She bent and hugged her companion. “I wish I had listened,” she whispered. “You said he was too handsome, didn’t you?”
She gave an unsteady laugh, and hurried from the room.
By the following day Philip had recovered sufficiently to attend his employer in the library. His neckcloth concealed the bruises on his throat, and his hoarseness was easily explained as the aftereffects of a sore throat. If he staggered slightly when Miss Cavencourt outlined her plans to depart for London in early March, that, too, could be blamed on aftereffects.
“We shall probably return at the end of the Season,” she said composedly, though she averted her gaze. “I daresay you’ll manage with Mrs. Swanslow and Jane.”
So, she did not intend to take him with her? This must be Padji’s doing. What had the curst Indian told her? Gad, what the devil was he thinking? What did it matter? Philip would not have gone with her in any case. This was a pose, not a bloody career!
“Certainly, miss,’’ he said meekly.
“I shall keep you apprised of our needs.” She took up her pen. “That will be all,” she added dismissively.
“I beg your pardon?”
She looked up, but still not directly at him.
“You aren’t intending to work on your manuscript, miss?”
“Yes, I am, but I shan’t trouble you today. You and Mrs. Swanslow will have enough to do, with preparations.”
“We do have nearly a month,” he said stubbornly.
“I wish to work alone today, Mr. Brentick,” came the chilly reply.
Disagreeably chilly. The cold seemed to enter his bloodstream and trace frost patterns about his heart.
She was shutting him out. Small wonder, if Padji had been smearing his character. Very well. The Falcon was not about to beg for explanations.
Philip bowed and headed for the door. His fingers closed upon the handle, then froze there, his rage smothered in a flood of numbing desolation.
He swung round, saw her dark head bent over her work, and heard another man’s voice—it could not be his—low, sharp, demanding—”For God’s sake, what have I done?”
Her head shot up, and he saw her eyes glittering. Anger, he thought, as he returned to the worktable. When he neared, the glitter resolved to golden mist. Tears.
“What have I done?” he repeated. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She brushed hastily at her eyes. “I have a headache.”
“I shall ask Padji to make up one of his herbal teas,” he said.
“No! Oh, Mr. Brentick—” She flung the pen down. “Just keep away from him, will you? Stay out of the kitchen. That is an order. Stay out of his way.”
“I see,” he said tightly. “Stay out of his way, stay out of your way. May I ask, miss, where you propose I take myself?”
She was staring at him now, her golden gaze wide and wondering as it darted from his face to his tightly clenched hands. He unclenched them.
“Gad, but you do have a temper,” she said softly.
He swallowed. “I beg your pardon, Miss Cavencourt.”
“You needn’t apologise. I’ve heard Padji’s kept you at boiling point. That’s why I ordered you to keep out of his way. He told me you quarrelled yesterday, and he drove you to violence.”
“We had a misunderstanding, miss,” Philip said. “I was ill and out of sorts and—”
“And he might have killed you.” She looked away, to the fire. “We’ll be gone in less than a month. Surely you can keep away for that time.”
“Yes, miss. Certainty, miss.”
For the second time, Philip bowed himself out of the room, enlightened, yet no more satisfied than before.
A long day loomed ahead of him. He hadn’t lied about not having enough to do. He’d trained his staff so well, they rarely needed his supervision. They had merely two ladies to tend, and no entertainments to clean up after. The scrubbing, dusting, and polishing was always done by early morning. He’d arranged all, in fact, to leave him free to keep his employer company most of the day.
Now she didn’t want his company.
Now he discovered he wanted hers.
Philip returned to his room—carefully avoiding the kitchen en route—collected his coat and his cigar case, and headed for the garden.
Two cheroots later, Philip had left the garden and wandered out to the moors. The snow had melted and the air, though still cold, carried a faint promise of spring. He found the boulders where he and his employer had enjoyed their first picnic. There he sat, staring at the silver case she’d given him.
