Three Heroes (66 page)

“Ah, I see the drain too. What an interesting anatomical position for it.”

A laugh escaped her before she caught it, and their eyes met for a moment across a space both physical and temporal.

He looked away. “Where does it drain to?”

The tiled walls gave the room a slight resonance, and she felt that her pounding heart should be audible too. When he wasn’t looking at her, she was drinking in the details of him, of his manly beauty so unlike

—so like— the youth.

“Out of a gargoyle’s mouth,” she said, “and down on anyone who happens to be below.” She pointed to a gilded chain. “It’s polite to ring that bell first.”

He looked around at the mosaic walls, where even the stylized trees were subtly phallic and gave tantalizing glimpses of other lewd activities. “Did my dear departed relative use this facility much?”

“Now and then, I gather.”

“Alone?”

“I don’t think so. It is rather large for one.”

He looked at her, completely the earl. “I wish to move into these rooms, Mrs. Kerslake. I’m very fond of baths. See to it, if you please.”

She almost protested. Having him in the Saint George rooms was too close to the past, and she hated to think that he’d changed so much that he liked this lewd display.

But she said, “Of course, my lord.”

Whoever he was now, however, she didn’t want him sharing this bath. With Diddy, for example. As they left the room she tried to establish some rules. “I run this house in a respectable manner, my lord. I hope you will not use that bath in any lewd way.”

“Are you trying to dictate my conduct, Mrs. Kerslake?”

“I believe I have a right to concern myself with the welfare of the servants, my lord.”

“Ah, I see. But if I were to bring in ladies—or others—from outside to share my bath, you would have no objection?”

She met his eyes. “You would be exposing the servants to impropriety.”

“And they have not been so exposed before?”

‘Times have changed.“

“Have they?” He let it linger, then added, “And if I do not obey your dictates, Susan, you will do what?”

It was a neatly decisive blow.

The only possible retaliation was her resignation, but she couldn’t leave Crag Wyvern just yet.

At her silence, one brow rose. There was a hint of humor, a lot of triumph, but also speculation. She didn

’t want him thinking about why she needed to stay.

She headed for the door. “I believe your breakfast will be waiting, my lord.”

“I believe my breakfast will wait for me. There have to be some privileges of rank. Show me the late earl’

s rooms.”

She wanted so desperately to escape, but she wouldn’t simply be running from time spent with Con. She

’d be fleeing the dream-memory friend of her heart. Her first clumsily wonderful lover. The youth she’d deliberately hurt. The man he had become.

More urgently, she’d be fleeing the dragon, coiled, patient, and the embodiment of silver-eyed peril. With a horrified glance back at the huge picture she saw that though the color of the saint’s eyes was impossible to tell, the dragon’s eyes were silver-gray.

“Mrs. Kerslake?” he prompted with a hint of authority.

She gathered her wits. “As you wish, my lord. They are next door so the earl had easy access to the bath.”

She had to control her wretched reaction to him. If he felt anything at all for her it was anger. And yet...

and yet he’d admitted he’d come here for the same reason as she, and that there had been sweetness between them once....

She realized she’d almost walked past the first door to the Wyvern rooms, and stopped to unlock it. The key seemed to fight her about going into the lock, probably because Con was standing close beside her.

She could swear she felt the heat of his body. She could certainly detect a faint but recognizable smell.

She’d not thought people had such a powerful individual smell, but even though he’d bathed, there was something, something in the air that carried her straight back to a naked tangle on a hot beach, and a youthful, muscular chest she had nuzzled and kissed again and again.

Stop it!

The key jerked home and she turned it, then thrust the door open, blessing the stale, pungent air that swamped sweeter memories. These smells—herbal, chemical, and the lingering hint of vomit—were all of the old earl. She walked briskly to fling open the window.

“He died here?” Con asked, as if he could smell death. Perhaps a soldier could.

She turned to face him, safer now that the large desk and wide worktable lay between them. “Yes. The room’s been cleaned, of course, but otherwise left untouched. Some of these scrolls and books are valuable. Some of the ingredients, too.”

