The Edge of Desire (12 page)

Continuing down the stairs, he strode outside. As a landowner himself, he could always ask intelligent questions about crops and yields.

But it soon became apparent from the amused gleam in the farmer’s eyes that Justin wasn’t cowering in any barn, or anywhere else amid the farm buildings. As for the farmhouse itself, Christian couldn’t stand upright inside without constantly dodging beams, and if anything, Justin was a touch taller.

Accepting defeat for the moment, Christian headed back to the main house. Despite his lack of success, he remained convinced—increasingly so—that Justin was somewhere on the priory lands.

Twilight was spreading its subtle fingers across the landscape when he reached the house and entered through the garden hall. The instant he turned into the corridor that joined the front hall, he heard Letitia’s voice.

“How long has he been here?”

Out of habit, he’d been walking silently. He halted and listened.

“He arrived this afternoon, my lady,” Hightsbury replied.

“Not last night?”

Christian raised his brows and started walking once more. She was asking after him, not her missing brother.

He turned a corner; the front hall lay directly ahead.

He was still cloaked in shadows, some twenty feet from her, when, as if alerted by some sixth sense, Letitia turned and looked at him.

“There you are.”

“As you see.”

As he emerged from the shadows, she searched his face.

He raised his brows faintly, resigned.

Correctly divining that he’d yet to find Justin, she grimaced, and turned back to Hightsbury. “I assume Mrs. Caldwell has my room ready.”

“Of course, my lady. I’ll tell her you’re here.”

“Please do. And tell her I’d like a bath. Esme is with me—no need for a maid. But please send up the water as soon as you can.”

Hightsbury bowed. “Indeed, my lady.”

Letitia turned and took Christian’s arm. “Come walk me to my room.”

He settled her hand on his sleeve and, without argument, fell in with her wishes.

As they climbed the stairs, he murmured, voice low, “What took you so long? I thought you’d be here before me.”

“I assume you stopped at the abbey, so I would have been, except that I couldn’t leave yesterday—I’d promised to attend Martha Caldecott’s dinner, and if I’d cried off at that late stage, she would have been left with thirteen, and in this season finding another to fill the gap would have been difficult, and—” She paused to draw breath. “—when we find Justin and prove he’s innocent, Martha’s one of the ladies I’ll need on my side to spread the word.”

“Ah. I see. In that case, might I suggest we join forces and devote ourselves to the task?”

They’d reached the long gallery, well out of Hightsbury’s hearing. She halted; drawing her hand from his sleeve, she faced him. “Hightsbury said you’d gone wandering about the house. Where have you searched?”

“Inside and out, but only as far up as the second floor.”

“No sign?”

“None. In fact, I’m fairly certain from the way the staff have been behaving that I haven’t even got close.”

She frowned.

He studied her face, then asked, “Could you ask them, appeal to them? Would they tell you?”

Grimacing, she shook her head. “Their loyalty, first and last, is to my father, and after that to Justin. If he’s told them not to tell me, they won’t. Nothing I can say or do will sway them—they’ll adhere to Justin’s orders come what may.”

“But you know this house well, all the nooks and crannies, all the hidden and half-hidden rooms. You probably know this place better than Justin—you’ve spent more of your life here than he.”

She tilted her head. “That’s true. So what do you suggest?”

He looked up. “The attics. I haven’t even seen the attic stairs yet.”

“You won’t. They’re hidden.” She thought, then said, “It’s too late to go up there now—it’s almost time to dress for dinner.”

Christian studied her face, her focused expression. “And your bath will grow cold.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “Indeed. Regardless, our best time to search the attics is after dinner, while the servants are gathered in the hall belowstairs, having theirs. Papa is all but guaranteed to retreat to the library the instant the covers are drawn. We can pretend to have tea in the drawing room, pretend to be fatigued after our journeys, and retire as soon as we can.”

He saw nothing in her plan with which to quibble. “Very well.” He met her eyes. “I’ll see you in the drawing room.”

Letitia nodded and left. Christian stood in the gallery and watched her walk away down a corridor; absently he noted which door she chose. Without real thought, he stored the information in his memory, then turned and headed for his room.

