Still standing across the room from him, Miss Calhoun remained innocent of Sam’s torture. Without moving or saying a word—indeed, he didn’t believe himself capable of either—he struggled for a control that still eluded him. He swallowed, felt the lump in his throat, but couldn’t make himself smile or greet her in any way. This was insane. Had he been turned to stone? Had he become a statue doomed to stare longingly and futilely at her for all of eternity?
Then a movement by the doors caught Sam’s eye. He saw Scotty showing uncustomary sensitivity by quietly closing the doors behind her and leaving Sam alone with his enigmatic guest. Moving somewhat mechanically, much like clockwork, Sam returned his gaze to Miss Calhoun.
For her part, as if suddenly prodded from behind to break their stalemate, she dropped into a deep curtsy, which exposed to Sam’s hungry eyes an enticing expanse of her ripe bosom. She arose and spoke her greeting softly. “Good evening, Your Grace.”
Sam did her the honor of bowing to her, even as he marveled that he could, given how stiff he felt … and he didn’t mean only in his legs. “Good evening. You are absolutely stunning in that gown, Miss Calhoun.”
“I have you to thank for it.” Her smile was uncertain, her voice shaky.
“Nonsense.” Dare he hope—never mind that he didn’t have the right to hope—that she was as affected by the sight of him in black formal wear as he was by her in this stunning emerald evening gown shot through with silver threads? “It was my pleasure to obtain it, and the others, for you since I have the honor of seeing you in them.”
Her smile slipped away from her, only to be lost in a wide-eyed look of uncertainty. “You’re very kind. But all ten of them, Your Grace? I don’t see how you could call it an honor. I tricked you into paying for them, and we both know it.” She looked very guilty and contrite … and totally endearing. “I forced their purchase on you.”
Somehow, her being uncertain—or at least appearing to be so—restored Sam’s equilibrium. He pointed at her and made a mock accusation. “You’re absolutely right. You did trick me into making these purchases. I shall bill you for their cost. Or better yet, I say we should take them back.”
Instantly stricken, she lowered her gaze to her skirt and smoothed her hand over the fabric. Her childlike gesture said she was in love with her new dress and would sooner die. She looked up, disappointment edging her rounded eyes. “If you like, we can take back the ones we brought home. They’re not all unboxed as yet, Your Grace.”
Sam called himself the worst kind of cad. His teasing her had gone awry. “No. You keep the gowns and all the essentials that came with them. Call them my gift to you, Miss Calhoun.”
Again she curtsied. “You’re very generous, Your Grace.”
“Sam. Please call me Sam. Blame the influence of my years in America. All these titles put distance between people and make conversation so stilted. I find I yearn for familiarity from at least one person.”
“Then I’m to be that person, I take it?”
“Yes. You’re American. Who better than you to understand?”
“Point taken. But only if you’ll call me Yancey.”
Sam frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
Her chin came up a proud notch. Sam wanted to kiss it … and her neck … her shoulder … her breast. He wanted to take her into his mouth and—“It’s the name I go by,” she said, breaking into his lurid thoughts of her naked and atop him, moaning with ecstasy. “I don’t like to go by Sarah.”
A jet of belated suspicion, never far from the forefront of his thoughts where she was concerned, shot through Sam. “But isn’t that your name?”
“Yes. But not one I favor.”
“I see. Then … Yancey it is. I shall think of it as a private endearment for when only the two of us are in a room.” He gestured to the settee beside him and said, “Please. We’ll wait here until called for dinner. It shouldn’t be long. And then you can tell me how you came by that most singular name.”
She set herself in motion, coming toward him. “It was my grandmother’s name before she married,” she remarked, her voice full of challenge. “I’ve just always preferred it. I never felt much like a Sarah.”
