The Lady Chosen

Chapter Fourteen

He’d insisted on escorting her home. Only their hands had touched; she’d been intensely grateful. He’d been watching her; she’d sensed his need, so flagrantly possessive, had appreciated the fact he’d reined it in—that he seemed to understand that she needed time to think, to absorb all he’d said, all she’d learned.

Not just of him, but of herself.

Love. If that was what he’d meant, it changed everything. He hadn’t said the word, yet standing close to him, she could feel it, whatever it was—not desire, not lust, but something much stronger. Something much finer.

If it was love that had grown between them, then walking away from him, from his proposal, was, perhaps, no longer an option. Walking away would be the coward’s way out.

The decision was hers. Not just her happiness but his, too, hinged on it.

With the house silent and still about her, the clock on the landing ticking through the small hours, she lay in her bed and forced herself to face the reason that had kept her from marriage.

It wasn’t an aversion—nothing so definite and absolute. An aversion she could have identified and assessed, convinced herself to set aside, or overcome.

Her problem lay deeper, it was much more intangible, yet all through the years time and again it had had her shying away from marriage.

And not just marriage.

Lying in her bed, staring up at the moon-washed ceiling, she listened to the telltale clicking on the polished boards outside her bedroom door as Henrietta stretched, then padded off downstairs to wander. The sound faded. No more distraction remained.

She drew breath, and forced herself to do what she had to. To take a long look at her life, to examine all the close friendships and relationships she’d not allowed to develop.

The only reason she’d ever considered marrying Mark Whorton was because she’d recognized from the first that she would never be close, emotionally close, to him. She would never have become to him what Heather, his wife, had—a woman dependent and happily so. He’d needed that, a dependent wife. Leonora had never been a candidate for supplying that need; she had simply not been capable of it.

Thanks be to all the gods he’d had the sense to, if not see the truth, then at least act on what he’d perceived to be a dissonance between them.

The same dissonance did not exist between her and Tristan. Something else did. Possibly love.

She had to face it—to face the fact that this time, with Tristan, she fitted the bill of his wife. Precisely, exactly, in every respect. He’d recognized it instinctively; he was the type of man accustomed to acting on his instincts—and he had.

He wouldn’t—didn’t—expect her to be dependent, to indeed change in any way. He wanted her for what she was—the woman she was and could be—not to fulfill some ideal, some erroneous vision, but because he knew she was right for him. He was in absolutely no danger of setting her on any pedestal; conversely, through all their interactions, she’d realized he was not just capable of but disposed to worshiping her absolutely.

Her—the real her—not some figment of his imagination.

The thought—the reality—was so deeply, gut-wrenchingly attractive…she wanted it, could not let it go. But to grasp it, she would have to accept the emotional closeness that, with Tristan, would be—already was—a foregone conclusion, a vital part of what bound them.

She had to face what had kept her from allowing such a closeness with anyone else.

It wasn’t easy going back through the years, forcing herself to strip away all the veils, all the facades she’d erected to hide and excuse the hurts. She hadn’t always been as she now was—strong, capable, not needing others. Back then, she hadn’t been self-sufficient, self-reliant, hadn’t emotionally been able to cope, not with everything, not by herself. She’d been just like any other young girl, needing a shoulder to cry on, needing warm arms to hold her, to reassure her.

Her mother had been her touchstone, always there, always understanding. But then, one summer day, her mother and father both had died.

She still remembered the coldness, the icy loss that had settled about her, locking her in its prison. She hadn’t been able to cry, had had no idea how to mourn, how to grieve. And there’d been no one to help her, no one who understood.

Her uncles and aunts—all the rest of the family—were older than her parents had been, and none had any children of their own. They’d patted her, praised her for being so brave; not one had glimpsed, had had any inkling of the anguish she’d hidden inside.

She’d kept hiding it; that was what had seemed expected of her. But every now and then, the burden had become too great, and she’d tried—tried—to find someone to understand, to help her find her way past it.

Humphrey had never understood; the staff at the house in Kent had no idea what was wrong with her.

No one had helped.

She’d learned to hide her need away. Step by step, incident by incident through the years of her girlhood, she’d learned not to ask help of anyone, not to open herself emotionally to anyone, not to trust any other person enough to ask for help—not to rely on them; if she didn’t, they couldn’t refuse her.

