Page 12 of After the Abduction

Yet why did Lord Templemore show so little grief over his brother’s death? He’d mourned his father—a man he clearly disliked—yet he didn’t seem to mourn his brother, whom he’d expended considerable time and effort searching for. Not to mention his uneasiness around her, and his uncle’s enigmatic statements.

Separately, they were just odd stitches, but together they made a badly patched tapestry. And on this one matter she was resolved—she wouldn’t rest until she unearthed the grimy fabric beneath all those patches.

Chapter 3

A clean glove often hides a dirty hand.

English proverb written on a list once mounted on the Templemore schoolroom wall

Only after the sound of footsteps along the corridor faded did Sebastian leave his study. A brief walk, another turn, and a flight of stairs later, he entered his former schoolroom, which now served as his workshop.

Where maps and lists of moralistic proverbs had once hung, pistol stocks and barrels rested on nails. A crude scarred table replaced the schoolboy desks and creaky globe. On one end lay his sketched designs and books. Upon the other were scattered locks, priming pans, copper casings, percussion caps, and bottles of fine-grained saltpeter, charcoal, and sulphur from which he made his own gunpowder.

It was to that end of the table he moved, snatching up a rasp and a stock for a set of dueling pistols he was designing. The rough maple snagged at his leather work gloves as he sat down and began filing away unfinished portions.

Working a stock usually relaxed him, but not today. What in God’s name was he to do about this mess?

The Knightons’ timing was abominable. A pity he hadn’t thought to have someone in the village alert him whenever strangers came to Llanbrooke, so he could avoid them entirely. But after two years, he’d let down his guard.

Devil take the Knightons for bringing Juliet here. Especially now that she’d grown up. At eighteen, she’d moved with the awkward uncertainty of a girl unsure of her attractions. She’d been oddly untouched, probably because responsibilities at home had kept her from moving in society.

At twenty, however…She packed an amazing amount of mature woman into that lethal little body. And what had merely tantalized him then was bedeviling him now.

He was an idiot, as bad as his rakehell father. He should be plotting how to allay her family’s suspicions, not sifting through all her words to glean her memories of their week together. Did she remember the hours playing chess in the cottage in Rye? The easy conversations in the carriage? The kiss they’d shared at the end?

The rasp fell still in his hands as he stared off at nothing. That final kiss—what had he been thinking? In a week of chaste companionship, he’d not even touched her, and he’d succeeded in freeing them both from the smugglers.

Then he’d had to go and do something risky like kiss her.

At the time he’d thought to assuage her anger for when he rode away without her. Instead, his foolish impulse had made him yearn for the budding woman inside the girl. Thank God they’d parted then, or he’d have disgraced the name of Blakely forever.

Unfortunately, all that long-suppressed desire had surged back at the sight of her today. It was perfectly understandable—he’d lived in austerity all his life, striving to erase his father’s excesses and his mother’s absence by a self-imposed adherence to duty and honor. Of course he would find Juliet appealing. Who wouldn’t?

But he couldn’t allow that to color his response to the situation. He had much to conceal. He mustn’t let sentimentality or other annoying urges alter his purpose.

Without warning the schoolroom door swung open, and Uncle Lew entered. With a groan, Sebastian bent over the stock.

“I thought I might find you here,” Uncle Lew stated as he perched atop a stool across the table from Sebastian.

Sebastian continued to work the wood, in no mood to discuss this with his blasted uncle. Not until he figured out how to fix the situation.

His uncle drew out an enameled snuffbox, pinched some snuff, and snorted it as casually as if this were a fashionable London salon. But Sebastian wasn’t fooled by his nonchalant air.

“I thought you had matters under control,” his uncle finally drawled. “You claimed they wouldn’t come looking for you.”

Wincing to hear his own half truths echoed back to him, Sebastian rasped away half the penciled design before realizing it. What else could he have told his uncle? He hadn’t wanted to worry him. Not with so many other matters to worry him when he’d first returned from Sussex. Like how to find Morgan.

“You said even if they came after you,” his uncle went on, “you could handle it.”

“I can.” Sebastian worked the rasp with a vengeance, and sawdust puddled on his knee. “I will.”

“As you handled Crouch? By agreeing to his terms even though it meant kidnapping an innocent?”

“I executed that kidnapping perfectly without hurting her, and then got her out of it unharmed.” His uncle raised an eyebrow, and he growled, “I’d like to see you do better.”

“Oh, I’m not insane enough to take on a band of smugglers single-handedly.” His uncle flicked a particle of snuff off his coat sleeve. “Or arrogant enough to carry a woman into danger with the assumption that I can save her in the end.”

“Deuce take it, Uncle!” He tossed down the rasp. “What do you want from me?”