Suzanne Robinson (22 page)

“God, Liza, don’t stop now.”

She only shook her head, and he saw that she
was confused. He sighed, sat up, and pulled her down on top of him.

“I forgot,” he said. “I’m sorry, my innocent. Let me teach you.”

They spent a happy hour in lessons before he regained enough sense to put an end to it. Once they had dressed again, he sent her out first. The room overlooked the town’s High Street, and as he buttoned his coat and ran his fingers through his hair, he could see her emerge from the inn. Smiling, he watched her pick her way down the sidewalk over cobbles and around several old men dozing in the sun in front of shops. She paused beside a red brick Georgian structure, gazed up at the polished brass nameplates beside the door, and mounted the front steps.

Jocelin’s hands stilled on his necktie. As Liza reached the door, a young man came out of the building. He bowed to her and said something. She replied, and he offered his arm. They descended the front steps, still talking, and continued down High Street.

There was a roaring in his head. Jocelin gripped the windowsill and studied the retreating backs of his lover and her man friend. A man. He blinked in astonishment, for until now he’d never even wondered about whether a lover of his was faithful. Something was different now. Now he found that the idea of Liza’s seeking the company of another man enraged him. She had gone from him to see a man. By God, he wouldn’t have it. How dare she traipse about market towns meeting strange men?

Waves of jealousy crashed on the shores of his mind, obliterating reason and impelling him to act. He snatched up his hat, gloves, and riding crop. In
seconds he had clattered downstairs, out of the inn, and into High Street. Jostling a grocer’s assistant hauling grain bags, he cut his way through pedestrians, his gaze fixed on the black bonnet and mantle of Liza Elliot.

They were turning. He sped up and rounded a corner as the two entered another, newer building surrounded by a wrought-iron fence. The cut-glass-and-mahogany door shut. In the throes of unaccustomed and humiliating jealousy, he didn’t stop to think. He burst through the gate, swept up the steps, and threw open the door. Inside, a parlor maid was walking away. She turned and gasped upon seeing him.

“Where are they?” His head would burst with the noise of his rage.

The parlor maid bristled. “Here now, sir. You can’t—”

Jocelin snatched her wrist. “Where are they?”

“The master and Miss Elliot?”

“Yes, damn you.”

“They’re in the parlor, sir.”

The maid bugged her eyes at him and pointed to a closed door to the right of the foyer. He turned his back on her, twisted the knob, and threw open the door. The panel banged against a wall.

The two people inside had been standing close to each other, heads bent. At the sound, they stepped apart and turned in alarm. Jocelin stalked into the parlor, located Liza, and went to her.

Speaking quietly, he asked, “Who is he?”

“My lord!”

“Damn your ‘my lords,’ ” he ground out. “Who is he? And don’t lie to me. I’ll know the truth when I hear it.”

The young man approached them then, and Jocelin spared him a glance. Pale, thin, ascetic, and ethereal in appearance, he nevertheless had enough daring to bark at Jocelin.

“See here, sir. Who are you?”

Jocelin inspected his adversary, noted the silky if receding gold locks and air of poetic delicacy. He narrowed his eyes. Some women loved artistic aesthetes who languished about pretending to intellect.

“My, my, my,” he said.

He felt the heat of a Texas sun, heard the shake of a rattlesnake’s tail. He hooked his thumbs in his waistband and stalked in a circle around the young man. At the change in Jocelin’s accent, the stranger gave Liza a bewildered glance.

“What we got here, Liza, honey?” Jocelin continued to circle his prey. “Some womanish little varmint, I’d say.”

He flicked a blond curl with his riding crop, then looked at Liza. “Yep, some varmint.” He tapped the buttons of the young man’s waistcoat with the crop. “You’re sniffing around the wrong woman. I think we need to have a talk. A real, serious talk. Dead serious.”

The young man’s eyes widened to gooseberries as Jocelin smiled his cold, Colt smile.

“Yep,” he said. “A real serious talk.”

S
he knew the moment Jocelin decided to kill poor Ronald. He drawled his words, stretching them out and giving them a lazy caress, and like a cougar sunning on a rock, he turned slowly and beamed a narrow, green gaze at the solicitor that missed not a breath, not a flicker of a lash.

