The Earl's Forbidden Ward

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But she had implied she hadn’t felt safe in St Petersburg. His mind had chased that one elusive remark around his head after their first meeting, resulting in sending Arthur and Meg to the house as soon as possible in the morning. It had also resulted in drawing another conclusion—if Miss Branscombe didn’t feel safe, she probably had a justifiable reason for it. Did she know about the list? More importantly, did the Russians think she knew about it? If they thought she was in personal possession of the list, the amount of danger she was in had just escalated exponentially.

The shopping expedition had turned out surprisingly pleasant. In spite of her original misgivings, Tessa had enjoyed herself greatly. Dursley’s Aunt Lily was an intelligent and delightful companion. The two of them were loaded down with packages and chatting amiably when they entered the hall of Tessa’s town house. Tessa set her purchases and her reticule on a small table in the hall and stilled suddenly.

‘What is it, dear?’ Lily asked, noting her distress.

Tessa shook her head, her panic starting to rise. It was happening again, the old fear she’d felt in Russia. ‘I don’t know. The house feels different. It feels unsettled, as if something isn’t right.’

Lily smiled fondly. ‘It’s probably all the changes. Arthur and Meg have done a substantial amount of work in a short time. I can even see differences from before we left. I dare say the house is improved greatly.’

Tessa had to agree. Meg and Arthur had tirelessly devoted themselves to unpacking some of the crates from the cellar as well as the crates she’d brought from St Petersburg. She had not realised how incomplete the house had been until she’d seen the family’s personal effects spread throughout the home and the rooms filled with furniture brought down from the attics.

There had certainly been a lot of changes, but those weren’t what contributed to her sense of disquiet. The house felt disrupted from another’s presence. Someone was here.

Tessa felt the gnawing fear start again in her stomach. She’d hoped to be done with such worry. Would the need to be constantly on guard ever be gone? She’d thought she’d beaten such fear since their arrival in London, but over the last few days the sense that she was being watched had returned, and now this. She reached for her reticule. She had her small gun inside. She went nowhere without it.

‘Lily, if you would just wait for me in the drawing room, I’ll have a look around.’

Lily looked at her strangely, but Tessa didn’t care. At least her fears weren’t misplaced. In St Petersburg she’d been right.

Tessa started upstairs slowly, her back against the curving wall of the staircase as she went, making herself less visible if anyone was looking down. If there was an intruder, he would be upstairs. Anyone else would have heard them come in.

Tessa slipped the small gun from her reticule. She cocked the weapon, not doubting her instincts once. It was the perfect time to break in. Her sisters were on an outing to a nearby park with Mrs Hollister and Meg and Arthur were spending their afternoon off at Dursley House. There was no one around to notice the comings and goings of a stranger in the house.

She was five stairs from the top when she heard it: the sound of booted feet on the hardwood floor. She’d done a good job of hiding herself against the natural curvature of the staircase, but, reciprocally, she was blind to all else that moved above her. She could no more see who was coming down the stairs than they could see her.

Tessa had only seconds to think before the intruder was upon her. Her mind raced over her options. There was no chance someone coming down the stairs wouldn’t see her as they passed. Her only choice was to seize the advantage.

Tessa boldly stepped out into the centre of the stairs, gun ready to fire. ‘Stay where you are.’

She was not prepared for what happened next. Instead of obeying her command, the intruder flung himself at her, propelling them against the stair wall as opposed to tumbling down the steps. Tessa found herself most indecently pressed between the wall and the hard body of her attacker. Breasts met chest, her skirts met with the hard muscles of his thighs. She could barely breathe, let alone summon a scream. Her hand holding the gun was shackled against the wall by the intruder’s iron grip.

Tessa struggled, but she was too closely imprisoned to land an effective kick. She tore her gaze from her trapped gun hand into the intruder’s face. She found her voice. ‘Dursley!’

‘Miss Branscombe!’ His shock was nearly as great as her own. In his amazement, he released her gun arm.

