Jaw set, Charles rounded the long pool and joined Dalziel; they stood looking down at the body. “That was a faster, cleaner death than he deserved.”
After a moment, Dalziel murmured, “Think of it more as the type of death we deserve to deal in. No need for us to descend to his level.”
Charles drew breath, nodded. “There is that.”
Dalziel stepped back, absently lifting his dagger, taking out a cloth to clean it. “I’ll take care of this.” With his head, he indicated Fothergill’s body. “I’d appreciate it if you kept Lady Penelope and Amberly at bay.”
Charles grunted. He lingered a moment longer, looking down at the crumpled form, then he looked at Dalziel. “He isn’t the one you seek, is he?”
Dalziel looked up, met his eyes, his dark gaze cold, saber-sharp and incisive. After a moment, he shook his head. “No. But he was, in his fashion, efficient—he was dangerous, and he was young. I’m grateful we had the chance to remove him—who knows what the future holds?”
Charles murmured an agreement, then turned away, and walked out of the central court, back toward the house.
He was halfway across the lawn when Penny came out of the music room. She paused on the terrace, her gaze racing over him, then, somewhat to his surprise, she picked up her skirts, rushed down the steps, and flew across the lawn to him.
She flung herself at him; he caught her, staggered back a step before he got his balance. Arms around him, she hugged him ferociously. “Thank God you’re all right!”
For a frozen moment, he simply stood as the world about him tilted and swung, then he closed his arms more definitely around her, tightened them. Laying his cheek against her hair, he closed his eyes and breathed in, let the subtle fragrance of her slide through him. Let the feel of her in his arms claim him. With all his other missions, he’d never had anyone waiting for him, anyone eager to see him, to anchor him and welcome him back into the normal world—to reassure him that he still belonged.
They stood locked tight, then, releasing him, she pushed back, reached up and framed his face, looked deep into his eyes, then stretched up and kissed him. Hard. Lips to lips, then she parted hers and drew him in; for uncounted heartbeats, they drowned—then she pulled back, and simply looked at him, her gaze devouring his face.
Penny sighed, reassured, relieved and so much more. Stepping back, she looked toward the maze. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Charles nodded. He took her hand and drew her on, back toward the house. “He’s been stopped.”
She glanced at him. “So no one else will die.”
He met her gaze, then nodded. He tightened his hold on her hand, she tightened her hold on his; looking ahead, they walked on.
Amberly was relieved; so were the staff. Dalziel disappeared, but was back in time for dinner; he was talking quietly to Amberly when Penny and Charles joined them in the drawing room.
Later, after a meal that, courtesy of Amberly and Penny, verged on the celebratory, Amberly invited them to view his secret collection. They’d earlier refused so if things had gone wrong, he would be protected by virtue of being the only one who knew how to open the priest hole.
It was similar to the one at Wallingham Hall, just a few feet larger. And filled with snuffboxes the like of which the three of them had never seen. Sitting in a chair while they admired the craftsmanship of the various styles represented, Amberly related how their “game” had started, how he and Penny’s father had worked out the mechanism of the scheme that had run for so long.
“But now he’s gone, and so is Granville.” As they left the priest hole, he nodded toward the contents. “I’ve been thinking, now it’s all over, that those should be put in a museum somewhere, perhaps with the pillboxes.”
He looked inquiringly at Penny.
She nodded. “I don’t think they should remain in the priest holes, either here or at Wallingham.”
Amberly smiled wryly. “I know Nicholas will agree with you—poor boy, this has all been such a worry to him.” He looked at Dalziel. “Do you think it might be possible to create a story to account for them that people would believe?”
Dalziel smiled. “I’m sure, if we put our minds to it, we’ll be able to come up with something. And”—he glanced at the snuffboxes—“I doubt any curator you offer the ‘Selborne collection’ to is going to ask too many questions.”
“Do you think so?”
Charles tugged Penny’s arm.
They left Dalziel and Amberly discussing potential tales with which to allay any public concern.
“Without having to explain the whole unlikely past.” Charles shook his head. “He must have been a formidable adversary on the diplomatic front.”
Penny smiled and led the way down the corridor. They reached her room and went in. On arriving at the Grange, she’d puzzled the housekeeper by insisting she did not wish the maid assigned to her to wait on her at night; as Charles had yet to sleep in the bed in the room he’d been given, she assumed the housekeeper would by now have guessed why.
Undressing in the same room, being physically close, had come very easily to them both. Standing before the dressing table unpinning, then brushing out her long hair, she watched Charles in the mirror, watched him strip off his coat, then unknot and unwind his cravat. Unbuttoning his shirt, unlacing the cuffs, he drew it off over his head; clad only in trousers, he prowled absentmindedly to come up behind her—he looked up, and met her gaze. She felt the tug as he undid her laces.
She held his gaze as he did; her senses still alert, very much alive, she considered all she saw. He was taller than she by half a head—his hair was dark, black as the night, while in the faint candlelight hers held the silver of moonlight.