A Lady of His Own

CHAPTER 8

CHARLES TRAPPED HER AGAINST HIM, CRUSHED HIS LIPS TO hers, surged into her mouth and laid claim.

It was the stupidest thing he could have done, an approach doomed to fail before he’d begun. He knew it, and couldn’t stop. Couldn’t rein in the primal instinct that had slipped its leash, that insisted he should simply claim her and be done with it. That if he did he’d be able to command her, to impose his will on her and keep her safe.

The compulsive, driving need to keep her safe, given teeth and claws by the discoveries of the past days, was more than powerful enough to make him lose his head.

Penny’s defenses vaporized beneath his onslaught, beneath that hard, fast, scorching kiss-hard enough to knock her wits from her head, fast enough to send them whirling. Scorching enough to cinder any resistance.

It was totally unfair. That he could so simply stop her thoughts, capture her awareness so utterly…

His arms locked around her and he pulled her flush against him. Heat to burning heat, breasts to chest, hips to hard thighs.

She gasped through the kiss, burned, ached. Any second, the last shred of her will would catch alight, and she’d be swept away. She gave up the fight to think, and just reacted. Raising both hands, she grabbed his head, speared her fingers through the silky tumble of his black locks, and gripped.

And kissed him back.

Poured every ounce of her frustrated emotions into the act. Pressed her lips to his, mouth to mouth, sent her tongue to tangle with his in a wild, pagan, wholly uninhibited dance.

And for the first time in their lives, in this arena, she knew she’d shocked him. Rocked him enough to have him hesitate, then scramble to follow her lead, to regain the reins, to wrest control back again.

She didn’t want to give it up.

In seconds, the exchange became a heated duel; initially, she held the upper hand. They were more evenly matched than they had been years ago, yet he was still a master and she a mere apprentice. Step by step, inch by inch, he reclaimed the ascendancy, reclaimed her senses. Dragged each down into a languorous sea of wanting. Of needing. Of having to have more.

She felt his arms ease, and his hands slide down, over her back, down over her hips to grip her bottom; he drew her closer still, molding her to him, suggestively provoking, evoking again that never-forgotten heat.

He rocked against her, and the heat spread. Wildfire down her veins, blossoming beneath her skin. Melting her bones, sapping her will…

Deliberately, she dropped her guard, let everything she’d held back, all that had grown, all that had been pent-up for thirteen years with nowhere to go, well and pour through her. Held him to the kiss and let it pour into him.

And felt him pause, then shudder. Felt the change in him, muscles tensing, locking, steeling against the tide.

She gloried, exulted-and sent the tide raging. She wanted so much more than he’d ever offered to give, and for once he was, if not helpless, then uncertain.

Charles couldn’t find solid ground. She’d cut it from under him; the only thing his senses could find that was real was her, and the desire that flamed between them, hotter, more powerful, more intense, frighteningly more potent than it had been before-so much more than he’d ever felt before. It-she-was passion and desire, heat and longing incarnate in a dimension he’d never before explored. She’d rocketed them into it, then set them both adrift…he had no idea how to return to the real world.

And no real wish to do so.

She was fuel to his fire; he needed her under his hands, under him. At that moment, he needed to be inside her more than he needed to breathe.

But not here.

The warning came in a fleeting instant of lucidity; this was madness and he knew it. But he couldn’t stop; he was helpless to draw back from her.

She pressed closer, arms twining about his neck; he couldn’t resist her lure, couldn’t resist slanting his mouth over hers and taking the kiss deeper. Whirling them both into deeper waters yet, to where the currents ran strong, to where the tug of desire became a tangible force, pulling them under.

She wasn’t safe, and neither was he.

He raised his hands to her breasts, closed them and kneaded, then sent them racing, covetously tracing the sleek planes of her back, the globes of her bottom, the long sweeps of her thighs. He felt her breath hitch; he wanted her naked under his hands, under his mouth, now.

But not HERE!

Some remnant of his mind screamed the words, battling to remind him…they had to stop. Now. Before-

She framed his face again, pressed an incendiary kiss on his ravening lips-then abruptly pulled back and broke the kiss.

Thank God! Eyes closed, he hauled in a ragged breath, then opened his eyes.

