by Lynsay Sands
"Perhaps we'd best get her to bed," Lisa murmured. "She appears to be getting worse."
"Aye," Suzette said dryly and they began to urge Christiana up the stairs.
"I think they're gone."
Daniel didn't immediately react to that whisper from Richard. He was considering what he'd heard. It seemed Christiana was a little the worse for drink. He hadn't caught much more than that before the women had moved away up the hall, their voices fading. He and Richard were hiding in one of the guest rooms at the Fairgrave townhouse. Well, he, Richard and George were. Daniel sighed and shook his head at finding himself in this predicament. It was a natural progression of events that had landed him here. He'd garnered all the info he could on what George had been up to this last year as Richard "Dicky" Fairgrave, then gone to Richard with the information as well as the suggestion that the easiest way to handle the situation was for him to simply step back into his life and replace George as if he'd never left it.
Richard hadn't been as resistant to the idea as Daniel had expected once he'd pointed out that it would help him to avoid a lengthy court proceeding to prove he was the Earl of Radnor. Richard had also preferred the idea of evading the scandal revealing George's antics would have brought about, and claimed he'd rather not cast Christiana and her family into scandal and ruin over her not legal marriage. After all, she and her family were innocent victims of George just as he was and really the woman had suffered enough being married to the man this last year. Since revealing all wouldn't punish George, who was beyond punishment now, all going to the authorities at this point would have done was punish everyone else.
In fact, Richard's one protest had been about the marriage itself and the worry that he and Christiana might not suit. After all, the woman did seem to dislike the Dicky she thought she was married to.
Daniel had understood, but pointed out that some time might ease that should Richard treat her well. He'd then suggested that if he wished a little time to decide one way or another they could always remove George's body for now and keep him handy. That would give Richard at least a day or so to get to know Christiana better and decide if he could bear marriage to her. If he did decide they would do well together, they could get rid of the body. If not, they could place George back in his bed and then Richard could go to the authorities as if he had only just now returned to England.
Daniel had barely finished making the suggestion when Richard was striding out of the ballroom, determined to make his way to the townhouse to find said body and move it before the women returned from the ball and realized something was amiss. It wasn't as easy as it sounded. First of all, they could hardly walk in the front door when the dead George hadn't walked out and was thought to be ill in bed by the servants in the house. On top of that, since Richard's townhouse had burnt to the ground, George had purchased a new one, and they hadn't known the layout. They'd had to survey the house, guess at which room might be the master bedroom, and had then climbed a tree to get in the window.
It hadn't taken more than a look to establish that George was definitely dead, but they'd quickly run into the second problem when Richard had noted the scent of bitter almonds by the man's mouth. It seemed the imposter hadn't died of natural causes as the women seemed to think. Poison was the culprit. Deciding that was a worry to consider later, they'd stripped George of his clothes which had been sopping wet from the melting ice, wrapped him in a blanket and started to cart him out, which had led to more problems. The women had apparently locked the door to the hall, no doubt to prevent servants from entering to find their dead lord. Forced to take the body out through the connecting bedroom which happened to be occupied by a sleeping maid, Richard had hefted his brother's stiff body in his arms, leaving Daniel to lead the way and handle the doors.
They'd managed to make it through the room without waking the maid, and all the way to the top of the stairs before the next problem had arisen in the form of the women returning from the ball and entering the foyer below. In a panic, Daniel and Richard had rushed back along the upper hall, and then ducked into this room to wait for the way to be clear.
"We'd best move while we have the chance," Richard said behind him. "Once they have Christiana in bed, the girls will no doubt seek their own rooms and this could be one of them."
Daniel nodded and eased the door open to check the hall. When a quick glance in both directions showed it to be empty, he pulled the door wide and stepped out of the way for Richard to lead with his burden. He then started to follow, but had barely taken a step when Richard suddenly whirled back toward him. Caught by surprise, Daniel was slow to react. Before he could, Richard cursed, and suddenly thrust George's body on him.
