Meet Me at Midnight (13 page)

“I heard you come in.” Tentatively she stepped into the moonlit room. “This is where Thomas was killed, isn’t it?”

“Yes.” Her black hair hung loose and curling down her shoulders, and his fingers twitched with the sudden desire to touch it. To touch her.

“Wasn’t he seated at his desk when…it…happened?”

“Right again.”

She tilted her head at him. “I’m sorry I misjudged you, Sinclair.”

“You probably didn’t.”

Victoria glided up to him and held out one hand. “Don’t sit there. It makes my skin crawl.”

Sin let her wrap her small, slender hand around his and pull him to his feet. “How well did you know Thomas, really?” he asked.

“He was quite a bit older than you, wasn’t he?”

Since she didn’t seem in any hurry to leave, or to relinquish her grip on his hand, he tugged her closer. Then he leaned down slowly, to give her time to object if she chose. When she didn’t, he kissed her softly, savoring the warm, supple play of her mouth against his.

“Yes. He was nearly forty—a good ten years my senior. He and my grandmother practically raised Kit and me.” Sinclair ran his fingers along the line of her jaw. “You didn’t answer my question: were you and Thomas well acquainted?”

“Hm?” she said, her voice dreamy. “Oh. No, I didn’t know him that well. I think my set was too loud for him.”

“Anything you could tell me about him might help.”

“Well, he was kind, and quiet—he admired Gainsborough’s paintings, as I recall. In fact, he mentioned to me that he sketched, himself.”

“Did he now?” Sinclair murmured, feeling his brother’s loss even more keenly. “I didn’t know that.”

“He said he wasn’t any good at it, but I remember thinking that he probably was. Have you found any of his work?”

“I haven’t had time yet to look for much besides incriminating letters. My grandmother may have them, though.”

“You should ask her.”

“Perhaps I will.” He gazed down at her upturned face. “Why so friendly tonight?”

“I’m not sure. I just keep thinking how awful it would be to lose a family member like that, and then I saw you sitting in that chair, with that look on your face, and—”

“What look?”

“That…intense look you have sometimes. And seeing that, I keep wondering what could possibly have kept you away from here for two years.”

No one had ever mentioned that he had “a look.” A telltale change of expression could have gotten him killed. Hopefully, if he did have one, it was something he’d developed since his return to England. More likely, though, it was something no one else would notice except for Victoria. “If I’d known you were here, I wouldn’t have stayed away so long,” he murmured.

Abruptly she wedged a hand against his chest and shoved. “Stop trying to use my compassion for your situation to seduce me.”

He took a step back. “You were the one who came to find me, Victoria. And you’re the one who uses Thomas as an excuse every time we kiss. Why do I make you so nervous?” She unsettled him at least as much, but he had no intention of letting her know that.

“You do not make me nervous,” she stated. “I told you before, you are
not
the first man to kiss me, or to murmur sweet, flattering nothings to gain my favor.”

He narrowed his eyes, a vision of Marley twirling her in the air crossing his mind. “You didn’t marry any of them, though.”

“None of them managed to be so clumsy as to attempt a seduction in front of my father and half of London.” She turned on her heel. “Good night, my lord.”

His argument had been a weak one, he knew, and he had been clumsy that night—but only because in everything he’d expected to find when he returned to London, he hadn’t expected
her
. After several days together he still had little idea of what moved her and motivated her, when he could usually assess someone’s character in a matter of minutes. And it wasn’t her fault she kept advancing and withdrawing—he kept changing the battlefield rules.

“Who do you think killed Thomas?” he asked quietly, reminding himself that he asked the question because he needed her cooperation—not because he didn’t like himself when he made her angry.

Halfway out the door, she stopped. “I don’t know.” She faced him again. “Who do you think did it?”

Sin released a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. Victoria was right about one thing; he did use her compassion every chance he got. “Everyone.”

“Everyone?”

He shrugged. “I’m not about to eliminate anyone. Anyone’s capable. What I need is a motive.”

“Like what?”

Sinclair leaned back against the edge of the desk. “That’s the difficult part. I don’t know with what—or whom—Thomas was involved. He corresponded when he could, but the letters didn’t always reach me, and when they did, they weren’t very informative.” Thomas had been far too careful to let slip that his brother was anything but a roué. His own return correspondence had been equally uninformative. Something, though, had gone wrong.

“Why were you in Europe—in Paris, even—when it was so dangerous? What kept you there, Sinclair?”

He wanted to tell her. She spoke with him in the same guileless, interested way she spoke with Milo, and, like the butler, he wanted to tell her everything. But until he knew why Thomas had died, he didn’t dare. “It was…entertaining. Wagering, drinking, women, all day and all night. Bonaparte’s new world order may have sounded conservative, but his nobles and most of his officers didn’t think it applied to them.”

