An Affair with Mr. Kennedy (30 page)

Aroused from a stimulating carriage ride home, her body tingled from his brief caress. “It would seem to be the neighborly thing to do.”

A grand new flower arrangement had been placed on the round pedestal table in the middle of the reception hall. As Zeno opened one communiqué after another, she gravitated toward the stunning new bouquet. Opening the handwritten envelope, she removed a gilt-edged card.

For a glorious weekend. And might I further express my appreciation with a kiss placed just beneath your ear?

  
All my affection,
  Zak

She glanced up from his note at the same time he finished a message. His frown signaled bad news. “There has been another murder or suicide. Not sure which.” Zeno’s expression matched his glum tone of voice.

A chill passed through her. “Not Gerald?”

He read on and shook his head. “George Upton. Found him hanging in the mews stable. Down to bloody two. Lord Delamere is losing his minions.”

“Poor Mr. Upton.” She drew her brows together and wrung her hands. “Poor Gerald.”

Sidling closer, he rubbed her upper arm with the back of his hand. “Best not get too worked up over the news. If scandal or blackmail is involved, Upton may have taken his own life.”

She put her arms around him and held him for a brief moment. “So you must go?”

He tossed the messages back onto the vestibule table. His gaze roamed her face, earnest and possessive. “I go nowhere until I see you safely onto the train to Dover in the morning.”

Twirling a finger around his shirt button, she experienced a rush of desire. Tonight, for some reason, his ferocious defense warmed her insides more than his hands running up and down her back. He kissed her temple. “I insist on a few more hours in your bed.”

“How is it—? That is to say, you always seem to know,” she tilted her head, “whether or not I have gained my satisfaction.”

He brushed his mouth over hers. “I would hope so.”

She begged to differ. Most men, she suspected, didn’t give a fig. She remembered many a night Thom had dropped off to sleep while she lay discontented beside him.

Unthinkable with a man like Zak Kennedy. She pressed her hand against the inside of his pant leg. “Can you make it up the stairs with such an enormous impediment?”

He grabbed her hips and yanked her against him. “I’ve grown used to a kind of irrepressible arousal whenever I am around you, Cassandra. Not only can I make it to your bedchamber but I’ll have every stitch of your clothing along the way.”

By the second-floor landing, he had taken possession of her skirt and petticoats. She helped him unbutton her blouse and untie her corset as he ravaged her against the wall, burying his face in her breasts.

Following her upward climb, Zeno lay a trail of kisses along the curve of her derriere, discarding pantalets as they crested the stair. Stark naked, she arched in his arms as he carried her into the bedchamber.

They both quickly came to an explosive finish. Zeno left a trail of kisses over her shoulder and down her spine. “Give me fifteen minutes.” Tossing back the bedcovers, he pulled on trousers and shirt. “Don’t go anywhere.”

Cassie snorted a laugh into her pillow. “Where would I be going all wobbly legged and naked?”

“Right. No need to dress for supper.” Zeno winked and disappeared downstairs.

According to her bedside clock, he was back upstairs with a dinner tray twenty-five minutes later. “An egg scramble, my signature toasted cheese sandwich, and I scrounged a grand bit of pastry. Two slices of apple tart.”

Cassie balanced the tray on her lap. “You did this all by yourself?”

“Actually, there is a puckish little kitchen nymph who makes his home in the scullery. The little elf really knows his way around a fry pan.”

“I declare you graduated from charm school.” Cassie sliced her sandwich in half. “You can be exceedingly winsome when you wish to be, Zak.”

“I’m afraid Lord Delamere wouldn’t agree.” Zeno settled down onto the bed and opened a bottle of ale. “I paid him a visit this morning. Needlessly provoked him, it seems.”

Cassie propped up a few pillows behind her. “He may just be getting bolder—or more desperate. Delamere must have some notion you are on to him with all those dynamiters jailed and awaiting trial. He’s worried, Zak.”

