A Lady's Guide to Mischief and Mayhem, page 13
They worked silently together for some time before Katherine, as he’d begun to think of her, said, “I shouldn’t have thought a policeman would be afraid of the dark.”
Eversham had been scanning a bill from Philbrick’s bootmaker when her words penetrated his consciousness. “I’m not afraid of the dark,” he said pettishly.
“I’m quite sure that’s what you said earlier.” Kate raised her brows. “When a gentleman says he wishes to be indoors once night has fallen, one can only assume it’s a deathly fear of darkness that precipitates that wish. I believe it’s been proven by science.”
He huffed out a laugh. “You’re teasing me.” It had been a long time since anyone had bothered to be playful with him.
Most of his friends from university had been appalled at his decision to join the police. And his colleagues on the force looked down on him because his grandfather had been a baronet.
He’d almost forgotten what it felt like to laugh over something foolish with a friend.
It was unfamiliar, but not unpleasant.
“I’m trying.” Katherine shrugged. “But you don’t seem to know how it’s done. You’re supposed to play along. As if you truly are afraid of the dark. But I suspect you’re too much of a policeman for such a thing. It’s a shame really.”
This made him frown. “Why?”
She rose to her feet and brushed off her gown where it had been in contact with the floor. “Because the papers I’ve been looking at have been as dull as dishwater and I was looking for some sort of diversion. Sebastian Philbrick might have been a passable poet, but so far his correspondence has been as entertaining as a prayer meeting.”
Eversham coughed.
“I forgot.” Katherine gasped, her cheeks coloring. “Your father was a minister, wasn’t he? I do apologize. I never intended…that is to say, I didn’t mean…”
He stepped closer and touched her on the arm. “I take no offense, Lady Katherine, I assure you. Prayer meetings can be deadly dull. There’s a reason why I’m with the Met and not a clergyman.”
She looked up at him and smiled, a pair of dimples bracketing her mouth, like an emphasis on where precisely he should put his own. “You’re being kind. I’m always saying the wrong thing at just the wrong moment. For the most part, I’m cool and calm, but every once in a while, I manage to truly say something that puts me to the blush.”
Was it his imagination or were her eyes darting to his mouth?
Breaking their gaze, he thrust a hand into his hair. “Well, no harm done. Though we should make sure there aren’t any other trunks that we should ask the servants to bring up to the house.”
“Of course,” she said, her tone falsely bright to his ear.
Her tone didn’t matter, he reminded himself. He had a job to do.
“I’ll take these.” He gestured to a stack of crates.
“Just so,” she said. “I’ll make sure these two are what we’re looking for.”
They turned away from each other and set about opening crates and trunks and riffling through them to scan the contents.
They worked in silence for some minutes until he heard a cry of pain from Katherine.
Eversham let the lid of the trunk he was holding up slam shut and hurried to her side.
“What happened?” he asked as he arrived at where she knelt before an open trunk. She was shaking out her hand and her face was creased with pain.
“I pinched my finger in the hinge,” she said through clenched teeth. “Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
From experience he knew he had to let her get all her shaking out. There was something about pain that made one unable to remain still.
It was as if concentrating on some other action took away some of the sting.
Once the worst of it had passed, she peeled off her glove so that she could look at the injury more closely.
“Look how red it is.” She extended her finger to him so that he could see it better.
The light was dim, but he could see that the pad of flesh was an angry red where the metal hinges had pinched the skin.
He would wonder later what impulse had prompted him, but in that moment, he acted on pure instinct.
Gently he brought her hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to the wound.
Her fingers were cool in his, and this close he could see her gray eyes widen in surprise. But she didn’t pull away.
“Thank you,” she said softly, her dark lashes fanning over her cheeks as she glanced at his mouth.
Andrew was no green boy. He knew what a woman who wanted to be kissed looked like. And yet, even as he leaned close enough to smell her jasmine scent, he whispered, “May I kiss you, Katherine?”
“Oh yes.” Her assent came just as his mouth captured hers in a kiss that felt at once like nothing he’d ever known before and like coming home.
He was, he knew, in a great deal of trouble. But he’d think about that later.
* * *
Kate had never been kissed quite like this. She would have expected a man like Andrew Eversham, a policeman who had spent most of his adult years among the hardest characters England had to offer, would be rough and without finesse.
But she realized as soon as his soft lips touched hers that she’d utterly misjudged him.
Of course a man who had the ability to adjust his approach from tact to bluntness as the situation required would kiss with every bit of finesse at his disposal.
Her injured finger forgotten, she clutched the front of his shirt as he took her face in surprisingly gentle hands and stroked the skin of her cheek with his thumb.
She’d begun to think herself immune to passion. The first affair not long after her husband’s death, when she’d thought herself ready to partake of all the freedoms of widowhood, had proven unsatisfying. And the next lover she’d chosen, despite his good looks, had been selfish—perhaps because of his good looks—and she’d ended the affair after a few months. But though she hadn’t enjoyed the act itself, the closeness and the long, drugging kisses that preceded it had been heavenly.
Eversham, however, was entirely different.
