Her Beguiling Butler (7 page)

Finnley had thought about that. “Most butlers have no need but wait to inspect the linens upstairs. The positioning of his body meant that he was at the landing of the stairs when he fell.”

“Is a rug there? Did he trip?”

Finnley shook his head. “No. But the surgeon put forth and I do suspect that the poor man might have been pushed.”

Winston lifted his hands in surrender. “And you doubt Lady Ranford killed her husband and the butler?”

“I do. I know that was our line of inquiry but I find no intentions on her part that would have resulted in her murdering her husband.”

“She did not love him, Beaumont. It is well known.”

“Ah, but she did not hate him enough to do away with him, either.”

“If you say so, Beaumont.” Winston rose, striding toward his desk. “Whiskey?”

“Please.”

As Winston poured two glasses for them, he shook his head. “Yet she is attractive.”

Stunning.
“Yes, and I know we had questioned if she might have motivation to do away with him because she had a lover.”

“And?”

“She has none.” He pushed away the knowledge that he wished to give her one. And soon.

“Her period of mourning ends within the next few months. From the tabloids, I understand she emerges slowly. A few engagements, small but with influential people.”

“So far, she’s gone for an afternoon visit to her friend. A dinner party given by her aunt. But nothing she does is grandiose or without protocol.”
Except how she gazes at me with those bewitching violet eyes.

Winston handed him his glass and he took it gladly to drink the warming spirits. “No man emerges as her lover? Her suitor?”

“So far only one comes to call. Harold Macomb. Do you know of him?”

Winston pursed his lips and winced. “The baronet’s youngest son? Yes, I do know him.”

Finnley narrowed his gaze on his friend. “I gather you do not care for him.”

“I say Macomb has little to commend him. His father wished to buy him a commission in the Army years ago. He would not go. Claimed he was a scholar. Went off to St. Andrews instead of France.”

“What did he study?”

“Women. Liquor.”

Finnley had little sympathy for those men who had never taken up arms against Bony. “I like him less than before. His sister does not endear herself to me either. Cool and calculating she seems.”

“With no great ancestry or dowry, the woman has had no luck with proper suitors. She subsists by taking lovers.”

Finnley grimaced. “More than Ranford?”

“She’s on to Lord Dillard. Know him?” Winston asked with a fiendish curve of his bushy brows.

“An ass. In debt to his receding hairline. But a libertine.”

Winston hooted in laughter. “The two Macombs are a bad lot. They live in the same house, scraping by on what existence they get from their father and what the lady can take from her benefactors.”

“Would you know if Lady Louise has many friends?” Finnley asked.

“Women?”

“Yes.”

“She is more known for her male acquaintances.”

Finnley recalled Preston’s dismay at Alicia’s naïveté about men. Perhaps the darling woman did give too much credit to others, but that did not make her silly. Vulnerable, yes. He would see to it she was not taken in by such as the Macombs. But how could he do a good job of it if he was tied to her house? Never to accompany her anywhere?

“Are there others whom you suspect of involvement with the deceased Lord Ranford?”

“Yes, Winston. I wish you to track the records of two others in the house.”

“Certainly.” Winston leaned forward in his chair. “Who?”

“Cybil Preston, lady’s maid to Alicia for five years now. And Paul Grimes, came to employ there in August.”

“If he came after the baron’s death, why are you interested in him?”

“He worries me. There is something he hides. I cannot yet worm it out of him. I have a few ways for you to search for them.”

“Good. What are they?” Winston asked.

“Grimes told me he was hired by the old butler Norden through the Mayfair Registry office.”

“A decent establishment. Recommends good servants. I will have my men look into this Grimes.”

“As for Cybil Preston, she came to Lady Ranford from a servants’ training school. Five years ago, soon after Lady Ranford married the baron. Look into her too, will you please?”

“Rest easy. I will have my men on to it. Meanwhile, you look to the lady of the house.”

I do. I cannot stop looking at her. And that is precisely my joy—and my curse.
He rose, ready to leave.

Winston got to his feet but tipped his head. “Do you not wish to know about the case in Chancery about the Bentham inheritance?”

“Oh.” Finnley dismissed it with a hand. “Of course. What do your agents tell you?”