The walls were covered by mismatched shelves stuffed higgledy-piggledy with texts, jars, bottles, and pots.

“Only to another of his kind.” Con strolled over to inspect a shelf of glass bottles. “Was he pursuing alchemy or chemistry?”

“Alchemy, with a touch of sorcery thrown in.”

He turned to look at her. “Trying to turn lead into gold?”

“Trying to turn age into youth. He was seeking the secret of eternal life.”

“And he died at fifty from drinking his own nostrum. How ironic. We are generally a long-lived family, barring accidents. My father succumbed to influenza, my brother to a careless moment on the water. My grandfather was thrown from his horse at seventy, and had the misfortune to land on his head.”

For some reason she was clutching the windowsill behind her as if needing a tether to sanity. “He was afraid of death, and afraid of meeting his ancestor, the first earl.”

“Why?”

“He had no heir. He was the one to let the Dragonkiller’s line die out.”

“He should have married.”

She didn’t explain the mad earl’s ways. She couldn’t talk about things like that with Con.

He settled his hips against the desk, long, lean, hard, and still dueling with her. “How do you know so much about him? You only came here after Mrs. Lane left, didn’t you?”

She was reluctant to admit the truth, but it was common knowledge. “I was the earl’s assistant for three years before that.”

“Assistant?” he queried, and she could see he was thinking the worst.

“I copied old documents, did research, and found sources for his ingredients. I was a kind of secretary.”

“My, my, you were keen to become countess, weren’t you?”

She gripped the sill behind her more tightly. “I was his secretary, and I took the job because I wanted employment.”

“The manor threw you out?”

“Of course not. I preferred not to live on charity anymore.”

“And this was the only employment available?”

Why was she even trying to explain? But burdened by so many things she couldn’t explain away, she would try to avoid guilt over this.

“It was the only employment locally for someone like me. A Miss Kerslake of Kerslake Manor could hardly be hired for menial work, and the offspring of a smuggler and a whore is not desirable for polite occupation. The earl offered me the position, and I took it.”

“Did he offer your brother the position of estate manager, too?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

She hadn’t considered the question. “I assume my father suggested it.”

“And the earl did as Mel Clyst suggested?” A slight smile of disbelief touched his lips.

“They had an agreement.” After a moment, she added, “Smuggling, Con.”

“Ah.” He pushed off from the desk. “You can tell Captain Drake—I assume you know the current Captain Drake—that there will be no agreement.”

“Con—”

His sharp, angry look silenced her, but then the moment was broken by an outsider.

“Good Lord, what is this?”

Con’s secretary sauntered in like a spring breeze into a stale cavern. Lissome, she thought, with his light, lithe body and soft blond hair. But no angel. Every inch of him denied angel.

Snatched from an entirely different existence, for a moment she couldn’t remember his name. He smiled

—a speculative, knowing smile. “Racecombe de Vere, ma’am, at your service. My friends call me Race.

”

Susan dropped a curtsy. “Mr. de Vere.”

She realized then that she had never once curtsied to Con.

De Vere’s lips twitched and charming humor glinted in his eyes. He was a lady-killer, but he was having no effect on her except a slight irritation—and huge relief that he had interrupted.

“What is this weighty atmosphere I sense?” de Vere asked.

“Equal parts witchcraft and exasperation,” Con said. ‘This was the old earl’s lair. He was completely barmy, and killed himself with some brew that was supposed to give him eternal life.“

“Does he haunt the house?” de Vere asked, clearly thinking this a treat.

Con looked at Susan, so she said, “Not that anyone has noticed. Surprisingly, Crag Wyvern has no ghosts at all.”

“That’s because the torture chamber victims are made of wax.”

“Torture chamber!” declared de Vere, eyes bright. “Con, you best of good fellows. Let us go there immediately.”

“If you want to be stretched on the rack, we can do that later.” Con seized the younger man’s elbow and marched him to the door. “For the moment, I gather that breakfast is waiting.”

At the door, however, he looked back. “After breakfast I want a complete tour, Mrs. Kerslake, and most of your time throughout the day. Also, make sure your brother is available with the estate records.”

