Page 24 of Better Off Wed

Her answering laugh held a patronizing note. “If men were capable of being deterred by the pain of others, Captain Addison, war would be a thing unknown. Now, do sit down. I am in discomfort enough without incurring a crick in my neck.”

He sat down where Miss Godfrey had been sitting, aware once again as he closed the distance between them of the uncomfortable fact that they were alone together in a cozy bedchamber, presumed by everyone around them to be husband and wife.

Trying to seem nonchalant, he crossed his legs and was reminded of the indignity of appearing in his stockings, one heel carefully mended by his mother. “You seemed interested in what Miss Godfrey had to say about the location of Thornton’s study,” he said, placing both feet on the floor. “Were you considering the possibility that you might overhear something important from up here?”

“An interesting suggestion. One never knows in these old houses.” Her lips quirked. “You show promise as an assistant, Lord Sterling. Why, you might even prove useful for coaxing Lord Thornton into confessing all sorts of things over a…” Now her mouth twitched, suppressing a laugh. “Over a glass of brandy, perhaps?”

What, he wondered, had made her so hard? Obdurate as polished stone—if that stone had been fashioned into the head of an arrow, ready to slip between plates of armor and lay a man low. And why was she so determined to display that side of herself to him? As if there was some danger of him forgetting her cleverness, or falling prey to her charm…

With every passing moment, he felt more certain that Scott should’ve sent someone else on this mission—and oddly grateful the general hadn’t. Being locked away with books for weeks on end could grow a trifle dull.

There was nothing dull about Miss Hopkins.

“I don’t make it a habit to muddy my head with strong liquor, ma’am—as I’m sure you already surmised from my reaction to a swallow of brandy,” he answered with a self-deprecating smile. “Are you not fearful that with a tumbler full, I would spill my own secrets instead?”

She studied him for a moment, her head tipped to the side. Her eyebrows rose and fell in a flare of mocking interest. “Now that might be something more worth hearing.” She slipped her fingers into her reticule and withdrew the watch again. “Lady Sterling has two goals with every case: first, to secure something of purely monetary worth, with which a wronged domestic might support herself once she escapes; and second, to find something of less tangible value, like this watch. Oh, it would also bring a pretty penny in some less than reputable pawn shop, I have no doubt.” He watched as she swept her thumb back and forth across the ornate L on the watch’s cover, as she had done in the pub. “But as long as it remains in my hands, I have the means of reminding Lord Penhurst, and his mother, that their crimes have not gone unnoticed.”

Jeremy nodded. He well knew the value of secrets but also the difficulties of unraveling them. “You engage in blackmail.”

Her lips twitched in distaste. “Such a crude word makes me think of greedy politicians or a gang of petty thieves.”

“Whereas you are just one thief.”

“Thief-taker, my lord,” she corrected him evenly. “I assumed you read my card.” The watch once more disappeared into the depths of her reticule. “I want to ensure that justice is served. In the past, Thornton has posed a particular challenge. When his wife’s maid came to me, she was too distraught to be of much assistance, and I too inexperienced to know how to get the sort of information I required to stop the earl. I was forced to report back to her empty-handed.”

“What became of her?”

“She died.” A breath shuddered from Miss Hopkins’s slender frame but did not ease the heavy guilt that suddenly weighted her shoulders. “She walked into the Thames, her pockets filled with stones.”

At that revelation, Jeremy found himself momentarily frozen by an increasingly familiar combination of unexpected grief and cold fury at the damage Thornton and men like him had done. “My God. And the—the cook, I think you said?”

Miss Hopkins’s shoulders lifted a little. “Mrs. Croft fared some better: fifty pounds and a new post. But still, nothing I could use for the larger purpose.”

Everything she had told him confirmed General Scott’s theory about Lady Sterling’s motives and abilities, and these days at Thornton Hall promised to provide the necessary proof. She was smart, determined, and more concerned with justice than law—just the sort of asset Scott would relish acquiring, if she proved willing to turn her talents to espionage.

Would it matter, should it matter, that the mysterious avenging angel was a gently bred young woman and Lieutenant Hopkins’s sister?

He was afraid he already knew the answer.

“What is your interest in Thornton’s study, then?” he asked instead.

He followed her gaze as it traveled the room: the landscape in oils above the fire, the old-fashioned table on which the tea tray rested. “Thornton is a collector. Antiquities. Rarities.” She paused for a moment, and he half expected that she would add vulnerable women to the list, but she did not. “There must be something in this house that he shouldn’t have, and the library is an excellent place to begin looking for it.”

“What if there isn’t?”

She wavered. Just a slight wobble of her chin. If he hadn’t been studying her face for hours now, he would have missed that telltale sign, that glimmer of doubt.

Almost before he could be sure of what he had seen, she firmed her jaw. “There will be.”

Her behavior, a weary sort of determination, struck a familiar chord. At various times, including recently, he had been so convinced that the solution to a particularly stubborn encryption was just around the corner, he had foregone sleep and even sustenance. Wordlessly, he rose, went to the tea table and prepared two plates of whatever looked most tempting. She was ready to refuse when he handed one to her, but he shook his head. “You need food. And rest. We both do. The contents of Thornton’s study will have to wait until tomorrow.”

She took the plate with a defiant sigh, but in a moment, she was picking at the food with her fork. Another moment found her devouring every morsel with indecorous, almost dangerous, haste.

He smiled around a mouthful of bread and butter. “You see? Better already.”

“I’m surprised Mrs. Tenney hasn’t sent someone for the tray, or to see if we need anything else,” she observed, licking salmon mousse from the side of her thumb.

“I suspect they don’t want to disturb the, ah, newlyweds.”