For now, he reminded himself. For now.
Chapter Six
The Duke of Arden’s mother had drowned herself in the sea.
This lone, awful thought would not leave Hazel’s mind. Disliking him was difficult indeed, if not impossible, after his revelation. Even more so with him sitting across from her in his carriage once more, their knees nearly brushing with each sway of the conveyance. She ought to have worn one of her simpler shapeless day gowns, instead of her trousers, she thought grimly. Her skirts would have provided a sufficient barrier to ensure Arden’s trousers could not accidentally glance over hers.
Damn it, she was staring at his knees once more, she realized, and from there, it would not be long before she was ogling his thighs. Her face heated. And not just his thighs. She forced her gaze to the window instead. Far more interesting sights and sounds awaited her in the bustling streets of London. Moreover, she had a job to perform, an investigation to conduct, and Arden was her partner.
She must stop mooning over his fine form and face. His masculine appeal had no bearing upon the tasks looming ahead of her. Firmly, she forced her mind to facts. Reaching into the interior pocket sewn into her coat, she extracted a list.
“A love letter?” Arden guessed into the silence which had settled between them.
She flicked an irritated glance in his direction. His lips were quirked, and in spite of her every intention to remain impervious to him, she could not deny the Duke of Arden was a handsome devil. Nor could she deny he had the ability to make her pulse quicken and send heat rolling through her.
“Do I seem like the sort of woman who would secret letters from a lovesick swain about her person?” she asked.
He quirked a brow. “You seem like the sort of woman who is as unpredictable as dynamite.”
“Dynamite is predictable,” she quarreled. “It explodes.”
“Not when the mechanisms surrounding it fail to perform their functions,” he pointed out. “For every explosion we have suffered at the hands of the Fenians, there have been at least half a dozen others, either foiled or faulty.”
“I will concede the point,” she allowed, holding her paper aloft. “But this is a list, and most decidedly not a love letter. During my investigation of the Emerald Club, I discovered there were locations repeatedly mentioned by the members, both in conversations I overheard, and in documents I was able to view, and I would like to visit each of them for myself.”
He studied her with that piercing gaze of his. “The information I was given by the Home Office did not describe how you managed to find yourself within the Emerald Club.”
“It was not me who infiltrated the club. It was Mrs. Eliza Jane Mulligan,” she told him.
He blinked. “Who is Mrs. Mulligan?”
“You are looking at her.” She grinned. “Or rather, another version of her. Mrs. Mulligan was a ruse, the sort I have used often. She was illiterate, and unfortunately, dull-witted. But her mother hailed from County Cork, and she excelled at hovering at the elbows of senior members, whisking away dinner plates and refilling glasses of wine.”
Her assignments often required ruses, but pretending to be Mrs. Mulligan had been the most dangerous of all her cases yet. The Emerald Club was, to the impartial observer, a gentleman’s social club like so many others. But behind its walls, a dangerous new faction of Fenians plotted destruction as amiably as they inquired after each other’s womenfolk.
“How is your Ma, O’Bannon?”
“How many crackers can accompany next month’s boat to Liverpool, Rourke?”
They had never imagined simple Mrs. Mulligan would know crackers was a euphemism for shipments of lignin dynamite. Oh, they had never spoken words such as dynamite or bombs directly. But there was great power in hiding in plain sight. When the men she served had gazed upon her, they had seen precisely what she wished them to see: a bespectacled woman with a cap upon her head, eyes always cast downward, a mother of five struggling to earn coin to fill her children’s hungry bellies.
Arden’s voice interrupted. “You disguised yourself and went amongst them?”
He sounded almost impressed. She dared not fool herself that he was.
“I played a role,” she conceded. “Men such as these speak freely behind closed doors, and in the presence of each other, particularly when there is food and spirits involved. None of the other agents could hide themselves as well as I could. You see? We female detectives are every bit as capable of performing our jobs as our male counterparts.”
