Snowy Night With a Stranger Read online

  Ned sipped his cognac and let his eyes close and his mind drift. When he awoke the fire was mere ashy embers, the candles were guttering, and he was cold and stiff. Cursing, he stood up and bent to rekindle the fire. He shrugged out of his coat and was about to take off his shirt when he realized that he was wide awake. He’d dozed for over an hour and it had taken the edge off his need for sleep.

  He took a sip of cognac and lit a taper in the fire’s glow to light the unused candles in the branched candlestick on the washstand. He needed a book to distract him from the tumult of thoughts now crowding his mind. Sarah Hartley…what awaited him in the ruins of his own house…Georgiana Carey.

  She, at least, would be a short-lived distraction. As soon as he could get away from Selby Hall, she would vanish from his mind.

  He relit his carrying candle and took it to the door, opening it softly, listening to the sounds of the house. The usual creaks and groans of settling timbers, no sounds of life. He slipped into the corridor and padded in his stockinged feet to the galleried landing, where a dim light shone from a sconce in the wall above the staircase. He trod soundlessly down to the hall and into the salon. It was in darkness except for a residual glow from the ashes in the fireplace.

  He lifted his candle, sending flickering shadows around the room. Earlier that evening Georgiana had entered the salon through a side door behind the piano. His eye found it quickly. Presumably it led into the library since that was where she said she had been. And the library was where he would find a book. A faint line of light beneath the door caught his eye.

  He set down his candle on top of the piano and went to the door, pausing with his hand on the latch, wondering whether to knock. Either someone was in there or a lamp had been left lit inadvertently when the last servant had gone to bed.

  Probably the latter, Ned decided. It was close to three in the morning and he had seen his host and fellow guests go up to bed soon after one. He lifted the latch and opened the door. He heard the snap and click of a drawer closing followed by a rustling as he stepped into the room. The light came from a candle on a big square desk in the window embrasure. Georgiana stood behind the desk, her copper hair glowing richly in the flickering flame. Her face was even paler than usual and something suspiciously like panic flashed for a second in her green eyes and then vanished as she saw who it was.

  “What the devil are you doing here at this time of night?” she demanded in a fierce undertone.

  “I might ask the same of you,” he observed mildly. “As it happens I couldn’t sleep and came to find a book. It seemed the logical place to look.” He gestured to the floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, eyebrows raised quizzically.

  “You’re welcome to see what you can find,” she said. “I don’t think anyone’s opened one of those volumes in fifty years or more. My cousin is not bookish.”

  “And you?”

  She shrugged. “You heard my fiancé. I am altogether too much of a bookworm and bluestocking for his fancy.”

  It seemed she had abandoned her performance as the demure, compliant ward as soon as its intended audience had gone to bed. Ned grinned and perched on the arm of a chair. He crossed his legs, swinging one ankle idly as he regarded her. “So what are you doing at three in the morning, Georgie?”

  “I was looking for something,” she said, a mite defensively, he thought. “A piece of paper…I thought I might have dropped it behind the desk when I was in here earlier.”

  “Ah.” He nodded gravely. “I wonder why that sounds like an untruth.”

  “I can’t imagine why it should,” she snapped. “Anyway, it’s no business of yours, my lord, what I choose to do and when.”

  He nodded again. “That I will give you. But perhaps I can help you look for this…this paper?”

  “No, you can’t. It’s not here,” she said, stepping away from the desk, raising her hands palms forward as if to demonstrate the truth of her statement.

  “Was it important?”

  Her expression took on something of the hunted fox. “No, not in the least.”

  “One could be forgiven for thinking it must be. People don’t usually start a treasure hunt in their nightgowns in the early hours of the morning unless they’re in search of something fairly important.” He rose from the arm of the chair and crossed to the desk, moving behind it so that he was standing where she had been when he’d come in.

  He had heard the click of a hastily slammed drawer as he’d opened the door. The drawer in the desk was shut, but a piece of paper had not been properly replaced and a corner showed over the edge of the drawer.

