"We have been so far, but it has only been a few days." It surprised Benedict a little to realize that this was so. It seemed as if he had been living with Camilla forever. "If we don"t carry off the pretense, Miss Ferrand will be in a pickle." He scowled at Sedgewick. "All because of your little scheme."
"Don"t look so blackly at me. How was I to know her fiance" had been elevated to a husband?"
"You couldn"t. But you ought to know that there is always something that goes wrong with mad schemes."
"Not always. We have brought off a few, you and I."
Benedict allowed a small smile at his friend"s words. "I suppose."
"You look tired." Concern crept into his friend"s voice. "Is the sham wearing on you that much?"
"You would be tired, too, if you"d stayed awake half the night and then spent the dawn chasing about after-"
Benedict broke off, realizing with some amazement that he did not want to tell Sedgewick about his following Camilla and her cousin to Keep Island this morning. Jermyn would be too likely to jump to the wrong conclusion, not knowing Camilla and Anthony as he did. However foolish they might be, Benedict was certain that they could not be involved in anything worse than smuggling. He did not want to reveal their suspicious-looking trip to Keep Island until he was certain he could keep their reputations from being hurt. It occurred to him that he was beginning to think like a husband, not a stranger, but he shoved the thought aside. It was what any gentleman would do, he told himself.
Sedgewick looked at him, puzzled. "Chasing about after what?"
"Oh, nothing. I thought I had a clue, but it turned out to be nothing. Just one of Camilla"s cousins" pranks."
"Why did you stay awake half the night, then? Looking for smugglers?"
Benedict found that he wanted even less to discuss what had kept him awake. "It"s the d.a.m.n sofa I have to sleep on."
"Sofa! You mean they haven"t even given you a bed to sleep in?"
"They have put me in Camilla"s room. I told you, they think we are married. I am having to sleep on a sofa in her bedroom-and if you ever let a word of this out to anyone, I swear I will..."
Sedgewick backed off, raising his hands in mock terror. "I a.s.sure you, I shan"t breathe a word of it to anyone. Whatever made you think I would?"
"Oh, I know you would not. It"s just that it is such a d.a.m.n coil. I feel responsible for the chit, even if she was silly enough to let you entangle her in this mess."
"Really, Benedict..."
"And the marriage isn"t the worst of it," Benedict went on, building up steam as he thought of his grievances. "The d.a.m.ned house is filled with people- aunts and cousins and visitors. I never envisioned performing to such a large audience. One of the fellows keeps insisting that he knows me."
"What? Who?"
"Camilla"s cousin, Bertram."
"Bertram Elliot? A dandy?"
"Of the first order."
"I know him. A complete lightweight." Sedgewick dismissed him. "He will give you no problem. He is more concerned with the cut of his coat than affairs of state."
"But not more concerned than he is with gossip, I warrant, or social standing. What if the fellow recalls who I am?"
"You are right," Jermyn admitted. "If he"s likely to remember anything, it would be a person"s look, or his tailor-or at which party he"d met him."
"I have no memory of ever seeing the fellow before. But I am doomed if he remembers me." He had a sudden thought of how Camilla would react if her cousin suddenly announced that Benedict was Lord Rawdon. He suspected that it would not be a pretty sight if she found out that he had been deceiving her all along. "Bertram has a friend, as well, a very quiet sort. The servants consider him "not a gentleman.""
"Really?" Sedgewick perked up. "The servants always know. They"re a better judge than a duke. Why do you suppose someone who is "not a gentleman" is hanging about in the country with Elliot?"
Benedict shrugged. "I don"t know. Perhaps he is just some hanger-on, and Bertram doesn"t realize he isn"t Quality. Perhaps Bertram simply doesn"t care because the fellow is so entertaining-although I cannot imagine that. Oglesby never talks. Whereas Bertram talks entirely too much. Yesterday he trapped me in the hall for ten minutes asking my opinion about his waistcoat. Nasty-looking striped thing."