His lips compressed. “I never suggested you were not, Miss Montgomery.”
“Mmm.” She hummed and glanced back down at her list. “There were implications.”
“Imagined implications?” he persisted.
“Undeniable ones.” Her gaze returned to him. “Your displeasure with me, for instance.”
“My displeasure at having a partner,” he corrected, “when I have been managing quite well without one.”
“Obviously you were not managing quite well, else Winchelsea and the Home Office would not have chosen to give you me as your aid,” she argued calmly, for it was the truth.
He tensed across the carriage, and it was so subtle, she sensed it more than she saw it. One slight tic of the muscle in his jaw, fleeting and then gone, betrayed him.
“My work has been impeccable and diligent, Miss Montgomery.” His tone had grown markedly cold. “With the exception of The Incident.”
For a moment, she forgot about her list. They were en route to Praed Street Station, one of the targets which had been bandied about quite readily by Emerald Club members. But Arden held all her attention. She had assumed the Special League had always been led by partners. But Arden’s earlier words returned to her now, fueling her curiosity.
“Which incident?”
His countenance was grim. “I do not speak of it.”
Naturally, that just made her want to speak of it more. She leaned forward. The action, coupled with an unexpected bump in the road, sent her to the edge of the bench. Her knees were suddenly entangled with his long legs, and the warmth he radiated seared her.
Hastily, she slid her bottom back to the proper position. Her cheeks went hot, but she did her best to pretend she was unaffected. “As your partner, I believe I ought to know, Arden.”
His stare had fallen to her legs, and it did strange things to her equilibrium. A throbbing sense of urgency came to life within her. Her lungs felt as if they were too constricted, and her belly tightened. For one brief, dizzying moment, she imagined his hands on her thighs.
At last, his green eyes flicked to hers, impenetrable as ever. “As I said, I do not speak of it.”
Was it her imagination, or did the carriage seem smaller? He dominated it with his body, his presence. Her discomfit was a source of great irritation for Hazel. She tolerated neither weakness nor distraction in herself, and she was currently allowing both to overtake her.
She forced her mind to the matter at hand, Arden’s evasion. “If you do not tell me, I will ask Winchelsea.”
His nostrils flared. “Is that a threat, Miss Montgomery?”
“I would never be foolish enough to threaten you, Arden.” But she did have a well-known, unchecked habit of poking rattlers, and the Duke of Arden was certainly a rattler, amongst other things. Hazel offered him an encouraging smile. “Rather, it is a chance for you to unburden yourself on your own.”
“The Duke of Winchelsea may be charmed when you flutter your lashes at him, but I am impervious to your wiles, madam,” he said in his clipped aristocratic accent.
He thought she had wiles? Hazel nearly laughed aloud. She boasted a great many talents, but seducing gentlemen had never been one of them. Indeed, she had not even been interested in a man since Adam. Her reaction to Arden was an anomaly. Likely because the man himself was an anomaly. She had no doubt it would dispel soon enough.
“I am not attempting to lure you behind the barn for a kiss, Arden,” she retorte
d. “I am asking for an explanation. If you have weaknesses, I need to know what they are, for your safety, as much as for my own.”
“You are an odd woman, do you know that, Miss Montgomery?”
He was frowning at her, and she could not be certain if he called her “odd” as a compliment, or an insult. She frowned right back at him.
“And you are a stubborn man, Mr. Arden,” she challenged, once more reverting to the manner in which she could nettle him best.
There was something about getting beneath the Duke of Arden’s thick skin which appealed to her. She could not deny it.
The carriage came to an ill-timed stop.
“We have arrived at Praed Street Station,” Arden announced.
And damn her hide, but Hazel was just as tempted to remain in the carriage, as she was to leave it and investigate the location. All the more reason to flee this enclosed space and create some much-needed breathing room between herself and Arden.
With great haste.
“Then let us not waste a moment more.” She tucked her list back into her coat pocket. “We have much work ahead of us, and if my research is any indication, little time in which to accomplish it, if we wish to stop further attacks before they happen.”
