The Handbook to Handling His Lordship (17 page)

“I’m a killer.” An aroused one, he thought, laying out the blanket and sitting cross-legged beside the basket to pull off his shoes and shake out the left one. The damned button fell into his hand, and he tossed it over his shoulder.

“And I’m not terribly reassured. And I’m only washing my dress; not seducing you.”

“You already seduced me.” Nathaniel shrugged out of his jacket and dropped it across from him. “Here.”

“No, I’d only planned to befuddle you. But then you kissed me, and…” Her cheeks darkened. “You kiss very well.”

“Thank you.”

Once she’d laid her dress across the boulder to dry she took a seat on the blanket and pulled his jacket on over her naked form. It was too big for her and did a splendid job of covering her from the hips up, but her long legs folded to one side, drawing his gaze and his attention. “And thank you,” she said, and reached for the glass of Madeira he poured her. “You say you’re a killer the way some people would say they had some tea.”

“I’ve had time to reconcile myself to the truth.” He pulled a plate free from the basket and lifted off the cloth wrapped around it. She’d been correct about the meal; a dozen triangular cucumber sandwiches were artfully arranged across the porcelain. Taking one, he handed them over and watched as she daintily consumed one of the delicate little morsels. “Tell me what happened with Lady Ebberling.”

“You know it’ll be my word against his,” she returned, sipping at her Madeira. “It doesn’t mean anything. Except that you’ll be even deeper in this mess than you are at this moment.”

That seemed to be secondary to learning what had transpired and whether he could help her. “Just tell me. And what should I call you?”

“Portsman works as well as anything else. I’m accustomed to the name. And I don’t want you or me mistakenly calling me something else.”

“Then tell me, Portsman. Don’t leave anything out.”

Her shoulders rose and fell, the movement opening his jacket and revealing a tantalizing partial view of her round, soft breasts. “Very well. I applied for the governess position at Ebberling, and Katherine—Lady Ebberling—hired me on the spot. She said she took an immediate liking to me, but I think the marquis had been … driving governesses away. He was very demanding and particular about who was looking after his son.”

“It wasn’t about sexual advances?” he asked, well past the point of cynicism.

“No. Not with me, anyway. I don’t know about the previous ones. He told me I was pretty several times, but he never attempted to visit my room.”

“Hm. I’m surprised.”

“So was I, actually. He did have a very bad temper, and there were a few occasions when he was cruel simply because he could be, but mostly he was fairly easy to avoid, and I was happy to be employed.”

Abruptly he remembered his conversation with young George, about the first time he’d seen Rachel Newbury cry. She must have been
very
happy to be employed, if someone with her spirit could be brought to tears and not either leave her employer’s service or level him. “Was he affectionate toward his wife and son?”

“‘Affectionate’?” she repeated, lifting an eyebrow. “He killed his wife.”

“I mean, was it a moment of rage, or…”

“Ah. Before that day, then, I would have said that he seemed as devoted to Katherine as any man might be to his wife.”

“Devoted as any man? That’s a rather large canopy,” he interrupted.

“I wasn’t that interested in discovering the whispers and cracks of the household,” she returned, glancing down at the half-empty glass of Madeira. “I was happy to be employed, and Katherine and her son were both very pleasant to me. We went along well for nearly three years.”

He wondered again what had made her so content simply to have employment, and whether it had anything to do with the Lady Sebret reference on her resume. That could wait for another time, however. She didn’t trust him, and she didn’t have much reason to do so. Hell, sometimes he didn’t trust himself.

“Until…” he prompted.

“Until one morning George decided he would rather stay inside and play with his toy soldiers and frogs than go for our daily walk. It was a bit brisk, so I agreed and set Mrs. Hanworth the housekeeper to keep an eye on him while I went out.” She sighed. “I used to love to go walking.”

Walking. She hadn’t done much of that for three years, Nathaniel knew, hidden inside the walls of The Tantalus Club. The run for her life today hardly counted against that. “What did you see?”

She blew out her breath. “You’re assuming that I trust you, or that I think you can do something to assist me.”

“I could remind you that we’re here, alone, chatting over luncheon rather than on our way to Velton House and Lord Ebberling.”