Pure instinct made Daniel grab at the blanket-encased corpse. He then found himself stumbling back under a push from Richard, a very stiff George caught to his chest in some sort of macabre dance as the door closed leaving him alone in the dark room. Regaining his footing, Daniel stood absolutely still in the lightless chamber, simply listening as he tried to figure out why Richard hadn't followed him into the room. He relaxed a little when he heard the other man's voice muffled through the door, saying, "Ladies. Might I convince you both to join me in my office for a drink before you retire?"
Daniel adjusted the hold he had on George, but it helped little. The man was stiff as a board and unbending. He may as well have been a life-sized statue. Shaking his head, Daniel moved closer to the door to listen to what was taking place in the hall as someone said, "No, thank you."
Daniel recognized Lisa's voice and wasn't surprised at the stiffness in it. None of the women liked Dicky and they thought Richard was him right now.
"I need to talk to you!"
Daniel stilled at the panic in Richard's voice, worried about what might have caused it. Dear God, he hoped he wasn't in Lisa's room, he thought, but the desperation in Richard's voice and the fact that he sounded closer to the door wasn't reassuring as he said, "I realize I've been a bit of an ass to your sister--"
"A bit?" That was Suzette and Daniel found himself grinning at her tone of voice. The woman gave no quarter. He liked that.
"All right, a lot of an ass," Richard said sounding pained. "The point is, my brush with death tonight has awakened me to what is important in this life, and I would dearly like to make it up to Christiana and, if possible, mend our relationship. I was hoping you could advise me on how to do that."
Daniel raised an eyebrow at the words, really quite impressed. To his mind it was a stroke of brilliance for Richard to use the whole supposedly almost dying today thing as an impetus for change. It would certainly make it easier to explain away the difference between Dicky and Richard.
"Are you sincere about this?" Lisa asked quietly.
"Of course he isn't," Suzette said with irritation. "A leopard does not change its spots."
"He changed his spots going from nice to nasty after marrying Christiana," Lisa pointed out. "Perhaps he can change again."
"That wasn't changing his spots," Suzette sounded grim. "Those spots were fake ones he'd painted on to get her to marry him so that he could get his hands on her dower. He just washed them off once he'd accomplished that and reverted to his true, nasty nature."
"I'm very wealthy, ladies," Richard said. "I had no need to marry Christiana for money."
"Then why did you marry her?" Suzette demanded.
Daniel grimaced, wondering how Richard was going to answer that one.
"I care about Christiana and her happiness," Richard said finally. Apparently the women weren't buying that, which Daniel supposed wasn't surprising considering they thought Richard was Dicky and had treated his wife horribly this last year. At least that was what Daniel presumed when Richard sighed and added, "My behavior this last year is a direct result of what happened with my brother. I--"
"Oh," Lisa interrupted. "Of course."
"Of course what?" Suzette asked suspiciously.
"Don't you see, Suzette? No doubt in his heart of
hearts he has always felt guilty for surviving the fire that killed his brother."
Daniel rolled his eyes at the words. Richard had absolutely nothing to feel guilty about, and he didn't think George had possessed the capacity to feel guilt, but Lisa was not done.
"Meeting and falling in love with Chrissy must have been a balm to his wounded soul," Lisa continued in earnest tones. "But then they married and moved here, living just up the street from the charred remains of the townhouse where his poor brother died. It must be a daily reminder of his death. His guilt would have returned and trebled, because he was no longer experiencing just the guilt of surviving while his brother didn't, but now also for finding a love and happiness his poor dead brother would never have . . . His soul tortured, his spirit wounded, he lashed out at Chrissy, the woman he loved, destroying her love and their relationship out of the guilt consuming him."
Daniel was so amazed at the dramatic drivel young Lisa had come up with from one simple comment that he almost laughed out loud. The girl might have just a bit too much of a romantic bent for her own good. She needed looking after, that one, and Daniel decided he would point out as much to Richard. If the man stayed married to Christiana, he would really have to look out for the girl.
