She brightened. “Elaine mentioned you were with the Foreign Office. Have you been there long?”
He stilled. “Ten years.” His tone was hollow, his expression grim and grave, his gaze fastened on some point beyond her.
She stared, then recollected herself and gave her attention to her toast.
Nicholas said no more; after a moment, he resumed eating.
Charles said nothing at all, but when he sat back and reached for his coffee cup, he caught her eye.
Interpreting that look with ease, she kept her tongue between her teeth. They finished the meal in silence. Rising together, they parted in the hall. She announced she would speak with Figgs about the menus. Nicholas inclined his head and declared his intention of returning to the library.
Charles halted beside her, waited until they heard the library door shut. “I’m going to the folly—come up when you’re finished with Figgs.” He caught her gaze. “Whatever you do, don’t say anything more to Nicholas. I’ll explain later.”
He raised her hand to his lips, kissed it, and, with an arrogant nod, left her.
She let out an exasperated breath. Obviously, she’d missed something. What had he done?
The fastest way to find out was to finish her household duties; turning on her heel, she marched off to find Figgs.
An hour and a half later, she toiled up the grassed slope of the long sweep of man-made bank on which the folly stood.
She knew why Charles had chosen to lurk there; she’d often wondered what had prompted her great-great-grandfather to create the bank and the folly itself, screened by trees from the house—any part of the house—yet commanding unrestricted views over both the front drive and forecourt as well as the stable yard and the area between it and the house.
If one wanted to keep an unobtrusive watch on all arrivals and departures, the folly was the place from which to do it.
In true folly style, it was fanciful in appearance, designed to look like a carousel. The rear was actually set into the escarpment behind it, but viewed from the front it was all graceful, ornate arches and delicately worked pillars, the roof rising to a point like a conical hat with a gilded ball atop it. In white-painted wood on a stone foundation, the structure exuded a fairy-tale lightness but was in fact quite solid, with a scrollwork balustrade filling in the arches, forming a deep semicircular porch, open but protected from the elements. Beyond the porch was a room created by glass panes set between the slender columns that, had it been a carousel, would have supported seats for riders.
The inner room, big enough to accommodate a chaise and two chairs with a low table between, was well lit, courtesy of a ring of windows set into the folly roof.
F
rom their earliest years, she and Charles had taken refuge in the folly often. Memories circled as she climbed the wide steps and stepped onto the tiled floor.
As she’d expected, he was sitting in his usual masculine sprawl on one of the wicker chaises on the porch. It was where people most often sat; the inner room was used only in inclement weather.
The day was fine, the faint breeze off the Channel barely ruffling his black locks as she walked toward him. His gaze flicked to her, but then he returned to his contemplation of the house’s approaches.
He was frowning, brooding. As she sat beside him, grateful that he shifted and gave her more space, she read enough in his face, his pose, to know he was brooding over something to do with his investigation.
Not to do with her.
That, she decided, was a very good thing. Instead of learning from experience and steeling themselves against him, against the effects of his nearness, her witless senses were doing the opposite. Now she’d fallen asleep in his arms and survived—more, had been unexpectedly entertained—her defenses against him seemed to be melting away, fading like ghosts into the woodwork as if convinced she had nothing to fear from him—and even more, everything to gain. To look forward to…
Jerking her wits from that dangerous track, one she remained determined to avoid, she forced her mind to focus. “What upset Nicholas?”
Charles’s gaze remained fixed on the view. “I mentioned, by way of passing on local news, that a young fisherman, apparently a friend of Granville’s, had been found foully murdered.”
“How did Nicholas react?”
“He turned green.”
She frowned. “He was shocked?”
Charles hesitated, then said, “Yes, and no. That’s what’s bothering me. I’d take an oath he didn’t know Gimby was dead. I still don’t think he’d met Gimby—I don’t think he knew his name. But he wasn’t surprised to learn Granville had a fisherman as a close associate. Gimby’s existence didn’t surprise Nicholas, but the news of the lad’s demise and the manner of it shook him badly.” After a moment, he added, “If I had to define the primary emotion the news evoked in Nicholas, I’d say it was fear.”
She stared unseeing at the landscape. “Where does that lead us?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. Nicholas came here asking after Granville’s associate—he at least knew enough to guess there was one. There are two reasons he could have had for searching for Gimby—either to ensure his silence now the war is over, or to use him again to make contact with the French because something new has come up.”