the mold of a proper English lady, but the mold her parents’ had held up for her-one of a lady who clung to convention at every step-had never fitted.
What she saw, what she learned as the conversations flashed and sparked around the dining table, was that there was another mold, one equally socially acceptable. One that fitted her like the proverbial glove.
And that mold was compatible with marriage-with a sort of marriage she could see herself within, one that was more a partnership, a relationship based on sharing.
She wasn’t an irredeemable outcast. She’d simply been moving in the wrong circles.
A strange buoyancy gripped her. Seized her. By the time they all rose and, the gentlemen denying any wish for separation, repaired all together to the drawing room to sit and, still very much a large group, continue their conversations, she felt almost giddy.
She smiled up at Del as she sank onto the sofa to which he’d led her.
He looked down at her for a moment, his features set in easy, social lines, yet his eyes…then he smiled and turned to sit in the armchair beside her.
Webster circled with port and brandy for the gentlemen. Some of the ladies, too, accepted a glass. Deliah declined. She wanted her wits unclouded so she could continue to notice and absorb all about her. While she was unlikely ever to face the altar, a long-term relationship wasn’t out of her cards.
Once everyone was settled, the talk turned to the Black Cobra cult, then to the incident that afternoon. Together with Tony and Gervase, she and Del remained the center of attention as they described the cultists and their actions.
“So there were
“Perish the thought.” Devil looked at Del. “Did you leave them all dead, or…?”
“We deemed it wiser not to wait and check. We couldn’t tell if there were more in the trees, or, even more likely, Larkins with a brace of pistols.”
“I, for one,” Tony said, “was taken aback that he
Gervase concluded, “It suggests he has more he can lose.”
The talk diverged to considering ways to locate any body of cultists in the surrounding area. That gave the Cynster males something to gnaw on, raising the prospect of some action to ease their disappointment over the unlikelihood of any immediate clash with the cultists.
Del contributed little. He didn’t know the county well, and he was exercised by other things.
Other thoughts, other feelings.
Unaccustomed feelings, but they were proving to be strong and thoroughly distracting-stronger and more distracting than he liked.
Recounting the clash that afternoon had called to mind, too vividly, all he’d felt over those fraught minutes. Re-evoked the staggeringly intense fear he’d felt on seeing Deliah exposed to danger-a fear of a type that for all his experience of life and death on battlefields around the globe, he’d never felt before.
More intense, reaching deeper, that fear had sunk talons into his very soul.
He hadn’t liked it at the time.
Looking back, he liked it even less.
He cast a sidelong glance at the cause of his distress. She sat relaxed on the sofa, a smile of genuine happiness on her face.
The sight of it did nothing to ease his mood. Yes, she was safe, and apparently content. Yet although her well-being was the crux on which his unnerving fear hinged, something within him wasn’t appeased. Responsibility for his near-crippling fear lay at her door.
Something he fully intended to point out. To explain. Later.
Tonight.
Shifting his gaze forward, he smothered his surging impulses, bit his tongue, and concentrated on shoring up his relaxed facade while inwardly rehearsing a suitable tirade.
Shivering uncontrollably, Sangay slogged and slid his way through the layer of icy white stuff that cloaked the rear yard of the very big house. It was as big as a palace, and equally busy, which was a blessing from the gods. No one had paid him too much attention. No one had spoken harshly or questioned him. Instead, they’d given him a small room all to himself, high beneath the roof where it was warm, and Cobby’s friend, Sligo, had found him a jacket-he’d called it a page’s coat-to put over his tunic.
Hands sunk in the pockets of the coat, the collar turned up and his head ducked against the wind, Sangay awkwardly hurried as fast as he dared toward the massive bulk of the stable.
At the back, the man had said.
The stable was bounded on three sides by high brick walls. Sangay felt his way down one side, then around to the rear, where what looked like a small forest encroached.
He halted in a small clearing midway along the stable’s back wall. At least the cold white flakes had ceased falling, but the wind still sliced, and a heavy feeling in the air, as if it were weighed down, suggested the snow would start coming down again soon.
It wasn’t inky dark. The white blanket reflected what little light there was and gave Sangay enough illumination to see. Even so, he heard the man’s boots crunching through the white crust long before the heavy figure loomed out of the black shadows beneath the trees.
“Have you got it?”
The harsh demand made Sangay tremble beneath his shivering, but he forced himself to shake his head. “But, sahib-sir, I’ve seen it!”
Larkins eyed the boy dispassionately. “At the inn, when the colonel fetched it?”
“Yes, sahib. I saw it then.”
“But have you seen it since?”
“No, sahib, but we’ve only just got here and the house is very large, but now I know what to look for! And this house is so big no one will notice me! I will be able to search tomorrow and find the scroll-holder, and then I will be bringing it out to you.”
Dark eyes wide, trained on Larkins’s face, the boy made an effort to disguise his tremors, and look eager and confident.
He didn’t fool Larkins, but conversely Larkins knew the boy was his best route to the scroll-holder, and therefore, at present, his most valuable asset.
That was why he’d set this meeting for ten o’clock-not so early the boy would be missed, yet not so late he might attract attention if seen slipping out.
Larkins knew the ways of households like this, knew the routines the servants followed. He’d once been one of them, but it had been a long time since he’d been a lowly servant. Working for the Black Cobra had made him rich. Wealthy beyond his wildest dreams. He was rich enough to have servants himself, if he’d wanted them. But acquiring such chattels didn’t bring him pleasure. Nowhere near as much pleasure as dealing in terror did. That was the one thing he most valued about being in the Black Cobra’s service-the chance to indulge in the vilest deeds.
He enjoyed terrorizing the innocent. Yet in this case… The failure of the afternoon was acid in his gut. That failure made the boy-getting the boy to deliver the scroll-holder into his hands-even more vital.
He’d never failed his master, but he knew how his master rewarded failure and had no wish to receive such attention.
So he nodded. “Good.” He glanced up at the louring sky. “It’s going to snow more-probably a lot more. I won’t be able to meet you here. So you find the scroll-holder, and the instant you do, you head for the big church.” He pointed to the northeast. “There’s a big tower you can see for miles. Tomorrow, you look in that direction, and you’ll see it. Find the scroll-holder and bring it to me there-inside the cathedral, under the highest tower. I’ll be watching.