She was leaving, finally, and he was relieved, naturally. One long maddening year it had been, maddening even at the last. After all the Falcon’s clever plans and manipulations, it was Padji who’d changed her mind, not the sensible widow. All those long walks, the sledding, the skating—all unnecessary.
Brentick had aroused Mrs. Gales’s suspicions, as he’d intended, but in the end it was Padji who’d served him. Miss Cavencourt was returning to the world in order to keep her cook from killing her butler.
A waste of time, all those hours spent alone together, here in the brooding hills. A waste of time, fighting temptation, day after day. A dangerous waste of time. They’ve grown too close, and he’d come to know her too well. She’d come to live within him, a part of him, just as her voice and scent formed some part of the air he breathed. Today the world about him was wrong somehow, dislocated, because she was missing.
It was the same wrongness and dislocation he’d felt when she dismissed him from the library. They were supposed to be together. Together, Amanda. You need me to look after you. You’re supposed to be with me. I made it so.
He gazed about the bleak landscape and saw regret. He closed his eyes and tried to force the demoralising truth back into its dark closet, but it would not be stifled. The Falcon could lie to everyone but himself. He loved her... and in a month, he’d betray her.
Chapter Eighteen
Miss Cavencourt never locked up the receipt for the Laughing Princess because she didn’t need to. The bank staff knew her. Only she could claim her statue. Thus, one week before her scheduled departure, Philip had merely to slip the receipt among the clutter of estate office documents he was organising into tidy piles. It was equally simple, a short while later, to pretend to find it for the first time.
“An item of value, it says, miss,” he said, handing her the piece of paper. “Jewellery, I daresay. I presume you’ll wish to take it to London.”
She stared at it, then up at him. “Oh, I don’t know. Do you think—” She caught herself and flushed.
“Yes, miss? May I be of assistance?”
Miss Cavencourt bit her lip, stared once, more at the paper, then shook her head.
Unperturbed, Philip left the room. She’d call him back. She’d survived without him a mere three days before summoning him to assist with the book once more. Within a week, they’d fallen into old habits—or near enough. Their long afternoon activities had ended. When Miss Cavencourt wanted exercise, Padji accompanied her.
All the same, she was too accustomed to relying on her butler’s judgment. She’d call him back. If not, he’d simply discard Plan A. Plan B or C would do as well.
An hour later, he was summoned to the library. Miss Cavencourt could not make out one of his notes.
When he’d done translating what was perfectly clear in the first place, the lady asked with studied nonchalance whether he’d heard anything of Mr. Wringle. Bella had mentioned him just this morning. Bella, evidently, cherished hopes of meeting the fellow in London.
That, Philip knew, was a fabrication. Bella had nothing to do with it. He knew exactly what troubled his employer: she wanted to be sure it was safe to take the statue with her.
He affected astonishment. “In London? Doesn’t she—” He stopped short. “Didn’t I tell you?”
Tell me what?” Her fingers gripped the table’s edge.
“Good heavens,” he said, shakin
g his head. “I believe I never did tell you. Though how it could have —”
Tell me what, Mr. Brentick?” she demanded.
“I do beg your pardon, miss. I should have told you, but in the press of domestic crises, it must have slipped my mind. Later, no doubt, I assumed I had told you.” He paused briefly. “Mr. Wringle was taken up.”
Miss Cavencourt’s golden eyes opened very wide. “Taken up?” she echoed. “By whom, for what?”
“By Bow Street officers. I had it from the employment agent, the first day I met with him. Evidently all York was buzzing about it. Mr. Forbish was most excited, having observed the arrest himself.”
Miss Cavencourt appeared so utterly lost that her butler was strongly tempted to lift her out of her chair and carry her to safety. The trouble was, he couldn’t take her anywhere she’d be safe from him.
“But that is very strange,” she said after a moment. “What was Mr. Wringle doing in York? I thought he worked for a respectable London law firm.”
