Now she knew him better… even at the thought, Elsie gave a sad little laugh. She could claim to know elements of Kit, but he was a master at keeping her at a distance.
Undoubtedly, Elsie should compile the reasons why Margot hadn’t written to her. Despite the numerous letters that Elsie had sent asking, nay pleading for advice. It wasn’t like her sister. Or perhaps she should draw up a list of the servants who might have a vendetta, but the truth was they’d kept their distance from Elsie the entire time she’d be in the manor. The alternative—that it was a member of the local gentry—well, that was no help, she certainly couldn’t remember any of their names.
Sinking down on the bed instead, Elsie dwelt on the one thing she had told herself not to, the sudden, soul-wrenching act Kit and she had enjoyed. It had been necessary, she told herself. An act of release after such a long build up. She remembered the taste of smoke about him, the brush of his stubbled cheeks on hers, the rush of energy she’d felt as he’d scrambled with her clothes. Then how claimed and owned she’d felt when he’d taken her in an entirely alternative position from anything she’d done before… There were things she wanted to try, new and different, or even basic and boring… because Elsie knew they wouldn’t be with Kit.
I’ll leave. I’ll go take him up on his offer, his order as she should put it, on getting the hell out of here. I can take his offer of employment and leave with Lady Flora.She had tried her best for all concerned and would have received a handsome income for her role as a companion, and that would support both her sister and her going forward.
So, with this plan before her, Elsie dwelt on it as she gazed up at the canopy of the bed high above her. But it meant leaving him, the bloody stubborn, self-sacrificing man. It meant leaving the mystery as that, an unknown, unsolvable thing, that she wouldforever be left to wonder at. It would mean she would never again feel the touch of his hands on her skin or the taste of his rough kiss, nor the cry as he lost himself in her. She would be abandoning him as so many had done before, and it was this notion that made Elsie sit up abruptly in the middle of the bed, a giggle escaping her lips.
“Damn and blast,” she swore, the realisation growing as she sat there. A weighty and heartfelt swear word she shouldn’t have known, but it seemed the only suitable thing to utter in a time like this when she had done the most foolish of things. “I love him.”
It made sense. Love. Fitting it together—all her actions, all her awareness of him. The daft thing was this feeling was nothing like what Elsie had previously known of love. Not a bit like the heady sweetness and then disappointment with Captain Graves. Nor like the idle imaginings she’d indulged in as a girl at Lady Flora’s age—all of those had been delicate and dainty with no hard edges. So much with Kit was difficult. Nothing about him was easy, and yet even thinking this, made Elsie want to defend him against herself. He was hers to protect because she loved him.
Why couldn’t she have fallen for someone where it was easy?
Grabbing up the blanket, she pulled it over her head and curled up, still in her evening gown.
Because you tried that, and you were bored.
Whilst Graves had behaved badly at first, refusing to marry her, the truth was once their affair was discovered, Elsie was rather relieved that he had said no. She realised she could not marry the captain. That was the main reason why her grandmother had been so angry with her, banishing her back to her parents’ home.
Her own answer was that she had found all other men to be dull, quiet, and quaint in comparison to Kit. She loved Kit because he challenged her, because he thrilled her, and becausethere was so much to him that she was yet to discover, she would never be bored. And of course there were the qualities she valued—his bravery, his kindness to his sister, his reluctant sweetness to Lancelot when he thought no one would notice…
As she sought a slither of comfort from that notion, and ignored for the time being the fact he certainly did not love her, Elsie curled farther into the bedding, trying her best to feel sleepy.
Just as the heaviness she associated with sleep, claimed her legs, there came an ear-splitting scream. It echoed through the room, blending a femininity and fear that had Elsie’s hair on the back of her neck standing up whilst she threw herself from the bed, grabbing the bed pan, and running to the door.
Lancelot barked, his small spaniel head at an angle. He scurried out of the chair and ran alongside her as Elsie ran down the hallway towards the continuing sound of the scream. As she neared the noise, the scream broke and then restarted, and now Elsie could hear other sounds. A male voice telling whoever it was to be quiet for heaven’s sake.
“I warn you I’m armed,” Elsie called out. It had not escaped her notice that the room which she had come level with was Lady Flora’s. It struck her suddenly that Lancelot should have been in there, and how strange it was that he wasn’t in his mistress’s chamber. The idea should have occurred to her sooner, but she was far too busy dwelling on Kit.
All sound ceased, and Elsie wished suddenly she had kept her mouth shut. She reached for the handle with trepidation, only for another set of fingers to alight over hers.
Looking up she saw Ashmore standing there. He was dressed in merely his shirt, his hair wet on his head. His magnificently muscled forearms were visible because the shirt was rolled up. In his free hand Elsie saw he was carrying a pistol. His eyes crinkled slightly at the edges, and Elsie eased back, allowing Kit to push open the door and enter his sister’s bedroom first. Lancelot,yapping wildly, hurried forward too, and Elsie heard a muttered curse from a masculine voice on the other side of the door.
“Flora…” Kit stepped forward and into the chamber, followed on his heels by Elsie, who braced herself for what awaited them on the other side.
CHAPTER 18
The curse made manifest. That was what Kit had assumed when he’d seen the wreckage of the carriage that had been carrying his parents and sister. Before that it had all been rumour and speculation, but in that moment it had become real.
Such brutal reality Kit had been lucky to avoid, but it seemed it could no longer be ignored, shut away or avoided. That was the thought that he realised as he stepped into Flora’s bedroom, utterly prepared to face the devil if that was who was waiting on the other side.
Of course, it wasn’t.
Nothing could have matched the demon with the black hood and billowing cape, which Kit had envisioned in his youth. Yet the lack of dramatics of what was before him, almost disappointed Kit as he was ready and willing to charge into battle.
Flora’s bedchamber was disordered, with her clothes strewn here and there, books and keepsakes, equally as disregarded, cluttered the carpet. His sister was standing in the middle of the mess, holding on to the small table for balance, her ashencomplexion flushed, her eyes wide as she pointed in an accusatory manner towards the man in her room.
Peterson. The household butler was poised by the window, as if he had been about to throw himself out of it, down onto the steps below. Perhaps Kit’s entrance had shown him the futility of such actions now he was caught, or perhaps the truth that he may well not survive the fall had stopped him in his tracks. Clasped in one of his hands was what looked like a warped piece of cloth, the kind that could be used to strangle someone Kit decided. Or, said the logical part of Kit’s brain, to clean something.
But logic be damned, the butler had no business being in his sister’s room at three o’clock in the morning, and besides he had never been employed to clean a thing.
In a few strides, Kit reached Peterson and slammed the pistol into the man’s skull. Peterson, who had been speaking a jumble of words that made for a very poor set of excuses, landed unceremoniously on the floor, gazing up at Kit, his expression scared.
“Stay there, or I will take great pleasure in shooting you.”
When he turned back to look at Flora. She had been joined by Elsie, who despite being several inches shorter than Flora, had wrapped her arms around the girl and seemed to be soothing her. He saw Elsie’s mouth moving but her words were not for his ears, presumably a mixture of comfort and strength.