“This is highly irregular,” Aunt Hortense announced staunchly that evening following dinner. “I must insist that Miss Montgomery and I withdraw. It simply is not done for a lady to remain in the dining room for port and cigars.”
Lucien frowned. Aunt Hortense’s previous introduction to Miss Montgomery had been awkward. The notion of an unwed female as their guest had been blaspheme to her. And now, he had politely suggested to his aunt she retire to the drawing room alone, so he could confer with Miss Montgomery. His poor aunt had nearly swallowed her tongue.
“Dear Aunt, you know this pertains to Special League matters,” he reminded her gently. “There is nothing about Miss Montgomery’s presence here that is regular.”
“I dare say not,” replied his great aunt, the frigid chill of deepest, darkest winter in her voice.
She disapproved. He could not blame her. He disapproved as well.
But Miss Montgomery had been foisted upon him by the Home Office, and he had a duty to perform. Part of that duty was working alongside the lady in question. Without the hindrance of his lady aunt, who was as trapped in the decades of a bygone era as her attire. She still proudly wore her widow’s weeds in the fashion of her halcyon days.
“There will be no cigars,” he offered. “You know I cannot abide by the things.”
“The lack of cigars is not at issue here, Arden,” she argued shrewdly.
Perhaps she imagined Miss Montgomery a grasping American, who would attempt to trap him into marriage at the first opportunity. If Miss Montgomery had been a finely bred English lady, the sort of delicate flower who blossomed in drawing rooms and curtseyed before the queen, he would have agreed with Aunt Hortense. But there was something about Miss Montgomery—perhaps her mannerisms, perhaps her extensive history of experience working alongside other men before him—that put him at ease. He had no fear she would attempt to dupe him into unwanted nuptials. She hardly seemed the sort who would wish to wed, and he had vowed to never find himself trapped in the constraints of such an untenable institution.
“Lady Beaufort,” Miss Montgomery interjected, before he could steer the conversation into safer waters, “you must forgive me for disrupting your household. Your hospitality has been most excellent, and I am ever so thankful to you for your kindness in humoring my presence here. Naturally, I do not wish to upset you. Perhaps I shall withdraw with you, then later, meet with Arden in his study. Would you be more amenable to such an arrangement?”
The woman’s drawl was in full effect now, dripping in honey. She did have a certain, unusual charm about her. Even Aunt Hortense, who was ordinarily as indefatigable in her defense of propriety as a battleship, appeared to wilt just a bit beneath the force of so much charisma.
“Miss Montgomery, you are an unmarried female, and it simply is not done for you to be alone in the duke’s presence,” Aunt Hortense said at last, but her tone had lost some of its ice.
“I do realize you are unaccustomed to such an arrangement,” Miss Montgomery continued gently, “but it is my occupation. I have been a detective for over a decade, my lady. I have worked in the company of gentlemen all this time. My honor remains intact.”
“It is not your honor which concerns me, but that of my nephew’s,” Aunt Hortense snapped. “I have never in all my life seen a female who so dares to defy civility, as to garb herself as a gentleman. I can only imagine what you are capable of.”
Bloody hell. Perhaps he ought to have sent her to live with Lettie and Strathmore. Her widow’s portion was small, she had been living at Lark House for years, and Lucien loved her as he had once loved his mother. But this interference was not what he needed. Perhaps if he spoke to her alone, in private, later…
“My lady, your tongue is unbecoming,” he chastised his aunt. “I must insist you apologize to Miss Montgomery.”
“It is quite alright, Arden,” Miss Montgomery reassured him, sending a smile in Aunt Hortense’s direction. “I understand your concern, my lady. Even at home in America, I am not like most women. I can only imagine how strange I must seem here. But despite my lack of sophistication, I can assure you, the work I must attend to with Arden is of the utmost importance. Far more important than breaking a rule by remaining at the dining table for a glass of port.”
