Brentwood's Ward (10 page)

Though phrased as a question, it wasn’t. It was a verdict. Or maybe a threat. From the corner of Emily’s eye, she caught Bella’s raised brow and could feel her own forehead crease. Millie Barker had never once come to call at Portman House.

Emily slid her arms into the sleeves of her pelisse, the heat of Nicholas’s hands still warming the shoulders where he’d held the fabric—and then she knew. Millie’s call would have nothing to do with herself.

Emily locked eyes with Bella. “You’ll stop by as well?”

Bella’s gaze strayed to Nicholas. “My pleasure.”

“Ladies, I bid you good evening.” Nicholas nodded and turned on his heel. “Come along, Miss Payne.”

His long, hard lines disappeared through the door. Emily huffed. Was she a dog to trot after him at his command?

Bobbing a thank-you curtsy to Millie and murmuring a “good evening” to the rest, she scurried to catch up with him on the front steps. “You had better have a stunning good reason to pull me from this household at such a breakneck pace, sir.”

He glanced at her but didn’t answer until he offered his hand at the carriage door. “I’m not entirely sure of the purpose, but not knowing how long I’d be gone, I deemed it best to bring you along.”

Emily narrowed her eyes at him on her way up into the coach box. “You don’t know where we’re going?”

He paused before hefting himself up. “I didn’t say that.”

Exasperating man. The leather seat creaked as he settled in, his manner as nonchalant as if they were taking a drive in the country. She blew out a breath, long and low. “You don’t know
why
we’re going?”

“That is correct.”

The carriage lurched into motion, as abrupt as his answer, and the jostle triggered a slight headache. Or maybe it was Nicholas who triggered the twinge at her temple. Streetlight reached in through the windows, feathering over the strong planes of his face, sweeping along defined cheekbones and jaw, and resting on the curve of his full lips. A fierce scowl assaulted her own mouth. Oughtn’t an ogre look repulsive?

She lifted her chin. “So you’re telling me, sir, that you’ve ruined my chances to charm Mr. Henley, giving Millie free rein to bat her eyelashes at the man for the rest of the evening, and you don’t have the slightest idea as to why?”

“Yes, yes, and yes.” He cocked his head at her, challenge lighting his eyes. “You ought to thank me, you know. Mr. Henley is a louse.”

“Oh, spare me! What would you know of Charles Henley, other than the fact that he has an aversion to seafood, which I think was merely a lucky guess on your part.”

“Really?”

She curled her fingers to keep from righting the smug tilt of his face. “You are hardly omniscient, Mr. Brentwood. How would you know the heart of a person?”

“I never claimed to read hearts, just behaviors. Details as well.” His eyes held hers, driving home his point. “A person’s character is most clearly seen not by what they show, but what they hide.”

“Such as?”

The carriage wheels ground over cobbles. A watchman cried the hour. She could even hear Nicholas’s body moving inside his greatcoat, the creak of leather as he shifted on the seat, but other than that, silence reigned. Eventually, her gaze strayed out the curtained window, traveling from one passing hackney to the next.

“You will keep what I say in confidence?”

His quiet tone and the implication it carried snapped her gaze back to his. “Do you not trust me, sir?”

The sharp cut of his jaw softened. “I trust in God alone, Miss Payne, and that is enough.”

She gaped. “What a lonely way to live!”

“Not at all.”

There was a fullness in those words. A kind of naked truth that reached into her own heart and illuminated a hollow shell. If she didn’t know better, she’d say that Nicholas Brentwood and God were on speaking terms. No, it was more.

He spoke as if God was his intimate confidant.

The very thought unnerved her, and she ran her tongue over dry lips. “I assure you, Mr. Brentwood, any observations you share shall remain with me. Now…what did you see?”

“I assume you mean something besides the hired help palming a pickle fork.”

“Seriously?”

His smile reached to his eyes. “No. The Barkers’ servants all appeared aboveboard.”

She rapped him on the arm as if he were Alf. “Beast.”

“It’s an offense, you know, to strike an officer of the law.” His eyes sparkled as playfully as her pug’s. “So…this DiMarco fellow, what do you know about him?”

“Not much. He’s in town for the season. A family friend of the Barkers. Millie tells me he’s on the prowl for a wife.”

“He’s already had one, you know, or mayhap still does.”

