the town into Bloomsbury. Now she stood in the museum foyer scanning a board listing the current exhibits. “Where should we start? I rather fancy the Egyptian gallery. I’ve heard it’s quite fascinating.”
“The Egyptians it is.” He waved her on.
Discreet signs directed them up the stairs. As they climbed, she glanced at him, then asked, “How did your visit to the Guards go?”
It was the first she’d asked of it-which, now he thought of it, was unlike her. Perhaps she wasn’t as unaffected-as undistracted-as he’d thought?
“I found a few friends to chat to, but it was all for show. I didn’t even mention the Black Cobra.”
At the top of the stairs, he touched her elbow and indicated another sign down a corridor. They started toward it.
“I know you’ve resigned your commission, supposedly permanently, but was that merely for this mission? Will you rejoin when it’s over, perhaps serve in some other capacity? Or are you truly retiring from the field?”
He thought as they strolled. “The latter was my intention, and still is. Talking to the others today only confirmed that-the reasons for that.”
“Which are?”
An interrogation again, but gentler. He sensed she truly wanted to know. And after last night…“I’m thirty-five. My service has shown me much of the world, and also brought me significant wealth. Militarily, there are few challenges remaining-not for field officers such as myself. It’s time I came home and tried my hand at new challenges.”
“In Humberside?”
He felt his lips curve. “In Humberside, strange as that may seem.”
Her nose tipped upward. “It doesn’t seem strange to me.”
And that, he thought, was interesting-revealing. Despite her travels, it seemed she, too, had a special place in her heart for the county of her birth.
Before he could turn the tables on her, she asked, “So what form do you imagine this Humberside challenge will take?”
They’d reached the Egyptian gallery; side by side, they turned into it. A succession of smaller connected rooms opening off a central hall, it was tailor-made for an ambush. The silver head of his swordstick felt reassuring in Del’s hand. Taking Deliah’s elbow, he steered her toward the first of the large statues in the hall, one of Isis that towered some eight feet tall. “Let’s examine the statues in this room first, going down this side, then up the other. That’ll give them a moment to find us. Then we can go through the smaller rooms and see if we can tempt them to make a move.”
She nodded. Dutifully considered Isis, and read the description inscribed on a plaque beside it.
“So,” she said, as they moved to the next statue, “what do you plan to do on your return to Middleton on the Wolds?”
His lips quirked. “You’ve missed your calling-you should have been an interrogator.”
Her brows rose haughtily. “I take it you don’t know the answer.”
“Not entirely. I’d toyed with the idea of resigning for some time, but beyond going home to Middleton on the Wolds, I hadn’t got to the stage of making more detailed plans, then this mission arose, and as part of it I resigned. So no, I haven’t any fixed intentions beyond going home.”
“But it’s your house, isn’t it?” She glanced at him. “Delborough Hall, where your aunts live?”
“Yes.” He steered her on. “They’ve been keeping the place-house and estate-running while I’ve been away, more or less since my father’s death. But from their letters I gather they’re eager for me to take up the reins, something I did wonder about.”
“Indeed. They’ve been mistresses there for decades. They might not have wished to surrender control.”
“Apparently now peace has been established, they’re keen to travel and see all the sights the wars prevented them from seeing.”
She smiled. “From what I remember of them, they’ll thoroughly enjoy harassing some poor courier-guide.”
The notion made him grin.
They’d reached the end of the main hall. Glancing up the long room, he saw a number of other people, including two men who didn’t seem the sort to spend their hours studying ancient statuary. “I believe”-he turned back to Deliah-“that we’ve collected two watchers, but sadly, they’re not cultists.”
“But they might be…what’s the term? Scouting? For the cultists. Mightn’t they?”
“They might. Let’s go back along this side-we’ll pass them as we go up the room, then we’ll turn into the first rooms on our right.”
She nodded, and obligingly glided beside him as they perambulated up the room, stopping at every statue to admire and exchange comments.
As they left the main hall for the minor rooms, she returned to her earlier interrogation. “You don’t seem the sort to be a gentleman farmer.” She glanced at him. “Or at least, not to be satisfied with being only that.”
She dipped her head. “There are all those mills about Leeds. I had wondered if there might be a market for cotton there.”
“And silk.”
“Actually, there are a number of combinations of silk and cotton that are quite valuable commercially.” Her skirts swished as she paused by a glass case housing pieces of pottery. “Are they still following us?”
“Yes. And they’re drawing closer.”
“Hmm. Then again, these rooms are smaller.”
“True.”
They continued ambling, and their watchers continued to follow, close enough to observe them, but not close enough to pose a physical threat. They seemed intent on watching only, thus giving Del no excuse to react.
Whether it was the possibility of impending danger abrading his protectiveness, or the airy nonchalance of her replies, or, loweringly, that he remained acutely aware of her, of the body he’d spent hours possessing thoroughly through the night that now seemed so elusive, drifting close yet beyond his reach, he didn’t know, but her continued apparent imperviousness, her insensibility to his nearness, his presence by her side, pricked him, increasingly on the raw.
Enough to have him reach for her, his hand brushing the side of her breast as he wound her arm with his.
He detected the faintest tremble, the slightest quiver in her breathing, but her serene smile never faltered. A second later, she was enthusing about some ancient scroll.
Once started, he couldn’t seem to stop. Some part of him interpreted her refusal to let any sensual awareness of him show as a challenge, even though his rational mind knew he should be grateful. Instead, as he guided her deeper into the labyrinth of smaller rooms surrounding the main hall, he let his hand linger at the small of her back. Her breath caught. When she tried to move away, he moved with her, letting his palm brush upward, then slide down.
She sucked in a breath, tighter, more constrained, and shot him a sharp, if wary, glance.
Wariness wasn’t what he wanted. When she stopped before another glass case and stared in apparent rapt contemplation, he slipped his arm from hers and stepped behind her, his palm trailing from her waist down over her hip, and around to, as he stood behind her watching her reflection in the glass, lightly caress the swell of her derriere.
This time she sucked in a more definite breath, caught her lower lip between her teeth, then looked up-and glared at him.
Her breasts swelled more definitely. She glanced swiftly across the room to where the two watchers were pretending to examine a wall plaque, then swung to face him. “What are you doing?”
Her hissing tone was music to his ears. She was no longer so unaffected.
He opened his eyes wide. “Me? Nothing.”
“Nothing?” Eyes narrowing, she prodded him in the chest. When he stepped back, she swept past and, with more of a swish than a glide, headed toward the next open door. She spoke over her shoulder in an irritated whisper. “Just because I lost my head last night doesn’t mean I’m going to-”
