He tilted his head in Ashton’s direction. “I want that buffoon to realize finally just whose wife you are, and I’m going to make him rue the day he contrived this little gambit. While we’re here aboard the River Witch, you will allow me to touch you as much as I want to.”
“Do I detect a threat in your plan?” she asked with rampant sarcasm.
Malcolm seemed as smug as a pampered cat as he replied, “You have kept me from your bed for some time now, madam, but I am growing impatient. The idea of separate bedrooms is becoming intolerable, and I think the time will soon come when I must reaffirm our married status…just in case you’ve forgotten how it was between us.” His eyes dropped to devour the fullness above her gown. “Thus far I’ve been concerned for your welfare, but you seem fit enough to bear his attentions. So, why not mine? I am your husband.”
Ashton’s jaw tightened as he watched the lustful perusal sweeping the swelling bosom, and as the cabin boy passed with a tray, he reached for a liberally filled glass of brandy. He hated those probing gazes that were wont to linger there upon her breasts. He disliked the mouth that kissed her smooth skin and the hands that pressed her narrow waist. Perhaps he had made a mistake in creating interest among his friends for this occasion. At the moment it appeared that Malcolm was the only one enjoying the event.
Lenore stared up at Malcolm, aghast at what he proposed. “Are you saying that I must allow you to maul me in front of all these people?”
A corner of the large mouth drew up in a subtle sneer. “I don’t care about the others, my dear. My only concern is that fool who persists in calling you Lierin.”
Lenore nodded slowly in displeasure, beginning to understand his ploy. It was not passion for her that prompted him to be amorous as much as hatred and jealousy of the other man. “And if I don’t cooperate, you will force your attentions on me anyway.”
Malcolm shrugged indolently. “While you’ve kept to your chaste bed and denied me my husbandly rights, I’ve had to appease myself with harlots, but I’m getting tired of those bawdy butts twisting beneath me.” He stared intently into the wide emerald eyes. “I crave fresher game to sport with.”
“So either way I’m caught.” She assessed her situation drearily.
“Choose which is worse, madam.”
“I think you already know the answer to that.”
His eyes flared with the insult of her light gibe; then he chuckled sneeringly. “You think he can pleasure you more than I can?” He flung up his head and snorted contemptuously. “You don’t know very much about men if you believe that.”
“I’ve forgotten a lot, that’s true.” Her tone was bland. “But I’m relearning swiftly, and I’m beginning to think that I was in a state of distress when I married you, or else I saw something in you that just wasn’t there.”
There was a stir in the room, and everyone turned as Sheriff Coty came through the doors, holding a struggling Horace Titch by the scruff of the neck. Everyone gaped and gathered around as the lawman halted beside Ashton.
“Here’s one of your thieves, Mr. Wingate. I caught him red-handed, trying to sneak away with the rest of the pirates, but we caught some of ’em…and this one.” He shook Horace as a dog shakes a rat, much to the outrage of that one.
“You fool!” Horace twisted around on the tips of his toes, which were the only part of his body that could reach the floor and allow him some leverage to resist this humiliating seizure by the lawman. “I tell you I was being robbed myself! And they made me go with them!”
“Certainly, Mr. Titch, and you just happened to have these jewels in your pocket.” Sheriff Coty dipped a hand into his own pocket and pulled out a diamond pendant. “We found some of the guests locked in one of the forward cabins, and they had been robbed. They went out for a stroll on the deck, and that is when his men”-he nodded toward Horace-“caught them unawares and took what they had. It would have been only a matter of time before they came in here.”
“But I was out on the deck,” Lenore commented, clutching a hand to her throat.
“Then you were lucky, ma’am,” Sheriff Coty observed politely. “Someone musta been watchin’ over you.”
“And I was out there,” Marelda stated, pushing her way through the gathering.
“Marelda, tell them I didn’t have anything to do with this,” Horace pleaded.
“He a friend of yours, ma’am?” the lawman questioned.
“Yes,” Marelda replied slowly, wondering what trouble she might be letting herself in for.
“Well, that’s probably why you didn’t get robbed, ma’am. Mr. Titch likely told the brigands not to hurt any of his friends.”
“This whole thing is ridiculous!” Horace declared in outrage.
“That’s what I thought, too, when Mr. Wingate asked me to watch over his steamer, just in case someone tried anything. You can imagine my surprise when me and my men started seeing them thieves poppin’ out of hidin’ and then flittin’ across the dock to come on board. Looked like they planned it real good, except Mr. Wingate had a better plan.”
“Has any of the guests been hurt?” Ashton asked in concern.
“Just a mite shaken, that’s all,” the lawman replied. He jerked his head toward Titch again. “I’m going to put this one behind bars and then ask him some important questions.”
“Someone make him listen to me!” Horace pleaded as he held out his arms in desperate supplication. “I didn’t take anything! I tell you, the thieves put that necklace into my pocket to make it seem like I did.”
“That’s fine and dandy, Mr. Titch, but one of them brigands also said you were one of them. He met with you here on board, and you paid him to do it.”
Horace searched about for an answer. “I don’t know who he was. I just met him in the tavern, and he asked to speak with me while I was here on the riverboat.”
“What reason did he have?”
“None.” Horace shrugged his shoulders. “I mean, he didn’t give any. He just robbed me.”
“Well, if he did, you came out better for it with that there necklace in your pocket…at least, you would have, had you not been caught.”
Chapter Sixteen
“LIER…IN. Lier…in.”
Lenore frowned in her sleep and rolled her head on the pillow.
“Where are you? Lierin? Lierin? Come out. Come out, wherever you are….”
She was hiding behind a carefully clipped shrub partially shaded by the manor looming in the background. A young red-haired girl crouched beside her, and they hid their giggles behind cupped hands as the stalking footsteps came closer…closer….
“Lierin…Lenore…Come out…Come out…Wherever you are…”
“Shhh,” she warned her sister silently as that one threatened to burst into laughter and reveal their hiding place. “He’ll hear you and find us both.”
The tiny pebbles of the walk crunched beneath the hesitating footfalls that came ever nearer. Seeing a large manly shadow fall on the lawn nearby, they pressed against the shrub and waited, scarcely daring to breathe as the shadow advanced with slow, stealthy caution. It disappeared by degrees, falling onto the shrub that protected them as the man stepped closer; then quite unexpectedly a bee flitted past their noses, startling them both, and they scrambled away with cries of alarm.
“Aha!” The man’s voice rang with a note of victory as he leaped past the shrub and pounced into view.
Torn from her dream, Lenore came upright with a gasp and stared about the dark room in wide-eyed panic. The face in the portrait! It was the one in her dream!
“Lierin…Lierin…”
A sudden chill shivered along her spine as she pressed back upon the pillows, trying to listen above the frantic beating of her heart. Had the voice come from her dreams to torment her?