The one part of the evening Letitia hadn’t foreseen was her father’s contribution. She wasn’t the least surprised that her eccentric sire evinced not the smallest degree of grief over Randall’s demise. What stunned her was that instead he appeared to have stepped back twelve or so years—or rather, seemed intent on behaving as if those intervening twelve years hadn’t existed.

Not for any of them.

Especially not for her and Christian.

The instant her father stumped into the drawing room and set eyes on the pair of them standing before the empty hearth, his eyes lit. He chuckled as he came to her and offered his cheek. And proceeded to comment on what a handsome couple they made.

By the time she’d shaken off her shock—he was usually guaranteed to grumble and grouse and grump through any meal—he and Christian were engaged in a discussion of her finer points.

As if she’d been a horse.

She immediately took charge of the conversation.

And her father immediately tried to wrest the reins back.

Christian, of course, understood perfectly. Amused, he walked between them, her hand on his sleeve, to the dining room.

There was no telling what, if given free rein, her outrageous sire might say. The only way Letitia could think of to distract him was to focus the conversation firmly on his bête noir, namely Justin.

“I tell you it’s simply unbelievable what the ton are saying. I even heard someone remark…” She prattled on, deliberately choosing comments that would most effectively ignite her sire’s ire.

Christian, of course, did nothing to help; he sat back as course followed course, his eyes on her, occasionally switching to her father when he grew colorfully irate, but his gaze always returned to her, with a glint of amusement lighting the slaty gray, a subtle smile curving his lips, and his ears flapping.

He’d expected her to follow him, had expected to sit at a table with her and her unpredictable father; it seemed clear he’d hoped to discover, uncover, rather more than just her brother.

If she could have, she would have boxed his ears, verbally at least, but she had to keep her wits focused on her father.

“I honestly can’t believe that Justin had the gall to think I’d murdered Randall. Do I look like a murderess? Do I have an evil glint in my eye? It can’t be the color of my hair. But regardless, I can’t help see what’s happened as anything other than ironic—the ton believing it was he for precisely the
same reason he believed it was me….” She glanced swiftly at Christian, saw he’d noted the point. Mentally cursed.

“Humph!” Her sire sat back, waving aside a vegetable tureen. “Regardless, can’t say I blame anyone for believing it of either of you, all things considered.”

To her horror, Christian looked up from helping himself to another serving of roast beef. “What ‘things’?”

“Well…”

Letitia tried desperately to catch her father’s eye, but he was looking at Christian, opposite her.

Then her father waved generally. “Randall, of course.” To Letitia’s relief, her father’s peripatetic attention swerved back to her. “I still can’t believe you married the bounder.”

She glared at him. She’d married the bounder to save him and the family, as he damned well knew. For one finite moment her temper threatened to snap its leash for good and all, but then she glanced at Christian—waiting, hovering, wanting to know—and she forced it down, drew a huge breath, held it for an instant, then calmly—awfully—stated, “I do not believe we should continue this conversation. Randall is dead, after all.”

Her father, from whom she’d been very careful to hide the depths of her hatred for Randall—and equally, thankfully, the heights of her love for Christian—grumped, but subsided.

Christian narrowed his eyes at her, then gave his attention to his beef. She looked around, saw the platter was empty, and dispatched a footman to the kitchen for more. Anything to keep the twin banes of her life occupied.

At last the meal ended and, as she’d predicted, her father excused himself and returned to his library.

Christian dutifully refused her offer to retreat and leave him to enjoy a solitary brandy; he prowled at her heels as she led the way back to the drawing room. Claiming to be exhausted after the journey from London, she requested the tea trolley be brought in immediately. She and Christian
made a show of pouring and sipping, then left the trolley in the drawing room and headed for the stairs.

It was only as she was climbing them with Christian beside her that she solved the riddle of the strange look on Hightsbury’s face as they’d passed him in the front hall and she’d airily informed him they were retiring immediately.

