Читать книгу My Favorite Marquess - Alexandra Bassett - Страница 10

When Violet awoke, the world had been turned upside down and shaken. Her head ached horribly, as if some fiend had sneaked a tin drum in there and was beating it ceaselessly. The inside of her mouth felt like cotton wool, and her stomach rumbled with ominous threats. Her misery exceeded anything in her previous experience; she suspected it might have surpassed anything in the history of mankind, as well.

And yet to reach this hellish state of being she had the sensation of having swum out of a deep, pleasurable sleep. In her dreams she had been so happy, so mindless of care. Percy had been making love to her.

Her wince of pain became a puzzled frown. That couldn’t actually have been Percy in her dream, could it? Percy’s lovemaking had never been so passionate. Her husband had never left her breathless and panting. She had never moaned in ecstasy at his touch.

Unable to make sense of it all, she clutched a hand to her throbbing temple. Maybe she had contracted the influenza? The dream could have been a result of fever. She certainly ached all over. It felt as if she were resting in a bed of rocks.

Attempting not to upset the delicate equilibrium of aches and pains that was her unfortunate present state of being, she shifted.

Her eyes flew wide open. She was lying on rock—and that realization caused her plight to roar back into her memory. Robert the Brute! She must still be in the cave with him. Odd that she couldn’t recall falling asleep…or too much else, for that matter. The last she remembered was drinking some of his brandy. What could have happened after that?

His hateful voice boomed out through the darkness. “Good—you’re awake!”

She shook her head, trying to clear it, but only succeeded in agitating the demon with the drum. She felt as if she were weaving, even lying down.

The candle was just a dying glow from a nub of wax, but she had no trouble making out her captor’s mocking grin. Or his eyes shining through his mask. He probably slept in the thing! “I was beginning to think I’d have to kiss you awake, Highness.”

Kiss me?

Something about that phrase made her bolt up to sitting. A fatal mistake. Her head roared in protest. Then, as the blanket fell off her shoulders, exposing her bare breasts to the ruffian, she nearly swooned with mortification. How had her shift come undone?

She gazed in panic about the cave. That dream. It had just been a dream, hadn’t it?

“How long have we been here?” she asked frantically. And how, exactly, did we pass the time? That last question she left unspoken.

“A sight longer than I intended,” he said, sneering. “’Course, I could nae have known you would suck my brandy jug dry and fall into a stupor now, could I?”

“I’ve never been drunk in my life!” she declared.

He snorted. “Aye, till now.”

The blood drained out of her face. Oh, heavens! That’s what was wrong! Brandy. But she just remembered having a tiny sip. Or maybe two.

“You got me drunk!”

And again, she wondered about her state of undress. More than wondered, in fact. A horrible suspicion scratched at the back of her mind. Those passionate moans…had they been real? Had she been crying out in ecstasy in the arms of this beast, this criminal?

“I got you drunk.” He cackled unpleasantly. “I like that!”

What a horrible creature he was. She shuddered at the idea that he might have…well, she didn’t even want to think what he could have done.

And yet it was impossible to think about anything else.

She lifted her head and proceeded to do what had stood her in good stead all her life when she was in trouble. Issue denials. “I never overindulge.”

“If you’ll remember, Highness, I warned you against drinking too much. I’d no idea such a high-quarter lady could put so much away.”

“Just because I may have been led into overimbibing doesn’t give you an excuse to take advantage of a poor defenseless widow!”

His eyebrows darted up above the line of his mask. “And that poor defenseless widow is supposed to be you?” He practically bent over double with mirth.

She immediately wished she had held her tongue. It was beneath her to even broach the subject of his boorish behavior. Now she had inadvertently given him another line of teasing to torment her with.

“I’m thinkin’ you’ve got that wrong, Highness. Or don’t you remember begging me to kiss you?”

Her cheeks felt fiery. “I would never!”

Would she?

“Listen, Highness, there don’t be time enough to waste arguing o’er your wanton ways.” He chuckled snidely. “The tide’s out again and ’tis time for us to be gone. Now get yourself dressed quickly.”

Anything was better than more of this man’s idea of conversation. Violet scrambled to dress, and then winced at the pain this caused her head. How could men regularly drink too much? They must be bigger fools than she had always taken them for.

