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Jared checked with the gamekeepers again and exchanged one of the other footman for the one on the roof. ‘What is your name?’ he asked as the man turned to the stairs.
‘Thomas, sir.’ He seemed somewhat agitated.
‘There is no need to be afraid. It was only a firework, you know.’
‘Aye, sir. I’m all reet…right, sir. I haven’t been in London long, I’m used to country life. Didn’t expect it to be like this, and that’s the truth.’
‘It rarely is,’ Jared assured him.
He spoke to the Hoskins brothers as they arrived at the kitchen door an hour later, breathless from a rush across London. Twite had worked out a rota of guard duties and rest times that seemed eminently sensible once Jared had adjusted it so that no two Hoskins brothers were on duty together. They looked reliable enough, but this entire situation was a confusing mess and he was not prepared to trust anyone.
The workmen were packing up when he finally arrived back at Great Ryder Street. Jared walked round with the foreman, approved the work and discussed priorities for the next day, then went upstairs, unlocked the door and checked the rooms. No-one had been in there, none of the tell-tales he had set as a matter of routine had been disturbed.
There was no reason to expect trouble, not here, but he had no idea what hornets’ nest Lord Northam was asking him to poke a stick into. The attacks seemed motiveless and Guinevere was standing up to them well. Too well?
Jared reminded himself that she was Lady Northam to him and went into the pocket-sized kitchen to contemplate what might make his dinner. Two eggs, a lump of streaky bacon, the heel of a loaf and half an apple pie from the bakery around the corner. It would do, when and if he worked up an appetite for it.
But now… Now he needed to think. He stripped off in his bedchamber and pulled on the breeches and shirt he wore when he was exercising, mentally positioning the great bed he had purchased that morning and sparing a thought for the joists beneath where it would stand. Best to get the carpenter to check how solid they were. He had no intention at the moment of doing anything more energetic on that bed than sleeping in it, but better safe than have a great lump of seventeenth century woodwork fall through the floor with him on top of it.
Downstairs, on the bare and swept space that would soon be his salle d’armes, he began to stretch for half an hour of the increasingly complex moves he aimed to perform daily. Then push-ups: two-armed, one-armed, until the sweat ran. Finally he took down his heaviest sword and began the sequence of exercises. Cut and thrust, parry and riposte, alternating his hands, eyes open, eyes closed, until he stopped thinking of anything except what his body was doing, focusing on how each muscle was responding, noting the exact point when the burn began, correcting every minute fault until at last he slumped against the wall and slid down it to sit, head bent, panting. Satisfied. Mind clear.
The cold water sluiced over his heated skin, the tiny surface muscles beneath twitching in involuntary protest. Two buckets was all he could use before the tub he stood in was full, but tomorrow the copper bath from the auction rooms would be delivered along with the bed. Amidst fantasies of steaming hot water and lengthily indulgent soaks Jared stepped out, trailed wet footprints across the floor as he towelled himself down and, still damp, dragged on a loose linen shirt under the heavy silk robe he had brought back from India.
He fried the eggs and bacon in a skillet over the fire, spread butter on the bread, poured ale, his attention focused minutely on what he was doing, the sound of the spattering fat, the smell of the bacon, the bubbles bursting in the froth on top of the ale in the pewter tankard.
It was not until he sat down to eat at the table made of planks propped up on scavenged bricks that he let himself think. He ate one-handed, the other occupied jotting down a list of housekeeping matters for the next day: look for a domestic agency to supply a valet who could cook, a word to the builders about the floor joists and the deliveries, restock his pantry.
He finished off the food, mopped up egg yolk with the last of the bread, washed it down with the ale and pushed away the plate. Finally he dragged the list in front of him and wrote at the bottom in small capitals, WHY?
The threads of thought, the frisson of unease, the puzzling elements had come together as he exercised, had coalesced into a pattern as he ate. He had not been imagining things: whoever was plaguing Guinevere Quenten, Viscountess Northam, certainly wished to torment her. But kill her? He thought not.
‘Unless the intention is to cause you anxiety, even drive you out of your wits, I cannot understand what your attacker is trying to achieve, Lady Northam. They most certainly cannot intend to kill you.’ Jared sat back in the deep armchair and let his words sink into the silence of the elegant drawing room. The explosion would come soon enough.
‘Are you insane, sir?’ Lord Northam’s fist came down on the delicate tea table, sending his coffee cup toppling. He ignored the flood of hot liquid over the inlaid surface and lurched to his feet.
Jared stayed where he was. Courtesy and precedence demanded he rise but it would only inflame the atmosphere to have two large men confronting each other. He steepled his fingers and waited while the Viscount made a stomping circuit of the room, his feet kicking up soft Chinese silk rugs, the tails of his coat sending flower arrangements rocking.
Lady Northam raised her fingertips to her lips, whether in prayer or to hold bac
k words, Jared could not tell. Her eyes were fixed on her husband, wide and very blue. He wondered if the colour depended on her mood or on the light.
Finally Northam arrived back in front of Jared. ‘Do you think we are inventing this? Imagining it?’ he demanded. ‘You were here yesterday, you saw what happened. Or maybe,’ he added with awful sarcasm, ‘that was a collective hallucination?’
‘I will explain, my lord. Perhaps if you were to sit down it might be less agitating for her ladyship.’ When the other man subsided back into his chair with a grunt Jared said, ‘That was not a bomb yesterday, that was a large firework. It could have caused injury, it might have provoked a heart seizure in a frail person, but you are neither elderly nor sickly, are you, Lady Northam? And this came down the chimney of your own room, not one you both habitually use, therefore it can hardly have been aimed at Lord Northam.
‘And while we are on the subject of heart failure, the bite of the British adder or viper is rarely fatal unless the person bitten is old or weak or very young. Then we come to a broken handrail a few steps up a well-carpeted stair. Bruises, perhaps a broken limb might result if you had fallen, but not, I would suggest, much more, considering that you are a healthy young woman with all your faculties.’
‘And what about the interference with my horse?’ she said.
‘You are a good rider, I believe?’ A nod. ‘And that was a reliable, steady horse you were accustomed to?’ Another nod. ‘And this happened in a village where help was at hand?’
‘Yes. It was alarming when it happened but I was soon able to control Brandy, my mare, sufficiently to slide from the saddle. My groom was attending me.’ Her eyes were fixed on his face, her lips parted as though there was a question there she could not quite articulate.
‘You forget the shooting!’ The Viscount looked ready to erupt out of his chair again.
‘Someone had a firearm and they were following you. They were able to put a bullet into the exact place you had been sitting – after you had left it. Why not while you were sitting there? Why not when you were out of the carriage in plain sight and an easy target? Lady Northam, someone is most certainly persecuting you, but if they are attempting to kill you they must be the most inept assassin on the market.’
Guin closed her mouth, swallowed, tried again. ‘You are saying that I am not in danger?’ She was becoming angry, she realised. ‘Or perhaps you believe I am making it up?’