"Is this true?" Suzette asked, sounding like a suspicious nanny. It was a tone Daniel had heard often as a child, though from his mother, not a nanny. They hadn't been able to afford a nanny. Oddly enough, he suddenly found himself imagining Suzette as that nonexistent nanny, though really the gown he pictured her in as that nanny was nothing a respectable nanny would wear and covered less than it revealed as she approached him in his mind with a naughty smile and a spanking paddle in hand.
"Spank me," he breathed on a sigh, and then muttered, "Better yet, let me spank you." A vision immediately rose in his mind of her turning and slowly pulling up her scandalously short, ankle-revealing skirt to present him with a view of her very fine bottom.
That vision died an abrupt death when Richard's voice intruded, soaked with melodrama as he said, "Guilt can lead a man to act like an ass and do the most foolish of things."
Daniel almost snorted at that. He was standing there in a dark room all but dancing with a dead man while having the most ridiculous sexual fantasies about Suzette. All this while waiting to be able to slip out of the house undiscovered. Oh yes, guilt--and many other emotions--made a man do foolish things.
"Please, Suzette. Can we not at least hear him out?" Lisa pleaded.
There was a moment of silence and then Suzette answered, her voice exasperated, "Very well, but only because Christiana is stuck with him now."
"I knew it could not have been all pretense when you were courting Christiana," Lisa said happily, her voice fading as they apparently, finally, moved away from the door.
Daniel pressed his ear to the door to listen as the muffled voices grew fainter. Once he could no longer hear them, he waited another moment to be sure they hadn't just fallen briefly silent, then reached for the doorknob and eased the door open. After sticking his head out to glance both ways to be sure the hallway truly was empty, he finally started out into the hall with his burden, only to stop after one step and back into the room again as a door opened up in the hall.
Grinding his teeth together, Daniel eased the door almost closed and stood peering through the narrow crack until the maid who had been sleeping in the bedroom connected to the master bedroom appeared. Christiana's maid was his guess, and he watched impatiently as she walked by in the direction of the stairs. She moved as silently as a sylph and Daniel frowned to himself as he realized he wouldn't know when she had cleared the stairs and it was safe to exit. Sighing, he leaned his shoulder against the wall beside the door and started to count slowly to one hundred, sure it couldn't take longer than that for her to reach and descend the stairs and then make her way up the hall toward the servant's section of the house.
Daniel grew tired of the exercise by the time he reached fifty, but made himself continue to seventy-five before pulling the door open and easing his head out to peer about again. A gusty sigh of relief slipped from him when he saw the way was clear, and he hurried out into the hall, making for the stairs. He even reached them, but it was as far as he got before the sound of a door opening in the hallway below made him freeze. Adrenaline rushing through his veins, he peered over the railing in time to see Suzette appear below him. She was alone and walking at a quick clip.
Cursing under his breath, Daniel turned and hurried back up the hall wondering why the devil Richard hadn't kept the woman preoccupied longer. He almost went to a different room than the one he'd just exited, but didn't know which room would offer a safe haven. Daniel suspected the room he'd been in was the one Lisa was occupying while here, but that meant Suzette's could be any of the other rooms and with his luck that would be whichever one he chose to duck into. In the end, he decided to return to the original room as the only relatively safe haven at the moment. Once Suzette went into her own room, he would then have to get out of Lisa's quickly though, because with his luck, she would soon follow her sister upstairs.
Cursing George and even Richard for this ridiculous predicament, Daniel ducked into the room he thought was Lisa's and eased the door almost closed so he could watch to see which room Suzette went into. It simply wouldn't do if he started to leave, needed to find a new hiding spot to avoid Lisa and ducked into Suzette's room by accident to escape the girl.