Yet her physical pain was as nothing compared to her mental anguish when she saw that her chemise wasn’t just off her shoulders but tangled about her waist. What, oh what, had gone on here? Had she completely taken leave of her senses? Had they actually—she gulped at the thought—performed the act?

Impossible! She had certainly not missed conjugal intimacies with Percy since his death. Her husband’s nocturnal attentions to her person had at first seemed repellent to her, but later had just dwindled over time into another chore to be performed. To think she would let this barbarian touch her, much less violate her, was laughable to contemplate. She would have fought the man tooth and claw before letting him lay a paw on her. Tooth and claw.

Yet he appeared to be none the worse for wear. In fact, he was irritatingly composed…and fully dressed. No visible scratches from this tooth-and-claw effort of hers to ward him off. His imposing figure seemed to consume most of the space in their small cave, and she felt unaccountably angry at him for being so tall, for having such a deep, resonant voice and such a wicked grin. Whoever knew that a criminal could have such dark, penetrating eyes and such white, even teeth?

She blushed at the complimentary turn her thoughts had taken. I must still be tipsy, she decided in her own defense.

Anyway, there was no use asking him what had happened during the night. Not unless she wanted to endure more of his taunting. He would probably only make up some wild tale about her throwing herself at his person—just as he had accused of her of practically wrestling the flask out of his hands. An accusation which was so preposterous it didn’t even bear argument.

Except…now that she had a moment to think back, she did remember tipping the bottle to her lips a few times. The drink had given her a sort of giddy, light-headed feeling. She had giggled. And she never giggled.

Oh, Lord.

To think that she, Violet Wingate Treacher, could have arrived at such a state! She, who had been married to a man who might have been a marquess, had everyone died in the proper order. Not even her sister Sophy had ever gotten herself caught in such an incriminating escapade—and Sophy had been disgracing the family on a weekly basis since she had escaped from the nursery. But Sophy had never approached this level of disgrace. Swilling brandy in a smuggler’s cave? With Cornwall’s most notorious smuggler, Robert the Brute?

And heaven knew what else had happened!

It was that what else that plagued her. As she struggled into her clothing, Violet tried to discern whether she had been violated. She didn’t think she had shared relations with a criminal, but how did one know for certain? He could have done anything to her while she was in a state of drunken unconsciousness. That thought made her even more ill.

What if she had been befouled by this low character? How would she possibly be able to hold her head up again?

“Ready?” he barked at her.

Her head snapped up. “You might give me a moment!”

“Takes you a damn sight longer to dress than it did for you to strip,” he said, laughing.

She glared at him. “Did I take my clothes off, or did you tear them off?”

Those dark eyes shone at her through the mask. “Don’t you remember?”

She bit her lip.

“Blacked it out, ’ave you now?” He clucked his tongue at her. “Highness, you hurt my feelings!”

She set her jaw. “I hardly see why you should be offended!”

“Naturally a man doesn’t want to feel that his efforts to please a lady have been forgotten.”

Please her! It was all she could do not to spit.

And yet she had to admit that there was something in that deep voice of his that seemed to resonate through her today. She could almost imagine that voice purring at her through a sea of brandy, calling her Highness, making her tremble…and not with fright, either.

She trembled now.

It had not been a dream.

Oh God. To have sunk to such unspeakable depravity!

But of course, she hadn’t. She couldn’t have. He was just toying with her, making her worry that something had happened when it hadn’t.

But if it didn’t happen, a little voice asked, what was your chemise doing puddled around your waist?

That was a question only Robert the Brute could answer. And she would die before asking it.

She hurriedly fastened the final buttons on her dress, picked up her sodden cape, and stood as quickly as her delicate physical condition would allow. So help her, if she ever got out of this filthy cave, she would never touch a drop of drink again. Or touch a man again, either, even to dance. She would become one of those ascetic gentlewomen who sat around cataloguing flora and translating religious passages from their original Greek. Not that she knew Greek…although she had always loved her garden. So she would cloister herself away from society. All she needed were a few servants, an accomplished cook, and access to fashion periodicals.

“Enough now,” the smuggler said gruffly. “Get going.”

He poked her on the shoulder and she stiffened angrily. What had him in such an ill humor?

A hopeful thought stirred in her. Perhaps she had fought him off. Her thwarting him would have pricked his male pride.

She cut a glance over to him. “I suppose I was quite restless in my sleep last night,” she remarked, attempting to strike a casual tone.

That chuckle rumbled through the corridors. “Restless—aye.”

