What Price Love? by Stephanie Laurens

“Uncouth.”

  He muttered an oath, then raked a hand through his hair—something he’d never before done in his life. He had to resist the urge to clutch the thick locks. “How can I convince you that this is too dangerous?” Lowering his arm, he met her gaze. “That you have to tell me what’s going on before whoever’s behind it finds you?”

  Folding her arms, Pris frowned at him. “You can stop swearing at me for a start.” Rounding the desk, she halted behind it and faced him across it. “If it’s any consolation, I know what you’re saying is true—that it is dangerous, and that I should tell you all. But…”

  She watched the hardness reclaim his face; his expression grew stony and distant.

  “But there’s someone else involved, and you still don’t trust me.”

  He’d spoken with his habitual cool and even delivery. She looked at him, and equally evenly stated, “There’s someone else involved—and I need to think things through.”

  Her tone declared she was not going to be swayed by any arguments, physical, cerebral, or emotional.

  For several heartbeats, they remained with gazes locked, the desk and the open register—and the memory of what had so-recently transpired—filling the space between them, then he sighed and waved her to him. “Leave the register. We’d better get back to Lady Helmsley’s.”

  He saw her out of the back door, then went out of the front door for the benefit of the guards. Circling the building, he rejoined her, and they headed for the wood.

  She refused to let him carry her; sending him before her, she hiked up her skirts and followed at his heels. She traversed the wood without sustaining any damage; dropping her skirts, she stepped out into the weak moonlight. Side by side, they crossed the open expanse, then slipped into the Helmsleys’ gardens.

  He touched her arm. “We should go back via the terrace.”

  So they’d appear to have been strolling the gardens. She nodded, and let him guide her; they followed a graveled path to the terrace.

  Climbing the steps, she frowned. She couldn’t see how the details in the register could have helped Rus, let alone how they might help her find him and save him.

  Halting at the top of the steps, Dillon drew the delicate hand he’d held since they’d reached the gardens through his arm. He met her gaze as it rose to his face. “When are you going to tell me?”

  The most urgent question he needed answered.

  Her expression remained defiant. “After I’ve thought about it.”

  Holding her gaze, he forced himself to incline his head, a gesture of acceptance entirely at odds with his inclinations.

  He led her to the French doors left open to the night. There were other couples taking the air; he doubted any had missed them enough to view their return as anything out of the ordinary. Together, they stepped into the ballroom, back under the chandeliers’ lights.

  Beside him, she cleared her throat and drew her hand from his arm. “Thank you for an enjoyable excursion, Mr. Caxton.”

  Instinctively, his fingers had followed her retreating ones; grasping her hand, he captured her gaze, raised her fingers to his lips, and kissed. Looking into her eyes, he let her, for one instant, see the man within. “Think quickly.”

  Her eyes widened, but then she arched her brows haughtily, slid her fingers from his grasp, turned, and, head high, moved away into the crowd.

  He waited until Lady Fowles’s party quit Helmsley House, then made his farewells to Lady Helmsley and left.

  He drove home through the night, turning over all she’d said, reliving all he’d felt, all she made him feel…he was grateful neither Demon nor Flick had attended the party. Both knew him well enough to detect the change in him whenever Pris hove on his horizon; he was in no good mood to bear with Demon’s too-knowing ribbing, let alone Flick’s matchmaking instincts becoming aroused.

  Just the thought made him shudder. With every year she spent at the feet of the older Cynster ladies, her innate tendencies grew worse.

  On reaching Hillgate End, he saw a light glowing in his study. Driving to the stable, he learned that Barnaby had returned an hour ago, and subsequently a footman had been sent to fetch Demon, who had arrived fifteen minutes before.

  Leaving his horses to the stableman’s care, he walked swiftly to the house. He made his way to the front hall; crossing the tiled expanse, his heels ringing on the flags, he glanced at the wide window at the rear of the hall, the small square panes dating from Elizabethan times, those set along the top bearing the family crest.

