Mary Balogh - Slightly Wicked

Panicky in his haste, he must have dropped it without even realizing it. The floor was carpeted. There would have been no loud clatter as it landed. But the bag ... The only explanation she had been able to devise was that he had known he would be suspected from the first moment but had not expected that her room would be searched. He had hidden the bag in her drawer, she guessed, as a sort of private acknowledgment of his guilt to her and a pledge that he would return the contents as soon as he was able. It was not a very satisfactory explanation, but she could think of no other.

“I am not a thief,” she said. “I did not steal anything.”

“I know.”

Did he? Did he trust her? No one else did or probably ever would.

“Where are you going?” he asked her.

She pressed her lips together and stared up at him.

“To London, I suppose,” he said. “It is a pleasant stroll, I believe.”

“It is not your business,” she said. “Go back to Grandmaison, Lord Rannulf.”

But he leaned down from the saddle and held out one hand to her. She was powerfully reminded of the last occasion on which this had happened and of her first impression of him then—broad, rugged, dark-complexioned, blue-eyed and big-nosed, his fair hair too long, not handsome but disturbingly attractive. Now he was simply Rannulf, and for the first time today she wanted to cry.

“Set your hand in mine and your foot on my boot,” he said.

She shook her head.

“Do you know how long it will take you to walk to London?” he asked her.

“I will not be walking all the way,” she said. “And how do you know that London is my destination?”

“Do you have any money?”

She compressed her lips again.

“I will take you to London, Judith,” he said. “And I will help you find your brother.”

“How do you know—”

“Give me your hand,” he said.

She felt bowed down by defeat then and at the same time strangely comforted by his large presence, by his knowledge of what had happened, and by his insistence that she ride up with him. She did as he had directed her and within moments was up before his saddle again, bracketed safely by his arms and legs.

How she wished time could be wound backward, that that adventure of three weeks ago could be lived all over again and what had followed it could be changed.

“What are you going to do when we find him?” she asked. “Turn him over to the authorities? Have him sent to jail? Could it be even worse than that for him? Could he be ...” She could not complete the appalling possibility.

“Is he guilty, then?” he asked.

“He is very deep in debt,” she said, “and his creditors have followed him even to Harewood and pressed him to pay.”

“All men in debt steal their grandmothers’ jewels, then?” he asked.

“He knew about them,” she said. “He had even seen the box. He joked about how they could get him out of his difficulties. At least, I thought it was a joke. And then last night he came to me in the middle of the ball to tell me that he was leaving, that he thought he would be out of debt and would make his fortune very soon. He was very agitated. He kept looking around him as if he expected someone to pounce on him and stop him. He would not let me see him on his way.”

“The evidence seems overwhelming,” he said.

“Yes.”

“As it seems in your case too.”

She turned her head sharply to look into his face. “You do believe I am guilty,” she cried. “Please set me down. Set me down.”

“My point being,” he said, “that evidence can sometimes lie. As it obviously does in your case.”

She gazed at him. “You think it is possible that Branwell is innocent , then?” she asked him.

“Who else might have taken the jewelry?” he asked her. “Who else but the two of you had a motive?”

“No one,” she said, frowning at him. “Or perhaps a large number of people to whom the prospect of riches is enticing.”

“Precisely,” he said. “We could easily narrow down the number of possibilities to nine-tenths of the population of England. Who might have had a motive to ruin you and your brother?”

“No one.” Her frown deepened. “Everyone loves Bran’s charm and sunny nature. And as for me, no one ...”

“It is at least a possibility, is it not?” he said when her eyes widened.

“Horace?” The idea was an overwhelmingly attractive one, deflecting as it would the guilt from Branwell.

“He certainly had a vicious plan for me,” he reminded her.

But she could not accept a theory merely because she wanted to believe it. Except that the velvet bag in her drawer and the earring on the floor would make far more sense if Horace were the culprit.

“I must find Bran anyway,” she said, “even if only to warn him. I need to find out the truth.”