He didn’t wait for a response, which was as well, as she didn’t have one except a shiver that made her fold her arms and rub herself. Even when fighting, even when a third person had been present, they’d talked to each other in a ghostly reminiscence of past intimacy. As if they alone were real in an unreal world.

It was the other way around. The world was real and Susan Kerslake and Con Somerford were phantasms, ghosts of two young people from a summer so long ago, two people who no longer existed except in memory.

But ghosts could carry a potent aura. His friend had sensed it, and he was the sort to make trouble.

She had to get away.

How long would it take to hire a new housekeeper and make a dignified exit? Too long. Yet to flee was impossibly weak, and there still was the gold. She’d organized a complete cleaning of Crag Wyvern over the past few months and found nothing. The old earl’s hiding place must be obscure.

She left the room, locking it carefully, and went to her room to write a message to David. When he came up to see Con he could confirm that the run had been smooth. Then she would find a new housekeeper and make her escape, dignified or not.

Of course, where to go and what to do was another question entirely. Perhaps she should set off after her errant parents and head for the Antipodes!

As they went down a circular staircase, Race said, “I gather the lovely lady is out of bounds.”

Con hoped he hadn’t twitched. “Not particularly. As I said last night, you are free to woo her if it’s honorable wooing you have in mind.”

“Unlikely, but I might attempt an honorable flirtation if I’m not likely to feel your fist over it. She is the only good-looking woman in the place. The maid who brought my water was only one step more substantial than the skeleton in the corridor. This is a decidedly strange house.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Con said dryly, and crossed the courtyard to the breakfast room. He paused to look at the fountain statue. The dragon, as over endowed as Saint George, was about to have its way with the clearly unwilling, naked sacrifice. Around the rim of the basin was carved The Dragon and His Bride.

“I’ve never seen a dragon doing that with the traditional maiden before,” Race remarked. “Throws a whole new light on the story, doesn’t it?”

“I always thought Saint George’s lance was pretty suggestive, myself.”

“Especially the way pictures show him fondling it.”

Con laughed as he led the way through the open glass-paneled doors into the breakfast room. The furniture was the usual dark oak, but white walls lightened it, and the open doors to the garden were pleasant.

And he was laughing. He was suddenly grateful to Race for attaching himself to him and bringing laughter here.

“Remind me to show you the bath in my new rooms,” Con said as he sat down.

“The Chinese dragons too much for you?”

“The Saint George rooms have a very large, very interesting bath.”

“Ah. You and your baths. So what’s so special about this one?”

Con described it, and Race shook his head. “I’ve often wondered how those poor maidens felt about the price of rescue. I can think of a lot of heroes I’d not want to have to be grateful to. And what if the lady liked the dragon, and didn’t want to be rescued by a boring saint?”

The thin maid bustled in with a coffeepot in one hand and a chocolate pot in the other. “The rest won’t be long now, milord,” she gasped, and rushed out.

“Why would the lady choose the dragon?” Con poured himself coffee. “A hoard of jewels wouldn’t make up for being married to a monster.”

“Some women lust after monsters.”

“Then they deserve the monsters they get.”

Race’s eyes glinted with humor. “And those who choose saints deserve that fate, too?”

“Cynic.”

“I ask you, would you like to be married to a saint?”

For some reason, the image of Lady Anne Peckworth rose in Con’s mind. Saint was too strong a word, but she was gentle, kind, good, and devoted to practical charities to do with the education of children and the care of the old.

She was the woman he was probably going to marry. He’d certainly paid her enough attention in the past two months to give her reason to hope....

Two maids came in this time, blessedly interrupting his thoughts.

They unloaded laden trays onto the table. Neither maid was the one who’d come upon him naked. One was the skeleton, poor thing; the other was the older one from last night.

“Anything else, my lord?” the older one asked.

Con looked at the enormous amount of food on the table. “No, thank you. I think we can make do with this.”

The maids left and Con and Race shared a grin. “We could feed the regiment on this lot,” Race remarked, helping himself to a number of eggs and half the plate of ham.