20 Chapter 20

Good question. Breaking into someone's house was quite a bit different from peering in their window, wasn't it? Why, it made him ... almost as bad as herself.

She would like to think panic dragged her heart. Who was to say he wasn't about to do something terrible now? To her? People did when they were cornered. Look at herself that night. She'd just been lucky enough not to be cornered again.

Who was to say, that thinking she was Sapphire, he wasn't going to pounce? Drag her somewhere? Anywhere to cover his tracks? Force that confession? The others were at the hall, she was here alone, and he'd everything to lose.

On the square she'd spent her life inhabiting, the one so small there was no room for mundane things like panic, shrink an inch though and she was finished.

Earlier? Earlier was a mistake. It wasn't a lie that she'd arranged to visit Mrs. Pennycooke but a certain cake would have been completely iced had Mrs. Pennycooke been able to tell her something, or been able to suggest someone who did. Twenty-two years was too long ago, though.

Now Cass's hunger pangs were alleviated by the sight of Devorlane Hawley. Especially given what Mrs. Pennycooke did remember-if only Cass had covered her ears before hearing that dreadful fact, the one that had haunted her all along the perishing highway, so her boots rang on the icy ground and her heart hammered fit to burst her ribcage. Lord Armstrong had never married.

Now she was the first to admit, Devorlane Hawley had froze just like this last night and then very nearly succeeded in killing Barron with the broom handle.

Now she was also the first to admit it wasn't going to happen again. Not when she patently needed to stay longer. Find proof.

"All right." He raised his head heavenwards as if she'd a pistol leveled on his back. "So you've caught me red-handed." His head was followed by his hands. He sighed deeply. Sheepish? In fact, enough wool to cover a flock. When it would be a great mistake not to shepherd this particular flock to where it belonged, too.

"Well, Lady Armstrong?"

She didn't need to see the irritated weariness that went all the way to his dissolute bones, as he lowered his head either. Gil was at the hall. Even if it meant placing herself further in his debt, why not fetch her dear, darling husband? What he was here for, wasn't it? She turned.

As she did, a thought occurred. Of course, there was a second option that didn't involve hotfooting to Gil. Her having to kiss this individual either. After all, how very shocking was this? She turned back.

"Put ... put your hands down. I'm hardly armed."

"Debatable."

"But just because I'm not armed, doesn't mean I can't be."

"I don't doubt it."

She was glad he didn't. The board creaked beneath her foot as she took a step towards him.

"I'm glad you don't, because debatable or not, Lord Hawley, housebreaking is thieving."

He shifted slightly, his shoulders tensing. "If I actually stole something. Maybe."

She forbore to say it was going to be arranged if he wasn't careful. He was here wasn't he? Not only that, but if she didn't know any better, the irritated way he tut-tutted and sighed, even the cut of his shoulders, suggested he didn't want her going to Lord Koorecroft, any more than she wanted him going. Now, why was that? Some dirty little secret in his murky, dissolute past?

It must be bad. Men like him never troubled themselves with secrets, because there were so many, what would be the point?

Belle would surely know. Now they were-friends wasn't quite the word to use exactly in connection with Belle, but whatever they were, Cass would make it her mission to find out. Then she would use it to ensure her position here was safe. After all, it wasn't just the business of proving Barwych was hers that counted. It was the keeping it, the staying here. Especially when it was clear as the glass candlestick on the bedside table-commonly ordinary as mutton-he didn't believe for two seconds she was who she claimed.

"You are assuming nothing is missing at this precise moment in time," she said. "That my jewels are present. But it might be, if I was to check, I could discover some are missing."

"I never house broke. All right? The damned door was open. We all know there's an intruder in the district. At least, according to you."

"You know perfectly well, but in case you don't, Belle will also swear to it. The door was closed. I shut it. I locked it too."

Another sigh. "Maybe you did. Or you thought you did. But when I passed, it was open."

"One thing at a time. We'll get to you snooping in a minute. If it was, it was because you forced it open."

"I did not force. As for Belle, let me tell you now, do you think Belle will swear to something-"

Automatically she tilted her chin. "Belle will do what it takes, I am sure, to see law and order maintained. Yes."

That she uttered these words boldly, without blushing was down to one thing-two actually. She wasn't a lady, and she was staying here.

"If you think that, you plainly know nothing about Bel-"

"Whether you forced the door or not, is hardly the issue, since this is my bedroom you're standing in. That is, as opposed to my window, which last night you were standing at. Looking in-"

"Congratulating you."

"Looking in-"

"Tell me something I don't actually know."

