Eight

HE DRAGGED HER INTO THE GRAND FRONT HALL. The laborers had taken their wood crates away and left the place empty as a platter. Sun lit up the big swag of crystal chandelier above and the silver candlesticks sitting on a side table and the cypress-wood backs of the chairs. Everything rich and fine. She was alone with Sebastian Kennett.

She searched his face for warmth or humor . . . anything to show this was the same man she’d met last night. Not a sign. Just that cold, assessing stare. It was like Captain Sebastian had moved out and left a stranger inside his skin.

She remembered the feel of him. The palms of her hands had learned ten thousand secrets about his bone and muscle last night. She didn’t want to know those things. She didn’t want to know him at all.

He escorted her, firm like, to the curve under the staircase. Not a soul in sight. It was a wonderment how they didn’t have any servants milling about this place. He pressed her to the wall, where the scrolls and flowers and leaves worked in the plaster got acquainted with her back. Lumpy and full of points, that fancy plasterwork.

He said, “You were waiting for me on Katherine Lane.”

Pitney warned her to keep away from the Lane. Doyle—canny, wise old Doyle—told her not to play games with Sebastian Kennett. Didn’t do her any good asking for advice if she wasn’t going to listen to it, did it?

She had lots of reasons for wishing her head didn’t ache. “The Lane’s free to anyone.”

“Anyone who doesn’t mind getting attacked and hit on the head. You didn’t plan on that when you were out in Katherine Lane, sticking to me like a mustard plaster.”

“Not in the slightest particular. You ever notice how life just sneaks up on you? I remember once . . . I was in Cairo, just minding my own business, and—”

“I wish to hell you were back in Cairo right now. I want you out of here.”

Well, he would, wouldn’t he, if he was Cinq? Cinq would have all kinds of secrets and skullduggery piled up in the corners of his house. “I’d figured that out, being a woman of great natural sensitivity. I was about to embark upon a humorous anecdote pointing up the general uncertainty of life and how we—”

“Stow it, Miss Whitby.” Of everyone with the Ashton family nose, the Captain wore it best. Getting glared at over that nose . . . oh, that was a proper spine-chiller, that was. If she’d been one of his sailors, she’d have set about scrubbing the decks, double quick. “The hell of it is, I can’t send you home. Whoever’s supposed to be taking care of you, isn’t. But you can’t stay here.”

She could, though.

What were the odds he kept private papers in some strongbox within a hundred feet of where she was standing? Had to be letters, maybe a journal. Could be all kinds of incriminating paper lying about. Something in this house would tell her whether he was innocent or guilty. Kennett wasn’t going to have enough secrets to upholster a thimble when she got done with him.

Five feet away to the left, on one of the decorative little tables, was a big leather dispatch case, bulging like a pregnant lady. That was Quentin’s probably, and he left it out where anyone could get to it. If the Captain was Cinq, he probably strolled through Quentin’s papers with great regularity. A man as careless as Quentin was just an incitement to treason.

The bits and points of the plasterwork she was leaning on didn’t get any more comfortable. “I’d like to stay. And your aunt invited me. I like your aunt, by the way.”

“Everyone likes my aunt. I don’t let people take advantage of Eunice.”

“I won’t—”

“You already have. I don’t know what lies you’ve told her, but you stop that now. No. Don’t try to deny it.” He bracketed her shoulders, one side and the other, with huge, iron-hard fists, perfectly immobile. Probably he intended to make her nervous. It worked moderately well. “There is one reason, one only, that you aren’t out the door this minute. It’s not safe for you out there. A friend of mine has a country house in Hampstead. I’ll send you there.”

Him, making plans for her. “I stayed in the country, once. You would not believe how dangerous it is. Pigs and horses and these huge black crow birds they let go flying loose everywhere. Birds the size of chickens. And cows. I got stepped on by a cow once and it didn’t half smart. I’ll stick in London, thank you.”

She had to admit it was satisfying, prodding him this way and watching him glower. Petty of her.

“You’ll do what I tell you,” he said.

I don’t think so. “Does your aunt know you buy girls up on Katherine Lane?”

Not a damn change in his eyes. Not a blink. A deep file, Kennett.

