My Dearest Grandson Alexander,
Here are words from Lord Chesterfield that are worth putting to memory: “Having mentioned the word Rake, I must say a word or two more on that subject, because young people too frequently, and always fatally, are apt to mistake that character for that of a man of pleasure; whereas, there are not in the world two characters more different. A rake is a composition of all the lowest, most ignoble, degrading, and shameful vices; they all conspire to disgrace his character and to ruin his fortune. By-the-by, let me tell you, that in the wildest part of my youth, I was never a rake.”
Your loving Grandmother,
Lady Elder
“My lord, are you awake?”
Race’s lashes lifted to the bright light of day. He rolled over to see his valet standing over him. The short, thin man’s eyes were rounded in fear. His hands were held in tight fists at his sides, and his moustache quivered. Race’s gaze darted around his bedchamber. No other person was present in the room, and nothing seemed out of place. He had no idea what was wrong with the servant.
A quick glance at the clock on the mantel told Race it was just past nine o’clock. An ungodly hour to be awakened, especially after spending the night as he had in the bed of the most desirable woman he’d ever met. His lids gently lowered as his thoughts quickly took him back to Susannah’s bed.
“My lord, are you awake?”
“Yes, what is it, Jenkins?” Race muttered, keeping his eyes closed, not wanting to be distracted from the pathway his thoughts were leading him.
“You should come downstairs immediately.”
Something in the man’s tone seeped through Race’s sleep-clouded mind. He rose up on one elbow and squinted against the harsh light.
“What is it? Is something wrong with Gibby or one of my cousins?”
The man shook his head. “Not that I know of, my lord.”
“Then just tell me what the devil is going on, and be quick about it. I’ll decide if I need to disturb my slumber to go downstairs.”
“You’ve been robbed.”
“Robbed?” Race bolted up in bed and threw the sheet aside. He was wearing only his trousers from the evening before. He’d been too tired from his blissful night with Susannah to step out of them and pull on his nightshirt. “Damnation, Jenkins, what do you mean by robbed?”
“Mrs. Frost went into your book room to dust just minutes ago and found your safe door standing open and empty.”
“Empty!” His grandmother’s pearls were in that safe. Race jumped off the bed and headed for his book room, bare-chested and barefoot. He hurried down the stairs, refusing to let his mind go wild with possibilities. He had first to see for himself what had happened, and then he could think.
When he rushed into the library, Mrs. Frost stood sniffling in a corner, twisting the hem of her apron in trembling hands. His safe was located behind a row of books on the fifth shelf of the bookcase. The volumes had been removed, and the safe door stood open. He felt deep into the recesses of the hole. The safe was as empty as a dry river bed.
“Whoever stole the contents of your safe, my lord, took the time to neatly stack the books on your desk,” Jenkins said in a shaky voice. “Mrs. Frost said she hasn’t touched a thing since she came in here.”
“That’s right, my lord,” Mrs. Frost said in a squeaky voice. “When I saw your safe open, I immediately ran to find Jenkins so he could wake you. I knew something was wrong. The safe wasn’t like that last night. When I came in and turned the lamp out, all was well.”
“The odd thing is that I don’t know how the man got in and out of the house,” Jenkins said, looking bewildered. “I checked all the doors and windows before I went to wake you. They are all bolted from the inside.”
“Then who the devil could have gotten in?” Race mumbled more to himself than to seek an answer from his servants.
“We don’t know. I’ve called all the staff into the kitchen so you can question them,” Mrs. Frost said. “Jenkins and I don’t have a clue as to who might have done this. Everyone has been with you for years, and we can’t believe any of them would ever steal anything from you.”
“I know how loyal my employees are to me, Mrs. Frost.”
“But who else could it be but a servant, if all the doors are locked? Unless maybe it was a ghost that entered and took your valuables,” Mrs. Frost said, looking horrified at that thought.