“Indeed, you don’t look much like one, either.” Smiling at her as she approached the intimately arranged brocaded suite of two chairs and a settee separated by wood-carved tables, Sam stepped up to offer her his hand for assistance in being seated. Only then did he realize that what he held out to her was his empty whisky glass. He met her gaze and saw her amused grin. Even though it was at his cost he realized that he was delighted with her response. “Perhaps I could offer you your own drink, Miss Calhoun?”
“Yancey, remember. And yes. I’ll have what you’re drinking.”
“Are you certain? I’m drinking whisky.”
She pursed her lips in a stubborn pout. “Then that’s what I’m having.”
A chuckle escaped him.
“You find that amusing?” She sat down rather delicately, further winning Sam’s admiration, given the expanse of crinolines and yards of fabric with which she had to contend.
“Yes. I am amused to at last find a whisky-drinking woman, that is. I must say that you continue to surprise me … Yancey. And you should be flattered because very little amuses me.”
“Then you share that trait with Scotty.”
A burst of laughter escaped Sam, but then he feigned horror. “Has he been dragging you along? He tends to think that’s the best method of moving around those people left in his charge.”
She nodded. “Dragging is a good word for it.”
Sam grimaced. “Well, it’s better than being hurled down the stairs like a lance. We’ve only just broken him of that behavior.”
“Only just?” She arched her delicate eyebrows. “Then I’m glad I didn’t arrive one day sooner. And I shudder to think how you broke him.”
“Perhaps broke isn’t the correct word. Still, it wasn’t pretty.” Then he bowed to her. “If you’ll excuse me, I’ll serve our drinks.”
“That would be lovely.”
Sam stepped over to the striking gold-inlayed liquor cabinet and small bar that ruled a corner of the room and set about measuring out the liquor. This put him behind his guest, who sat demurely with her back to him and looked around the room. Sam realized two things: his hands had stilled in his task, and he was staring longingly at the sweet nape of her neck. Feathery tendrils of curling hair graced her upswept hairline. He wanted very much to grip her by her bare shoulders, bend over her, and place hot kisses against her warm, soft skin.
What would she do if he did? Certainly he’d seen the invitation in her expression earlier today when he’d kissed her. Dare he try it again? Then, he heard himself sounding like a schoolboy angling for his first kiss. Disgusted, a bit embarrassed even, Sam turned his hand and his mind to the purely physical task of pouring out the fine whisky he stocked. With a host’s smile on his face, he then rejoined his guest. As they awaited their call to dinner, he remained the perfect host by regaling her with his impressions of that afternoon’s events and the people she’d met in town.
He made her laugh with his rendering of Mrs. LaFlore, the excited shop mistress who had reaped the benefit of Yancey’s shopping spree. A nip tucked in at the waist and a bit more let out in the bust, Mrs. LaFlore had sung out as she’d fluttered joyously around the ill-at-ease “duchess.” She’d informed them that their timing was impeccable as she was just back from London with a new stock of fashionable samples to tempt the well-to-do ladies of the village. But she would be most delighted to sell them all to Her Grace the Duchess.
“No doubt she would have, too,” Sam now remarked to his “duchess.”
“She almost did,” Yancey said, grinning.
Sam shrugged as if his generosity were of no consequence. “It was my pleasure. And a well-deserved punishment for my abominable behavior this morning … Yancey.” He’d disliked the name at first, but somehow it seemed more fitting. It was unconventional … just like her. And wasn’t his wife’s name, either. “Again, I apologize for my barbaric behavior out in the garden.”
Her expression sobered and she looked down.
Sam rushed on, wanting to restore the cheery feeling they’d achieved. “At any rate, ten gowns and all the appropriate underpinnings seemed like a nice round number. I feel certain Mrs. LaFlore will set all her seamstresses to work, now that they have your measurements, and will have the remainder of the gowns delivered by tomorrow.”
Yancey favored him with a teasing smile. “And what about your nana’s new traveling costume? Do you suppose it will arrive tomorrow, as well? She was so very excited by your purchasing it for her.”
