Читать книгу The Trouble With Seduction - Victoria Hanlen - Страница 12
ОглавлениеThe next day the police inspector sat in Sarah’s parlor in his worn dark suit with a red poppy stuck in his lapel. An ominous scowl contorted his hard features. As he stared intently between Sarah and her solicitor, one eye bulged, appearing to grow larger, reminding her of a telescope.
Drops of perspiration glistened on her solicitor’s face. Though one of the most temperate rooms in Strathford Hall, the usually comfortable parlor did not relieve the man’s discomfort.
Sarah, on the other hand, struggled against the chill that coursed up and down her limbs making her palms clammy and her feet tap under her skirts.
This time, she kept telling herself, this time she refused to be intimidated. Inspector Hooker dare not accost her with defamatory questions and insinuations with her solicitor in attendance.
The inspector sniffed through his bent snout and rasped, “The recent discovery of blasting fuses now brings into question whether Lord Strathford’s death resulted from an unfortunate accident or foul play.”
“Surely, you don’t suspect my client of such deviousness?” Her solicitor wheezed as he mopped his brow. “At the time of her husband’s death Lady Strathford was visiting friends in Cambridge.”
“She has informed us of that fact. She did not need to be present,” the inspector growled. His mouth curled into an ugly sneer. “Blasting expertise can be bought, especially with some of our boys home from the Crimea.”
“What proof have you she arranged anything to harm her husband?” her solicitor shot back.
Hooker’s lips thinned. “Recently, Lord Strathford’s cousin filed a complaint. When the earldom passed to him, all the money in Lord Strathford’s estate went to Lady Strathford and—”
“Perfectly legal,” her solicitor interrupted. “His cousin received everything due in the entailment. The income and properties bequeathed to Lady Strathford were independent and not entailed. Lord Strathford could will his personal estate wherever he chose.”
The police inspector addressed her solicitor while he leveled his unsettling eye on Sarah. “The new earl has opened up a different inquiry.”
Sarah could hardly breathe. “What inquiry?”
“Quite bluntly,” the inspector smirked, “he claims you only married Lord Strathford for his money. You did the same with your previous husband, Lord Hardington. Both met with untimely deaths.”
“That is absurd!” Sarah protested. She didn’t have a choice in whom she married. Her father arranged both marriages. True, her first husband died only two years after they’d wed, but the grippe killed him. A doctor had been on hand throughout his whole illness.
“It has also come to our attention” – the inspector curled the side of one lip – “that at the time of his death, your husband was working on a project with another inventor. They’d made a significant breakthrough in the efficiency of an engine. He claims your husband made drawings and demands you turn them over to him immediately.”
“Who is this fellow?” she asked.
“A Professor Bodkin.”
She briefly searched her memory. “I’ve never heard of him. Nor do I know of any drawings.”
When the police inspector finally took his leave, Sarah thought she would faint. As she massaged her pounding temple, she turned to her solicitor. “Strathford’s odious cousin has already contested the will and lost. Now he hopes to send me to the gallows to finally get his hands on my husband’s money. And who is this Professor Bodkin?”
“Not to worry, my lady.” Her solicitor’s double chin wobbled. “You inherited your husband’s estate legally. We will get to the bottom of this professor’s claim.”
***
Damen stood in the vestibule of Strathford Hall, holding a bouquet of flowers, and feeling like the biggest kind of scoundrel. Nothing real could come of this association with Lady Strathford. Yet some part of him eagerly anticipated seeing her. Could one or two of Gormley’s punches have actually knocked something loose?
Having an attraction to Lady Strathford could only complicate an already convoluted situation. Additionally, she possessed certain characteristics he’d classify as off limits. In fact, she resembled a certain type of female he’d sworn to avoid.
Yet when she dumped her reticule all over his feet, he’d found her frank dialog and guilelessness intriguing. Her wide-eyed forthrightness not only tickled him but made him want to pick her up and kiss her just to see what she’d do.
