Celeste Bradley - [Royal Four 03] Read online

  Even murder.

  Alarm shot through him. “If this thing you are attempting is so dangerous, perhaps you ought to consider ceasing.”

  She shook her head. “That is not a possibility. This is not the sort of commitment I could shed on a whim.”

  “A whim? You’re under attack, Julia!”

  “No. No, it could not be because of that. The people I spoke of … no, this is not them. I know them. This is not the tack they would take. More likely they would send someone to worm their way into my confidence—”

  Oh, hell. He must distract her from that thought at once. “Julia, listen to me!” He turned her to face him, both hands on her shoulders. “You are in danger.” He realized the urgency he heard in his own voice was not feigned.

  Liverpool was not to be trifled with. The man still had much of the influence and power he’d garnered in his years of serving in the Four.

  God, if anything happened to her—

  Icy dread struck deep within him. “Julia, you must leave Barrowby! Go somewhere safe, somewhere isolated, where no one can find you. Can you think of such a place?”

  Her gaze focused on him. “I can, but I won’t. I cannot leave my people here to face this alone.”

  “I will stay.” It was a rash promise, but he realized that he would keep it if it meant she would flee to safety. “I will stay here and run Barrowby for you.”

  She blinked, her brow creasing. “Marcus, I know you mean well, but you have no idea of the requirements—”

  “I have a dim grasp of the concept,” he assured her. “And I am very experienced in the art of defense.”

  She raised one hand to his cheek. “My soldier.” Then she seemed to realize the intimacy of the gesture and dropped her hand to turn away. “My thanks for the generous offer, Marcus, but you simply don’t understand. I cannot leave. I was ordered to remain here to await a decision.”

  Marcus felt his fists clench at his sides. How convenient. Liverpool had commanded her to sit here like a lone pheasant in the park, awaiting the hunter.

  Like him.

  He ran a frustrated hand through his hair. He could not seem to keep his role in mind here. Was he investigating her or protecting her?

  Protect her. Forever.

  Unmask her. Win.

  It did not matter. Either way, he would guard her from further interference. This was not Lord Liverpool’s decision to make—something that doubtless rankled the Prime Minister ever more—and Marcus would not allow anyone to meddle with matters of the Four.

  The watcher in the trees was well satisfied with his work. While it had not gone precisely as planned, in the end, he’d accomplished his objective. Her husband was dead, her pet was gone, her house was nearly empty of dependents, and there was a rumor in the village that she would soon lose the house itself when the heir came to claim the estate.

  Matters were nicely in hand. She had nothing left to keep her here, as far as he could see. And should some other attachment become apparent, he would take care of that as well.

  He took a deep satisfying breath. He’d almost forgotten how enjoyable it was to make a woman like her suffer.

  11

  Marcus clenched his jaw so hard he thought his teeth might crack under the pressure. She was going to drive him mad. “I will not leave you here unprotected.”

  Where she sat elegantly in the room where he’d first seen her, poised like a queen upon a throne in her chair, Julia gazed calmly back at him. “I do not wish to be unprotected. I have my people.”

  “Servants and grooms and … I’m not entirely sure what some of them are, but they are obviously not bodyguards.”

  She raised a brow. “If I were to hire bodyguards, how could I be sure of their loyalty? How could I be sure they were not part of what has been happening?” She looked thoughtful. “I could send for more of the fair folk, I suppose. Harvest is over, for the most part. Work is slight during the cold months.”

  “Not more charity—you need protection!”

  “Do not underestimate the travelers. It is a rough life and they are a hardy breed.”

  “Do you mean Gypsies?”

  She shook her head quickly. “No, the Rom are nothing like the fair folk. Except for the traveling, of course. And the wagons. And sometimes sharing campsites—” She shrugged, frustrated. “The Rom are a people, like the Chinese. The fair folk are Englishmen, or Italians like Beppo, or another nationality. The thing that keeps them together is the fair. Traveling showmen move from fair to fair in the spring, summer, and autumn. Jugglers, sights—”

  At his puzzled expression she explained. “The giant man or the tiny woman. They aren’t performers so much as attractions themselves.”