“Simply because I’m free at the moment doesn’t mean I will remain that way. You’re a spy. How do I know you’re not simply attempting to ferret out how much I saw and precisely what I know before you drag me off to him? After all, it would still come down to my word against Ebberling’s, with us each accusing the other. In that battle, he wins.” She selected a peach and bit into it. “I’m safer keeping my own confidences.”

Nate reflected that he’d had easier chats with men who hated him. Whatever had happened to her at Ebberling Manor, he didn’t think it had been the first time she’d paid a price for something not of her own doing. Everything about her said she trusted no one but herself, and that she had learned that lesson through experience.

“I
used
to be a spy,” he said slowly. Perhaps a secret for a secret would convince her to confide in him. And for the moment he refused to ruminate over why he’d decided he could trust her when he didn’t trust anyone. “A little over two years ago my cousin drowned, and as his heir I abruptly became too valuable to risk in the field. Or so Wellington informed me, on the day he handed me my papers and told me to go be an earl.” He frowned at his ridiculously small sandwich. “I don’t like being an earl. I know too many things about these hypocrites and fools to be comfortable with smiling at them and dancing with their daughters.”

“And your brother? Why not give him the title?”

“Because he was sixteen when I inherited, and the last thing my mother said before she died was that I was to look after him better than I’d been seeing to myself.” He hadn’t actually had that conversation with his mother; he’d been in Belgium when she’d become sick. A solicitor and Laurie had been the witnesses, and it had been the solicitor who’d sent him the letter with her last words. He’d ignored them for nearly a year, until Gerard went and drowned himself.

“If you’re no longer a spy, why are you taking money from Ebberling to find me?”

“Because being a spy is all I know, and I can’t abide sitting about smoking cigars and chatting about who might win the Derby. I overheard Lady Trumble say she’d misplaced one of her uncle’s paintings, and that she needed to find it before his visit. It was a Gainsborough, easily identified, and on a whim I tracked it down and retrieved it for her. She didn’t trust the kindness of my heart, however, and insisted on paying me a hundred pounds for doing the favor. They all insist on paying me. To buy my silence and my discretion, I suppose.”

“Then you went to Ebberling and told him you would find Rachel Newbury because you’re bored with being an earl,” she commented, lifting her gaze to meet his before she looked away again.

“He came to me. And he hadn’t seen or heard a trace of you for three years. It seemed like a challenge, so I accepted.”

“And what is your intention now? To tell him that you couldn’t find me, after all? To say you had me and then lost me again? You don’t seem the sort to enjoy admitting to failure, Westfall.”

She was correct about that. He detested failure, and even more, having to admit to it. But this was different. She wasn’t a painting or a necklace or even a long-lost heiress with a large supply of wealth waiting for her. She was Portsman, and he liked her.
Him.
The fellow who could generally assess any companion’s lies and shortcomings and failures within two minutes of beginning a conversation with him or her.

“No answer?” she prompted. “Then I think this conversation is over.”

If he allowed that, he would never learn precisely what had happened. And he would never know what came next in this odd, adversarial … friendship, he supposed it was. “I’ll make you an agreement,” he said aloud.

Her brow furrowed. “What sort of agreement?”

“A truth for a truth, a secret for a secret, until you feel that you hold enough of my life in your hands to trust me with yours.” Laurie would be howling with laughter—or annoyance—to hear such a thing, since he’d told his brother almost nothing of his life in Europe. But he wanted to preserve that sense of innocence Laurence still managed to keep about himself, and Portsman had lost hers long ago. And it would be nice to have someone in whom to confide—if he could trust her.

It would be a dance, certainly. They both knew the steps, but not where it would end. And apprehensive as it left him, he also found it exciting, and interesting. And arousing. If she agreed to it.

“Well?” he prompted after a moment.

Emily cleared her throat. “I’d like a bit of time to consider.”

Damnation. “Very well. I can’t fault you for that.”

“Yes, well, that said, I don’t mind spending a bit more time in your company. But if you lie to me from this moment on about anything—your spectacles, your limp, anything—any agreement between us is over.”

He stuck out his hand just as she had earlier. “Agreed.”

She gripped his fingers and shook. “Agreed.”