He looked down at the flowers in his hands while the stark reality of what it meant to play Cory set in. Where his brother thrived on a devil-may-care, hedonistic profligacy, Damen’s stolid, sensible side squirmed with misgivings. The lifestyle and uselessness already threatened his need for order, accomplishment, and the moorings of responsibility. Hopefully, his stint as a decoy would be short-lived.
Mrs Ivanova made him uneasy. Then there was the fiancée, to whom he was yet to be introduced. Were any more females waiting in the wings? Cory, he knew, tended to collect them like some men collected guns – both were a delicate piece of machinery and equally as dangerous. Finding and apprehending his brother’s attackers might very well prove easier than juggling his women.
Down the spectacular marble-lined hall a door opened and a familiar figure emerged.
Damen cursed under his breath. Even after two decades he’d no trouble recognizing the ‘terror of his childhood.’
As the man advanced, he could see he’d added more girth and his bushy sideburns had grayed. On meeting gazes, the man’s pocked features and sour smirk shifted minutely.
Something resembling surprise deepened the wrinkles around his lips. Eerily, one eye focused in on Damen’s bruises. Then it probed his uninjured eye as if to ferret out every secret he’d ever kept, every detail he’d deliberately withheld. “Back for more, are you?”
The ambiguous question could have referred to any number of things, none of them pleasant. Damen fisted his hands. The man could still put him on the defensive. Well, he was no longer that frightened boy. Keeping his voice a dangerous calm, Damen made sure he injected the proper amount of irony. “Pleased to see me?”
Perceiving a confrontation brewing, the butler quickly retrieved a hat from a nearby closet and intervened. “Do you require anything else, Inspector Hooker?”
Inspector? The miserable cur had been promoted?
Hooker positioned his hat on his head while he stared pointedly at him. The same kind of intimidation he’d used on him countless other times. Back then the man had only been a constable.
The butler opened the door and saw the inspector out, then quickly motioned to Damen’s card. “I will see to this immediately, Mr Ravenhill.” A few moments later the butler returned and led him to what appeared to be a sitting room or perhaps a small gallery. On the shelves and in display cases sat automatons and what he assumed to be Lord Strathford’s small inventions.
Damen couldn’t help a surge of curiosity as he scanned the little mechanical devices. Could the tiny engine be among them? Something caught his eye. On top of a side table sat an unusual object, painted yellow.
***
“He’s finally here.” Sarah’s insides took flight. Not since her brief infatuation with the miller’s son when she was sixteen had she awaited a man with such anticipation. How could she describe what his visit did to her? After so many years of ennui, he filled her with hope. Hope that life might contain joy, and that perhaps, for once, she’d be granted the attentions of a handsome gentleman whose wit and vigor filled her with excitement.
Smoothing down her skirts, she resisted the urge to run to Edward’s invention gallery. Four uneasy days had passed since she’d met Mr Ravenhill at the Crystal Palace Dinosaur Park.
After the first day, she’d decided his request to visit her had been a hollow appeal. After the second, she’d thought he’d had another mental lapse. And after the third, she’d resigned herself that he’d suddenly remembered why he’d considered her beneath his attention in the first place.
Today had started badly with Niles again popping by with Lumsley. It worsened with the police inspector’s insinuations. But Mr Ravenhill’s presence restored her belief that good and bad eventually balanced.
The novelty of this visit by a man who’d somehow invaded her daydreams had her feet barely touching the floor. Plus, he was the first gentleman caller who’d come of his own volition.
While other young women of her station had London seasons, she’d never enjoyed the attention of beaux. She’d married her first husband practically out of the schoolroom. There’d been no wooing or courting, just straight to the altar with an old man she barely knew.
And the fantasies she’d had of Mr Ravenhill… Not only was he nearly her own age, he was – injuries aside – one of the most attractive men she’d ever met.
She paused in the doorway and tried to calm the excitement pulsing through her veins. He stood at the side table with his back to her. The sight of his broad shoulders and robust physique quite took her breath away.