Clearly not believing that possibility, Jenkins said, “Perhaps there is some explanation as to how he got in. The gardener told me a few days ago that he found a large hole cut in the hedge at the back of your garden. He said it would take months for it to grow back. I didn’t think that much about it at the time, but now I’m wondering if someone was watching the house, waiting for a time they could slip in unnoticed and make off with whatever was in your safe. He must have gotten in and out before we locked up for the night.”
A chill rippled down Race’s spine. Not all of the doors in his house had been locked all night. He had left the back door unlocked when he slipped out to Susannah’s house and relocked it when he came back in. If someone had been watching his house, they would have seen him leave last night.
A sick feeling hit Race’s stomach.
Susannah?
Could she possibly have planned this theft with someone? A knot of denial clogged his throat. No, she couldn’t have known he would leave the door unlocked. And he couldn’t have been deceived that badly by her, could he? She had wanted him in her bed. She had wanted him. She had thrilled to his touch. She had not faked her enjoyment, of that he was convinced.
But who else could have known that his back door might be unlocked last night? Was she, as he had first thought, working with someone in order to steal the pearls, or did someone as yet unknown to him create this mischief?
“Did you have much money in there, my lord?” Jenkins asked.
Money? He didn’t care a damn that the money was gone or the other documents he had in there. His grandmother’s necklace was gone.
His mind whirled with thoughts. Was Susannah in cahoots with Captain Spyglass? Was that why the man was nosing around the Great Hall last night? They acted as if they had never met, but was that just a ruse? It was ridiculous the way the man was decked out with pearls dripping all over him.
But Prinny’s man, Harold Winston, was there, too. Race had caught a glimpse of the sly little man sometime during the evening. Had Susannah conspired with him? Race didn’t trust that man an inch, either. And the one-armed man, Smith, was still being seen all over Town, acquiring jewels for his antiques shop.
Bloody hell, it could have been any of them. It could have been all of them, but the one thing he knew for sure was that Susannah was the only one who could have known there was the possibility his door would be unlocked. She knew he would not decline her invitation and pass up the chance to be with her.
“Susannah,” he growled.
Had she deliberately enticed him into her bed so that she would have an alibi and he wouldn’t think it possible that she was in on the burglary? Had she sent someone prowling his grounds, knowing there was a hole in the yew, knowing his house might be vulnerable?
She had been so receptive to him, so responsive, so aroused by his every touch. Susannah had set his soul on fire and made him forget all other women he had ever touched. Had he been so blind to what her real motives were?
He didn’t have the answers to his questions but he was going to find out, and he was going to start by having a conversation with the duchess.
Without comment to his servants, Race strode out of the book room, down the corridor and through the kitchen to the back door, which he jerked open and then hurried down the steps. His arms swung limply at his sides, his soul felt empty, and a raging storm was blowing in his heart.
“My lord, where are you going?” Jenkins asked, hurrying behind him.
“To see my neighbor,” he offered so calmly it frightened him.
“But my lord, you don’t have on a shirt, you don’t have on shoes. You are not properly dressed to pay a visit to anyone.”
Race didn’t slow down. “Obviously not, Jenkins, but nevertheless I am going.”
The day was gray and heavy with mist. The pathway stones beneath his feet were wet from recent rain. The damp air chilled his bare chest but did little to cool the heat inside him.
“Wh-what are you doing? There is no way you can get through that hedge. The yew is too thick and the hole is too small.”
“Watch me.”
Race bent down on his hands and knees and, just as he had twice last evening, he crawled through the opening he’d cut a few days ago. A sharp twig slashed across his chest, and he winced. Several more broken shoots scratched his back, but he didn’t let it slow him down as he came out on the other side and into Susannah’s garden.
“My lord, should I follow you?” his servant called from the other side of the yew wall.
“No, Jenkins. I don’t need you.”
Susannah’s slate path was overgrown with weeds and not as easy to walk on as his well-manicured pathways; still he stalked ahead. He stepped on a pebble and hissed an oath under his breath, but kept following the path he’d walked just hours before, until he reached the side of the house where the stairs led up to Susannah’s room.
