Page 20 of A Scandal at Stonecliffe (Stonecliffe #3)

CHAPTER TWENTY

V ERITY SAILED OUT of the house not long after Nathan left. It was irritating of course, that she couldn’t join Nathan in questioning Robert Douglas, but she felt too cheerful this morning to let anything dampen her spirits. Besides, she figured she should avoid her Mrs. Billingham character, as well as any place that Lord Arden might frequent. Verity still suspected that Milsap, the Bow Street Runner who was sniffing about, had the most chance of finding her through the Bankwater case.

Verity had almost told Nathan yesterday about what she had learned in the park despite her decision not to—the man seemed able to take down her walls with ease. She was thankful the clerk had interrupted her—given the tremendous blow the marriage records had dealt Nathan, he certainly hadn’t needed to be loaded down with her problems, as well.

Indeed, it would be quite selfish of her to tell him about Stanhope now—especially since, as she looked back on the scene she had witnessed, Verity suspected that she had reacted too strongly. She’d let panic overtake her. All she had really learned was that her stepbrother had thought her dead years ago, or, at the least, tried to find her years ago, and was now looking for her again.

But she didn’t know what he wanted: revenge, justice, jewelry that he thought should have been part of his inheritance? One thing she was certain of was that he could not have been the one who set those two men upon them the other night. He didn’t even know whether Verity was alive, let alone where she was.

So Stanhope currently presented no danger to Nathan and was utterly irrelevant to his case. However, that could all quickly change if Nathan thought Stanhope was a threat to Verity. Then Nathan was all too likely to go after the man himself—and a Stanhope was always more dangerous than they seemed on the surface. She couldn’t let Nathan become part of a vendetta against her.

No. It was the best course to keep Nathan out of the situation. She would take care of the problem herself—it was, after all, the way she had always handled everything. She would just have to be more careful than she had been of late. She would be on the alert whenever they went out, and she would avoid the ton as much as she could. As she had done yesterday, she decided to wear a plain brown dress and she wound her hair up in tight braids, taking the extra precaution today of topping it off with a mobcap.

As Verity dressed, her mind wandered back to Nathan. Waking up beside him had been so—well, she didn’t have a word for the feeling. Nice? Wonderful? Sweet? They were all too vague and colorless to describe the thrill that had run through her when she looked over at him, sound asleep, his chest bare, his hair delightfully rumpled, and to know that she could smooth her hands over his body and kiss him awake, and they would once more have that soul-shaking experience, that lovemaking that seemed to tear her apart and put her back together again.

But it hadn’t been only desire that stirred in her. There was the simple pleasure of having breakfast with Nathan, talking and laughing as they made plans for the day. She wasn’t sure why it warmed her deep inside to see him comfortable and at ease there in her bed—hair tousled, jaw stubbled, without his perfectly arranged neckcloth and exactly correct attire. There was a certain intimacy to it, a closeness that she had never shared with anyone.

Verity admitted few people to her house, and even fewer men to her bedchamber. She suspected that Nathan thought she was worldly wise and experienced when it came to sex. She was, she supposed, compared to the ladies of Nathan’s world—girls innocently virginal till their wedding night. But the truth was that Verity had not been with many men—only a few brief affairs, usually in the heat of some dangerous adventure.

She was quite adept at flirting and pretending interest she did not feel. She had enticed more than one man with behavior that promised more than she would ever deliver, but that had been part of whatever role she was playing. None of it was real, and she never traded her favors for information despite her spymaster urging her to do so.

Her mother’s marriage to Lord Stanhope had given her a poor view of men and marriage, and her first lover had tried to betray her to the French—she had Sloane to thank for stopping him from doing so. For several years thereafter she had sworn off men altogether.

She had learned to split herself into two parts: the person that she presented to the world and the secret self she hid, the true Verity. Men belonged solely in that first world. And it had operated well enough.

Until Nathan. Nathan, it seemed, was an exception to all her rules. A risk she had never taken before, but one she wouldn’t give up now for anything. She’d meant what she said to him last night. She had thrown away her reservations. It didn’t matter what lay at the end of their affair. Right now she was going to enjoy it.

She smiled a little to herself as she started down the street. She had planned to go to her office and from there to talk to a lawyer about illegitimacy laws, but instead she found her feet turning toward Hyde Park.

Verity had not gone there to catch a glimpse of her sister in several days. She had been too busy—or perhaps too happy; she wasn’t entirely sure. Today she was a trifle late, and Poppy and the nanny were strolling back toward her house.