  Caxtons had been here for centuries, had been a part of local life for all that time; uncles and cousins had moved away, but the principal branch had sent its roots deep and remained. He felt the connection as he always did when he passed the window. Looking ahead, he walked on to his study.

  He opened the door on an unexpected sight. Not just Barnaby and Demon, but his father, too, was waiting.

  The General was ensconced in a chair angled before the fire, a warm rug over his knees. Demon sat back from the blaze, facing the hearth in a straight-backed chair, while Barnaby had claimed the other armchair.

  “Sir.” With a nod to his sire, Dillon closed the door, relieved to see the color in his father’s cheeks and the alert gleam in his eyes. His mind was still sharp, but his strength was waning. To night, however, he seemed in fine fettle.

  Fetching another straight-backed chair, he set it down and sat. “I take it there’s news.” He looked at Barnaby. “What did you learn?”

  Barnaby was unusually sober. “First, Collier was murdered, but we’ll never get proof of it. He was found at the bottom of a quarry with his neck broken. He fell from the top, and as his horse came racing home in a lather with the saddle loose, it was assumed that something had spooked the horse while he’d been riding the cliff, and he’d been thrown.

  “However, Collier was an excellent horse man. The horse was a strong, well-broken, even-tempered hack, one he habitually rode. Both the lad who saddled the horse, and the stable master who was present when Collier mounted, swear the girths were tight, that there was nothing wrong with either horse or tack. Most importantly, both thought Collier rode out to meet someone. Nothing specific said, but it wasn’t the usual time he rode, the horse didn’t need the exercise, and Collier seemed preoccupied.”

  “What time of day was this?” Demon asked.

  “A little before three o’clock. I eventually found three people who’d seen another rider head up to the quarry. None saw him with Collier, but unless someone was in the quarry itself, or on the cliffs, if Collier met with someone there, no one could have seen them.”

  Dillon stirred. “So the quarry was the perfect venue for a secret meeting.”

  “The perfect venue,” the General put in, “for murder unobserved.”

  “Except for those three who saw the other rider at a distance,” Barnaby said, “but none could give me any description other than he wore a long coat and rode well.”

  “Did you search for any visitor to the area?” Dillon asked.

  Barnaby’s sharp grin flashed. “That’s what took so long. Reasoning the man might be Collier’s unknown partner”—he nodded at Demon—“whose existence you predicted, I spoke with Collier’s solicitor. Collier had been on the ropes last year, but was saved by a sudden injection of cash—he said the loan was from a friend. After Collier’s death, the solicitor waited for the loan to be called in, but there was no attempt to claim the money. The sum was sizable, but Collier had had an excellent run with the bookmakers over the spring, and there was plenty in his kitty when he died.”

  “Is that so?” Dillon exchanged a glance with Demon, then looked at Barnaby. “What did you learn about this benefactor?”

  Barnaby sank back in the armchair. “Other than that he’s a gentleman? Precious little. Assuming he’d ridden a hired nag, I called at all the local stables. Only one had hired a horse that day, but other than describing the man as a London ‘gent,’ all they could tell me was that he was
about as tall as I am, dark-haired, slightly heavier build, spoke like a ‘gent,’ dressed like a ‘gent,’ but was older, although how much older they couldn’t say.”

  Dejected, Barnaby sighed. “With only that to go on, I can’t see any prospect of finding this ‘London gent.’ I found the inn at which he ate dinner before driving a team of post-horses south, heading down the London road.”

  “His carriage?” Dillon asked.

  “Hired from a large posting inn,” Barnaby replied. “No chance they’ll remember him.”

  Demon was frowning. “How much was the loan?”

  “The solicitor wouldn’t say, but admitted it was more than ten thousand pounds.”

  “Great heavens!” The General’s eyes widened. “Imagine…”

  “Interesting,” Demon drawled. “That might give us a trail to follow.”

  Barnaby frowned. “How so?”

  “Because money, my fine lad, comes from somewhere. No one has ten thousand pounds sitting in his dresser. If you wanted to give someone ten thousand pounds, how would you do it?”

