A Lady of His Own

“Well, you don’t, I’m not-you’ll just have to get used to it.”

Or do something to change the status quo. Charles kept his tongue still and steered the curricle down the road to Fowey.

They left the curricle at the Pelican and strolled down to the quay.

Penny scanned the harbor. “The fleet is out.”

“Not for long.” He nodded to the horizon. A flotilla of sails were drawing nearer. “They’re on their way in. We’ll have to hurry.”

He took her arm, and they turned up into the meaner lanes, eventually reaching Mother Gibbs’s door. He knocked. A minute later, the door cracked open, and Mother Gibbs peered out.

She was flabbergasted to see him, a point he saw Penny note.

“M’lord-Lady Penelope.” Mother Gibbs bobbed. “How can I help ye?”

Somewhat grimly he said, “I think we’d better talk inside.”

He didn’t want to cross the threshold himself, much less take Penny with him, but she’d already been there, alone; they didn’t have time to accommodate his sensibilities. Mother Gibbs would speak much more freely in her own house.

“Dead, you say?” Mother Gibbs plopped down on the rough stool by her kitchen table. “Mercy be!”

It was transparently the first she’d heard of Gimby’s death.

“Tell your sons,” he said. “There’s someone around who’s willing to kill if he believes anyone knows anything.”

“Here-it’s not that new lordling up at the Hall, is it?” Mother Gibbs looked from him to Penny. “The one you was asking after.” She looked back at Charles. “Dennis did mention this new bloke had been asking questions and they’d strung him along like…” She paled. “Mercy me-I’ll tell ’em to stop that. He might think they really do know something.”

“Yes, tell them to stop hinting they know anything, but we don’t know that it was Lord Arbry. Tell Dennis from me that it’s not safe to think it was him, in case it’s someone else altogether.”

He would have to speak to Dennis again, but not tonight. He refocused on Mother Gibbs. “Now, tell me everything you know about Gimby.”

She blinked at him. “I didn’t even know he was dead.”

“I don’t mean about his death, but when he was alive. What do you know of him?”

It was little enough, but tallied with what the old sailor had told them.

Penny asked after Nicholas; Mother Gibbs had little to add to her earlier report. “Been down Bodinnick way, he has, talking to the men there again, saying the same thing-that he’s in Granville’s place now and anyone asking for Granville should be sent to him.”

“All right.” He took a sovereign from his pocket and placed it on the table. “I want you to keep your ears open for anything anyone lets fall about Gimby or his father, and especially about anyone seen near his cottage recently, or anyone asking for him recently.”

Mother Gibbs nodded and reached for the sovereign. “I’ll tell me boys to do the same. Those Smollets might not have been sociable-like, but there was no ’arm in them that I ever saw. That Gimby didn’t deserve to have his throat cut, that’s fer certain.”

He wasn’t entirely sure that was true, but said nothing to dampen Mother Gibbs’s rising zeal. “If you hear anything, no matter how insignificant it may seem, get Dennis to send word to me-he knows how.”

Mother Gibbs nodded, face set, chins wobbling. “Aye, I’ll do that.”

They left and walked quickly back to the harbor. They reached the quay to see the first of the boats nudging up to the stone wharf. Charles hesitated. If he’d been alone, he would have gone down to the wharf and lent a hand unloading the catch, and asked his questions under cover of the usual jokes and gibes, and later in the tavern. But he had Penny with him, and…

“Lady Trescowthick’s party, remember? She’s unlikely to approve of the odor of fresh mackerel.”

She’d leaned close, speaking over the raucous cries of the gulls. He glanced at her, met her eyes, then nodded toward the High Street. “Come on, then. Let’s head back.”

They did, driving along in the late afternoon with the sun slowly sinking in the west and the breeze flirting with wisps of Penny’s hair.

She sat in her corner of the curricle’s seat, and tried unsuccessfully to think of ways to further their investigation. Impossible; if she’d kept on her habit and ridden into Fowey, she might have been able to focus her mind. As it was, she’d very willingly unfocus it, suspend all thought, all awareness.

Being close to Charles for any length of time had always suborned her senses. She tried, kept trying, to tell herself she found his nearness uncomfortable…lies, all lies. She was good at them when it came to him.

The truth, one she’d known for years and still didn’t understand, couldn’t unquestioningly accept, was that, quite aside from the titillation of her senses, he made her feel comfortable in a way no other ever had. It was a feeling that reached deeper, that was more fundamental, that meant more than the merely sensual.

One word leapt to mind whenever she thought of him-strength. It was what she was most aware of in him, that when he was beside her, his strength was hers to command, or if she wished, she could simply lean on him, and he would be her strength and her shield. He’d protect her from anything, lift any and all burdens from her shoulders, perhaps laugh at her while he did and call her Squib, but yet he would do it-she could rely on him in that.

No other had been so constant, so unchanging and unwavering in his readiness to support and protect her. Not her father, not Granville. No one else.

Charles was the only man in her life she’d ever turned to, the only man, even now, she could imagine leaning on.

She sat back in the curricle, felt the breeze caress her cheeks. It seemed odd to be sitting next to him after all their years apart, and only now comprehend just how much she’d missed him.

CHAPTER 9

THEY RATTLED INTO THE STABLE YARD, AND THE GROOMS came running; Charles tossed them the reins and came to hand her down.

For a moment, he seemed distracted, then he focused on her. “I’ll come over and we can go to Branscombe Hall in your carriage. You might suggest to Nicholas that he drive himself there.”

She arched a brow, but he merely said, “I’ll be here at seven-thirty.”

He took her arm and walked her to the edge of the lawn. “I’ll see you then. I want to check that pair before I leave.”

Releasing her, he stepped back, saluted her, and turned away. Remaining where she was, she watched him walk back toward the stables.

Waited. Caught his eye when he glanced back.

Saw the exasperated twist of his lips as he stopped and, hands rising to his hips, looked back at her.

She laughed, shook her head at him, then turned and headed for the house. He wanted to go and play horses with the grooms and ask God only knew what questions, and he didn’t want her cramping his style. All well and good-he should simply have said so.

A cynical smile curved her lips. Surely he didn’t imagine she wouldn’t guess and remember to interrogate him later?

Later was seven-thirty, when true to his word he strode up from the stables. She heard his footsteps in the hall and left the drawing room to join him.

He’d entered from the garden; he walked out of the shadows at the back of the hall into the light cast by the chandelier.

Her breath caught; she felt her chest tighten, felt her heart contract. All he needed was an earring dangling from one lobe to be the walking embodiment of any lady’s private dream.