  He opened the drawer, aware now of her sudden swift intake of breath, the flush blooming on her cheeks, the wariness in her eyes. “Something seems to have stuck,” he said, pulling the drawer out fully. “Ah, just this.” He slid the errant sheet of vellum back into the drawer, smoothing it flat over its fellows, then quietly closed the drawer again. “Should it be locked?”

  With a tiny sigh Georgiana slid a tiny gold key across the desk. He picked it up, locked the drawer, and then looked up questioningly.

  “I’ll put it away,” she said on another sigh of resignation, holding out her hand. He placed the key in her palm and she turned and went over to the bookshelves on the far wall. She selected a volume, opened it, and dropped the key into a hollow in the binding. Then she replaced the volume, standing back to examine its position.

  “I daresay your guardian needs to believe his secrets are his own,” Ned observed in neutral tones.

  “Don’t we all?” she responded flatly. “Do you intend to keep mine, Lord Allenton?”

  “Most certainly,” he replied. “Although I’d dearly like to know what’s really going on.”

  She turned to look at him, her hands clasped lightly against the thin muslin skirt of her nightgown. “Roger Selby is not an honest broker, Lord Allenton. I suggest you keep that in mind in your dealings with him.”

  “I wasn’t intending to have any dealings with him,” Ned said, distracted now by the slight swell of her breasts beneath the thin covering, and the hint of her shape revealed in the soft flow of muslin.

  “But I think he may intend to have dealings with you,” she said, seemingly oblivious of his suddenly attentive regard.

  “Is that a warning?”

  “A word to the wise,” she said. “I don’t know any details, but I do know my cousin.” Bitterness laced her words, and her jaw tensed, her nostrils flaring slightly. Then she turned to the door. “Snuff the candle when you’ve finished, Lord Allenton. I bid you good night.”

  “Georgiana…Georgie, wait a minute.” He stepped forward, one hand outstretched. She turned back to him.

  “Yes?”

  “Are you in some kind of trouble?”

  An amazing transformation came over her then. She began to laugh with genuine amusement. “Oh, if only you knew,” she said. “Good night, my lord.”

  And she was gone, leaving him alone, feeling rather foolish, the sounds of her laughter still echoing among the dusty volumes.

  Ned waited a few moments until he could hear only the familiar nighttime sounds of the sleeping house, then he went to the bookshelves, looking for the volume that housed the key. He hadn’t been able to see its title, but he had a fair sense of where on the shelf it was. He found it on the third try. Gulliver’s Travels. He wondered absently if there was any significance in the choice.

  He took the key to the desk and opened the drawer. He had no idea why he was prying into another man’s personal documents—and not just another man, his host to boot. A man who had welcomed him in from the blizzard with nothing but warmth and generosity. Which he was now repaying by snooping among his private papers.

  He took out the sheaf of papers and riffled through them. They seemed to refer to some kind of land deal between Selby and Godfrey Belton. A thousand hectares of lower moorland around Great Ryle. Prime land, as Ned was well aware. He had not been aware that it formed part of the Selby barony.
But one way and another, Selby appeared to be giving this to Belton with no strings. There had to be strings—a property deal of this magnitude couldn’t simply be a gift. Unless it had something to do with Georgiana’s dowry. He turned the pages over, examining them closely. There was no mention of the betrothal at all.

  Very strange, but really none of his business. Ned placed the papers back carefully in order, closed and locked the drawer and returned the key to Lilliput. He yawned, aware now of bone-deep fatigue. His second wind had clearly passed. He snuffed the candle on the desk and returned to the salon. His carrying candle on the piano had gone out so he abandoned it, picking his way back through the shadowy shapes of the furniture in the salon to the hall and up to his bedchamber.

  The fire was burning merrily and he undressed by its light, climbed up into the canopied bed and sank into the deep feathers, pulling the covers over him. The bed was cold, all residue of heat from the warming pan long dissipated, but Ned barely noticed the chill. His eyes closed without volition on the day’s dramas and mysteries. Tomorrow’s would wait.

