Angel In My Bed Read online

  “Kinley told me the circumstances of the investigation ten years ago made it difficult to get into Colonel Faraday’s circle any other way.” She peered at him from beneath her lashes. “Clearly most men see no problem that you chose to mix pleasure with business. Who wouldn’t have done the same in your place? Even you have vices, it seems.”

  “Surprise, surprise, Pamela.” He returned the sword to its place on the wall. “I’m not the saint everyone bloody thinks I am. And maybe Meg isn’t the devil, either.”

  “Oh, please, David. You didn’t get that scar you carry skeet shooting,” Pamela reminded him. “Meg Faraday is guilty of everything of which she’s been accused, and I do not believe you’ve forgotten the mission already.”

  “I’ve forgotten nothing.”

  He had returned to Kinley to finish this job—for his heart, for justice, for answers to questions he had buried in the last decade—at least that was what he fed his conscience every morning when he looked at himself in the mirror.

  He didn’t know why he should not deliver Meg over to Kinley and be done with her. Maybe he wanted the truth to what had happened years ago when she fled him and disappeared. He could deduce from her behavior that she was guilty. But of which sin, he was no longer sure.

  Then again, maybe her fear was part of her superb acting skill, and she’d been waiting for her father’s return before making a move. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d fooled him or lied.

  But then soul to sin and all sanctimonious accusations aside, ten years ago, were her lies any different from his?

  Still, he knew his duty. Had always known his duty. He folded his arms and leaned against the wall. “Don’t worry, Pamela. I have no intention of shirking my job.”

  She stopped in the doorway and planted her palms on her hips. “Then give good behavior a crack, won’t you?” Her teeth were white against her coral lips as she smiled. “Because Kinley is upstairs in the green salon waiting for you to deliver his prisoner.”

  Victoria sat on the mattress, her head buried in her hands, the memory of her earlier behavior uppermost in her mind as she battled a throbbing headache. Someone had thrown open the draperies, and she groaned through splayed fingers at the late-afternoon sunshine that dappled the floor.

  Finally, dragging the sheet off the bed, she padded to the window on stiff legs. She could see the familiar banks of the river over the village rooftops. She had to get word to Sir Henry that she was alive. He and Bethany would be worried by now that she had not returned home.

  She found the dressing room and thumbed through shirts and other articles of clothing folded there. The armoire held more clothing, but no weapons, as if David would be so careless. She gave up searching for her clothes and eased her arms into a black and silver brocade robe she found thrown over a chair beside the bed. The fabric was soft and lay against the ache in her shoulder muscles. She found a mirror and leaned into the glass to inspect her temple. A lump filled out the bruise, coloring her skin a lovely shade of lavender. She grimaced. Doing nothing for her sleep-mussed hair, she walked to the bedroom door and edged it open, surprised there were no guards to keep her inside.

  Did David worry so little about her escaping?

  A worn Turkish carpet muffled her steps as she followed the hallway, until she heard the low rumble of David’s voice and slowed. Clutching the robe tighter against her chest, she moved to the archway of the salon. Fading sunlight cast the room in a warm yet somber brilliance that seemed to match the mood of those present.

  David stood near the fireplace, one hand on his hip, an elbow propped on the mantel, clearly agitated as he spoke to the paunchy white-haired man on the chair. Another younger man and woman were present on the red-and-white-striped settee. Victoria hadn’t expected anyone other than servants to be present in the house. She should have anticipated that David did not work alone.

  She must have made some sound, for he turned his head, his glass arrested halfway to lips, and she fell into his gaze. She remained frozen beneath the archway, wearing his black and silver brocade robe, appearing as if she belonged to him. The robe’s hem touched her ankles and made her conscious of her bare feet.

  She tucked a long length of her hair behind her ear, the halting movement betraying her lack of calm. Now, as they all stared, she fought the urge to turn and run. “I wish to go home,” she said to David, since he was the one who had offered to bring word to her family. Would he allow her to see them one last time? “My family will be worried about me.”

