“You’ll be back when you’ve found the rest of the manuscript, won’t you?” Snowdon said.
“Of course.” Julianne favored him with a glowing smile and thanked him for his help.
Jacob hustled her out of the examination room with the determination of a sheep dog rounding up a wayward lamb. She couldn’t protest without causing another scene and after last night, she was tired of fighting with Jacob Preston. But once they were back in the corridor, her smile faded.
“I’ll thank you to return my property.”
He handed the manuscript and sheaves of notes to her without comment. She squirreled them away in her carpetbag and started down the hall. Jacob fell into step beside her.
“Before you whisked me out of his office,” she said, studiously not looking at him, “did it occur to you that I might have more questions to ask the doctor?”
“Did it occur to you that revealing more about this whole mess might put him in danger?” he countered. “The fellow who rifled through your hotel room is still out there. George is my friend. I don’t want to see him hurt because he helped us.”
Julianne worried her bottom lip. She hadn’t considered that.
They stepped through Dr. Snowdon’s front door and onto the street. Clouds obscured a cold, late autumn sun and a light patter of rain fell. Jacob helped her into the waiting hansom, gave the driver instructions, and climbed in behind her.
She was still upset with him, but being confined in a small space with him might weaken her resolve to stay upset. She hoped never to spend another night weeping over a man. Especially this one. “I didn’t invite you to join me.”
“No, you didn’t,” he said agreeably as he rapped on the ceiling of the coach to signal the driver they were ready to go. “Are you still so angry with me you begrudge me a ride home in the rain?”
She clamped her lips tight. At least he’d taken the opposite squab so she didn’t have to feel his thigh and shoulder snug against hers. Unfortunately, it meant she couldn’t help looking at him unless she turned her head to watch rainy London plod by in a blur through the isinglass windows.
“There seems to be a good bit of Arthurian lore in the manuscript,” he said in an obvious attempt to fill the silence that stretched between them.
It wasn’t an apology, but his tone was more conciliatory than she’d ever heard him. “Yes, I caught that too. What do you suppose this Merlin’s Staff business is about? I don’t recall any mention of it in
Le Morte d’Arthur
.”
“Nor I,” he said. “The manuscript seemed to suggest the daggers came from the staff. I have some books on the Arthurian legend in my library if you’d care to take a look.”
It was an olive branch. He still wanted to help her. When she met his gaze, his gray eyes darkened. Everything would be so much simpler if her blood didn’t heat every time she looked at the man. Why couldn’t Jacob Preston have been a bespectacled academic like his friend Dr. Snowdon?
“Yes, Jacob. I’d like to take a look. I mean”—flustered, she went on—“Maybe we’ll find something in your collection about this mysterious staff.”
He reached forward and took one of her hands.
“Regardless of what you may think, I do care about you, Julianne, and you can’t fault me for trying to protect you,” he said softly. “But if you’re still intent on going alone tonight, I will not try to stop you.”
His thumb swept over her knuckles in light touches.
Her insides melted and she felt petty and mean for being angry with him. Jacob meant extremely well. She’d have to give him credit for that. And as for showing up in her room last night, part of her had wished he would.
She smiled at him and he nodded in satisfaction. The coach rattled to a stop before Jacob’s front door. He climbed out and asked the driver to return in a couple hours to take Julianne back to Lord Kilmaine’s town house. She appreciated his gentlemanly forethought.
The rain whipped itself into a steady torrent, but there was no help for it. They dashed together into Jacob’s home. In those few short steps, Julianne was drenched clear through to her frilly all-in-one.
Dripping on the oak foyer, Julianne removed her soggy bonnet. The wood floor triggered another thought. “
Sons of the forest
obviously refers to the Druids themselves. What do you suppose they’d consider halls of stone?”
“A city, perhaps?” Jacob helped her remove her coat, calling for Fenwick, but his gentleman’s gentleman didn’t immediately appear.
