Free Kasey Michaels - [Redgraves 02] by What a Lady Needs Page B

tapping her small riding crop against her thigh. Too close, he was getting too close. “You know, Simon, just when I think I can begin to like you, you go and say something like that. What makes you think you can presume to peek inside my head?”
    “I’m not sure. Perhaps it’s because we’re more alike, you and I, than you know. We feel...responsible.”
    “And what is that supposed to mean?”
    Simon looked past her, down the hill. “It means you’re not the only one who would like all of this to disappear, have never happened. Can I trust you?”
    Kate could feel her heart pounding against her ribs. For the first time, she knew he was being deadly serious. “I don’t know. Should I trust you?”
    “I won’t presume to answer that for you, Kate. Make up your own mind. I’ll be waiting with Henry and his hound at midnight. Some things are easier said in the dark.”
    “Henry? Who told you about Hen—?”
    But Simon was walking away from her, his right hand already extended to grab the bridle of Valentine’s horse. “Did you get lost along the way?”
    Valentine dismounted, looking somewhat harassed. “Nothing that simple. It seems Adam got himself locked in a linen cupboard.”
    Kate looked at Simon, who was a distinct distraction and puzzle, and then to the doors of the mausoleum, which were both beckoning her and repelling her, and decided, for the moment at least, she’d much rather hear about Adam.
    “How did he get locked in a cupboard?” she asked, joining the men. “More important, whatever possessed you to let him out again?”
    “It wasn’t an easy decision, believe me. Then again, listening to him bleat about there possibly being spiders sharing the dark with him was equally embarrassing as the reason he was in there. When nobody seemed able to locate the key, I suggested a hatchet, but Adam screamed I was trying to kill him, so we gave that up as a bad idea. As to the why of the thing, it would seem our new relative woke early today, feeling amorous, and spied out a maid bending over the fireplace grate. Needless to say, Adam needed no further invitation.”
    “Oh, the poor thing,” Kate said in dismay. “Who is she?”
    “I didn’t ask, but I’m told by Mrs. Justis the girl is fine. I sent her my compliments and gave her the rest of the day off. Now, let me get on with the story, which I’ll relate quickly. The nameless but brilliant maid suggested they postpone their liaison until she quickly did something Mrs. Justis asked her to do. Adam was to await her in the large linen cupboard on the third floor, as Adam’s valet was just in the other room, because, and I quote, ‘I gets noisy sometimes, you know?’ All of which he agreed to, of course, because he’s a bumble-brained idiot. She waited in the shadows until he was inside, then snuck up and locked the door before disposing of the key. She threw it from the nearest window. It took six of us to locate it.”
    By now Kate was nearly bent in half, suffering a case of the giggles. She’d have to find out which of the maids was involved, and then invite her to her bedchamber so she could hear the story again, with many more of the details.
    “Excuse me, Kate, for this indelicate question, but I have to know,” Simon said, “as I’m already building a picture of this in my head. Val, were his breeches on or off?”
    “On,” Valentine responded, his smile lopsided, at last losing the glowering expression he’d arrived wearing. “But buttoned incorrectly. Otherwise I might have been tempted to choke him with them. That boy needs some straightening out, with no thanks to the claptrap his father fed him. I ordered him to present himself to me—properly buttoned—in Gideon’s study in one hour. If you knew what he said to me—” Again, he looked at his sister. “Never mind.”
    “Don’t look at me like that, Val. I don’t need to know everything. Besides, I’m busy building my own unlikely pictures, although I’m