There was nothing sinister in any of those details, except the threatening letters. Even when one put them all together, there was nothing convincing, nothing that would not be laughed out of any court in the land.
... when I knew her ladyship was still alive and had been released and brought home all out of her mind like.
The bottom felt as if it had fallen out of Percy’s stomach at the remembered words.
Imogen all out of her mind. Living for a while at her brother’s house unable to sleep, eat, or leave her room. Living for three years at Penderris Hall until she had transformed herself into a marble lady and could cope once again with the outside world from within her rigid shield.
And then, Imogen laughing and curled up in his arms. Sleeping with her head on his shoulder and grumbling incoherently when he awoke her.
... all out of her mind like.
Love, he thought almost viciously, was the damnedest thing, and he had been wise to avoid it all these years. Not the sort of love he felt for his family, but the sort of which the great poets wrote. Euphoria for one minute, if that, and blackest despair for an eternity after.
But how did one unlove?
He loved Imogen Hayes, Viscountess Barclay, so deeply that he almost hated her.
And let his mind work that one out if it dared.
He had to see her.
But first . . .
* * *
Imogen ought to have been reading or crocheting or writing a letter. She ought at the very least to have been sitting upright in her chair like a lady, her back straight as she had been taught to sit when she was a girl. Instead she was slouched down in one of the chairs by the fire, her back in an inelegant arch, her legs stretched out in front of her and crossed at the ankles. Her head was nestled in a cushion. Blossom was curled up on her lap and Imogen had one hand buried in the cat’s fur. She was drifting pleasantly in and out of consciousness. She had not had much sleep last night or the two nights before—her lips curved into a smile at the remembered reason for that—and it had been a long and busy morning. Now it was late afternoon and she intended to relax. She expected, and hoped for, another night of little sleep tonight.
She was just drifting off to sleep when something solid came between her and the heat of the fire and a shadow obstructed its light. At the same time her incoherent dream became fragrant with a familiar smell and she smiled one of her smug smiles. Blossom purred. Imogen made a sound that was very similar.
“Sleeping Beauty,” the fragrant shadow murmured, and then his lips were light and warm and parted on hers and she moved deeper into her dream.
“Mmm.” She smiled at him and lifted her hands to his shoulders.
His legs were on either side of hers, his hands braced on the arms of the chair, his face a few inches from her own. He looked large and looming and gorgeous. He smelled delicious.
“I did not use the key,” he assured her. “I was let in quite respectably by your housekeeper, though she was looking rather like a prune. I had better not be alone in here with you for long. She will be getting ideas.”
Blossom jumped down off her lap, contemptuously close to Hector, and Hector barked once sharply, bared his teeth, growled, and then barked once again. The cat crossed to the other chair in rather ungainly haste.
“Goodness,” Imogen said. “That is the first time I have heard Hector’s voice.”
“I am training him to be fierce,” Percy said, straightening up.
“What you are training him to do,” she said, “is to have some confidence in himself.”
“Come down onto the beach with me,” he said.
Imogen raised her eyebrows as she sat up. “Is that a request, Lord Hardford, or a command?”
“A command,” he said. “Please? I need you.”
She looked closely at him. He was looking grim about the mouth. She got to her feet and went to fetch her cloak and bonnet and put on shoes suitable for walking on the sand.
There were several snowdrops blooming in her garden, and a clump of primroses was beginning to stir into life in one corner. She did not stop either to look at them or to draw attention to them. She led the way out through the gate.
“You are not with any of your guests this afternoon?” she asked, though the answer was perfectly obvious.
“All the over-forties tired themselves out this morning,” he said, “and are variously disposed about the house with sedentary activities. The younger lot have gone off in a body with young Soames and his sisters to have a look at some ruined castle on the other side of the valley. It is said to be picturesque, and I daresay it is.”
“And you chose to drag me down onto the beach rather than go with them?” she said.
He did not answer. And she was interested to note that when they came to the path down to the beach, he turned onto it without hesitation and led the way with bold, almost reckless strides. There was a great deal of unleashed energy inside him, she sensed. Perhaps an angry energy.
She would not pry, she decided. It might explode out of him before he was ready to do something more constructive with it. Perhaps, despite his words and his kiss when he came upon her asleep a short while ago, he was regretting their affair. Perhaps he did not know how to break the news to her that it was over.
Oh, please, please let it not be that. Not yet. Not just yet.
He turned and lifted her down from the rock above the beach without waiting for her to move onto the last short section of the path and descend on her own. He set her down and gazed grimly at her, his hands hard on her waist.