Hmm. That wasn’t much of an answer.

“I notice that I seemed to have exclusive use of the blanket. Such a pity that you were left out in the cold,” she taunted.

“Oh, I wasn’t cold.” His voice was practically a leer.

Her heart sank into the heels of her shoes. But maybe he wasn’t really implying what she thought he was.

“I’ll take a wench’s passion over a blanket any day,” he said, dousing her last hope.

So much for thwarting him! She could almost remember now. And the horrible part was that she couldn’t recall being at all revolted by the experience. Just the opposite, in fact. She remembered warmth, and a pleasant thrill at his touch, and the realization that she hadn’t kissed a man since Percy. But Percy had been cold and mechanical, whereas when the Brute had taken her into his arms, it was like the stranger had put a flame to tinder and she had gone up in smoke.

But just how far up? she worried.

What if she was with child? That thought nearly caused her legs to collapse beneath her, and yet she managed to keep going. Her mind raced at the horror of it, and she imagined bleak scenarios for hiding possible evidence of her shame from the world…Hiding herself away for nine months on the continent. Or hurling herself off a cliff.

It was still dark when they reached the mouth of the cave, although it looked like the dawn was not far away. The sound of the sea was less menacing than it had seemed before, and just the beautiful sight of open space after her night in the confines of that dark cave made her want to weep with relief.

“Now what?” she asked.

“Now we say good-bye, Highness.”

She nearly whooped for joy, but stopped short. If she seemed too happy he might keep her just for spite. “What a pity!”

His lips turned up in a caustic smile. “Aye, a great pity.”

“And yet I suppose you have your work to get back to.”

“That I do, and I advise you to head for home.”

“Home,” she repeated. But where was her home? She had no idea. Was he going to abandon her here to fend for herself?

“Unless you would care to accompany me?” he asked, mirthfully noting her hesitation. “I think you know my sentiments on your ankles, and after last night, I am certain ours could be what you might call a mutually enjoyable partnership.”

“What do you mean, after last night?” she blurted out, unable to stop herself. She knew it wasn’t ladylike to delve into such matters. But how could she live not knowing whether she was still a respectable lady or—heaven help her!—a smuggler’s strumpet?

He gave her arm a playful squeeze, and the eyes beneath that mask glinted once more, sending a wave of heat through her. “What I meant was, it was not at all unpleasurable sharing a blanket with you, Highness.”

“Not too pleasurable, either, I hope,” she said.

He grinned.

Damn! Why didn’t he just come out and say it?

He sent her an exaggerated bow. “And now, I bid you farewell, Highness.” The Brute turned to go.

“Wait!” she cried out.

She could hardly believe her ears, yet she couldn’t help calling him back. How could he just leave her? If she never saw him again, how would she know if the passion she had flashes of was just a dream or a true memory of the night they had shared?

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“Yes!” But even as the question formed in her mind, her lips seemed incapable of voicing it. She crossed her arms and asked instead, “How am I to head for home from this godforsaken spot?”

He looked surprised. “Didn’t I mention it? All you have to do is climb to the top of that rise over there.” He pointed to a steep hill. “’Tis Trembledown over there. The coming dawn should provide a most picturesque view of your new home.”

Her lips parted—and not just to hear the word picturesque fall trippingly from the smuggler’s tongue, either. “So near?”

He grinned. “I was about to tell you afore you made your daffish dash into the caves. However, I shouldn’t begrudge you the night’s adventure. It was not without its highlights.”

Violet shivered, and not just from the bone-chilling cold. She turned to make good her escape, but he grabbed her arm once more. “You said I could go,” she snapped.

“Aye, but no kiss good-bye?”

She snorted. “Not likely!”

“Then good-bye to you, and good riddance. It’s always good riddance to a woman, I say.”

“And what do you imagine me doing in the coming weeks,” she shot back, “pining after your criminal person?”

He was laughing at her again, but Violet no longer cared. Sanctuary lay just over the hill, and she was already speeding toward it. She didn’t look back to see the boat that came to shore or to see her captor turn and wave her a last farewell before it put back out to sea. She didn’t care. She hoped she never saw the wretch ever again.

She lumbered up the hill faster than she could have ever thought possible, given her sore feet, fatigue, pounding temples, and tortured psyche. Home—she was almost home!