“Yes,” he said, “you do. When did you last eat?”

“This morning,” she said. “I am not hungry.”

“Liar,” he said. “Claire Campbell tried that one on me too. You could well starve on pride, you know.

Did you sleep last night?”

She shook her head.

“It shows,” he told her. “If I were meeting you now for the first time, I might mistake you for only a marginally lovely woman.”

She laughed despite herself and then had to clap the back of her hand over her mouth and swallow several times in order to prevent herself from bawling.

One of his hands pulled loose the ribbons of her bonnet from beneath her chin. He took the bonnet off—it was the one he had bought her—tied the ribbons inexpertly again, and looped them over his saddle. Then he drew her sideways against him and pressed her head to his shoulder.

“I do not want to hear another word from you until I can find a respectable-looking inn at which to feed you,” he said.

She ought not to have been comfortable. Perhaps she was not. She was suddenly too tired to know. But she could feel the strong, firm muscles of his shoulder and chest, and she could smell his cologne or whatever it was about him that made him unique, and his head and hat were shading her from the rays of the sun. She drifted into a pleasant state between sleeping and waking and imagined lying safe on the bottom of a Viking boat while he stood massive and protective at the prow. Or standing beside him on a cliff top while his Saxon locks and his Saxon tunic fluttered in the breeze and she knew that he would take on every fierce warrior who dared invade his shores and vanquish them single-handed. She would have thought she was asleep and dreaming except that she was aware that she dreamed and seemed to have the ability to direct the dream in whichever direction she wanted.

She wanted to believe in him as the eternal hero of mythology.

He let one inn go by since she was dozing on his shoulder and he guessed that she needed . sleep at least equally as much as she needed food. He stopped at the next decent inn and insisted that she eat every mouthful of the meal that was set before her even though after the first few bites she told him that she did not think she could eat any more.

It was already late afternoon. They would not make it to London tonight. He thought briefly of hiring a carriage and going as far as Ringwood Manor in Oxfordshire. Aidan had told him fondly in London, while waiting impatiently for all the business of selling his commission to be completed so that he could return to his wife, that Eve had a strong tendency to reach out to all sorts of lame ducks, most of whom ended up in her employment. She would take Judith in even if Aidan pokered up and looked askance at her. She would perhaps be able to offer Judith some of the comfort she needed.

There would be no real comfort, though, until she found her brother, until she was convinced beyond all doubt that he had had no hand in the robbery of their grandmother’s jewelry. And no comfort, he supposed, until the jewels and the thief had been found and she and her brother were totally exonerated.

“We had better go,” she said, setting down her knife and fork on her empty plate. “What time will we reach London? Will Bran be at his lodgings, do you suppose?”

“Judith,” he said, “you are almost dropping with fatigue.”

“I must find him,” she said. “And it must be before he disposes of the jewelry if he has it.”

“We will not get there tonight,” he told her.

She gazed at him blankly.

“And even if we did,” he said, “you would be fit for nothing. You would be dead on your feet. You almost are even now.”

“I keep thinking,” she said, “that I will wake up and find that all this is a bad dream. All of it—Bran’s extravagances, my aunt’s letter inviting one of us to go to live at Harewood, everything that has happened since.”

Including what had happened on her journey? He stared at her silently for a few moments. Could it possibly have been just last night that he had felt a strong bond with her and had been convinced she would gladly accept his marriage offer this morning?

“We had better stay here for the night,” he said. “You can have a good rest and be ready to make an early start in the morning.”

She set both hands over her face briefly and shook her head, but when she looked up at him it was with weary eyes and a look of resignation.

“Why did you come after me?” she asked.

He pursed his lips. “Perhaps after last night’s near disaster with Miss Effingham,” he said, “I was glad of some excuse to avoid further visits to Harewood Grange. Perhaps I was tired of being incarcerated in the country. Perhaps I was not fond of the idea that Horace Effingham would be your only pursuer.”