  But his last conscious image was of the slender figure lit from behind by the candle, the shadow of her body, fluid beneath the clinging folds of muslin, the swell of her breasts and the hint of their darkened peaks.

  -o-O-o-

  Georgiana stood shivering in front of her own fire. She’d been in such a fever to get down to the library as soon as the house was safely asleep she’d neglected to wear her dressing gown, and she was now freezing. Not that it had done her much good. The will had not been in the desk, as she’d hoped. And any further search had been prevented by the viscount’s inopportune appearance in the library.

  Inopportune, but not necessarily unwelcome, she was forced to admit. It had been so long since she’d had a civilized conversation with a civilized man, one who understood the world she had come from. And Edward Vasey was very personable. She’d have to be blind not to notice that. Of course, it could just be the contrast between his manners and those of her cousin’s other guests—not to mention those of the execrable and unmentionable Godfrey Belton. But it was more than that.

  Viscount Allenton would stand out in a room full of the most elegant members of the ton. He had the air of one who gave not a second thought to his appearance, but she had spent enough time in the fashionable world to recognize the exquisite tailoring of his coat, the masterful fall of his cravat, the careful cut of his thick, dark brown hair. And he had physical attributes that owed nothing to the skills of others. A tall, slender physique that indicated a lithe athleticism, a pair of eyes more gold than brown and a delightful smile when he chose to show it.

  He wasn’t happy though. Something was troubling him, and Georgiana supposed she could understand that. He would be facing disaster when he eventually arrived home to take up his inheritance. It couldn’t be a pleasant prospect. And if he’d loved his life in India as much as he said, then he was probably in much the same boat as she was herself. Forced into a life that she would not have chosen for herself in a million years.

  But she had no intention of meekly accepting her fate.

  Georgiana knelt and pulled back the rug in front of the hearth. She ran her hand lightly over the wide oak floorboards until her finger found the little depression. She pressed it and two of the boards slid soundlessly apart to reveal a small dark hole. She reached inside and drew out a soft chamois pouch. It felt satisfyingly heavy on her palm.

  Georgiana stood up, kicking the rug swiftly over the opening. She wasn’t expecting any visitors at this ungodly hour, but habits of caution were well ingrained; too much was at stake for even an instant’s carelessness. She took the pouch to the bed, loosened the drawstrings and upended the contents into the middle of the thick quilted coverlet. Gold, silver, copper, and an occasional gem glowed in the candlelight.

  Carefully she counted her horde as she did every night. There was more today than there had been yesterday. Soon she would have enough. If only she could find the damn will. She had seen it only once before, when her aunt’s lawyer had explained it to her. She was her parents’ only heir and the fortune was considerable, dispersed in extensive property both in London and in Northumberland and in bonds. She couldn’t complete her plan without the will in her possession on the day she gained her majority. And Roger had it somewhere. He also had the most important pieces in her mother’s jewel casket somewhere. The Carey diamonds. Just one of them would be enough for her present purposes. But where the devil had he hidden them?

  It was six months before her twenty-first birthday, and Roger Selby intended her to be wedded and bedded with Godfrey Belton three months before that.

  Georgiana scooped her treasure back into the pouch, returned it to its hiding place, secured the boards and set the rug right. She went to the window, trying to see through the thickly coated glass if the snow had stopped. A blizzard played havoc with business.

  She couldn’t see anything. The snow had piled up on the narrow sill, completely obscuring the outside. She contemplated trying to open the window against the barrier, but at four in the morning it seemed a pointless exercise. There was no way to keep snow from tumbling into the room, and she was cold enough as it was.

  Shivering, she blew out the candles and jumped into bed, digging a nest for herself in the deep feather mattress.

  -o-O-o-

  “Good morning, Davis.”

  “Morning, m’lord. Merry Christmas. Still snowing like the blazes. No one’ll be goin’ abroad yet a while, I’ll wager.” Davis turned back to the bed. “I’ll bring up coffee and breakfast now, m’lord.”