  The bewhiskered man in the high-backed chair laughed. He stood, his intimidating mien unsettling her composure. “You have a lot of cheek, Miss Faraday. You haven’t the right to see anyone again. The only place I’m taking you is back to London.”

  “I’m a midwife.” Her eyes lifted to David, who found interest in his glass in seeming abandonment to her plight. A muscle in his jaw twitched. Despite her crumbling defenses, she drew her spine erect and returned her gaze to Kinley. “No matter what you think, there are those who need me. You have to allow me to make arrangements.”

  “Is that your latest deception, Miss Faraday?” The white-haired man again inserted himself in her line of sight.

  “Sir Henry Munro is a well-respected physician. I’ve worked with him for nine years. This is what I do.”

  “Not anymore it isn’t.”

  Behind his spectacles, his hazel eyes watched her, and a vague memory grabbed at the undercurrent of her thoughts, making her ill at ease. Like an overly hot room on a full stomach. He wore his white sideburns thick and bushy on a round face that had suffered the consequences of too much drink. His presence only amplified the misfortune of her current position.

  “How did you get the earring?” she asked, hating that her voice trembled. But she had to ask. The earring David had given to Stillings had once belonged to her father. “Tell me my father is still in prison…or dead.”

  Silence followed the query. As Victoria looked among them all with dawning horror, a sick feeling grabbed hold of her stomach. She looked to David. “Before I fled Calcutta, the last thing my father gave me was an earring that matched the one you brought to Sheriff Stillings last night. It was to be a signal between us. How did you get it?”

  “A pawnbroker brought it to the attention of our office,” the man sitting on the settee spoke when David did not, his voice hinting of a faint upper-crust accent. “He knew the piece from a description of those jewels stolen in the Calcutta theft.”

  “Did anyone question how a pawnbroker knew so much? Was he some historical scholar with a decade-old memory?”

  “He’s dead,” David answered, setting his brandy on the mantel. “His shop was burglarized three days after he handed the earring to this office.”

  “And my father? Tell me he is still in prison!”

  “Kinley?” David directed the question to the man standing nearest to her.

  “Your father escaped,” Kinley said.

  Appalled at the ramifications, Victoria drew in a breath and met Kinley’s stare with accusation. “Why wasn’t this mentioned in any of the newspapers?”

  “For all intents and purposes, Faraday has been dead for nine years,” Kinley said.

  “You kept him alive because of what he knows. Now you led him directly to me. To my entire family. You did this on purpose.”

  “We can save your family,” Kinley said, the menace in his voice amplifying the threat, “if you tell us where the jewels are.”

  David set the glass on the mantel. “That’s enough, Kinley.”

  “Even if I did know where that treasure was, I would never tell you. The gems are cursed.” Victoria shifted her gaze helplessly to David’s. “How many people have already died because of them? How many lives ruined? Let them stay buried.”

  David pierced her with dark eyes, the quiet intensity of his gaze seeking to understand that which she had not meant to surrender. “Why are you afraid of your father, Meg?”

  His voice was
gentle, and Victoria was conscious of an irrational surge of panic. Her father had a reason for hunting her, and Victoria realized David no longer believed with even the slightest possibility that the treasure had gone down off the coast of Bombay.

  “My name isn’t Meg,” she snapped. “It’s Victoria Munro. Margaret Faraday died the night that ship went down, along with everything she thought she loved. She will never be back. Do you understand that?”

  The younger man sitting on the sofa spoke into the sudden silence. “Would you help us bring in your father? Obviously you are concerned that he will show up here.”

  Shaking her head, she yanked her gaze from David to the man and woman, with their perfect blond looks. “You don’t know him.” Breathing hard, she felt crushing pain in her chest. She’d sooner be dead than show her fear to the likes of anyone in this room, but she was already turning to run from the room.