Tessa hadn’t been ready for such freedom. The gun slipped from her weakened fingers and clattered down the steps. A misfire rang out. Instantly, Dursley surrounded her again with his body, this time as a protector. His arms bracketed her on either side, his body in full contact with hers, disregarding any compunction for propriety.

Tessa recognised the stance for what it was: the posture of a human shield. No one would be able to get close to her with such a force surrounding her. It was dark and safe in the confines of Dursley’s protective circle. For a moment, Tessa let herself savour such a luxury. Then Dursley realised the only danger was the misfire of the gun.

The look he gave her was incredulous. ‘The gun was loaded? The gun you pointed at me was loaded?’

Tessa looked up at him, his face very near hers. ‘Of course it was. I didn’t know it was you. A lot of good an unloaded weapon would have done me.’ She’d not noticed what a dark shade of blue his eyes were in their prior encounters. Then again, she’d not had the opportunity to appreciate them at such close proximity.

There were other things she was starting to ‘appreciate’ at this range, too, like the breadth of his shoulders and the firmness of his thighs, not to mention the supposed intimacy of their position on the stairs.

Any moment his Aunt Lily would determine it was safe to come out of the drawing room. Tessa could only imagine what kind of image she and the Earl would create to the unsuspecting onlooker who happened upon them. Tessa shifted, squirming a bit in the hopes of creating some distance between them. She immediately wished she hadn’t moved. Her gyrations caused her hips to brush against Dursley in a highly improper manner. To her great embarrassment, she actually felt that most unmentionable part of him stir at the contact.

Dursley took a step back. ‘A thousand pardons, Miss Branscombe,’ he said with polite neutrality, as if they’d merely brushed past one another on the stairs at a ball.

Lily appeared at the bottom of the steps. ‘Is everyone all right? Heavens, Dursley, is that you?’

‘We’re all right, Aunt,’ Dursley assured her.

‘Tessa thought she heard an intruder,’ Lily called up.

‘Did she?’ Dursley shot Tessa a foreboding look. ‘Do you have a lot of experience, then, in listening for intruders, Miss Branscombe? I find my curiosity is piqued as to why a young lady would feel it necessary to be armed with a gun in her own home.’

‘No more so than my own curiosity, milord, as to why you were skulking about upstairs in my house,’ Tessa replied coolly.

‘Skulking, is it?’ Dursley said in his most high-handed tone.

‘Yes. Skulking,’ Tessa insisted, moving down the stairs ahead of him, doing her best to match his haughtiness. But her cool exterior was a façade only. Inside, she was so jangled from the encounter that, after picking her gun up from the hall floor, she rang for tea before she realised all the staff was gone for the afternoon.

It wasn’t until much later, after her sisters were asleep, that Tessa allowed her mind to consider the scene on the stairs. She sat at the desk in her private office, dwelling on those few moments. The most important concern on her mind was what Peyton—Dursley—had been doing upstairs. One of the consequences of the afternoon was that she was finding it difficult to think of him without wanting to use his first name. One could not brush up against a man’s groin in such an intimate fashion and continue to think of him as a title. At least she couldn’t.

Tessa marshalled her thoughts. She had to stay focused. What had he been doing here? It wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that he’d come by to escort his aunt home from their shopping trip. Finding them still out, he’d decided to wait.

But waiting could be done quite nicely in the public rooms downstairs. There was no need to wait upstairs. Upstairs consisted of bedrooms, the schoolroom and her small office. Peyton—Dursley—had been properly appalled at her sisters’ chatter over tea the first day. She doubted her sisters’ bedrooms held any interest or allure to him. Never mind that it wasn’t proper for gentlemen to go poking around young girls’ bedchambers. And propriety mattered greatly to him. The only room that could hold any interest would be her office, and only then if he were looking for something.

Tessa gazed around the room. There was only a chair and a small bookcase, in addition to her desk. On the wall was a portrait of her father, newly hung by Arthur that morning. She couldn’t imagine what Peyton thought he might find in here.

She huffed. There it was again—Peyton. She might as well give in. She would call him ‘Peyton’ in her mind. It could be her little secret. Tessa fiddled with a paperweight, studying the portrait of her father, which had been completed a few months before his death. In the painting he was elegantly posed, standing next to a table that contained a long scrolling document. She supposed the setting was to symbolise his diplomatic career, the scroll representing some kind of treaty or agreement he was so famous for.