She was already trying to put the whole terrible episode behind her. Now that she knew she would reach the comfortable sanctuary of her new home, images of hurling herself off a cliff in shame already began to recede. After all, she did not know what had happened, so she felt reasonable in assuming nothing had. Yes, they had kissed—perhaps more—but whose fault had that been? Not hers, surely. There was no doubt in her pounding head that, in the unlikely event that something more dreadful than a mere kiss had taken place, the ruffian had forced himself on her.

She had confused memories of pleasurable sensations. But passions stoked in a moment of unintentional drunkenness surely could not be considered a blot on her character. She would not have chosen to be abducted, plied with liquor, and made love to by a smuggler. Far from it!

How often had her sisters accused her of being a snob? And there was, she had to admit, a bit of truth to the charge. But would a snob engage in such wanton behavior with an unwashed, uncouth criminal? Absolutely not!

“Kiss me, Brute.”

The memory of those words, spoken in a slurred voice that was at once unfamiliar and undeniably her own, stopped her in her tracks. Oh, heavens! She had asked him to kiss her. He hadn’t been lying about that.

But that didn’t mean that she had voluntarily drunk from that flask. That was the true culprit in her crime of passion. Demon rum.

Never again, she thought.

Violet pressed on again, and when she crested the hill she got her first glimpse of her new home. At least, she assumed it was hers. For, unfortunately, there were no other houses on the horizon.

She gawped for a moment, trying to restart her breathing mechanism. The sight was almost enough to send her running back down to the cave. Her head began to pound with renewed vigor.

This was Trembledown?

Although it was still dark, she could easily make out the place because all the windows had lights in them. Every one. It was startling, and oddly dispiriting. For while her heart should have been gladdened that Peabody and Hennie were holding a vigil through the night for her and had lit her path home, so to speak, the home they had lit might have been more favorably approached in total darkness.

Trembledown was like something out of a gothic novel…or a nightmare. Nothing about the edifice seemed at all secure. The house was set back from a cliff, but was still close enough to give the illusion of the house just waiting for a few centuries to work the landscape and wash it out to the sea. The building even tilted seaward—actually sagged to one side. Shutters, where they were not missing entirely, hung askew. Windows were boarded where glass had been broken. Rhododendron bushes, overgrown and leafless—probably dead—stood like skeleton sentries in front of the house. Around the perimeter was an old stone wall, moss covered and in various stages of collapse.

The name Trembledown was certainly perfect for the place—it looked as if one stiff storm could send it trembling into a pile of rubble.

Questions reeled through her mind, one after another. This was the place her in-laws had seen fit to buy her off with? (They must despise her more than she’d ever suspected!) More puzzling still…could this truly be the ancestral home the haughty Marquess of St. Just was dying to get his hands on? Was the man a lunatic? She herself had turned her back on a Season in London helping present Sophy so that she could try to bring some order to this disaster? She had staked her hopes for the future on this?

She stumbled down the thistle-strewn path that led to the door. There was no sweeping drive, no courtyard. Near the wall, a few crocuses, now past their prime, made a sad attempt at adornment. Violet couldn’t even make out a road leading nearby. The worn stone steps leading up to the door were slippery with moss. She almost fell.

Suddenly the door was thrown open, and there stood Peabody in his snowy white nightgown, robe, and cap. Though it was almost daylight, he held a candle in his hand and blinked at her as if she were crawling toward him out of pitch darkness.

“Oh, ma’am!” he exclaimed, rushing forward.

They fell on each other like long-lost friends, and it was all Violet could do to bite back tears. “Peabody!” she said, her voice quavering. It was so good to see him, words failed her. Gone was all thought of scolding him for tying her hands so tightly. Look how upset he was—and the frantic relief in his eyes to see her! Loyal, wonderful Peabody. Her champion. Her rock!

“I have been worried almost beyond reason!” he exclaimed. “Why, I—”

Suddenly, his words came to a dead stop, and the color drained out of his face.

“What is it?” she asked.

The improbable worry that leapt to her mind was that he could tell what had happened just by looking at her. She feared she had the Brute’s moll written all over her.

And yet, when he did speak, his words had nothing to do with the smuggler. “Is that your blue dress?” he asked.

As she looked down at it now, it seemed to have faded overnight to gray. Not to mention, it was ripped and smudged with black in several places. The skirt was still wet and had dragged in the dirt all the way home. The hem looked as if it had been trimmed in mud.