Couldn’t turn her away.

The connections slowly clarified in her mind.

Tristan, she knew, wouldn’t turn her away. Wouldn’t refuse her.

With him, she’d be safe.

All she had to do was find the courage to accept the emotional risk she’d spent the last fifteen years teaching herself never to take.

He called at noon the next day. She was arranging flowers in the garden hall; he found her there.

She nodded in greeting, conscious of his sharp gaze, of how closely he studied her before leaning his shoulder against the doorframe, only two feet away.

“Are you all right?”

“Yes.” She glanced at him, then looked back at her flowers. “You?”

After a moment, he said, “I’ve just come from next door. You’ll see more of us coming and going in future.”

She frowned. “How many of you are there?”

“Seven.”

“And you’re all ex-…Guards?”

He hesitated, then replied. “Yes.”

The idea intrigued. Before she could think of her next question, he stirred, shifted closer.

She was instantly aware of his nearness, of the flaring response that rushed through her. She turned her head and looked at him.

Met his gaze—fell into it.

Couldn’t look away. Could only stand there, her heart thudding, her pulse throbbing in her lips as he leaned slowly closer, then brushed an achingly incomplete kiss over her mouth.

“Have you made up your mind yet?”

He breathed the words over her hungry lips.

“No. I’m still thinking.”

He drew back enough to catch her eyes. “How much thinking does it take?”

The question broke the spell; she narrowed her eyes at him, then turned back to her flowers. “More than you know.”

He resettled against the doorframe, his gaze on her face. After a moment, he said, “So tell me.”

She pressed her lips tight, went to shake her head—then remembered all she’d thought of in the long watches of the night. She drew a deep breath, slowly let it out. Kept her eyes on the flowers. “It’s not a simple thing.”

He said nothing, just waited.

She had to draw another breath. “It’s been a long time since I…trusted anyone, anyone at all to…do things for me. To help me.” That had been one outcome, possibly the most outwardly obvious, of her shrinking from others.

“You came to me—asked for my help—when you saw the burglar at the bottom of your garden.”

Lips tight, she shook her head. “No. I came to you because you were my only way forward.”

“You saw me as a source of information?”

She nodded. “You did help, but I never asked you—you never offered, you simply gave. That”—she paused as it came clear in her mind, then went on—“that’s what’s been happening between us all along. I never asked for help—you simply gave it, and you’re strong enough that refusing was never a real option, and there seemed no reason to fight you given we were seeking the same end…”

Her voice quavered and she stopped.

He moved closer, took her hand.

His touch threatened to shatter her control, but then his thumb stroked; an indefinable warmth flooded her, soothed, reassured.

She lifted her head, dragged in a shaky breath.

He stepped closer yet, slid his arms around her, drew her back against him.

“Stop fighting it.” The words were dark, a sorceror’s command in her mind. “Stop fighting me.”

She sighed, long, deep; her body relaxed against the warm solid rock of his. “I’m trying. I will.” She pressed her head back, looked up over her shoulder. Met his hazel eyes. “But it won’t happen today.”

He gave her time. Reluctantly.

She spent her days trying to decipher Cedric’s journals, searching for any mention of secret formulae, or of work done in association with Carruthers. She’d discovered that the entries weren’t in any chronological order; on any given topic they were almost random—first in one book, then in another—linked, it seemed, by some unwritten code.

Her nights she spent in the ton, at balls and parties, always with Tristan by her side. His attention, fixed and unwavering, was noted by all; the few brave ladies who had attempted to distract him were given short shrift. Extremely short indeed. Thereafter, the ton settled to speculate on their wedding date.

That evening, as they strolled about Lady Court’s ballroom, she explained about Cedric’s journals.

Tristan frowned. “What Mountford’s after must be something to do with Cedric’s work. There seems nothing else in Number 14 that might account for this much interest.”

“How much interest?” She glanced at him. “What have you learned?”

“Mountford—I still don’t have a better name—is still about London. He’s been sighted, but keeps moving; I haven’t been able to catch up with him yet.”

She didn’t envy Mountford when he did. “Have you heard anything from Yorkshire.”