She shook her head. This one she knew for certain, and the pleasure of bringing down Brentwood charged through her. “Impossible. Millie says—”

“Millie may parrot what the man has told her, yet the slight indentation on the third finger of his left hand cannot be hidden without gloves, which I noticed he wore until forced to remove them at dinner. And speaking of dinner, did you notice Miss Felton’s plate?”

Her attention yanked from DiMarco to Jane. She could do nothing more than repeat his words. “Her plate?”

“Full, or nearly so, at the removal of each course. On the other hand, she drained her cup at least six times before dessert. I’ve seen sailors keel over with lesser amounts of liquor, yet the lady didn’t so much as wobble.”

Her jaw dropped. Words stuck in her throat, and it took great effort to coax them out. “Are you saying that Jane Felton…tipples?”

Even in the chill evening air, his smile warmed her through. “The woman could drink a Gin Lane sot beneath the table then stand to order another round.”

She laughed, the carriage ride suddenly more entertaining than Millie Barker’s parlor. “Go on, Mr. Brentwood. Tell me more.”

He leaned toward her conspiratorially. “If the colonel should ever regale you with his exploits in the Battle of Trafalgar, don’t believe a word of it. I doubt the man’s ever set foot in the hull of a skiff, let alone a man-of-war.”

“La! Surely you weren’t aboard the
Victory
, nor do I believe you to be on speaking terms with Lord Nelson. That being said”—she shifted on the seat, gaining a clearer view of his face—“how would you know?”

“Watch his eyes, Miss Payne. The man’s gaze darted about like a caged sparrow, looking anywhere but at me in the telling. And the way he scratched behind his ears, I purposely chose to take a turn about the room lest I caught fleas.”

Her eyes widened. “You can tell when people are lying?”

“Frequently.”

The carriage pitched to the right, and she flung out her hand for balance, the jolt as unsettling as his words. Not that she lied, but sometimes small falsehoods crossed her lips. Could he detect those as well? Better to change the subject. “Of all those in attendance tonight, surely you couldn’t find fault with Mrs. Allen. She is the picture of virtue.”

“True…but her husband is not.”

“Aha! Caught you.” She folded her arms, triumph sweet on her tongue. “Her husband was not even present, sir.”

“No. I suspect he’d want to keep his swollen knuckles hidden from polite company.”

She frowned. How in the world would the man know that?

Before she could ask, Nicholas interrupted her thoughts. “Tell me, is Mrs. Allen proficient with a brush and oils?”

“Quite. But I don’t understand how you could know such information.”

“Deduction. Besides the cobalt stain inside her wrist, just about even with her sleeve, the lady painted—and quite well I might add—her face.”

“You can hardly fault Mrs. Allen or her husband for her cosmetics, sir.”

“Of course not. The fault lies in Mr. Allen himself. The coloring around the lady’s eye deepened from ivory to beige, with the barest hint of purple, noticeable only when she chanced to pass too near a wall sconce. Had she stepped any closer, I daresay her layers of makeup would’ve melted to her collar. Mr. Allen bullies his wife quite brutally.”

Emily sank back against the carriage seat. “Poor Catherine,” she breathed out. “I had no idea.”

“My apologies, Miss Payne. Perhaps I ought not have—”

The regret in his voice signaled the ending of the game, a checkmate she wasn’t ready to concede.

She sat up straight. “One last thing. You avoided this question at dinner, yet I will ask it again. What have you to say about Millie?”

His eyes darkened, blending into the shadows of the carriage. “I claim Mr. Henley is a louse, yet you don’t believe me, so perhaps you ought ask Miss Barker about the content of the man. I suspect she’s been jilted in a very…personal way.”

The wheels jerked to a stop. So did her conceived notions of Charles Henley. Was that what Bella had been about to tell her? Or was this some kind of horrid jest on the part of Mr. Brentwood?

She studied his face every bit as intently as he did hers. If he’d discovered that much information in merely the space of a dinner, what of the entire week spent with her? Had he found out about—no. Her meeting with Wren wasn’t even until tomorrow’s early hours. Still…

“What of me, Mr. Brentwood?” Her voice sounded dry. Crumbly. Like autumn leaves skittering down a graveled road. She swallowed and tried again. “What do you know of my secrets?”

The carriage door swung open. A smile flashed, kind and cunning, illuminating Nicholas Brentwood’s face an instant before he vanished into the night, taking his answer with him.

Horrid man.

Gathering her skirts, she ducked her head out the door—then froze.