"Egad." Sedgewick shuddered at the thought. "Who else is there?"
"More cousins, two girls, sisters to Bertram. The Viscount Marbridge, heir to the earldom-that is Cousin Anthony. And a poet who seems to have attached himself to the Viscountess"s skirts. She is there, too-she is the cork-brained one who thought up the "husband" story. And, of course, Bertram"s mother."
"The fearsome Aunt Beryl?"
"The same. Then there is Chevington himself, who may be laid up in bed but is still sharper than most men. A tutor for the Viscount. I have yet to see him, but I"ll warrant he has enough on his hands trying to keep Anthony at work on his studies without plotting to destroy Gideon. Worst of all, a parson drops in on us all too often. A brother of Bertram named Harold, whose grandfather gave him the local living. An utter, prosing bore. Fortunately, he was quite eager to spout off about the smugglers. Unfortunately, he was more concerned with the sinfulness of the practice than with details. I must say, none of the people at the Park looks very promising as a candidate for a spy."
"We could hardly count on being lucky enough to find our man right there in the Earl"s household." Sedgewick paused, then prodded further. "Well, man? Have you discovered anything useful?"
"I"ve only been there a few days," Benedict protested. Once again, he could hardly believe how little time it had been. It had seemed far longer-especially during the long nights when he lay awake thinking about Camilla lying in the bed across the room from him. Those hours had been endless.
"I realize that. But you know how little time we have. We have to find out who is doing this to our network!"
"You don"t need to remind me," Benedict growled back. "All right. I talked to the Earl. He told me that he is concerned about what"s happening in the area. He is especially concerned about the death of Nat Crowder." Briefly, he explained who Nat had been and how he had died.
"Of course. Simple way to work oneself into a smuggling ring. Get rid of the leader and take over. That explains a lot. It must have been Nat Crowder with whom Lord Winslow was working."
"Once he and Winslow were both gone, there was no one who knew anything about the spy ring. The local men are smugglers, pure and simple." Benedict waited for a moment, then added, "Lord Chevington asked me to investigate."
Sedgewick"s eyes opened wide. "You can"t be serious. The old Earl himself set you to the task?"
Benedict nodded. "Yes. It has made questioning the servants a d.a.m.n sight easier. The other locals, too. I am riding into town to talk to a couple of them after this."
"But this is perfect. Thank G.o.d for Miss Ferrand. I could not have dreamed up a better scheme myself."
"Yes, fine for us, but what about them? I feel lower than a swine for taking advantage of the Earl this way. He trusts me. He is relying on me. And I am using him."
Sedgewick frowned, looking puzzled. "He won"t be harmed. It isn"t as if you are trying to do him wrong. You are simply doing what he asked you to, what he wanted done."
Benedict thought about Anthony, and Jenkins"s suspicion that the lad was involved in the smuggling. He doubted that Sedgewick would think he was doing Chevington so little harm if he knew that his investigation might throw scandal on the heir to the earldom.
"The rumor is that the man we are looking for is a "gentleman,"" Benedict said abruptly.
"What?" Sedgewick straightened, his pale eyes suddenly intent. "Are you serious? But this fits perfectly with what we had surmised before-that Wins-low was killed by an acquaintance. Why do they think he is a gentleman?"
"The word is that he is educated and well spoken. Apparently he often speaks in a rough way, but some of them think that it doesn"t ring true. That is what I heard from the valet."
"Then we would have to drop Bertram Elliot"s friend from the list, since the servants suspect that he is not a gentleman."
Benedict shrugged. "Or perhaps it just means that they recognize that both roles are counterfeit. Maybe the real man is neither Oglesby nor a rough smuggler, but something in between, a man who knows how to act both ways, yet is not quite believable in either one.
"An actor, maybe. Or a dancing instructor, a tutor, something of that sort."
"Or a sharp."
"Yes. Winslow could have walked home with someone like that from some gambling den or other. He did have a fondness for the cards. He could have a.s.sumed that his companion was a gentleman, someone he would admit into his house, particularly if he was a little bosky."