“Yes and no. From the solicitor’s files, we traced Carruthers’s principal heir—one Jonathon Martinbury. He’s a solicitor’s clerk in York. He recently completed his articles, and was known to have been planning to travel to London, presumably to celebrate.” He glanced at her, met her gaze. “It seems he received your letter, sent on from the solicitor in Harrogate, and brought his plans forward. He left on the mail coach two days later, but I’ve yet to locate him in town.”

She frowned. “How odd. I would have thought, if he’d altered his plans in response to my letter, he would have called.”

“Indeed, but one should never try to predict the priorities of young men. We don’t know why he’d decided to visit London in the first place.”

She grimaced. “True.”

No more was said that night. Ever since their talk in his study, and their subsequent exchange in the garden hall, Tristan had refrained from arranging to indulge their senses beyond what could be achieved in the ballrooms. Even there, they were both intensely aware of each other, not just on the physical plane; each touch, each sliding caress, each shared glance, only added to the hunger.

She could feel it crawling her nerves; she didn’t need to meet his often darkened eyes to know it rode him even harder.

But she had wanted time, and he gave her that.

One thing asked for—one thing received.

As she climbed the stairs to her bedroom that night, she acknowledged that, accepted it.

Once she was sunk in her bed, cozy and warm, returned to it.

She couldn’t hesitate for forever. Not even for another day. It wasn’t fair—not to him, not to her. She was toying with, tormenting, both of them. For no reason, not one that had relevance or power anymore.

Outside her door, Henrietta growled, then her nails scrabbled, clicked; the sound faded as the hound headed for the stairs. Leonora registered the fact, but distantly; she remained focused, undistracted.

Accept Tristan, or live without him.

Not a choice. Not for her. Not now.

She was going to take the chance—accept the risk and go forward.

The decision firmed in her mind; she waited, expecting some pulling back, some instinctive recoil, but if it was there, it was swamped beneath an upwelling tide of certainty. Of sureness.

Almost of joy.

It suddenly occurred to her that deciding to accept that inherent vulnerability was at least half the battle. Certainly for her.

She suddenly felt lighthearted, immediately started plotting how to tell Tristan of her decision—how to most appropriately break the news…

She had no idea how much time had passed when the realization that Henrietta had not returned to her position before her door slid into her mind.

That distracted her.

Henrietta often wandered the house at night, but never for long. She always returned to her favorite spot on the corridor rug outside Leonora’s door.

She wasn’t there now.

Leonora knew it even before, tugging her wrapper around her, she eased open her door and looked.

At empty space.

Faint light from the stairhead reached down the corridor; she hesitated, then, pulling her wrapper firmly about her, headed for the stairs.

She remembered Henrietta’s low growl before the hound had gone off. It might have been in response to a cat crossing the back garden. Then again…

What if Mountford was trying to break in again?

What if he harmed Henrietta?

Her heart leapt. She’d had the hound since she was a tiny scrap of fur; Henrietta was in truth her closest confidante, the silent recipient of hundreds of secrets.

Gliding wraithlike down the stairs, she told herself not to be silly. It would be a cat. There were lots of cats in Montrose Place. Maybe two cats, and that was why Henrietta hadn’t yet come back upstairs.

She reached the bottom of the main stairs and debated whether to light a candle. Belowstairs would be black; she might even stumble over Henrietta, who would expect her to see her.

Stopping by the side table at the back of the front hall, she used the tinderbox left there to strike a match and light one of the candles left waiting. Picking up the simple candlestick, she pushed through the green baize door.

Holding the candle high, she walked down the corridor. The walls leapt out at her as the candlelight touched them, but all seemed familiar, normal. Her slippers slapping on the cold tile, she passed the butler’s pantry and the housekeeper’s room, then came to the short flight of stairs leading down to the kitchens.

She paused and looked down. All below was inky black, except for patches of faint moonlight slanting in through the kitchen windows and through the small fanlight above the back door. In the diffuse light from the latter, she could just make out the shaggy outline of Henrietta; the hound was curled up against the corridor wall, her head on her paws.

“Henrietta?” Straining her eyes, Leonora peered down.

Henrietta didn’t move, didn’t twitch.

