Chapter Thirty-Five
Sophie watched the dark shadows of the room deepen as the night crept toward its zenith. She’d been lying in bed beside Devlin now for about half an hour, and she could feel his deep, even breathing beside her. Finally, she decided he was asleep.
Now was the time to sneak down to Lord Crowley’s study and hopefully find the diary he kept. Doing something would also help her to stop dwelling on thoughts of Devlin and his future faithfulness and instead focus them onto a more productive endeavor.
Carefully, she slipped from under the protective embrace of his arm and rolled onto her side. She listened for a moment. His breathing remained constant.
Slowly, she crept out of the bed and gingerly felt around for her chemise and pantaloons, abandoned earlier on the floor. She let out a triumphant hiss of breath when her hand closed around the pile of cotton clothes. Taking great pains to remain as silent as possible, she carefully slid the chemise over her head and pulled up the pantaloons over her legs. She tied up the strings at the back of both items and then tiptoed across the rug toward her trunk.
Thwack! Her toe connected with the edge of the trunk in the pitch blackness. She stifled a curse and bent down to clutch at it.
“You would be able to see a great deal better if you turned on the lamp,” Devlin’s deep voice resonated through the room. “Much more sensible than wandering about in the dark.”
“Darn!” Startled, she spun toward the bed. “I thought you were asleep,” she accused him.
She could just make out his silhouette as he got out of the bed and walked over to the side table. He lit the gas lamp, and Sophie gulped as it fully illuminated his naked figure.
She had not appreciated how magnificently large and masculine his body was when he had been lying next to her. Seeing him stand there so tall and broad made her knees feel slightly weak.
Good gracious, she had to get a hold of herself. “Perhaps you should put some clothes on?” she suggested, mentally cringing at the slight hint of desperation in her voice.
He raised a brow, that rakish smile spreading across his beautiful features. “Are you going to tell me why you are up and out of bed at this hour?”
Sophie did her best to convey affronted defiance instead of guilt through her expression. “Am I not able to get up and stretch my legs?”
He paused for the longest moment, the wheels in his head obviously turning. “Sophie, what are you up to?”
With a defeated sigh, she sat down onto the chair next to her trunk. “You must be a supremely light sleeper.”
“I am.”
“Just my luck.”
“And what is it you are up to, then?”
The man was determined to get an answer from her and would not be satisfied with anything but the truth. Well, she had berated him for not being completely honest with her before, so she supposed it was only fair she be as open with him as she’d asked him to be with her. “I was going to go down to Lord Crowley’s study.”
He swore. “What a daft— Whatever for?”
It was not daft. Her plan had been quite brilliant actually, even if she hadn’t planned out the logistics of it particularly well. “Crowley keeps a diary in there that has written inside it a list detailing all of the names of his weekend house party guests,” she explained patiently. “Abby said he updated it today. Supposedly, next to their names, he keeps a note of any illicit associations they have had over the weekend along with any other titbits of interest.”
Puzzlement and exasperation gave way to interest. He moved to a chair across from hers and sat down. Still disconcertingly naked, but at least he no longer seemed upset. “A blackmail journal,” he judged.
“Do you really think so?” It did make sense. She’d been so focused on her goal of getting to the journal that she hadn’t stopped to ponder its purpose.
He rubbed the stubble on his chin, which had managed to grow out in the few hours in which they’d been abed. It gave him a rather dashing, piratical look. “What other purpose would Crowley keep such notes for?”
“That is a very good point.” She inclined her head. “I had hoped it contained a list of who was here when Jane disappeared.” Then, at least, she would have some tangible information to proceed on. As it was, it felt she was floundering around in the dark.
“And you have gotten the hare-brained notion to go down to his study in the middle of the night and search for this diary, have you?”
“Well, I do not necessarily think it to be hare-brained,” she grumbled.
“No, of course you would not.” He rose and walked over to the bed to pick up his discarded clothes.
She threw a palm into the air, as if to bat away his criticism. “Think, Devlin. If I were to be caught alone, it would be much easier for me to talk my way out of the situation than it would be if both of us were caught in Lord Crowley’s study together.”
He turned, his starched white shirt still in his arms. She wished he would put the thing on already. The man was such a distraction.
“You really think you could play the ingénue and keep from raising the Crowleys’ suspicions?”
She slanted an exasperated look at him, then sat back. Giving him as flirtatious and empty-headed of a smile as she could, she widened her eyes and fluttered her lashes at him.
“I see your point.” Finally, the man eased into his shirt. Now perhaps she’d have her wits more about her. “Have you even thought of how you will get into the room if the door is locked?”