Ravenhill set his walking stick against the wall and picked up something on the table in front of him. She heard the clickety-click of a key winding a spring. Then the oh-so-familiar zzzzz.
She froze, heat blossomed across her cheeks. What was that doing in here?
His shoulders worked as he moved the toy from hand to hand, then held it up for closer inspection. He set it on the table to let it dance about, happily buzzing and jumping around the mahogany. Picking it up again, he seemed to be doing something with it in front of him. He let out a little snort of laughter and slowly extended his arm, pressing the Buzzy Bee to the back of his neck.
Her breath caught.
Mr Ravenhill startled at the noise and abruptly turned toward her. If anything, the bruising and swelling around his face had become more pronounced.
His jaw went slack. “It tickles,” he said sheepishly, manipulating it, pressing it into his palms to demonstrate.
She clutched the collar of her high-necked gown. Seeing him caressing it in his big hands made her breathing turn rather shallow.
With a slow, furtive reach, he set the toy on the table behind him.
Undaunted, the Buzzy Bee bounded about, thumping the wood, hammering out its own Irish jig as it whipped in noisy skips and circles, exuberantly demonstrating how its mechanism rivaled the durability of an eight-day clock.
Ravenhill stood there, brows furrowed, acting as if the Buzzy Bee no longer existed.
Awash with mortification, Sarah rallied every last scrap of self-possession, marched over to the table and picked up the bouncing contraption. How had her little toy got into Edward’s gallery and what possessed Mr Ravenhill to play with it?
“Dare I ask what demonic instrument of torture I unleashed?”
“Instrument of tort…” Sarah bit her tongue and quickly moved to the desk, pulled open a drawer and shoved it in. The little fiend buzzed and bounced against the wood like a caged wasp, causing the whole desk to vibrate.
“My husband made it to relieve his aching muscles,” she lied. If Mr Ravenhill had any inkling of the part of her person it was meant to relieve, she would surely die of embarrassment. She retrieved the Buzzy Bee and opened one of the display cases on the wall. After setting it inside, she closed the glass door.
“I didn’t realize he also invented items for personal use. I always thought he was a big machinery kind of fellow.”
“If he needed something and he couldn’t buy it, he made it.” Bespoke. Designed. Measured. And adjusted for faultless performance. Her face felt positively crimson.
Like a little dog eager to escape, the Buzzy Bee continued to bounce and jitter around until all the other devices on display rattled.
She quickly moved the contrivance to a wooden cupboard and placed it on a shelf. It immediately jumped off. Barely catching it, she stuffed it into her skirt pocket and set her jaw. Then nodded toward Ravenhill as if she’d finally fixed things.
A muffled, less emphatic zzzzz buzzed in her pocket. She prayed her skirts and petticoats would absorb the sound and fixed an expression of assurance on her face. “I believe its spring is running down.”
Clasping her hands at her waist, she ignored the vibration against her leg, determined not to let Edward’s little toy spoil this visit. “Now then. How have you been, Mr Ravenhill?”
He gazed at her face and then down at the zzzzz in her skirt pocket. His shoulders seemed to quiver. Was he biting his lip?
Dear Heavens, could he possibly know of the Buzzy Bee’s true use?
He straightened, and went very still. “I’d say I’ve been trying to stay out of trouble, but you’d know it for a lie.” He quickly turned toward the table. She heard a quiet gulping sound and watched his shoulders rise and fall with several deep breaths.
When he turned back he’d retrieved a bouquet. “Fortunately, I had the forethought to bring a peace offering.” Using his cane, he slowly walked across the carpet and held out his flowers. “My lady, I saw these White Roses and Blue Lilies of the Nile and thought of your lovely eyes.” One side of his mouth pulled up in a grin. Were it not for the injury to his face, she imagined the man would be beaming.
The sweetness of the gesture quite took her by surprise. She accepted the bouquet and breathed in their fragrance. “Thank you. How thoughtful. Shall we sit? I can’t help notice the foot I stepped on still pains you.”