“Someone told me you lived in a brothel for six months. Is that true?”

He was going to hate himself for this later. “Madame Hebiere’s. Prettiest chits in Paris.” And visited by some of the most influential members of Bonaparte’s government. “Come now, Vixen, you like your amusements, too, don’t you?”

“Sometimes. They keep me occupied.”

Victoria was looking at him again, a half-wary, half-curious expression on her face. He waited, wondering what she thought she had seen this time.

“Last month,” she said slowly, “Lord Liverpool announced that the last of Bonaparte’s known conspirators had been arrested.”

Uh-oh
. “Did he?”

“Yes. And if you were so friendly with that maniac’s officers and nobles, how did you manage to avoid arrest?”

“I suggest you tread very carefully, Victoria. Are you implying that I’m a traitor?”

“No. I’m implying that you’re not one.” She backed out of the room and turned for the stairs. “Good night, Sinclair.”

For a long moment he remained where he was, torn between admiration and dismay. Perhaps he needed to rethink this telling her everything business, in case she figured out the entire knotted mess on her own.

B
old as she liked to think herself, Victoria still had to fight a flock of butterflies banging about in her stomach as she stepped down from the Althorpe carriage. She sensed that the cause of the unexpected trepidation was a very basic one; this morning, she cared about the outcome of her adventure, and she cared about what the person she was about to visit might think of her. Taking a deep breath, she climbed the shallow steps and swung the brass knocker against the white door.

It swung open. “Yes, miss?” An elderly, kind-looking man in fashionable black livery looked at her curiously.

“Is Lady Drewsbury home?”

“I shall inquire. May I say who is calling?”

She hadn’t yet made up any calling cards that reflected her new name. It still seemed somewhat…premature. “Lady Althorpe,” she replied, the words strange on her tongue.

Immediately the butler stepped to one side. “Excuse me for not recognizing you, my lady. If I may direct you to the drawing room?”

“Thank you.”

The butler led her upstairs to a small, light room on the east side of the house. Decorated with embroidery and overstuffed pillows, it was obviously a woman’s room, in a woman’s household.

She sat in one of the chairs that overlooked the small garden adjoining the house, and she fidgeted. If Lady Drewsbury didn’t like her, didn’t wish to speak to her, she didn’t know what she should do next. Finally she knew which questions to ask, but not who would have the answers. And she wanted the answers with a need that startled her in its fierce intensity.

“Lady Althorpe.”

Victoria bolted back to her feet and curtsied as Lady Drewsbury entered the room. Technically she outranked Baron Drewsbury’s widow, but she didn’t have the tiniest desire to slight her. “Lady Drewsbury.”

“Please, sit. And call me Augusta.”

“Augusta. Thank you. And please call me Victoria, or Vixen, if you prefer.”

The baroness took the seat opposite her and signaled to the waiting butler for tea. “I would have suggested that you call me Grandmama, but I have the feeling that will take a little getting used to—for both of us.”

Victoria smiled, a little more at ease. So far, so good. “I suppose you’re wondering what’s brought me here.”

“I can guess. Sinclair?”

Her heart began to flutter again. “Yes.”

“Grandmama, I thought I made it clear that I was to be informed immediately if any attractive ladies entered the house.” Christopher Grafton strode into the room, a handful of obviously hastily picked daisies
clutched in one hand. “Even if they crossed the street in front of the house.”

“My apologies, Christopher. I thought you meant single ladies.”

“Normally, yes. But I’m desperate.” With an engaging grin, the youngest Grafton brother presented the bouquet to Victoria. “For you, my lady,” he announced, and swept her an elegant bow.

“Vixen, please,” she said, chuckling. “And thank you.”

“Vixen it is. Is my brother with you? Oh, no, of course not. Parliament’s in session today, isn’t it? Since it’s Wednesday, it—”

“Christopher,” Lady Drewsbury interrupted, “since you seem to be carrying on an adequate conversation with yourself, please do it elsewhere.”

“Oh, bother. Yes, Grandmama. Vixen.” With another easy grin, he left the room.

“I’m not sure whether he’s keeping me young or making me old,” Augusta said with a smile. “Taft, please put Lady Althorpe’s flowers in water.”

The butler approached and relieved Victoria of the disheveled daisies. When he’d gone as well, Lady Drewsbury poured them both tea and sat back to sip hers.

“Now,” she continued, “where were we? Ah, the fellow who’s definitely making me old. Sinclair.”