Benedict sighed. "But it is all supposition. I know nothing substantial."
"No signs of activity on the beach?"
Benedict shook his head. "It is too soon after the last shipment. I shall have to wait." He thought of the prospect of sharing a bedroom with Camilla for several more days, even weeks, and the idea almost made him groan. He was certain he would never last that long.
"d.a.m.n!" Jermyn began to pace, frowning. "We can"t spend that amount of time here. I need to be in London. And we cannot afford to leave our network hanging. We need to get word to them if there is a French spy who has infiltrated the smugglers. We must not let any more of them come in and be killed."
"I know. Perhaps I should give up this masquerade. I may have learned all I can from it. I could pretend that I was called back to Bath. I"ve been here long enough to satisfy Camilla"s purposes."
Even as Benedict spoke the words, he knew that he did not want to leave. h.e.l.lish as it was to sleep in the same room with Camilla, the idea of not seeing her at all made him feel suddenly ill, as if he had been punched in the stomach. Besides, he could not simply leave her in the middle of whatever predicament her rapscallion cousin had involved her in. He had to untangle the mystery and get Anthony out of the smuggling ring-if that was what he was involved in.
"No. Let"s give it a few more days. We have to find out what is going on."
"Why don"t you go back to London?" Benedict turned toward his friend. "You are much more necessary to the government than I am. You can keep up the investigation into who killed Winslow there. And," he added, as Sedgewick opened his mouth to protest, "you can help me by finding out whatever information you can on the people who are visiting at Chevington Park. If our quarry is one of them, there may be some bit of gossip you can dig up about him that would help. That one of them is especially in need of money, say, or has a French mother, or keeps a mistress who might be blackmailing him. Anything to indicate a possibility that he might sell out to the enemy."
"Yes, of course." Sedgewick nodded eagerly. "That"s an excellent idea." He searched through his pockets until at last he found a stub of a pencil and a folded receipt on which he could write. "Now, what are their names? Terence Oglesby, you said?"
"Yes." Slowly Benedict listed the names of everyone staying at the house, even Aunt Beryl and her two giggling daughters.
"Very good," Sedgewick said, folding up the paper and sticking it in an inner pocket. "I will pay my shot at the tavern and start for London this afternoon, then. G.o.d, it"s been miserable, just sitting about and doing nothing." He turned and reached out a hand to shake Benedict"s. "I will let you know as soon as I return. In the meantime, watch your back. I don"t want anything happening to you."
"I will be careful," Benedict promised. He did not add that he was less concerned about being found out by the shadowy figure they were trying to unmask than he was about surviving a few more days of sleeping in Camilla"s room without going mad.
Chapter 14.
Benedict spent the rest of the day talking to several people in town whom Purdle and Jenkins had told him he could trust, including the tavernkeeper, who greeted him with a wide grin and a demand to know why Benedict had not told him that he was the young miss"s husband when he was staying there earlier.
Though the villagers were willing to open up to him, now that he had the old Earl"s blessing, they were still of little help. Everyone swore that he had no knowledge of the new leader of the smugglers, other than the common rumor that he was one of the gentry.
He also dropped by to see Evans, whom Jenkins had pointed out as a henchman of the new leader of the smugglers. He was, as Jenkins had said, a drunken lout and quite stupid. Already, though it was only late afternoon, he stank of liquor. Benedict casually asked him the same sorts of questions that he had asked the other villagers, but instead of displaying the free manner of the others, this man remained guarded and silent, folding his arms across his chest and staring stolidly at Benedict with his small, piggy eyes. He alone, of all the villagers, expressed no regard for the Earl, and he alone refused to answer any of Benedict"s questions, replying each time only that he "didn"t know nothing."
Benedict rode home feeling weary and defeated. He had gained little information in the village. He seemed to be getting nowhere in his search for the French agent And Camilla was involved in some skulduggery or other from which he would probably have to rescue her, something for which she would probably not be at all grateful.
