Fourteen

Brice led Rowena down the hall, keenly aware of the tremor in her hand where it rested against his arm—the tremor that had been quite absent earlier in the evening, but which he had noted the moment she reentered the room with Ella and he had claimed her for a dance.

The tremor that perfectly matched the shadow in her eyes. He had wanted to question her then and there, but during a waltz, surrounded by people who made no qualms about eavesdropping, was hardly the time.

His quiet question as to whether she was ready to retire had earned him a quick, grateful nod though. And now a glance over his shoulder proved that no one had followed them, no one else had decided to leave the ball so early. Still, he pitched his voice low. “You said you would find a maid.”

No, no, all wrong. That sounded like an accusation, which hadn’t been his intent at all.

His wife sighed and kept her gaze focused on the dull, scuffed floorboards beneath their feet. This guest wing was in dire need of improvements. “I didna find one.”

“I should have come with you.”

At that, she sent him an impatient glare. “I dinna need my husband walking me to the lavatory.”

Nor did he figure she would appreciate her husband seeking her out there—hence why he had sent Ella on the search when her absence had stretched too long. “But Rushworth found you.”

Her grip on his arm tightened, and a wave of trembling swept over her. If he had laid a hand on her, if he had said anything to upset her . . . “What happened?”

Was the shake of her head a lie? “Nothing.”

He let silence envelop them as they turned the corner into the hallway where their rooms were located. “All right, then . . . What did you think of him?”

Her breath shook when she drew it in. “He . . . he reminds me somehow of my father.” The gas lamps on the wall caught the feeling in her eyes when she turned them on him. “Is he cruel? To his sister, I mean? She seemed fond of him, but—”

“Lady Pratt was there too?” He regretted the harsh question when her silver eyes went blank, shuttered. “I didn’t mean . . . It is only that—”

“Hush.” She came to an abrupt halt, clutching his arm to stop him too. Her focus had gone beyond him, toward their rooms. “Is that . . . ?”

He turned to see what had caught her attention, sucking in a gasp when he saw his door quickly shut and the light extinguish from beneath it. Davis? But his valet would have no cause to blow out the lamp—nor to close his door so hastily.

“Stay here.” He peeled her fingers from his arm and slid away, hurrying over the distance separating him from his door.

Rowena dogged his steps, muttering something about glaikit men.

They could debate his foolishness and hers later. Right now he indicated she should flatten herself against the wall to remain out of sight. He reached for the door latch, paused with his hand upon it. A deep breath, a Dear Lord . . .

Then he sprang. Pushed open the door, let it bang against the wall. He didn’t leap through, loath to have someone ready to take a swing at his head and leave Rowena without defense. And quite certain that whoever was within knew he was coming.

Rowena had apparently not stayed put. She held out an oil lamp that must have been burning on a table down the hall—and offered no apology in the even stare she settled on him either.

What had happened to the timid young lady he had known these past weeks? He took the lamp and dragged his attention back to his room. Scurrying sounds came from within, a scraping, a muffled, masculine curse.

Rowena’s hand touched his arm. “Should I go for help?”

“Not yet.” Even if she managed to find her way, it would be too late to help. “Just pray.” With that, he held up the lamp and eased through the doorway.

The light shone on all the unfamiliar furniture, but his focus went straight to the dark-clad figure ducking into . . . the wall? “Blast!” He charged forward, catching the hidden door just before it slid shut. “Stop! Get back here!”

As if the intruder had any intention of listening. Brice bullied the door open—a difficult enough task that he had to think the sliding panel hadn’t been used in years—and stepped through, holding his lamp high.

The light caught only the heels of black shoes, the shadow of dark trousers disappearing around a corner.

“Brice!”

He had one foot already poised to follow, even as a warning clanged through his spirit. Whomever it was knew these passages, and Brice most assuredly did not. To pursue would no doubt mean being pounced upon. But how could he let the man get away?

“Brice, it’s Davis! Please.”

Rowena’s plea brought him surging back through the hidden doorway. His lamplight now illuminated what he had missed in his rush through the room—his valet sagging unconscious on the floor. Rowena was bent over him, her fingers at his neck.

Relief colored her face when she looked up at him. “Alive, and his pulse is steady.”

“Praise God.” He slid the lamp onto the table and knelt beside her. “Davis? Davis, can you hear me?”

Davis muttered something that sounded akin to “newfangled butterflies” and rolled onto his side.

Brice rocked back on his heels. “Odd.”

“Laudanum, perhaps? My mother used to take it now and then when she had trouble sleeping, and I remember her muttering the strangest things.” Rowena pushed herself back to her feet. And froze. “Oh, gracious.”

“What?” But he needn’t have asked, only to have looked around. Every drawer was opened, emptied. Every one of his belongings turned out. With a sigh, he shoved himself upright too. “Ducky.”

Rowena meandered over to the chest of drawers and picked up a roll of pound notes. “Not a random theft, for certain.”

Something about the gaze she settled on him, cool and accusatory, made his breath catch. “I need to get Davis onto the bed.” And give himself a moment to consider how much he should tell her. And wonder at what Catherine and Rushworth had told her.

He found himself wishing he employed a slighter man as he slid his arms under Davis’s and levered him up. His head lolled, more nonsensical murmurs nearly making Brice forget himself and grin. Knowing Davis, he would be aghast at himself for appearing in such a state to Brice.

And for sleeping in his bed, but there was little help for it. Brice dragged him that direction, making no complaint when Rowena took the valet’s feet and helped settle him onto the mattress. Davis mumbled something about swimming strangely and rolled onto his side.

Rowena turned toward the lamp. “Ye should check him for injuries. I canna think how someone would have got him to take laudanum, if that’s what it is.” She lifted the light from the end table and brought it over to the one beside the bed, where another lamp sat, ready to be lit.

