Page 14 of Nature of the Crime
Hugh winked at him. “Mind your own business.”
He shut the door on Sir rolling his eyes. It wasn’t late enough to be sure everyone was asleep, but the upstairs landing was clear as he made his way to her room. Audrey must have been waiting for him. After a single soft knock, she ushered him inside. She shut the door and stepped several paces away.
They had shared glances over supper, but no conversation. What they needed to discuss first, before anything else, could only be said in private.
“Am I to understand that our correspondence was intercepted?” she asked, sounding breathless. She was nervous, he realized. Uncertain of him and of what had transpired.
“That is the only justification that I can think of,” he answered.
Who had intercepted their letters and why was, of course, of great consequence. But right then, something else was of even greater importance.
“Audrey.” He went toward her. “I am sorry for my anger earlier. I thought…I believed that you had…”
He faltered, unable to speak the words. They were outright absurd now that he was about to say them. How could he have ever considered it?
Audrey, her eyes shining with tears, surged forward. He met her in one long stride and took her into his arms.
Earlier, when arriving at the inn, the sight of her had tempted his base desire to scoop her up and kiss her senseless. He’d barely held the reins of control then, stopped only by the puzzle of her silence over the last several months. Now, alone in her room, he let go of the reins completely.
He’d missed her delicate camellia scent, the soft velvet of her skin, and the firm nudge of her mouth as she met his feverish kisses. Hugh held her close, wrapping his arms possessively around her waist. Even as he reveled in finally having her back, of knowing that she had not rejected him as he’d feared, a pang of frustration refused to abate.
“I knew there would be trouble,” he whispered as their lips parted.
“Oh, hush.” With her hands gripping the back of his neck, her nails raking into his hair, she pulled him back to her mouth.Hugh didn’t resist. And when she plucked at his shirt near the waist of his trousers, he understood what she wanted.
He lifted his head and met her dusky blue eyes. “You’re sure?”
She rose to the tips of her toes and pecked his lips softly. “Yes.”
“We need to discuss the letters. Who intercepted them.”
“Later.”
He would not argue with that. After several frenzied moments, her bare skin pressed against his, their mouths fused. Countless times over the last several months, he’d tapped into the memories of their night together at Fournier Downs, but they were pale, anemic recollections compared to the vivid and lush reality of her. The desire he’d held in check for so long erupted, and he lost himself, reveling in the woman he’d come to love and cherish…andneed. God, the need coiled through him like an inferno. His thirst for her was all consuming, and as he sipped at Audrey’s lips, swallowing her soft moans, he was barely cognizant of the thin walls between the inn’s guest rooms.
Afterward, he held her to him, their breaths ragged, and their exultant fervor spent. Hugh tugged back the counterpane on the bed and maneuvered them both underneath, tucking Audrey against him, to ward off the cold of the room. Minutes passed, their hands moving languidly beneath the counterpane. Audrey dropped kisses against his chest.
“I feared you had found someone else,” she whispered after a little while.
The confession pierced his heart. As if he could ever find another woman to love as intensely as he did her. He clutched Audrey closer and shifted to look into her eyes. “Never. Though I worried the same about you.”
“It feels so obvious now.” Audrey craned her neck, her blue eyes darker in the dim lamplight. She inspected him, thin brows pressed together. “Why would someone have done this?”
He raised his arm and crooked it behind his head. “I don’t know. But whoever it was, they were able to divert our correspondence throughout your travels.”
“Which means they were traveling with me.” She looked alarmed and rightfully so. Fury twisted through him.
“Travers?” he suggested. “Or perhaps Cassie’s maid?”
He trusted Carrigan and Greer without question.
“No, I don’t believe it. What reason would either of them have for such deception?”
“If they wished to sow doubt between us, or keep us apart,” he suggested, but didn’t believe it any more than Audrey did. Both servants worked for Fournier and would only have done his bidding. The duke had not verbally opposed Hugh’s intentions toward Audrey. He hadn’t verbally assented to them either, but Hugh didn’t expect any sort of dispute from him when the time came.
And itwouldcome.
He lowered the arm propped behind his head and touched her cheek. “I have missed you.”