Benedict let out a sigh and shifted a little in his saddle. It had gotten dark. He suspected that he would be too late for dinner at Chevington Park. Perhaps he would take a long, soaking bath, then a nap in Camilla"s bed. He had had almost no sleep last night, and his spine felt permanently twisted from sleeping night after night on the couch.
He was pleased to find no one in Camilla"s bedroom when he came in. Apparently she had already gone down to dinner. He took advantage of the solitude with a long, hot bath. Finally, he got out of the bathtub, his body still steaming from the hot water, and dried off. After he had tucked into a hearty cold collation Cook had sent up at his request, he fell into Camilla"s bed and fell immediately, soundly asleep.
It was thus that Camilla found him later when she returned to her room. After tea that afternoon, she had gone across the land bridge to Keep Island, taking with her a few things she had slipped off the tea tray for Anthony. There had been an embarra.s.sing moment when Bertram looked across at her at the exact moment she was easing a sweet cake into her capacious pocket. He had given her the oddest look but fortunately had said nothing.
Her patient"s condition had changed little. She re-bandaged his wounds and gave him another dose of the draft, then hurried back to the house, afraid that she had spent too long at the island and Benedict would be questioning her. She had, indeed, missed dinner, but at least Benedict would not be wondering why. She paused just inside her door, gazing at Benedict"s form, sprawled in her bed. Her heart picked up its beat.
She closed the door behind her softly and tiptoed across the room until she stood beside the bed, looking down at him. He lay on his back, arms and legs flung wide like a trusting child. His hair was still wet from his bath, and he had the soft, damp look of one who had just bathed. His scent mingled with the smell of soap and the faintest hint of the lavender that always clung to her sheets.
Defenseless in sleep, he looked even more handsome. His chiseled lips were faintly parted; his long, dark lashes lay against his cheeks, giving him a vulnerable look. Camilla"s eyes drifted down over his face and onto his throat, to the pulse that beat in the hollow, men outward to the bony outcropping of his collarbone, the wide set of his shoulders. The sheet cut across his chest, revealing his bare shoulders, but little lower than that Camilla leaned forward, listening to his eves breathing, watching his face for signs of consciousness. Unable to contain her curiosity, she hooked a finger under the sheet and slid it farther down, exposing the wide expanse of his chest. She looked at the dark, curling hair that dotted his chest, curving down in a vee to his navel, at the flat, brownish pink nipples and the firm pad of muscled flesh across his rib cage. He was, she thought, a perfect specimen of a man.
Her hand, seemingly with a will of its own, stretched out toward him. She pulled it back hastily and clasped it behind her back with her other hand. She stood for a moment, watching his even breathing. Her eyes slid lower still, to where the sheet and cover lay, white against his bare, tanned flesh. The bedclothes stretched across his abdomen just below his navel, resting on the upthrust k.n.o.bs of his pelvis. The well of his navel was exposed, as was the thin line of hair that swept downwards.
She thought that he must be naked beneath the sheet. After all, there was no sign of clothing all the way down to his hipbones. It wasn"t decent for a man to sleep like that, she told herself. It was no wonder that it raised strange and forbidden thoughts inside her head.
And she couldn"t help being curious, Camilla reasoned. It wasn"t as if he would ever know; he was sound asleep. Of course, she knew that was not the issue. The important thing was privacy-and acting as a decent, respectable woman should act.
She leaned closer. Her face burned with embarra.s.sment, yet she could not seem to keep her hand from creeping out, closer and closer to him, until at last her fingertips touched the covers. With the gentlest of touches, scarcely daring even to breathe, she peeled the covers back, revealing his bare body down to his powerful thighs.
The fire in her face flamed higher. She stared, mesmerized, unable to look away. She gazed at his flat stomach, at the dips and curves of muscles, bone and skin. She looked at the duck musculature of his thighs, smooth beneath his hair-roughened skin. But, primarily, she stared at what lay between his legs: the nest of thick black hair, and the male organ that lay within it, thick and heavy. This, then, was how a man looked?