  Still puzzled, Barnaby replied, “I’d write a bank draft…” His eyes widened. “Ah.”

  “Indeed.” Demon nodded. “And we know just the person to track the transaction, if it’s traceable.”

  “Gabriel Cynster?”

  “Not just Gabriel.” Dillon had worked closely with Gabriel over the past decade. “He has contacts that would make you salivate—and give your father nightmares.”

  Barnaby instantly revived. “How fascinating.” A moment later, he said, “I rather think I’ll head down to London tomorrow. Gabriel’s there, isn’t he?”

  Demon grimaced. “At this time of year, he most definitely will be. The balls are starting up again. If you promise not to mention that horrifying fact in front of Flick, I’ll write a note giving Gabriel Collier’s background, and what we need to know—stop by tomorrow morning and pick it up.”

  “Excellent!” Barnaby looked around their small circle. “I’d thought we’d lost the scent, but it looks like the hounds are off again.”

  Dillon clapped him on the shoulder. They all rose. Demon took his leave of them and headed home. With renewed vigor, Barnaby headed upstairs to get some sleep; taking his father’s arm, Dillon followed more slowly.

  His father glanced at him as they stepped onto the landing. “And how did your evening go?”

  Dillon considered as they climbed the second flight. Gaining the gallery, he answered truthfully, “I honestly don’t know.”

  Pris woke late the next morning. Lying in her bed staring unseeing at the sun-dappled ceiling, she logically and carefully, without letting emotion cloud her judgment, considered what she knew and what she had to do.

  She had to save Rus. She had to find him and help him get free of Harkness and what ever else threatened.

  Regardless of all else, the impulse to find and rescue her twin was unwavering; recent events had only made the need more desperate, more urgent.

  She’d fixed her hopes on the register. She’d naïvely supposed that seeing it would instantly reveal what scheme Rus had stumbled on, that she would see some connection between that and where he was hiding, or at least where to look for him, what he would be pursuing.

  Instead…

  She heaved a dispirited sigh. Beyond confirming that the register did indeed contain details pertinent to racing swindles, there’d been so many details, of so many different types; it hadn’t occurred to her until she’d read the entries just how many ways there might be to fiddle a race.

  Disappointment dragged at her, but her failure wasn’t the sole source of her escalating worry. Since her arrival in Newmarket, the situation had deteriorated—or rather, she’d learned how bad it truly was. Initially, it had been possible to view Rus going into hiding as one step up from a lark. But Rus wasn’t a child; years of responsibility had matured him—if he was in hiding, it was for some compelling reason, no lark.

  And Harkness…that he’d shot at her thinking she was Rus proved Rus was still about, still unharmed, but, as Dillon had forcefully pointed out, Harkness had shot to kill. Until last night, she’d managed to push that knowledge to the back of her mind, disregard it in her push to view the register.

  After her success-crowned-by-failure last night, after all Dillon had let fall, she could no longer refuse to face the grim reality.

  Dillon was right—this game was dangerous.

  Replaying his words, hearing his tone, she grimaced, and amended that thought. This game was dangerous on more than one front.

  She’d become involved with him as a means to see the register, yet in reality, Rus’s difficulties had played only a minor role in landing her in Dillon’s arms. However, now that she’d landed there, more than once, her relationship with Dillon was going to make things difficult.

  Last night, she’d seen something in his eyes, had heard—very clearly—a tone in his voice that had instantly made her wary. Perhaps it was being the eldest in the family, equal with Rus—a male no one imagined anyone owned—that had made her from her earliest years totally inimical to the notion of being a man’s anything. Not a chattel, not a possession. Many wanted to view her that way; her beauty was something men coveted much as they might a work of art. She was a work of nature they wanted to own, to have in their homes to look at and feel smug that it was theirs. But not even her father “owned” her, nor could he control her, because she’d never ceded him the right.

  But Dillon…

  She sighed even more heavily, then stretched beneath the sheets. Sensual memory stirred; she closed her eyes, and could almost feel his hands on her body, feel him inside her.