Hightsbury, and no doubt the rest of the staff, assumed she and Christian were “retiring” to the same bed.

Conscious of a wayward stirring of her interest, she shot a sidelong glance at Christian. She wouldn’t be surprised if he was thinking—or assuming—much the same as the staff, but she’d drawn a line and intended to stick to it.

No more payments until after he’d found Justin. Aside from all else, she couldn’t afford more—not yet. Not while there was Justin’s safety between them, complicating things.

She hadn’t yet decided how they should go on, didn’t even know what more—a brief affair, a longer liaison—he might want of her. Such matters were potentially too fraught to be dealt with now, not with Randall’s murder and all its possible ramifications hanging over them all.

Christian noted her silence—not so much unusual for her as unusual in its absorption. He wished he knew what she was wrestling with; even more, he wished he knew what the circumstances of her marriage to Randall—the earl’s “things”—were.

He’d hoped having her and her father together might lead to some revelation, however small, but all he’d gained was that tantalizing reference; all else was ongoing frustration.

Letitia’s marriage to Randall was the central pivotal issue behind all that had occurred. It was the reason for Justin’s actions. It was the reason Letitia and her father weren’t entirely in accord.

He wouldn’t be surprised if it was also the critical issue underlying Justin’s rift with his father. As far as he could make out, the timing fitted.

Not much else did. Letitia’s self-confessed hatred of Randall—in no way assumed—didn’t explain why she’d mar
ried the man. Likewise, the earl’s assertion that he couldn’t understand why she had made no sense. Admittedly that last had set Letitia off, so was probably an exaggeration, but there had to be some kernel of truth or she wouldn’t have been so irate.

They reached the gallery. Letitia halted and faced him.

He met her eyes, let his gaze travel slowly down until it rested on her skirts. “There’s sure to be heaps of cobwebs up there. Do you want to change your gown?”

“All bombazine gowns are the same, in my opinion.” Her brisk tone testified to her impatience. Having checked the gallery for lurking footmen, she turned and beckoned. “Come on. I’ll show you the attic stairs.”

The most interesting aspect about the attics at Nunchance Priory were the stairs leading to them. That, at least, was Christian’s opinion when, an hour later, they descended said stairs and, dusty and not a little dirty, returned to the gallery.

“Nothing.” Letitia looked both disgusted and vindicated. “I had hoped I was wrong and he’d holed up in the old nurseries, but clearly no one has been there for years.”

“Judging by the dust, decades.” He brushed a clinging cobweb from his sleeve.

“Yes, well, you wanted to look. So we’ve looked. Everywhere. Justin—as I warned you—isn’t here.”

He told her of the missing book in her father’s library.

She frowned. “That does sound as if he were here. But he must have been just passing through.” She glanced up at his face through the shadows. “Do you think he might have fled to Scotland?”

“He’s a Vaux—anything’s possible.”

She humphed, looked down—looked anxious.

He inwardly sighed. “I honestly think he’s somewhere close. I just don’t know where.” When she looked up again, he asked, “What about nearby buildings, further out from the house?”

When nothing registered in her face, he suggested, “What about the farms? Would he claim refuge with your workers, those he grew up with?”

She frowned, didn’t immediately reply, but then shook her head. “I’m sure there are some who would happily hide him, but he won’t go there.”

He tilted his head. “You sound very sure.”

“I am.” She met his gaze. “He won’t go to them because he’ll know that by now he might be a wanted felon. He won’t put other people—people who trust him—at risk by asking them for help.”

He grimaced. That rang only too true. The Vaux were honorable and chivalrous to a fault.

Except for Letitia breaking her vow to him.

He looked at her through the gloom. “Why did you marry Randall?”

Even in the poor light, he saw her shields—shields she’d largely dropped over the last days—snap back into place. Shutting her off from him.

“That, as I’ve told you, is none of your business.”

It felt as if a wall had sprung up between them, the separation was that absolute. Given their history, given she was otherwise open and straightforward, that wall was unsettling, disturbing.

She held his gaze, direct and determined, then inclined her head and turned away. “Good night. I’ll see you at breakfast.”