“You seem to think yourself irresistible, Mrs. Mannering,” he said, staring at her lips. “The moving of the stairs was an accident. And if you were not so intent on being thrilled by my nearness, ma’am, you would have realized moments ago that you are by no means being held prisoner against my person. You may remove yourself whenever you wish.”
“Oh!” Her eyes grew round. She pushed herself away from him as if indeed he were a toad. And then she slapped him—a stroke that was poorly aimed and caught him painfully on the side of the nose and across the lips as well as on the cheek.
Nicholas winced, but forced himself to regard her cynically, one eyebrow raised. He wondered how she would look—alarmed or even more angry than she was now—if she knew just what very great danger she was in at that moment. He had only just resisted the instinct to grab her, drag her against him again, . . .
He fingered his lip gingerly and realized that the inside had been cut against his teeth. “Well, ma’am,” he said, “I take it this is your way of declining my offer to help you clean the books and search them for treasure maps. A pity. We might have done it in half the time together. Have you found any great possibility of fortune yet, by the way?”
Kate was standing before him, her hands in tight fists at her side. “Yes,” she said, and smiled. “I found the essays of Sir Francis Bacon inside one of the books. They are a great treasure to the inquiring mind, sir.”
She was startled when his eyes danced into life and a grin flashed across his face. The expression was gone in a moment, leaving her wondering if she had imagined it. The bored, cynical face of Sir Harry Tate was regarding her. She frowned, reaching into her mind for some elusive memory.
He sighed. “Au revoir, Mrs. Mannering,” he said. “Now I perceive I am doomed to spend the next hour in my room until the imprint of your fingers has disappeared from my face. Though I fear my nose might resemble a beacon for a somewhat longer time.” He made her a mock bow and sauntered from the room, closing the door quietly behind him.
Insufferable, conceited, insolent . . . fop! Kate thought, hands on hips, staring after him. He had moved the stairs deliberately. He had wanted to embarrass her. And he had succeeded admirably. He was just the sort of man she despised most, the sort who liked to think himself irresistible to women. He had wanted her to blush and sigh and stammer merely because she was in his arms.
“God’s gift to women,” she muttered under her breath as she tested the staircase for steadiness and climbed to the top again.
It was just good for her that indignation had been the strongest of her emotions. He could not know—indeed she did not want to admit to herself—that she had felt uncomfortably heated at his closeness. She had thought he was going to kiss her. Indeed, some cool, remote part of her mind had been preparing itself to discover how his kisses would compare with Giles’s and Nicholas’ kisses. It would have been horrible. She knew it would. His obvious contempt of women would have made it horrible. But he was large and very strong. Attractive. And of course damnably good-looking.
Well, he could not know that she had felt momentarily attracted. And she was not really attracted, anyway. It was just that his size had reminded her somehow of Nicholas, and she was missing Nicholas. Oh, how she was missing him! She was aching for him even now. Kate sighed and reached for a book on the shelf before her. If only she could discover something that would give her the excuse to visit him again. She wanted to see him, ridiculous mask and all, and she wanted to talk to him. She felt as if she had known him for years. She felt as if he were her friend. She wanted to kiss him.
Kate shuddered suddenly as she replaced the book on the shelf. What a toad that Sir Harry Tate was. And she had been attracted. What a horrifying and humiliating thought it was to know that one could be attracted to someone one knew to be thoroughly despicable. As if the physical could sometimes be more powerful than one’s common sense or one’s moral sense.
She reached up for another book.
All the guests at Barton Abbey, with the exception of the four who had gone to Trecoombe and were not yet returned, gathered in the drawing room for tea later in the afternoon. The earl even summoned Kate from her task in the library so that she could preside at the tea tray.
The Earl of Barton was not finding the presence of his guests as effective as he had hoped in distracting his mind from its uneasiness. He was unable to forget about Nicholas Seyton and his curiosity to find his mother. Alice and Charles Dalrymple had both asked about that young man. The soldiers of the coast guard had been unable to find any trace of either the highwayman or Seyton in their search, and none of the servants appeared to know of his whereabouts. But Lord Barton was not satisfied. His cousin’s son was not in Shropshire either. He had received a reply to his inquiry on that matter earlier in the day.
