Blind Trust by Susannah Bamford Page A

laughter at being forced to move directly after lunch, had been bundled into carriages and driven off to a toboggan slope with an assortment of servants and maids and hampers full of small delicacies that Tavish knew would be devoured despite the ingestion of a full meal but an hour or so before.
    So he had twenty, possibly thirty, minutes. It would take him another twenty to walk to the toboggan slope in time to take a run or two and flirt with Maud Valentine while Ambrose Hartley glowered, just so Mrs. Van Cormandt could tell her husband that there was a frisson of drama going on underneath their noses, and wouldn’t it make the house party a success after all? Columbine had briefed him well.
    Tavish quickly made his way to Ned’s private study. He felt strangely divided about his task. He knew something or someone had put fear into Ned’s eyes, but he felt badly about trying to find out behind his back. He liked Ned—though not as much as Columbine, most certainly—and he told himself he was helping him, but even Tavish didn’t believe that palaver wholeheartedly. He was still nosing through a man’s private papers, no matter what justification he used.
    With an approving eye, he noted the fine solid furniture, the Turner on the wall. Ned was one of the few millionaires these days who didn’t decorate his rooms as though he expected to receive the Sun King in them. He was famous for his disdain for things French—excepting wines, of course. And Cora Van Cormandt set a good table, as well. Excellent wines and a perfectly done piece of turbot were hard to come by. If only, Tavish thought, stopping in his tracks in the middle of the room, if only he hadn’t been too distracted to enjoy it. Just his luck. He finally got an excellent meal, and he spent all his time trying not to look at moonlit skin and a pair of dark gray eyes.
    With a sigh, Tavish moved toward the desk. For the thousandth time, he wished he and Jamie had stayed in Solace where they belonged.
    Darcy waited. Her room was in the front of the house, and she heard the crunch of the carriage wheels as they drove away. The house was quiet. Even Claude had been induced to go out.
    Now that she was finally alone, she was restless. She turned the pages of the book. As much as she wanted to read, she couldn’t concentrate. The print blurred in front of her eyes, then focused. Whitman wrote of love with a frankness that shocked her. But it was so exhilarating, all the same. The words sang with a rhythm that felt new. It seemed to capture the feeling of her skin, her heart, her limbs. Her body felt as electric as the poet described, altogether different, suffused and tingling, aching and full of energy all at once.
    Suddenly, she couldn’t bear to stay in her room. Perhaps a walk in the famous Van Cormandt gardens, now frozen and still, would calm her.
    Solange had undressed her for her nap. Darcy laced her corset loosely, then quickly slipped into her white wool dress. She knew she needed every second of the two hours or so she’d be alone to compose herself for when she would next have to be in the same room with Claude and Tavish Finn.
    She could hear the clatter of china and silver from the dining room as the servants set the table for dinner, but there was no other sound. Darcy slipped down the hall toward the conservatory in the rear. There was a small door to the gardens there, and no one would be about.
    As she passed Ned’s study, she heard the noise of shuffling papers. Surely Ned had gone out; she’d seen the top of his beaver hat as he’d climbed into the carriage and took the reins. Curious, Darcy pushed open the door a few inches. She nearly jumped back when she saw Tavish Finn at Ned’s desk.
    It took her a moment to realize that he was rifling it. Her heart thundered in her ears with the knowledge. He was an adventurer then, a swindler.
    â€œMr. Finn.” She had to hand it to him; he