Her skin burned with mortification. “I had to spend the night hidden in a cave, on the rocks.”

He gasped. “With Robert the Brute?”

She hesitated only a moment before a lie slipped easily from her. “Hiding from him, Peabody.”

It sounded good, and she was about to embroider her story further when she realized that Peabody wasn’t listening to her anymore. In fact, in the next moment—just after his searching glance took in the spectacle of her completely ruined shoes—her champion and rock nearly fainted dead away.

“Henrietta, if you don’t stop crying I shall send you packing back to Yorkshire.”

Henrietta, who was perched on the edge of a badly stained brocade chair, sniffed in an effort to bring her emotions under control. Her nonstop snufflings were wearing on Violet’s nerves. In the cave Violet had thought that if she could just escape Robert the Brute, she would embrace the world and her companions in it in the true spirit of love and kinship. She had anticipated the milk of human kindness flowing through her veins. Her conversion to saintliness was entirely premature, obviously. The only thing circulating through her veins at the moment was irritation.

Was it any wonder? She was so tired! Tomorrow, no doubt, she would feel more kindly toward the world, after she had had a good night’s sleep in a real bed. If there was a real bed to be had in this ghastly house. What she had seen so far did not make her hopeful on that score.

The very couch she lay on was a good example of the problem. One leg of the mildewed piece of furniture was shorter than the other, so that every time she moved, it jarred both her and the scraggly cats that draped themselves on the cushions and across the back. She had shooed the cats away—they were three of a seemingly innumerable feral herd that had taken over the house—but the moment she had closed her eyes they were back. One, an orange long-haired beast with only one eye, stared at her menacingly.

The house, besides having been taken over by a pack of frightening felines, was a shambles. Walls, cracked and water stained, seemed to trap the cold air rather than any sort of warmth. Of course, warmth was hard to come by, since the chimney was clogged and smoke had filled the room when Peabody had attempted to light it. Dust and soot stood everywhere, except where four-legged creatures had left tracks—and that was to say nothing of the smell!

The caretaker, Barnabas, apparently had never laid rag to surface area. Nor swept. She was hard pressed to think what the old man had been doing all these years, save leeching a living off the Treachers. Not that she had a problem with that. Leeching a living off her, however, was another matter entirely.

Peabody picked his way through the room, all the while hunching slightly as he looked up at the ceiling, as if he feared it would collapse around his ears at any moment. And she had to admit that the timbers crisscrossing over their heads did seem rather threatening.

“Perhaps the best thing to do would be to retreat,” he suggested as he laid a very neat tea tray on the wobbly table next to her. He had evidently found time during the traumatic night to unpack the Limoges. “Back to Yorkshire, I mean.”

“Or to Bath!” Hennie said, apparently still eager to join up with her friend Imogene Philbrick and start indulging in an orgy of tea drinking and tatting. “I am sure they have no difficulty with smugglers in Bath. Or if they have, my friend Imogene has never mentioned it.”

“How could we leave when we’ve only just arrived?” Violet leaned back against the dusty velvet pillows of the sofa and tried to think. But it was impossible to consider how she would deal with the house. Other things weighed rather heavily on her mind.

Taking in Violet’s worn expression, Peabody poured the tea himself. “I am sure after the horses have rested for another day, they would be ready for the journey.”

“A day!” Hennie blew her nose noisily. “Who knows what could befall us in another day here! What with Robert the Brute still out and about!”

At the name, Violet stiffened.

“He might still be searching for you, Violet! He might come murder us all in our beds!”

Violet had told them that she had run away from Robert the Brute and spent the night in a cave—alone. Having evaded her captor made her a sort of heroine in their eyes, so she could not set their minds at ease and tell them that the Brute’s parting words were that he was well rid of her.

A curious sinking feeling nagged her. She would probably never see him again. For all she knew, he was in a boat bound for France as they spoke.

Her eyes suddenly focused on a mound in a corner. She hadn’t paid attention to it before, but she had assumed it was a pile of blankets such as what must have been covering the furniture before they arrived. Then the pile moved.

Violet screamed.

Hennie followed her lead and actually jumped out of her chair, shrieking. “What is the matter?”

Violet pointed. “That mass of filth!” she cried. “What is it?”

Peabody followed her gaze and some of the tension went out of his body. “That’s Barnabas’s sheepdog, Rufus.”

