“Oh, I’m not giving up either of those.” He smiled. “Love is, by far, the most dangerous thing I’ve ever felt. Marrying you will be like jumping off a cliff. I feel approximately as secure in my ability to deserve you as I do in my ability to fly.”
“I think you could do most anything. Including the flying.”
“The truth of it is . . . ever since you walked into my life, my skills have been slipping. To stay in my post would be irresponsible. My instincts are dulled. I’ve missed clear signs of danger. I’m no closer to completing my mission than I was the day I arrived, and I’ve lost any talent for prevarication.” He searched her lovely face. “Why is it I can’t seem to keep anything from you?”
“Because you don’t want to.”
He frowned. What she’d said didn’t make sense.
She’d already destroyed his composure and his defenses. Perhaps she had addled his brains now, too.
“You don’t want to lie to me,” she repeated. “You’ve been dying to tell someone all your secrets, I think. For whatever reason, you chose me.”
He looked to the fogged window for a moment, considering.
Could it be that she was right?
Maybe some deep, visceral part of him had recognized at once this affinity they shared. Perhaps he’d intuited that he could be open with her. That if a crack in the walls around his heart happened to unleash a flood of guilt or melancholy . . . Charlotte would be too lighthearted to sink, too stubborn to drown.
If so, it was damn ironic.
He’d spent the past fortnight in a near-panic, terrified that he was losing his edge. Perhaps he’d worried for nothing, and his instincts were functioning better than ever.
Maybe he was at the top of his game.
“But I still haven’t the faintest idea what’s been troubling Sir Vernon,” he said. “I was so certain he must be having an affaire, and that his mistress tried to frighten you off with the monkshood incident. But as of this afternoon, I’m convinced the man is devoted to his wife.”
“And none of the women on my list matched the clues. They weren’t even consistent. Does she have ginger hair or dark hair? Is she the maid who brought in breakfast, or a lady who buys rich perfume?” She frowned in concentration. “It’s almost as if it couldn’t have been the same person.”
Piers went still. Something sparked in the corner of his mind. A theory. Then a memory. Within the space of a heartbeat, conjecture became conclusion.
“Charlotte.” He took her by the shoulders and kissed her soundly. “You are brilliant.”
“What do you mean? All I said was that it couldn’t have been the same . . .”
He watched as the same realization dawned in her eyes.
“No,” she said. “You don’t think it was—”
“It must have been. It all fits, doesn’t it? The money, the trips, the clues that don’t match . . . the reason he didn’t own up to the truth.”
“It does.” She thumped him on the chest. “I told you they were mystery lovers, not tuppers. Admit it, I was right.”
“Very well, you were right.”
She grinned. “I’ll never let you forget it, either.”
Piers wouldn’t have it any other way. She must always remain the optimist to his cynic, the laughter to his silence, the chaos to his order, the warmth to his cool. Their hearts would meet in the middle somehow.
“Do we tell them we know?” she asked.
“What would be the purpose?” He looked toward the door. “We’re due to announce our engagement at any moment. That is . . . if we are engaged. I don’t mean to presume, if you—”
“Good heavens.” She put her hand in his and pulled him toward the door. “Of course we are. Let’s not start that again.”
Piers was exceedingly glad to leave that question behind them, forever.
They left the conservatory and rushed hand-in-hand down the corridor, heading for the dining room. Piers took the lead, weaving through the doorways and navigating the turns.
They were halfway through the entrance hall when his ankle caught on something. A thin cord, stretched across the room.
He had the presence of mind to release Charlotte’s hand immediately, so as not to take her with him. He stumbled toward the floor shoulder-first, hoping to transform his hapless fall into a debonair roll-and-recovery motion. But the moment he hit the parquet tile, he was smothered by something that dropped from above.
A net. A heavy one, made of knotted rope.
“Oho! Caught you now.”
Piers groaned softly. He knew that voice.
Edmund.
Bloody hell. This was a new low. He’d been snared by an eight-year-old boy.
Piers tried to maneuver onto his back so he could fling off the net. “Now, Edmund. Let’s discuss this like gentlem—augh.”
Edmund crossed his arms and plopped his arse atop Piers’s stomach, pinning him down.
“You dreadful boy.” Charlotte tugged on Edmund’s arm. “Get off him.”
“Don’t hurt him too much,” Piers told her. “The Foreign Office may be offering him a post in ten years.”
“MUR-DER! MUR-DER! MUR-DER!”
Delia hurried into the hall. “Edmund! What are you doing? Release Lord Granville at once.”
“Not until the magistrate comes. He’s got to be brought up on charges. Of murder.”
Guests began filtering in from the dining room, drawn by the clamor. The servants, too.
Wonderful.
“That’s not even possible,” Charlotte said. “For there to be murder, there must be a victim. No one has died.”
“Well, he tried a murder.” Edmund replied stoutly. “Tried to strangle Miss Highwood with a rope. His first night here, in the library.”
A murmur went through the assembly.
“Edmund, don’t be absurd,” Delia said. “You must have been mistaken.”
“No, I weren’t. I heard it all.”
“Delia, please listen,” Charlotte whispered. “I’ve been trying to tell you. The night of the ball, there was a misunderstanding.”
“First,” Edmund declared, pleased to have a rapt audience, “I heard a squeaking. Eee-eee-eee-eee. Then . . .” He paused for dramatic effect. “Screams.”