“I cannot stop thinking about you.” His rough voice rumbled across her senses.
She breathed fast. “Are you for some reason obliged to?”
The crease appeared in his cheek. But he released her. She nearly grabbed him back again.
She straightened her shoulders. “I intend to tell Marcus tomorrow that our betrothal is at an end. Again.”
He did not flicker a lash. “As you wish.”
“You do not want me to obtain any further information through this method?”
“No.”
Her insides crimped with panic. “Then I suppose we will not see one another again, since you go about in society so irregularly.”
Furrows formed between his brows. The slightest shadow of the day’s whiskers hinted about his jaw. Her body’s memory felt that roughness again upon her neck and the insides of her thighs.
“I would like to call upon you,” he said. “May I?”
“I have heard that request before. I do not quite believe it this second time.”
Emotions crossed her face in rapid play. Surprise and doubt. But also hope. Ben’s chest expanded, anticipation pressing against hot relief.
“Perhaps I do not deserve it,” he said, “but allow me the honor. Please.”
She hesitated a moment then nodded. Her gaze shifted to the dining chamber door. But Ben could not turn away from her. The candlelit angle of her jaw and the slope of her throat held him rapt.
“Octavia,” Constance hissed across the chamber. “You are missed.”
Without another word, Octavia moved around him and away. He leaned back against the piano, steadying himself. Constance took Octavia’s arm and drew her into the dining chamber. Lady Fitzwarren replaced them in the doorway.
“Doreé, I must speak with you at once.” She strode forward purposefully.
He bowed. “I am at your service, my lady.”
“Don’t play the pretty with me. You think you know what I have to say but you haven’t the slightest idea.” She halted before him, a swirl of violet perfume.
“I beg you to offer me enlightenment, ma’am.” He had known Mellicent Fitzwarren since his days at Cambridge. Ashford’s godmother, Lady March, had introduced him to the dowager. For what purpose, he hadn’t been wise enough at the time to understand, but he had quickly come to. Lady Fitzwarren knew everyone in town and was as sharp as a tack. That she and Lady Ashford seemed to be Octavia’s patronesses now was sheer . . . coincidence.
Ben did not believe in coincidence.
“That girl must marry soon,” the lady stated, “and I do not mean Octavia Pierce. Not at the moment, rather.”
No coincidences. Not in Ben’s life.
“You refer to Lady Constance?”
“Intelligent man. Like your father.” She snapped him on the chest with the tip of her furled fan. “Which is precisely to the point. I hoped to say this to you at Fellsbourne, but hadn’t the opportunity. Those graves are no longer fresh but the mystery surrounding your father and brother’s deaths still is. You must investigate it and put it to rest or that darling girl will never release herself from that tragic bond.”
Ben allowed a moment’s pause.
“I appreciate your concern, my lady. I am a great admirer of forthright speech.”
“That is perfectly obvious to me.” Her eyes glinted.
“I admit I had not previously considered the matter so urgent, nor so mysterious.”
“Well, you will now. I had an interesting conversation with Abel Gosworth while at your country place, and discovered I’m not the only one who’s got the notion that fire was no accident.”
“Madam?”
“When the Tories pushed that bill through Parliament to put the Company in the hands of men who didn’t know a damn thing about the East Indies, your father was spanking mad to overturn it.”
“He believed the men best suited to controlling trade in the East were those who understood and worked hand in hand with the natives.” Natives like Ben’s uncle, who prized the back-and-forth sharing of cultures and married his sister to an Englishman, who did too.
The dowager’s lips pursed. “I can see you don’t believe me.”
“Assassination is a heavy accusation, my lady. And, of course, my brother died as well in that fire. In matters of politics he was quite unlike my father.”
“Jack didn’t care a thing about Parliament, you mean. But others did, and that fire did not light itself. You haven’t time to lose. That poor girl is on the edge of hysteria.” She bustled away. “Now, come have something to eat,” she threw over a shoulder draped with filmy purple fabric. “Your complexion is sallow and you are considerably more handsome when you have some color in you. One must maintain appearances, after all, even when one is pining away.”
Ben could not help but laugh. The unfamiliar sensation in his chest brought quick memory of the last time he had laughed, chasing after a beautiful woman in the midst of a thunderstorm, the rain washing away every doubt. Everything but the moment.
But Lady Fitzwarren’s words spiked a disquiet he had ignored far too long. For Constance’s sake he must now address it.
He strode toward the foyer. His hostess would not mind his abrupt departure, and he’d had enough tonight of the decadent torture of watching Octavia across a room and not being able to touch her. Her eyes had told him that her words were sincere. He had no doubt she despised lying, and he would not ask her to do so again. He was through with lies, through with subterfuge and mistrust. Tomorrow he would see her and try to discover if she was too.
Ben read through records at his house late into the night, then rose before dawn and rode to the docks. The sound of the Thames lapping at the wharf met him beyond the dock walls, and he knew the water would be black beneath shining gas lamps.
Despite Creighton’s dedication to his work, his secretary never appeared before the sun. Ben let himself into the office on the second story of a building across from the gated entrance to the docks, and struck a flint to light a lamp. Then he unlocked a cabinet drawer and pulled forth a file. An hour later Creighton appeared, the gray of morning outlining him in the door frame.
Ben nodded a greeting. “Where is the ledger with the inventory taken of the hunting box after the fire?”
Creighton’s stony face opened. Ben waited through his secretary’s momentary astonishment with a patience he did not feel. He’d gone through every document relating to the incident, and, just as years ago, nothing suggested any mystery. The place had burned when a lit coal went astray from a grate when all were asleep. Any suspicions were unfounded. He was on a wild goose chase.
“I beg your pardon, my lord. It is still at the cottage. I considered it best left on the premises in case you should find use for it while there.”
Ben stuffed the papers into the file.
“I will ride down there now. Send a message to Samuel to meet me at the inn with a bag. I do not need my valet. I will be gone only overnight.” He went to the door and paused. “When is the Eastern Promise scheduled to sail?”
“A week Tuesday, sir.”
“I have not forgotten about her peculiar cache.”
“Of course you have not, my lord.” Creighton sounded offended.
“Have the former quartermaster’s report ready for me when I return. And look into a sailor named Sheeble, his business and close associates.”
“Yes, sir.”