“Yes, she was. Though God alone knows when or to where she’ll be wearing it. Perhaps in London at some point, I suppose. Still—and forgive my language—there will be hell to pay if it doesn’t come tomorrow. She doesn’t wait well. That grand and impossibly ancient lady will have her way.”
“I have noticed that. But she couldn’t be a sweeter, more endearing little woman. May I admit to some curiosity about her and ask how she’s related to you?”
“Certainly. She’s my great-grandmother on my father’s side. Her actual name is quite intimidating. Margaret Mary-Alice Jane Thomas–St. Adair. And then Treyhorne, of course.”
“Good Lord. But wait—Mary, Alice, and Jane? Those are her cats’ names.”
“Yes. She doesn’t seem to be aware, though, that those names are also hers. At any rate, I hadn’t anticipated her insisting on new dresses for herself, her nurse, then Robin, and even the redoubtable Mrs. Edgars.”
To Sam’s delight, this beautiful woman who wished to be called Yancey laughed … a sweet, soft sound that in his younger days would have had Sam on a knee in front of her and asking her to marry him. But given who he was now, and who she may or may not be, he simply sipped at his drink and awaited her.
“I remain certain,” she said, “that it was not a usual event for someone in your position, Sam. Still, it was very good of you to stand back and allow their impassioned frenzy.”
Sam basked unashamedly in her praise. “Yes. Wasn’t it good of me?”
He then relived with her their lively party’s departure from the shop, dress boxes in hand, and their triumphant march over to the men’s tailor and haberdashery shop. There Sam had been informed by his nana that a new hat and suit of clothes was needed by Scotty as he was still a growing boy. The giant had stared dully at him to show his rampant appreciation.
Their spree had taken the entire afternoon. In between times and shops, Sam now told Yancey, he had spoken with several of the men regarding spring harvests and livestock prices. He’d even shared a pint with some of the local dignitaries at the pub while she and the rest of the women had been sorting through the various market stalls and making further purchases—all on his bill, of course.
At this point in their cheery discourse, and—as Sam remarked to himself—just as they were becoming comfortable with one another, Scotty opened the room’s doors and announced dinner. As he’d done at luncheon, Sam offered Yancey his arm … and escorted his lady into the dining room.
* * *
In the deep, dark recesses of the night, Yancey was startled awake from her fitful slumber by the drawn-out creaking of a door being furtively opened—into her bedroom. Lying still, tense with apprehension, she slowly raised her head from her pillow and cocked her head at a listening angle. While her mind worked feverishly with the possibilities, she trained her gaze in the direction of the noise.
The room was as dark as if she’d loosened the tiebacks on the canopy’s hangings and had immersed herself in their draping cocoon of warmth. But she hadn’t, and even the dratted fireplace had gone cold. Not even repeated blinking could accustom her vision to the thick blackness of her bedroom. Indeed, it seemed to press right up against her eyes.
Since she couldn’t see, she would have to rely on her other senses. And they told her that the sound had come from the dressing room door, the one that connected her room to Sam’s. She knew that creaking sound. The door only made it when it was being pushed open, but not closed. So whoever this was, he was just now entering the room.
A frown of consternation found its way to Yancey’s face. Did Sam mean to accost her every night in her sleep? Would she be rudely awakened, only to find herself flat on her stomach with him atop her and their limbs tangled? A sensual image of them thus entwined flitted through Yancey’s mind, leaving her to shake her head at its insane workings, given the situation that now faced her.
But what if it’s not Sam? Someone could have slipped through his room without awakening him. Or maybe had done him harm—her heart sank—and was intent on doing the same to her. But who, in heaven’s name and in this household, would that be? Nana hadn’t the strength or the evil intent. Scotty hadn’t the intellect to be sneaking. Mrs. Convers, the nurse, was terrified of her shadow, as well as of Nana. And Mrs. Edgars, the imperious housekeeper, she … Well, Yancey admitted, that woman was a definite possibility. More than once Yancey had caught her glaring at her for some unknown reason.
