The Edge of Desire

but the food, apparently, was excellent.” Cordelia glanced at Meadows as the last dish was set in place. “Leave us, please, Meadows. I’ll ring if we need you.”

“Very good, ma’am.” Meadows bowed low. “My lord.” With a second deferential bow to Christian, Meadows retreated.

The instant the door closed behind him, Cordelia fixed Christian with an interrogative eye, the same gray hue as his own. “Well, my boy-what do you need to know?”

The direct attack had him blinking.

Ermina smiled gently-and closed in for the kill. “Well, dear, you never do appear without a summons, not unless you need something from us, which is usually information.”

Her earnest soft gray gaze was quite enough to make him inwardly squirm.

Ermina’s smile deepened as she shook out her napkin. “I daresay it’s about Letitia and this dreadful business of Randall’s murder.”

Christian glanced from her to Cordelia. From the eager gleam in Cordelia’s eye, she was only too ready to answer whatever questions he had; clearly, delicacy and tact would be wasted. “Indeed.” Delicacy and tact aside, he wanted to reveal as little as possible; his aunts rated among the most well-connected gossips in the ton. “As you say, Randall has been murdered, and so the question of whether Letitia has a lover, and whether together or separately, for the obvious reason, they killed him, naturally arises.”

Both his aunts stared at him. Their expressions initially suggested shocked surprise; that was quickly replaced by censure.

Cordelia snorted. “For men the question might ‘naturally arise,’ but I assure you no such nonsensical thought has surfaced in any female brain within the ton.” With that statement, uttered in a tone even he would think carefully about questioning, Cordelia returned her attention to her plate.

From across the table, Ermina shook her head at him. “No, dear-you’re quite wrong in even suggesting such a thing. Even putting such an outrageous suggestion into words.”

It hadn’t seemed outrageous to him-Letitia was a highly passionate woman-but there was clear rebuke beneath Ermina’s words.

“Letitia is a Vaux, after all,” Ermina informed him with not a little dignity. “I would have thought you would know what that means. She has taken no lover-absolutely not-not in all the years since she wed that man. We never did approve of him, of course-there was something not quite right there, as I’ve always said.”

Chewing, Cordelia nodded. She swallowed, then said, “Not that he-Randall-was ever anything other than polite. He always behaved just as he ought, but…” She waggled the beringed fingers of one hand. “There was just something that didn’t feel quite right about him.” She mulled for a moment, then rallied. “But enough about him-he’s dead and gone. As for Letitia, as Ermina said, she’s a Vaux, for heaven’s sake-they’re sound, fury, and high drama on the surface, but absolutely unshakable rock beneath. A vow for them is sacred. Nothing would induce them to break one, and Lord knows you must have noticed how stubborn they are.”

He’d known that, all that, but…Letitia had broken her vow to him. Why not her vows to Randall? He felt a pang of unaccustomed jealousy…for a dead man.

Shaking off the feeling, burying it, he returned to the point at hand. “So, no lover?”

Cordelia snorted. “Absolutely not.”

Late that afternoon, his mind grappling with a number of irreconcilable “facts,” Christian stood in the graveyard of the church in South Audley Street and watched George Martin Randall’s earthly remains laid to rest a mere two blocks from his house and close to the center of the ton’s world.

Given that, the lack of mourners was remarkable.

The short service in the church had been brief. Very brief. No one had come forward to read the eulogy. Letitia, it transpired, hadn’t known any of Randall’s friends, and as none had called or written to convey their condolences, the minister made the best job of it he could, but his knowledge of Randall was cursory.

Letitia, Hermione, Letitia’s aunt Agnes, and Randall’s servants had made up the congregation in the church; other than Christian, no one else had attended. As was customary, all the females and the younger males had returned to the house at the close of the service, leaving Christian, Mellon, and two older footmen to observe the interment.

The only other observer was Barton, the Bow Street runner. Christian spied him watching proceedings from the shadow of a monument, no doubt imagining he was inconspicuous. Barton scanned the cemetery, as did Christian rather less obviously, but no one else appeared at any time-not even after the sods had been cast and the mourners drifted from the grave.

Christian found it difficult to comprehend the startling absence of any friends. Given that Randall had been murdered, the ton’s ladies-those who would otherwise have been present to support Letitia in her grief-had not been expected, but where were Randall’s male acquaintances, let alone friends?

Regardless of the nature of his demise-indeed, even more so because of it-they should have turned out, one and all.

Yet not one gentleman had appeared. As a comment on a life lived within the ton, that was extraordinary.

Admittedly the ton were only just returning to the capital for the autumn session of Parliament, and perhaps some who might have known Randall had yet to hear of his death, yet this absolute dearth of acquaintances seemed bizarre.

As he left the graveyard, Christian heavily underscored his earlier mental note-he had to find out more, a lot more, about George Martin Randall.

Chapter 5

Later that evening, deliberately later than a gentleman would normally call on a lady, Christian rapped on the door of the house in South Audley Street.

Mellon opened the door and promptly looked scandalized.

Christian ignored him and walked in. “Please inform your mistress that Lord Dearne requests a few minutes of her time.”

Mellon blinked, then recalled himself and bowed. “Ah…I believe her ladyship has already retired, my lord.”

All the better to rattle her. “I doubt she’ll be abed yet.” Christian looked down his nose at the obsequious Mellon, then raised one brow. “My message?”

Flustered, Mellon turned to the drawing room. “If you’ll wait in-”

Christian strolled toward the front parlor. “I’ll wait in here.”

Mellon dithered, then surrendered and flapped away toward the stairs.

Smiling intently, Christian walked into Letitia’s domain and looked around. On the end of one sofa table, a candelabra still burned, bathing the silk rug in golden light and shadows.

The sight brought the phantom scent of jasmine back to his senses. Tightened his belly and his groin.

He drew in a breath and looked around the room, and felt her there, around him. While he waited-he knew she wouldn’t hurry-he studied her things, searching for some insight into how she’d changed in the twelve years they’d been apart, but there was nothing he saw that seemed in any way different. More intense, more powerful, more well-defined, perhaps, but in all respects she was still the same Letitia Vaux he’d fallen completely and irrevocably in love with more than thirteen years before.

She’d grown, matured, but she hadn’t changed.

Presumably that meant that the same rules applied-that the ways he’d used to deal with her in the past would still work.

He had to learn more about Randall, and most especially about Letitia’s marriage to the man. Whatever else Justin Vaux was, he was sharply intelligent; he had to have had some compelling reason to believe Letitia had killed Randall. Christian needed to learn what that reason was in order to do what Justin had obviously felt needed to be done-protect Letitia from suspicion.

That was his logical, rational reason for what he was about to do.