Page 44 of An Earl’s Sacrifice (The Clandestine Sapphire Society #3)

W ith a wary eye, Lucius watched Ashcroft wander about his bedchamber. He stopped at the bedside table where the pamphlet on Women and the Need for Economic Equality: A Plan for England’s Future lay in full view. He picked it up and turned to Lucius with a lifted brow.

Frustration gripped Lucius by the throat but he had one weapon at his disposal. “Don’t change the subject. If you don’t wish to discuss our mutual beneficial partnership, as my wife so delicately intimated, I can apprise the duke of your presence in a matter of minutes.”

Ashcroft’s mouth tightened and he dropped the booklet back on the table.

It was amazing how much satisfaction Lucius gleaned at setting the man back on his heels. “Now, would you like to tell me what it is you have on the duke thus far?”

“As I said, he killed my mother. I had returned home from school and saw him.”

“Home from school,” Lucius repeated. Little pieces of a large puzzle started clicking into place. “So, that would make you…”

“Rathbourne’s son and heir. Lady Pender’s brother. If he’d seen me that day, I suspect it would have been worse for me.”

Lucius shoved a hand through his hair, stunned on more than one front. “Jesus, how could it have been worse?”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Another sardonic lift of his brow. “Beat me to a bloody pulp, imprison me in my own home? One scenario. Facing my own death as a second. I was thirteen. Rathbourne’s a powerful man.”

“But what reason would he have for murdering his own wife?”

“I think she opposed his father’s dealings in Cornwall.”

“His father’s!” Lucius straightened. “Your grandfather?”

Ashcroft raised a shoulder and let it fall. “Once the former duke expired, my father was there to take up the reins.”

“The reins of what?”

“You found the list of former stewards,” he reminded Lucius.

“Yes, but you said he didn’t handle such pesky…” Lucius slapped his forehead. “Right. So, you’re looking for evidence?”

His lips curved into a grim, humorless smile. “Yes.”

“Have you found any?”

“Not yet,” he bit out. “It’s not as if it will be written out with arrows leading me down a clear and merry path.”

Lucius pinched the bridge of his nose, recognizing the truth of that statement. “You think Thornfield is carrying out Rathbourne’s agenda?”

“Yes. But I have yet to learn what that agenda is.”

“Why do you believe he killed Meredith’s mother?”

Ashcroft shrugged. “If he killed one, why not another?”

“Yes. Why not?” Lucius glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece over the hearth. “And Meredith?”

His lip curved in a grim smile. “Someone had to look after her.”

There was nothing Lucius could say to that. “Yes, well. I’m here now,” he said gruffly. “Where the devil is the brandy?”

But even as the words escaped him, unease slithered over his skin. “Help me with a shirt, would you?”

With a grim set of his mouth, Ashcroft stepped forward and helped Lucius out of his shirt. “You can’t go traipsing about the Keep and expect no one to notice.”

That uneasiness banded his chest with iron until Lucius could barely draw in a breath. “The cat has been let out of the bag. The whole village is quite aware I’ve returned,” he said, thinking of those gazes who’d dropped or turned from him.

A light tap sounded. “Enter,” Lucius barked.

Ashcroft turned and opened the door.

“What is it?” The anxiousness, reminiscent of a dive off the cliffs into a glacial sea, iced his veins.

Bartlett held up the brandy.

“Finally,” Ashcroft breathed. “Where is Lady Pender?”

The pipes clanged loudly. “In the bathing chamber,” Lucius said. “She was acting oddly. Said she wished to be alone.”

Ashcroft’s eyes flicked to the pamphlet and back to Lucius fraught with meaning. “Seems to be plenty of that going on around here,” he muttered.

“Thank you, Bartlett. You may go.” Lucius prowled the chamber for a shirt then snatched up the closest thing at hand, his black silk banyan. “Out. Both of you.”

He went through the adjourning door to the bathing chamber.

Meredith was reclining in her nice comfortable tub, her plump lips firmed with a stubbornness he was beginning to recognize. Regularly. “Hand me that towel.”

“Ah, ah, ah. Is that anyway to speak to your lord and master?” He spoke mildly but did as she… demanded.

She sat forward, the globes of her breasts—nipples rather—were still concealed by foamy water. She lifted one arm, and he snatched the towel out of her reach.

“What are you hiding? Besides your nipples,” he added.

The steamy bathing chamber could have been the culprit behind the sudden rosy cheeks, but he decided to claim credit for the lovely phenomenon.

He threw the towel over his shoulder. “Give me your hand.”

After a long moment, she lifted one elegant, dripping hand. He gripped her fingers and tugged her to her feet. Water sluiced over her perfectly proportioned curves. Unable to help himself, he leaned in and licked the dampness from one nipple.

She gasped and her hand tightened in his.

He moved to the other then slowly drew back. His hands tingled as if he held warm apples within his palms; his lips sizzled for want of trailing them over the supple planes of her belly.

“Plenty.”

His eyes flew open. “Plenty of what?” he croaked out, meeting her puzzled gaze.

The rosy flush of her damp face deepened. “I believe I’ve found what Aylesbury referred to in his journal.”

The words he understood, but their meaning escaped him. She seemed to be speaking in tongues or Hebrew or some sort of gibberish.

She tugged the towel from his shoulder. “I should dress,” she said softly. The low husky vibrance of her voice went straight south.

“Er, yes, of course.” Lucius watched as she wrapped herself in the large strip of linen, then he took her hand again, helping her from the copper tub.

“There will come a time,” he said. “Where we shall share this decadent bath.” Where he would lather her lovely body with the scented soaps she seemed to adore.

With one foot out of the tub, the other still in, she stopped. “Share?”

“Oh, yes,” he growled, retrieving her wrap for her. “Share. I’ll send your maid in with clean garments.”

“She is in the village with her mother. I gave her the day off. You accompanied her. Do you not recall?”

“I can’t recall anything but your delectable breasts.

” Lucius took on the task himself and went into Meredith’s bedchamber and to her wardrobe.

He found a silk chemise and a drab gray dress then hurried back through her sitting room and pulled up.

Ashcroft and Docia were eyeing one another warily, each on opposite sides of the room. “What the devil?”

“I wish to speak with Meredith,” Docia said.

“I need to check your stitches,” Ashcroft said.

Lucius shook his head and hurried into the bathing chamber. “Prepare yourself. We’ve company in your sitting room.”

“But, I’ve no shoes. Or stays. Or petticoats,” she said aghast. “My corset! ”

“Your dress should cover your feet. We are among friends.”

“Friends? Your ex-lover is not my friend.”

“She’s not my ex-lover—”

“Current then—”

“Don’t be daft, Lady Pender. You’re wasting time.” He slipped out of the bathing chamber, grinning. Because the situation was fraught with the ridiculous.