Gasping, panting, holding his face between her hands, she stared at him; eyes wide, through the moon-washed dimness she searched his. They were both reeling. Both fighting to breathe, both struggling desperately to regain their wits, and some measure of control.

To hold against the fiery tide that surged around them.

Never in his life had he felt so swept away, been so helpless in the face of something stronger than he. Something beyond his will to contain or restrain.

He was acutely conscious of her slender body wrapped in his arms, plastered against the much harder length of his.

She was, too.

He saw her eyes widen, simultaneously saw her grasp on her wits firm.

She hauled in a huge breath, then pushed back in his arms.

“That”-her voice shook, but, eyes locked with his, she went on-“is why I’m leaving for Wallingham in the morning.”

He couldn’t argue. The last ten minutes had amply demonstrated how desperately urgent and necessary it was that she quit his roof.

She wrenched away-had to-he couldn’t, yet, get his arms to willingly let her go. He had to battle just to let her step away, to force himself to lose the feel of her body against his and not react-not grab her and pull her back.

Watching him, still struggling to breathe, she seemed to sense his fraught state; she swung on her heel and walked, albeit unsteadily, away.

He watched her go, watched her turn into the corridor; unmoving in the shadows, he listened to her footsteps fade, then heard the distant thud of her bedchamber door. Only then did he manage to drag in a full breath, to fill his chest, to feel some semblance of sanity return.

Never before had he felt like that, not with any other woman, not even with her long ago.

Eventually, when the thunder in his veins had subsided enough for him to hear himself think, he stirred, his body once more his own. Nevertheless, his strongest impulse was to follow her to her room. To her bed, or anywhere else she wished.

With one soft, succinct curse, he turned and headed for his apartments.

Tomorrow she’d be at Wallingham.

Tomorrow, thank God, would be another day.

Despite her earnest expectations, Penny wasn’t ready to leave the Abbey until late the next morning.

She’d had difficulty falling asleep, then had slept in. She had breakfast on a tray in her room the better to avoid Charles.

Her behavior the previous night had been a revelation. Until she’d lost her temper and stopped holding everything back, she hadn’t appreciated just how much she’d been concealing, bottled up inside her. Until that moment, she hadn’t fully understood how much she still felt for him, or more specifically the nature of what she felt for him.

That last had been a revelation indeed.

It was more, far more in every way, than before, and now he was home, spending more time close to her than he ever had, her feelings only seemed to be growing, burgeoning and extending in ways she hadn’t foreseen.

On the one hand she was appalled, on the other…fascinated.

Just as well she was going back to Wallingham.

Crunching on her toast, she replayed that last interlude; she couldn’t tell whether he’d seen what she had. In the past, he hadn’t been at all perceptive where she was concerned; she hoped and suspected that would still be the case. For all she knew, women habitually threw themselves at him; if he hadn’t realized that with her, such an act meant a great deal more, well and good. Bringing her unexpected feelings to his attention was the last thing she needed. That his attention in a sexual sense had fixed on her anyway was no surprise. It always had; it seemed it always would.

Her thoughts circled to her principal reason for returning to Wallingham-Nicholas, the investigation, and now Gimby’s murder. Her determination to do her part was set in stone; sober, committed, she drained her teacup and rose to dress.

It was only as she left her room properly gowned in her riding habit that she recalled Charles had planned to go that morning to report Gimby’s death to Lord Culver, the nearest magistrate. If she hurried, she might get away before he returned.

She whisked through the gallery and was pattering down the stairs before she looked ahead.

Charles stood in the center of the hall watching her rapid descent. She slowed. He was dressed in riding jacket, breeches, and boots; his hair was windblown, as if he’d just come in. So much for an easy escape.

He dismissed Filchett, with whom he’d been talking, and came to meet her as she stepped off the stairs. “Come into the library.”

Together they walked the few steps to the library door. He held it for her, and she went in, walking to one of the chairs before the fire. She turned and coolly faced him. She doubted he’d mention their interlude last night. If he didn’t, she certainly wouldn’t; the less he dwelled on it, the better.

When he waved her to sit, she did. He took the chair opposite.

“I’ve seen Culver. He’ll do all that’s necessary, but the crux of the matter-the reason behind Gimby’s death-is the subject of my investigation, so beyond managing the formalities, Culver won’t be further involved.”