Violet sank back again, her heart still drumming hard. A dog. That was all they needed—and not even a self-respecting dog that would have rid them of all these cats, but a mangy, ineffective creature. Much like Barnabas himself, she thought.

“What are you going to do?” Hennie asked.

“What can I do?” Violet said.

Hennie scooted to the edge of her chair. “I spent the whole night wondering about this myself.” She shook her head and admitted, “Well, in those few moments when I wasn’t wondering what could become of you at the hands of Robert the Brute, and what would become of us if something ill befell you. It would have been too awful.”

“Yes, you would have suffered greatly,” Violet said, biting her lip.

Hennie nodded. “And so soon after Aunt Matilda’s tragedy, too! How should I have mourned for you both at once?”

This was indeed a puzzle, Violet had to allow. Once you had donned black underwear, as Hennie had, one would assume you had reached mourning’s limits.

“But then I remembered—actually, Peabody reminded me—that the Marquess of St. Just had offered you money for the house. Isn’t that right?”

The Marquess! The horror of the house’s interior had knocked all thought of that person from her mind. But now…

Now her mind seized on his name like a lifeline. Yes! He had offered her money for the house. A very generous sum, too. Laughably generous, now that she saw the place with her own eyes. Oh, why hadn’t she accepted his offer?

Vague dreams of fixing up Trembledown and selling it for an outrageous amount came back to her. As did her foolish aspirations for making enough money off the sale to return to society in a blaze of glory. Now she wanted to weep at how foolish she had been. If she could just hear from the Marquess of St. Just again, she would beg him to give her even a quarter of what he had originally offered her for this pile of rubble. She would grovel, if she had to.

Why not start groveling now?

“Quick, Peabody,” she said, sitting up. “My writing paper.”

Peabody gasped. “Are you going to write to the marquess, ma’am?”

“Just so,” she said.

Peabody clapped his hands together. “But I have not unpacked all your things,” he said. “I’m not sure where your stationery is.”

“That’s all right,” she said. “Any paper and quill will do.”

Although he looked as if he would argue with that statement, nevertheless Peabody hopped eagerly to follow her instructions, nearly crushing a cat in his hurry. The scraggly animal released an outraged yowl but gave no ground. At the door, Peabody pivoted back to Violet. “I knew you would deliver us from this place,” he said worshipfully, as if she were Moses about to lead his people out of Egypt.

As Peabody was scuttling to find paper and pen, there came a loud knock at the door that made Hennie jump ten feet.

Violet scolded her. “Really, Hen—smugglers will not come knocking, you know.”

“Nothing would surprise me in this strange place!” Hennie exclaimed.

It wasn’t a smuggler, however, but the constable whom Peabody had sent Barnabas into Widgelyn Cross to fetch earlier that morning. Constable Farkas stomped into the room in his muddy boots, and after brief introductions were made and an offer of tea was refused, he swatted two cats out of the way and sank down onto the couch with Violet.

Violet tensed at such an ill-mannered intrusion. Also, at the prospect of questions the man was certain to ask her. She had lied to Hennie and Peabody, but could she lie to the law?

“Now you say you were abducted by one Robert the Brute.”

Hennie gasped. “But Constable, it was undoubtedly he. I saw him with my own eyes!”

The constable, who was unfashionably furry of face, turned his attention to Hennie. “And had you seen the man before?”

“No—but the proprietor of the Frog and Cock Inn told me all about him!”

Constable Farkas laughed. “Did he, now? So you’re an expert.”

Hennie preened modestly. “I wouldn’t go so far as to say that…”

With a roll of his eyes with which Violet was in complete sympathy, the man turned back to Violet. “He was wearing a mask, you say?”

“Oh yes! He’s never without it.”

Throughout Hennie’s reply, the man kept his eyes trained on Violet. “And you, Mrs. Treacher?”

“I never saw him without it.” Though she had to steel herself not to blush at remembering that, though she had not seen his face, she had seen quite a bit of the rest of him. His chest, for instance, which had been so hard and lightly dusted with hair.

Percy had certainly not been so fine a specimen as the Brute…

“Mrs. Treacher?”

Her chin snapped up. Had she really been daydreaming about the chest of a villain? “Yes?”

“I asked did you meet any of his accomplices?”

“Oh, no.” Violet proceeded to tell the man the whole story of her ordeal…up to the point of making a run for the cave. “After that, I have no idea what happened to him. I never saw him again. Indeed, I was in fear for my life because the cave I took shelter in was overwhelmed by the tide.”

