpost, he leaned to press a kiss to her lips. “Don’t get your hopes up, will you? Even if we find a recent journal, I’ll have to translate it, and we’ll have to hope it turns out to be incriminating. And
then
we’ll have to convince the marquess it says what I claim it does—
unlikely to be a simple task—and that such evidence merits freeing Bennett and allowing Margery to wed him.
We’re a long way from victory, sweetheart.”
“But we’re about to take the first step. I feel it.”
When Kit returned with a bowl of meat, she took Alban’s fancy silver inkwell and held it to Rex’s nose.
“Diary,” she said clearly.
“That’s not a diary—” Rand started.
“Hush. I’m going to have him smell diaries, too, and I don’t want to confuse him. One word for a scent is enough.” She fed the dog a piece of meat, then waved the inkwell under his nose again. “Diary. Diary.” She fed him more meat, then snapped her fingers. “Down. Come along. You, too,” she said to the men.
Rand barked, eliciting a hoot of laughter from Kit as they followed her.
She hurried back upstairs to the library and through to the small room beyond, Rex trotting by her side. Once there, she took down a stack of Alban’s journals. “Sniff, Rex. Diary.”
She opened one and held it under his nose, then another and another. Each time he sniffed a page, she fed him another reward. “Diary. Diary.”
Kit and Rand just looked at each other and shrugged.
After the dog had sniffed a dozen different journals and received a dozen treats, Lily leaned to look into his eyes. “Diary. Find another diary. Now, Rex. Go.”
Without hesitation, the mastiff bolted from the room.
They all ran after him.
Back downstairs, through the Great Hall, into Alban’s bedchamber. By the time they caught up, the three of them were panting harder than the dog.
“Diary,” Lily reminded him.
He went straight to the silver inkwell.
She released a strangled laugh. “Good, Rex.” She fed him a piece of meat, holding the inkwell out to Rand.
“Will you take this out of here? He’ll never find anything else with this in the room. It smells too strong.”
“Does it?” Kit wondered.
Rand waved the inkwell under his friend’s nose.
“Whew.” Kit blinked. “It does stink.”
Rand smelled it himself. “Tannin, and something else I cannot identify. Alban always mixed his own ink. Plain lampblack and linseed oil wouldn’t do for such as him.”
He set the inkwell outside the room, shutting the door for good measure when the mastiff looked after it longingly.
The three of them watched him sniff all around the chamber.
“This is not going to work,” Kit said. “There isn’t an inch of this room we haven’t looked in or over or under.”
“Give him a chance,” Lily said. She set the bowl of meat on the mantel. “Diary, Rex. Find a diary.”
Rand gestured toward the night table. “He hasn’t noticed all those books.”
“He’s not searching for books. He’s searching for a scent. Those books weren’t handwritten by Alban, so they don’t smell of his ink.”
Rex trotted into the sitting room, sniffed around there, and came back.
“Perhaps,” Rand said, “we should lead him to some other chambers. Ones we haven’t searched yet.”
“Give him a chance,” Lily said.
Rex sniffed all around the bedchamber again, jumping on and off the bed twice in the process. The coverlet slid to the floor, and Kit bent to pick it up. “He’s—”
“Give him a chance,” Lily said.
Rex checked out the dressing room. Thoroughly. Lily walked to the doorway and watched. “Diary. Diary. Rex, find another diary.”
Back in the bedchamber, the dog sniffed around once more. Then he stopped before the marble fireplace and sat on his haunches, staring into it.
He barked once.
The three humans looked at each other.
“He’s done,” Kit said. “He didn’t find it.”
Refusing to believe that, Lily knelt by Rex’s head. He licked her face, then looked back at the fireplace and barked.
“He thinks it’s there,” she said. “In the fireplace.”
Rand lifted a poker and stirred the cold ashes. “Nothing. There is nothing here.”
“Maybe Alban burned it,” Lily whispered, afraid that if she said the words out loud, she might somehow make them true.
“Maybe.” Rand set the poker back in its wrought iron stand with a final-sounding
clunk
. “I suppose he might have, if he were worried enough that someone might find it.”
Disappointment fisted Lily’s heart. She stepped toward Rand, toward the comforting heat of his body, the comforting circle of his arms.
Would this be the last day she ever felt that comfort?
Rex barked again. And again. And again, staring at Lily as though he was trying to tell her something but didn’t have the words.
“He thinks it’s in there,” she said with a sigh. “It must have burned.”
“No.” Kit walked across the room, then back, staring at the fireplace. He poked his head into the sitting room, then looked again at the fireplace. “There is space behind there.”
“Are you certain?” Lily asked.
“Positive. I cannot believe I failed to notice it immediately. Can you not see the proportions are off, in both this room and the next?”
“We’re not architects,” Rand said dryly, but with a fresh note of hope in his voice. “How do we get to this space?”
Kit started feeling around the paneling above the man
telpiece. “There has to be a latch, or a lever, or something . . .” He moved to the side, running his hands down the wood to the floor.
And there it was. A soft
snick
reverberated in the room, and a panel swung open.
Lily stepped in first.
A secret room. No, a space. ’Twas tall as a man but no more than three feet deep. Just wide enough to step into and access the area behind the fireplace, a nook so dark she couldn’t see her own hand in front of her face.
She heard the soft hiss of a flame being struck. Rand stepped in holding a candle, illuminating the hidden space and its shelves. Shutting her eyes in horror, Lily turned away.
But she’d seen what was on the shelves. Traps of all sizes, some with steel teeth large enough to capture a man. A bloody saw. Well-used rope. Cuffs. Whips.