  “Thank you…and Merry Christmas to you.” Ned pushed aside the covers and got to his feet. He stretched, aware of an unusual stiffness. Presumably the effects of sitting cramped in the chaise for so long, not to mention fighting his way through waist-high snow. A long walk was the answer. But not a feasible solution in the present climate.

  He pulled on his dressing gown and went to the window, lifting the latch. He pushed it outward against the wall of snow and the light powder fell away, leaving only a crust of ice against the glass. And a blast of frigid air piercing the room.

  Braving the blast, Ned leaned out. The snow was falling so heavily he could barely see his hand in front of him. He withdrew his hand and slammed the window closed, latching it firmly. An entire day in the close company of his fellow guests lay ahead, and short of taking to his bed with a chill he couldn’t see any courteous way to avoid his social obligations.

  But there was a compensation, a considerable one. Lady Georgiana Carey. She too would be immured, and he’d already noticed how adroit she was at organizing matters to her own tastes. And since Ned suspected those tastes meshed rather well with his own, he was more than willing to offer himself as a partner in crime. Two heads were always better than one.

  Davis returned with coffee, hot rolls, cheese and a plate of ham. “I hope this’ll do, sir, for the moment,” he said, sounding rather doubtful as he set his burden on the table before the fire. “Cook’s too busy with the big breakfast to prepare anything hot.”

  “This will do beautifully,” Ned said. “I hope I haven’t caused too much extra work.”

  “Oh, no sir, not a bit of it,” Davis said cheerfully, pouring coffee. “Lady Georgiana’s an early riser too. She’s breaking her fast in the kitchen. Fancied shirred eggs, she did—makes ‘em herself. Very good they are too.”

  Ned took a sip of coffee and said, “I’ve changed my mind, Davis. I fancy shirred eggs myself, so I shall go in search of Lady Georgiana. Direct me to the kitchen, if you please.”

  Davis looked startled. “It’s not usual, m’lord. The guests don’t usually go to the kitchen…Cook might not like it.”

  “But if Lady Georgiana is there, then there can be no objection to my joining her,” Ned stated, heading for the door. “Since I’m somewhat informally clad, I’ll take the back stairs, if you’ll show me the way.”

  Davis could see no alte
rnative. “This way, sir.” He went to the door.

  Chapter Four

  The kitchen was bustling with activity, heat from the great range spreading into every corner. A small boy was turning a suckling pig on a spit over the fire, and a woman was pulling loaves out of the bread oven set into the bricks alongside the blazing fire. Two kitchen maids were scrubbing potatoes and chopping vegetables at one end of the long pine table that dominated the center of the room. Only one person took notice of Ned’s arrival.

  Georgiana, in a fur-trimmed dressing gown, was standing over the range, stirring the contents of a copper pot with a large wooden spoon. She glanced over her shoulder as Ned stepped into the kitchen and her stirring arm paused. “Good morning, Lord Allenton,” she said, frowning at him. “What brings you into the kitchen of all places on Christmas morning?”

  “I thought to wish you Merry Christmas,” he said, then added with scrupulous honesty, “That and the prospect of shirred eggs. Davis said you were making some for your breakfast and I thought perhaps I could persuade you to double the quantity.”

  “Ah, well, I gave up that idea,” she said, resuming her stirring. “There’s not enough room in the ovens for another baking dish. They’re all full of Bakewell tarts, which my cousin considers an absolute necessity for Christmas dinner, almost more important than the Christmas puddings.” She gestured with her spoon to the two pots with their puddings steaming on the range. “So I’m scrambling instead.”

  “I like scrambled eggs just as well,” he said, a mite plaintively.

  She laughed. “There’s plenty here. Have a seat—away from the cooking end. If you’d like to cut some bread and butter a couple of slices, that would be a help.”

  “Certainly.” Ned found a loaf of still-warm bread sitting on a bread board at the far end of the table, a knife to hand and a crock of rich golden butter, newly churned from the look of it. He cut bread and buttered the slices liberally.