Lady Rosabella's Ruse

‘Don’t you love anyone? Your family? Is there no woman you have ever loved?’

‘Family is a duty. I fulfil my responsibilities. I believe in friend ship. It also has responsibilities.’ He looked up, his dark gaze shadowed and unfathomable. ‘But all this emotional talk and poetry about hearing music, the sky being brighter, because you love someone is just so much claptrap. It isn’t possible.’

The vehemence in his tone took her aback. ‘I will admit there are different kinds of love. Love of family is quite different from romantic love. But why would so many people, men and women, write about it, if they have never experienced it?’

‘Because they are in lust. People don’t like to think of their baser urges as the same as unthinking beasts, so they call it another name.’

She gasped. Baser urges. Is that how he saw love? ‘Then what about familial love?’

‘Family members care about each other as long as it benefits them. If it doesn’t, then they don’t.’

Never had she heard anything so cold. What on earth could have caused such a chilly outlook? She flung the carpet back in place and put her hands on her hips. ‘I feel sorry for you, Lord Stanford, if that is how you feel.’

He kicked his corner of the carpet flat. A puff of dust rose up. ‘Indeed, Mrs Travenor. Well, I am not the one searching a stranger’s home for a stray picture that a widower no longer wanted to look at and promptly forgot about because he probably married again to assuage his baser instincts.’

How had he guessed Father had married again? ‘My father never forgot my mother. Never.’

He gave her a dark glance. ‘Are we done here? Are there any other hiding places you can think of?’

‘The study.’

He groaned and pulled out his fob watch, bringing it close to the lantern on the table. ‘It is almost two. After the study, we will leave.’

‘After the study, there is nowhere else to look.’ She’d searched all the other rooms. Oh, how she hoped the study held the answer.

She blew out the candles she’d lit, picked up her lantern and marched along the corridor, all too aware of Stanford trailing behind.

She was aware of his presence all the time. It was like having the devil sitting on your shoulder, whispering tempting words in your ear, because she kept remembering their almost-kiss, kept feeling a glimmer of the heat that had ripped through her body, each time their gazes met. And she had the distinct impression, when he looked at her, that he was remembering it, too.

‘You certainly seem to know your way around,’ he said as she went to the study and flung back the door.

‘Because I lived here,’ she said, not quite disguising the triumph in her voice.

‘Or because this is not the first time you have searched.’

The room was bare of furniture. Not even one picture remained.

‘Oh,’ she said, recalling her father’s oak desk and the heavy wooden chairs. ‘Where is everything?’

Stanford shrugged.

If only Inchbold was here, he would know. She glanced around the oak-panelled walls. Could they hide a secret place? She tried tapping on the wall nearest the door.

Stanford groaned. ‘This is ridiculous.’

‘Not to me, it isn’t,’ she said fiercely. Her sisters were depending on her to find the will. They all were. The debts were mounting by the day. Debts to the school. Debts to the doctor. She’d managed to stave them off, but she had borrowed against the certain knowledge they would inherit something by way of her father. When no will was found, everything had gone to his new wife and their son and the debts had remained. Growing more crushing by the day as interest piled on top of interest. She clenched her hands. She would not believe her father had broken his promise.

‘If you want to help, then do so. If not, please stand back.’

She pushed past him to get to the wall on the other side of the door. Her tapping revealed nothing out of the ordinary. With a long-suffering sigh, Stanford inspected the floorboards.

‘There’s nothing here,’ he said after he’d covered every inch of the floor and she had done the same with the walls. She’d even looked up the chimney, which was an old-fashioned one, probably built when the first house occupied the estate.

Her shoulders slumped as defeat washed through her. ‘You are right. There is nothing here.’ And disaster loomed closer.

He shot her a considering look.

She forced a careless shrug. ‘He must have put it somewhere else. Perhaps his second wife has it.’

His mouth tightened. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Me, too. There is no point in searching any longer. It is time we went home to our beds.’

The hot look he sent her way seared her skin everywhere it touched and it roamed her at will. As if he’d like to eat her up. Or kiss her.

The thought of comfort in a pair of strong arms was very tempting right at this moment. It seemed like years since she’d had anyone to lean on. She forced her gaze away. ‘Let us go.’

Outside, she locked the door and put the key in her pocket. ‘I will return it to the servant tomorrow.’ In an oppressive silence they walked across the lawn and into the woods, with only the light of the lantern to guide their steps.

‘You don’t believe me, do you?’ she said. ‘About the miniature?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because it doesn’t make sense. Why wouldn’t the owner give you permission to look?’

‘He took the furnishings in lieu of rent,’ she said. ‘He would say the miniature also belonged to him.’

‘In that case, I’m afraid it does.’

She halted. ‘Have you no compassion at all?’

His gaze searched her face, the light from the lantern emphasising the starkness of his features, the high cheekbones, the angular jaw. The bleakness in his eyes. ‘None.’

‘Heaven help you, then.’

He gave that short laugh of his. ‘It won’t.’

She wanted to shake him. Then realisation flooded through her. ‘You are going to contact the owner, aren’t you?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you are lying.’

‘How can you say that?’