Why would they leave Millie Barker’s dinner party for a visit to Uncle Reggie’s?

Chapter 8

D
eath was in the air. Heavy. Ominous. Nicholas could feel it in his bones. He inhaled a fresh waft of Emily’s lily-of-the-valley sweetness, but if his surmise was correct, a stench was soon to come. The only way to know for sure was to keep trailing the grim-faced butler who ushered him and Emily down a short corridor of a three-story townhome.

Men’s voices spilled out an open drawing-room door, one in particular lilting with a poorly concealed Midland drawl. Three heads turned at his entrance. Only one broke from the huddle.

“About time you hike your skirts over here, Brentwood.” Fellow officer Alexander Moore strode across the room.

Emily drew up beside him, demanding answers, but Nicholas ignored her. “What’s this? Smugglers not keeping you busy enough?”

“Later.” Moore pulled him away from the door and lowered his voice. He gave an almost imperceptible tilt of his head toward Emily. “She a stable one?”

Nicholas rubbed his jaw, unsure of how to answer. Emily Payne was constant in tongue wagging, steady with frustration, and solid with determination to have her own way, though he doubted any of that was what Moore had in mind. “Come again?”

“Is the woman given to…swooning?”

He glanced over his shoulder, more from reflex than actual consideration. As he suspected, Emily stood near the door right where he’d left her, her gaze leveled at him like a well-aimed kidney punch—one that bruised even when he turned back to Moore. “She can hold her own, but what has she to do with—”

“Good. We’ve no time to waste. Bring Miss Payne.”

Moore’s brawny frame dwarfed Emily as he swept past her. Nicholas knew that gait. Moore was on a mission and wouldn’t stop to explain anything until due time.

With a sigh, Nicholas shepherded Emily forward. “After you.”

Her steps dragged, enough that he soon drew abreast of her.

“I don’t understand.” She slanted him a cool glance. “Who are these men? Where is Uncle Reggie?”

“This is Reggie’s house?” Nicholas stopped, paces away from a door guarded by an armed constable—the same door Moore had disappeared through, expecting them to do the same. Blast it! No wonder Moore had questioned Emily’s constitution. Squaring his shoulders, he turned to her. “I didn’t know. Perhaps you ought to wait back in the sitting room. I’ll—”

“It’s now or never, Miss Payne.” Moore’s head popped out the door. The constable didn’t flinch, but beside Nicholas, Emily did.

Nicholas frowned. “Listen, Moore, as her guardian I don’t think this is a wise—”

“I can think for myself, Mr. Brentwood.” In a flash, Emily shot past him and past Moore.

This wouldn’t end well. He dashed after her.

The ticktock of a grandfather clock competed with her sharp intake of air. Understandable. Likely the worst crime she’d witnessed in her life was her precious pug stealing a biscuit or two from Cook.

“Uncle!” She rushed ahead and sank to her knees next to the divan, all but shoving a mouse of a physician out of the way.

The doctor scowled at her. “Now see here—”

Moore’s hand on the doctor’s arm ended his complaint. “You said yourself nothing more could be done. Care to revise that prognosis?”

The doctor’s nose wrinkled. “No.”

Moore jerked his head toward the threshold. “Then there’s the door.”

The doctor’s lip curled as if he’d bitten into a rotten bit of cheese. Without another word, he snatched a black leather bag off the desk and evil-eyed Moore as he retreated.

Nicholas crossed to Emily’s side, all the while cataloging the room in a sweeping glance. The wall safe was open. Curtains marshaled in cold night air. A rat’s nest of papers was strewn atop a desk. All in all, the room was as torn up as its master.

Reggie lay ashen faced, still alive but barely. Right of center on the man’s chest, a deep stain spread across his open waistcoat. His shirt was ripped apart, blood darkening a poultice left over from the doctor’s futile ministrations. Pink foam dribbled out one side of the man’s mouth. Indeed, he had minutes left, if that. A pistol ball to the lower lung was a miserable way to go.

Emily took up one of Reggie’s hands in both of hers, chafing them as if the fellow were dying of cold instead of a bloody suffocation.

“Thank…God. You’re not…hurt.” Reggie’s words rasped with fluid, his lips sucking air like a landed fish. His eyes closed with the effort.

“But you…oh, Uncle,” Emily’s voice broke, her own chest heaving. “Why would someone want to hurt you? Or me?”