but not his. Rising, he looked at the door. A heavy key was in the lock. He took it out, turned, and walked back to the kitchen where windows allowed light to stream in.
Telltale flecks of wax were visible, both along the key’s shank and its teeth.
Billings peered around his shoulder; suspicion darkened his face. “An impression?”
Tristan grunted. “Looks like it.”
“I’ll order new locks.” Billings was outraged. “Never had such a thing happen before.”
Tristan turned the key in his fingers. “Yes, get in new locks. But don’t fit them until I give you the word.”
Billings glanced at him, then nodded. “Aye, m’lord. I’ll do that.” He paused, then added, “We’re finished with the second floor if you’d like to take a gander?”
Tristan looked up. Nodded. “I’ll just put this back.”
He did so, carefully aligning the key precisely as it had been, so it wouldn’t impede another key being inserted from the outside. Waving Billings ahead, he followed him up the kitchen stairs to the ground floor. There, the workmen were busily preparing what would be a comfortable drawing room and cosy dining room for the finishing touches of paint and polish. The only other rooms at that level were a small parlor beside the front door that the club members had agreed should be set aside for interviewing any females they might be forced to meet, a boothlike office for the club porter and another larger office toward the rear for the club’s majordomo.
Climbing the stairs in Billings’s wake, Tristan paused on the first floor to glance briefly at the painting and polishing going on in the library and the meeting room before heading up to the second floor where the three bedrooms were located. Billings conducted him through each room, pointing out the finishes and specific touches they’d requested, all in place.
The rooms smelled new. Fresh and clean, yet substantial and solid. Despite the winter chill, there was no hint of damp.
“Excellent.” In the largest bedroom, the one above the library, Tristan met Billings’s eye. “You and your men are to be commended.”
Billings inclined his head, accepting the compliment with a craftsman’s pride.
“Now”—Tristan swung to the window; like the library below it commanded an excellent view of the Carling’s rear garden—“how long will it be before the staff quarters are habitable? In light of our nighttime visitor, I want to get someone in here as soon as possible.”
Billings considered. “There’s not much more we need to do in the attic bedrooms. We could finish those up by evening tomorrow. Kitchen and belowstairs will take a day or two more.”
His gaze on Leonora strolling the rear garden with her hound at her heels, Tristan nodded. “That will do admirably. I’ll send for our majordomo—he’ll be here late tomorrow. His name’s Gasthorpe.”
“Mr. Billings!”
The call floated up the stairs. Billings turned. “If there’s nothing else, m’lord, I should tend to that.”
“Thank you, no. Everything appears most satisfactory. I’ll make my own way out.” Tristan nodded a dismissal; with a deferential nod in reply, Billings went.
Minutes ticked by. Hands in his greatcoat pockets, Tristan remained before the window, staring down at the graceful figure drifting about the garden far below. And tried to decide why, what it was that was driving him to act as he was about to. He could rationalize his actions, certainly, but were his logical reasons the whole truth? The real truth?
He watched the hound press close to Leonora’s side, saw her look down, lift a hand to stroke the dog’s huge head, lifted in canine adoration.
With a snort, he turned away; with a last glance around, he headed downstairs.
* * *
“Good morning.” He turned his most beguiling smile on the old butler, adding just a hint of masculine commiseration in the face of feminine waywardness. “I wish to speak with Miss Carling. She’s walking in the back garden at present—I’ll join her there.”
Title, bearing, and the excellent cut of his coat—and his bald-faced boldness—won through; after only the slightest hesitation, the butler inclined his head. “Indeed, my lord. If you’ll step this way?”
He followed the old man down the hall and into a cosy parlor. A fire crackled in the grate; a piece of embroidery, barely started, lay on a small sidetable.
The butler gestured to a pair of French doors standing ajar. “If you’d like to go through?”
With a nod, Tristan did, emerging onto a small paved terrace that gave onto the lawns. Descending the steps, he strolled around the corner of the house and sighted Leonora examining blooms on the opposite side of the main lawn. She was looking the other way. He headed toward her; as he approached, the hound scented him and turned, alert but waiting to judge his intentions.
Courtesy of the lawn, Leonora didn’t hear him. He was still a few yards away when he spoke. “Good morning, Miss Carling.”
She whirled. She stared at him, then glanced—almost accusingly—at the house.
He hid a smile. “Your butler showed me through.”
“Indeed? And to what do I owe this pleasure?”
Before answering the cool and distinctly prickly greeting, he held out a hand to the hound; she inspected, accepted, nudging her head under his palm, inviting him to pat. He did, then turned to the less tractable female. “Am I right in thinking that your uncle and brother see no continuing threat arising from the attempted burglaries?”
She hesitated. A frown formed in her eyes.
He slid his hands into his greatcoat pockets; she hadn’t offered her hand, and he wasn’t fool enough to push his luck. He studied her face; when she remained silent, he murmured, “Your loyalty does you credit, but in this instance, might not be your wisest choice. As I see it, there’s something—some action—which the two attempts to break in here are part of. They’re not finite acts in themselves, but incidents in a continuing whole.”
That description hit the mark; he saw the flare of connection in her eyes.
“I suspect there are incidents which already have followed, and there will almost certainly be incidents to come.” He hadn’t forgotten there was more, something in addition to the burglaries she’d yet to tell him. But that was the closest he dared come to pressing her; she was not the sort he could browbeat or bully. He was accomplished in both roles, but with some, neither worked. And he wanted her cooperation, her trust.
Without both, he might not learn all he needed to know. Might not succeed in lifting the threat he sensed hanging over her.
Leonora held his gaze, and reminded herself she knew better than to trust military men. Even ex-military; they were assuredly the same. One couldn’t rely on them, on anything they said let alone anything they promised. Yet why was he here? What had prompted him to return? She tilted her head, watching him closely. “Nothing has happened recently. Maybe whatever”—she gestured—“whole the burglaries were part of is no longer centered here.”
He let a moment elapse, then murmured, “That doesn’t appear to be the case.”
Turning, he faced the house, scanned its bulk. It was the oldest house in the street, built on a grander scale than the terrace houses that in later years had been constructed on either side, walls abutting on both left and right.
“Your house shares walls, presumably basement walls, too, with the houses on either side.”
She followed his gaze, glancing at the house, not that she needed to to verify that fact. “Yes.” She frowned. Followed his logic.
When he said nothing more, but simply stood by her side, she set her lips and, eyes narrowing, glanced up at him.
He was waiting to catch that glance. Their gazes met, locked. Not quite in a battle of wills, more a recognition of resolutions and strengths.
“What’s happened?” She knew something had, or that he’d discovered some new clue. “What have you learned?”
Despite its apparent mobility, his face was difficult to read. A heartbeat passed, then he drew one hand free of his greatcoat pocket.
And reached for hers.
Slid his fingers around her wrist, slid his hand around her much smaller one. Closed it. Took possession of