The creaking sounded again. Yancey’s heart pounded against her ribs. Not with fright now, but with determination. She narrowed her eyes. Won’t he—or she—be surprised to find that the intended victim, namely her, had a gun in her hand? Ever so slowly, Yancey smoothed her hand up under her pillow until she gripped the cold steel of her weapon. She fixed it in her grip and then turned over onto her back, counting on the rustling sounds her bedding made to pass for those she’d make in a natural sleep.
Ready now, her hair brushed out of her face, she waited. But not for long. Suddenly a huge form took shape right next to her bed. She had time only to gasp before a big rough hand was clamped over her mouth and warm breath bathed her face. Though terrified, and with a muffled cry escaping her, Yancey nevertheless managed to jerk her gun up and stick it against the first solid part of her assailant she could. She cocked her weapon. The sound was unmistakable and deafeningly loud. So was the man’s startled curse.
“Son of a bitch!” Instantly his hand was lifted from her mouth and the dark shape retreated from the bedside. “You’ve got a gun! Don’t shoot, Yancey. It’s me—Sam.”
Her heart pounding now with as much relief as anger, Yancey shot up as if she were spring-loaded. With her free hand she shoved her covers back. “What are you doing, Sam? Have you taken leave of your senses?”
“Put that gun down.”
“I will not. I may yet want to use it. Don’t think that just because you’re you that I won’t shoot you. Because I will.”
“You will not. And keep your voice down.”
“Why should I? Most ladies would be hysterical and screaming their heads off about now.”
“And yet you remain calm and in possession of a gun.”
“I’m nowhere near calm. Or feeling much like a lady right now.” Several ticks of the clock went by. Sam said nothing. Yancey frowned, listening for any sound of his movement. “Sam?”
“I’m right here. Bear with me a moment.”
She cocked her head in the direction of his voice. “What are you doing? You had best not be removing your clothes—”
“You flatter yourself. I’m fumbling my way over to the bed table to light a candle. Can I do that without getting shot?”
“Remains to be seen, doesn’t it?”
“Will you please keep your voice down?” His whisper was urgent.
Yancey’s matched his. “Will you tell me why? Have we been overrun by a marauding horde of heathens?”
“Hardly. But my mother has returned.”
“Oh.” Yancey’s stomach flopped sickly. With the dowager duchess in residence, the moment of truth for Yancey’s story had arrived. Her next thought had her frowning. “She risked the roads in the middle of the night?”
“She did, but it’s not now the middle of the night.” Yancey heard sounds that told her he was readying to light the candles by her bed. “It’s after six A.M. already.”
That was surprising. She’d had seven hours of sleep, yet she didn’t feel the least bit rested. Thankfully, though, her mind seemed to be functioning. “Your mother rode all night in order to get here this early? That smacks of urgency, Sam.”
“Very astute. Only she didn’t return alone,” he added cryptically.
That drew a sigh out of her. “Sam, I am no good first thing in the very early morning without coffee. So if you expect me to surmise who accompanied your mother, you’re in for a long list of very bad guesses.”
“I don’t expect you to guess. Only, hold on a moment.” Sudden light flared into the room, causing Yancey to blink. “There.” Sam had put the match to the candles.
Feeling suddenly silly for holding a gun on him, she placed it next to her on the sheet. Now that she could make out his presence, she saw he was dressed decently enough in pants and a shirt. But his face, with his jaw shaded with stubble, appeared haggard in the candlelight that lit his profile. She inhaled deeply, feeling not only his sensual tug on her heart but a surprising urge to comfort him. “Sam, what’s wrong? You can tell me. I’ll help you.”
Yancey surprised herself with the realization that she truly did want to help him. And she wanted him to trust her.
Sam closed his eyes and rubbed a hand over his forehead, then met her gaze. His gray eyes looked so haunted. “I’m not certain you can.”
“I can do more than you realize, Sam. You can trust me.”
He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. Clearly he doubted her—and with good reason, she knew.