  David grabbed her before she reached the door. Somehow, he had made it past two chairs, a curio table, and a delicate crystal lamp to reach her before she’d taken five steps. “Meg—”

  “Let go of me!”

  Spinning her into the solid restraint of his body, David turned with her in his arms and faced Kinley. “You’ve known she was Colonel Faraday’s target from the beginning. How?”

  “We were never even sure she was alive,” Kinley mumbled, yanking his black waistcoat over his belly. “We had to find her first, and you did that.”

  Clearly, Kinley had an inflated opinion of his own consequence, Victoria thought, certain she could escape if she could get away from David. No lock had been made that she couldn’t pick. She would be free before the overstuffed fool knew what happened. Better to run than bring her father down on Sir Henry or face a public trial in London and forever leave a mark of shame on her son. Hadn’t her father always accused her of bringing ruin to everyone she’d ever loved? She wouldn’t do it!

  “I voluntarily surrender myself to interrogation,” she said.

  “Is that right?” David demanded.

  She whirled to face him. The very air crackled as they faced each other, two opponents in an unfinished duel, awareness arcing between them like live sparks. “Kinley can take me to London and learn for himself that I do not know where any treasure is.”

  David took a seat on the arm of a chair and surveyed her in that lazy, perilous way of his, as good at hiding his feelings as she was. “We won’t catch Faraday without her.” David shifted the brunt of his gaze to Kinley. “Or have you forgotten the primary objective of this mission?”

  “He’s right, Kinley,” the blond Adonis agreed. “If Faraday wants her, it makes sense to keep her here.”

  Panic infused every limb in her body, but she froze as David returned his attention to her. “Rockwell, send a note to Lady Munro’s family and tell them she left last night to deliver a baby. Then tell them she had a riding accident on the road.”

  “They won’t believe you,” Victoria whispered. “I’ve never fallen off my horse.”

  “Maybe Meg Faraday isn’t as skilled a rider as Victoria Munro thinks she is.” His unfathomable eyes seemed to challenge her. He was handsome, devastatingly so, and if she was not convinced that he was taunting her on purpose, she would have flown at him. “What is there not to believe?” he asked. “I’ve seen the bruises myself.”

  “Naturally. Do include my concussion with the accounting of your brutal behavior toward my person as well as drugging me senseless.”

  His eyes were on her. “As well as your attempt to shoot me?”

  She answered with equal focus. “If I had ever wanted you dead you would not be standing here now. There is nothing you can do to entice me to help you.”

  “Nothing?” he asked. “It is common knowledge that Sir Henry’s estate went up on the block for overdue taxes.”

  “Overdue?” she scoffed, wondering how he would know such a thing. “The chief magistrate would steal from his own uncle.”

  “What if we could get Sir Henry’s estate back, Meg? Would you help us then?”

  “Bloody hell with that,” Kinley protested, the epitome of skepticism. “An hour ago you were ready to roast her on a spit. This is insane.”

  David folded one arm loosely over the other. As he awaited her reply, she was aware of his eyes on her face, and looked away. His hands were dark against the white of his sleeves, and he wore a gold wedding ring on his right hand. Her fingers went to the loose band on her own hand. She had not noticed the band on his finger before, and clearly he had not been thinking enough to remove it, for he lowered his hand. “I need a place to live and work,” he said when she again raised her gaze. “Lady Munro can use a long-lost relative at her back. It would behoove her to cooperate.”

  “You won’t be able to fight Nellis Munro. He wants Rose Briar.”

  “Let me worry about your local politics, Meg. I’m not without my own resources.”

  “Sir Henry knows I haven’t any relatives.”

  “And you never keep secrets?”

  He said nothing else, the charge coursing between them now electric, knowing she was trapped by the consequences of her own sins and mindful that he was also the only person standing between Kinley’s brand of interrogation and maybe the end of a rope. Any observer would have thought them longtime lovers, trusted friends, not mortal enemies.

  Yet she sensed the strangest tension had seized his limbs.