He stopped for a moment at the bottom and inhaled a bitter breath. He was shoeless and shirtless, but hell, he didn’t care. If Susannah had duped him, he couldn’t let her get away with that.
Race climbed the steps two at a time. Luckily, the outside door was still unlocked, so he entered and went straight to Susannah’s bedchamber door and threw it open.
She stood in front of her dressing mirror, combing out the longest, most beautiful hair he’d ever seen. She wore a simple, sleeveless, white cotton shift.
She spun and gasped.
Bloody hell! He still wanted her, knowing she might have played him for a fool as no other person ever had. He still wanted her, and that tore him up inside.
“Race,” she said and threw down her brush and rushed toward him.
He held up his hand, stopping her, hating himself for his lack of control where she was concerned. “Stay where you are, Duchess.”
Her wide eyes searched his face as if she had no idea why he was there.
“But you’re bleeding,” she said.
He looked down and saw several scratches on his chest. One had a long, thin line of blood running down his ribcage.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered. “What happened to you?”
“You are what happened to me, Duchess. I think you drew me to your bed with the pretense of wanting my favors, and all the while you had planned with someone to steal my grandmother’s pearls.” He extended his hand out, palm up. “Hand them over.”
She gasped again. “What?” Her eyes narrowed, and she took a hesitant step toward him, her mouth gaping. “What do you mean, hand over the pearls?” she questioned anxiously. “Don’t tell me you don’t have them.”
“And don’t pretend to me that you don’t know I no longer have them,” he said, louder than he intended, but the feeling that she could have betrayed him in such a manner had hit him like nothing else ever had and his anger burned hot. “Innocence is not looking very good on you right now.”
“Please keep your voice down before someone hears you, and tell me what is wrong. Are the pearls missing?”
A grim chuckle passed his lips. “Not simply missing, Susannah, stolen. I’m finding it hard to believe right now that you don’t know the pearls were taken last night while you had me all wrapped up in your arms and in your bed.”
He was amazed at how easily she managed to look horrified.
“Who took them?”
His eyes locked on hers as he took stock of her shocked attitude. “You tell me. You were the one who invited me to your bed. You must have known I’d hurry over here and leave the door unlocked. Is that why you were so eager for my touch? You knew you would soon have possession of the pearls.”
“You think I had someone take them?” she snapped, anger replacing surprise on her face. “That’s preposterous! Why didn’t you have them under lock and key?”
“I did. Someone picked the lock and took everything in the safe.”
“I can’t believe you think I had anything to do with that,” she said, looking stunned.
Race heard footsteps running down the corridor, and Mrs. Princeton bounded through the open doorway, dressed in a black robe with a white nightcap covering her hair. She gasped and jumped back at seeing him standing in her mistress’s bedchamber with both of them only partially clothed. The air between the three of them crackled with raw tension.
“I heard voices,” Mrs. Princeton said breathlessly, her rounded eyes darting fitfully from Race to Susannah. “Your Grace, what is wrong? What is the marquis doing here? How did he get in?”
Susannah lifted her chin, and after taking in a deep, solid breath she calmly said, “I’m not sure yet, but it appears the marquis rushed through the bramble bushes to get over here this morning because he failed to keep my grandmother’s pearls protected and someone has stolen them from him and of course he believes that thief to be me.”
Mrs. Princeton gasped in outrage again. “How dare you, my lord. The duchess is no thief. I insist you leave Her Grace’s room immediately. You are not properly dressed, and neither is she. You have violated her sensibilities.”
Race didn’t bother to look at Mrs. Princeton but instead kept his gaze firmly fixed on Susannah as he said, “I assure you, Mrs. Princeton, that neither your mistress’s sensibilities nor any other part of her have been violated.”
“I can vouch for the fact the duchess was in her bed all night after she arrived home.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” A rueful chuckle rumbled past his lips. “But quite frankly, woman, I have no more faith in your assertions than I do hers. Now, where are the pearls, Susannah?”