Winston smiled with irony. “They will have a decision soon. A week. Two, at most. If we knew more about Lady Ranford’s complicity in her husband’s demise, we might speed along their decision.”

“You mean if she were accused of murdering her husband, the lords might rule in my favor rather than her own?”

“If she is guilty, yes. She would be unsuitable and imprisoned. Hung. They might still hold the title in abeyance or note well that your claim to the barony would be the only remaining one.”

“No matter Lady Ranford’s fate, I doubt my claim is as firm as hers. I’ve never heard of Chancery awarding disputed titles on the basis of personal integrity, only recorded line of descent. And I do understand that my father’s family had a case or two of unrecorded marriage vows.”

“Newport ignores those rumors.”

Finnley snorted. “My uncle is a prudent man. He does not like to think he is associated with illegitimate sons and daughters, even if they are through wedded in-laws. Lady Ranford’s claim descends from a paternal line that, from what I hear, can prove the marriage records back three hundred years. That’s good enough for me.”

Winston slapped him on the back. “I know you. You don’t wish the money.”

“Not if it’s ill gotten, no. I have enough income from my own imports and from my uncle naming me his heir. I won’t ever build follies like Prinny or resort to sartorial splendor like Beau Brummel. I’d rather see my tenants don’t want for bread. And influence politicians to support increased wages of the working poor. The riots since the massacre in Peterloo grow worse. I was accosted as I came here this morning by a gaggle after my purse.”

“Many hate Wales. He spends too much on houses and clothes.”

“Too many women and money lost on gambling, too,” Finnley said.

“You are so right.,” Winston said and shook his head.

“Whenever I inherit from Newport, I will gladly sit in my seat in Parliament and vote against his expenditures.”

Winston nodded. “For now, discover the truths in that house. See you next week?”

“Yes. Next week. Unless I have more information sooner.” Finnley shook hands with his old friend. “Do give my regards to your wife. I miss her apple pie.”

“Finish this job and I will tell her you wish her to invade our cook’s kitchen.”

“I need to finish soon and leave,” Finnley told him with all honesty.
Before I ruin Alicia and she ruins me for any other woman.

He entered through the kitchen door, wiped his shoes, tore off his sleet-soaked hat and coat to hang them on the peg.

“There you are, Mr. Finnley. We worried about you, we did,” Mrs. Sweeting said with a wave and a smile. She stirred a pot on her stove. “You look wet and chilled.”

“It is beastly out there,” he told her, combing back his shock of hair with both hands.

Mrs. Gordon, the housekeeper, appeared before him. Her tiny black eyes bored through him, assessing him. “Lady Ranford asked for ye a bit ago, sir. I’d say you’d better go up. She needs ya.”

“I will. Where is she?”

“In her sitting room,” the woman said with a slight curl of her lip. “It’s tea she has. A service for two.”

For her and him. “Thank you, Mrs. Gordon.”

At a run, he took the back stairs past the first story up to the second. He hated the looks he got from Mrs. Gordon who disliked the familiarity with which Alicia and he got on. He didn’t mind so much for himself. But Alicia could suffer if the Ranford servants told the ones next door, and they told others. All because she and he were…
friends
.

He knocked on the door, opened it at Alicia’s ragged invitation—and when he looked at her, he said to bloody hell with remaining friends.

She sobbed, her fair skin blotchy with red marks of her distress. Raising her face to him, she let the tears roll down her cheeks.

He shut the door—and ran to her.

“Sweetheart,” he blurted and caught her up in his arms, bringing her up off her chair in a swoop that crushed her long lush body against his. “What’s the matter? What has you so upset?”

“Oh, Wallace!” She grabbed the edges of his black coat and buried her face in the linen of his shirt. “I cannot bear the loss.”

“What? A loss?” Had she been notified by Chancery that she was not to gain the barony? She wouldn’t mind the lack this much. Would she?

She was wetting down his linen in her torrent and his embrace did nothing to calm her. “Alicia, please stop crying. Please, my dear.”

