Page 16 of The Viscount Needs a Wife (All for Love #2)

E mrys was unsure if Miss Pringle would appear for dinner and even less sure how he would handle it if she did.

As it transpired, she was perfectly composed and treated him in a cool and professional way.

She was never forward in company anyway, seldom participating in the dinner conversation, so to others she would appear no different than usual.

But to him, there was a silent constraint. She kept her eyes modestly on her plate, partook only lightly of the meal, and was careful not to look in his direction. He knew this because he couldn’t help looking in hers, try as he might not to.

While keeping up a dinner conversation with the duke and duchess, he caught himself sneaking glances at her down the table. She was seated on the opposite side to him, flanked by the two princesses. He smiled to himself; he would forever think of them that way, he was sure.

“Master Ewen has taken no lasting hurt, I trust?” asked the dowager.

“He has not, Your Grace, for which I am profoundly thankful.”

“Did Robert tell you about the time he fell into the lake?” she said.

“No,” he threw Robert a glance, and the man rolled his eyes.

“He and Hereward had taken out the rowboat against their father’s orders, and they got into an altercation in the middle of the lake. The craft, as I understand it, became unsteady and Robert fell in. Hereward was forced to rescue him.”

“That is not precisely how it happened,” said Robert.

Emrys let Robert’s words wash over him, his attention snared by the fact that Miss Pringle was engaged in a softly spoken conversation with Heather and Mary.

He couldn’t hear what she was saying, nor their responses, but he was captivated by the softening of her expression as she spoke.

She appeared to have relaxed somewhat for the first time this evening.

He was glad of that. It distressed him to think that his behavior had caused her discomfort.

When the ladies rose at the end of the meal, he had hoped he would see her later, but when he and Robert rejoined them in the drawing room, he discovered that she and the young misses had retired early. He was still tired himself and made his excuses to retire, too.

On his way, he visited each of his children, tucked up in bed asleep. The girls were sharing a bed. Quite a large one for two tiny things. They looked so sweet in sleep, he just sat with them a bit in silence, watching them. He must pay them some more attention.

Finally dragging himself away, he popped in to sit with Ewen for a while. Mrs. Green was there, and he spoke with her quietly. She said that Ewen’s temperature had spiked a little but then settled back down. She expected him to be better tomorrow.

Reaching his own room at last, he didn’t bother ringing for his valet. Stripping off his clothing and slipping into bed, he lay on his back and finally let the thoughts he’d been holding at bay swamp him in sensation.

He couldn’t pretend Miss Pringle’s kisses hadn’t roused him to an extraordinary degree. Reliving the moments that he held her in his arms and lost himself in her mouth, his body demanded release, and he gave it, closing his eyes in the aftermath and letting the peace soothe him.

He had no idea what he was supposed to do with this inconvenient lust for a woman he had no business thinking of in this way. He could only conclude it was a part of the grieving process and that it would pass. It didn’t feel like that, but it must be the case.

He had never loved anyone but Caro. The fact that she had betrayed him at the end was sometimes hard to remember, because he just missed her so.

Yet when he did think of it, his primary emotion was anger and a kind of dull despair.

He wondered that he didn’t feel more bitterness.

He should, yet he couldn’t muster the energy.

He sighed and rolled over, closing his eyes. He was deathly tired.

*

Returning to her room, Annis congratulated herself on having got through dinner with the viscount with no untoward incident.

It was true that his eyes had strayed toward her rather more often than they should, but he had made no attempt to speak with her, for which she was grateful.

And she rather thought no one else would have detected any change in her demeanor toward him or in his toward her.

The whole thing could hopefully be put behind them and never spoken of again.

She must put his behavior down to an overexcitation of emotions triggered by his son’s near drowning and her role in his rescue.

It was nothing more than that on his part, she reassured herself, and the fact that she felt such a strong attraction toward him.

.. well, she would just have to suppress such inappropriate reactions and thoughts.