Victoria spooned sugar into her tea. “I’m not really sure why I’m here,” she began, “except that I had a few questions Sinclair can’t—or won’t—answer, and I thought perhaps you might be able to assist me.”

“I would have to hear the questions first. I’m afraid I don’t know Sinclair nearly as well as I used to.”

Bitterness and regret tightened the baroness’s tone.
Still, it seemed like the best invitation Victoria was likely to get. “First, I…need to ask for your word that this conversation won’t go beyond the two of us.”

Augusta’s gaze sharpened. “Is Sinclair in some sort of trouble? Or should I ask whether he is in more trouble than usual?”

“Not trouble—not the way you’re thinking, anyway.”

The two women looked at one another. Victoria, at least, wondered what the dowager baroness saw.

“You have my word,” Augusta said finally.

“Thank you. When Sinclair left for Europe, had he and Thomas quarreled?”

“They argued incessantly,” their grandmother confirmed. “Which isn’t that surprising, considering that Thomas was so conservative, and Sinclair was even wilder than Christopher is now. When I think about it, Christopher is about the age Sinclair was when he went off to begin his adventures. Thank goodness Christopher doesn’t seem so inclined. I couldn’t stand to lose the last of them.”

“Have you lost Sinclair?”

“That, my dear, I don’t intend to answer.”

Sometimes she just didn’t know when to shut her mouth
. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to intrude.”

“Of course you do. And I mean to answer you, where I can. I find myself curious as to why he chose you—and you, him.”

“I’m not sure it was a choice, so much as a mistake.” Victoria flushed. “I didn’t mean that to be an insult. I’m just very…confused.”

To Victoria’s relief, Lady Drewsbury smiled. “Then ask your next question, Victoria, and we’ll see if we can remedy that.”

“Oh. Yes. Was Sinclair ever in the military?”

“Heavens, no. Thomas even offered to purchase him a captain’s commission, and Sinclair turned him down.”

That didn’t quite fit. Victoria sipped her tea, remembering the swift, efficient way Sin had drawn his pistol at one of the men in the stable yard, and how he hadn’t done it last night when she had surprised him in the office. “I’m not quite certain how to ask this,” she said slowly, “but do you have any idea what might have kept him in Europe for the last two years? Especially when he seems to have wanted so badly to return to London.”

“If he’d wanted it badly, he would have done it.” The older woman sighed. “I have no idea. Sinclair and Thomas, despite the difference in their ages, were very close.”

“He told me he was ‘prevented’ from returning.”

“I can’t think of anything that would keep him away—not even Bonaparte and the war.”

“He wouldn’t tell me, except to say that he enjoyed the wagering and the drinking and the women.” Victoria scowled, then wiped the expression from her face as Augusta looked at her curiously. She was
not
jealous. It was just so frustrating trying to figure him out, like trying to look at a painting with a veil thrown over it. “Since he fakes his drinking, though, I’m not certain I believe—”

Lady Drewsbury straightened. “What do you mean?”

“He and his three friends—the ones who are trying to help him investigate the murder—he said they pretended to be drunk to encourage people to talk more
freely. He said it had gotten to be a habit. Why or how, I’m not sure.”

“
He’s investigating?
”

Victoria nodded. “He’s very serious about it. Almost obsessed, I think.”

For a moment the two women sat looking at one another. Then Augusta set down her cup of tea. “
You
think he was somehow involved with the war, don’t you? He never told me he was investigating anything—much less Thomas’s death.”

“I could be completely wrong, but—”

“No. I don’t think you are.”

Slowly Victoria smiled. “Neither do I.” She set her own cup aside. “He said he corresponded with Thomas. Do you have any of his letters?”

“I have them all.” Lady Drewsbury stood, looking more robust than she had upon entering the room. “Come with me, Victoria.”

When Victoria returned to Grafton House, she was armed with both Thomas’s old sketches and some very interesting letters Sinclair had written to his brother. She carried them up to her private sitting room herself, refusing even Jenny’s assistance with the bulky package.

She thought she had uncovered the truth, and now she needed to decide how to confront Sinclair with it—and with the fact that his grandmother and brother would be joining them for dinner.

A heady anticipation made her pulse race. Despite his reputation, she hadn’t quite thought she’d married a blackguard. Discovering that Sinclair Grafton was, in fact, a hero—even better, a hero in disguise—left her with warm, tingling skin and the desire to throw
herself on him as soon as he returned home.

The door burst open. “Vixen, did you hear?”

Victoria started, then finished tucking the parcel behind a chair. “Lucy? What are you—”

“Never mind that!” Her eyes wide with suppressed excitement, Lucy Havers hurried across the room to grab Victoria’s hands. “You didn’t hear, did you?” She giggled, her cheeks glowing.