Pulling back a little, she looked up at him, seeing the dark glint of desire in his eyes. “You’re exceptionally good at this.” She could hear the husky tone in her own voice.
“I’m glad you think so.” He kissed her again, this time pulling her lower lip between his teeth, in a move that made her lose her breath. “I aim to please.”
With deliberate slowness, he licked into her mouth and she pressed closer to him, tilting her head to get better access to that delicious warmth. She was assailed by all her senses at once, feeling the rough wool of his coat against the skin of her fingers and inhaling the clean sandalwood scent of him. All the while, pulses of sensation coursed through her, fanning out from where their mouths joined, from the peaks of her breasts pressed against his chest, then lower still where she most wanted him.
“What were we talking about?” He pulled away a little. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was ignoring y—”
He broke off as she pulled him closer, kissing him back until they were both breathless. “Who cares?” he muttered, and took her mouth again. When she heard a noise of hunger, she wasn’t sure if it had come from him or her. She only knew that when she felt his hands thread into her carefully arranged hair, she slid her arms over his shoulders and did the same, liking the feel of his cool, unfashionably short locks against her fingers.
It took a moment for the sound of a throat clearing to penetrate the cocoon of their own making. But when it did, Kate gasped and pulled back from him with more speed than she’d have thought herself capable of in her languorous state. It took Eversham a beat longer, but once he’d realized they had company, he muttered a curse beneath his breath and called out to whoever it was, “A moment, please.”
“Very good, Mr. Eversham.” The voice came from one of Valentine’s footmen.
Glancing at Eversham, who was straightening his cravat and pulling down the cuffs of his shirt and coats, Kate noted that his hair was sticking up at all angles and reached out to smooth it down.
“There’s no help for your hair, I’m afraid.” He nevertheless attempted to smooth it where Kate could feel some of the pins had come loose. She reached up to reaffix one and their hands met.
Unlike only seconds before, they pulled away as if they’d touched hot coals.
When they were satisfied they’d repaired their appearances to the best of their abilities, they turned as one to walk toward the open doorway to the folly.
Anyone might have found them, Kate thought with alarm at her own recklessness. She might be a widow with more liberty than an unmarried miss, but she wasn’t so immune to social judgment that she could engage in licentious behavior without fear of consequences.
What had she been thinking?
“What is it, Jennings?” she asked the footman, whose ears were red, though from cold or embarrassment she couldn’t say.
“Begging your pardon, Lady Katherine.” He bowed. “But Lord Valentine asked me to fetch the inspector. There’s been another murder.”
“Good God, not at the house?” Kate put a hand to her throat and would have gone running from the folly if Eversham hadn’t stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“Who and where, lad?”
“It was in the village, sir.” Jennings swallowed. “Mr. Green was stabbed, and they said it was something terrible to behold. Please, sir, Lord Valentine says you must come at once.”
Their search through Philbrick’s belongings forgotten, Kate and Eversham took up the lanterns inside the folly and followed Jennings out from the marble building, to under the darkening afternoon skies.
Chapter Twelve
When they reached the house, it was to find a grim-faced Valentine, surrounded by the rest of the houseguests in the drawing room.
“I thought you were supposed to be keeping us safe,” Barton said as soon as Eversham entered the room. He would have bypassed the group altogether, but he needed to speak to Lord Valentine and this was where the footman, Jennings, had brought him.
He’d very carefully stopped himself from looking at Katherine once they’d entered the house. He was frustrated at his own lack of self-control when it came to her, and as he had a job to do—as Barton had pointed out—he needed to remain focused no matter how delicious a distraction she was.
Yet she hadn’t entered the drawing room with him and that felt wrong, no matter how much he might tell himself it was as things should be.
“I’ve been conducting an investigation, Barton,” he said to the American, who stood beside his daughter’s chair, patting her hand in what Eversham supposed was meant to be a comforting gesture. However, it looked as if giving reassurances wasn’t an activity with which the man had a great deal of practice.
“We were just at Mr. Green’s shop this morning.” Miss Barton’s pallid complexion was turning even whiter with nerves. “Do you think the killer was there, too, Inspector?”
The room’s inhabitants all began talking at once, and Eversham took the opportunity to speak with Lord Valentine. “What do you know?” he asked the nobleman in a low voice. “How did you learn of it?”
Gesturing for Eversham to follow him, Valentine led him out of the room and into a small antechamber, which appeared to be a parlor of some sort.
“The local constable came about an hour ago looking for you.” He looked angry. “Green was a good man. I’ve known him since he moved to the village to set up his shop. That’s two good men this monster has killed in this locale now. I want you to catch this villain, Eversham.”
“That’s what I intend to do.” Eversham didn’t remind Valentine that he’d already gone up against this killer before and failed to catch him. That knowledge hung between them like a dank fog of disappointment. “And with every move he makes, he’s giving more clues to his identity.”
“Did you find anything in the folly that might help?” Valentine asked.
Eversham felt his face heat but managed to maintain an even tone. “No. Nothing.”
“I’ve had the carriage brought around for you.” Valentine rubbed a finger between his brows in fatigue. “The constable is already waiting inside.”