Verity stopped and edged back to the partial shelter of a tree. As always, there was a little ache in her heart at seeing her sister. It had been so many years, but Verity could still see traces of the seven-year-old Poppy in the grown woman.

She wondered what would happen if Poppy glanced over and saw her. Would she recognize Verity, even with her recognizable hair hidden? Or was Verity too much a stranger to her now? Did Poppy remember her? Did she despise Verity for leaving her with strangers?

For an instant, she thought of walking over to Poppy and telling her the truth, as Nathan had mentioned. However good Verity was at imitating people’s physical characteristics, Nathan knew people’s hearts much better than she. Maybe he was right and Poppy would be happy to see her.

Or maybe Poppy would berate her. Or, worse, simply ignore Verity and walk away. Verity’s stomach knotted at the thought. She wasn’t a coward, she’d never been a coward, Verity told herself. And yet this she could not do.

She watched as the two women walked out of the park, pushing the baby carriage. Maybe there would be no blissful future for Verity, but she wasn’t going to dwell on the past anymore.

She was going to do her job and talk to the solicitor about the laws of legitimacy, and then she would go home. To Nathan. Verity turned and walked away.

W HEN V ERITY WALKED into the house hours later, Nathan was sitting in her drawing room, which pleased her much more than seemed reasonable. He stood up, smiling, and started toward her, and Verity went into his arms, lifting her face for a kiss. It was not a polite kiss of greeting, and one kiss led to another until it was several minutes before they parted and sat down to talk.

“How was your meeting with the attorney?” Nathan asked.

“Boring,” Verity replied. “I want to know what you found out. Did Uncle Robert give you the name of the town? Was he suspicious?”

“He seemed surprised when I asked, but he didn’t appear suspicious or question my reason for asking. Gairmore is the name of the town. Here’s what I found interesting: Douglas said that Malcolm was not born at the Douglas estate, which is where their heirs are traditionally born, but in a remote village in the Highlands.”

“That is interesting.” Verity, who had been nestled against Nathan’s shoulder, sat up straight, her eyes gleaming.

“And right after he said the name, he got flustered. He said they just ‘happened’ to be there, that they were caught by surprise. He assured me that it was primitive and not the sort of location I’d want to summer at.”

“A remote village in the Highlands seems an unlikely place to visit when one is about to have a baby, don’t you think?” Verity mused.

Nathan nodded. “But a good place to hide an inconveniently early birth.”

“Exactly. And why was he born anywhere in Scotland, for that matter? Why not at your manor or here in London? That’s where they were married.”

“Yes, and why was it only Margaret and her mother who were there? Why was my father not there to see the birth of his son? Robert didn’t mention my father at all. Just quickly changed the subject and started telling me about the Douglas estate.”

“That indeed sounds smoky.”

“Do you think he’s part of it? That he knows what his nephew is doing?”

“If so, Robert’s a very good actor.”

“I wouldn’t say he’s that—he certainly didn’t hide it well when I asked him about the town where Malcolm was born.”

“Yes, it would seem that he knows he shouldn’t talk about Malcolm’s birth, but I’m not sure that he knows who the father was.” Verity frowned. “When we met him, I didn’t see any reaction to hearing your name, and one would think he would recognize it immediately.”

“I don’t see what we can do except follow the only lead we have.” Nathan grinned. “Care for a trip to the Highlands?”

*

T HEY TOOK THE carriage along the Great North Road to Edinburgh, then turned northwest to climb into the Highlands.

It should have been a boring, even arduous trip, but instead it seemed an almost magical time. Each night was filled with desire as they explored each other’s bodies, learning what titillated, what pleased, what sent the other soaring into an explosion of passion.

They spent the long days talking. Little was said about Malcolm Douglas and his claim or the men who had attacked them, and Verity pushed her worries about Jonathan Stanhope to the back of her mind. Neither of them wished to spoil this time alone together. Nathan told amusing stories about Lady Lockwood and her dog Petunia. Verity taught Nathan how to mark cards and fuzz dice and gave him tips on breaking into houses.

“I knew it. You really are a criminal,” Nathan told her.

“I have to know how one cheats in order to catch those who do it,” she retorted. “I’ve been hired to catch thieves. And sharps at gambling clubs. To spot mountebanks and charlatans.”

“Such as someone pretending to be a wealthy widow?”