  He blinked. “I saw a lady with a beard when I was a lad.”

  She rolled her eyes. “You saw a man in a dress, more like. True bearded ladies are very rare.”

  He snorted. “Well, you needn’t punch a hole in my tender childhood memories.”

  She grimaced. “Sorry. But true sights pride themselves on their authentic uniqueness. Have you seen my cook?”

  He shook his head. “Can’t say that I have.”

  “Meg has more tattoos than anyone in Britain,” she said proudly. “If the staff were to go on the road tomorrow, they’d get top billing, for Meg also swallows swords.”

  “So everyone at Barrowby is one of these ‘fair folk’?” That made them sound like Irish fairies. He stifled a superstitious shudder. He wasn’t so sure he wanted to fall asleep in this house again. He might not awaken for a hundred years!

  She nodded. “Even Pickles, my maid. She was the wife of Hiram Pickles, the show’s owner. And she used to dance, in her day.”

  Marcus covered his eyes. “Stop.” It was too late. The indelible image of the withered Pickles kicking up her petticoats was imprinted on his mind’s eye. He made an impatient noise. “Then hire them, but get them here quickly.”

  She chewed her lip. Marcus wasn’t supposed to be so fascinated by that action, he knew, but he found himself riveted as always.

  “It will take a few days to spread the word. Which suits me fine. It will take that long to have the well usable again.”

  “Well, it doesn’t suit me!” God, she was the most stubborn female! “I will stay until they come.”

  “Why are you staying and not I?” Elliot was leaning on the doorjamb, openly eavesdropping. “I’m the one with the ‘understanding,’ after all.”

  Marcus barely glanced at him. “Because I’m the one who can protect her.”

  Elliot darkened. “You are not the only one about who can shoot a pistol.”

  Marcus folded his arms and glared at Elliot. “I am a soldier. You are a coatrack.”

  Elliot narrowed his eyes. “Just because a fellow has a bit of style—”

  “Oh, stop it!” Julia let her head fall forward in exaggerated weariness. “You may both stay. You may draw a chalk line down the center of the house and divide it between you, if you must, but for pity’s sake, stop arguing about it!”

  “We cannot both stay,” Elliot muttered. “What would people say?”

  Julia sighed. “If you insist on propriety—and I cannot imagine being less interested in that at the moment—then we could formally announce our engagement, if you like. You can tell people Marcus is your cousin.”

  Marcus made a protesting noise. She glanced his way, but he subsided and looked away. Surprisingly, even Elliot shook his head.

  “People will be very shocked if you become engaged so soon.”

  Julia threw up her hands. “People will think the worst of me no matter what I do! I’m the young widow of a wealthy old man—I’m an endlessly potential scandal as it is! Still, I am a rich widow, not a sheltered maiden, and money has the most interesting way of making scandal disappear.”

  She planted her fists on her hips and glared at both of them. “Which do you think is a worse bit of gossip—that I became engaged again too soon, or that I’m enjoying
my own little ménage-à-trois?”

  Elliot could not argue that, although Marcus looked as though he wanted to. Part of her wished he would. The female who could not resist his male wished that he would demand that she break her promise to Elliot and claim her as his own.

  Which was the worst possible thing that could happen, of course. Which was why she was glad he did no such thing.

  Very glad. Definitely.

  Elliot reluctantly went back to supervising the preparations for the second water excursion but Marcus lingered for a moment after he’d gone.

  “Ménage-à-trois? “

  She fought back a smile. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone I said that.”

  He shook his head. “Most ladies have never even heard of such a thing.”

  Julia slid her gaze up to meet his. “I have recently retired from the ‘most ladies’ club, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  He laughed. “Yes, I had. I think it was the lion that convinced me … or perhaps the juggling footmen.”

  She blinked. “You saw that?”

