And Then She Fell (Cynster 19 Cynster Sisters Duo #1) (18 page)

Rafe nodded. “Sound idea. I’ll come with you.”

Henrietta might not have wanted to think too hard about how she had nearly died, but she wasn’t having that. “No.” She glanced at Millicent and saw her own resolution reflected in Millicent’s brown eyes. Looking back at James, she stated, “We’re coming, too.”

James hesitated, but, truth be told, he’d rather have Henrietta with him. “Very well.” He reached for her hand, turned, helped her clamber up the bank, then led her steadily on, onto the hill overlooking the ruins.

Rafe and Millicent climbed up behind them.

They found the wall and followed it along—to the gap where the lighter hue of the stone on either side identified the original position of the recently fallen capstone.

Halting in a semicircle around the spot, they stared silently down at the evidence imprinted in the soft moss growing in the lee of the top of the wall. It wasn’t hard to guess what had caused the capstone to fall.

Crouching, Rafe examined the smeared tracks left by a man’s large boots. After a moment, he grunted. “He slipped too much to be able to guess the size.”

“But,” James said, forcing his voice to remain calm and even, “it wasn’t a work boot.” He glanced at his own feet, then at Rafe’s. “Something more like riding boots.”

Rising, Rafe nodded, his face grim. He met James’s gaze, then waved down the hill. “We’d better get on, or we’ll be late for dinner.”

Subdued, each a prey to disquieting thoughts, they made their way back to the path and set off to return to the house.

Chapter Eight

A
fter watching Henrietta and Millicent ascend the stairs on the way to their rooms to change for dinner, James and Rafe exchanged a glance, then went hunting for Lord Ellsmere.

They found him in his library, already dressed for the evening and enjoying a quiet brandy; Lord Ellsmere took one look at their grim faces and promptly offered them both a glass. After only the minutest of hesitations, both accepted.

Sinking into the chair his host waved him to, James took a revivifying sip of the fiery liquid, then, as Lord Ellsmere sat again, caught his lordship’s eye. “We were out with the others at the ruins. We were the last to head back and . . . there was an accident.”

“Accident? Good God—what?” Lord Ellsmere sat up. “Here—no one’s dead, are they?”

“No,” Rafe said, his deep voice rough, “but it was a very near-run thing.” He tipped his glass at James. “If it hadn’t been for Glossup there, and a frankly amazing tackle, Henrietta Cynster would be dead as a doornail, crushed under a fallen stone.”

Lord Ellsmere paled and fell back in his chair. “Good Lord!”

“But that’s not the worst of it.” James drained his glass. Aware of the look Lord Ellsmere bent on him, as if unable to believe that there could possibly be anything worse, James lowered the glass, met his lordship’s gaze, and disabused him of that comfortable notion. “Someone—most likely a gentleman in riding boots—deliberately pushed the stone off the wall. And he had to have known Henrietta was beneath it—we’d been talking just before.”

Lord Ellsmere stared, then looked at Rafe, who confirmed James’s words with a grim nod. “But,” his lordship all but sputtered, “you’re not saying it was anyone here?”

James met Rafe’s eyes, then, frowning, slowly shook his head. “It doesn’t seem likely. We were all in groups.”

“Thank heaven for that.” After a long moment of silence, Lord Ellsmere said, speaking slowly and carefully as if trying out the words, “There has to be some explanation. No one would want to kill Henrietta, so . . . it must have been something else. Perhaps . . . a prank gone wrong, or . . .” His lordship looked from James to Rafe and back again, but neither came to his rescue. “Well,” his lordship asked, “what else could it be?”

Another long moment of silence ensued, then James set down his glass, met Rafe’s gaze, and rose. “I doubt there’s anything anyone can do—there was plenty of time for whoever it was to simply walk away. We just thought you should know.”

Lord Ellsmere looked up at them as if wishing they hadn’t thought anything of the sort, but on meeting James’s eyes, he nodded. “Yes, well . . . as you say, nothing to be done.”

With polite, if somewhat stiff, nods, James and Rafe parted from their host and left the library.

They paused in the front hall.

James glanced at Rafe, who looked back at him, then James sighed and reached for the banister. “We’d better get changed.”