“You overpay for it, too.” She saw a tiny twitch to his mouth. Her point. “Maybe I’ll just toddle back into the breakfast room and enlighten her. Then you can tell her what we got up to in your bunk last night. I can’t be informative myself, because I lost track about ten minutes after you slipped me that drug.”

“Damn it. I did not—”

“You can tell me what happened. We’ll all be—”

“I carried you home and dropped you in bed. And put some clothes on you. That,” he bit the words into chewable fragments, “is what I do to women with head injuries. Molesting them is low on my list of amusements. I have a number of bad habits, Miss Whitby, but raping unconscious women isn’t one of them.”

“Your aunt’ll be glad to hear that. Sighs of relief from every quarter. Shall we go back in there and talk about it?” It was dangerous sport, blackmailing the Captain.

His hold got heavy and hard on her shoulders. Heavy as lead. “What did you try to put into my pocket last night?”

Every word of that was English, but strung together, they didn’t mean anything. And she was so tired. Tired and dizzy and a little sick. Into his pocket? Maybe it was some interesting part of last night that she’d forgotten. “I like riddles, generally. But not today. Try another game.”

“Let’s try the truth.” He gave her a shake, as punctuation. “Your father gave you something to slip in my pocket. What was it? A letter? A document? Do I have to go back and pull it out of the mud?”

Pull what out of the mud? What letter? She had to close her eyes to take the words apart and think about them. Into his pocket.

He thought Papa had sent her tippy-toeing up Katherine Lane to stuff incriminating evidence into his smallclothes. He thought they’d send some innocent to choke his life out on the gallows to save her father. Oh, but that was plausible and logical and cold.

That’s the way Cinq thinks. “You would not believe how much I’d like to send you out searching the muck. I’m going to rise above it, though. There aren’t any papers in the mud. None anywhere.”

“Your father doesn’t give a damn if he puts you in danger. He sent you after me, knowing . . .” His hold tightened up. “Now what’s the matter?”

His dark, predatory face leaned close above her, all sharp angles and blunt planes. What black, black eyes he had. Night eyes, with a fire burning in them. They pulled like a whirl-pool of dark water. It’d be almost a relief to let go and just fall in.

He muttered, “Why am I even talking to you? You’re swaying on your feet, you’re too bloody sick to stand up, and you’re not going to tell me the truth anyway.” In a swift coil of motion, he reached down and slipped her feet out from under her and grabbed her up in his arms. “Let’s get you to bed.” He started up the stairs, his boots thumping on the marble, tough and angry.

It was like being lifted up by an ocean wave, like there was no end to the power he had. She gripped a handful of his sleeve. “You can put me down. Right here will do fine.”

“You want to crawl your own way back to bed?” They were at the top of the stairs, fast as talking about it. He strode down the long second-floor hall, past bedroom doors and those Persian miniatures and something new—a procession of little brown pots marching in a line against the wall. “Next time, I’ll let you try. That’ll be amusing. When you collapse, I’ll step over you.”

Then it was up the back stairs, and he wasn’t even breathing hard. The last flight to the attic had a narrow turn in the middle. He went through sideways. Didn’t even pause. That was the good balance he’d learned at sea, climbing the rigging. He kicked the door to her bedroom open. It slammed back to the plaster. Made a hell of a clatter.

Then he laid her on the counterpane so careful she could have been made of glass. Complicated as hell, the Captain.

She sat up fast, jerking the bedclothes loose. After a minute, the room didn’t spin anymore, and he was standing over her, waiting. It was one of those moments with a lot of possibilities for what came next.

Hard to say what Kennett would do if he was Cinq. Strangle her maybe. Or he might strangle her even if he wasn’t Cinq, just from sheer irritation. A woman with a modicum of common sense would get up and run for the door.

“Look at me.” He gave one tap to her chin, almost perfunctory. “That’s right. Now, hear me well, Miss Whitby. What you’re planning to do in this house isn’t going to work. You can hide a mountain of evidence in the corners, and nobody will believe it. Scheme you ever so wisely, charm you ever so well, you’ll fail.”

“I’m not—”

“You stay under these conditions.” Oh, but he was angry with her. Not that he’d been all beer and skittles up to this point, but now he was particularly scowling. “You will behave yourself while you’re under my roof. No more lying to my aunt. Keep away from Quentin. And don’t spar with Claudia. You will lash down that lively tongue of yours when you talk to her.”