The Fall into Ruin, page 5
“Sir Anthony,” she said with a little curtsy.
He bowed over her hand and placed a kiss on the back of her glove, adding in a low voice, “You do not have to curtsy to me.”
A blush pinkened her cheeks. He straightened, squeezed her fingers and then wrapped her arm around his to take her further into the room, away from the door and the curious looks they were attracting. The footman with the tray walked over and it appeared Rose was about to lift a scotch glass to her lips but he squeezed her fingers again. “Take the champagne, Rose.”
Irritation flashed in her gaze but she took the other glass instead. Anthony picked up his third drink and twirled the cup in his fingers. At least they both knew enough about the ton to know keeping up appearances was the most important part of the game.
“You have set the tongues to wagging with that gallant bow over my hand,” she said quietly once they had found a sheltered corner.
“You did it when you curtsied to a social pariah.”
She shook her head and sipped her champagne. “I forget which rules are which most of the time.”
She should have looked down her nose and dismissed him with a sharp gaze rather than admit her shortcomings. Luckily the rest of the room largely ignored the two, even though the night was about them. About making Clairmont’s friends and neighbours believe their match wasn’t the outcome of a scandalous garden assignation.
“One of the important rules is leaving your weapon in your bedroom rather than bringing it to supper with your family.”
She didn’t blush this time, merely grinned and then hid the action behind a delicate cough. “How did you know?”
He’d seen her lime skirts stiffen as she’d curtsied. Something was in her pocket. She’d moved with such grace, he’d almost missed it. “Since when do ladies have pockets sewn into their evening gowns?”
“The pocket is beneath the gown.” She pushed the spectacles up her nose and gazed up at him before speaking again. “Have you had time to consider our discussion from earlier?”
He ignored her words and a shocking revelation came to mind, something he hadn’t previously considered. “Do you think one of your family members is going to attack you?”
*
Rose laughed. She attempted to keep it to a quiet, musical chuckle. “Not at all. Why would you say that?”
“This is only our third meeting and you have been armed for two of them. I wonder what you are protecting yourself from, or rather, whom.”
With another forced smile, Rose began to stroll the edges of the room. She already disliked that he knew the most pertinent questions to ask. Despite all the nasty things her father had said about Germaine, he was obviously very perceptive. That was dangerous. “I was armed the first time too but couldn’t get to my blade quick enough to slice your throat.”
“You’ve done that before, have you?”
Her only answer was a half-shrug to feign confidence. Of course she had never slit a man’s throat. She was sure she could if she had to though. If her own life depended on it.
Dinner was announced and her mother told the room in a high-pitched voice that they were forgetting tradition for the night and had changed the seating arrangements. They were to search out their name on a card for this meal.
Anthony offered his arm once again and Rose took it. She had little choice since they were being watched by a dozen sets of eyes, her father’s included. Her heart gave a loud thump in her chest but then she plastered on her practised smile and pushed the spectacles up her nose again.
“Do you wear those all of the time?” he asked, his tone barely above a whisper as they walked, the last to leave the salon.
“I am quite blind without them.”
“You seemed to do well enough in my chambers earlier.”
Blast it, she’d hoped he hadn’t noticed. Her nerves had been so frayed, she’d forgotten to put them on. The last few months with her family at the estate had been most trying. She was used to running free, not keeping up the appearance that she was most undesirable. It began to take the shine off of the years she’d spent being in charge and in control.
Frustration tinged her lie. “They were misplaced this afternoon. Thankfully my maid located them in time for dinner.”
He raised a brow but didn’t comment again. When he pulled her chair out for her to be seated, her cheeks heated again. He was chivalrous and despite her propensity for independence and control, she sort of liked it. When he snapped her linen straight and then placed it over her lap, she held her breath. He was too close. Too large. Too much. But then he frowned and took his own seat.
