Roland fell into a dead faint.
Susannah wished she could join him. Instead she left the drawing room and found her way to the kitchen, a small, dim room at the rear of the house. She dampened a cloth and returned to Roland, who was still on the floor, now moaning like a child. She came down to her knees and gently wiped his face. “It will be all right,” she said, then said it again, but she doubted it sincerely. She looked at her husband. His eyes were closed.
She knew what he was thinking. He was thinking that it was the same identical ring. Both of them wearing the same sort of ring? Was it some sort of club? Then she remembered Tibolt’s words: “All those old fools protecting the secret . . .”
The ring, Roland finally told them, after drinking a snifter of rich smuggled French brandy, was heavy silver, an etching of a bishop in a mitre atop it. Yes, there were words beneath it, but he didn’t know what they were.
“Interesting,” Balantyne said.
“It was very big, very heavy,” Roland said. “Does that help somehow?”
“It could,” Rohan said.
Balantyne dismissed poor Roland, telling him with a bit of disgust in his voice that he should have a liedown after he brought Balantyne the names of all Bishop Roundtree’s relatives. He himself would see to the acquaintances.
Jubilee Balantyne looked thoughtfully at Phillip Mercerault. “I do believe it’s time you tell me what this is all about, Phillip.”
Phillip, after a quick glance at Rohan, shrugged, saying, “I’m sorry, Jubilee, but there’s little I can tell you. Lord Mountvale and I have been friends for many years. The only reason I am along is because I know Oxford so well. Rohan wished to visit the bishop. Didn’t you tell me, Rohan, that he was a friend of your father’s?”
Rohan nodded. “That’s right. Unfortunately, we were unlucky in the timing of our visit.”
“I see. I don’t suppose you know anything about this ring?”
“The ring? Not a thing.”
Jubilee Balantyne said nothing as he rose to his feet. “This is a bloody mess. Everyone in Oxford is going to want to nail my hide to the wall if I don’t quickly discover who did this. The proctors will want to take over. I should probably let them and wash my hands of it. Ah, but I won’t. Now, why don’t you three discuss what’s happened and then come and talk to me. I really need your help. If you go off on your own, I cannot be responsible.”
“A perceptive gentleman,” Susannah said after the magistrate had left the bishop’s house. “What are we going to do?”
“Not tell him the truth, that’s for sure,” Rohan said.
“I told you he wasn’t stupid,” Phillip said. “I want to leave this place, all right?”
Phillip gave them what he called the best bed in Dinwitty Manor. The bedchamber was low-ceilinged and somewhat damp, but the bed was indeed magnificent. It was after midnight, after an evening spent discussing everything and coming up with not a single answer. Susannah was pressed against Rohan’s side, her cheek on his shoulder, her palm wide over his chest.
“I bloody well don’t know what to do,” he said to the dark ceiling. “I’ve thought and thought. My God, Susannah, what if Tibolt murdered the bishop?”
She kissed his shoulder. “We have no notion if that could be true. It seems more likely that it was Tibolt who diverted poor Roland. He was wearing the ring, after all. He must also have been wearing a disguise. I do have an idea, however.”
She kissed him again on his shoulder while her palm stroked down his chest, her fingers threading through his hair down to his belly. His muscles contracted. His breathing shifted from steady and slow to a leaping roar.
Her fingers went lower until she touched him.
He nearly bounded off the bed. All thoughts of the day were swamped by lust so great that he was shaking with it. Her fingers wrapped around him.
“Susannah, do you know what you’re doing?”
“I’m not certain, but I think you would tell me if I don’t do something correctly, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, yes. What you’re doing is quite acceptable.” He moaned.
She kissed his mouth, saying as he parted his lips, “We have been distracted for far too long. There have been too many questions, too many bad things that have happened. You told me that we would share, Rohan. I need a different kind of sharing now. I need you.”
They hadn’t made love for several days. It had occurred to Rohan upon occasion that Susannah was his bride, yet he’d kept his hands to himself, and his mouth and every other part of him as well. Both of them had been distracted. She was right. It was time to bring the two of them together again, like their first night, like that incredible night at the inn.
He slowly turned on his side to face her. Thank God she didn’t release him.
He began kissing her, his hands on her breasts, roving to her belly, ar