“I do not have them,” she stated again, his rage provoking an equal measure of anger from her.
He eyed her skeptically once more and curtly said, “But you know who has them and where they are.”
“I do not know,” she countered fiercely.
Mrs. Princeton marched between Race and Susannah and faced him like a general before his troops. “My lord, leave this bedchamber immediately. Your being here is highly improper, and you are endangering Her Grace’s reputation.”
“I will handle the marquis, Mrs. Princeton,” Susannah said. “You may go.”
“But Your Grace,” she countered as she swung to face Susannah.
“I understand why the marquis is so upset about the theft that he stormed out of his house like a madman and rushed over here without thought to his appearance. If I had had the pearls in my possession and learned they were stolen from me, I might run out of the house half dressed as well.”
“But he has compromised you,” she said in exasperation.
“If that be the case, nothing can be done about it now. But I believe I’m not fully compromised unless someone other than the three of us learns of this. I would like for you to go below stairs and keep the other servants off this floor until the marquis leaves. Hopefully, what little reputation I have left can remain intact. Failing that, I survived ruin once before and I’m much stronger now than I was twelve years ago.”
Mrs. Princeton didn’t move. She stood rigid with her nose in the air, breathing so heavily her bony chest heaved.
“Do it now, Mrs. Princeton. Blast the saints in heaven, I have been married and I know what a man’s chest looks like, and so do you. The marquis and I have seen each other now, so how long he stays here does not matter at this point. I assure you, contrary to what you might think about him he will not harm me, and the only danger I am in at present is if the servants see him here in my room with us dressed like this. They will spread it to all the gossipmongers in Town. Your job is to keep that from happening, so I suggest you hop to it.”
“Yes, Your Grace.”
Susannah’s companion walked out the door with a huff and so stiff that Race was sure she would have snapped in two if anyone had tried to bend her.
Race took in a deep, raspy breath, feeling calmer than when he arrived. He hated himself for his lack of control where Susannah was concerned, but last night she had moved him like no other woman ever had. After his time in her bed, he was thinking about words like love, forever, and marriage, but today all those words had been stripped away.
It had been so good between them. No, better than good, it had been the best ever. It had been right. For the first time in his life, he thought he’d actually made love to a woman and not just had sex. He’d thought she trusted him to come to her, to satisfy her, and now he was thinking that all the time he was only a means to get what she had really wanted. The Talbot pearls.
The hell of it was he still wanted her. He still had those desperate, unexplained feelings for her, even more than before if that were possible.
“You may say anything you want to me, my lord, but please keep your voice low.”
Race noticed the tilt of her head, the rigid set to her shoulders, and unspent tears brimming in her eyes. Suddenly he felt as if a fist had landed in his stomach. Even if she had duped him, he didn’t want her reputation ruined.
He walked closer to her and quietly said, “You could easily have arranged the theft with Spyglass, Winston, or someone else.”
She held her ground and didn’t flinch as he neared her. “I do not have the pearls, but I do find it rather fitting that the man who had stolen pearls in his possession now has had them stolen from him. Leave my room, leave my house, and never come back. You are not welcome here.”
She seemed so resolute, it stunned him. Was he being unreasonable to accuse her? “All right, for now I will. But know this, Duchess, if I find out you do have them, I will follow you to Chapel Gate, or the gates of hell, to get what is mine.”
Without saying another word, Race turned and left her room. He had to sort through his jangle of emotions, and he couldn’t do it in her presence. What little evidence he had pointed to Susannah as being an accomplice, but she had done a good job pleading her innocence.
A heavy knot of anger and confusion radiated throughout Race’s chest and he uttered an oath as he hurried down the steps. He stomped back through the untended garden to the tall hedge. He added fresh scratches to his chest and back as he once again crawled through the man-made hole in the yew, but Race didn’t wince.
If Susannah was involved in the theft, she had wounded him much deeper than the shrub.