  Her mind filled in the rest, the emotional color, the niggling uncertainty over how he saw her, what he thought of her and her reasons for giving herself to him—what she’d allowed him to believe….

  She couldn’t afford to let emotions distract her. Frowning, she moved on to the words they’d later exchanged. Did all men like him think they owned a lady once they’d slept with her, once she’d allowed them to…?

  Was there some unwritten rule she’d never heard of?

  With a snort, she opened her eyes and tossed back the covers. Standing, she shook down her nightgown, and headed for the washstand.

  If Dillon harbored any thoughts of owning her, of controlling her, he would learn his error soon enough. Meanwhile, she was going to have to tell him all and engage his help on Rus’s behalf. The decision stood plainly in her mind; she hadn’t had to think hard to reach it.

  She’d run herself to a standstill; she had no idea which way to turn to find her twin, and that remained her principal aim. She’d put her trust in the register, and that had proved no help, but Dillon…he would know. He would help. He was the right person to tell.

  Aside from all else, given what she’d seen in his eyes, heard in his voice last night, if she didn’t tell him, and soon, he was liable to act—as men of his ilk were so fond of doing. If he thought to appeal to Eugenia…

  She hadn’t told anyone about Harkness shooting at her. If Dillon told Eugenia of the dangers Rus and she, too, now faced, Eugenia would be horrified and would certainly insist she speak to the authorities.

  In this case, as far as she could tell, Dillon was “the authorities.” She owed her aunt a great deal and was sincerely fond of her; it was only right she spare Eugenia the unsettling distress and speak to Dillon herself.

  Her maid had already brought her washing water; Pris splashed her face, mopped it dry, then went to the armoire. Opening the double doors wide, she surveyed her wardrobe. And considered, the full circumstances being what they were, what gown she should don to most effectively deal with her lover.

  Please tell Mr. Caxton that Miss Dalling wishes to speak with him.”

  The clerk behind the reception desk in the foyer of the Jockey Club stared at her, then surged to his feet and bowed. “Yes, of course, miss.” He bobbed again. “At once.”

  He
started backing away, then, blushing, tore his eyes from her and hurried down the corridor leading to Dillon’s office.

  Pris inwardly sighed; crossing her hands over the head of her parasol, the tip resting on the tiles before her feet, head high, she pretended to be oblivious of the doorman, still staring, and the other clerks who, bustling past on various errands, stumbled in their headlong rush when they set eyes on her.

  Yes, she’d dressed to kill in a gown of crisp, vertical black-and-white stripes, highlighted with thin gold stripes, with a scooped neckline and ruffled hem, and a ruffled black parasol, but her intended victim was a great deal less susceptible than the norm. Indeed, she wasn’t sure he was susceptible at all.

  She didn’t have to wait long to find out; Dillon strode around the corner, the clerk in his wake.

  “Miss Dalling.” With not the slightest indication he even noticed her attire, he took the hand she offered, bowed over it, then waved to the front door. “Come—let’s stroll.”

  Futile to gnash her teeth at his immunity to feminine wiles. She spoke quietly, aware of the clerk slipping back behind his desk. “Given the subject I wish to speak of, I would feel more comfortable discussing it in your office.”

  Dillon trapped her eyes, equally quietly stated, “To keep our meeting and its subject from anyone connected with racing, we should cast our interaction as purely social.”

  She held his gaze, swiftly debated. While she remained in town, she risked being seen by Harkness or Cromarty. She’d had Patrick drive her there in a hired closed carriage; he was waiting outside. Neither she nor he had thought it at all wise for her to appear on the High Street.

  And here was Dillon proposing precisely that.

  She opened her mouth to insist she could only speak in his office.

  He murmured, “At this time of day, the coffee room”—with his head he indicated a corridor leading in the opposite direction to his office—“is full of owners and trainers, many not members of the club itself, but who use its amenities. Luckily, they use another entrance. However, the clerks going back and forth are often dealing with those in the coffee room. If I take you to my office, that fact will spread like wildfire via the clerks to the coffee room. Speculation will run rife as to what club business you’ve come to discuss.”