“Nothing,” she said on a sigh.
He checked his timepiece, then glanced around the park once more, as though Evelyn would suddenly step out from behind a tree and call, “Boo!” Then he met Jocelyn’s worried gaze. “Let’s return to your house. If Lady Evelyn comes home, you won’t know if we’re out combing the city for her. If she does show up, please send word to me immediately. Until I hear otherwise, I’ll still be taking steps to find her.”
“What sort of steps?” she asked, falling in beside him as they headed out of the park.
“Well, Mayfair is not my jurisdiction, so first, I need to pay the boys at Scotland Yard a visit and apprise them of what’s going on. They can send a few of the lads out to search the other nearby parks and get ahold of the caretaker of this one to open the shed. I’ll check the hospitals to make sure she didn’t have an accident. If you make me a list of the people your sister might have been referring to in her journal and also any friends who might know where she went last night, I’ll send some of my men to start questioning them.”
Jocelyn bit her lip, knowing that once she authorized this, Evelyn’s reputation would be ruined. No matter where she’d been last night, people always tended to think the worst of an unmarried woman. Would Evelyn ever forgive her if there ended up being a plausible explanation?
“You don’t have to do this. It hasn’t even been a full day since you last saw her,” Ness said, as though he’d read her mind. “You can just go home and wait for her to return. It’s very likely that she is off somewhere with a friend or lover. If she still hasn’t come home by tomorrow morning, we can start the search for her again.”
Neither of those possibilities seemed remotely plausible to her. If Evelyn were going to stay the night with a friend, she would have sent word. It wasn’t in her sister’s nature to worry her so needlessly. And as for a lover... No, she was certain Evelyn hadn’t spent the night with her lover. She wished the inspector would quit insinuating that but supposed he was used to dealing with a different class of people.
Squaring her shoulders, Jocelyn made her choice. “I know it sounds mad, but I am certain that something terrible has happened to her.” Tears stung her eyes, the bad feeling in the pit of her stomach growing stronger. “I’d like to start the search now.”
He stopped and gazed down at her, his handsome face unreadable, but his blue eyes filled with such warmth and understanding it took her breath away. “I believe in gut feelings. In my experience, they are nearly never wrong. If you feel this strongly that something bad has happened, I’ll do whatever I can to try and find her before it’s too late.”
She couldn’t remember a time when a man had so easily taken her at her word. And she didn’t even have anything solid to go on, just this feeling that something wasn’t right. It endeared him to her in a way she couldn’t express.
“Thank you,” she whispered. “That means everything.”
He nodded, his cheeks coloring ever so slightly as he started moving purposely once again toward her home. She rushed to keep up with him, her short legs having to take two steps for every one of his. She realized how much he’d been matching his pace to hers before, but now he seemed on a mission. His swift decisiveness comforted her, and so she didn’t mind that she was practically running by the time they reached her front steps.
“If you’ll come in with me for a few moments, I’ll write down those names,” she told him breathlessly.
He smiled as he suddenly realized his swift strides had been too much for her. “You should have told me to slow down.”
She shook her head. “I’m glad you’re in a hurry.” Her voice wobbled, even though she was trying hard to be brave. “I fear that there is not a moment to spare.”
Taking a deep breath, she led him back inside, straight to the study, where she grabbed a pen and started writing the list of Evelyn’s friends and men they knew with the initial M that she’d been compiling in her head on their walk back. After scribbling for several moments, she lifted her gaze and sighed. “I’ve written down quite a few, but I’m so frazzled I’m certain I’m forgetting some.”
He leaned over her shoulder and skimmed the page. “This should do for now. Keep thinking about it and write down the rest as they come to you. I’ll come back at the end of the day and collect them from you, plus tell you anything I’ve learned.”
She’d been standing in front of the desk writing, and now she was pressed between the cool wood of the desk and the heat of his big body. He wasn’t touching her, but she could feel him behind her, his breath tickling the nape of her neck as he spoke. A shiver of awareness traveled through her, and though it was completely ill-timed and unwarranted, she couldn’t help but be surprised and intrigued.
Was this desire? She’d certainly never felt anything even remotely like it before. Cataloging the sensation away to take out and examine later, she turned, but he hadn’t moved. She found herself staring up at him, his handsome face looming above her, so close she could see the faint dark stubble of new beard that had somehow cropped up during their time together.
He cleared his throat, and her gaze followed the movement.
“Thank you,” she whispered, feeling oddly light-headed. “You didn’t have to do all of this for me, didn’t have to take me seriously at all, and I really appreciate it.”
His gaze drifted to her mouth, then jerked back up to meet hers. “Strolling through a lovely park with a beautiful lady has hardly been a hardship.”
He thinks I’m beautiful. It was an absurd thought, given everything else that was going on, but it gave her a little thrill anyway. All of Allison’s erotic feelings for Mr. O’Brien suddenly made a bit more sense.
Acting on pure instinct, she lifted up on her tiptoes, placing her arms around his neck and pressing her lips gently against his cheek. Never in her life had she been moved to do such a thing, but his skin was so warm beneath her lips, his scent so masculine that she simply wanted to breathe him in for a time.
He stiffened at first but then put his arms around her as well, hugging her tight for an endless moment. “I’ll find your sister,” he promised, his voice a mere breath of sound in her ear.
She looked up at him, her heart thundering in her chest, her gaze centered on the beautiful contours of his mouth. A soft sound of yearning escaped her despite her best attempts to hold it in. She’d never in her life been kissed for the sheer pleasure of it, and she suddenly wanted to be. Very badly.
As though he’d somehow heard her silent pleas, or perhaps because he felt this attraction between them as well, he suddenly leaned down and captured her mouth with his own. His lips were warm and soft, and he tasted of tea and sugar. She pressed more fully against him as the kiss went on, as they learned each other in such an intimate way, their lips and tongues dancing together.
“Mama, who is that man?” The tiny voice broke through the haze of desire and tenderness that enveloped her, jerking her back to reality. She dropped her arms and stepped away, looking toward the doorway where her three-year-old son stood with the nanny, Abbie.
“So sorry, my lady,” Abbie said in a rush, obviously mortified. “He saw you come in and insisted on coming to find you.”
“It’s all right, Abbie.” Ignoring her flaming cheeks, Jocelyn bent down and opened her arms, catching Oliver as he flung himself against her. Standing, she turned back to Inspector Ness. “May I introduce my son, the Earl of Aston? Oliver, this is Inspector Ness. He is trying to help me find Aunt Evelyn.”
The little boy looked at the inspector with wide, searching eyes. She wasn’t even certain if he knew what a policeman was. “Is she under the desk?”
Inspector Ness barked out a laugh, looking quite flustered himself. “Nice to meet you, young man.” He nodded at the women. “I should be on my way. I’ll let you know if I hear anything.”
She watched him leave, her pulse still racing. As worried as she was about Evelyn, she couldn’t be sorry she’d kissed him or stop the wish that she hoped she could do it again soon.