“Algernon always said Londinium was considered a large city even in the seventh century. There was something in the manuscript about leaving a blade ‘never alone.’ One is never truly alone in London,” she said, then gasped. “Do you suppose the dagger is here, perhaps hidden in plain sight?”
“It’s certainly possible,” Jacob said as he draped both their coats over the side table next to the longcase clock. “The question is ... where? Fenwick!”
“Oh, sir. I’m ever so sorry, sir, but we’ve a bit of a situation in the kitchen, you see.” Fenwick came down the long hall at a dogtrot. “Here, milady. Allow me to take your satchel.”
Julianne handed over the carpetbag with the precious manuscript and translations inside.
“What’s amiss in the kitchen?” Jacob asked. “Surely nothing Mrs. Trott can’t handle.”
“Well, I’d lay odds on that, to be sure, but since it concerns one of your lads, I was thinking you might wish to see about it, while I escort the countess to the parlor. There’s a fire laid there and she can dry off nice like.”
“Which boy?” Jacob asked.
“Gilbert Stout, sir.”
Jacob pushed past Fenwick and bolted down the hall.
“If you’d be so good as to follow me, milady,” Fenwick said.
“Not on your life,” Julianne said and tailed Jacob back to the kitchen. He was usually so imperturbable. Even though she was drenched and chilled enough to set her teeth chattering, she had to see what had lit such a fire under him.
A lank-haired boy was seated on a tall stool near the counter. The lad’s clothing was ragged and Julianne would wager he’d not had a bath since spring. She reckoned he must be one of the homeless urchins Jacob hired to be his eyes around the city. The boy grinned at them, a biscuit in one hand and the other soaking in a shallow bowl of milk. He lifted the milky hand to wave to Jacob, but the housekeeper swatted him on the shoulder and he resubmerged his fingers.
“Just you keep that where it is, young man. Milk will draw the fire out,” Mrs. Trott said briskly.
“What happened, Gil?” Jacob demanded.
The boy had missed his calling as a bard and the tale of Sir Malcolm’s cruelty lost nothing in the telling. Finally, he shot a darting glance at Mrs. Trott and decided he dared remove his hand from the milk bath long enough to illustrate his story. His palm was blistered and angry. No amount of milk could disguise the livid red ooze on the boy’s flesh.
Julianne’s gut roiled. What kind of monster could do that to a child?
“And then when I didn’t cry out, Sir Malcolm seemed satisfied and agreed to take me on.” Gil’s voice broke unevenly in the manner of a boy who was on his way to becoming a man.
“I shouldn’t have sent you.” Jacob frowned. “I knew he was dangerous, but I didn’t expect him to be sadistic. You’re not to go back to him.”
The lad’s brows drew together. “But I have to. If I don’t go back with the information he wants me to find out about you, he promised to find me. And next time, he says he’s not like to be so ... pleasant.”
Julianne pressed her lips together. Jacob had sent this youngster to spy on Sir Malcolm, to beard the lion in his own den, but he still didn’t think she should attend an initiation ceremony on her own. On the other hand, when she considered Gil’s injured palm, she began to think better of her plans as well.
What if Sir Malcolm was more sadistic with adults than he was with young boys?
“He didn’t want you to follow the countess?” Jacob asked.
Gil shook his head. “No, he was more interested in you, sir.” The boy glanced toward Julianne. “Beggin’ your pardon, milady. I’d much rather keep an eye on you, I’m sure.”
“It’s not as if I hide in a hole,” Jacob said. “What could Ravenwood want to know about me?”
“Well, this is the strange thing, and I don’t know if you’ll believe me. I don’t rightly think I’d believe it myself if I hadn’t seen him do it, but Sir Malcolm has what you might call magical powers.” Gil told how he’d lit the candle merely by passing his hand over the wick. “It weren’t no parlor trick. As God is my witness, he pulled fire clean from the air. And he thinks as you can do it too, or something else magical like.”
Jacob flinched in surprise. “Me? No, Gil, I assure you. When I light a candle, I use a match, same as the next fellow.”