She bit her lip and considered his point. “Well, no… Truthfully, I’d just hoped it would be unlocked, but if not, I am sure I would have found some solution.” His lock-picking skills would come in handy at that.
Devlin sighed. “Come along then. Are you getting dressed?”
“You are coming with me?” she asked as she stood and opened her trunk.
“Someone has got to look after you.”
“I can look after myself,” she protested as she pulled out a very serviceable brown gown. “I have done so for many years.”
Saying nothing, he merely crossed the short distance between them and took her by the shoulders. He placed a hard kiss onto her mouth, effectively silencing her. “You are mine now to look after and protect, end of discussion.”
Sophie’s breath hitched in her throat at his intensity. Something was definitely wrong with her, because she found his highhanded declaration to be one of the most romantic things he had ever said to her. Perhaps she was going daft.
He bent to pick up the rest of his clothes and started quickly changing into them while Sophie pulled her gown down over her head. She reached around and pulled the two ribbons in the back of the gown to the front of her waist, tying them in place.
“A new way of fastening a gown?” he asked.
She wrinkled her nose. “When one does not have a maid to assist, one does whatever is practical to tie a dress up.”
He chuckled. “Shall I assist?”
“No, it will hold up very well. Many mornings when I was in a hurry to get to Grey Street, this method did just fine.” She certainly didn’t want to be distracted by his fingers caressing her skin. She bent down and picked up her soft leather boots. “Where in his study do you think he keeps the journal?”
Devlin strode over to the interconnecting door and walked into his room. He returned a moment later with his shoes in his hand, and he bent to put them on.
“I daresay he has a safe,” he finally replied to her question.
“A safe?” She thought for a moment. “I suppose that does make sense, but how ever will we get into it?”
“My skills with a lock pick should suffice.”
A door was one thing, but… “Are you certain you would be able to pick the lock on a safe?”
“Let’s just say that Nicholas’ father was a great believer in his crew being sufficiently skilled in a multitude of areas of expertise. John taught me a lot about locks and how to open them. It has proven to be a useful skill over the years.”
“Excellent,” she said. “I do suppose it is lucky you woke up when you did then.”
“It is, is it not?” he returned, an edge of sarcasm in his tone. “Imagine confronting not only a locked room but a locked safe. Whatever would you have done then?”
She jutted her chin out. “Simple. I would have come back upstairs and dragged you out of bed to help. You waking up now simply circumvents that entire process.”
“Is that so?”
Sophie finished lacing up her boots and stood. “Yes, it is. Now perhaps if you have had enough of deriding me, we can be on our way?” She grabbed her shawl and draped it across her shoulders.
Devlin grinned. “I would never mock you. I am merely pointing out the flaws in your grand plan this evening.”
“How thoughtful of you,” she said blandly as she strolled up to the bedroom door and turned the lock. She opened the door and carefully peeked her head into the corridor, looking in both directions—not a soul about. She motioned to Devlin. “The coast is clear.”
“My darling, you missed your vocation as a spy.”
“Stop poking fun at me,” she whispered as she left the bedroom and proceeded down the hall, Devlin following closely behind.
Looking around the darkened hallway, she noticed to her surprise that a few wall lamps had been left alight. “Why are some lights still on?”
A corner of Devlin’s mouth quirked upward. “I assume it would be to ensure that everyone chooses the correct room to go into.”
She frowned as she continued to hurry down the long corridor. “Surely people know which room they have been allocated?” she whispered over her shoulder to him.
“I do not think it is their own room, nor that of their spouses, that the confusion arises over.”
“What do you—oh!” she exclaimed as comprehension dawned.
“My darling, there is a reason why people accept the invitation here and why others do not. The ones that accept generally do so for a reason.”
She couldn’t help but grimace as she came to the top of the staircase. “Well, I think it is terrible. And to think this is not your first time here, either.”
“My one and only other visit was some five years ago,” he said.
She didn’t like to think of what had occurred in that one visit, well before she’d ever met the man. She’d gotten an eyeful of what he was capable of with a woman at his ball a year ago, and now she’d experienced it firsthand. The thought of him doing that with another—it didn’t bear thinking about.
They both continued on in silence until they reached the door to Lord Crowley’s study.
Placing her hand on the knob, she twisted it gingerly. The door did not budge. “It is locked.”
“Who would have thought?”
The sound of her toe tapping against the wooden flooring echoed in the silent corridor. “Well, go on then, open it.”
“At your service, my lady,” he commented dryly as he pulled out two long metallic pins from his pocket.
“Do hurry up.” She made a shooing motion with her hands. “Someone could come upon us at any minute.”
