his, hardening his cock. “Make me feel whole like only you can.”
He dragged his mouth away and grabbed her hand. In his mind, they were already darting upstairs, and they had not yet reached the front door.
The door was locked.
“Mrs Friswell must have retired for the evening,” Sophia said impatiently. “Come, we can enter through the herb garden. The door is always open. If not, Blent keeps a key in the cottage.”
They hurried to the rear of the house, stopping twice to kiss like lovers in the bloom of youth—frantic for physical contact.
The rear door was locked, too.
Sophia rubbed the nape of her neck and frowned. “That is odd.”
The word odd roused Finlay’s earlier unease. “I expect they’re eating the best food in the pantry and burning beeswax candles, not tallow.” He spoke to soothe her fears—hoped he was wrong to suspect something sinister. “That or they’ve taken advantage of your absence and ventured to the nearest tavern to drink themselves silly.”
“There’s plenty of wine and ale here if they’re so inclined.”
He shrugged. “Gone to visit family, then.”
“Mrs Friswell has a sister in Bisley. But Blent wouldn’t leave the hounds.”
Blent had left the dogs. His cottage sat in darkness. Finlay banged and hammered on the door but received no reply. A quick scan of the kennels confirmed the animals were accounted for. Blent couldn’t have gone far.
Perhaps Mrs Friswell was in the woods, chanting curses and conjuring spells, summoning the ghosts of her ancestors.
With a powerful barge of the shoulder, Finlay forced the cottage door. “Blent will have to fix the frame upon his return. It will serve him right for abandoning his post.”
They entered the house, though Finlay had to duck to clear the low lintel. The rooms were clean and uncluttered. Finlay found a tinderbox and lit the lamp, then examined the array of leather-bound books on the shelf.
“If Blent sold these, he would make a tidy sum,” Finlay said, running his finger over the gilt lettering on the spine of Wieland’s Oberon. Indeed, a further inspection of Blent’s rooms revealed other expensive items.
“This chessboard and table must be worth something, too.” Sophia stood before a brass inlaid rosewood table, a quality piece that could grace any peer’s home.
“Does the card table belong to you?” It was hardly furniture suitable for a gardener’s cottage.
“No. Blent asked if he might bring sentimental items from home when his mother died. It must be his table. As is the chessboard.”
Finlay picked up the white knight. “This is turned ivory, a rather exquisite piece.” The mahogany chess box bore a brass plate engraved with the name Fredrick Blent. “Blent is certainly a man of untold secrets.”
He glanced at Sophia, who was studying papers she’d found in a leather writing case on the side table.
“Undoubtedly. Finlay, come and look at these.”
Finlay crossed the room.
Sophia handed him a detailed sketch of a formal garden with a Baroque terrace and intricate canals, and another of a neoclassical rotunda on the bank of a meandering lake.
“Should I have an inclination to move to the country,” he said, impressed by Blent’s skill, “remind me to hire him to design the gardens.”
“Had I known he possessed such talent, he could have had free rein here. A peaceful, pastoral landscape might make Jessica feel less confined.” She offered Finlay another sketch. “Talking of Jessica, I fear you will have something to say about this one.”
Finlay accepted the drawing, albeit reluctantly. It was a pencil portrait of Jessica. With her head bowed, she looked lost in thought. Blent had captured the innocent beauty of her face, contrasted that by exaggerating the fullness of her mouth, ripe and plump, almost erotic.
“He’s in love with her,” Finlay said. He knew what it was like to worship a woman from afar, to fantasise about the feel of her lips, the warmth of her mouth, the smoothness of her tongue. “From the tatty corners, it’s obvious he’s looked at this a hundred times since putting pencil to paper.”
“Perhaps he has a brotherly interest.”
“He has romantic desires,” Finlay reiterated. “Based on this drawing, he’s the only one who truly sees beyond Jessica’s erratic behaviour.”
“He’s employed to be attentive to her needs,” she said, disbelief clinging to every syllable. “But I’ve never suspected he held her in such high regard.”
“Perhaps because you’re so preoccupied with her illness you can think of little else.”
A gnawing unease settled in his stomach. If Jessica came to the cottage to play chess, she did so without a chaperone. Blent accompanied