Hennie released a moan. “Oh, think of drowning in such a way! You might have been safer with the Brute!”

“Not likely.” The constable stared at Violet, scrutinizing her, until she was forced to look away. And yet his next words gave her cause to think he believed her.

“Well, then. There’s not much you can do to help us, then.”

Violet felt her face go red. “Help you? I would think that you would be concerned, rather, at saving the citizens in your charge from being terrorized by such a ruffian.”

“The government is also concerned with the smuggling, ma’am.”

“So there are a few bottles of brandy hidden away in caves,” Violet argued. “Is that the end of the world?”

The constable’s gray eyes remained pinned on her. “Was there brandy in your cave, then?”

Violet’s jaw hung slack for a moment as she attempted to form a reply. Naturally she did not want word getting out that she had been swilling liquor in a cave all night. Though of course that was better than having them know she was frolicking under a blanket with the Brute…

“I saw a half-empty cask,” she said, swallowing. “Barely worth mentioning.”

“And yet you did mention it.”

She bristled. “I simply don’t understand how the law can care more for smuggled goods than for the safety of people.”

“Hear, hear.” Hennie agreed. “She could have been killed.”

The constable raised a furry brow. “Aye? I’m more apt to think the Brute had met his match.” He wheezed out a laugh at his own joke.

Violet took a bracing sip of tea. Horrid man.

He finally stood. “Then you canna tell me where the Brute got off to?”

“No,” she said.

“Or what the boat looked like that you saw in the cove?”

“I’m sorry. I only saw a light.”

“Perhaps you could show us this cave.”

Her heart beat frantically. The cave! What if they went to the cave and they found evidence of the possible debauchery of her night with Robert the Brute? The blanket, the brandy, the candle…there might have been other evidence of the Brute’s presence there that she hadn’t noticed. What could she answer to all the questions that would surely be put to her?

Then again, what if they found information there that actually led to the Brute’s capture?

Her first thought at that possibility was entirely selfish. What tales the man could tell on her! Her reputation would be in tatters.

Also, if he was caught, they would hang him.

To her surprise, the thought of her abductor swinging from a yardarm did not bring her the slightest pleasure. Indeed, her heart leapt in panic at the very thought. They could not catch him.

What madness! Of course she did not care what became of such a one as he. They could hang the man twenty times before she would shed a tear for him. But she did care about her good name, and she could not risk letting it be sullied by the Brute if he were to be captured. Because if he found out that her information led to his capture, he would surely avenge himself by reciting the worst possible version of events of their night together.

Or he might manage to escape and avenge himself on her in a more horrific way! Hennie had said the man had cut people’s throats.

“Mrs. Treacher?” the constable said, giving her a verbal nudge.

She gulped. “I-I’m sorry…it was so dark…even this morning.”

“Then you don’t think you could find the cave?”

She lifted her shoulders. “It would be doubtful. Aren’t there many caves along the coast?”

The constable released a heavy sigh. “Aye.”

She sagged a little in relief. “Then I’m sure I would be of little help to you. Though certainly I shall notify you first thing if I can remember any particulars.”

The constable took a step toward the door and walked through a puddle of water. “What’s this?”

“The roof leaks,” Violet said.

The man looked incredulous. “But there is a floor above this one, is there not?”

Violet’s mouth set in a grim line. “The ceiling leaks, too.” The house could have served well as a potato strainer.

“You should get that fixed!”

“Oh, yes. I intend to see to it first thing,” Violet said.

Another lie. She wouldn’t be here long enough to fix anything. Not if she could help it. Now more than ever, she was determined to unload this godforsaken wreck of a house—cats, the caretaker Barnabas, leaks and all—on that pompous gasbag, the Marquess of St. Just. She needed to move quickly, too, before he had the opportunity to see what a wreck the place truly was.

After Peabody showed the constable to the door he returned to the salon to collect the tea tray. There was another knock at the door.

“See who it is, Peabody,” Violet said, “and tell them not to knock so hard next time, or else the whole house will tumble about our ears.”

She sank against the sofa, depressed. No matter how she looked at the situation, her Cornwall gambit had been a disaster. It was hard to imagine things getting any worse.

And then Peabody, looking extremely rattled, announced their latest visitor.

“The Marquess of St. Just, ma’am.”