They climbed the stairs and walked to their rooms.

While he stripped and quickly washed, then shrugged into his evening clothes, James heard Lord Ellsmere’s observation and resulting question repeating endlessly in his mind.

No one would want to kill Henrietta, so . . . what else could it be?

James was starting to have a bad feeling about that. A very bad feeling indeed.

F
or James, the dinner and ball passed in a bland blur of faces and polite conversations. Briefly meeting in the drawing room before the company had gone into dinner, he, Henrietta, Rafe, and Millicent had agreed that there was nothing to be gained by creating a sensation among the other guests by spreading the tale of Henrietta’s near brush with death.

In a private aside, Rafe had baldly asked, and James had confirmed that he would be sticking to Henrietta’s side throughout the night. Later, during the ball, Rafe had paused beside James to quietly report that he’d discreetly checked with the others from the house party who had been at the ruins that afternoon, and none of the gentlemen had been unaccounted for over the critical minutes.

“So it had to have been someone from outside,” James had concluded.

Rafe had nodded. “And ‘outside’ could mean anywhere. There’s a decent lane on the other side of the woods that joins the road to London.”

A waltz had started up, and Rafe had left to whirl Millicent down the floor. James had watched Henrietta waltz with Channing, then had reclaimed her, and thereafter hadn’t let her go.

But finally the ball ended, and after dallying in the front hall, on the stairs, and in the gallery until all the other guests had gone ahead, James escorted Henrietta down the corridor to her room.

Pausing outside the door, he opened it and waved her through.

Glancing at him, faintly puzzled, she went.

Swiftly glancing around and confirming that the corridor was empty, he quickly followed her and closed the door behind him.

Expecting to bid him good night, Henrietta swung to face the door; she fell back a step, brows arching in surprise. She met his eyes, a clear question in hers.

He met her gaze, then surveyed the room. An armchair stood by the fireplace. Stepping past Henrietta, he walked to the armchair and dropped into it.

She followed. Halting beside his boots, she looked down at him; the question in her eyes had grown even more pronounced.

He sighed, leaned back, and held her gaze. “I’m staying here tonight. All night.”

Head tipping slightly, she studied him. “Why?”

“Because I can’t leave you alone.” When she frowned at him, he reached out, caught her hand, and tugged her down to sit on the broad arm of the chair.

Henrietta obliged, leaving her hand in his, lightly returning the pressure of his fingers. “I can see that you’re worried, but . . . I don’t quite understand why, at least not to this extent.” She drew breath, then added, “I haven’t thought—haven’t allowed myself to think—too much about what happened today, but . . . even so, I can’t see what we can possibly make of it. I don’t know of anyone who might wish me dead, much less act on that wish.”

“But someone did.” He looked up at her, meeting her eyes, his concern on open display. “Henrietta, someone tried to
kill
you today—we can’t overlook that. But”—his lips twisted—“there’s more. I learned something I haven’t yet told you, about your horse. I checked with your stableman. He’s convinced, and so am I, that someone darted your mare.”

When she blinked uncomprehendingly, he explained, “Someone threw a dart at her rump. That was why she screamed, reared, and then bolted.” He paused, then added, “Someone hoped you’d fall to the cobbles and die.”

She stared into his eyes, searched, but saw nothing but absolute conviction. She quelled a shiver. “But . . . why?”

Lips grimly set, he shook his head. “I can’t begin to guess, but . . .” He tightened his grip on her fingers. “That wasn’t the start of it, if you recall.”

When, too shocked by what he was implying, she remained silent, he continued, his eyes steady on hers, “You fell off the bridge into the stream at Lady Marchmain’s rout. We assumed it was an accident—but what if it wasn’t? Anyone who was there might have seen the opportunity—you were by the side of the bridge, and all of us were distracted by the fireworks. A stumble, a quick, anonymous push, and the stream was running swiftly and it was dark . . .”

Held trapped in his gaze, reluctantly, she added, “And not many young ladies of the ton know how to swim, not even a little.”