Emily knew she’d been lucky. If Westfall had been determined to turn her over to Ebberling, she wasn’t certain she could have gotten away from him. Not without killing him, anyway—and she was beginning to realize that the Earl of Westfall was quite a bit more formidable than she’d first thought.

By agreeing to his little exercise in secret-sharing she’d earned herself a little more time, but for what? Once he returned her to the Tantalus she could gather up her things, ask Lord Haybury for the money he’d invested on her behalf, and go. If she could make it to Brighton and purchase passage on a ship, Ebberling would never find her in America. She glanced again at Nathaniel as he sat cross-legged opposite her. Ebberling might not have any idea how to hunt her down, but she couldn’t say the same thing about this man eating luncheon with her.

And then there was that odd thought she’d had when she shook his hand, that it would be pleasant to be able to trust someone. That in a perfect world Nate Stokes would heroically work to defend her, to protect her from Ebberling, that he would prove to be as gifted in gentlemanliness as he was in looks. But experience told her that was just foolishness.

“Has Ebberling sent anyone else after you?” he asked, momentarily interrupting the birdsongs and frog chirps coming from the stream and the woods beyond.

“I don’t know. I thought he would, but everything’s been so peaceful until now that I’d begun to think he’d convinced himself I was already dead or some such thing.” She tilted her head. “Did he give you a reason for hiring you now?”

“He’s remarrying.”

Dismay ran through her. “The poor girl.” Somehow, she’d never considered that, never thought that once a man murdered his own wife he would go seeking another one. It made sense that he would begin his search for her anew now, though. His marriage would be in the newspapers, in the Society pages, on the tongues of every wag in England. If she ever meant to emerge from the shadows, it would be now.

Did she mean to emerge, though? It could cost her her own life, or her freedom. After all, she still wasn’t entirely certain she could trust the man currently studying her face. And Ebberling might have hired more than simply one man. If she stayed hidden, though, and if something happened to Ebberling’s new wife, it would be her fault.

“You feel guilty,” he stated. “For the first wife, or the possible fate of the second one?”

“I liked it better when I thought you needed spectacles,” she returned, shifting. “You didn’t seem as keen-eyed then.”

“That was the idea.” Light green eyes lowered to take in his oversized jacket pulled over her breasts. “Did he threaten to kill you?”

“I didn’t give him the chance. Why?”

“Because you don’t strike me as a chit who turns tail, is all. Of course his butler and half the staff said you were a pointy-nosed, high-in-the-instep snob, and I don’t see that, either.”

He’d spoken to Ebberling’s staff. A shiver ran down her spine despite the warm jacket that smelled of him and leather and the warm, sunny day about them. “I was … overly proud back then, I suppose.”

He sighed, handsome as sin in his shirtsleeves and waistcoat, and more dangerous than the devil. “I thought we were being honest, Portsman.”

Emily scowled at him. “I find you annoying. I told you that I’m not discussing anything before my employment with Ebberling, so leave be.”

“I find you to be a conundrum,” he responded, emptying his glass and setting it aside. “I can’t seem to stop attempting to decipher you.”

“Well, stop it anyway. And you haven’t told me anything about yourself, Westfall. Tell me about the people you betrayed in the name of duty, why don’t you? That should help me decide whether I can trust you or not.”

Nathaniel rose up on his hands and knees, then reached out to grab one of her legs and pull her toward him. She flailed backward, but before she even realized it she was flat on her back, looking up at him looming over her. “I betrayed nearly everyone I ever met, all in the name of duty,” he said in a low, rumbling voice, reaching down to lay open the loose jacket covering her. “Since I left the service, it seems I’ve only betrayed one man’s trust.”

“Ebberling,” she whispered.

He lowered his head, taking a breast in his mouth, teasing at her nipple with lips and tongue and teeth. Emily gasped, tangling her hands into his disheveled brown hair and arching into him. Was this why she was still a free woman? Because he desired her? That seemed only fair, since she’d already half decided to tell him everything, and she couldn’t come up with a reason for wanting to do so other than the fact that she couldn’t push the feeling of his hands, his body, the weight of him, the color of his eyes or the sound of his voice from her thoughts. It was ridiculous and heady all at the same time.