All About Love (10 page)

He frowned, the gesture more evident in his eyes than on his face. His hold on her arm anchored her before him; she didn’t bother trying to wriggle free. He studied her eyes and she let him; emotionally, she had nothing to hide.

“Is that why you thought I invited myself along?”

“That, and so you could try to trip me up. Why else?”

He released her, but his gaze held hers. “Couldn’t I have wanted to spend time in your company?”

She stared at him. The suggestion was so unexpected, she couldn’t at first imagine it. Then she did, and the truth washed over her—she would have liked it if he had. If he’d simply wanted to spend a summer afternoon strolling with her around the village, idly commenting, relaxed in her company. Her chest tightened; haughtily, she turned away. “You didn’t. That wasn’t why you came walking with me today.”

Lucifer heard the calm statement but left it unchallenged. He watched her walk away, and let the impulse to correct her fade. She was such a contrary female—handling her was difficult, not to say dangerous; she was so different from the women he knew. God knew, he’d never before been so attracted to a virgin.

A stubborn, willful, innocent, headstrong, intelligent, far-too-untouched-for-her-own-good virgin.

It made everything so much more complicated.

He caught Phyllida
up as she negotiated the last bend in the drive. The side lawn of the Grange opened before them; a knot of people were gathered around tables and chairs, enjoying the late afternoon. They both halted, but they’d been seen; Lady Huddlesford beckoned imperiously.

“Who are they?”

“Some of the half you’ve yet to meet.” Phyllida searched the group; then she saw Mary Anne and felt giddy with relief. “Come. I’ll introduce you.”

They crossed the lawn. Lady Huddlesford, presiding over the gathering from a chair at a wrought-iron table, beamed delightedly. “Mr. Cynster! Excellent! I was just telling Mrs. Farthingale . . .”

Phyllida left Lucifer to fend for himself, something he was patently well able to do; he smiled, effortlessly charming, and the ladies all preened. Directing a general smile on those present, she strolled to Mary Anne’s side.

Mary Anne stared at Lucifer. “He’s . . .” She gestured.

“From London.” Phyllida slipped her arm through Mary Anne’s. “We need to talk.”

Mary Anne turned huge blue eyes her way. “Did you find them?” she whispered as they turned from the group.

Mary Anne’s fingers clamped like talons around her wrist; something close to panic filled her eyes. Phyllida inwardly frowned and drew her on. “The rose garden’s more private. Pretend we’re simply strolling.”

Luckily, the entire gathering—Mary Anne’s mother, Mrs. Farthingale, Lady Fortemain, Mrs. Weatherspoon, and a gaggle of other ladies, with Percy and Frederick for leavening—was hanging on Lucifer’s every word. Phyllida glanced back as she and Mary Anne entered the yew walk that led to the rose garden. Lucifer’s attention appeared fully engaged.

Surrounded by thick stone walls, the rose garden was a secluded paradise of lush growth, vibrant splashes of color, and rich, exotic scents. The instant they entered its privacy, Mary Anne’s public demeanor crumbled. She swung to face Phyllida, gripping her hands tightly. “Say you found them!
Please
say you did!”

“I looked, but . . .” Phyllida frowned. “Come—let’s sit down. We need to discuss this.”

“There’s nothing to
discuss
!” Mary Anne wailed. “If I don’t get those letters back, my life will be
ruined
!”

Phyllida towed her to a seat set against the wall. “I didn’t say we won’t get them back—I promised we would. But there’s been a complication.”

“Complication?”

“A large one.” Over six feet tall and difficult to manage. Phyllida sat on the seat and pulled Mary Anne down beside her. “Now, first, are you absolutely sure Horatio was the one your father sold the writing desk to?”

“Yes. I saw Horatio take it away last Monday.”

“And you definitely, positively, hid your letters in the secret drawer in the desk? You haven’t by accident left them somewhere else?”

“They were too
dangerous
to leave anywhere else!”

“And it is your grandmother’s traveling writing desk that we’re talking about, with the rose leather on the top?”

Mary Anne nodded. “You know it.”