“Now who is being bossy?” He bent over the lock and inserted the pins into it. It took him about twenty seconds before the lock yielded to his touch and sprang open. With a grin, he opened the door and stepped over the threshold into the room.
Quickly, she followed him in and closed the door behind her. The room was plunged into darkness.
Devlin struck a match and walked over to the gas light on the wall. Deftly, he lifted the glass cover and twisted open the vent, raising the match to the lip of the light. The flame began to burn, and he replaced the glass.
She beamed at him. “What excellent forethought to bring a match.”
He bit back a smile. “Lucky one of us thought about what might be needed on this little escapade, no?”
“Yes, well, spy craft and sneaking about aren’t my normal pursuits. Unlike some.” Her brow wrinkled. “Though I shall concede perhaps I did not think it through particularly well, but we are here now. Let us find this journal.”
They began searching around the room for hidden spots that might hold a safe.
Sophie began opening the drawers to Crowley’s desk, foraging around inside them for anything that resembled a journal. There were plenty of loose bits of paper and a few knick-knacks, but no journal.
It was odd that none of the drawers were locked; perhaps there was some hidden panel somewhere in the desk? She began to slowly run her fingers along the edges of the desk. Her finger bumped up against what felt like a small button. Gently, she pressed it and heard a very distinct clicking noise from behind her. Perhaps she did have a knack for spying.
“What was that?” Devlin asked.
She twisted around and saw that a panel in the floor had popped open. She walked over to the small square cavity. “I think I may have found where he keeps his safe hidden.”
He came over to her and crouched down. The square wooden panel of flooring was hinged to the floor and when shut would cleverly blend into the parquetry, with none the wiser that a small crevice had been dug out and a safe carefully hidden in its belly.
“It is an old Barclay safe, most likely about twenty to thirty years old.” His fingers traced over the lock, a soft caress across the brass. “Well done.”
Unbidden, an image of his very fingers caressing her only a short while ago flittered across her mind’s eye. She tugged at her shawl, feeling suddenly hot and bothered, and not just because she had warmed from his praise.
“Interesting. See these scratch marks around the lock edges,” he continued, his sole attention focused on the lock.
Sophie leaned over to peer at where he was indicating. There were several rough scuff marks along the edges of the key hole, though without Devlin pointing them out to her, she would barely have noticed. “Yes. What of them?”
He glanced up at her. “Means someone has tried to get into the safe without a key and did a sloppy job of it in the process. Looks rather recent, too, as the nicks have no dirt or grease in them.”
“Did they get in?”
“Don’t know,” he replied, pulling out the long metal wires from his pocket once again.
“Will you truly be able to open it?” Sophie whispered in his ear.
“Just watch and learn, my darling, watch and learn.” His voice was filled with confidence.
She hunkered down next to him and did just that.
He inserted his pins into the lock and began deftly manipulating them, raking them up and down. “That’s it, my love, open up for me,” he coaxed the safe.
Wonderful, now he was calling a safe his love, too? Obviously, when he had referred to her in such a manner earlier, it had truly been an empty endearment, meaning nothing to him. A sense of disappointment sagged through her at the thought.
His words seemed to work as a distinctive click emitted from the safe’s depths. All in all, it had taken him thirty seconds.
She stared at him in reluctant amazement. The man was gifted with opening locks. A shame he couldn’t unlock his own heart. “You are going to have to teach me how to do that.”
He twisted the handle and opened the safe. “We shall see.”
They both looked down at the safe. She gasped, and he reared back in shock.
There, lying at the bottom, was not a journal but a pristine white handkerchief with the Huntington crest embossed on it.
Devlin reached in and retrieved the piece of cloth. He unfurled it, revealing small reddish-brown spots along the edges of the material.
Sophie leaned her head in closer to the fabric, peering at the spots. “Is that dried blood?”
He grimaced. “It certainly looks like it.”
“What could this mean?” Blood. The Huntington crest. She had a good idea…
“Either Crowley is playing a very dangerous game, or someone was successful in picking the lock earlier.”
“And they took the journal, leaving a handkerchief with your family crest on it in its place…” Her voice trailed off as dawning comprehension came to her. “Someone trying to further implicate you.”
“Possibly,” Devlin agreed. “You did say that Crowley was spotted in here writing in the journal only this afternoon, then left without it, did you not?”
“Yes, that’s what Abigail said.” Sophie looked at him sharply. “You think the murderer is here this weekend, don’t you?”
Devlin paused for what seemed an age before he finally nodded in the affirmative. “Yes, Sophie, I think it very likely that he is somewhere in this house right at this moment. And I think it safe to surmise that whomever it is has a great grievance against me.”