The Lady By His Side(25)

The warning was an attempt to keep her away from any potential action; while talking to Ennis should, theoretically, be safe enough, Sebastian’s thumbs were pricking. He didn’t like not knowing the source of Ennis’s underlying fear.

But he’d accomplished what he’d come there to do—he’d learned what she’d found out about the other guests and had ensured she would keep her distance that evening.

His gaze had drifted and was once more transfixed on her brush, traveling languidly through the thick fall of her hair. He inwardly shook himself free of the distraction and rose. “I’ll see you in the drawing room.”

She met his gaze, then pointed to the bellpull. “You can ring for Beccy before you leave.”

He hid a grin at her tone; she hadn’t liked him dismissing her maid. So he dutifully tugged the bellpull, then opened the door and slipped out, closing the door quietly behind him.

Antonia paused in her brushing and stared at the closed door for several seconds. Ennis was frightened of someone or something. Frightened people were unpredictable.

Then again, she’d never known Sebastian not to be able to take care of himself.

Turning back to the mirror, she set down her brush and reached up to remove her earrings.



* * *



At two minutes to ten o’clock that evening, Sebastian pushed away from the balustrade at the east end of the terrace that ran along the front of the house and ambled back toward the front door.

Half an hour earlier, after they’d finished with the port and brandy, Ennis had been the first to rise from the dining table. He’d excused himself on the grounds of having some urgent estate matter to deal with and had gone off, presumably to his study.

After a day spent in each other’s company, the guests had grown more relaxed with each other; the other men had drifted from the table in twos and threes. Sebastian had retreated to the front terrace—deserted at that time—to avoid being roped into another billiards game or some conversation; he didn’t want to have to make his excuses at ten o’clock, thereby calling attention to a meeting.

He opened the heavy front door, stepped inside, and let the door quietly close behind him. His shoes made little sound as he walked slowly down the long front hall. He halted just short of the archway giving onto the corridor leading to Ennis’s study; earlier, he’d asked a footman where it was. From the sound of feminine voices and the tinkling of a piano, it seemed the ladies had remained in the music room whither they’d retreated on rising from the table.

The green-baize-covered door at the rear of the hall swung open, and Blanchard appeared, pushing the tea trolley. He saw Sebastian and inclined his head, then turned the trolley toward the music room.

Sebastian stirred and walked forward. He turned into the corridor leading toward the study just as, with a series of whirrs and muted clangs, the clocks in the house geared up for the hour, then bonged and chimed in unison.

As the tenth bong resonated through the house, he reached the intersection where the corridor he was in met another to the left; the intersecting corridor led to Ennis’s study and ultimately to the billiards room. The door to the study lay three paces along the corridor. Somewhat to Sebastian’s surprise, the door stood slightly ajar.

He halted outside the door and rapped on the panel. He heard nothing from inside—no sound at all bar the clink of billiard balls coming from the end of the corridor. Increasingly wary, he pushed the study door further open.

Ennis’s desk, a large, polished mahogany affair, stood at one side of the room, set square and facing across the width, with the chair behind pushed back against a wall of shelves. Sebastian stepped over the threshold and looked around the door, but there was no one sitting in the armchairs angled before the hearth.

A fire crackled cheerily in the grate.

On the opposite side of the room, the lamp on Ennis’s desk was lit, shedding a steady glow over several letters and papers left strewn across the blotter—as if Ennis had been there, but had just stepped out.

Then a gust of cooler air drew Sebastian’s gaze to the long window directly opposite the door. The curtains were pushed aside, and the sash was raised…curious, given it was cold and misty outside.

Sebastian hesitated, yet it was ten o’clock. He reached back, returned the door to its almost-closed position, then strolled toward the desk and put out a hand to draw back one of the pair of chairs angled before it.

The chair behind the desk was pushed hard—jammed—against the shelves. Almost as if…

Swallowing an oath, Sebastian strode around the desk—and looked down at Lord Ennis.

Ennis was lying on his back, one arm outflung, his other hand pressed to a wound on his left side from which blood was steadily pouring.