Miss Atwood straightened. “Well, it was as if he was expecting me. He nodded and simply gave me the key.”
Lucius fired his logical brain into action, a task that soon dampened his ardour. He couldn’t fantasise about bedding Miss Atwood while exploring critical aspects of the case. “The inn sits on the busiest stretch of road heading north out of London. Is it not odd that the room was available?”
It was odd that the blackguard’s chosen inn was so close to Bronygarth. Worrying, when one considered few people knew Lucius owned the house. Somewhere in the process of being discreet, he had made a mistake.
“The villain must have paid for the room in advance,” Miss Atwood said.
“And so you left the letter on the bed,” he said, recapping what she had told him not two hours earlier. “No one approached you or made contact, not even a maid.”
“I was there but ten minutes. Numerous people passed me on the stairs, but no one spoke other than to bid me good morning.”
“Only good morning?”
She gave a half shrug. “The lady in the room opposite was entering as I was leaving. She said if I was taking supper to avoid the stew and dumplings. I thanked her for the warning, and we parted ways.”
Lucius mulled over the snippets of useless information. A conversation about dumplings was hardly a veiled threat. “The innkeeper must be in contact with our quarry. How else would the devil know to come to the inn? But if I interrogate him, it will only arouse his suspicions.”
“Unless our quarry is a resident. When on his travels, my father often stayed at the same inn for a month or more.”
A fond memory filled Lucius’ mind. “Yes, Atticus once bought me dinner at the Duck and Partridge near Wetherby. I shouldn’t have left the dormitory, but your father was quite persuasive, and I was going through a difficult phase.”
A disobedient and destructive phase was a better description.
“Wetherby?” Miss Atwood frowned. “You went to school in Yorkshire? One would think you’d have gone to Harrow or maybe Charterhouse, what with your father’s seat being in Surrey.”
“One would think so,” was all he could bear to say on the matter.
Since the day Lucius’ mother disappeared, the duke had deliberately kept his distance. He rarely ventured to Surrey, rarely left Bideford Park. Perhaps he feared someone might stumble upon Julia Fontaine’s grave.
Silence descended, and they stared out of the window. There was no urge to speak, no urge to converse idly about the weather or the excessive tolls. Though nothing more was said about the duke, Lucius suspected Miss Atwood had the measure of the situation.
As the bustling streets of London came into view, and the carriage swayed to avoid carts and reckless riders, the lady turned her attention to their appointment at the home of Sir Melrose, and of their late-night rendezvous.
“So, you will arrive with Mrs Sinclair,” she began, though there was a thread of tension in her voice, “and I shall—”
“I’m not attending with Mrs Sinclair.”
“Oh. Is the widow out of town?”
Having spent time alone with Miss Atwood, he couldn’t bear the widow’s company. And he had the sudden need to appear as more than a scoundrel hellbent on pleasure. Yes, society would be all agog. The worst of rogues rarely reformed. But they could all go to Hades.
“Mrs Sinclair and I have parted ways.” He had broken the news to the widow on his way home from the docks, once he had d
ecided there was no other course of action but to take Miss Atwood to Bronygarth. “Your father disapproved of my methods of gaining information, as you were wont to remind me.”
She shuffled in the seat and lifted her chin. “A man with your intelligence can surely find other ways to gain the knowledge you seek. Mrs Sinclair’s wisdom extends to the purchasing of fripperies, and you’re worth so much more than that.”
“Am I?” The compliment touched him so deeply he had to smile to hide the rush of emotion. “And I thought you despised me.”
Her gaze drifted to the ebony lock he brushed from his brow. “Opinions change. Indeed, having discovered more about you, I find the opposite is true.” Her eyes softened. “I have the utmost respect for your kindness and loyalty.”
Good Lord!
Lucius was prone to bouts of fancy where Miss Atwood was concerned, but he knew the glint of desire in a woman’s eyes. He knew the radiant glow, the faint hunger.
The muscles in his abdomen clenched. His stomach grew warm as the intense longing he had only recently put to bed stirred from its slumber.
“But how will you slip into dark rooms without a mistress in tow?” said the lady whose mouth was a constant torment. “Won’t it look odd if you’re seen sneaking about alone?”