The shopping expedition had turned out surprisingly pleasant. In spite of her original misgivings, Tessa had enjoyed herself greatly. Dursley’s Aunt Lily was an intelligent and delightful companion. The two of them were loaded down with packages and chatting amiably when they entered the hall of Tessa’s town house. Tessa set her purchases and her reticule on a small table in the hall and stilled suddenly.
‘What is it, dear?’ Lily asked, noting her distress.
Tessa shook her head, her panic starting to rise. It was happening again, the old fear she’d felt in Russia. ‘I don’t know. The house feels different. It feels unsettled, as if something isn’t right.’
Lily smiled fondly. ‘It’s probably all the changes. Arthur and Meg have done a substantial amount of work in a short time. I can even see differences from before we left. I dare say the house is improved greatly.’
Tessa had to agree. Meg and Arthur had tirelessly devoted themselves to unpacking some of the crates from the cellar as well as the crates she’d brought from St Petersburg. She had not realised how incomplete the house had been until she’d seen the family’s personal effects spread throughout the home and the rooms filled with furniture brought down from the attics.
There had certainly been a lot of changes, but those weren’t what contributed to her sense of disquiet. The house felt disrupted from another’s presence. Someone was here.
Tessa felt the gnawing fear start again in her stomach. She’d hoped to be done with such worry. Would the need to be constantly on guard ever be gone? She’d thought she’d beaten such fear since their arrival in London, but over the last few days the sense that she was being watched had returned, and now this. She reached for her reticule. She had her small gun inside. She went nowhere without it.
‘Lily, if you would just wait for me in the drawing room, I’ll have a look around.’
Lily looked at her strangely, but Tessa didn’t care. At least her fears weren’t misplaced. In St Petersburg she’d been right.
Tessa started upstairs slowly, her back against the curving wall of the staircase as she went, making herself less visible if anyone was looking down. If there was an intruder, he would be upstairs. Anyone else would have heard them come in.
Tessa slipped the small gun from her reticule. She cocked the weapon, not doubting her instincts once. It was the perfect time to break in. Her sisters were on an outing to a nearby park with Mrs Hollister and Meg and Arthur were spending their afternoon off at Dursley House. There was no one around to notice the comings and goings of a stranger in the house.
She was five stairs from the top when she heard it: the sound of booted feet on the hardwood floor. She’d done a good job of hiding herself against the natural curvature of the staircase, but, reciprocally, she was blind to all else that moved above her. She could no more see who was coming down the stairs than they could see her.
Tessa had only seconds to think before the intruder was upon her. Her mind raced over her options. There was no chance someone coming down the stairs wouldn’t see her as they passed. Her only choice was to seize the advantage.
Tessa boldly stepped out into the centre of the stairs, gun ready to fire. ‘Stay where you are.’
She was not prepared for what happened next. Instead of obeying her command, the intruder flung himself at her, propelling them against the stair wall as opposed to tumbling down the steps. Tessa found herself most indecently pressed between the wall and the hard body of her attacker. Breasts met chest, her skirts met with the hard muscles of his thighs. She could barely breathe, let alone summon a scream. Her hand holding the gun was shackled against the wall by the intruder’s iron grip.
Tessa struggled, but she was too closely imprisoned to land an effective kick. She tore her gaze from her trapped gun hand into the intruder’s face. She found her voice. ‘Dursley!’
‘Miss Branscombe!’ His shock was nearly as great as her own. In his amazement, he released her gun arm.
Tessa hadn’t been ready for such freedom. The gun slipped from her weakened fingers and clattered down the steps. A misfire rang out. Instantly, Dursley surrounded her again with his body, this time as a protector. His arms bracketed her on either side, his body in full contact with hers, disregarding any compunction for propriety.
Tessa recognised the stance for what it was: the posture of a human shield. No one would be able to get close to her with such a force surrounding her. It was dark and safe in the confines of Dursley’s protective circle. For a moment, Tessa let herself savour such a luxury. Then Dursley realised the only danger was the misfire of the gun.
The look he gave her was incredulous. ‘The gun was loaded? The gun you pointed at me was loaded?’
Tessa looked up at him, his face very near hers. ‘Of course it was. I didn’t know it was you. A lot of good an unloaded weapon would have done me.’ She’d not noticed what a dark shade of blue his eyes were in their prior encounters. Then again, she’d not had the opportunity to appreciate them at such close proximity.
There were other things she was starting to ‘appreciate’ at this range, too, like the breadth of his shoulders and the firmness of his thighs, not to mention the supposed intimacy of their position on the stairs.
Any moment his Aunt Lily would determine it was safe to come out of the drawing room. Tessa could only imagine what kind of image she and the Earl would create to the unsuspecting onlooker who happened upon them. Tessa shifted, squirming a bit in the hopes of creating some distance between them. She immediately wished she hadn’t moved. Her gyrations caused her hips to brush against Dursley in a highly improper manner. To her great embarrassment, she actually felt that most unmentionable part of him stir at the contact.
Dursley took a step back. ‘A thousand pardons, Miss Branscombe,’ he said with polite neutrality, as if they’d merely brushed past one another on the stairs at a ball.
Lily appeared at the bottom of the steps. ‘Is everyone all right? Heavens, Dursley, is that you?’
‘We’re all right, Aunt,’ Dursley assured her.
‘Tessa thought she heard an intruder,’ Lily called up.
‘Did she?’ Dursley shot Tessa a foreboding look. ‘Do you have a lot of experience, then, in listening for intruders, Miss Branscombe? I find my curiosity is piqued as to why a young lady would feel it necessary to be armed with a gun in her own home.’
‘No more so than my own curiosity, milord, as to why you were skulking about upstairs in my house,’ Tessa replied coolly.
‘Skulking, is it?’ Dursley said in his most high-handed tone.
‘Yes. Skulking,’ Tessa insisted, moving down the stairs ahead of him, doing her best to match his haughtiness. But her cool exterior was a façade only. Inside, she was so jangled from the encounter that, after picking her gun up from the hall floor, she rang for tea before she realised all the staff was gone for the afternoon.
It wasn’t until much later, after her sisters were asleep, that Tessa allowed her mind to consider the scene on the stairs. She sat at the desk in her private office, dwelling on those few moments. The most important concern on her mind was what Peyton—Dursley—had been doing upstairs. One of the consequences of the afternoon was that she was finding it difficult to think