Something was wrong. Henrietta wasn’t that young. Greatly fearing the hound had suffered a seizure, Leonora grabbed up her trailing night rail and rushed down the stairs.

“Henriet—oh!”

She stopped on the last stair, mouth agape, face-to-face with the man who had stepped from the black shadows to meet her.

Candlelight flickered over his black-avised face; his lips curled in a snarl.

Pain exploded in the back of her skull. She dropped the candle, pitched forward as all light extinguished and everything went black.

For an instant, she thought it was simply the candle going out, then from a great distance she heard Henrietta start to howl. To bay. The most horrible, bloodcurdling sound in the world.

She tried to open her eyes and couldn’t.

Pain knifed through her head. The black intensified and dragged her down.

Returning to consciousness wasn’t pleasant. For some considerable time, she hung back, hovered in that land that was neither here nor there, while voices washed over her, concerned, some sharp with anger, others with fear.

Henrietta was there, at her side. The hound whined and licked her fingers. The rough caress drew her inexorably back, through the mists, into the real world.

She tried to open her eyes. Her lids were inordinately heavy; her lashes fluttered. Weakly, she raised a hand, and realized there was a wide bandage circling her head.

All talk abruptly ceased.

“She’s awake!”

That came from Harriet. Her maid rushed to her side, took her hand, patted it. “Don’t you fret. The doctor’s been, and he says you’ll be good as new in no time.”

Leaving her hand limp in Harriet’s clasp, she digested that.

“Are you all right, sis?”

Jeremy sounded strangely shaken; he seemed to be hovering close by. She was lying stretched out, her feet elevated higher than her head, on a chaise…she must be in the parlor.

A heavy hand awkwardly patted her knee. “Just rest, my dear,” Humphrey advised. “Heaven knows what the world is coming to, but…” His voice quavered and trailed away.

An instant later came a rough growl, “She’ll do better if you don’t crowd her.”

Tristan.

She opened her eyes, looked straight at him, standing beyond the end of the chaise.

His face was more rigidly set than she’d ever seen it; the cast of his patrician features screamed a warning to any who knew him.

His blazing eyes were warning enough to anyone at all.

She blinked. Didn’t shift her gaze. “What happened?”

“You were hit on the head.”

“That much I’d gathered.” She glanced at Henrietta;the hound pushed closer. “I went down to look for Henrietta. She’d gone downstairs but hadn’t come back. She usually does.”

“So you went after her.”

She looked back at Tristan. “I thought something might have happened. And it had.” She looked back at Henrietta, frowned. “She was by the back door, but she didn’t move…”

“She was drugged. Laudanum in port, trickled under the back door.”

She reached for Henrietta, palmed the shaggy face, looked into the bright brown eyes.

Tristan shifted. “She’s fully recovered—lucky for you, whoever it was didn’t use enough to do more than make her snooze.”

She dragged in a breath, winced when her head ached sharply. Looked again at Tristan. “It was Mountford. I came face-to-face with him at the bottom of the stairs.”

For one instant, she thought he would actually snarl; the violence she glimpsed in him, that flowed across his features was frightening. Even more so because part of that aggression was directed, quite definitely, at her.

Her revelation had shocked the others; they were all looking at her, not Tristan.

“Who’s Mountford?” Jeremy demanded. He looked from Leonora to Tristan. “What is this about?”

Leonora sighed. “It’s about the burglar—he’s the man I saw at the bottom of our garden.”

That piece of information had Jeremy’s and Humphrey’s jaws dropping. They were horrified—doubly so because not even they could any longer close their eyes, pretend the man was a figment of her imagination. Imagination hadn’t drugged Henrietta nor cracked Leonora’s skull. Forced to acknowledge reality, they exclaimed, they declared.

The noise was all too much. She closed her eyes and slipped gratefully away.

Tristan felt like a violin string stretched to snapping point, but when he saw Leonora’s eyes close, saw her brow and features smooth into the blankness of unconsciousness, he dragged in a breath, swallowed his demons, and got the others out of the room without roaring at them.

They went, but reluctantly. Yet after all he’d heard, all he’d learned, to his mind they’d forfeited any right they might have had to watch over her. Even her maid, devoted though she seemed.