For once she was less than pleased to see her friend; Lucy hadn’t figured in her daydream of waylaying Sin. “No, I didn’t hear. What in the world is it?”

“Your husband floored Lord William!”

Victoria frowned. That didn’t quite fit her view of Lord Althorpe either. “William Landry?”

“Yes! Drew his cork! Lionel said William’s nose bled for twenty minutes!”

“But why in the world would Sinclair hit Lord William? He knows we’re friends.”

Lucy flushed a deeper scarlet. “I think William said something,” she whispered, though the only one close enough to hear was Lord Baggles, who had gone back to sleep in the windowsill after the initial outburst.

“Said something about what?” Victoria eyed her friend, who abruptly began to stammer. “He said something about me, didn’t he?”

The younger woman nodded.

“And Sinclair hit him?”

“Several times. A big, blond-haired man had to pull him off William before Sinclair killed him.”

That would have been the well-built gentleman from the stable yard, no doubt. Perhaps William had interrupted another secret—or not so secret—meeting. “When did this happen?”

“Last night, at Boodle’s. Lionel said Lord William
was drunk, but that Lord Sin couldn’t have been—not with the way he moved.”

She’d seen that briefly before—that lithe, dangerous way he had when he forgot himself. “Or perhaps Sinclair is just more used to being drunk than William is,” she offered, trying to ignore the additional acceleration of her pulse. She was going to combust if he didn’t arrive soon. Sinclair had slipped, defending her honor. And then he’d come home and she’d quarreled with him, dash it all. “Lucy, he’ll be home any minute. I don’t want him to know that I know.”

Her friend smiled. “But are you pleased?”

Victoria grinned like a madwoman. “Yes. I’m pleased.”

“It’s
so
romantic. Tell me what he says.”

“I will.”

After Lucy left, Victoria rose and paced.
His actions last night didn’t change anything
, she kept telling herself. If he was what she suspected, he was used to putting himself in harm’s way. But this time he had risked doing it for her.

A confident hand knocked at the door.

Victoria jumped. “Come in.”

Sinclair pushed open the door and leaned into the room. “Milo said you wanted to see me?”

“Yes. I…ah…I wanted—could you close the door?”

He complied, then followed her as she edged toward the window. Her heart beat so hard and fast that she thought he must be able to hear it.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Oh, she was being ridiculous. Just because he had surprised her about himself was no reason for her knees to get wobbly. Just because the
attraction she’d felt for him from the beginning was a candle compared with the burst of sunlight she felt now was no reason for her carefully thought-out words to become all tangled in her mind.

Humor touched his amber gaze. “Are you sure you’re all right? You haven’t adopted an elephant or something, have you?”

A laugh escaped her throat, nervous and giddy and not sounding at all like her. “No. I just wanted to apologize…for being so short with you last night.”

He lifted an eyebrow. “Why? I had it coming to me. I told you I was nasty and cruel.”

“No. I interrupted your private thoughts about your brother, and took advantage of your raw emotional state.”

To her growing agitation, Sinclair took another step toward her, a panther stalking a gazelle. She couldn’t back away any farther without falling through the window—which didn’t matter, since she was a gazelle who very much wanted to be caught. In fact, she was feeling rather like a panther herself. But she wanted to tell him that she’d uncovered his secret, if she could manage it before she completely lost the ability to speak.

“You couldn’t take advantage of me if you tried, Victoria.”

That did it. At the sight of his knowing, teasing smile, she couldn’t help herself any longer. Taking a deep, unsteady breath, Victoria strode up to her husband, twined her fingers into his black, wavy hair, pulled his face down toward hers, and kissed him. His lips, hard and soft at the same time, molded with hers, pulling and teasing until she quite lost track of who was kissing whom.

Finally he lifted his head to take a breath. “I like the way you apologize,” he murmured, his amber eyes glinting.

She rose on her tiptoes, catching his mouth again. “It’s not just an apology,” she managed shakily. “It’s also a thank you.”

His hands slowly slid down her back to her hips, and he pulled her closer against him. “You’re welcome, whatever the hell I did.” As her heart skittered again, his mouth skimmed her chin and trailed down the base of her jaw and her throat.

Victoria groaned. “Lucy…told me you were at Boodle’s last night.”

Sin’s mouth found hers again. If it hadn’t been for his strong arms around her, she thought she would fall to the floor. His tongue teased her lips open, and then pushed inside to explore and plunder her. She liked this, with a fierceness she hadn’t expected. Men had wanted her, and had tempted her before, but Sinclair was different. If what she suspected was true, Sinclair wasn’t some idle nobleman with no ambition other than netting a wealthy heiress.