“I can’t! Oh, Wallace!” She looked up at him and her misery cracked open his heart. She’d suffered enough this past year. Alone, save for her aunt coming to visit, she’d become insular, tender, a recluse. Of course, she’d break apart at the least thing. Was it a small event?

“Tell me what’s wrong.” He ran a hand across her cheek, his fingers delighting in the raw pleasure of touching her silken skin.

She sighed, closed her eyes and sank against him.

This would not do.
He appreciated her proximity too much.

But he could not move and she wrapped her arms around his waist.

“Oh, Wallace,” she said, sniffling. “My governess has died.”

“Your—?”

“My old, laughing, smiling, joking governess. She was a gem of a woman. The best.” Shivering in her sorrow, she choked on her tears and her words came out in gasps. “I hate… that she’s… gone.”

“Gone.” Tucking the crown of her head under his chin, he stroked her hair, unbound and abundant through his fingers. He marveled at her. The sweet confection he held in his arms was stricken to the core by the loss of a woman whom she’d loved long ago.

And her tears rolled out, her body trembling.

“Come with me.” He led her to the settee near her fireplace. “Sit. Let me get you your—“

“No.” She tugged at his hand and hiccupped.

He dug out his handkerchief from his vest pocket and wiped her cheeks.

“I want only you.”

Her appeal was too heartfelt, too delicious to refuse. As if he were a marionette at a puppet show, he sat down and put his handkerchief on the table. Smoothing her ringlets from her cheeks, he sucked in air when she caught both his hands and brought each one to her lips and kissed each palm.

“Wallace,” she beseeched him, “I need you.”

“Alicia, we must not do this—“

“We will.” She slid closer to him. “I will.”

“Oh, Alicia—“

“You’ve called me ‘dear’ and ‘darling’.” She moved so near that she brushed her lips on his. “You’ve called me ‘sweetheart’.”

“Did I?” He was demented.

Her hands cupped his face as she blessed his mouth with a fond kiss and breathed, “Oh, yes. Call me that again.”

“I can’t.” But oh, he wanted to. He circled his hands around her waist and brought her nearer. Her breasts met his chest and she wiggled against him.

The temptation blasted through him like a typhoon. He hauled her up and into his lap. His arms bound her close, his need for her ravenous, his body iron hard and straining to gain more of her. Bracing her with one arm, he brought her face to his and the kisses that began as tender explorations of her sorrow and his care, turned to hungry feasts. He caressed her lips, nibbled at them and kissed her once more.

Some shred of decency claimed him. “Alicia, we must not do this.”

“Wallace, darling,” she said, smiling like a siren, and honing in on his mouth with her luminous eyes, “we are doing this. Again.” She took his lips and ran the tip of her tongue over the lower swell of his. “And again.”

“You are too tempting.”

“I wager you have not said that to other employers,” she teased.

He snorted. “There have been no other employers.”

“Oh, marvelous.” She settled against him, drawing him down to her with a hand around his nape. “And how many other women have you kissed?”

“None like you.”

“I’ve never craved my butler, either.”

Her sincerity melted him. “Alicia—“

“Darling Wallace, I want more than fine words and kisses.”

He shook his head. “No. That’s madness.”

“Is it? Life is perilous, my dear man. One day you are well and hail and hearty, and the next you are run over by a lorry.”

“Well, I dare say, sweetheart,” he said, laughing against his better judgment. “That is harsh.”

“Is it?” She took his lower lip between her teeth and bit him. “That’s how Lucille Dewitt died.”

“Your governess?”

“One and the same,” she affirmed. “One day you are alone and lonely and the next, you have a man before you whom you enjoy. His looks.” She ran her long fingers through his hair. “His eloquence.” She licked his upper lip. “His restraint.” She nipped his nose. “If you don’t seize what joys are offered you, how can you say on your last day that you lived to the fullest?”

“We are not often permitted the pleasures we would like.”

She stared at him, pouting. “If I am awarded the barony of Bentham, I will take my pleasures where and when I can.”

Desire sparked in his guts, his groin. His fingers sank into her curls, the strands fine as silken threads. He yearned to taste her. Sanity drifted away and he snatched it back. Although he’d overheard her declare her philosophy to her aunt, he could not condone her plan. “You are not made for defiance of the
ton
.”