Where was he? If he were still in the vicinity, surely someone would have seen him. And everyone for miles around must know him. He had lived most of his life at Barton Abbey. The sensible answer, of course, was that Seyton had taken himself off somewhere to seek his fortune or to squander the modest inheritance he had been left. He had probably forgotten all about finding his mother once he realized that it would be almost impossible to do so.
That was what he should believe, the earl kept on telling himself during an afternoon spent in his cabinet. But he could not convince himself. The myriad questions of Nicholas’ second letter had been a clear indication that the boy was very eager indeed to discover the secrets of his past. Was he likely to have given up so easily? And Lord Barton was nagged by the certain knowledge that he had done the wrong thing in replying the way he had to that second letter. In fact, his refusal to answer all questions was enough to make even a less than normally intelligent person suspicious. He wished he could go back and respond differently.
And that kidnapping scheme still troubled him. Highway robbery was unheard of in this part of the world. And this had not even been highway robbery. The sole purpose of the villain had seemed to be to kidnap Thelma. Why? For ransom merely? Or for information that he knew the earl would not be able to withhold? It was the only explanation that made any sense. If the highwayman had wanted a ransom, he could have exacted a modest sum even for Mrs. Mannering. Instead he had let her go free after thoroughly frightening the poor young woman.
The masked man that his son and daughter and Mrs. Mannering herself had described did not resemble the type of man he imagined Nicholas must have grown into. This rogue was tall and well-built. Both Jonathan and his uncle had been of only medium height and quite slender in build. And most unexpected of all, the highwayman had had long and very blond hair. That could have been a wig, of course. Or it was equally possible that Seyton had an accomplice, that he had someone else to do the dangerous part of his task for him. But whatever the answer, Barton was convinced that Nicholas Seyton was lurking somewhere in the vicinity of the Abbey and that he was growing desperate for answers.
Those marriage papers still haunted Lord Barton. He was quite delighted to make use of Mrs. Mannering’s eagerness to ingratiate herself with him. She could search the library without any inkling of what she was involved in. But finding those papers was a forlorn hope. Better to concentrate on finding Seyton and somehow eliminating the danger he posed. If he could find him and prove that he was the kidnapper, of course, his task would be well done. He would be safe for the rest of his life.
The Earl of Barton smiled around on his chattering guests. “Alice,” he said, “I had an interesting letter just today about Jonathan’s poor son. Strange that you should mention him yesterday. I had written to him in Shropshire to assure him of my goodwill, but had a reply from the housekeeper to say that he is not there.”
“Indeed?” she said, setting her cup in its saucer and giving her brother her full attention. “I wonder where he went, Clive. He was here when Uncle died? He must have felt obliged to leave. I know it is most improper of me to say so, but I have a great curiosity to see him. Do none of the servants know where he went?”
“Apparently not,” the earl replied. “The groom says he took his horse and left. The butler was inclined to believe that he took the stage.”
“But what about all his belongings?” Lady Toucher said. “Surely they were sent on to some definite address.”
“I understand he took his few personal possessions with him,” the earl said. “I suppose that fact makes it unlikely that he left on horseback.”
Kate was pouring tea for Mrs. Carstairs and trying to block out the sound of a conversation that was taking place between Lord Toucher and Lady Emma North beside her.
“I have a theory,” the earl said carefully. “There is probably nothing in it, of course. But I have a theory that our illegitimate cousin did not leave Dorset at all.”
“Whatever can you mean, Clive?” his sister asked.
“Barton Abbey has been his home all his life,” the earl said. “And as you observed, Alice, the poor boy must have felt obliged to leave when the property passed into my hands. He was quite right to do so, of course. It would be an embarrassment—now, for example—to have him hanging on here. But one cannot but feel sorry for him. This is the only home he had known. What would be more natural than for him to stay close for a time, anyway, until he can summon up the courage to put the past behind him and begin a new life?”
“Seyton did not strike me as a man of great sensibility when I knew him in Cambridge,” Charles Dalrymple said. “What you say makes sense, Clive, but not in his case, I am afraid. It seems far more likely to me that he has taken himself off adventuring before settling down in Shropshire. And the servants would know if he were in the vicinity. In my experience I have found that it is well nigh impossible to keep anything from servants.”