Camilla gulped. She had never quite imagined it like this. Though she would never have admitted it to another soul, she knew that she had thought about the subject several times. She was not sure exactly what she had expected, but the reality of it was different... and much more powerful.
As she watched, he made a noise in his sleep and rolled over onto his side. Her eyes were drawn to the sleek line of his hip and thigh, the curve of his b.u.t.tock. Without thinking, she reached out and drew her fingertips down the smooth stretch of skin. Her fingers trembled; she was startled by the warmth of him, and by the shock of pleasure that ran up her arm at the touch.
She knew that she should draw her hand away, yet she could not. She curved her palm over his b.u.t.tock, entranced by the different texture. Was all of him so different, so pleasurable to touch?
Camilla ran her hand up his side, ignoring the pounding of her heart and the frantic warning of her brain. Just for a moment, she told herself. Just this one touch. She moved upward, exploring the softness of his side, then the hard ridges of his rib cage. The skin of his chest was no longer smooth, but dotted with hair, the muscle firm underneath. Her thumb glided across the tiny bud of his nipple, and to her amazement it tightened at her touch.
She stopped, looking at the pinkish bud, remembering how her own nipple had hardened in response to him the other day. Thoughtfully she circled the b.u.t.ton of flesh with her thumb, enjoying the response. She was unaware of the faint, sensual smile that curved her lips.
"Move your hand farther down and we shall both be smiling." His husky voice cut through Camilla"s thoughts.
She gasped and s.n.a.t.c.hed her hand back, looking up at Benedict"s face. He was watching her, his dark eyes flaming with an unholy light Camilla"s face flooded deep crimson with humiliation, and, with a strangled cry, she turned and ran toward the door.
In an instant, he was out of the bed and running after her. He caught her before she reached the door, his arms going around her from behind.
"No. Don"t leave. Good G.o.d, you can"t leave after that!"
Camilla moaned and brought her hands up to cover her face. She knew that she would never live this down. She could not even face him again. She had done embarra.s.sing things before in her life, but nothing like this.
"Let me go!" she cried in a low, strangled voice, pulling against his arms.
"Shh." He buried his face in her hair, kissing her. "It"s all right. Don"t go. Don"t turn away from me."
His breath came quickly, and there was a tremor in his low voice. He kissed her neck, and his hand began to caress her stomach. Camilla shivered, unable to hide her intense response. Even the sound of his breath excited her. She could hardly believe that she could feel this way in the midst of humiliation, and the very fact that she could respond so heatedly, so animalisticaily, seemed yet another embarra.s.sment "I didn"t mind what you did," Benedict told her, so close behind her that she could feel the rumble of his voice in his chest as he spoke. She could just imagine his smug smile as he went on. "Believe me, I enjoyed it"
Camilla let out a low moan and tore away from him. She ran back to the bed and threw herself upon it, curling up into a ball, away from him. He followed. She felt the bed give beneath his weight and he laid a hand upon her back, softly rubbing it up and down over her curved spine.
"Shh...don"t take it so to heart." He stretched out beside her on his elbow, letting his low voice and comforting hand work their magic.
His hand curved down over her bottom, caressing the rounded fullness. He roamed over her b.u.t.tocks, gliding up to the small of her back, then back down, over the curve and onto her thigh. Again and again, he caressed her while he murmured meaningless sounds of comfort. He moved around and up, sliding his hand onto her stomach, then cupping her breast Camilla realized that at some point while he was caressing her, she had relaxed, uncurling from the tight ball she had been in, allowing his roving hand access to her front.
His skin was hot through the material of her dress; his fingertips seared the soft flesh of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s. He squeezed and stroked, arousing her nipples to hardened points. His hand moved above her neckline and slid inside the dress, pushing the material down and cupping the bare orb of her breast.