If she didn’t stop him, she wasn’t sure Ronald would survive much longer. Liza uttered a shout that nearly rattled the frames of the pictures on the walls.

“My lord!”

Jocelin didn’t move or take his gaze from Ronald, but when he spoke, she sighed, for the gunfighter’s drawl was gone.

“Bloody hell, don’t interfere, woman. I’ll deal with you when I’ve gotten rid of this bounder.”

Liza closed her eyes, prayed that she wouldn’t lose her temper, and put on the air of a queen faced with a leaking water closet.

“My lord.” Picture frames clattered again. “This is my solicitor.”

Jocelin stared hard at her. She watched a muscle in his jaw quiver, and his color rise. It faded swiftly as he let the riding crop fall to his side. It twitched and swished about his right boot, then stilled. He rounded on the solicitor and inclined his head.

“I’ve made an inexcusable error, sir. May I offer my apologies?” He held out his hand, which Ronald took reluctantly.

Liza hastened to intercede. “Jocelin, Viscount Radcliffe, may I present Mr. Ronald Varney, my solicitor.”

Varney stuttered when he heard Jocelin’s title. Glancing with quivering uncertainty from Liza to Jocelin, he fidgeted with his lapels. At last he found something to do with himself by calling for tea. He hurried over to a bell button on the wall next to the door.

“Oh, I forgot,” he said. “It’s broken. If you will excuse me, Miss Elliot, my lord?” Varney sidled out of the parlor in search of the kitchen.

Liza sat on the edge of a brocade sofa, her back stiff. Jocelin watched Varney leave, then discarded his hat, gloves, and crop. Feeling rather saintly in her endurance, Liza gawked at him when he rounded on her.

“
You
have a solicitor?” he hissed. “Why in sodding hell do you need a solicitor?”

“If you wish to speak to me, you’ll keep your language clean.”

He nearly growled at her, but folded his lips on each other. “You’re going to make my head explode, Liza. Who is the bast—who is that little toad?”

By now it had occurred to her that the much pursued and coveted Jocelin Marshall was jealous, and she gloated at him. His brows drew together, and he gave her a thundercloud frown. When she grinned at him, he cursed, which elicited a chuckle from her. She threw up a hand when he plopped down on the couch beside her.

“No unbecoming behavior, my lord.”

“If you don’t tell me who he is, I’ll, I’ll—”

“Look at this.” Liza withdrew a folded letter from her reticule and handed it to him. As he read, she continued. “That’s from Miss Burdett-Coutts, with whom you and the queen are acquainted, if I’m correct. She and I are funding a kind of ragged school for the villages and towns surrounding Stratfield Court.”

He had the grace to look chagrined. Handing her the letter, he sank back on the sofa and groaned.

The corner of Liza’s mouth twitched. “Miss Burdett-Coutts and I intend to pay the children of poor families to go to school. We’re going to pay them more than they could earn by working on farms and mills and such. Education, my lord, is the path out of poverty. Would you like to read an essay on the subject?”

He shook his head.

“I couldn’t hear you,” she said.

“I said, I’m sorry.” He rose, took her hand, and kissed it. “I told you that you’ve given me a brain fever. No doubt I’ll bay at the moon tonight, and don’t
you smirk at me, miss. I’m going to that pub down the street and wait for you.”

“But I may be some time.”

“Good. I need time to think.”

He left as Ronald Varney returned from the kitchen. She heard him make a cordial excuse and apologized again. By the time he was gone, the solicitor was grinning, complacent and pink-cheeked with self-importance.

An hour later the viscount’s hunter was tied behind her carriage. Tessie rode with the coachman while Liza and Jocelin were secluded inside the vehicle. Since he’d left Mr. Varney’s, she’d had time to recover from the shock of being descended upon by an avenging, concupiscent male. Heavens, what a frightening experience. Now all she could do was beam at him like a locomotive lantern in startled amusement.

