by Charles Brightmore
Her stomach churning with disbelief and dread, Victoria watched Nathan’s eyes narrow. She expected him to shout, but instead he said with quiet, icy calm, “I beg your pardon?”
She swallowed. “Your note. It was eaten. By your goat.”
“Please tell me that is just a hideously bad rhyme.”
“It is a hideously bad rhyme. But true, nonetheless.” His gaze dropped, arrowing in on the ragged spot of forest green hem she still clutched in a white-knuckled grip. “You’d sewn it into your hem.”
“Yes.”
His gaze jumped back to hers, pinning her in place. “You led me to believe it was in the house.”
“I never said that. I said I would return it to you once we were back here.”
“Why didn’t you simply return it at the beach? Knowing your sewing abilities, it surely wouldn’t have been too difficult to rip open a few sloppy stitches.”
Victoria flung down her ruined hem, planted her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes right back at him. “If certain people didn’t find it necessary to keep secrets from me and hide letters in my luggage, and other people refuse to let me help-”
“If you’re referring to your father and me-”
“Of course I’m referring to my father and you. If the two of you weren’t so pigheaded, it wouldn’t have been necessary for me to sew the note into my hem. Where it was perfectly safe, until
“So it’s
Victoria lifted her chin. “Partially, yes. Although I am willing to accept a portion of the blame.”
“How incredibly generous of you.”
Before Victoria could respond to his sarcastic reply, Lord Alwyck broke in. “Will someone please explain what you’re talking about? What note?”
Nathan sent her a warning look, but she ignored him and turned her attention to Lord Alwyck. “My father secreted a note for Dr. Nathan in my luggage. Unfortunately for him, I found it before he could retrieve it. Even more unfortunately for him, his goat just ate the note out of the hem of my skirt where I’d hidden it.”
Lord Alwyck shot Nathan a piercing look. “Why was Wexhall sending you a secret note?” When Nathan’s only reply was an unreadable steady stare, Lord Alwyck said slowly, “The fact that you’ve returned here… a note from Wexhall… this has something to do with the jewels.” The words rang like an accusation. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Nathan’s gaze didn’t waver. “If Wexhall had wanted you to know, he’d have told you. Or perhaps I would have told you, depending on what instructions he gave me in the note. But now that the note is gone, I don’t suppose we’ll know. At least until I am able to contact him to tell him what happened.” His gaze swiveled to Victoria. “Which, needless to say, is an extremely inconvenient delay.”
Lord Alwyck turned to Lord Sutton. “Did you know about this, Colin?”
Lord Sutton nodded. “Yes. I’d planned to tell you about it during today’s ride.” He turned to Nathan. “Gordon had every right to know.”
“I never said he didn’t. However, I would have preferred to have all the information from Wexhall’s letter before telling anyone anything.”
“Still good at keeping secrets it would seem,” Lord Alwyck said to Nathan. His voice sounded calm, but it was obvious to Victoria by the frigid look in his eyes that he was very angry. “You had no right to keep me in the dark.”
Nathan hiked a brow. “Why would you care? It wasn’t your reputation that suffered.”
“Perhaps because I was shot during the failure of the mission the last time out. Or had you forgotten?”
A tension-laden silence filled the air. Victoria pressed her lips together to prevent herself from spewing any nervous babble to fill the void. A muscle jerked in Nathan’s jaw, and she noted his hands were clenched.
“No, I hadn’t forgotten,” he said in a flat tone. He turned toward Victoria, and she stilled at the utterly bleak look in his eyes. A curtain then seemed to fall over his expression, leaving complete blankness where only seconds ago shadows and pain and regret had dwelled.
“You read the note, examined it, did you not?” he asked her tersely.
“Yes.”
“Good. You’ll come with me to the house and write down everything you can remember while I compose a letter to your father.
Lord Alwyck muttered something that contained the words “rude” and “autocratic,” then said aloud, “It appears you need an escort to the house, Lady Victoria. May I have the honors?”
Victoria yanked her gaze from Nathan’s retreating back and noted that Lord Alwyck’s eyes still reflected anger, while Lord Sutton stared after his brother with a troubled expression. “Thank you, but I don’t wish to delay your ride. If you will both excuse me…” She hurried away before either gentleman could stop her.
Walking as swiftly as she could without resorting to running, Victoria tried to settle her jumbled emotions before she faced Nathan again. Part of her felt horribly guilty that her actions had led to the destruction of the note. Another part of her itched with irritation at Nathan for the dictatorial manner in which he’d flung commands at her. Good Lord, one minute the man was kissing her-
She cut off that thought immediately. This was no time to think about that kiss. That mind numbing, glorious, dazzling kiss-
Enough. Later. She would think on it later. Right now she was annoyed with him for tossing orders at her as if he were a general and she a lowly foot soldier. But tempering her annoyance was the deep pull of sympathy she’d felt right down to her core when she witnessed that flash of desolation in his eyes. The depth of the naked pain she’d seen had shaken her and filled her with an overwhelming urge to wrap her arms around him, to offer him comfort from whatever had caused that look. How was it that she wished to simultaneously cuddle and cosh him? The man roiled her emotions in a way no one else ever had. And she was quite certain that she didn’t like it one bit.
When she entered the house through the French windows leading to the terrace, a footman greeted her. “Dr. Nathan asked that you please meet him in the library, my lady.” He cleared his throat. “He specified that I should stress the word ‘please.’”
In spite of herself, Victoria’s lips twitched. “Thank you.”
“He said that you would no doubt wish to change clothes first, and that he’d arranged for a meal to be sent to your bedchamber.”
Victoria couldn’t hide her surprise at his show of thoughtfulness. Of course she’d had every intention of changing her clothes before joining him, but a private meal would be most welcome.
“Please tell Dr. Oliver I will join him as soon as I have eaten and made myself presentable.”
“Yes, my lady.”
Victoria hurried to her bedchamber. When she looked in the cheval glass, she gasped. Good Lord, her hair resembled a bird’s nest. But it wasn’t the disheveled state of her coiffure that stunned her as much as her face. Pink stained her cheeks and the bridge of her nose, a souvenir from not wearing her bonnet on such a sunny day, which would no doubt cause her to skin to freckle. Her eyes appeared huge and… glowing. And her lips…
She leaned closer to the glass and tentatively touched her fingertips to them. There was only one way to describe her reddened, swollen mouth: thoroughly kissed. Her eyes slid closed and in a heartbeat the thoughts she’d tried to hold at bay invaded her mind. The dizzying way he’d held her, touched her, the thrilling hardness of his body pressing into her, the delicious feeling of running her hands over his strong torso and back. In spite of all