He dipped his head gallantly and followed.
She sat on the comfortably large sofa and held the bouquet while he positioned himself on the far end. Even so, such a tall, brawny man somehow made it shrink.
The smile continued to quiver on one side of his lips, while he gazed at her as if drinking in her countenance.
How she’d hoped he’d look at her thus. But with the Buzzy Bee still vibrating against her leg, the most improper images took form.
She searched for something innocuous to say. “May I offer you some refreshment?”
The question seemed to snap him out of whatever reverie he’d been in. “No, thank you.” He shifted toward her, capturing her gaze. “I’d hoped you might accompany me for a ride in my new phaeton.”
The evil device’s spring chose that moment to unwind in a furious bout of buzzing, making her skin tingle all the way up and down her leg.
“Oh!” Her eyes went wide, and she gripped her bouquet.
Far from glowering at her with disapproval, as in her first fantasy of Mr Ravenhill, his gaze intensified on her face as if he didn’t dare look away.
Her hand flew to her chest. “Dear me! I, I hadn’t anticipated such a… a kind invitation.” With Edward’s toy going on a rampage in her pocket and now this spur-of-the-moment offer from a man who made everything in her flutter, she bounded to her feet and nearly dashed to the window and back. “When do you suggest?”
“Your enthusiasm is… exhilarating. How about now?”
“Now?” Her insides somersaulted. Such a request needed consideration, a careful measurement of the propriety and formalities involved.
Oh, dear. Why had she stubbornly resisted Gracie and Eliza’s pleas to buy new gowns?
A ride with a gentleman caller while wearing mourning attire for her deceased husband would not be the thing. People would say she’d thrown decorum to the wind. Her aunt’s advice for happiness echoed in her mind. Would Mr Ravenhill consider it a slight if she refused to go with him?
“Where do you intend on taking us?”
“I thought a trot through the park. My team is in need of exercise.”
“Well, I…”
Megpeas, her butler, tapped on the doorjamb. “My apologies, my lady, one of the workmen begs a moment of your time.”
“Please tell him I’m busy?”
“I’m sorry, my lady, he insists it’s important.”
The burly carpenter leaned around her butler. His gaze shot past her to narrow in on Ravenhill. Was it a trick of the light or did the expression in his eyes change dramatically? Turning, she found Ravenhill’s attention riveted on the carpenter. A sizzle of unspoken male hostility passed between the two men.
What were they doing? Could this day get any stranger?
She swallowed uneasily and addressed the carpenter. “What is it?”
The carpenter returned his gaze to her, his expression and voice now wholly respectful. “I’m sorry, my lady. I thought it important to tell you another device has been found. You may want to inspect it before the police arrive.”
“They just left!”
Mr Ravenhill shoved himself to his feet in a stance bristling with power and aggression, while glaring at the carpenter.
“No!” she almost shouted. What had got into these men? “Please make yourself comfortable, Mr Ravenhill. I’ll be back before you can blink twice.”
***
For the second time that day, Damen encountered a face from the past. He’d recognized Hooker right away. While he’d not yet discovered how he knew the carpenter, something about him raised every last one of his hackles. By the hostile stare the man returned, he suspected the fellow had a better memory. But who was he?
Damen went to the door to get another look at him. He took a few more steps for a clearer view. Before long, he found himself following the carpenter and Lady Strathford down several long halls and a flight of stairs. Hammers and chisels pounded so energetically the walls and floors seemed to shudder.
By the time he ducked through a curtain-strung doorway, the carpenter had crowded Lady Strathford into the corner against a workbench, and was pointing to something.
Two flashes of metal caught Damen’s eye. As he bent to retrieve the small objects off the floor, he found himself at a better angle to see her face. Clearly, the journeyman’s attentions made her uncomfortable.
He crept up and wacked the carpenter’s ankle with his cane. The man lunged back, but Damen had anticipated his reaction and already stepped out of the way. “My apologies,” he said airily. “My cane caught on debris and quite unsettled my footing.”