He sent her to prepare a tisane, then returned to stand looking down at Leonora. She was still pale, but her skin was no longer deathly white as it had been when he’d first reached her side.

Jeremy, no doubt prodded by incipient guilt, had had the sense to send a footman next door; Gasthorpe had taken charge, sending one footman flying to Green Street, and another for the doctor he’d been instructed was the one always to summon. Jonas Pringle was a veteran of the Peninsula campaigns; he could treat knife and gunshot wounds without turning a hair. A knock on the head was a minor affair, but his assurance, backed by experience, had been what Tristan had needed.

Only that had kept him marginally civilized.

Realizing Leonora might not wake for some time, he raised his head and looked through the windows. Dawn was just starting to streak the sky. The urgency that had propelled him through the last hours started to ebb.

Pulling one of the armchairs around to face the chaise, he dropped into it, stretched out his legs, fixed his gaze on Leonora’s face, and settled to wait.

She resurfaced an hour later, lids fluttering, then opening as she drew in a sharp, pain-filled breath.

Her gaze fell on him, and widened. She blinked, glanced around as well as she could without moving her head.

He lifted his jaw from his fist. “We’re alone.”

Her gaze returned to him; she studied his face. Frowned. “What’s wrong?”

He’d spent the last hour rehearsing how to tell her; now the time had come, he was too tired to play any games. Not with her. “Your maid. She was hysterical when I got here.”

She blinked; when her lids lifted, he saw in her eyes that she’d already jumped ahead, seen what must have happened, but when she met his gaze, he couldn’t interpret her expression. Surely she couldn’t have forgotten the earlier attacks. Equally, he couldn’t imagine why she’d be surprised at his reaction.

His voice was rougher than he intended when he said, “She told me about two early attacks on you. Specifically on you. One in the street, one in your front garden.”

Her eyes on his, she nodded, winced. “But it wasn’t Mountford.”

That was news. News that sent his temper soaring. He shot to his feet, unable any longer to pretend to a calmness that was far beyond him.

He swore, paced. Then swung to face her. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

She met his gaze, didn’t cower in the least, then quietly said, “I didn’t think it was important.”

“Not…important.” Fists clenched, he managed to keep his tone reasonably even. “You were threatened, and you didn’t think that was important.” He locked his eyes on hers. “You didn’t think I would think that important?”

“It wasn’t—”

“No!” He cut off her words with a slicing motion. Felt compelled to pace again, glancing briefly at her, struggling to get his thoughts in order, in sufficient order to communicate to her.

Words burned his tongue, too heated, too violent to let loose.

Words he knew he would regret the instant he uttered them.

He had to focus; he brought all his considerable training to bear, forcing himself to cut to the heart of the matter. Ruthlessly to strip away every last veil and face the cold hard truth—the central solid reality that was the only thing that truly mattered.

Abruptly, he halted, drew in a tense breath. Swung to face her, locked his eyes on hers. “I’ve come to care for you.” He had to force the words out; low and gravelly, they grated. “Not just a little, but deeply. More deeply, more completely, than I’ve cared for anything or anyone in my life.”

He drew a tight breath, kept his gaze on her eyes. “Caring for someone means, however reluctantly, giving some part of yourself into their keeping. They—the one cared for—becomes the repository of that part of you”—his eyes held hers—“of that something you’ve given that’s so profoundly precious. That’s so profoundly important. They, therefore, become important—deeply, profoundly important.”

He paused, then more quietly stated, “As you are to me.”

The clock ticked; their gazes remained locked. Neither moved.

Then he stirred. “I’ve done all I can to explain, to make you understand.”

His expression closed; he turned to the door.

Leonora tried to rise. Couldn’t. “Where are you going?”

Hand on the knob, he looked back at her. “I’m leaving. I’ll send your maid to you.” His words were clipped, but emotion, suppressed, seethed beneath them. “When you can cope with being important to someone, you know where to find me.”

“Tristan…” With an effort, she swiveled, lifted her hand—

The door shut. Clicked with a finality that echoed through the room.

She stared at the door for a long moment, then sighed and sank back on the chaise. Closed her eyes. She comprehended perfectly what she’d done. Knew she would have to undo it.

