Besides, he’d promised her that they would work together. He would just have to find a way to protect her from her own reckless, pell-mell ways. Because if anything happened to her… he felt an acute and foreign spasm in his chest. He would not allow such a possibility. He’d guard his future viscountess, whatever it took.
“Just what are you planning to do?” he said, his voice low.
“After everyone’s asleep, I’m going in to see if I can find clues that others may have missed.” Her chin lifted, a sure sign of defiance. “And you’re not going to stop me.”
In a second, he made his decision.
“Quite right,” he said. “I’m going with you.”
He snagged a piece of ham from her plate and ate it, enjoying her dumbfounded look.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Richard knew he’d made the right decision when, even in the dimly lit hallway, he could see Violet’s brilliant smile. It was after two in the morning, and she was waiting for him outside Monique’s bedchamber, still dressed in her pink evening gown. The light from her lamp licked the tempting mounds framed by her neckline, highlighting the shadowed crevice between.
“I wasn’t sure you would show,” she said in a whisper.
“And let you have all the fun? I think not.”
“I take back everything I ever said about you being stodgy.” Lips curved, she handed him the lamp and reached up to pluck a pair of hairpins from her coiffure. “The door is locked, but I think I can open it with this.”
“Seeing as you’re a disciple of your brother Harry, I don’t doubt your skill. But this might be easier.” He removed the master key from his pocket.
“By Golly, where did you get that?”
“I may have borrowed it when I wandered into the butler’s pantry by accident.” If he was to engage in an adventure, he liked to go prepared.
“You filched it?” She took the key from him as reverently as another miss might accept a jeweler’s box. “Jolly well done!”
He stifled a grin at her compliment.
Taking a swift look around the empty hallway, she slid the key in, turning the lock. They went inside and closed the door behind them. Richard didn’t think of himself as a fanciful sort, but an eerie stillness shrouded the room. The moonlight seeping in from a gap in the drapery was cold and sterile, adding to the tomb-like ambience.
Violet shivered.
Placing an arm around her shoulders, he said quietly, “Are you certain you want to do this?”
“We’re out of leads. I must.” In the moonlight, her profile was resolute. “I’ll start with the bed and work clockwise. Why don’t you go in the opposite direction?”
It was a sound plan, and they set off.
Several minutes passed in which they didn’t speak, absorbed in their respective tasks. He heard Violet mutter the occasionalgadzooksandcrumpetsto herself, which added a certain lightheartedness to an otherwise grim undertaking. As he examined the assorted trifles in a desk drawer, he had a flash of recognition: life with Violet would always be this way, infused with buoyancy and humor no matter what burdens they faced.
And, by Jove, he wanted that future.
“Carlisle, I think I found something!”
Her excited whisper brought him over to where she stood before a bow-fronted wardrobe. The curved doors were open, its innards of silk and lace spilling out. She was on tiptoe, craning her neck this way and that.
She pointed to the high shelf, which was crammed with millinery. “I think I see something there, behind that bonnet, at the very back. But I can’t reach it.”
Richard removed the impeding headwear. Reaching in, his hands closed around a heavy rectangular object. He pulled it down.
It was a mahogany box, the lid inlaid with mother-of-pearl.
“It’s too big to be a jewelry chest,” Violet said eagerly. “I wonder what’s inside?”
The bed was closest, so he placed the chest on its surface.