“Exactly. And the Thames was close, only yards away.” He paused, then after a moment continued, “So we have three near-fatal accidents—the bridge, your horse, and now the falling stone. Any of those incidents might have seen you dead, and all of them, even the last, might well have passed for accidents. If it wasn’t for the dampness of the moss by the wall, we wouldn’t have seen your would-be murderer’s boot prints. We would simply have been left wondering how the stone had come to fall, but meanwhile, you would have been dead.”

“But . . .” The first shock of realization was fading; annoyance, spiced with a definite dollop of belligerence, swelled, and she embraced the strength it offered. She frowned. “Who the devil could it be?”

James was relieved by her reaction; he’d worried she wouldn’t want to see, to acknowledge that someone might wish her ill. That much ill. “I think we can be sure it’s a man, and that he’s a member of the ton. He would have to be to have been on the bridge at Marchmain House. Anyone with a purpose in Brook Street that morning, from a street sweeper, a delivery boy, a costermonger, to a strolling gentleman, could have darted your horse, and the falling stone could have been any man who wears decent riding boots, but the incident on the bridge could only have been caused by a gentleman of the haut ton.”

“Or a lady.” Henrietta wrinkled her nose. “But no lady pushed that stone, so I concede your point.” She blew out a breath. “So some gentleman of the haut ton is trying to kill me.” Brows knitting, she tilted her head. “Which brings us back to why.”

He studied her face, her expression. “Could it have anything to do with some past activity of yours as The Matchbreaker?”

She gave the suggestion serious thought but ultimately shook her head. “Other than you, no gentleman has ever protested my findings, and”—she met his eyes—“if they had wished to, I would think they would have protested to my face, at least at first, as you did, but none have.”

He conceded the point with a tip of his head. “True enough.” After a moment of studying her eyes—and her studying his—he sighed and sat back, fingers gently caressing the back of the hand he still held. “So that’s why I have to stay with you tonight. This would-be murderer is a gentleman. He’s not at the house party, but he knows you’re here. He’s familiar with our world. It’s perfectly possible he’s familiar with this house, and he’ll certainly know that few doors will be locked, just in case guests wish to wander.”

For a long moment, she stared at his face, then said, “I can see your reasoning. More, I don’t dispute it—I agree.” She paused, then drew breath and said, “Yet I ask again: Why?”

Looking into her eyes, he didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Instead, very conscious of her fingers beneath his, in the simplest, most direct words he could find, he gave her the truth. “Because you’re mine.”

She held his gaze for a heartbeat, then nodded decisively. “Yes, I am.”

Then she swiveled on the chair’s arm, leaned over him, framed his face, and tipped it to hers—paused to look into his eyes as if to confirm that he was following
her
reasoning—then she bent her head, set her lips to his, and kissed him.

From that first touch of her lips, there was never any doubt what she intended or where this would end; the kiss went from definite, to scorching, to incendiary in mere seconds. Hardly surprising then, she being her and he being him, that thereafter matters rapidly spiraled out of control.

Or, more correctly, were with ruthless determination and unwavering will driven forcefully toward one paramount goal.

Mutually ravenous, mutually greedy, the kiss ignited a conflagration that spread flames beneath their skins, that incited, razed and burned. Heat surged in a wave of molten hunger, of fiery yearning.

On a muted gasp, she shifted, and then her hands were everywhere, racing over him, tugging at his coat, urging him up out of the chair so she could strip the restricting garment away.

Engaged himself, absorbed and caught, distracted and enthralled, his tongue dueling with hers, his lips rapaciously devouring hers while his hands shaped and weighed her sumptuous breasts, he had to haul sufficient awareness from those all-consuming, senses-stealing tasks to oblige—to bodily lift her to her feet and rise to his, and release her long enough to shrug his coat and waistcoat off—and once he had, nothing could hold her.

Nothing he did seemed capable of reining her in, of reining her back—of reestablishing any degree of supremacy in a world fired by unexpectedly rampant need, and flooded with burgeoning passions, with violently surging desires that only had to rise to be given full expression, only to be offered—in the next heartbeat—immediate gratification.

He felt giddy—as reckless and unrestrained as she as they wrestled each other free of their clothes, as silk whispered over flushed and dewed skin, as palms and fingers flagrantly explored, sculpted, traced. As the cool caress of the night air was banished by the first touch of heated skin to heated skin, naked and burning, and sensation, sharp and potent, rocked them.