“So it appeared, miss.”
“But you said you’d been acquainted with him—and Randall Groves helped you get the position.”
“I daresay Mr. Groves found no more reason to doubt the man than I did. I noticed nothing out of the way in Mr. Wringle’s behaviour. That is, not until the regrettable incident in Portsmouth.”
“I see.” Her amber gaze dropped to the table. “Do you know what the charge was against him?”
In low tones her butler informed her that Mr. Wringle had been trafficking in stolen goods, among other felonies. Most shocking it was.
“Astonishing, to be sure,” she answered slowly, as she digested the news and reached precisely the conclusion Philip intended. “Bella will be distressed.” She looked up. “But we needn’t tell her right away. I should hate to upset her now, when she has so much to do.”
“Most considerate of you, miss. I only hope I haven’t distressed you,” he said, frowning in concern.
“Oh, no. I’m just... surprised. Well, not altogether, for this does explain his inexcusable behaviour to you, Mr. Brentick. The man is a hardened villain. Once he was home, safe and well,” she said indignantly, “he had no more need for you. He must have feared you’d discover his true self. Certainly you would, because you are so clever and— and perceptive.”
Philip had to drop his own gaze then. He wished she wouldn’t look at him so. Her guileless golden eyes told him far too much. She not only believed every word, she believed in him.
It was a pity, really. So quick and capable her mind was, as she glided through the labyrinths of Hindu mythology and philosophy. So sadly inept, on the other hand, when it came to comprehending her faithless butler.
He heard her tell him she’d go to York the day after tomorrow to collect her “jewellery,” just as he heard himself nod and answer calmly. This, after all, was precisely what he’d worked so hard to accomplish. Yet it seemed another man composedly acceded to her wishes, while Philip Astonley wanted to shake her and scream at her not to be such a beautiful, trusting little fool.
Padji rarely slept. He usually spent some part of the night prowling the house and another part roaming the countryside. As Philip had discovered the night he’d ended up in the closet, the Indian followed no predictable routine. Sometimes Padji never left the house at all. At other times he vanished before midnight and did not return until near daybreak. Twice he’d not turned up until after breakfast, leaving the meal to an irate Mrs. Swanslow. When he did go out, moreover, one could not be certain whether he lurked near the house or roamed miles away. The Falcon had therefore contrived several different schemes to accommodate all eventualities.
On the night before the planned trip to York, Padji chose to wander abroad. He returned shortly before dawn and headed for his sleeping quarters, a small room off the kitchen. Philip gave him time to settle in, then crept out to the kitchen.
“Hush,” he said in a drunken whisper. He needn’t raise his voice. Padji’s ears were prodigious sharp. “We don’t want to wake everyone.”
He answered himself with a feminine giggle. Miss Cavencourt’s giggle, to be precise.
A short, amorous conversation ensued, the Falcon playing both drunken servant and the tipsy mistress he enticed out of the kitchen and down the hall to his room.
He’d scarcely closed the door when he heard Padji in stealthy pursuit. Damp cloth in one hand and heavy saucepan in the other, Philip leapt upon the chair he’d previously placed by the door, and flattened himself against the wall.
The door flew open, Padji swung through, and Philip slammed the saucepan against the Indian’s skull. The giant sank to his knees, and Philip swiftly pressed the cloth to his face. Padji collapsed.
Moments later, Philip was hauling the cook’s inert body through the butler’s pantry, then down the steps to the cellars.
He deposited Padji in the outermost wine cellar, tied him up, and gagged him. Then he locked the door, stuffed a few shards of metal into the lock, and began building a barricade of casks.
This labour done, he quickly put into place the dozen booby traps he’d prepared days before. The Indian shouldn’t come to for several hours, and he’d have a devil of a time untying himself, then breaking down the door, but it was best to create as many hindrances as possible. Every minute could count.
Philip returned upstairs, locked the cellar door, and speedily erased all signs of recent events. He checked his pocket watch and smiled grimly.