The carpenter drew his lips across his teeth like a dog threatening to bite.
Now closer, he took the measure of the man and studied his rugged features. Animosity shone in his hard eyes along with that glint of familiarity.
“I say, this is a nice big room.” Damen raised his cane and pointed to a charred bookcase, giving Lady Strathford a graceful way of extricating herself from the corner. “What do you plan on doing with it, my lady?”
Her pallor had gone rather anemic. For a moment he wasn’t sure she’d respond. “An orangery,” she finally replied and stepped around the carpenter toward the bookcase.
Damen shouldered his way into her spot at the workbench and gazed at the thing the carpenter had been pointing to. “A blasting fuse?” He reached to pick up the cord.
The carpenter’s gnarled paw shot out to cover the fuse, a dangerous growl issuing from his lips. “That is evidence… we don’t want it damaged a’fore the police can examine it.”
Damen shoved his hand into his pocket while he considered the man. They looked of an age. His other characteristics – a sturdy build, a thick, bent nose and a short temper – had been common among toughs in his old neighborhood.
Clearly the carpenter remembered him. But did he know him as Damen, Cory, or both?
How and where had he known this man? After his mother’s death, he rarely returned to London and had lived in Liverpool since university. Twenty years could strip memories and change faces, yet he was sure they’d met.
He pointed to the bruises around his face and head. “Please excuse my jumbled memory, but I can’t help thinking we’re acquainted. When and where might we have met?”
Hostility shone bright in the carpenter’s gaze before he looked away. “Haven’t seen you a’fore this day.”
Lying was not the man’s strong suit.
“I found this on the floor.” Damen pulled one of the metal pieces from his pocket and held out the auger bit. “Didn’t want you to lose this.” When the carpenter extended his other hand, he saw a small number six crudely tattooed in the center of his meaty palm. His little and ring finger were bent and gnarled, signs they’d been badly broken.
A rough gang of child thieves had tattooed a number into their palms when Damen lived in St Giles. Most were abandoned or orphaned, surviving any way they could. Many died, some were hung, others transported. There’d been at least forty, who, for anonymity’s sake, only answered to their numbers.
A memory, ripe with fury, flooded back. Granny Wilkins had been shuffling down the street using her cane, her basket slung over one arm. A street urchin raced out of an alley and grabbed hold of her basket. She fought as much as a cripple could. The urchin kicked and jostled her, all the while twisting at the basket. He finally gave her a hard shove, sending her into the street in front of a team of horses. They reared and screamed.
Damen rushed into the street, grasped her under her arms and dragged her to safety. At nine, he’d been big for his age. Thankfully, Granny, a tiny bird of a woman, was not much bigger than himself.
The next time Number Six struck, Cory was walking along the sidewalk playing with his little pop-up clown. The guttersnipe dashed out of a doorway, hit him in the back of the head with a brick and grabbed the toy. Cory fought, but his attacker pounced on him and was about to smash the brick into his face when Damen came to his brother’s rescue.
He grabbed the urchin’s arm and squeezed his wrist hard. The boy cursed and dropped the brick to reveal the number six in his palm.
And Damen didn’t stop there.
He’d heard the guttersnipe had attacked a little girl a block away, leaving her with a badly broken arm. Granny Wilkins could have been killed if the wagon driver and his horses had been any less attentive. Number Six was ready to bash Cory’s skull in with a brick.
Damen grasped the boy’s ring and little finger and twisted, cracking them over his knee. The urchin screamed in pain. Then he wrenched the boy’s fingers toward the other side, feeling bones pop. The boy shrieked and jerked his hand away, mewling loudly as he ran off.
Number Six’s fingers were the first he’d broken in retribution after coming to a victim’s aid.
Lady Strathford approached and grasped his elbow. “I think we’re done here. Mr Ravenhill, would you please escort me back?”
Damen allowed her to guide him out. Inside he fought a battle between guilt and wanting to tear the carpenter limb from limb.
