“No, you’re quite right. I don’t.” Nicholas drew in a breath. Opening his eyes, he looked at Charles. “But I don’t know who he is, and I can’t tell you anything. I’m glad enough that you’re here—at least that means Penny’s safe. But…there’s nothing more you—or I—can do.”
Charles’s eyes, fixed on Nicholas’s face, narrowed. “You mean,” he said, in his silkily dangerous voice, “that we’ll just have to wait for him to show his hand.”
Nicholas inclined his head.
She waited to see which way Charles would go, whether he would push, or…
Eventually, he nodded. “Very well, we’ll play the next scene by your script.” He caught Nicholas’s gaze. “But I’ll find out the truth in the end.”
For a long moment, Nicholas held his gaze, then quietly replied, “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
An uneasy truce prevailed for the rest of the day. Charles was concerned, and on more than one front. He left her with Nicholas in the drawing room and spoke with Norris. Nicholas smiled faintly when Charles returned, but said nothing.
By early evening, the entire household was as weary and wan as she’d earlier pretended to be; by unspoken consent, they retired early.
She and Charles found pleasure and, even more, comfort in each other’s arms. The revelation of the previous night—that moment in which it had been shatteringly obvious that what lay between them was definitely not purely physical—was still there, waiting to be acknowledged, examined, and dealt with. She couldn’t deal with it now, not with so much other tension surrounding them. Although the connection remained, a deep and very real link between them, Charles didn’t allude to it, and for that she was grateful. Sated, as much at peace as they could be, they fell asleep.
About them, the old house settled, and slept, too.
Penny woke, and felt the mattress shift. Instantly alert, she lifted her head and saw Charles padding around the bed. He stopped by her dressing stool, picked up his breeches, and proceeded to climb into them.
“Where are you going?”
He glanced at her. “I woke up, and thought I may as well check the doors and windows downstairs.”
She listened, but could hear nothing. He wasn’t hurrying as he pulled on his boots.
“Stay there.” He headed for the door, glanced back. “I’m going to lock the door
—I won’t be long.”
She sat up as he opened the door, started to whisper, “Be careful.”
Crash!
Downstairs, glass shattered, wood splintered.
Charles swore and shot out of the door. Penny bounced from the bed, grabbed up her robe, struggling into it as she raced after him. The ruckus continued. Reaching the stairs, she saw Charles ahead of her, leaping down. She reached the landing as he gained the hall and swung around, heading for the library.
She followed as fast as she could.
Charles slowed as he neared the open library doors. Thuds and grunts came from within. Noiselessly, he glided into the doorway.
Poised to react, every nerve tensed, he swiftly scanned the shadowy room. The curtains had been left open, but there was little illumination from outside; it took an instant to separate the destruction on the floor from the figures wrestling amid the wreckage most of the way down the long room.
Then one man gained the ascendancy, reared above the other, raised his arm, and struck down. Immediately, he raised his arm again—faint light glinted along a blade.
“Hold!” Charles shouted, muscles tensing to race in.
The man looked up, and changed his hold on the knife.
Penny moved behind Charles, peering past his shoulder.
Charles swore, and flung himself back.
The man threw the knife.
Pushing Penny out of the double doorway, Charles flattened her against the hall wall beside the door. Her “Ooof!” coincided with the thud of the knife as it hit the paneling on the opposite side of the hall, then clattered to the tiles.