Charles locked gazes with Penny. “I’ve sent a messenger to London with a report of Gimby’s death and a request that the possibility of the traffic through here being incoming rather than outgoing be thoroughly checked.”

Something flickered behind her eyes. “You don’t believe it was.”

“I don’t at this stage know what to believe. I’ve been in this business too long to jump to conclusions that may not prove warranted.”

One fine brow arched, but she made no reply. Her face was a calm mask; he could read nothing in it, certainly nothing about how she felt about last night. “Have you reconsidered your decision to return to Wallingham?”

She shook her head; her lips set in a determined line. “It’s my family that’s involved. Even Nicholas is a relative, albeit distant. It’s only right I do all I can…” She gestured and let her words trail away.

“Uncovering the truth is my mission, my job, not yours.” He kept his tone even, all aggressive instinct harnessed.

“Indeed, but I consider it obligatory that I do all I can to assist, and that means returning to Wallingham and watching Nicholas.”

He wasn’t going to sway her; he hadn’t thought he would, but had felt compelled to try. If anything, the night seemed to have hardened her resolve.

So be it.

“Very well. I’ll ride over with you. But before we go, tell me more of Nicholas. Does he have servants with him? Anyone who might be an accomplice?”

“No, he brought no one. He drove himself down.”

“Do you know anything about his life over the last decade? How long has he been at the Foreign Office?”

“I got the impression he’d started there quite young-he’s thirty-one now. Elaine spoke of him as following in his father’s footsteps-she made it sound like that had always been the case.”

He nodded. He’d asked Dalziel for a complete report on Nicholas, but hadn’t yet received it. After seeing the marks on Gimby’s body, he was looking for some indication that Nicholas had the necessary qualifications to inflict such finely honed damage. It wasn’t a skill acquired at Oxford, nor yet at the Foreign Office. So where, and when, had Nicholas, if it was he, learned the finer points of brutal interrogation?

With an inward sigh, he rose and waved her to the door. As he followed her, he murmured, “I’m not happy about your going back.”

Without glancing around at him, she answered, “I know.”

He walked with her to the stables. His meetings with Nicholas thus far had been equivocal; while he could view him as cold-blooded, he hadn’t seen him as a killer, as the sort of man who could execute another. None knew better than he that such men didn’t conform to any particular style, yet if he’d had to guess…but he couldn’t afford to guess, not with Penny going back to Wallingham, back under the same roof as Nicholas.

He’d thought long and hard about summoning his mother or Elaine back from London, but he knew all too well what would happen. The whole gaggle-his sisters, her half sisters, his sisters-in-law-would come jauntering home to see what was going on, ready to help. The prospect was horrifying.

Gimby’s death had confirmed beyond doubt that there was some treasonous scheme to be uncovered, one involving persons still alive. Indeed, the killer’s appearance only emphasized the necessity of bringing the whole to a rapid end, of exposing the scheme and cleaning the slate.

Penny returning to Wallingham was, unfortunately, the fastest way to that rapid end. He didn’t have to approve or like it, but there was plenty he could and intended to do to ease his mind.

Their horses were waiting; he lifted her to her saddle, noting as he subsequently swung up to Domino’s back that she no longer reacted so skittishly to his nearness-her senses still leapt, but she was once more growing accustomed to his touch. Well and good. Step by small step.

They rode across his fields, eschewing conversation and the lanes to jump the low hedges, then thunder over the turf. The wind off the Channel was fresh, faintly warm; it blew in their faces, ruffled their horses’ manes. After crossing the river, they followed the low escarpment, descending to the fields only when in sight of Wallingham Hall.

Riding into the stables, he dismounted and lifted Penny down, then watched as she told the stablemen and grooms that she was home to stay. They were patently glad she was back. He surmised Nicholas hadn’t won them over, something he did with a few well-placed queries and a joke. They grinned, bobbed their heads deferentially, but they remembered him well; he strolled to the house beside Penny, confident they would be his to command should the need arise.

“Was Nicholas’s mount in the stables?”

“His pair were there. He’s been riding Granville’s hacks-all of them were there, too.”

“So he’s at home. I wonder what he’s up to?”

