The air inside wafted to her, her corset cutting off her sharp intake of breath.
She glanced at Jenny and put a finger to her lips. All was dark inside, and no movement caught her eye.
Perry squeezed her eyes and inhaled again, ignoring the stabbing at her chest. No odors of cooking.
Lamp oil, she decided, and a burned-out fire, smells that might have lingered from a recent visit by the maids who serviced this property. Bakeley had such arrangements for all of the family estates.
She eased in another breath and another odor came to her. Her eyes shot open and anxiety rushed in.
She stood perfectly still and beat the alarm down to a rumble of unease. She had lived around men all her life—her brothers, her footmen, her grooms, her father’s spies and soldiers, all of them mostly well-washed and well-laundered. But even so…
Very likely, a man was here, or had been here recently. And there was another scent, one that poked deeper than the damned stays. She squeezed her eyes tight.
Turpentine.
Fox yieldedhis watching place to the rain and, out of sheer force of habit, closed the kitchen door noiselessly. No boat would come close to these rocks in this weather, especially not the curricle that had been dodging in and out of the cloud cover in his scope.
He set the instrument on the rough kitchen table, tore off his neck cloth and wet coats, and pulled at the shirt sticking like a second layer of skin. Then he went to stir the embers in the wide hearth.
This hearth would accommodate the angles of a Benjamin Thompson design, but the lady had failed to install the Massachusetts-born inventor’s modern cooking stove. Still, the room otherwise bore her stamp—fine pots and dishes graced well-built shelves, and a collection of ornamental rolling pins decorated all the walls. It was a fine place for a cook to work, and for a man to think.
And in his case, a fire, a strong drink, and some thinking time were in order. This waiting while his wound healed had been fruitless and boring. He was no closer to finding his quarry than on his arrival weeks earlier.
His fine brushes, however, had acquired their own frenzied life. One he couldn’t control. Like the stack of canvas in his rented rooms in town, his work here was more evidence of a pointless obsession; pointless and mad. He found last night’s bottle, raised it to his lips, and drained the last swallow of brandy.
He swirled the bottle. Never mind. His room on the top floor held a case of full bottles next to the spare canvases and paints he’d hauled up and stashed near the yawning windows. The brandy was partial payment; the brushes and paints were his cover from his real task. Both were also his escape from the tedium of this mission.
God’s blood, when this job was over he was going home to New England to take up the land his brother had promised him. The English could find a new artist to paint their lords and ladies.
Cool air touched his cheek, sending a prickle through him. He set the bottle down carefully.
There were no leaks or cracks in this tight seaside cottage, not on any of the four floors, and certainly not on this servants’ floor, walled as it was on one side by the hard rock of the cliff.Shewould not have allowed it. Nor would she have returned for a visit. The only spirits he believed in came out of a bottle.
At the open door that led to the stairway, he paused to listen. The quietest of footfalls. The swishing of skirts. A hushed feminine voice.
He ground his teeth as irritation spiked through him. A woman was here, and no lady would be out in this weather to visit a single man.
There was however that damned Scruggs’ girl at the inn. She’d pillowed her big breasts into his shoulder whilst serving his dinner there his first night in the neighborhood, and blast it, every time he stopped in for a pint, she flirted without shame. Scruggs always sent one of his boys with bread and supplies. If the fool girl was here, she’d come on her own, likely expecting a few coins for a tumble.
Unless…He had no specific reason to think Scruggs was spying on him, no reason to distrust Scruggs—nor any reason to trust him. Scruggs had been the innkeeper here on his last visit, ten years past, andshe’dtrusted him.
And then she’d died. Something to think about—loyalties could be bought.
Muffled, furtive steps crossed the front hall to the tall windows that looked out on the sea.
He’d locked all the doors, and none of the locals had a key. His presence here was known to the villagers in Clampton, purposefully known.
If this was someone else, he’d not be snatched up like a worm on a hook. No matter that, as far as he knew, the fish he was after had not come close to shore yet.
Whoever this was had picked her way in.
He patted his sleeve over the sheathed blade strapped to his arm.
Perry stoodat the mullioned French doors looking out over a narrow-tiled terrace. In the distance, a boat, as tiny as a beetle on the top of a pond, bobbed on a sea that roiled like her heart. Next to her, Jenny’s mouth had dropped open.
“Are you wondering what you’ve got yourself into?” Perry whispered.
“You did promise an adventure, miss.” She put the tip of one gloved finger on the pristine window. “But I’ll not go out there on any boat, no matter.”