Daniel had the door open a bare sliver, just enough to see the length of this end of the hall to the top of the stairs. He found himself smiling for absolutely no reason he could think of when Suzette's head came into view as she mounted the stairs. It was replaced with surprise when her upper body came into view and he noted the large damp patch on the front of her pale muslin gown. But that surprise was replaced with interest as he noted the way the apparently damp cloth was clinging to the curves of her breasts and her belly. Dear God, it was indecent . . . in a hell of an interesting way. The cloth had gone a little transparent with the damping, so that he was sure he could see darker circles where her nipples would be. Damn . . .
Daniel was so taken with the sight that it took him a moment to note that she was coming up the hall, and heading straight for the door he was peering out of. She would walk past, he assured himself, but couldn't help noticing that the angle she was taking was pointing her straight to the door he held cracked open. Daniel stayed put for one more moment, but when she stopped at the table next to the door to pick up the candle holder resting there, and leaned up to the sconce on the wall to light the candle he realized she wasn't going to bypass the door for another after all. It wasn't Lisa's room he was in, but Suzette's.
Sure he couldn't escape before she took the step that would allow her to reach and open the door, Daniel just froze, panic turning his limbs to stone as his mind began scrabbling around trying to come up with explanations as to why he was there in her room, and more importantly, why he had a dead man over his shoulder.
Fortunately, he never had to make those explanations. Suzette was just reaching for the doorknob when Lisa hailed her from the top of the stairs. Much to his relief, Suzette's hand dropped back to her side and she turned toward her sister, and then moved to meet her as the younger girl started up the hall.
Daniel's panic eased enough then to allow him to move and he promptly whirled away from the door and started across the room toward the nearest window. Fortunately, he wasn't in complete darkness. The thin line of light coming from the door as well as the starlight coming through the open drapes of the window allowed him to make out and avoid furniture. Arriving at the window, he wasted no time in opening it, and promptly tossed George out. He felt a twinge of guilt as he heard the solid thud of the man's body hitting the ground below, but only a twinge, he was too busy trying to follow him out to experience much more than that. Daniel had managed to settle on the ledge and lift one leg out the window when the room was suddenly awash with light.
Glanci
ng around with a start, he stared at Suzette who had stopped in the open door, one hand clutching the candle stick with its lit taper. Her mouth was agape with amazement.
"Daniel," she breathed.
"Er . . . yes . . . I . . . er . . . should explain . . ." Unfortunately, no explanations were coming to mind, so instead, he turned to glance down at George's body on the ground a story below and grimaced. The man was sprawled face down in the grass, his head and legs sticking out at odd angles and the blanket now covering his derriere and arms only.
The sound of the door closing caught his ear and he glanced back to the room to see that Suzette had closed it. She had also set down her candle on a table by the door and was now rushing toward him. Daniel immediately drew his leg back into the room and sprang to his feet. Eager to keep her from the view below, he raised his hands to stop her from approaching the window, but she bypassed them easily. Not by feinting one way or the other, but by gliding between them and into his arms. The next thing Daniel knew her mouth was on his.
Suzette had obviously learned a thing or two from their earlier kisses, he noted a bit distractedly. She didn't merely mash her mouth on his as she had the first time, but caressed his mouth with hers as he had done to her earlier. Daniel was so surprised that he simply stood there, his arms automatically closing around her. He had no sooner done that than she pulled back and whispered, "There is no need to explain. You have come to tell me yes."
"I have?" Daniel asked with surprise.
"Of course," she laughed, leaning back to allow her hands to move curiously over his chest. "Why else would you come tonight rather than wait for morning?"
That was a good question, he thought catching her hands with his and bringing their exploration to a halt. It was difficult to concentrate with her fingers playing across his chest, measuring the width and firmness. And Daniel definitely needed to concentrate now. He needed to come up with a reasonable explanation for his presence in her room that didn't include his winding up in Gretna Green getting leg shackled. He definitely needed to make it clear that he wasn't ready to marry.