Ransacking the library was the answer. After sweeping into the house and informing the housekeeper, Mrs. Figgs, and the butler, Norris, that she was home to stay, Penny, on being informed Lord Arbry was in the library, waved Norris away, crossed the hall to the library’s double doors, set them wide, and walked in.

“Ah! There you are, Nicholas.” She smiled at Nicholas, scrambling, faintly flushed, to his feet. He’d been sitting on the floor, clearly working his way through the large tomes on the shelf from which Penny had removed the book of maps. Various books on the locality lay open around him.

Recovering, Nicholas stepped forward, away from the books, which he ignored. “Penelope.” His gaze went past her to Charles, watching from the doorway; his expression drained. “Lostwithiel.”

“Arbry.” Charles returned Nicholas’s nod. Shutting the doors, he followed Penny into the room.

Nicholas looked from him to Penny, uncertain whom to address. He settled on Penny. “To what do I owe this visit?” He attempted to make the question jocularly light, but failed; it was patently clear he wished them elsewhere.

With a brilliant smile, Penny swung her heavy skirts about and sank gracefully into a chair before the fireplace. “I just came to tell you this isn’t a visit. Charles’s Cousin Emily’s sister has taken poorly, so Emily has gone north to be with her. She left this morning, so here I am”-she spread her arms-“returning to my ancestral home.”

Nicholas studied her, then frowned. “I thought…”

“That my residing here while you, too, are in residence is inappropriate?” Penny’s smile turned understanding. “Indeed, and with the Abbey so close, my second home, and with Cousin Emily there, it seemed wise not to give even the highest stickler cause to whisper. However.”

She looked at Charles; a faint smile curving her lips, she returned her gaze to Nicholas. “As Charles pointed out, residing under my ancestral roof with a distant relative is far more acceptable than residing under his roof with only him for company. That, even the least censorious would find difficult to countenance.”

They hadn’t discussed how to explain her return to Nicholas; Charles watched, more wryly amused than she could know as she airily, with quite spurious ingenuousness, informed Nicholas that sharing a roof with him was indisputably the lesser of two evils.

All he had to do to lend her story credence was to meet Nicholas’s eyes, and smile.

Nicholas considered his smile for only a second, then swallowed Penny’s story whole. Facing her, he manufactured a smile. “I see. Of course, in the circumstances, I’m happy to have you home again. Perhaps you could speak with Mrs. Figgs. She had a number of questions that I’m afraid I had no notion of. I’m sure she’ll be glad to have your hand on the tiller again.”

Penny rose. “Yes, of course. I’ll go and see her now, and I must change before luncheon.”

She looked at Charles. He’d turned to view the jumble of books Nicholas had been studying. “Learning the local lore, or were you looking for something specific?” He glanced at Nicholas. “Perhaps I could help?”

His gaze on the books, Nicholas hesitated, then said, “It was more by way of learning the local history.” He looked at Charles. “I understand there’s a tradition in these parts of preying on the French from the sea.”

Charles grinned, relaxed, unthreatening. “There’s the Fowey Gallants, of course-historical and contemporary. Have you come across them yet?”

“Only in the books.” Nicholas took the bait. “Are they still in existence?”

“I’ll leave you two to your discussions.” Penny picked up her trailing habit; already intent on furthering their quite different aims, the pair accorded her no more than vague nods as she turned away. Leaving the library, she inwardly shook her head. If Nicholas wasn’t careful, he’d soon be thinking the big bad wolf with the very sharp teeth was his very best friend.

She returned to the library an hour later, with luncheon shortly to be served. Garbed in a round gown of soft gray-perfect for the excursion she planned for later that afternoon-she walked in on a scene that had subtly altered.

It wasn’t just that Charles was now seated, elegantly relaxed in the chair before the fireplace, holding forth, or that Nicholas was leaning against the front edge of the library desk, hanging on Charles’s every word. No. Something had happened while she’d been out of the room. She knew it the instant they both looked at her.

Charles smiled, and a tingle ran from her crown to her heels, leaving all places between alert, on edge. Tensing. Slowly, employing to the full that ridiculous extreme of languid grace he possessed, he uncrossed his long legs and stood.

Nicholas looked from her to Charles and back again, a hint of concern in his eyes. “Ah…Charles explained your…understanding.”

She blinked. Managed not to parrot, Understanding?