He handed her a glass of ale. “I warned him off you.” Zeno scratched his head. “Actually, I threatened him with great bodily harm.”

Cassie tilted her head. “What kind of bodily harm?

He looked a bit sheepish. Vulnerable. Like a man reluctant to share his secrets. “The ‘touch her again and I’ll put a bullet through your skull’ kind.”

A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Sweet of you.”

“Cheers.” He tipped his glass to hers. “Don’t go to Paris.”

“I can’t think of a safer place to be at the moment.” She took a sip of beer, and licked the foam off her lips.

He stared at her. An evaluating sort of gaze, one in which she often glimpsed sparks of light—and affection. He broke off a piece of his melted cheese and held it to her mouth. “Eat something. I insist you eat.”

Cassie’s lips closed around the bread as well as his fingers. She used her tongue to lick off crumbs. “The parents are already making plans for yet another weekend in Surrey. You have a standing invitation to join.” Her flirtation caused a grin. “By mid-June it will be warm enough for a bit of skinny-dipping in the pond.”

She sampled a bit of egg from his fork. “Oh, my word, this is wonderful. You whisked in a bit of chopped chive and butter—or did the puckish little kitchen nymph? Anyway, I warned Mother you are rather taken up with work at the moment.”

“I will move heaven and earth to be there.”

Her smile faded. “Perhaps we can travel out to Muirfield together when I return from Paris.”

“Speaking of …” Zeno sat up. “I have arranged for you to be met in Calais by a French field operative. A detective with
La Sûreté Nationale,
the Parisian version of Scotland Yard. His name is Inspector Tautou. A small, wiry sort of fellow, as I recall, with a large brown moustache. No other facial hair.”

She managed a lopsided smirk. “Might there be a secret password or code name, Detective Kennedy?”

He finished off a swallow of stout direct from the bottle. “I shall invent one if you wish.”

“Make it eggs and toasted cheese.” Cassie grinned.

“Make what?”

She blinked. “Inspector Tautou’s password.”

“Ah.” Zeno picked up a sliver of tart from the dessert plate and devoured it down to the crumb. He studied her for a long moment.

“What?” Her smile was curious.

“You have the reckless soul of an adventurer, Cassie.”

“Is that the attraction, Zak?” She plumped up a pillow behind her. “I spent lunch hour with Mother at the bathhouse. We chatted over a massage. Would you care to know the subject?”

He stared, mouth slightly open. “I’m almost afraid to ask.”

“Contraception.” She rolled bright eyes. “French letters—to be precise—very amusing.”

“Do you tell your mother everything?”

“She asked. Pointedly. I can’t very well lie to her. What was I to do, play coy? You know her too well. Besides, I believe she is happy for me. I told her you were a brilliant lover.”

He coughed up a few breadcrumbs. Cassie held back a chuckle in deference to his obvious need for oxygen. “Mother apologized for the poor quality of the condoms this past weekend. There are new ones, she says, made of a finer quality vulcanized rubber.” She sipped the last of her ale. “I did express my opinion that the tricky process seemed to interfere with the spontaneity of the moment.”

He swallowed without further obstruction to his windpipe. “Don’t tell me, she handed out samples.”

Cassie winked. “French. Manufactured with little ridges along the length. I believe the ridges are for my pleasure, whilst you receive increased sensitivity.” In a deliberately provocative manner, she leaned forward and spoke in a husky voice. “I was given suggestions on how to unroll them, which you might find enjoyable.”

His mind filled with lurid, erotic pictures of her doing … wonderful things. Propped on an elbow, he pulled the covers over her leg, exposing a beautiful curve of hip. “Such as?”

“I HAVE ALL your contact addresses and instructions in my reticule.” Cassie stood entirely too close to Zeno on the public platform at Victoria Station.

A police officer in plain dress and Cassie’s maid, Cécile, had boarded the train and waited in the railcar compartment.