  He winked at her. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone I saw that.” Then he tilted his head and regarded her curiously. “Your French is exquisite, you know.”

  “Thank you.” She looked down at her desk. “I learned from a Frenchwoman … when I was quite young.”

  “Hmm.” He continued to gaze at her. “Is there nothing you cannot do?”

  “Sing,” she replied instantly with a tiny smile. “Not a single note. Squawking parrots flee my voice.”

  She kept smiling as she heard his laughter follow him down the hall.

  Elliot kept a close eye on Marcus as the two of them directed the final effort to clean the well. He’d not foreseen Marcus’s doggedness in pursuing Julia. Elliot grimaced. It was alarming how she seemed to be veering away from him by the moment.

  Igby, Igby, and Igby—Julia had assured him that it was not necessary to attempt to differentiate them. “I’m not sure even they remember which is which”—had spent themselves at the two-man pump, trading off seamlessly with one always at rest.

  The bald, tattooed cook, Meg, had created a straining box filled with clean sand so that every pail of water could be quickly purified before ever leaving the well area.

  “That’s a fine job,” Elliot told the man, giving a clout to one bare, hairy shoulder. Meg flicked him a cool glance, but nodded respectfully. The Barrowby staff seemed unsure of how to treat Elliot now that the engagement had been announced.

  It was a bit dismaying to see the wildfire manner in which the news had traveled.

  “Common doings.” The cook regarded him sourly. “The fair folk don’t always know what’s upstream.”

  Elliot grimaced. “Gad, I suppose not. Could be pigs for all you know.”

  Meg narrowed his eyes. “Aye, pigs … or a gent takin’ a piss.”

  Elliot held up both hands. “Not I, I vow.” Well, he’d certainly be more careful in the future at any rate.

  Elliot looked up to see Marcus studying him. That was fine, for he’d been studying Marcus from the first. It was becoming increasingly evident to Elliot that Marcus was encroaching on his fiancée.

  Elliot wouldn’t have minded so much if Julia hadn’t been so obviously smitten with the big lout. Elliot liked him, too, which made it difficult to loathe him properly.

  Would this incessant fondness for people never cease? It was going to make things hard for him in the end, he simply knew it.

  The last Igby flopped down beside the pump, exhausted. The well had been pumped, scrubbed, allowed to fill and then pumped again. Marcus and the other Igbys rolled the unwieldy pump away on its sturdy cart. Meg settled the cover on his filtering system and strode away without a word.

  Elliot remained where he was for a long moment, treasuring the quiet and the lack of perspiration it implied. Was the hard labor truly finished? What a heavenly thought. All he wished for now was a hot bath and a cold tankard. He ambled forward to gaze down into the well. Even now, he could hear the trickling waters of the earth filling the depths of it.

  The cover of the cistern was still awry. Made of wide, heavy planks strapped together with iron and sawed into a rough circle, it was heavy and awkward to lift.

  Elliot looked about—for surely he’d done enough today?—but there was no one in sight to haul it back into place. He should call for some help.

  Then again, he wasn’t in the mood to see that amused glint in Marcus’s eyes. A “coatrack,” indeed!

  Flexing his hands, Elliot blew out a breath and grimaced. The cover was stained green with damp and still dusted with ash from the stable fire.

  None of his new things were going to outlast this hubbub, were they?

  He bent to grip the iron rings that served as handles on the thing and gave a mighty tug. The round cistern cover began to slide back into place.

  He was concentrating so that he never heard the intruder come up behind him. There was simply an agonizing explosion in his head and then the fading of consciousness as he felt himself fall forward into the open well. As he fell on and on, he heard the grating noise of the cover sliding into place. Then he hit bottom and there was nothing.

  Elliot was cold.

  No, strike that. Elliot was freezing.

  He opened his eyes. Then he closed them and tried again.

  It seemed that Elliot was also blind. Or … he put out his hands to feel slick, icy stones to either side of him. Well, hell.