“Mmm,” Charles purred, strolling toward her. His sensuality, not this time menacing so much as enveloping, was unrestrained, a tangible force, a current carried on thin air, reaching for her, wrapping about her. “Given you’re now fixed here, and he’ll therefore no doubt see us together, I didn’t want Arbry getting the wrong idea.”

His eyes had locked on hers; reading all that glittered in the deep dark blue, she saw not just satisfaction at the consummate mastery with which he’d exploited the situation, making Nicholas feel that he had no real interest in him, but also a devilish glint she’d seen often enough in the eyes of a wild and reckless youth. “I see.”

His long lips lifted; he smiled into her eyes. “I felt sure you would.”

Halting beside her, he reached for her hand, lifted it to his lips.

Eyes locked on hers, he kissed.

Damn, he was good. She was distantly aware that Nicholas was watching, yet was far more aware of the compulsion drawing her to Charles, weakening her resistance, making her wish to lean into him, to lift her face and offer her lips…the clearing of a throat behind her broke the spell.

“Luncheon is served, my lady, my lords.”

Thank heaven! She managed to half turn and acknowledge Norris. Charles lightly squeezed her fingers, then set her hand on his sleeve.

He turned her to the door, glancing back at Nicholas. “Shall we?”

Luncheon had been set out in the small dining parlor overlooking the back garden. Charles seated her at the round table, then took the chair on her left; Nicholas claimed the one on her right.

Under cover of the conversation-about horses, local industries, the local crops-the casual conversation any two landowners might exchange, she tried to imagine what “understanding” Charles had revealed to Nicholas.

The basic element was easy to guess, but just how far had he gone? Having glimpsed that glint in his eye, she was longing to get him alone and wring the truth from him. And most likely, knowing him, berate him after that. She spent most of the meal planning for that last.

In between, she watched Nicholas. Even though he was distracted by Charles’s glib facade, still wary yet not sure how wary he needed to be, there remained an essential reserve, a nervous watchfulness that didn’t bode well for a guilt-free conscience.

Was she sitting beside a murderer?

She lowered her gaze to Nicholas’s hands. Quite decent hands as men’s hands went, passably well manicured, yet they didn’t seem menacing.

Glancing to her left, she reflected that if she had to judge the murderer purely on the basis of hands, Charles would be her guess.

She’d seen Gimby’s body, still felt a chill as the vision swam into her mind. Yet she couldn’t seem to fix the revulsion she felt certain she would feel for whoever had slain Gimby on Nicholas.

Then again, as Charles had pointed out, an accomplice might have committed the actual deed, someone they didn’t yet know about.

She was making a mental note to check with Cook and Figgs to make sure there were no food or supplies mysteriously vanishing-she knew how easy it was to move about any big house at night-when the men finally laid down their napkins and stood.

Rising, too, she fixed a smile on her lips and extended her hand to Charles. “Thank you for seeing me home.”

Taking her hand, faintly smiling, he met her eyes. “I thought you wanted to go into Fowey?”

She stared into his dark blue eyes. How the devil had he known?

Smile deepening-she was quite sure he could read her mind at that moment-he went on, “I’ll drive you in.” His tone altered fractionally, enough for her to catch his warning. “You shouldn’t go wandering the town alone.”

Not only had he guessed where she was going, but why.

Nicholas cleared his throat. “Thank you, Lostwithiel-now Penelope is living here, I confess I’d feel happier if she had your escort.”

She turned to stare at Nicholas. Had he run mad? She was no pensioner of his that he need be concerned. She drew breath.

Charles pinched her fingers-hard.

She swung back to him, incensed, but he was nodding, urbanely, to Nicholas.“Indeed. We’ll be back long before dinner.”

“Good. Good. I must get back to the accounts. If you’ll excuse me?”

With a brief bow, Nicholas escaped.

Penny watched him depart; the instant he cleared the doorway she swung to face Charles-

“Not yet.” He turned her to the hall. “Get your cloak, and let’s get out of here.”

In the past, she’d been quite successful at bottling up the feelings he provoked; now…it was as if letting loose one set of feelings had weakened her ability to hold back any others. By the time she’d gone upstairs, fetched her cloak, descended to where he waited in the hall, nose in the air allowed him to swing the cloak over her shoulders, then take her arm and escort her outside, she was steaming.