The hours went on while Rose drowned her apprehension and anticipation in wine. No matter who spoke to Anthony, he barely lifted his gaze from her. They were right down the opposite end of the table from her mother and father and two brothers. Everyone would see it for the snub it was but she cared very little what anyone else there thought of her. She was, however, almost dying to know how Anthony Germaine judged her. She could see it there in the depths of his green eyes, flat yet curious. He didn’t give much away with the stare he fixed on her, only that she retained his interest for all to see.
Vicar Campbell and his wife sat to her right and the vicar’s brother to the left of Anthony. Campbell said very little other than questions about Rose’s impending nuptials and that he would perform the ceremony himself if they wished to be married there at the castle. She nodded and replied where necessary, making the appropriate noises when the man began to talk about his own wedding day. His wife said not much at all, only a nod here and there. The holy couple didn’t need to know there would be no wedding vows said between her and Germaine. Rose still hadn’t figured all the details but she had a bit of a plan forming. She hoped her intended could be bribed or at least cajoled to forget her existence and return to London.
Anthony regaled the other Mr Campbell with stories of the capital. His cousin Zachery was seated in the middle of the table next to the Morcum sisters from a neighbouring estate. Their father was at her brothers’ end of the table. Her mother had definitely set the seating arrangement to distraction. No one was where they should have been but not too many appeared uncomfortable with the change.
Rose, however, was more than uncomfortable. Sweat trickled down her back and if she wasn’t careful, it would drip from her brow. Her gowns were thick and horrible out of necessity and she damned them to the deepest pits of hell. In her mind she sent everyone else there too.
Finally the seventh course was cleared away, not that Rose had eaten much of anything. Her stomach was unsettled from nerves and the glasses of wine with each plate had done nothing to help her at all. Her head was oddly light, her body predictably heavy.
The gentlemen’s port was waved off and it was decided to move back to the pink salon for a game or two. It was a house party after all. She needed the household to retire for the evening. She needed the household to pack and up and go back to the bloody city.
Rose wasn’t quick to rise from the table, it being awkward for her to push her chair back and wobble her way to her feet. Anthony met her gaze over the rim of his wine glass, his brows high. “Are you any good at charades, Lady Rose?” It was the first he’d spoken directly to her in two hours.
She began to stand, intending to plead a headache and disappear. “I’m afraid parlour games are not quite my forte, Sir Anthony.”
But then he was at her side, helping her from the chair, talking in her ear. “Perhaps we might take a stroll on the balcony?”
Oh God, his breath was hot against her neck. Her slipper caught on the hem of her gown and Rose overbalanced. With a barely muffled shriek she fell right into his arms. Before any of the other guests noticed, he had her back on her feet and his fisted hands at his sides but his touch had burned. It wasn’t humiliation warming her as he stared her right in the eye through the blurred glass of the spectacles. It was something else entirely and Rose didn’t like it at all. “I’m afraid I may have had too many glasses of wine and should retire for the evening.”
The edges of Anthony’s lips lifted in a grin that told her he saw right through her lies. Right through her. “Running away, Rose?” he murmured.
There was no one there to hear his words but she blushed nevertheless. Why did he have to purr her name like that? She needed some air. Cool air. Distance would help too. “I’m not running. Merely regrouping.”
“Coward,” he countered as he stepped closer.
She tried to retreat but the chair was at her side, the table behind her. “It wouldn’t be proper for us to be alone together.”
Anthony gestured to the now empty dining room. “We’re alone now. We were alone this afternoon in my room.”
“That is beside the point,” she snapped, her cheeks hotter than the embers in the grate. Sweat still slicked her beneath the dress and her breath came in short pants. It was too hot. She was too hot.
“I would very much like to pick up our conversation from this afternoon,” he offered.
“Have you reconsidered my terms?”
He held his arm out for her to take and raised a brow. “Shall we?”
Blast it all. She had no choice but to be led from the room. Again. How Rose would have loved to have played it coy and left him hanging. There just wasn’t any time for that though.
