Susanne Dietze - The Reluctant Guardian

“No one will know.” Gemma perched beside her sister-in-law, blotting a compress on her brow as if she tended a feverish child.

This was ludicrous. His superior at the Custom House must be informed. In person. Tavin didn’t dare entrust a message—even a coded one—to a servant. “I must return to London with all haste. If I might—”

“I am faint! Oh!” Cristobel groaned, no closer to fainting than he was, and everyone in the drawing room seemed to know it. Wyling looked out the window, Peter studied his boots and Amy handed Gemma a cup of tea with a resigned air. Gemma alone ministered to Cristobel, murmuring words of comfort as she lifted the cup to Cristobel’s lips. She may have poor taste in suitors, but Gemma proved herself a capable, calm sort of female.

Pity she could not assist his work. Many of his hired men didn’t possess her patience.

Since their return from the forest, she’d washed and changed into a fresh white gown. A gauze scarf about her neck hid any trace of the leech’s bloodletting. “Mr. Knox, I am yet unsatisfied with your explanation.”

Of course she was. “I have told you all I can.”

She set down the teacup and hobbled toward him, favoring her untwisted foot. The scarf didn’t quite cover the kiss of the leech, after all, for the crimson Y-shaped mark was bright against her skin.

“All you’ve told us is that you work for the government and in my red cloak I looked like a certain lady smuggler.”

“Those are both true.”

“But you aren’t telling us everything. I insist to know what this is about, Mr. Knox. You owe me that.”

“Gemma.” Cristobel roused from the sofa. “Mr. Knox will think you a hoyden, speaking so boldly.”

But Gemma was right. Tavin had told her almost nothing, and if he was in her place, he’d be vexed, too. He rubbed his temple.

“Smuggling activity has increased in the area of late, with fatalities, so the government sent an investigator. Mr. Thomason. My friend.” Tavin swallowed past the sudden ache of pain brought by speaking Thomason’s name. “He was tasked with disbanding the ring led by a man who calls himself the Sovereign. But Thomason was killed.”

Not just killed. Left as a message, tied to a tree, a sovereign coin on his tongue. The Sovereign must think himself clever, leaving the coins as a signature.

Gemma’s eyes were soft. “I am sorry for your loss.”

Tavin nodded his thanks. “You can understand why it is so vital to me to stop the Sovereign, but he’s never been identified or thwarted. Until today. By you.”

Gemma flinched. Cristobel moaned.

Peter stood, and said, “When Wyling brought you to me, you said I’d be serving the Crown, allowing you to conduct your business here. You never said it would put my family in danger.”

“The danger existed long before I arrived.” Tavin stepped to the center of the room. “It met your sister on the bounds of your own property.”

“You knew, Peter?” Gemma strode past him, hands fisting. “You all knew? Yet no one thought to tell me. Even you, Amy?”

“We couldn’t, dear.” Amy bit her lip.

Overhead, the patter of small but heavy footsteps drummed like a tambour, rat-a-tatting across the nursery floor. Masters Petey and Eddie had escaped their inept nursery maid yet again. The Lyfeld boys were more of a handful than a sack of cats.

A memory flashed through Tavin’s brain, decades old, of him and his brother, Hamish, causing a ruckus by introducing a toad to their nurse’s pocket—

A ragged gasp tore from Gemma’s throat. Her gaze, fixed on the ceiling where the boys’ footsteps echoed, were wide. “The children. What if they’d been outdoors? They might have been shot. Or taken.”

Gemma cared more for the bairns thunking about above stairs than did their own mother. Tavin’s throat ached. “They were not. They are safe.”

She swiped her eyes. “If those children had been touched—”

“They weren’t. All I expected today was the drop of a clue—”

“Something else was expected, too.” Hugh Beauchamp’s proposal. Her voice was clear and cutting as glass, slicing into a part of his conscience he didn’t know felt pain anymore. “I would say that everything that’s happened to me today is your fault, Mr. Knox.”

* * *

The snapping of logs in the fireplace—a noise that always set Gemma’s nerves to fraying—was the lone sound in the drawing room while everyone’s surprised stares fixed on her.

Oh, dear. She shouldn’t have spoken like that. Mama had taught her better. “Forgive me.”

Mr. Knox’s brow quirked. Was he amused or aggrieved? “It is I who requires forgiveness, yet again, Miss Lyfeld.”

“I cannot blame you for today’s...events.” Her slapped jaw ached. Her ankle throbbed. Noise from Petey and Eddie’s exuberant play pounded against the ceiling, assaulting her temples but providing a means of escape. “Excuse me while I see to those boisterous boys.”

“You cannot go, Gemma.” Cristobel clutched the arms of the settee, her fingers like talons gripping the painted silk.

“I cannot see to the boys?” Was there more she didn’t know?

“You cannot go to London. Smugglers, weapons, the boys. I am in far too delicate a state to do without you now. You must forgo your come-out.”

Gemma’s next breath shook. She should have expected such news, for she’d heard it annually these past six years. The familiar pangs of conflict twisted within her. Every year when Cristobel postponed Gemma’s come-out, Gemma experienced a sense of relief, for she would be able to tend to the boys.

But there was also a feeling of loss. She yearned to experience the world. To leave this house and Cristobel’s domineering thumb.

Perhaps keeping her from London was God’s protection. She might well grow greedy in the capital. Yearn to visit more of the world. She would meet handsome gentlemen and might like one too much. She was promised to Hugh, even though she did not love him. Staying home prevented her from falling into temptation.

The hair on her nape prickled, causing her to look up. Mr. Knox stared at her, his brow still quirked, as if he could read her thoughts.

Ridiculous. He knew nothing of her. She turned away. “Mayhap it is for the—”

“It is not.” Amy stood. “Peter will be Baron Lindsay someday. It is expected that his sisters be presented at Court. Peter?”

“I cannot manage alone,” Cristobel interjected. “Those boys are too much to be borne.”

“We have a nursemaid,” Peter murmured.

“I shall take the children with me.” Gemma should have asked Amy and Wyling first. Her gaze begged them. “Will that ease your burden, Cristobel?”

Mr. Knox watched her, his face etched with—what?—disbelief. No matter. This didn’t concern him a whit.

“We would welcome them.” Amy laced her arm through her husband’s. “Think how the boys would enjoy London.”

Wyling, bless him, nodded. “We’ve plenty of room.”

Stomping and shrieks continued to sound from above. Gemma itched to join them. And tell them to quiet down, of course. After she embraced them.

Cristobel sighed. “For the Season. Then you must return home.”

Joy rose in Gemma’s chest. Amy sent her a triumphant grin. Wyling smiled. Peter stared at the rug. Mr. Knox, however, glowered. “I suggest we leave tomorrow, then.”

“We?”

His arms folded over his strong chest. “I will escort you. As long as you remain in Hampshire, you should not dismiss the danger of crossing paths again with the Sovereign.”

* * *

London filled Tavin’s eyes and ears and nose, familiar in its looming buildings, loud traffic and the sharp smell of the Thames. Home. Yet this didn’t feel like a homecoming.