Verity laughed. “Just so. But only if they’re an adventuress intent on swindling. One learns all sorts of things in this business—once I was hired to catch a poisoner. He thought it was his wife who wanted to do away with him, but it turned out to be the cook who’d been paid by his nephew to put it in the man’s nightly posset. So I had to study all sorts of poisonous plants and chemicals.”

“You didn’t learn that when you were working for Asquith?”

“I was a spy, Nathan, not an assassin,” Verity retorted. “But yes, I learned a bit about arsenic and such back then just in case it became necessary to use it. But I was more likely to give a man something to put him to sleep. Much easier to steal secrets when he’s unconscious.”

“Mmm. And none of the messy aftermath,” he offered drily. “So you broke in and doctored a drink and then waited for him to fall asleep?”

“Usually I managed to get inside houses without breaking in.” She adopted a coquettish attitude, looking up at Nathan through her lashes. “A little of this. And a little of that...” She changed to a worshipful look, clasping her hands together at her breast . “Oh, my, you must be so important. And at such a young age—how very clever you are.” She grinned. “Flattery and flirting usually got me in the door. And if I brought a guard a warm grog on a cold night, who was going to turn that away?”

“Especially if you offered to chat with him while he drank it.”

“But of course. Sometimes I was the distraction, and Sloane or someone else got inside, and sometimes only I could work my way inside and take whatever it was Asquith wanted. That was a good bit more exciting.”

“You never got caught?”

“Of course I did. But luckily I always managed to get away. You’ll have to learn these things if you intend to be a detective.”

“To charm women or to break into a house?”

“I think you know how to do the former,” she retorted. “The rest you can learn.”

His eyebrows went up a little. “Are you serious?”

“Why, yes. Did you not mean it when you said you could work with me?”

“Yes, but I didn’t assume you did.”

“It makes sense. You would attract more wealthy clients—men who would never hire me would trust you. You’re one of them, no matter what comes out about your birth. You can go places I cannot—gentlemen’s clubs, for instance.” Verity hesitated. “But of course if you were only joking, I wouldn’t press you.”

“I wasn’t—I mean, yes, I was joking, but only because I didn’t think you would actually consider it. I would in fact very much like to work for you.”

“Good.” Verity slanted a glance at him, her eyes taking on a glint. “Though, I do have to warn you that I am a very demanding employer.”

“Are you?” Nathan settled back, looking a bit uncertain but ready to play along.

“Indeed.” Verity swung one leg over him, straddling his lap. She felt his flesh surge beneath her, and she smiled, moving a bit as if finding the exact position. “I like things done just the way I want.” She trailed her forefinger down the center of his chest.

A pulse leapt in his throat, sending heat through her. “I think I can follow orders.”

“Can you?” She cupped his face between his hands. “Then kiss me.”

He did, his mouth firm and hot on hers, seeking, coaxing, and a sweet ache formed between her legs. He cupped her breasts, caressing her through her dress, and she moved against him again, frustrated by the material between them.

It was absurd, but Verity felt as though she could not get enough of Nathan. They had made love only this morning, and it wasn’t as if they had been celibate any other night on this trip. But already she was hot and wet, eager to feel his length slide into her, filling her in the most delicious way.

Verity slipped off him, and he reached for her, but she scooted away and reached under her skirts to pull off her undergarments. Tossing them aside, she lifted her skirts and straddled his legs once more. She unbuttoned his breeches, freeing his pulsing erection; he was clearly as ready as she.

Going up on her knees, she slid down onto his shaft, closing her eyes at the exquisite satisfaction. She moved up and down, the vibration of the coach beneath them adding to the sensations. Nathan gripped her hips, his fingers digging into her, and as she rocked faster, he reached beneath her skirts, finding the slick nub between her nether lips, and stroked her.

Verity arched back, her body taut in that final moment where she hung at the edge, aching and eager, and then she went over it, her body shuddering as Nathan thrust into her, letting out a hoarse groan as he reached his own release.

She went limp against him, laying her head on his shoulder.

“Did I impress my future employer?” Nathan’s rumbly low tone tickled Verity’s ear and she shivered a bit.

“Oh, you are very impressive in this regard.” She added a feigned coolness to her voice. “But I’ll still have to see how you are at filing.”

“Cheeky.” Nathan grinned. “I like that.”

Verity could feel him getting hard again inside her. “You certainly seem to. And I must say, I enjoy your work ethic.” As the pulsing heat between them sped up again, words, cheeky or otherwise, flew from her mind and Verity’s sole thought was that she was happier than she’d ever been before.