“I do wish I could be so dismissive of rules, Miss Montgomery,” his aunt said.
“Have you ever wondered if some rules were not meant to be broken, Lady Beaufort?” Miss Montgomery asked then.
“No,” answered Aunt Hortense resolutely. “They exist for good reason. My poor sister, Felicity, learned that lesson in a most difficult fashion.”
Oh, Christ. Not the tale of Great Aunt Felicity again. It was one of Aunt Hortense’s most beloved sermons.
Lucien cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Aunt, but I must insist. Miss Montgomery and I have some matters requiring our attention. The Duke of Winchelsea is depending upon us.”
“Winchelsea?” Aunt Hortense’s brows rose.
For some godforsaken reason, his aunt was in awe of the duke. On the sole occasion upon which Lucien had entertained him at Lark House, Aunt Hortense had mooned over him like a young girl eyeing her first suitor. Her admiration for Winchelsea had irked him at the time, but he was not above using it in his favor now.
“Yes,” he said smoothly. “Winchelsea himself decreed Miss Montgomery stay here at Lark House, and he has nothing but complete admiration for Miss Montgomery, as have I.”
Perhaps the last bit was a lie. His feelings for his unwanted partner were confusing and jumbled at best. But Aunt Hortense need not know that.
“Well.” Aunt Hortense rose from her seat with a dignified air. “I suppose I cannot help but to defer to Winchelsea. He is one of the finest statesmen of our age, after all.”
“Thank you, Aunt. I bid you good evening.”
Lucien wondered, not without a hint of bitterness, what Aunt Hortense considered him to be. But he stood all the same with a feeling of relief, and Miss Montgomery did as well. As his aunt took her reluctant leave, Lucien arranged for coffee and port to be brought round for them. Coffee for Miss Montgomery, port for himself. He would not get her soused this evening. Nor would she fall for his ruse a second time. She was far too intelligent for that.
When the servants had been dismissed, and the two of them were alone at last, Lucien sipped his port and stared at the vivacious conundrum that was H.E. Montgomery.
“That was a falsehood,” she told him.
He quirked a brow. “Pardon?”
Her lips twitched, and he noted, not for the first time, how finely formed they were. How pink. How soft-looking.
“You told your poor aunt you admire me,” she elaborated, an edge of admonishment in her voice.
&n
bsp; “I do admire you,” he countered, even though he had just entertained a similar thought himself. But as he said the words aloud, he realized they did indeed possess some truth. “I cannot think of another woman who would have convinced the Home Office to bestow upon her the depth of trust and respect that has been shown to you.”
Her eyes searched his, her countenance unsmiling. “Your aunt believes I am attempting to entrap you in marriage.”
“My aunt lives and dies by the winds of propriety,” he said. “She forgets I have no desire to play a role in polite society; not now, not ever. Scandal does not concern me. Rooting out those who would terrorize innocents, however, does.”
She took a sip of her coffee, and he noted she had added neither sugar nor cream to it, instead, leaving it unadulterated.
“You have every right to be concerned,” she said. “The information I obtained in New York City suggests a new wave of attacks is being planned. They are eager to rally in the wake of the capture and death of some of the key figures of the Fenian movement.”
He nodded, turning his mind easily to the task at hand. They needed to unravel the plans of these would-be marauders before they could even begin. He thought of what she had revealed to him in their investigations.
“You are certain Praed Street and Charing Cross were referenced as potential targets for an explosive device to be planted?” he asked.
“I am utterly certain, Arden,” she reassured him.
The information she had brought to him may indeed be true. Could possibly even be vital to the investigations the Special League would pursue moving forward. However, the Special League had recently arrested an entire ring of Fenians who had been plotting to lay bombs on the railways. He had to be certain her information was not old, and that the suspects in question had not already been removed from the streets before they could inflict damage. Lucien was not in the business of tilting at windmills.
“Who did you hear reference the locations, and when did you overhear it?” he asked next.
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