“What in all Hades did you tell him?”

The question came out as a muted shriek.

Charles looked at her, his expression mild, unperturbed; he knew perfectly well why she was exercised but clearly believed himself on firm ground. “Just enough to smooth our way.”

“What?”

He looked ahead. “I told him we had an understanding of sorts. Recently developed and still developing, but with its roots buried in the dim distant past.”

She stopped dead. Stared, aghast and flabbergasted, at him. “You didn’t tell him?”

“Tell him what?”

His clipped accents, the look in his eyes, warned her not to pursue that tack; he’d never breathed a word of their past to anyone, any more than she had.

She found her voice. “We have Lady Trescowthick’s party tonight. He’s invited. What happens when he mentions our ‘understanding’?”

He shook his head, caught her hand and drew her on. “I told him it’s a secret. So secret even our families have yet to hear of it.”

“And he believed you?”

He glanced briefly at her. “What’s so strange about that?” Looking ahead, he went on, “I’ve recently returned from the wars to assume an inheritance and responsibilities I never thought would be mine. I accept I need to marry, but have little time for the marriage mart nor liking for chits with hay for wits, and here you are-a lady of my own class I’ve known for forever, and you’re still unmarried. Perfect.”

She didn’t like it, not one bit. Taking three quick strides, she got ahead of him and swung to face him, forcing him to halt.

So she could look him in the eye. Study those midnight blue eyes she couldn’t always read…they were unreadable now, but watching her. “Charles…”

She couldn’t think how to phrase it-how to warn him not to imagine…

He arched a brow. They were almost breast to chest. Without warning, he bent his head and brushed his lips, infinitely lightly, across hers.

“Fowey,” he breathed. “Remember?”

She closed her eyes, mentally cursed as familiar heat streaked down her spine, then jerked her eyes open as, her hand locked in his, he towed her around and on.

“Come on.”

She let out an exasperated hiss. If he was going to be difficult, he would be, and there was nothing she could do to change that.

Granville’s curricle was waiting when they reached the stable yard, a pair of young blacks between the shafts. Charles lifted her up to the seat, then followed. She grabbed the rail as the curricle tipped with his weight, then he sat; she fussed with her skirts, helpless to prevent their thighs, hips, and shoulders from touching almost constantly.

It was not destined to be a comfortable drive.

Charles flicked the whip and expertly steered the pair down the drive. She paid no attention to the familiar scenery; instead, she revisited the scene in the library before luncheon, and luncheon, too, incorporating Nicholas’s belief in their “understanding”…Nicholas’s reactions still didn’t quite fit.

She drew in a tight breath. “You told him we were lovers.”

Eventually, Charles replied, “I didn’t actually say so.”

“But you led him to think it. Why?”

She glanced at him, but he kept his gaze on the horses.

“Because it was the most efficient way of convincing him that if he so much as reaches out a hand toward you, I’ll chop it off.”

Any other man and it would have sounded melodramatic. But she knew him, knew his voice-recognized the statement as cold hard fact. She’d seen the currents lurking beneath his surface, the menace, knew it was real; he was perfectly capable of being that violent.

Never to her, or indeed any woman. On her behalf, however…

She let out a long breath. “It’s one thing to protect me, but just remember-you don’t own me.”

“If I owned you, you would at this moment be locked in my apartments at the Abbey.”

“Well, you don’t, I’m not-you’ll just have to get used to it.”

Or do something to change the status quo. Charles kept his tongue still and steered the curricle down the road to Fowey.

They left the curricle at the Pelican and strolled down to the quay.

Penny scanned the harbor. “The fleet is out.”

“Not for long.” He nodded to the horizon. A flotilla of sails were drawing nearer. “They’re on their way in. We’ll have to hurry.”

He took her arm, and they turned up into the meaner lanes, eventually reaching Mother Gibbs’s door. He knocked. A minute later, the door cracked open, and Mother Gibbs peered out.

She was flabbergasted to see him, a point he saw Penny note.

“M’lord-Lady Penelope.” Mother Gibbs bobbed. “How can I help ye?”

Somewhat grimly he said, “I think we’d better talk inside.”