For if she didn’t, she would be ruined. The price of pleasure for one such as she was far too high.

Having reached this satisfactory state of mind, she pushed her bedroom door open and gasped with shock.

Her room had been ransacked.

Stepping in and closing the door hurriedly, she leaned against the door a hand over her fast-galloping heart. Fear prickled over her skin.

Her drawers had been pulled out and their contents upended on the floor, her bedding pulled off and heaped in the middle of the room, her clothing ripped from the wardrobe and strewn about the room.

Tears started to her eyes, and she covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her sobs. Her other hand stole to the ring on a chain about her neck under the cloth of her gown.

A breeze disturbed the curtains by the window, and she stepped over the mess to the window and looked out.

It was still daylight, being only half past eight.

She had left the window open to allow the evening breeze in to cool the room.

She looked down and noted the scrape marks on the windowsill.

As if something sharp had gouged the wood.

Whoever it was had entered, and presumably left, this way.

And they had done it in broad daylight, which suggested a desperate act.

She swallowed the panic which threatened to bring up her dinner. I have not been imagining things the last few weeks. Someone was stalking her—like an animal—and here was the proof. She turned back to survey the mess in her room. For whatever reason, he is back. My nemesis.

She leaned against the windowsill, shaking with pure terror. What could she do? If she told anyone, he had promised he would kill her and not nicely... They’ll find your body in a ditch, so badly mutilated you’ll be unrecognizable!

She moved stiffly, picking things up and restoring them to their rightful places.

Clothes back in the wardrobe. Sheets, coverlet, and pillows on the bed, stockings, reticules, belts, and personal effects in the dresser drawers.

It was as she was restoring the drawers to the dresser that she noticed it.

A folded piece of paper fallen into the empty coalscuttle by the fireplace.

She stared at it in horror for several moments, her heart thudding loudly in her ears. Bending she picked it up and with shaking fingers and opened it.

Firstly, you will tell no one, for you know what will happen if you do. Secondly, you will meet me at the ruins at midnight tomorrow night. Thirdly, you will bring the ring.

You will come alone on foot. Do not be late.

She dropped the paper with a whimper from nerveless fingers.

He will kill me for certain this time. As soon as he has his hands on the ring, he will kill me.

He must have figured out that she had lied and been watching her for a while to plan this attack.

But how? And why now? Clearly when he couldn’t find the ring, he’d settled for leaving the note, but what had he intended if he’d found the ring in her room?

Lay in wait for me to return and murder me in my bed...

She gasped, tears squeezing out behind her scrunched-up eyes. He wants me dead, but only after he gets his hands on the ring. I am the only clue to its whereabouts. He won’t kill me as long as I don’t give him the ring.

She clenched her hands tightly into fists, a long-stoked rage building under her ribs.

This has to stop, or my life won’t be worth living.

I cannot, will not, continue to live my life in fear like this.

This man, whoever he is, must be stopped.

She swallowed. I should tell the duke, or the viscount. Surely, they will protect me.

Firstly, you will tell no one, for you know what will happen if you do.

She shuddered. The threats of her attacker rang in her head, husky and dark, making her body quake with renewed terror. No, she couldn’t involve the duke or the viscount. What if this desperate madman decided to take his vengeance out on one of the children?

She must deal with this alone. She would not be responsible for bringing such a threat into the lives of innocents. Only then would this menace go away.

Can I do it?

I have to. It is his life or mine.

She shuddered again, wrapping her arms round her stomach, her skin goose-bumped with horror. She felt sick.

Sitting down on the newly made bed, she closed her eyes and just breathed.

Finally, she rose and went to the window and drew the curtains.

Then she turned to the small writing desk set beside the window and sat down.

Drawing pen and paper toward her, she mended the pen, stuck the nib in the ink, and began to write.

My dearest Emrys,

If you are reading this then I am already dead, for I do not plan for you to ever see this letter, but I feel that in the circumstance of some ill befalling me, I will owe you some explanation for my disappearance.