*
The thought foremost in Anthony’s mind as he and Rose walked across the small terrace and down the three steps to the garden was that the lady on his arm was dangerous. In too many ways to count. How many secrets did Rose Clairmont have? he wondered.
The lady spoke first, wasting very little time. “Have you?”
“Have I what?”
“Have you decided if you will help me?”
He should simply say yes. She hadn’t reiterated her terms on the particular help he was to provide. Lying for a greater cause was not beneath him no matter where his honour or pride sat. Instead he said, “No.”
It was too dark to see her reaction but he certainly felt it. The drop in her shoulders, the way her fingers gripped his coat sleeve before loosening and falling away completely. She stopped walking, turned on her silk-clad heel and started back towards the house, the wind catching her gown and a few tendrils of hair that had slipped free. Anthony shot out a hand and reached for her elbow. “Wait.”
“For what?” she replied, her anger clear, her fear more obvious.
“Rose, we don’t know one another at all. I don’t expect you to tell me all of your secrets but you have to give me something on which to go by. I can’t blindly offer assistance in what could very well be a mad scheme to murder or steal.”
Rose scoffed but in this new light, facing the house, Anthony recognised the fear in her honey eyes flecked with gold. He saw the trepidation there. She was scared of something. Or someone. “Is it your brothers you fear? Your father? I’ve already agreed to marry you, to take you from here.”
When his bride-to-be crossed her arms over her chest, he realised he may have spoken wrong. “What bad luck for you, milord. Come to court your beastly bride and carry her away over your sack horse’s saddle at pistol point.”
“That is not what I meant and you know it.”
“I don’t know anything anymore,” she admitted.
“You’re in trouble, Rose. You are armed and waiting for a fight in your own home. If I don’t know who it is you’re fighting, how am I supposed to help you?”
“I won’t tell you anything until you agree not to discuss the matter with my father or my brothers.”
“What about your mother? Is she outside of the problem? Is she the problem?”
Rose scowled and twisted her arm from the grip he still had on her elbow. “You couldn’t be any further from the truth of it, milord. And you’ll never be able to guess. I suggest you pack your things and make your way back to the capital while I sort the mess on my own.”
“You think I can’t work it out, Rose?” Anthony’s temper began to fray. “You think I don’t know it has something to do with piracy? Something to do with your footmen and your housekeeper? Are your butler and cook in on it also? I cannot be a party to lawbreaking.”
Her mouth had formed a little oh by the time he’d poured forth his thoughts. But which particular nerve had he hit?
“You have no idea. No idea at all. You’re not the man I need. You can’t help me.” The last she said more to herself than to him and the pain in her words actually left him reeling. He should have said yes. Yes, Rose, I’ll help you bury the bodies. I’ll help you murder and hide the crime.
He took her arms and pulled her close, the wind whipping around them like a living being bent on forcing them to its will much like the trees around the house. “You won’t give me a chance? I’m to be your husband. You can confide in me.”
Her gaze took on a faraway look before she finally met his eyes. “No. You’re not him. I don’t need you. I need Richard Germaine and his son. You’re not him.”
His recent resolution to never claim kinship to his father again sprung in action but the words died on his lips. Voices carried from the terrace and Anthony was forced to release her. Forced to watch as she disappeared into the darkness. He couldn’t follow her because he wasn’t his father’s son. He was a good man who believed in the law and upholding it. He believed criminals who stole, raped and murdered should hang. His father might not be a typical cut-throat man of the sea but he had murdered. He’d stolen. He may have even raped, who knew? Not Anthony. He didn’t know anything more than that his father’s occupation had ruined his son’s life and had left his daughter on the same path. Straight to the hangman’s noose. Only divine intervention and the love of a titled man had saved Daniella.
It was a good thing Anthony Germaine didn’t need saving. He was a good man and he would do good deeds of which he could be proud. Rose Clairmont was only right about one fact. She didn’t need him. No one did.
