She reached in and retrieved the key, laid it on the table.
Had Trentham thought to change the locks?
Chapter
He couldn’t risk lighting a match to check his watch. Stoically, Tristan settled his shoulders more comfortably against the wall of the porter’s alcove off the front hall. And waited.
About him, the shell of the Bastion Club lay silent. Empty. Outside, a bitter wind blew, sending flurries of sleet raking across the windows. He estimated it was past ten o’clock; in such freezing weather, the burglar was unlikely to dally much beyond midnight.
Waiting like this, silent and still in the dark for a contact, a meeting, or to witness some illicit event had been commonplace until recently; he hadn’t forgotten how to let time slip past. How to free his mind from his body so he remained a statue, senses alert, attuned to all around him, ready to snap back to the moment at the slightest movement, while his mind roamed, keeping him occupied and awake, but elsewhere.
Unfortunately, tonight, he didn’t appreciate the direction in which his mind wanted to go. Leonora Carling was certain distraction; he’d spent most of the day lecturing himself on the unwisdom of pursuing the sensual response he evoked in her—and she, correspondingly and even more strongly, evoked in him.
He was well aware she didn’t recognize it for what it was. Didn’t see it as a danger despite her susceptibility. Such innocence would normally have dampened his ardor; with her, for some ungodly reason, it only whetted his appetite further.
His attraction to her was a complication he definitely did not need. He had to find a wife, and that quickly; he required a sweet-tempered, biddable, gentle female who would cause him not a moment’s angst, who would run his houses, keep his troop of elderly relatives in line, and otherwise devote herself to bearing and raising his children. He did not expect her to spend much time with him; he had for too long been alone—he now preferred it that way.
With the clock ticking on the outrageous terms of his great-uncle’s will, he couldn’t afford to be distracted by a strong-willed, independent-minded, prickly termagent, one he suspected was a spinster by design, and was, moreover, possessed of a waspish tongue and, when she chose to deploy it, a distinctly chilly hauteur.
There was no purpose in thinking of her.
He couldn’t seem to stop.
He shifted, easing his shoulders, then leaned back again. What with taking up the reins of his inheritance, getting accustomed to having a tribe of old dears under his feet on a daily basis, inhabiting his houses and complicating his life, as well as considering how best to secure a wife, he’d let the small matter of a mistress or any other avenue of sexual release slide to the back of his mind.
In hindsight, not a wise decision.
Leonora had cannoned into him and set spark to tinder. Their subsequent exchanges hadn’t doused the flame. Her haughty dismissiveness was the equivalent of a blatant challenge, one to which he instinctively reacted.
His morning’s ruse of using their sensual connection to distract her from the burglars, while tactically sound, had been personally unwise. He’d known it at the time, yet had cold-bloodedly reached for the one weapon that had promised the greatest chance of success; his overriding aim had been to ensure her mind was fixed on matters other than the putative burglar.
Outside the wind howled. Again he straightened, silently stretched, then settled against the wall once more.
Fortunately for all concerned, he was too old, too wise, and far too experienced to allow lust to dictate his actions. During the day, he’d formulated a plan for dealing with Leonora. Given he’d stumbled onto this mystery and she was, no matter what her uncle and brother thought, threatened by it, then given his training, given his nature, it was understandable, indeed right and proper, for him to resolve the situation and remove the threat. Thereafter, however, he would leave her alone.
The distant scrape of metal on stone reached him. His senses focused, expanded, straining to catch any further evidence that the burglar was near.
A trifle earlier than he’d expected, but whoever it was was most likely an amateur.
He’d returned to the house at eight o’clock, slipping in via the rear alleyway and the shadows of the back garden. Entering through the kitchen, he’d noted that the builders had left only a few tools gathered in a corner. The side door had been as he’d left it, the key in the lock but not turned, the teeth not engaged. The scene set, he’d retreated to the porter’s alcove, leaving the door at the top of the kitchen stairs propped open with a brick.
The porter’s alcove commanded an uninterrupted view of the ground floor hall, the stairs leading upward, and the door to the kitchen stairs. No one could enter from the ground or the upper floors and get access to the basement level without him seeing them.
Not that he expected anyone to come that way, but he’d wanted to leave the way clear for the burglar belowstairs. He was willing to wager the “burglar” would head for some area of the basement; he wanted to let the man settle to his task before he intervened. He wanted evidence to confirm his suspicions. And then he intended to interrogate the “burglar.”
It was difficult to imagine what a real burglar would expect to steal from a vacant house.
His ears caught the soft slap of a leather sole on stone. Abruptly, he turned and faced the front door.
Against all the odds, someone was coming in that way.
A wavering outline appeared on the etched-glass panels of the door. He slipped noiselessly out of the porter’s booth and merged with the shadows.
Leonora slid the heavy key into the lock and glanced down at her companion.
She’d retired to her bedchamber supposedly to sleep. The servants had locked up and retired. She’d waited until the clock had struck eleven, reasoning that by then the street would be deserted, then she’d slipped downstairs, avoiding the library where Humphrey and Jeremy were still poring over their tomes. Collecting her cloak, she’d let herself out of the front door.
There was, however, one being she couldn’t so easily avoid.
Henrietta blinked up at her, long jaws agape, ready to follow her wherever she went. If she’d tried to leave her in the front hall and go out alone at this hour, Henrietta would have howled.
Leonora narrowed her eyes at her. “Blackmailer.” Her whisper was lost in the strafing wind. “Just remember,” she continued, more by way of bolstering her own courage than instructing Henrietta, “we’re only here to watch what he does. You have to be absolutely quiet.”
Henrietta looked at the door, then nudged it with her nose.
Leonora turned the key, pleased when it slid smoothly around. Removing it, she pocketed it, then drew her cloak close. Curling one hand about Henrietta’s collar, she grasped the doorknob and turned it.
The bolt slid back. She opened the door just wide enough for her and Henrietta to squeeze through, then swung around to shut it. The wind gusted; she had to release Henrietta and use both hands to force the door closed—silently.
She managed it. Heaving an inward sigh of relief, she turned.
The front hall was shrouded in stygian gloom. She stood still as her eyes began to adjust, as the sense of emptiness—the strangeness of a remembered place stripped of all its furnishings—sank into her.
She heard a faint click.
Beside her, Henrietta abruptly sat, posture erect, a suppressed whimper, not of pain but excitement escaping her.
Leonora stared at her.
The air around her stirred.
The hair on her nape lifted; her nerves leapt. Instinctively, she dragged in a breath—