In the added glow, Brice noted the blood on Davis’s knuckles—not his own, as a dampened handkerchief soon proved—and he also found a knot on the back of his head.

Rowena had folded her arms across her middle. “I can find someone. Lady Pratt or the butler. The constable ought to be fetched.”

“No.” He pulled a blanket over his unconscious valet and turned to face his wife. “I’ll not have the whole house in an uproar over it, nor alarm Mother and Ella if it can be avoided.”

She stared at him as if he were daft. “Someone just attacked your man! Rifled through your things—”

“Yes, and praise God he seems all right despite it.”

Her nostrils flared, and she squared her shoulders, looking more the Highland countess than terrified lass. “And your things? Are ye not the least bit concerned that he found what he was looking for, whatever it may be?”

“No, I’m not concerned.” He might have been, could he not hear Cowan humming on the other side of the door that connected their rooms when he stepped near it, clearly oblivious to all transpiring on this side. He stopped before the chest of drawers. Diamond cufflinks, his money, and a rather pricey tie clip all lay scattered across the top. “What they’re looking for isn’t here.”

“The diamonds.” Rowena snatched up one of his shirts from where it lay in a heap on the floor and folded it with a few precise, economical, furious motions. “They said ye have them, that Catherine watched Brook give them to you.”

He swept the valuables back into the drawer open beneath them. Said nothing.

“Ye’ll not even deny it?” She shoved the folded shirt into his chest. “Why? Why would ye take them, Brice?”

She wouldn’t understand. Even the Staffords didn’t understand. They had only granted him what they deemed his insane request to humor him. “They were having a baby. They didn’t need to worry with Catherine and her brother coming after them.”

“I daresay it’s more her brother than the lady.” She snatched a waistcoat from the chair it had landed on. “But regardless. Ye’re a fool or worse, Duke, if ye know there is danger attached to them but take them anyway.”

“She would have come after me anyway. I was only—”

“Ye brought a curse into yer house!” She kept her volume low, though there was no hiding her furor as she slapped the waistcoat into a drawer. “And for what?”

A chill skittered up his spine. “The only curse is the greed of man. The lust the jewels inspire in them.”

She spun from him with a sound of disgust. “Oh, aye, ye English with your logical ways. Ye canna understand it, so ye dismiss it out of hand.”

He caught her elbow, though he released her again in the next second when she jerked at his touch. Blast. It was going to take a lifetime to figure out how to behave with her. “Rowena, please. I dismiss nothing. And I wrestled with the Lord for months over this before I accepted the jewels. It was what He asked of me.”

“Ye’re playing with fire. Can ye not see that?” She sank into the chair by the door, sitting atop another of his shirts.

“It is a risk, but a controlled one.” He held out a hand, pleading with her to understand. “But I promise you, I will keep you safe.”

“As you did Davis?” She folded her arms across her middle and shook her head. “There are powers beyond human control, Brice. Powers ye best not fool with. Get rid of the diamonds. I beg you. Wherever they are, please, get rid of them.”

His hand fell to his side. “I can’t. They’re not mine to dispose of.”

“Well, I havena such qualms.” Now she held out a hand. “Give them to me. I’ll be rid of them, and pray that the curse goes with them before anyone else can get hurt or worse.”

“Rowena.”

She surged back to her feet, thrusting that outstretched hand his way. “I canna live under a curse. I canna. Dinna ask it of me. Get rid of them, or let me.”

“If the curse were only some disembodied power out to get us, perhaps I would. But it’s not. It’s people, Rowena, these people, and they would never believe us if we said we’d tossed them into the sea. If I let them stand to watch, they would insist I had thrown imitations.” He took her fingers slowly in his. “There’s no point in getting rid of them. We must end it, once and for all.”

Her eyes, large and dry, shouted sorrow as she slipped her fingers free. “Then give them to Lord Rushworth. Let him have the curse o’er his head. We can help Catherine break free of him, we can—”

“She is no innocent!” He shoved his now-free hand through his hair and half-turned back toward the bed. “She does not want to be free of her brother. She wants the Fire Eyes—nothing less.”

“Do ye know her so well?”

“Do you? After, what, a five-minute conversation?”

She lifted her chin. “I know men like her brother. I know how they treat the women in their lives. That tells me enough.”

From what he had seen, the sister was every bit as conniving and cruel as the brother could possibly be. But there would be no convincing Rowena of it, not tonight, anyway. He drew in a long breath, made himself go still. “I’ll not hand the diamonds over to them. I can’t. Justice must be served here, once and for all.”

“Justice.” She shook her head, backed away, fumbled for the door latch. “Ye’ll not find it. Ye’ll find only the curse, and ye’ll drag us all down with you.”

“There is no—”

“I dinna expect ye to listen to me. Why would you?” She tugged the door open. “Ye barely know me. So be it.” She stormed into the hallway. “You talk to him. Perhaps he’ll listen to another cool, logical Sassenach.”

Brice flew to the door, ready to be horrified to see whoever lurked in the hallway. Mother? Ella? The last people he wanted drawn into this. But it was only Miss Abbott who stood there with wide eyes and obvious confusion, her hand resting on the latch to Ella’s door across the hall.

Her gaze focused on the room behind him and must have caught sight of the melee still within. “What happened to your room?”

Rowena’s door slammed, making him wince. “Just someone trying to ruffle me. It’s nothing.”

Miss Abbott’s brows arched. “Your wife seems to disagree.”

“She does.” But she didn’t understand. She hadn’t been fighting this battle as long as he had. Brice pasted a weak smile onto his lips and stepped back into his room. “We will work through it. Good night, Miss Abbott.”

He closed the door against her soft “Good night, Your Grace.” Then turned to face the mess that had been left for him.