A Lady of His Own

to leave?”

“I’ll tell you when we get back to Wallingham.”

She would have argued and insisted he tell her now, but his tone reminded her there was another with them- Nicholas, to wit. Folding her hands in her lap, she composed herself in patience, and waited.

Her mind ranged back over their departure; thinking of Lady Trescowthick’s puzzled look, she couldn’t help but smile.

“What?” Charles asked.

She glanced at him, but he was looking at his horses. She looked ahead. “I was just wondering when it will occur to them that I’ve never fainted in my life.”

Charles heard the amusement in her voice and bit his tongue. Hard. No need to point out that while those three ladies, who had known them both since birth, might indeed note the oddity of her faint, instead of supposing the faint a sham, they might come up with quite a different reason to account for it.

A reason that, already or at some point in the not overly distant future, might indeed be real. Would be real.

Would she feel faint? Penny? Would she enjoy carrying his children?

He hadn’t even asked her to marry him yet. He told himself he was foolish to imagine he knew any woman’s mind, let alone hers, well enough to predict her answer, yet after last night he felt unreasonably confident. And ridiculously buoyed by the mere thought of her carrying his child.

Almost distracted enough to forget the revelation he’d had in Lady Carmody’s sunken garden. But not quite.

He pulled up in the stable yard, gave the reins to a groom, and handed Penny down. They waited for Nicholas to join them, then walked together to the house.

“That wasn’t as bad as I’d feared,” Nicholas said. “At least their curiosity wasn’t morbid-more that they simply wanted to know, to be reassured they had the facts correct and weren’t falling prey to mere rumor.”

“Indeed.” Penny glanced at Charles as they entered the house. “Now-why did we have to leave just then?”

He met her gaze, then looked at Nicholas. “Could we have a word with you in the library?”

Nicholas blinked. “Yes, of course.”

He led the way. She followed with Charles, wondering; once she’d focused on him, she’d realized he was tense. Annoyed, but not at her.

What had Nicholas done?

Nicholas led them into the library. Charles stood back and let her precede him, then followed and closed the door. Nicholas had gone to the large desk; he sat in the chair behind it.

Charles steered her to one of the chairs before the fireplace. “Sit down,” he murmured.

She did.

He didn’t. He paced to the hearth, turned, and looked at Nicholas.

Nicholas looked back at him, his diplomat’s mask very much in place. The conviction Nicholas had done something she hadn’t noticed grew.

When the silence had stretched as far as it could, Charles said, his tone hard and harsh, “Just tell me this. You aren’t, by any chance, setting yourself up as a target here, are you?”

Nicholas’s expression didn’t change, but his pallor was so pronounced that the slight flush that rose to mantle his cheekbones might as well have been red flags. “I have no idea what you’re suggesting.”

Charles looked at him, then shook his head. “I hope you lie better when negotiating trade treaties.”

Stung, Nicholas replied, “When negotiating trade treaties I deal with diplomats.”

“Indeed, but I’m not a diplomat, and it’s me you have to deal with here.”

Nicholas sighed and closed his eyes. “What I do is none of your concern.”

“If what you do has any connection whatever to the murderer of Gimby Smollet and Mary Maggs, it’s very much my concern.”

“I have no more notion than you which of those five is the murderer, or even if it is one of those five.”

The words were weary, but definite.

Penny broke in, “Just what did he do?”

Charles glanced at her, exasperation in his eyes. “He waltzed back and forth before their noses as if daring the murderer to come after him.”

Penny looked at Nicholas. “That wasn’t wise.”

“None of this was ever wise,” Nicholas returned.

She and Charles both picked up the allusion to something beyond the immediate subject.

“I know the caliber of this man,” Charles said. “Believe me, you don’t want to tangle with him.”

“No, you’re quite right. I don’t.” Nicholas drew in a breath. Opening his eyes, he looked at Charles. “But I don’t know who he is, and I can’t tell you anything. I’m glad enough that you’re here-at least that means Penny’s safe. But…there’s nothing more you-or I-can do.”

Charles’s eyes, fixed on Nicholas’s face, narrowed. “You mean,” he said, in his silkily dangerous voice, “that we’ll just have to wait for him to show his hand.”

Nicholas inclined his head.

She waited to see which way Charles would go, whether he would push, or…

Eventually, he nodded. “Very well, we’ll play the next scene by your script.” He caught Nicholas’s gaze. “But I’ll find out the truth in the end.”

For a long moment, Nicholas held his gaze, then quietly replied, “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”

An uneasy truce prevailed for the rest of the day. Charles was concerned, and on more than one front. He left her with Nicholas in the drawing room and spoke with Norris. Nicholas smiled faintly when Charles returned, but said nothing.

By early evening, the entire household was as weary and wan as she’d earlier pretended to be; by unspoken consent, they retired early.

She and Charles found pleasure and, even more, comfort in each other’s arms. The revelation of the previous night-that moment in which it had been shatteringly obvious that what lay between them was definitely not purely physical-was still there, waiting to be acknowledged, examined, and dealt with. She couldn’t deal with it now, not with so much other tension surrounding them. Although the connection remained, a deep and very real link between them, Charles didn’t allude to it, and for that she was grateful. Sated, as much at peace as they could be, they fell asleep.

About them, the old house settled, and slept, too.

Penny woke, and felt the mattress shift. Instantly alert, she lifted her head and saw Charles padding around the bed. He stopped by her dressing stool, picked up his breeches, and proceeded to climb into them.

“Where are you going?”

He glanced at her. “I woke up, and thought I may as well check the doors and windows downstairs.”

She listened, but could hear nothing. He wasn’t hurrying as he pulled on his boots.

“Stay there.” He headed for the door, glanced back. “I’m going to lock the door-I won’t be long.”

She sat up as he opened the door, started to whisper, “Be careful.”

Crash!

Downstairs, glass shattered, wood splintered.

Charles swore and shot out of the door. Penny bounced from the bed, grabbed up her robe, struggling into it as she raced after him. The ruckus continued. Reaching the stairs, she saw Charles ahead of her, leaping down. She reached the landing as he gained the hall and swung around, heading for the library.

She followed as fast as she could.

Charles slowed as he neared the open library doors. Thuds and grunts came from within. Noiselessly, he glided into the doorway.

Poised to react, every nerve tensed, he swiftly scanned the shadowy room. The curtains had been left open, but there was little illumination from outside; it took an instant to separate the destruction on the floor from the figures wrestling amid the wreckage most of the way down the long room.

Then one man gained the ascendancy, reared above the other, raised his arm, and struck down. Immediately,