“You can trust me, Sam, I swear it.” She wanted to take his hand and hold it to her cheek. He’d been such a perfect gentleman at dinner and had taken great pains to entertain her. Despite his unorthodox way of awakening her, and the fright he’d given her, Yancey felt warmly toward him. Knowing that the time was fast approaching when she would have to tell him who she was, meaning a Pinkerton, she added quietly, “I’m not your enemy.”
She could only hope he wasn’t hers.
Sam exhaled a sigh. “I’m glad to hear you say that. Because I need you, and I have to ask you to do something.”
Perhaps it was because they were in her bedroom, such an intimate cocoon of a setting. Perhaps it was because she was in the bed and he was standing so close to it and telling her he needed her. Perhaps it was because his shirt wasn’t quite tucked in and was open at the throat, where she could see dark, crisply curling hair peeking out. Whatever the reason, she felt a softening in her belly and heard herself yielding to him. “Anything, Sam. Whatever you want.”
He startled her by coming to the bed in a rush and taking her hand in his as he abruptly sat down. “I have to ask you to be my wife.”
Yancey jerked, pulling her hand back. “Are you insane?” She stared in wide-eyed shock at the duke. “My pretense was nothing more than that—”
“I am fully aware of that. And I have had my reasons for allowing the charade to continue. But now, today, I truly need you to masquerade as my wife. It’s very important, Yancey. Life or death.”
She arched her eyebrows, her detective’s instincts coming to the fore. “Life or death? Good heavens, Sam, who did your mother bring with her? The very devil himself?”
Sam let go of her hand. He sat with a hip perched atop the bed and his muscled leg dangling over the side. He rubbed a hand over his jaw, a frown shading his grim expression. “You’re not very far off the mark. It’s my cousin. Roderick Harcourt.”
Well, that didn’t sound so bad. Yet, given Sam’s behavior, if the man wasn’t the devil, he’d at least sold his soul to the beast. Yancey cocked her head, intent on digging for information. “I assume that this cousin is your aunt’s son, since that’s where your mother was?”
Sam nodded. “Yes. Aunt Jane is my mother’s sister. Roderick is a first cousin. And much more. He is the Duke of Glenmore. And a very dangerous man steeped in court intrigues. He knows much more than he should about most people and isn’t afraid to use the knowledge to his own gain.”
Yancey leaned forward, gripping Sam’s arm. A part of her mind noted that his skin felt warm and smooth, and his flesh hard, much as if he worked the fields. “What does he know about you that he could use against you?”
“I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”
“Maybe nothing? Then it could be something?”
“Possibly. It’s hard to say.”
Yancey considered him and his evasive answers. “Sam,” she said carefully, “why are you so concerned about your cousin’s being here?”
“Because of what I suspect him of.”
“And what is that, Sam? You need to tell me.”
Sam exhaled sharply. “I suspect him of somehow, if not directly, contributing to my brother’s death.”
A cold sickness invaded Yancey’s limbs. “Your brother? Then your mother doesn’t know of your suspicion, I take it? Otherwise, she wouldn’t bring him here. If she’s like most mothers, she would tear his heart out if she suspected such a thing.”
“You’re right in saying she knows nothing of my suspicion. To her, he’s simply her nephew, her sister’s son. And I intend to leave it at that unless I can and do prove otherwise. There’s no sense in causing a needless rift between her and her sister, whom she loves dearly.”
“Very good of you, Sam. But why do you suspect your cousin? And of what? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t expect you to, not all at once.” He shifted his weight as if signaling a change in subject. “I’ve taken the liberty of sending down to the kitchen to have our breakfast—mine and yours—brought up to my private sitting room. I came here to ask you to join me.”
This was a startling—and an amusing—turn to Yancey. “Really? Sneaking around in the darkness and clamping your hand over a person’s mouth? You have an odd way of inviting a lady to your room. I wonder that your entire breed didn’t die out for such tactics.”