“Just checking.” Phyllida considered Mary Anne, considered how much to tell her. “I went to Horatio’s on Sunday morning to search for the desk.”

“And?” Mary Anne waited; then understanding dawned. Horror replaced her panic. Her mouth opened, then closed, then she squeaked, “You witnessed the murder?”

“No, not exactly.”

“Not exactly? What does that mean? You saw something?”

Phyllida grimaced. “Let me tell it from the beginning.” She related how she’d invented a sick headache, then dressed in boots and breeches—Jonas’s castoffs that she often wore when engaged in nonpublic activities that might necessitate running. “Sunday morning was the perfect time because there shouldn’t have been anyone at home.”

“But Horatio was sick.”

“Yes, but I didn’t know that. I slipped through the wood and searched that outbuilding he used as his warehouse, then I went in through the kitchen and searched the storerooms. They were filled with furniture as well. I didn’t see your grandmother’s desk anywhere, so I assumed it was somewhere in the main rooms. I went back through the kitchen, into the hall—”

“And you saw the murderer.”

“No. I found Horatio just after he’d been killed.”

“After the murderer had hit Mr. Cynster and left him for dead.”

Phyllida gritted her teeth. “No. I got there before Mr. Cynster.”

“You saw the murderer hit Mr. Cynster?”

“No!” She glared at Mary Anne. “Just listen.”

In the baldest terms, she recounted what had happened. By the time she finished, Mary Anne had traveled from horror-struck to aghast. “
You
hit Mr. Cynster?”

“I didn’t mean to! The halberd tipped and fell—I stopped it from killing him.”

Mary Anne’s face cleared. “Well, he’s obviously recovered. He must have a thick skull.”

“Perhaps. But that’s not the complication.” Phyllida caught Mary Anne’s eye. “He knows I was there.”

“I thought he was knocked unconscious.”

“Not entirely—not at first.”

“He saw you?”

Phyllida described what had happened.

Mary Anne bent a look of utter disbelief upon her. “He couldn’t possibly tell from a touch. He’s bamming you.”

“That’s what I thought at first. But he
knows
, Mary Anne—he knows and he wants to know what happened.”

“Well, why not just tell him that yes, you were there, and tell him what happened and that you had to leave?”

Phyllida fixed her with a direct look. “I haven’t admitted that I was there, because as soon as I do he’s going to want to know
why
.”

Mary Anne blanched. “You can’t tell him that!”

“He’s determined to find out what happened—he’s investigating Horatio’s murder. From his point of view, he needs to know everything that happened that morning.”

“But he doesn’t—he doesn’t need to know about my letters.” Mary Anne’s lower lip protruded. “And he can’t make you tell him.”

“He can.”

“Nonsense.” Mary Ann tossed her head. “You’re always the one in charge—you’re Sir Jasper’s daughter. You can just look at him haughtily and refuse to say anything. How can he force you to tell?”

“I can’t explain it, but he will.” She couldn’t describe the sensation of being mentally stalked, trapped, and held, the pressure of knowing he was waiting, watching . . . patient now, but how long would that last? On top of that, she felt she
should
tell him, that he deserved to know. “He hasn’t yet threatened to tell Papa that he knows I was there, but he could—he knows he could. It’s like Damocles’ sword hanging over my head.”

“That’s just melodramatic. He’s pressuring you. He doesn’t have any evidence you were there—why would Sir Jasper believe him?”

“How often do I succumb to sick headaches?”

Mary Anne pouted; her expression turned obstinate. “You can’t tell him about my letters—you
swore
you’d tell no one.”

“But this is
murder
. Horatio was killed. Mr. Cynster needs to know what happened and what I saw.” She hadn’t mentioned the brown hat; that would only distract Mary Anne, who was distracted enough as it was. “He needs to know about your letters so he can be sure they aren’t anything to do with why Horatio was killed.”

Mary Anne stared at her. “
No!
If you tell him about the letters, he’ll think Robert killed Horatio.”

“Don’t be silly. Robert wasn’t anywhere near . . .” Phyllida stared at Mary Anne. “Don’t tell me Robert was here on Sunday morning.”

