Page 67 of How the Earl Entices

She leaned out further. Her hand fiercely gripped his as if afraid she might fall, yet really to keep his attention on her and away from Ross. “I do not see…where?”

“To the left of the salon. The footmen below will be able to direct you.” He leaned in uncomfortably close over her shoulder, and she suspected from the way his head tilted downward and his eyes latched onto the top swells of her breasts that he was hoping to see all the way to her navel. “While I would be very pleased to escort you downstairs, my lady, I cannot leave my post. But do come back later. I would be most amenable to taking a stroll around the party with you.”

He shifted back to take her hand and lift it to his lips to kiss it, the same way Ross had done earlier. But it was all she could do not to snatch her hand away with a shudder.

Yet she forced a smile and purred, “Perhaps I will see you later then.”When hell froze over.

As she slowly descended the stairs, she turned back to glance over her shoulder. A look that Patton pompously thought was for him.

Ross was gone.

Chapter 20

Ross sauntered as quickly as he dared up the second flight of stairs and out of sight of Patton and the rest of the ambassador’s guards. He would have laughed to himself at the performance Grace had just put on if watching her with Patton hadn’t infuriated him so. When this night was over, they were going to have a long talk about what kind of distractions were proper. And how she was never again to draw a man’s attention to her breasts.

“Unless it’s mine,” he growled.

He headed down the hall to search for the study. He opened the first door—a bedroom. He moved on to the next.

“You there!” A man called out from the other end of the hall, where he’d just stepped out from the backstairs. “This floor is off limits. You need to return to the party.”

But Ross ignored him and opened another door.

“I said you need to leave.Now.”

Ross muttered a curse. “I’m looking for a bottle of cognac.” He flashed a friendly smile and flung open another door. His heart skipped. Wentworth’s study. “And none of that watered down grape juice they’re passing off downstairs as brandy.”

“Stop where you are!” The man was enormous, all muscle and gritty brawn, and he drew his hands into fists as he started toward Ross.

Ross’s smile faded. “No need for violence. I’m only searching for a good drink.”

But the man kept coming, charging at him like a bull.

“All right, all right! I’ll go.” He turned around and started back down the hall toward the stairs, but he could hear the man’s approaching steps as they grew nearer. Every inch of him alert, he waited until the guard was just behind—

He snatched up a silver candlestick holder from the narrow table beside him, pivoted, and swung.

The hard blow hit the man on the side of his head and sent him spinning. He staggered back against the wall. Then his eyes rolled up in his head, and he sank to the floor, unconscious.

Ross bent down to grab him by his arms. “I was wrong,” he muttered through gritted teeth of exertion as he pulled the large man inside the nearest room. “Apparently, there was a need for violence after all.”

After tying him up with a length of cord from the drapes, with knots not nearly as good as Grace’s, Ross left him there and returned to the study, taking the candlestick with him and lighting it on the hallway wall sconce. With a glance over his shoulder, he slipped inside, closing and locking the door after himself.

He set the candle on the desk and began to search the room. Each drawer in the desk, then the side tables…but finding nothing. There were too many books on the shelves to go through them all, and no point since Wentworth most likely owned them only for show. So he returned to the desk and searched it again, this time removing every drawer completely and inspecting each from all sides before returning it.

He replaced the last drawer and bit back a harsh curse, running a hand through his hair as he stepped back to survey the desk. Frustration boiled inside him. Hehadto find that diary, or every struggle during the past year would come to nothing.

Worse. He’d entangled Grace into his mess, and there was no way to protect her if he was discovered. He hadn’t lied to her. If he was caught tonight, so was she. That was theverylast way she should be repaid for helping him since he crawled ashore in Sea Haven. For God’s sake, she’d sewn up his wounds even after he’d taken her captive and before she’d arrived at the notion of having his help in gaining her son’s rightful inheritance. When she’d had the opportunity to turn him over, she’d not taken it. Even tonight she didn’t need to risk herself in order to help him, yet she was doing just that. He’d been wrong to ever assume that her involvement was only mercenary when her own safety was the last thing she’d been worried about.

Being an ambassador had once been all that he’d wanted from his life. But now—

He wanted Grace.

The thought startled him, but the truth of it was undeniable. He wanted her.Allof her. Her courage and determination, brilliance and sharp wit, competence and confidence—she was all that every other woman wasn’t. When this fight was over, when he was exonerated and the traitors stopped, he would finally claim his waltz with her. And more.

But now he had to focus. Giving up on the desk, he scanned the room. That diary had to be in here somewhere.Hadto be! Wentworth would keep it near him at all times. But where?

His eyes landed on a narrow side table pushed against the wall between the two tall windows. There were no drawers in it, and the underside of it was clean because he’d already checked it. Yet the wood grain on its front…warped. Significantly. He crossed to the piece and ran his hand over the front panel. Smooth, but with a telltale dip where the grain changed direction, indicating the joining of two separate pieces in an attempt to hide it. No furniture maker of any quality would make a piece with a flaw like this. And Wentworth certainly wouldn’t have paid good money for it. Unless…