At last, she’d wrung a grin from him, one that quickened her pulse. “I assure you I’m much more accomplished under less strained circumstances.”
Smiling, Yancey raised her chin. “I shall take your word for it. And I shall be honored to join you for breakfast. I assume our topic of conversation will be your cousin and why you want him to believe that I am your wife?”
“Very astute of you. Will thirty minutes be enough time for you to dress and then join me? Do you need Robin’s services?”
Yancey shook her head no. “I can manage without Robin, although the very idea that I can seems to break her heart. However, I’m used to taking care of myself.”
Sam picked up her gun and brandished it pointedly between them. “I can see that.”
“Yes. But where are your mother and cousin now? What are they doing?”
“They’ve both gone to bed. As you surmised, they’ve been on the road all night and are exhausted. I don’t look for them to be recovered and up and about until late this afternoon at the earliest. Which is good because it will give you and me time to get acquainted.”
“I thought we already were.”
He still held her gun, smoothing his hand over it, hefting it for balance. “Nice weapon.” Then he captured her gaze. “I don’t think we are acquainted at all … Yancey.”
Not if it meant her very life could Yancey maintain her eye contact with him. Instead, she picked at a thread in the bedcoverings and thought of all he needed to know about her. And all he didn’t need to know.
Sam silently held her gun out to her. Meeting his gaze, seeing the questioning expression on his face, she took it from him. He surprised her by running his fingers over her cheek and jaw. His touch was feather soft. Then he exhaled, shook his head, and stood up.
Yancey struggled for something to say to break the spell. “Sam, you never told me why your cousin accompanied your mother here. A mere social call, perhaps? Or did she invite him?”
A smile that held a world of tenderness and intrigue claimed his features. “No mere social call. Roderick and I despise each other, but in this instance, I believe he’s playing the solicitous nephew. To answer your question, he accompanied Mother because she’s absolutely distraught. She was in no condition to tell me why she is, so Roderick did.”
Sam looked away from her and swallowed. Even in the dim candlelight Yancey could see his throat work. Fear for him had her speaking his name softly. “Sam? What did he say?”
He gave her his attention, saying, “In short, Roderick—who looks like hell, I must add—said that on my mother’s last day at his and his mother’s home, she received a letter from America.”
“Is that usual, her getting mail at her sister’s home?”
“No. That’s very odd.”
Yancey could barely breathe. “Who was it from?”
Sam rubbed tiredly at his forehead. “He didn’t say.” Then he frowned. “And gave me no chance to ask. At any rate, Roderick said Mother received a letter that put her into a swoon and then had her insisting on making for home straightaway.” Sam’s expression became baleful, naked and exposed. “Apparently she’s been told that my wife is dead.”
Shocked, Yancey blurted, “He just said it out like that? My God, Sam, that is cruel. I am so sorry. You poor man.”
Even as she spoke, she thought guiltily of what she knew about that poor woman back in Chicago who had been murdered. Had she been Sam’s wife? Yancey stared up into Sam’s haggard, hurting face. If all of this was true and that woman turned out to be his wife, Yancey knew she could swear with a clear conscience that Sam hadn’t known until this moment that his wife was dead. It was there in his face. He was innocent. She expressed her condolences again. “Sam, I am so, so sorry you had to learn it this way.”
He brushed away her words with an agitated wave of his hand. “Dress and join me in my room, Yancey. We have much to do.”
He gave her no chance to respond or to further sympathize with him as he turned and walked away. After no more than a few steps, the room’s darkness swallowed him up.
Yancey slumped atop her bed, her mind whirling with her thoughts. Uppermost was her growing suspicion regarding the Duke of Glenmore. With the arrival of this man, could it now be that the villain was in residence? With each passing second, she became increasingly certain of it. So certain that she would stake her reputation on it. And her life, if need be.
Her life. Would it come to that? Could it? She nodded. Yes. She suspected that should she agree to continue in her masquerade as Sam’s wife, it could come to that. Her very life. Or possibly Sam’s.