“Officer Farnsworth will see you safely aboard the Dover ferry.” Zeno tilted her chin to make eye contact. “You will wire me every twenty-four hours. No exceptions. If I do not hear from you, I will have Melville himself contact the
Sûreté.
They will scour all of Paris to find you even as I cross the channel.”

She put up her bravest front, which included a close-lipped smile as she straightened his cravat and patted the lapels of his frock coat. “You have my itinerary?”

Zeno tapped the left side of his chest. “Tucked away in my pocket.”

She stood on tiptoes and delivered a brief kiss, which deepened into a long embrace. “I will shout to the conductor to delay my departure for another kiss.”

“Damn the railroad schedule. I must insist on another.” He kissed her again and held her tight, nuzzling her ear.

“Oh yes, Zak. Yes, yes.” Her gaze lingered on the lovely upturned edges of a vulnerable grin. His eyes were the most unsettling clear blue this morning. She could read the strain in them, as he struggled to find words.

“Be watchful. Trust no one but yourself—your own instincts. If something doesn’t feel right, it isn’t.”

“Likewise, Detective Kennedy.”

Chapter Twenty-five

A
blustery wind whipped through the Devonshire Place Mews. The gust spun the limp body of George Upton ghoulishly from the barn rafter. An engorged tongue, purple in color, hung from the dead man’s mouth.

Zeno exhaled. “Cut him down.”

He spotted Archie Bruce standing near the entrance to the stable and wound his way past a few inspectors still on scene. “I take it there was good reason to leave this man up all night?”

The Yard’s new forensics director used his pipestem to point to the floor under the hanged man. An assortment of clean footprints could be seen in the soft dirt surrounding Upton’s body. “A bit irregular, I admit. But the local police on the scene closed off the shed and called us in straightaway.”

“What luck, they followed procedure.” Zeno pressed his foot into the mix of rich brown earth and wood shavings. A clean imprint.

Arch nodded. “Took us most of the night to scare up a photographer. We also took a number of molds from the surrounding footprints.” He lifted a small cloth evidence bag from his pocket and fished out a broken cigar. The stogie had never been lit, and a wrapper remained on one end.

Zeno examined the tightly wrapped leaves and the break midway down the shaft. “The wrapper is hand stamped. Cuban.
Maduro oscuro
in color. Ring size and the length,
robusto
.” He sniffed the cigar. “Spicy. Woody.”

Familiar.

Archie got out a small pad and took notes. Zeno sniffed again. “I wager no more than a handful of tobacconists in the city import these.”

“Give me another day to two, Zak. There’s a good chance we’ll be able to prove this wasn’t a suicide.”

There was a moment in every case when the criminal could feel the sturdy, deliberate net of law enforcement tighten around him. Likewise the detective, by sheer instinct, knew when he was closing in on his suspect. This was one of those times. Zeno’s pulse accelerated as he hopped onto the Underground train and traveled back to headquarters.

HAND ON HIP, Zeno leaned against a wall of the interrogation room, keeping a steady eye on his onetime mistress and detainee, the recently resurrected Miss Jayne Wells aka Mrs. Brian O’Shea.

She glared across the barren expanse.

He needed at least one of the dynamiters to identify Lord Delamere so he could bring up charges. “Your brother will be released as soon as we get names, Jayne. Powerful names. House of Lords—members of Parliament.”

“You bloody Scot, for Chrissake, you should know better.” Jayne paced a half circle around him. “You’re a traitor to your people and to the Irish.”

Zeno’s jaw clenched. “Melville himself is Irish and sympathetic to Home Rule. Have you ever considered the fact, Mrs. O’Shea, that you and your
Clan na Gael
might be unwitting pawns in a more sinister grab for power?”

She turned and screamed like a banshee. “Why should we care if the Brits don’t? Which has caused more death, Zeno, our bombs or your good queen’s response to the Great Famine?”

A sharp pain shot through him as he sucked in a breath. Lungs expanding against sore ribs, a reminder of the beating. He repeated her words in the safe house as he emerged from unconsciousness. “Now then, lass—can ye not hear me cryin’ for ye?”