But not now. Not today.

She was too weak even to think, and she would need to think, to plan, to work out exactly what to say to soothe her wounded wolf.

The next three days turned into a parade of apologies.

Forgiving Harriet was easy enough. The poor soul had been so overset on seeing Leonora lying senseless on the kitchen flags, she’d babbled hysterically about men attacking her; one minor comment had been enough to attract Tristan’s attention. He’d ruthlessly extracted all the details from Harriet, and left her in an even more emotionally wrought state.

When Leonora retired to her bed after consuming a bowl of soup for luncheon—all she could imagine keeping down—Harriet helped her up the stairs and into her room without a word, without once looking up or meeting her eye.

Inwardly sighing, Leonora sat on her bed, then encouraged Harriet to pour out her guilt, her worries and concerns, then made peace with her.

That proved the easiest fence to mend.

Drained, still physically shaken, she remained in her room for the rest of the day. Her aunts called, but after one look at her face, kept their visit brief. At her insistence, they agreed to avoid all mention of the attack; to all who asked after her, she would be simply indisposed.

The next morning, Harriet had just removed her breakfast tray and left her sitting in an armchair before the fire, when a tap sounded on her door. She called, “Come in.”

The door opened; Jeremy looked around it.

He spotted her. “Are you well enough to talk?”

“Yes, of course.” She waved him in.

He came slowly, carefully shutting the door behind him, then walking quietly across to stand by the mantelpiece and look down at her. His gaze fastened on the bandage still circling her head. A spasm contorted his features. “It’s my fault you got hurt. I should have listened—paid more attention. I knew it wasn’t your imagination, what you said about the burglars, but it was so much easier to simply ignore it all—”

He was twenty-four, but suddenly he was, once again, her little brother. She let him talk, let him say what he needed to. Let him, too, make his peace, not just with her but himself. The man he knew he should have been.

A draining twenty minutes later, he was sitting on the floor beside her chair, his head leaning against her knee.

She stroked his hair, so soft yet as ever ruffled and unruly.

Suddenly, he shivered. “If Trentham hadn’t come…”

“If he hadn’t, you would have coped.”

After a moment, he sighed, then rubbed his cheek against her knee. “I suppose.”

She remained in bed for the rest of that day, too. By the next morning, she was feeling considerably better. The doctor called again, tested her vision and her balance, probed the tender spot on her skull, then pronounced himself satisfied.

“But I would advise you to avoid any activity that might exhaust you, at least for the next few days.”

She was considering that—considering the apology she had to make and how exhausting, mentally and physically, that was likely to be—as she slowly, carefully, went down the stairs.

Humphrey was sitting on a bench in the hall; using his cane, he slowly rose as she descended. He smiled, a little lopsidedly. “There you are, my dear. Feeling better?”

“Indeed. A great deal better, thank you.” She was tempted to launch into questions about the household, anything to avoid what she foresaw was to come. She put the urge from her as unworthy; Humphrey, like Harriet and Jeremy, needed to speak. Smiling easily, she accepted his arm when he offered it and steered him into the parlor.

The interview was worse—more emotionally involved—than she’d expected. They sat side by side on the chaise in the parlor, looking out over the gardens but seeing nothing of them. To her surprise, Humphrey’s guilt stretched back many more years than she’d realized.

He broached his recent shortcomings head-on, apologizing gruffly, but then he looked back, and she’d discovered he’d spent the last days thinking much more deeply than she’d guessed.

“I should have made Mildred come down to Kent more often—I knew it at the time.” Staring through the window, he absentmindedly patted Leonora’s hand. “You see, when your aunt Patricia died, I shut myself away—I swore I’d never care for anyone like that again, never leave myself open to so much hurt. I liked having you and Jeremy about the house—you were my distractions, my anchors to the daily round; with you two about, it was easy to forget my hurt and lead a normal enough life.

“But I was absolutely determined never to let any person get close, and become important to me. Not again. So I always kept myself distanced from you—from Jeremy, too, in many ways.” His old eyes weary, half-filled with tears, he turned to her. Smiled weakly, wryly. “And so I failed you, my dear, failed to take care of you as I ought, and I’m immensely ashamed of that. But I failed myself, too, in more ways than one. I cut myself off from what might have been between us, you and me, and with Jeremy, too. I shortchanged us all in that regard. But I still didn’t achieve what I wanted—I was too arrogant to see that caring about others is not wholly a conscious decision.”