Jacob shot Julianne a quick glance and she knew they were thinking the same thing. When he touched metal, the vision he received from it was a sort of magic. But how could Sir Malcolm know Jacob had an unusual gift? He guarded that secret as tightly as Julianne guarded her freedom.
Gil sighed, clearly disappointed. “He was sure you had special abilities, he called ’em. I’m supposed to find what’s beyond the common about you and report back to him.” The boy’s face lit in an enthusiastic smile. “I know. I could tell him you can fly. If I had my pick of things fantastic, that’s what I’d choose. If he thinks you can fly, it’ll make him ashamed of his piddling trick with fire.”
In a friendly kitchen with a fresh biscuit in his hand, the boy was feeling brave, but his voice cracked again on the word “fire.” Julianne’s chest ached for him. She knew what it was to be a child who had to make his own way in the world.
Jacob laid a hand on Gil’s shoulder. “I want you to stay in this house until I tell you otherwise. No larking about, no running off. You’ll make yourself useful to Mrs. Trott as soon as you’re able. Is that understood?”
The boy nodded.
Gil had been harmed in Jacob’s service, so one might argue he was only doing his duty by his employee. But the rough edge on Jacob’s voice belied a fondness for the lad as well. Julianne thought he might understand why she was so adamant about supporting Mrs. Osgood’s girls, after all.
“Now everyone clear out of my kitchen so’s I can bandage young Master Gil up proper after I give him a thorough scrubbing,” the housekeeper said, her nose wrinkling at the dusty smell of boy-sweat emanating from the lad. Then her sharp eyes fell on the puddles forming around the circumference of Julianne’s broad skirt. “Oh, gracious sakes, your ladyship! You’re dripping all over my kitch—I mean, you’re soaked. Chilled to the bone, too, like as not. You, too, ... sir.” She shot a glare toward Jacob, adding the “sir” as an afterthought.
He merely smiled at her like the naughty boy he was.
“Fenwick, don’t just stand there like a mutton-head.” Mrs. Trott barked orders with more authority than a line sergeant. “Go draw the countess a bath in the guest room so her clothes can dry by the fire. I’ll be along with linens and things in a trice, milady.”
She sent a long-suffering look in Jacob’s direction. “I suppose you’ll be wanting a bath too, sir, but you’ll just have to wait until we see to the lady.”
As Julianne climbed the stairs behind Fenwick, she decided she liked Mrs. Trott very much.
When Waitstill Trott took charge of a matter, things happened with the efficiency of well-oiled clockwork. In no time, Julianne had reveled in a delicious hot bath and afterward slipped into a soft, thick wrapper of unknown origins. She knew Jacob had female guests from time to time, but she decided to pass over that observation without rancor because the wrapper was as comforting as a warm hug.
Rain still lashed the windows, making the room seem all the more cozy and welcoming. All her wet things were draped near the fire. The room smelled comfortingly of damp wool and rising steam and the crackling blaze. A pot of tea chased the last bit of chill from her bones.
She’d just settled into the tufted chaise longue when someone rapped on the door.
“Come,” she called out.
Jacob entered, dressed in a fresh suit of clothing with a small stack of books under one arm. “My Arthurian collection. Shall we see if we can discover something about Merlin’s Staff while your things dry?”
“Oh, yes.” After she poured a cup of tea for Jacob and sweetened it with one lump, she selected one of his books and began leafing through it.
Jacob settled into the wing chair and did the same, concentration gouging a line between his dark brows.
The book she was reading focused more on the acts of Arthur and his knights than the doings of the High King’s resident wizard. Since she wasn’t finding the information she sought from the book, it was hard to stay focused on it.
Julianne glanced up at Jacob from time to time. She was naked under the wrapper. They were alone in his guest room. Usually, a situation like this would be like waving a red flag before a bull. By rights, Jacob ought to be trying to seduce her into the bed tucked into the corner alcove.