  “Are you so anxious to be hanged then?” he quietly asked.

  Victoria clutched the robe’s fabric against her chest, her desolation growing. Of course she did not wish to be hanged. But David was as dangerous to her as her father.

  “She’s in my custody,” he told Kinley. “I’ll bring her in when it’s time.”

  Kinley moved in front of her. “Everyone eventually talks, Miss Faraday. Everyone.”

  “Kinley.” The quiet warning came from David. “I suggest you move away from her before she gives you a black eye.”

  “And I’ll trust you not to turn your back on her. Next time she may not miss when she tries to kill you.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  “Do. Find Faraday.” Kinley snagged up his coat on his way out of the room.

  In the silence that followed his departure, the beautiful blond woman brushed her palms. “Well,” she said with flair. “That went well for us all.” Looking at Rockwell, she plopped her fists on her hips. “What were you thinking, Ian?”

  The man rose to his feet. A head taller than the woman, he glared down at her. “I was thinking we have a job to do, Pamela.”

  He strode from the room, the same path Kinley had taken. Victoria had not moved. As if her silence could enfold her in a mantle of invisibility, she was not even aware that she had fallen back into an old habit until she saw David watching her, and straightened.

  “This is the Countess Cherbinko’s town house,” he said, introducing Pamela. “Our own faux Russian royalty, trained at the consulate in St. Petersburg. She took you in last night to help you recuperate from your injuries. She is our eyes and ears in this town. Nothing will get by her.” He fixed his gaze on Pamela. “Will it, countess?”

  In a rustle of emerald silk, Pamela slid her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his ear. “Tell me not to worry about you up on that hill by your wee lonesome, David.”

  But Victoria had had enough of their cozy little love scene. Tears burning in her eyes, she returned to the bedroom and slammed the door. She did not understand her reaction, only that she would never again look at the stars and wonder what David had done with his life since leaving India, or whom he’d been with for business—or for pleasure. She would never wonder whom he might have loved.

  She didn’t care.

  For all his upright principles, everything about him still screamed of duplicity. He was a clever, manipulative, and experienced spy who played life like a game of chess. And she was just another move on the chessboard, as he maneuvered his way toward the conclusion
of a game that should have ended nine years ago.

  None of them knew what they were asking her to do.

  She thought of her father roaming free, and attempted to harness the pace of her heart. Outside, gray clouds darkened the sky over the bluff as an early winter storm hovered over the channel. Catching herself on the window casement, she looked down into the empty courtyard below, then leaned nearer to the glass, searching for a way to escape. Her gaze ran up the length of heavy draperies across the thick wooden dowel and down the other side. She tested their strength before turning her attention to the armoire for suitable clothing. She would have been better off taking her chances with Kinley.

  She had to escape now. Her father was out there.

  He frightened her. Her father finding Nathanial terrified her.

  She had known people who had no sense of moral right and wrong. She had known people who drank because their bodies craved the libation or opium-addicted sufferers who could not live out a day without the drug. As a little girl, she met many of them in her father’s circle of acquaintances. But her father suffered no such moral ambiguity. He knew the difference between right and wrong. He just didn’t care. Playing the game had been his opium. Name the hunt and it became his sport. He’d always loved the chase, the game of fox and hound, cat and mouse.

  He and David were alike in that respect.

  “Damn you, Donally!” Frustrated beyond belief, she crossed her arms over her midriff, turned back into the room, and froze.

  David stood with his back against the door, looking much as he had that morning when she’d thrown herself naked at him. “You would not have escaped Kinley, Meg.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Because I would have been with him.”

  She gritted her teeth, truly aware of how much she disliked him. The firelight burned in the dark depths of his eyes as he continued to watch her. “Who is Nellis Munro to you?”

  “He is Sir Henry’s nephew. He wants control of all Munro holdings.”

  David pushed off the door. “All?”

  She was unable to meet his eyes. “Does everyone know that you and I…?”