chapter Six
Good Lord, what had she done? Miranda cursed herself for such high-handed stupidity as Archer abruptly announced that dinner was over and led her from the room. She had goaded the man into looking at her as a woman. And on her wedding night, of all times. What had she been thinking?
She knew what was to happen on a wedding night; only the enjoyment of sparring with Archer had made her forget all that. Until now. The urge to run the other way was strong. She dared a glance at him, catching a glimpse of one large shoulder, the wide expanse of his chest. She had flirted with him, she realized with chagrin. More than flirted, thrown down the gauntlet, really. Why had she done that? Attraction. Her steps bobbled before she brought herself under control.
Daisy had warned her once that attraction of a physical nature had no rhyme or reason. One might be inexplicably swept off one’s feet by a short, bald man of twenty stone and not be able to ignore it. Such things called to the animal inside a person, not the mind. Miranda had laughed and asked Daisy with whom she was keeping company.
Damnation, she wasn’t laughing now. True, his frame was attractive, and he was good company, but there was the mask to consider. What was he beneath it? Did it matter?
No, it did not, because they were now before her door, and she had no recourse but to face her fate.
Archer blinked down at her for a moment as though just as unsure.
“I forgot to ask,” he said, breaking the heavy silence. “Are your rooms to your liking?”
The tightness in her shoulders relaxed a fraction. “They are utterly lovely.” Her large set of rooms included a sitting area by the fire, enormous dressing room, and modern bathing room. Elegant, palatial, yet cozy, they were something out of a dream. “Thank you, Archer.”
He nodded slowly. “And the color?”
She smiled, thinking of the golden damask-papered walls, furniture dressed in ivory silk, with ivory cashmere drapes to keep out the cold. “Ivory and gold.” She glanced up at him, finding his gaze inscrutable. “I’ve always longed for a room decorated as such. How did you know?”
“Luck, perhaps.” His voice lowered. “Or perhaps I had a vision of you sleeping in a bed of cream and gold…” Archer’s gaze traveled over her like a caress. “I would love to see you thus.”
Her mouth went dry, and he took a step closer. Miranda gripped the door handle tight enough to feel the skin stretch over her knuckles. His hand closed over hers, heavy and warm, even through the thickness of his glove. With an unwavering gaze, he slowly turned the handle, and the door’s lock snicked open.
Archer bent closer, and her knees bobbled. For a moment they simply stood still, the air between them a palpable thing, buzzing and heated. She stared at the folds of his black cravat, the sound of her life’s blood roaring in her ears. His body did not touch hers but she felt the hardened length of it as though the nerve endings along her skin were directly attached to his by little hooks that tugged with sweet pain.
His broad chest lifted in exhalation, and her breath caught it in return. Lord, he was big, and strong, and delicious smelling. It was an ineffable clean scent, yet it consumed her, making her mouth water and her head spin. She took another ragged breath, and a burst of heat flared over her skin and settled between her legs. Her fingers tightened on the handle. Common sense was crumbling like old ruins. Good lord, she was going mad.
A pained sound left him as he came a hair closer. Her inner thighs clenched. Only inches away, he stopped, his body visibly stiffening. Her eyes squeezed shut, and she swayed. Waited.
His deep voice rumbled against her ear. “Good night, Miranda Fair.”
Her eyes flew open. He was already halfway to his own door.
Red-hot flames twisted and turned within the grate, undulating and sinuous upon the ashen logs, tiny dancers beckoning him closer. Archer sat before the hearth. Breathe, he ordered of himself once more. In. Out. Just breathe. Do not think of her.
Slowly, by agonizing degrees, his heart rate returned to normal. She had flirted with him. Hadn’t she? He swiped at his perspiring brow. He was too dizzy with want to think clearly. Too tempted to open that forbidden door, go in and claim her as was his husbandly right. Oh, God.
He looked away from their connecting door. The action brought his attention to the silver salver lying upon the table by his shaking hand. Gilroy had left him the day’s correspondence. Resting like an offering upon the various reports and letters was a small paper box wrapped up with a silver bow. The innocuous little box caused his heart to stop and then promptly start up with palpable thuds. Evil had touched that package.
The chair creaked beneath him as he inched forward. The package weighed next to nothing, but that slight weight, the unbalanced feel of it in his hand, chilled his blood. The rotten-sweet stench of death drifted from its edges as he slowly pulled the ribbon free. A thick cream-colored vellum envelope. And something below it. He could feel it, rolling about along the bottom of the box. He lifted the card, his fingers trembling as he did, and he spied what lay beneath. Glossy, despite its yellowed surface, oblong and laced in red, the thing might have been mistaken for a rotting hard-boiled egg—if one overlooked the gore of veins trailing from one end of it. Archer swallowed hard, his fingers turning to ice even as hot fury pounded within his temples. Having sat through more than one autopsy examination, he well knew what the hideous gift was. An eye. A human eye.
The vellum envelope tore under his numb fingers, dread and fury growing in equal measure as he read the note set out in block letters cut and pasted from various newsprint as if part of a child’s nursery project: You should not have done it.
Only then did he spy the small news article that had fallen from the card onto his lap. Damp with congealing blood and nearly illegible beneath the gore was the announcement of the marriage of Lord Benjamin Aldo Fitzwilliam Wallace Archer, Fifth Baron Archer of Umberslade, to Miss Miranda Rose Ellis.
Pure white light colored his world, biting cold and blinding with its brilliance, like the heart of a blizzard. It pulsed through his hard limbs, strong and true, surging with such force and power that he felt the truth of what he would soon become. For one hateful moment, he welcomed it. The sharp-edged card crumpled in his fist as he stood. He threw it all into the fire. Watched it burn. Heaven help the son of a bitch who’d sent it.
Even as the thought filtered through his brain, damp fingers of dread crawled along his spine to clutch his heart. He sank back into his seat. Who had sent it? And whose eye was it?
An eye for an eye. The phrase hit his mind like the clang of a buoy. It had been a favorite saying of Rossberry’s. Archer fingered his jaw in contemplation as he gazed at the roaring fire. Rossberry. A man who had been driven to the brink of madness by fire’s cruel kiss. Archer swallowed hard, the heat from the hearth strong enough to warm his outstretched legs. But Rossberry was locked away, had been for years. They had seen to that. A light snort left his lips; they had sent Archer away as well, yet here he was.
He nearly jumped out of his skin when a light rap came from the door. He raked a hand through his hair. “Yes?”
Gilroy opened the door only as far as necessary. “Pardon the intrusion, my lord, but there is a gentleman here to see you.”
“Hang it, Gilroy, it is the middle of the night. Why the devil haven’t you sent him packing?” Even as he spoke, it occurred to Archer that Gilroy was too proficient a servant to let just anyone in at an ungodly hour. “Who is it, Gilroy?” he asked with growing dread.
The man held himself correctly erect. “Inspector Winston Lane with the Criminal Investigation Department.”