“I walked home after church—it was a lovely sunny day.” Mary Anne slid her eyes from Phyllida’s. “We met in the Ballyclose wood.”

“It’s impossible that Robert killed Horatio and then made it there to meet you, so he can’t be the murderer.”

“But we can’t tell anyone we met in the wood!”

Phyllida swallowed a groan. She wasn’t getting anywhere; she tried another tack. “What is
in
these letters?” She hadn’t asked before—before, it had only mattered that Mary Anne was hysterical and getting the letters back—an easy enough task, it had seemed—would calm her down. She’d given her oath not to reveal the existence of the letters to anyone without a second thought. But now Horatio’s murder had turned her simple plan to retrieve Mary Anne’s letters into a nightmare—and she was still bound by that oath.

Mary Anne picked at her skirt. “I told you—they’re letters I sent Robert that he gave back, and some he sent to me.”

Robert Collins was Mary Anne’s intended, not her betrothed. Her parents had stood firm against the match since Mary Anne and Robert first met at the Exeter Assembly when Mary Anne was seventeen. Robert was an articled clerk in a solicitor’s office in Exeter. His fortune was nonexistent, but once he took his final exams next year, he would be able to practice and thus support a wife. Through the years, Mary Anne’s devotion to Robert and his to her had never wavered. Her parents had hoped the attachment would wane. However, they’d known better than to feed their daughter’s stubbornness; assuming that with Robert in Exeter, physical meetings would be rare, they’d allowed the usual exchange of correspondence.

The existence of the letters would therefore surprise no one; it was the content that constituted the threat. Phyllida wasn’t, however, convinced that the threat was all that serious—not compared with murder. “I can’t see why telling Mr. Cynster that your letters were the reason I was in Horatio’s house, searching for them because they’d been accidentally put in the writing desk and then forgotten, is going to cause a scandal.”

“Because if you tell him that, he’ll want to know why you—or, more to the point, I—didn’t simply call and ask Horatio for them.”

Phyllida grimaced. She’d asked precisely that question when Mary Anne, distraught and barely coherent, had come to her for help. The answer had been that Horatio might look at the letters before he handed them over—and then he might hand them to Mary Anne’s parents instead.

“And,” Mary Anne continued, her tone increasingly obstinate, “if Mr. Cynster is half as clever as you think him, he’ll guess why I want them back so desperately. He’s investigating—if he finds them, he’ll read them.”

“Even if he does, he wouldn’t hand them to your parents.” Phyllida glimpsed a way out. “Wait—what if I make him
promise
that if I tell him all and he finds the letters, he’ll hand them to me without reading them?”

Mary Anne frowned. “Do you trust him?”

Phyllida returned her gaze steadily. She trusted Lucifer to find Horatio’s killer if that were humanly possible. She would trust him with any number of things. But could she trust him with Mary Anne’s secret? She still didn’t know what was in those damned letters. “These letters—in them you described what happened at your meetings? How you felt—that sort of thing?”

Tight-lipped, Mary Anne nodded; she was clearly not going to say more.

A few kisses, a cuddle or two—how scandalous could that be? “I’m certain that even if Mr. Cynster read the letters, they wouldn’t shock him. And he’s a stranger. He’ll leave after Horatio’s murderer’s found and we’ll never see him again. There’s no reason he’ll feel any great need to hand even the most scandalous letters to your parents.”

Mary Anne pondered. “If you tell him about the letters, you wouldn’t tell him they were scandalous?”

“Of course not! I’ll tell him they’re private letters you don’t want anyone else reading.” Phyllida waited, then said, “So—can I tell him?”

Mary Anne shifted. “I . . . I want to talk to Robert.” She lifted eyes clouded with worry to Phyllida’s face. “I haven’t told him the letters are missing. I want to know what he thinks.”

Oh, how she wished she could infuse a little of her own steel into Mary Anne’s backbone. But Mary Anne was, beneath her social veneer, nearly frantic with worry. Phyllida sighed. “All right. Talk to Robert. But
please
talk to him soon.” She swallowed the words
I don’t know how long I can hold Mr. Cynster at bay.