  Elliot, it turned out, was down the well.

  He put a hand to the back of his head to find what was sending splitting pain into his skull. There was a sizable lump that still seeped something sticky onto his probing fingers.

  “Ow.” His voice bounced back to him strangely, at once loud and muffled.

  “Lucky I didn’t fall on my face,” he muttered, for he was sitting in two feet of icy water. If the well was filling the same as before, that meant he’d been down here for at least an hour. Using his hands, he stood shakily to get out of the chill.

  He looked upward. There was a faint ring of light far above that told him the cistern cover was tightly in place. “Hello? Hello!” His call rebounded madly from all sides of the well, causing him to cringe as it spiked the pounding in his head. Unfortunately, he doubted that his voice made it past the heavy cover.

  “Well, this is quite the predicament.” He tried to breathe deeply against the panic that was making him gasp.

  He shut his eyes against the darkness and tried to think. He was an intelligent bloke. He could figure this one out.

  One—if no one had realized where he was by now, then it wasn’t likely they would. At least, not in time. Two—the well filled at about two feet per hour, he and Beppo had calculated yesterday. If he wasn’t found in the next two hours and some, the water would be over his head. Three—he wasn’t a bad swimmer and he could likely keep afloat for a few more hours, but how long could he fight the chill that even now made his bones ache?

  Oh, the chill probably counted as the fourth factor. Or did it? He rubbed at his temples, but the pounding didn’t abate.

  Five—the slick, tightly fitted stones gave little purchase for climbing.

  So, by the time the water rose to a level where he could conceivably reach the cover, he would already be dead of exhaustion or freezing.

  “Marcus, if you’ve murdered me to win the fair lady, I’m going to haunt you until you’re an old, old man.” Blighter would still likely be handsomer then, too.

  On the plus side of the ledger, the Barrowby staff would be dipping directly from the well for a while, for the pipe that pierced through halfway up one wall would not be usable for several hours.

  Then again, if he was Igby—or Igby, or Igby—he would use up the last few barrels of tepid lake water before bothering to haul heavy water buckets up thirty feet.

  The water had risen well past his knees while he was pondering his situation. Elliot stared up at the ring of light, willing someone
to develop a sudden uncontrollable thirst for nice cool well water.

  Julia rounded the corner into the front hall and nearly ran into Marcus. “Have you seen Elliot?” she asked without preamble.

  He grinned at her. “Elliot has disappeared? There must be a bit of perspiration in the offing.”

  She didn’t smile back. “I’m worried. He promised he would help me with the horses when the well was finished.”

  Marcus frowned slightly. “Why did you not ask me for help?”

  Julia looked away. How could she explain that she didn’t trust herself to do anything with him, for she kept finding herself overcome with the desire to … well, desire was as specific as she dared be, even to herself.

  “That is beside the point. I know he would not have forgotten. Furthermore, his horse is still here.”

  Marcus folded his arms and leaned one shoulder against the wall. He looked like a lord.

  She blinked. Where had that thought come from? She knew the peerage of England as well as she knew her own family tree. There was no Marcus Blythe-Goodman in the House of Lords.

  “I know you’re fond of Elliot, my lady,” he said. “But we both know he’s a bit unreliable.”

  She tilted her head. “We do? How do we know that, pray tell?” She folded her arms as well, aping his stance. “He worked as hard as you to haul water, and he was right with you during the stable fire last night, and he has spent the entire day cleaning the well at your side.”

  He scowled. “That is true. I wonder why I have such an impression of him, then?”

  She raised a brow. “Because he works very hard to cast just that impression. I should think you would have noticed.”

  He blinked. “I’ll have you know that I take Elliot very seriously … especially the fact that he was out of sight when the house was searched, as well as when the stable caught fire.”

  She shook her head. “I have already dismissed those suspicions. Furman at the inn confirmed that he was indeed in his room during the ransacking and when the well was tampered with, and you know very well that his poor horse could never have made it back to the house ahead of ours to set the fire.”