Chapter Six
A piece of the puzzle lay before Anthony’s closed eyes. It had soft edges, wore unnecessary spectacles and bright shadows danced around it in a mixture of danger and allure. Pushing back the blankets, he fought his way through the bed’s curtains and reached for another drink. His mind was slow to focus, his thoughts sluggish and consumed with several different possibilities, each more bizarre and ridiculous than the ones that came before.
Rose Clairmont was an enigma he should have washed his hands of. He should have fled to the Continent the second his broken ankle had healed. He could have started again somewhere new. Changed his name and grown a beard. Now it was too late for any of that. Too late to salvage his pride or prove to England she had been wrong about him. He may have the prince on his side but it had never done him much good so far. It’s not like they were chums.
Forgetting the glass, he swigged straight from the bottle the housekeeper had delivered as Rose had run from the room earlier in the afternoon. She’d run, for heaven’s sake. For not one second did the housekeeper appear surprised Rose was in his room to start with. She had simply given him the tray and then hurried off after her mistress. What the bloody hell had he gotten himself into?
Rose Clairmont was lighter on her feet than he was. Even before he’d broken his ankle, he’d run like an elephant with another on its back. No grace whatsoever. But Rose, Rose ran like a ghost and vanished like one. He’d gone after her in the garden but had very quickly lost her. He wondered if her feet touched the grass because she didn’t make a sound or leave a trail. Not bad considering she had to be fourteen stone or more. Only, she wasn’t fourteen stone at all. When she’d tripped and he’d caught her, he’d braced for a fall, thinking he couldn’t possibly hold her up and not because she was so heavy, but because he wasn’t particularly strong. He wasn’t a huge man with muscles tearing his shirtsleeves. Only, now he knew some truth. Another piece to the puzzle. Rose Clairmont was not the heavy girl the unfeeling ton made fun of.
For the last few long hours he’d considered giving her his promise that he would help her without breathing a word of her problem to anyone. He just wanted to know what was going on. More than anything, he wanted to know how it involved his father. His retired pirate captain father.
Anthony’s investigative mind was a whirl of activity and it needed an outlet. He needed a problem to solve. But he wouldn’t just hand himself over to her. No. That wouldn’t do. So he’d retired to his room but he couldn’t sleep. The alcohol he’d come to rely on during his convalescence with a broken ankle didn’t help either. How could anyone sleep when their brain just would not switch off? What was Rose so frightened of? Who in the hell was she really?
Eventually Anthony pulled on a pair of trousers and shrugged on a shirt before drifting over to the window above the desk. He really should drink from a glass. He wasn’t an animal. A movement outside caught his eye. Was it a swaying tree? The howling wind was the only sound to penetrate the castle walls so he wasn’t surprised everything moved about out there.
Only, the shadow kept on along the border of a garden bed, ducking beneath this branch and that. If the moon had been obscured, he would never have seen anything. Eyeing the brandy bottle and wondering if he’d had more than he thought, Anthony shook his head and turned the lantern right down to peer out the window again. There he was, a man, walking fast towards the garden’s far end.
The wind changed direction and the man’s cloak blew right out, the hood falling back while he scrambled to right it. Even across the shadowed garden and through a window three floors up, Anthony knew it wasn’t a man. A man didn’t wear a white ankle-length nightgown. Chestnut curls spilled from the cloak’s hood and Anthony swore a blue streak.
She’d threatened him with violence when he’d accused her of having a lover. Was the rest just a ruse to throw him off the true path? He shouldn’t have listened to her lies. Shoving his feet into a pair of boots, without time to put on hose or even do the laces, he was out the door and down a flight of stairs before he recalled he didn’t know his way around the castle very well. He especially didn’t know where he was going in the dark. Thankfully someone had left a few lanterns burning on each landing. He reached the bottom of the last stair and made his way to the front doors. He would be on the wrong side of the house but if he was quick enough, he might still catch her before she did anything silly.