With a nod of thanks, Eversham made his way back downstairs.
* * *
Her face burning with embarrassment, Kate parted from Eversham and hurried upstairs. Valentine had instructed Jennings to bring them both, but she could hardly go into a roomful of people looking as if she’d had a man’s fingers running through her hair. And she had little doubt that’s exactly what it looked like.
The wind was up, but it wasn’t quite that good at loosening a well-placed hairpin.
She’d thought to have a quick word with Eversham before she headed to her rooms, but as soon as they entered the house, it was as if the passionate, warm man who’d held her in the folly had been replaced with an ice sculpture.
Of course, she could hardly expect him to say tender things when someone had been murdered, but he might have said something.
Not for the first time, she castigated herself for giving in so easily to the temptation to see what his kiss would taste like. She knew better than most how complicated such activities could make things. Her previous liaisons had been with men she’d respected but hadn’t been in love with or even infatuated with. Yet even though she had been the one to call things off between them, it had taken time for her to disengage her feelings. How much more difficult would it be when the man was Eversham, whom she felt pulled toward like metal to a magnet?
Just the fact that she was so hurt by his ignoring her to go chase a murderer now was proof enough she wasn’t in control of her emotions where he was concerned. And she would do well to remember that the next time she saw him. It would be better for both of them if they forgot about what had happened in the folly altogether.
When she reached her bedchamber, however, she knew there would be no forgetting it, at least for now.
“Kate, your hair!” Caro gasped from where she was tucked up in the window seat next to Katherine’s bed, Ludwig purring audibly from her lap. “I hoped my little ruse of a sneezing fit would lead to some kissing, but goodness, you look as if he positively ravished you!”
Shutting the door behind her, Kate hissed, “Lower your voice, you madwoman! Do you want the entire house to hear you?”
Not one bit chastened, Caro laughed. “My dear, no one is up here. They’re all in the drawing room driving Valentine to distraction with questions about poor Mr. Green’s murder. I remained for all of five minutes before I knew there was nowhere on earth I’d rather be less than in the same room with Lady Eggleston practicing a swoon until somebody noticed. Really, if she wants to do a credible one, she should take lessons from an actress. She’s much too stiff. You have to let yourself go limp. Otherwise you give yourself away.”
Though she was exasperated at Caro’s unexpected presence in her bedchamber, Kate was glad for her stream of chatter while she pulled the bell for hot water and began searching through her wardrobe for a clean, and possibly warmer, gown.
“So, tell me everything,” Caro continued. “Was it lovely? He looks as if he’d be very good at kissing. It’s always the quiet ones, you know?”
“Of course, I won’t tell you anything.” Kate laughed. Stepping behind a screen, she sat down on a stool and began removing her boots. “That’s private. And besides, nothing’s going to come of it.”
“Why not?” Caro sounded more than a little disappointed. “He’s attractive, if a bit dour for my taste.”
Standing to unbutton her gown, which fastened down the front, Kate peeked around the edge of the screen. “Did you forget that we nearly ruined his career? At the first sign of trouble, he’ll bring it up to use against me. Mark my words.”
“You don’t know that.”
Kate heard Ludwig give a yowl of annoyance as Caro no doubt pushed him out of her lap.
They paused their conversation at the sound of Kate’s maid, Bess, who entered the room to fill the bowl with hot water and take away Kate’s soiled clothes.
Wrapping herself in a dressing gown, Kate emerged and sat down before her vanity mirror and began to unpin her hair. “Thank you, Bess,” she told the maid with a smile. The girl had been with her for a few years now and they’d grown to be friends. “Will you please ready the blue wool so that I can change in, say, half an hour or so?”
“Of course, my lady.” The girl nodded. “I’ll get it now.”
Before she could go, Kate turned to face her. “Oh, and I have a task for you that will require your acting skills.”
The maid’s eyes brightened. “What is it?”
“I need you to have one of Lord Valentine’s carriages brought round, but whatever you do, make sure he’s not informed of it.”
“Is that all, my lady?” Bess asked with a grin. “I’ve already made friends with one of the grooms. He’ll do that for me without even blinking.”
“Where are you going?” Caro asked once the maid had departed. “And in one of Valentine’s coaches without his knowledge?”
“Valentine knows everything that goes on in this house.” Kate waved her hand. “I just don’t want to make a circus of it.”
“Of what?”
“We’re going into the village.” Pinning her hair into a simple but well-secured chignon, Kate turned around to look at Caro, who was, for once, speechless. “You’d better go change if you intend to go with me.”
Caro looked down at the dressing gown she’d changed into after her sneezing fit. “All right.”
Then, gathering a protesting Ludwig into her arms, she asked, “But what about Eversham?”
“I have little doubt he was in the coach I heard leaving a few minutes ago.” Kate went over to the hot water and began scrubbing her hands. “He’ll be going to the shop where poor Mr. Green was found. We will be going to the man’s home. I intend to speak with his wife to find out whether she knows more about the letters than he told us. And tactful as Eversham is, I don’t think he’ll manage to get as much information from her as we will.”
