You have every right to wash your hands of me, and yet I find I must ask a favour. I require your help in a matter that touches my family’s safety. Come to me at once if you can. If not, send a note to say when I may call upon you and where. Pray forgive my earlier temper. I was not myself.
W.
He sanded, folded, and sealed the note, then rang for a footman.
“By hand,” he said. “To Lord Duskwood at his lodgings. Wait for an answer if one is offered.”
When the door closed, he pressed the heel of his hand into the place between his eyes.DeBrett’shad settled one question and raised five.
Adeline Warren. Lord Harston. The man he’d glimpsed last night beside Mr. Pike.
The tight net of it drew itself around the house and tugged.
What business does Lord Harston have with Bow Street?
He sent a second note to the Bow Street Office, carefully worded, requesting an interview with a certain runner he trusted to keep this quiet. He did not write the wordpoison. He wrote only that he had a household matter requiring discretion. The runner would understand.
Upstairs, Cordelia would brook no hint of relaxation or insist upon needing time to recuperate her strength. She shooed off fussing with a regal flick of her fingers.
“Go. Both of you,” she said when Winston returned. “Take a pair of horses and ride, freshen yourselves, and talk of nice things other than sick old women. Louisa shall stay with me today. There’s to be no sobbing. We’ll play spillikins and I shall cheat.”
Just as his mother instructed, Winston and Adeline set out an hour later, the day dry but threatening. The horses were fresh from the stable and keen for a run. The roads opened beyond Hyde Park and hedges replaced terraces. Winston barely felt the injuries that confined him to the use of a cane when on foot. His knee had ached abominably all night after carrying his mother in from the carriage.
Now the horse took the weight, and Winston felt the illusion of being hale and hearty. Adeline rode with bright eyes and red cheeks. She, too, gave the illusion of glowing health. There was no sign of the deception she practiced.
Does it pinch? Does she feel the lies, the guilt of it? Or is she quite content?
That was the part he could not believe. Would not believe. She was a good person, motherly and with a wife’s awareness of his needs. Her touch, her kiss, her body brought him intense pleasure. Brought him a desire that overwhelmed him. He could not imagine his life without her. His house without her scent, her soft footfall, and challenging stare.
They rode side by side toward Brompton, the city’s noise fading behind them. Fresh earth, wet lane, a hawker’s cry from very far off, and the clean stamp of hoof on road. These were easy things to bear. Winston kept his hands light on the reins. He wanted to speak, but each way he composed his question, it sounded like a charge.Who are you?That was too blunt.Why did you lie?That statement was worse. He tried to ease toward it by degrees.
“You’re quiet,” he said.
“So are you,” Adeline answered.
“I don’t wish to crowd you,” he said.
“You don’t.”
They rode in silence again. He failed to find a path through the words. The lane narrowed and opened, cottages set back behind small hedges giving way to low fields. Out here, orchards still stood where fields had not already given way to market gardens. He signaled and turned into a slope where apple trees stood in neat lines, their branches bowed with the last of the fruit. A man and a boy worked with ladders. Winston hailed them, namedhimself with a brief apology for the intrusion, and asked leave to buy a sack.
The farmer, all deference once he understood who he addressed, waved him on at once.
“Pick what you please, Your Grace. We have more than we can bring to market. The wind’s knocked down a good many.”
“We’ll pay,” Winston said.
“As you wish, sir,” the man replied, eyes bright at the thought of a Duke’s coin.
They left the horses at the fence. Adeline reached for the nearest branch and found it just above her fingers. Winston stepped under the tree and locked his hands together.
“I can hoist you,” he said. “If you trust me.”
“I’ve already climbed on your pride,” she said, and put her foot in his palms before he could answer.
He lifted. She was light. She steadied herself with a hand on his shoulder. His knee twinged, but bore it. When she reached for an apple, her balance tipped and her knee pressed against the side of his neck.
“Careful,” he said, amused despite himself.