His fingers tightened about hers. “When we found you lying on the flags that night…”

His voice quavered, died.

“Oh, Uncle.” Leonora raised her arms and hugged him. “It doesn’t matter. Not anymore.” She rested her head on his shoulder “It’s past.”

He hugged her back, but brusquely replied, “It does matter, but we won’t argue, because you’re right—it’s in the past. From now on, we go forward as we should have been.” He ducked his head to look into her face. “Eh?”

She smiled, a trifle teary herself. “Yes. Of course.”

“Good!” Humphrey released her and hauled in a breath. “Now—you must tell me all you and Trentham have discovered. I gather there’s some question about Cedric’s work?”

She explained. When Humphrey demanded to see Cedric’s journals she fetched a few from the stack in the corner.

“Hmm…humph!” Humphrey read down one page, then eyed the stack of journals. “How far have you got with these?”

“I’m only onto the fourth, but…” She explained that the journals were not filled in chronological order.

“He’ll have had some other order—a journal for each idea, for instance.” Humphrey shut the book on his lap. “No reason Jeremy and I can’t put our other work aside and give you a hand with these. Not your forte, but it is ours, after all.”

She managed not to gape. “But what about the Mesapotamians—and the Sumerians?”

The work they were both engaged in was a commission from the British Museum.

Humphrey snorted, waved the protest aside as he levered to his feet. “The museum can wait—this patently can’t. Not if some nefarious and dangerous bounder is after something here. Besides”—on his feet, he straightened and grinned at Leonora—“who else is the museum going to get to do such translations?”

An unarguable point. She rose and crossed to the bellpull. When Castor entered, she instructed him to move the stack of journals to the library. The journal he’d been looking at tucked under his arm, Humphrey shuffled out in that direction, Leonora assisting him; a footman carrying the journals passed them in the hall—they followed him into the library.

Jeremy looked up; as always open books covered his desk.

Humphrey waved his stick. “Clear a space. New task. Urgent matter.”

“Oh?”

To Leonora’s surprise, Jeremy obeyed, shutting books and moving them so the footman could set the towering stack of journals down.

Jeremy immediately took the top one and opened it. “What are they?”

Humphrey explained; Leonora added that they were assuming there was some valuable formula buried somewhere in the journals.

Already absorbed in the volume in his hands, Jeremy humphed.

Humphrey returned to his seat, and returned to the volume he’d carried from the parlor. Leonora considered, then left to check with the servants, and review all household matters.

An hour later, she reentered the library. Both Jeremy and Humphrey had their heads down; a frown was fixed on Jeremy’s face. He looked up when she lifted the top volume off the pile of journals.

“Oh.” He blinked somewhat myopically at her.

She sensed his instinctive wish to take the book back. “I thought I’d help.”

Jeremy colored, glanced at Humphrey. “Actually, it’s not going to be easy to do that, not unless you can stay here most of the day.”

She frowned. “Why?”

“It’s the cross-referencing. We’ve only just made a start, but it’s going to be a nightmare until we discover the connection between the journals, and their correct sequence, too. We’ll have to do it verbally—it’s simply too big a job, and we need the answer too urgently, to attempt to write down connections.” He looked at her. “We’re used to it. If there are other avenues that need to be investigated, you might be better employed—we might get this mystery solved sooner if you gave your attention to them.”

Neither wanted to exclude her; it was there in their eyes, in their earnest expressions. But Jeremy spoke the truth; they were the experts in this field—and she really did not fancy spending the rest of the day and the evening, too, squinting at Cedric’s wavering script.

And there were numerous other matters on her plate.

She smiled benignly. “There are other avenues it would be worthwhile exploring, if you can cope without me?”

“Oh, yes.”

“We’ll manage.”

Her smile widened. “Good, then I’ll leave you to it.”

Turning, she went to the door. Glancing back as she turned the knob, she saw both heads down again. Still smiling, she left.

And determinedly turned her mind to her most urgent task: tending to her wounded wolf.