Stephanie Laurens - The Ideal Bride

“Indeed. And that’s my point.” Lucifer glanced at Michael. “There are those among the rabid collectors who will, in pursuit of a particular piece, ignore all rules and laws. They grow obsessed, and simply must have that piece regardless of what they have to do to get it.”

Michael frowned. “Why not simply buy the piece from Caro?”

Lucifer looked at her. “Would you sell?”

She met his gaze. After a long moment, said, “No. This was Cam-den’s creation—I couldn’t pull bits out of it.”

Lucifer looked at Michael. “That’s why; they’d assume she wouldn’t sell, that she would be as obsessed with the item as they were.”

“Why not break in and steal it?” Michael gestured about them. “The locks may be sound, but a determined thief—”

“Would achieve little in terms of what rabid collectors want. They want the provenance, too, and that they can only legitimately claim via a sale.”

Caro stared at him. “They’re trying to kill me to force a sale?”

“Whoever inherits if you die—would they feel as you do about this place? Or, if they were quietly and honorably approached, would they, after a suitable period had elapsed, feel they might as well sell at least bits of the contents?”

She blinked, then looked at Michael.

He didn’t need to read her eyes. “Geoffrey, Augusta, and Angela would sell. Not immediately, but after a time.”

She nodded. “Yes. They would.”

“When I asked around, I was surprised how many people were aware of this place, of individual pieces in it.” Lucifer once again glanced around. “There’s definitely enough motive here for murder.”

Instead of narrowing, their net seemed to be widening, the reasons to murder Caro piling up rather than diminishing. After joining them in Upper Grosvenor Street for tea, Lucifer went off to further investigate, first the list of those who’d received bequests, and then more widely through his contacts in the antiquarian underworld for any whisper of one he termed a “rabid collector” with designs on any of the more obvious pieces in the Half Moon Street house.

Over dinner, they discussed the situation with Magnus and Evelyn; Magnus humphed, clearly chafing that he couldn’t do more to assist, that in this case his contacts, these days all political, were of no help. It was Evelyn who suggested Magnus and she should call on old Lady Claypoole.

“Her husband was the ambassador to Portugal before Camden— Lord Claypoole is long gone, but Ernestine might recall something useful. She’s in town at present, visiting her sister. No reason we can’t call and see what she has to say.”

They all agreed that was an excellent idea; leaving Magnus and Evelyn making plans, Michael and Caro left for their evening rounds— two small soirees, the first at the Belgian embassy, the other at Lady Castlereagh’s.

Entering the Belgian embassy drawing room, Caro glimpsed a dark head through the shoulders. On Michael’s arm, she leaned close. “Is that Ferdinand by the windows?”

Michael looked. His lips thinned. “Yes.” He glanced at her. “Shall we ask him what he’s doing in town?”

She smiled, with her lips but not her eyes. “Let’s.”

But by the time they wove their way through the crowd, chatting and greeting, and finally gained the windows, Ferdinand had gone. Lifting his head, Michael scanned the room. “He’s no longer here.”

“He caught sight of us and beat a hasty retreat.” In such company, Caro was careful not to frown, but her gaze when she met Michael’s was severe. “What does that say of his conscience, I wonder?”

Michael arched a brow. “Does he have one?”

Eloquently shrugging, Caro turned to greet Lady Winston, the Ja-macian governor’s wife, who came bustling up to talk with them.

She introduced Michael, remained by his side, then and later as they circled the room. That done, they traveled on to Lady Castlereagh’s; again, they worked the room together. Caro wasn’t sure if their unvoiced decision to act as a team owed more to her reaction to Michael’s need—a need she more and more clearly perceived, a need it was all but instinctive for her to fill—or to his desire to keep her close, protected and within reach; his hand lay heavy over hers on his sleeve, communicating that desire without words.

The evening revealed nothing regarding any long-buried secret the Portuguese might be keen to bury even deeper, but she did become aware—more aware—of other things.

Later, when they’d returned to Upper Grosvenor Street, when Michael had joined her in her bed, when they’d shared and indulged, bathing in an ocean of mutual pleasure to finally lay slumped, limbs tangled, sated and relaxed in her bed, with their heartbeats slowing and sleep drifting ever nearer… she let herself think of all she’d seen, all she’d become conscious of, all she now knew.

Of Michael. Of his need for her, not just the physical need they’d so recently slaked, not his professional need, even though she was coming to realize that was far more acute than she’d supposed, but that other need that lingered in the way his arms closed around her, in the way, sometimes, his lips touched her hair. In the way his arm lay heavy over her waist even in sleep. In the way he tensed and came alert, ready to step forward and shield her from danger, physical or otherwise.

The need he revealed through his compulsion to protect her.

He’d said he wanted to marry her, that the offer remained so that all she had to do was agree and it would happen. She hadn’t believed anything could make her change her mind, make her rethink her aversion to matrimony, especially to another politician, yet his elusive need had. It possessed a power against which even her hardened heart—the heart she’d deliberately hardened—wasn’t immune. While she was no longer so young, so innocent and naive as to take anything at face value, by the same token the years had taught her the wisdom of not unthinkingly rejecting fate’s gifts.

Such gifts weren’t offered frequently. When they were…

Was she prepared to again face the risk of loving a politician? A man to whom charm was intrinsic, to whom the facility for glib persuasiveness was a necessary skill?

Yet it wasn’t Michael’s words that were persuading her. It was his actions, his reactions. And the emotions that drove them.

Sleep slunk into her mind and weighed heavily, pressing her down, wiping out her thoughts. Beckoning her dreams.

The last whisper of consciousness of which she was aware was the sensation of Michael’s body, hot, naked, heavy with the languor of satiation, wrapped protectively about hers, a tacit statement—he wasn’t Camden.

Sunk beside her in the bed, Michael felt sleep take her; for himself, he tried to hold it at bay—to wrestle with his problem, to try to see further, to identify what her heart most desired, what were her most secret dreams.

A home, a family, a husband, the position of a political and diplomatic hostess, a Minister’s wife—a stage on which her highly polished skills would be most highly regarded and appreciated… all that he could give her, but what was the key—what was the one thing that would persuade her to marry him?

Sleep wouldn’t be denied; ruthlessly, it caught him and dragged him down, and left him still searching for his answer.

Over the next days, Caro devoted herself assiduously to Camden’s diaries. Other than attending the most select soirees with Michael every evening, she remained indoors, in the parlor, and read.

If the clue to what was behind the threat to her lay in Camden’s papers, then it clearly behooved her to apply herself to discovering it.