He didn’t want to cross the threshold himself, much less take Penny with him, but she’d already been there, alone; they didn’t have time to accommodate his sensibilities. Mother Gibbs would speak much more freely in her own house.

“Dead, you say?” Mother Gibbs plopped down on the rough stool by her kitchen table. “Mercy be!”

It was transparently the first she’d heard of Gimby’s death.

“Tell your sons,” he said. “There’s someone around who’s willing to kill if he believes anyone knows anything.”

“Here-it’s not that new lordling up at the Hall, is it?” Mother Gibbs looked from him to Penny. “The one you was asking after.” She looked back at Charles. “Dennis did mention this new bloke had been asking questions and they’d strung him along like…” She paled. “Mercy me-I’ll tell ’em to stop that. He might think they really do know something.”

“Yes, tell them to stop hinting they know anything, but we don’t know that it was Lord Arbry. Tell Dennis from me that it’s not safe to think it was him, in case it’s someone else altogether.”

He would have to speak to Dennis again, but not tonight. He refocused on Mother Gibbs. “Now, tell me everything you know about Gimby.”

She blinked at him. “I didn’t even know he was dead.”

“I don’t mean about his death, but when he was alive. What do you know of him?”

It was little enough, but tallied with what the old sailor had told them.

Penny asked after Nicholas; Mother Gibbs had little to add to her earlier report. “Been down Bodinnick way, he has, talking to the men there again, saying the same thing-that he’s in Granville’s place now and anyone asking for Granville should be sent to him.”

“All right.” He took a sovereign from his pocket and placed it on the table. “I want you to keep your ears open for anything anyone lets fall about Gimby or his father, and especially about anyone seen near his cottage recently, or anyone asking for him recently.”

Mother Gibbs nodded and reached for the sovereign. “I’ll tell me boys to do the same. Those Smollets might not have been sociable-like, but there was no ’arm in them that I ever saw. That Gimby didn’t deserve to have his throat cut, that’s fer certain.”

He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but said nothing to dampen Mother Gibbs’s rising zeal. “If you hear anything, no matter how insignificant it may seem, get Dennis to send word to me-he knows how.”

Mother Gibbs nodded, face set, chins wobbling. “Aye, I’ll do that.”

They left and walked quickly back to the harbor. They reached the quay to see the first of the boats nudging up to the stone wharf. Charles hesitated. If he’d been alone, he would have gone down to the wharf and lent a hand unloading the catch, and asked his questions under cover of the usual jokes and gibes, and later in the tavern. But he had Penny with him, and…

“Lady Trescowthick’s party, remember? She’s unlikely to approve of the odor of fresh mackerel.”

She’d leaned close, speaking over the raucous cries of the gulls. He glanced at her, met her eyes, then nodded toward the High Street. “Come on, then. Let’s head back.”

They did, driving along in the late afternoon with the sun slowly sinking in the west and the breeze flirting with wisps of Penny’s hair.

She sat in her corner of the curricle’s seat, and tried unsuccessfully to think of ways to further their investigation. Impossible; if she’d kept on her habit and ridden into Fowey, she might have been able to focus her mind. As it was, she’d very willingly unfocus it, suspend all thought, all awareness.

Being close to Charles for any length of time had always suborned her senses. She tried, kept trying, to tell herself she found his nearness uncomfortable…lies, all lies. She was good at them when it came to him.

The truth, one she’d known for years and still didn’t understand, couldn’t unquestioningly accept, was that, quite aside from the titillation of her senses, he made her feel comfortable in a way no other ever had. It was a feeling that reached deeper, that was more fundamental, that meant more than the merely sensual.

One word leapt to mind whenever she thought of him-strength. It was what she was most aware of in him, that when he was beside her, his strength was hers to command, or if she wished, she could simply lean on him, and he would be her strength and her shield. He’d protect her from anything, lift any and all burdens from her shoulders, perhaps laugh at her while he did and call her Squib, but yet he would do it-she could rely on him in that.

No other had been so constant, so unchanging and unwavering in his readiness to support and protect her. Not her father, not Granville. No one else.

Charles was the only man in her life she’d ever turned to, the only man, even now, she could imagine leaning on.

She sat back in the curricle, felt the breeze caress her cheeks. It seemed odd to be sitting next to him after all their years apart, and only now comprehend just how much she’d missed him.