"Then if you know that, would you like to explain why my"-maybe she hadn't blushed before, but she did now. She fingered the back of her neck too-"bedroom has such fascination for you?"

"And that's why you think I'm here, do you? Because I find your bedroom fascinating?"

Oh, she was quite sure it wasn't. She just wished when she was quite sure, he wouldn't choose that moment to turn round, so he stood facing her, in the soft white of the room in that very masculine way, so it was only with the greatest of difficulties she spoke, "I don't see it's up to me to guess, since I'm not the one who has been found where I shouldn't. For the second time too."

"That's not down to your charms, Lady Armstrong."

"Yes. So you keep saying. And yet here you are. My window, my bedroom." This was a better attempt at the word. "It begs the question of where I'm going to find you next."

"In my trouser pocket, probably."

His trouser pocket? By now she should have managed to make the bargaining clear. She shouldn't be having appalling thoughts about his pocket, especially when it was plain as this room, he remembered the last time she was in it. His pocket that was. He edged his long fingers inside. In her bedroom too. Her special sanctuary.

"If you'll just ... just ... wait a minute."

She cleared her throat.

"Lord Hawley, please ... just ... go-"

"In a minute. I'm trying ... "

Whatever she'd thought a moment ago, she'd happily swop the advantage in finding him here for seeing the back of him. Especially when he stood raking close to a certain part of himself, that bit she didn't want to consider, when her own fingers had once grasped it.

"Trying to give you this."

She edged her gaze sideways. What else could she do? Try to mask her ... what exactly? Trepidation? Alarm? Shock?

He cocked his head. "If I may be so bold, that is? Here." He reached forward. "It's especially for you."

"A ...A ... "

"An invitation to a ball-soiree, I mean. The notice for anything else is too short."

She glanced down. Thank God he had clarified that. How could she think, have thought anything, other than what it was? A perfectly plain invitation card. Worth what at the market ...Suddenly, for the life of her, she couldn't think. What the blazes was wrong with her that she breathed in her throat because her lungs felt as if they were stuck there instead of in her chest.

"Soiree? Lord Hawley?"

And not just that, wasn't this the nicest piece of undermining she'd seen in a long while? "How ... how kind." She hesitated. A soiree. No doubt with the demand that she go. It brought home even more forcefully, as if she needed it, the whole business with Gil.

Now they would be expected to show their faces together in public. As if she could-Gil, whining and cajoling and reciting Shakespeare--although there was no denying it cemented her position. She lifted her chin.

"While I am, of course, very, very grateful to you ... " She took in the harshness of his hard-angled jaw. His eyes like Corsican mint. Iced Corsican mint. "Grateful, yes, for the kind invitation-"

If he thought she was about to say for your discretion last night, and that betokened the lazy flicker of knowledge across his sardonic features, he was sadly mistaken. She wasn't for bargaining on that score. What she intended was to advise him that if he didn't let this go, the case she'd make against him would destroy his social standing.

Not just her bedroom but something missing from the house-for goodness sake, she could do that. As for this silly piece of paper? This soiree? Did he think she was about to fall for that, believing he had simply come in here, to her very bedroom, to give her this?

She stiffened. "It still doesn't give you any right to be here. This ... this could just as easily have been left with Pearl. There was no need to bring it up here to my bedroom. The one I share with my husband."

He shrugged. "I couldn't find Pearl."

"You mean you didn't look."

"Oh, I think you may trust I'm adept at that." The stare he slid over her face said she could also trust where he was adept. "But maybe she was somewhere with Ruby, talking about the fact they're both named after jewels."

"Hardly a surprise when they're sisters," she lied.

"Pearl and Ruby?"

"Yes."

Although, given the age difference, mother and daughter might have been more credible.

"They don't look alike."

"Do you resemble Tilly? Eudora for that matter? Of course, perhaps you resemble your brother, who I never met, but I should never have taken you to be related to either of them."

He laughed softly. At least she wanted to think it was a laugh. Still. the way he canted his jaw was like the acknowledgement of a point in a fencing match. One he'd preferably not contest. Finally.

"Be there, Lady Armstrong."

"Be? I beg your-"

"The soiree."

She wouldn't. Not for all the bottles of brandy Starkadder had kept beneath his bed-- Gil too--would she consent to setting foot in Chessington for that.

Especially when she didn't doubt the hellish purpose of the soiree.

"I look dearly forward to seeing you. Both of you. For you to play another charming song." As if to underline the fact he tapped the paper. Then with perfect disdain he strolled away.