Knowing he could delay her if that proved necessary, he’d persuaded Miss Cavencourt to make a very early start. He’d already packed and stowed in the carriage his few belongings. He’d plenty of time to bathe and shave, time even to breakfast leisurely—if he’d had any appetite.
A thief, a prince, a falcon.... A prophecy, perhaps. Padji’s words came back to Amanda as she sat, silently fretting, in the curricle beside her butler.
She’d felt uneasy all day because she hadn’t told Padji her plans. He of all people was entitled to know she was retrieving the Laughing Princess. The trouble was, he’d want to guard her, and if Padji accompanied her to York, Mr. Brentick could not. She had not wanted to give up these last few precious hours.
Now, as they drove homeward, Amanda wished she hadn’t been so stupidly sentimental. The disturbing dream had visited her again last night, leaving her anxious when she woke. She’d wanted to speak to Padji of that at least, but he’d gone wandering again. He was nowhere to be found this morning when she’d come down.
To compound these previous vexations, her butler had been behaving oddly all day. When she tried to make conversation, he answered absently, or with the polite detachment of the early days of his employment.
Their discourse en route to York had been desultory at best. Once there, he’d taken her briskly from shop to shop. He’d claimed business of his own when she stopped tor refreshment, and left her to eat her meal alone. After that, she’d retrieved her statue from the bank, and they’d left. No, the day had not passed as she’d hoped.
She threw him a sidelong glance. He seemed very pale. Faint, grim lines at his eyes and mouth made his face taut and hard. This was not the laughing, boyish countenance of her teasing playfellow, or even the amused, ironic visage of her efficient secretary. He seemed another man, a chilling stranger.
Abruptly it occurred to her that they’d left York an hour ago, home waited nearly another hour’s drive ahead, and they travelled at present upon a desolate stretch of a little-used country road.
What nonsense, she chided herself. She knew perfectly well this was the shorter route to Kirkby Glenham. Mr. Brentick’s countenance was tired, that was all. She had no reason to be uneasy. She’d been alone with him countless times, in equally uninhabited locales.
It was the bundle at her feet that made her so irrationally anxious—that, the distressing dream, a poor night’s sleep, and a devilish conscience. Not to mention a pathetic case of unrequited love which had long since robbed her of her reasoning
power. Idiot.
She’d no sooner succeeded in talking herself round to sense, when the carriage stopped.
“Miss Cavencourt, I must speak to you,” he said.
Her anxiety instantly resurged. “That’s hardly reason to stop,” she said. “It’s growing late, and I promised Mrs. Gales rd be home for tea. You can talk and drive at the same time, Mr. Brentick.”
“Not this time.”
She darted him a nervous glance. His expression had softened somewhat, and he did appear merely tired, or troubled. Lud, what a ninnyhammer she was!
She folded her hands in her lap. “What is it, then?”
He turned slightly toward her. “Miss Cavencourt, I’m afraid I can’t continue working for you any longer.”
Her heart chilled and sank within her, though she told herself she’d expected this. She’d known a message would come one day while she languished in London. He’d grow bored. He’d want a more challenging and convivial position. He deserved better than the dull isolation of Kirkby Glenham. Still, she’d not expected the break so soon. She couldn’t speak. She nodded stiffly.
A warm, gloved hand closed over hers.
“Look at me,” he said. “Look at me, Amanda.”
Amanda. Her head flew up. She looked square into blue, stormy eyes, and her heart wrenched painfully.
“I must leave. You’ll know in a moment. Damn, I’m so sorry—yet I can’t be. It’s just not in my nature. Bloody hell,” he growled.
He pulled her into his arms and dragged her close against him, as though she’d try to run away, when of course she never would. He held her so a long moment while his hands moved over her back and shoulders in hard caresses. “I’m not a gentleman,” he murmured into her hair, “and it’s been hell pretending, Amanda. I’ve always wanted you.”