Liza sat gripping her reticule. She had removed her veil and stuffed it in the pocket of her mantle so that she didn’t arouse curiosity when they got home. Jocelin had regained his poise, but stared moodily out the window at the countryside. The snow had melted, and March had brought sunshine and the promise of spring. Suddenly he turned and faced her.

“You should have taken your maid with you.”

She rolled her eyes. “If you will remember, my lord, I sent Emmeline on errands because of you.”

“Oh.” Undaunted, he continued. “You should have left dealing with a solicitor to your father.”

Liza folded her arms over her chest and impaled him with an irritated glance. “My father wouldn’t approve. My brother would have helped me, but he’s dead.”

“If your father doesn’t approve, you shouldn’t
concern yourself with such matters. And I know your brother wouldn’t have liked it that you gad about dabbling in worldly affairs.”

Bristling, Liza gasped. “He would too.”

“Are we talking about William Edward Elliot?”

At the sound of her brother’s name, Liza’s irritation vanished. Her eyes filled with tears, which she refused to shed. Fishing among her layers of clothing, she found a handkerchief and pressed it to her nose. A warm hand covered hers. Jocelin pressed his lips to her palm.

“Forgive me. I was insensitive.”

His gentleness was her undoing. She sobbed, then wept openly into her handkerchief. Jocelin cursed as he lifted her onto his lap. She cried onto the shoulder of his overcoat until she had to blow her nose. Crumpling her handkerchief, she managed to speak at last.

“I saw him the night he died. I was, um, visiting friends in London, and he came to see me.”

She went on, giving Jocelin as much of the truth as she dared. He listened without interrupting, his gaze fixed on her face.

“But I never will believe that he was killed by chance. I don’t care what the police say. He wouldn’t have gone to Whitechapel. You knew him. Much as I loved him, William Edward was a bit full of his consequence. He wouldn’t even give his custom to a tailor he suspected of being not quite appropriate to his station. He despised people who don’t know the right wines to drink, the proper dress for sailing or a picnic.”

She gave Jocelin a look of appeal, and he squeezed her to him.

“Liza, sweet.” He hesitated, then sighed.
“There are certain habits a fellow keeps from his sister.”

“He wouldn’t have taken a mistress who lived in Whitechapel.”

“Liza!”

His utter consternation annoyed her, and she slipped off his lap and tossed her head.

“Well, he wouldn’t.”

Taking her by the shoulders, he demanded, “What do you know of such things?”

Liza wiggled out of his grasp. “Really, my lord. Ladies aren’t blind and deaf.”

He sputtered. “Well, well, they should be on such subjects.”

“My brother was killed after he left your house, and he was suspicious of that man Airey’s death,” Liza said. “And now there have been more deaths. There is Stapleton.”

Jocelin rubbed his chin for a. few moments. “There have been an awful lot of deaths.” He slapped his gloves against his palm while he remained silent. “I must think about this, Liza. I’ve been distracted by other—er—business of late. I’ll consider what you’ve said.”

“Do.”

He glanced at her. “And you’ll leave the matter in my hands. No, don’t say a word. It’s my place to attend to such things.”

They had so little time left together, she was reluctant to argue with him. She was going to do more spying on his friends soon, but she couldn’t very well tell him that. Instead she sighed and smiled at him.

“Very well, my lord.”

“I mean it, Liza.”

“Yes, my lord.”

He was eyeing her in suspicion when the carriage turned into the Stratfield Court portico. They stepped out into a crowd. Disconcerted, Liza felt her mouth go dry with apprehension that they’d been discovered, but her father came forward to dispel her alarm.

“Ah, Radcliffe, Elizabeth, my dear. Thank the Almighty you’ve returned so soon. A most unfortunate accident. Poor Halloway has been killed. His carriage hit a mud hole, and the axle broke. The thing rolled down a hill. Poor fellow was thrown against the wall and broke his neck. Horses had to be put down. Dreadful.”

Liza turned to look past her father’s shoulder at Jocelin. He gazed back at her, his face set and blank. Her mother fluttered up, causing Papa to take his wife’s arm and administer tower-of-strength comfort. Nick joined Jocelin, and she took advantage of her mother’s ditherings to walk over to them as well.