She wondered what he might make of this afternoon. Her father had been an expert at reading people. What might he see that she’d missed? Something niggled at her about the encounter. At the actual time of its happening, her mind had been racing too much for the nuance to register. But now as she slowed it down in her head, pieces began to form. Peyton had not recognised her immediately. His instincts had not seen her. His instincts had seen danger. Had he thought she was an intruder? That raised a host of other questions, most prominently—why would he have suspected an intruder at a quiet house in a quiet neighbourhood?

The way he’d reacted indicated he’d expected the worst, for whatever reason. She’d never met a man with such lightning reflexes. He’d been on her before she could have even considered firing the gun. His skill was more than natural talent. That kind of reflex was carefully honed and acquired. She’d seen men with that kind of skill in the Czar’s personal guard.

Once he’d recognised her, his demeanour had changed. He’d been all protection when the gun misfired. It was almost as if he’d thought the shot came from somewhere else. It clearly hadn’t. But his reaction had been that of a bodyguard. If there had been another shot, his body would have taken the brunt of it. Surely such action was above and beyond a guardian’s duty to his ward.

Then there had been that moment of mutual, acute awareness, the searing gaze of his hot eyes. How would she ever face him again without blushing? He and Lily had not stayed long once he’d been assured of her safety in the house. She’d been grateful. Her eyes had developed a fascination for glancing at certain male parts of his anatomy. Luckily, he hadn’t seemed to notice. But she’d better get over the penchant for such behaviour quickly. He would be escorting her to the Broughtons’ ball in three nights’ time. Where they would dance. As her escort, he was obliged to dance with her once. The thought of being in such close proximity to Peyton’s body again was unaccountably exciting.

Such emotions were unwise. Developing an infatuation over Peyton would cloud the real issue. Could she trust him? His actions suggested both yes and no. He’d been wandering around odd parts of her house while it was empty. He’d entered their lives without warning with only a misplaced codicil to recommend him. Those circumstances were highly suspect. Yet, he’d opted to protect her, which bespoke a message of trustworthiness and honour. Her own reaction to him had been one of security. In those moments on the stairs when she’d been surrounded by his body, she’d thought that here was a man who could share her burden.

She recognised her reaction was based solely on impulse. Tessa shook her head to clear it. No, she would not tell Peyton about her fears. Not yet. Not until she knew more about her situation and him. She’d thought there had been an intruder today, but it had only been Peyton. Her instincts might be off. If no one was following her, if it was all in her head, then there was nothing to tell him. He would ask for proof and right now she didn’t have any.

The darker side of her conscience emerged, prodding her to more difficult hypotheses. All this assumed Peyton was on the side of good. Perhaps he was the source of her fears. He was the one new variable in her life these days, along with the arrival of Sergei’s Russian delegation. The only difference was that she knew Sergei.

Tessa sighed in exasperation. There was so much she didn’t know! What did she have that was worth all the trouble someone was potentially going through? Was Peyton connected to that? What did he know? Anything? Nothing? Everything? The only thing Tessa was sure of was that Peyton Ramsden and his exquisite body was dangerous to her in more than one way.

Aunt Lily had that dangerous look in her eye, Peyton noted over an excellent trifle. He’d agreed to dine with her simply because not to do so would be to immediately admit to hiding something. Damn Tessa Branscombe and her inconvenient gun. He’d hoped to avoid the complicated topic. To that end Peyton had now exhausted every subject of conversation he could think of.

But in the end, it was clear Aunt Lily could not be put off the scent.

Lily set down her spoon and fixed Peyton with her gaze. ‘I think it’s time you explained to me why Miss Branscombe carries a gun and apparently does not hesitate to use it. If I am to act as a sponsor for her, I want the truth, Nephew.’

Peyton dabbed his mouth with his napkin, gathering his thoughts. ‘She’s a woman on her own and quite alone. She’s entitled to provide herself with protection.’