The strident call of her voice had its intended effect. With a broken snore, he suddenly moved, sitting up on the settee, eyes blinking open. For a heartbeat, he appeared defenseless and innocent. He seemed nothing more than a handsome duke who had likely earned himself a stiff neck and a handful of regrets by over-imbibing and falling asleep in the library, rather than one of the most feared spies in all England.
A man who would have no qualms about sending her to prison, she reminded herself with force, lest her unacceptable weakness for him attempted to sway her from her course. She rushed forward with that thought, feigning concern.
“Good morning, Your Grace. Pray forgive me. I did not mean to intrude, but I prefer to take my walks at dawn, and I heard someone within. I knocked, but there was no answer.” Bridget pinned a false smile to her lips.
“Good morning, Miss Palliser,” he growled, his expression turning thunderous. “Why, in the name of all that is holy, am I wet?”
She stopped herself just short of reaching him, relaxing her face with studious effort in an attempt to feign ignorance. “Wet, Your Grace?”
He tested his waistcoat with two fingers, grimacing. “Bloody sodding.”
She would have flinched at the bite in his tone, but Bridget was accustomed to mercurial men. She was prepared for anything. For anyone. She could meet the Duke of Carlisle in a match of wits any day and turn out the victor.
“You appear to have spilled upon yourself,” she observed calmly, and without a trace of guilt underscoring her words. She plucked the tipped bottle from his person and held it aloft for his inspection. “This, I daresay, was the culprit.”
“Christ,” he muttered, sitting up and grimacing down at himself.
“How may I be of service, Your Grace?” she asked, not wishing to appear too eager to make off with his waistcoat.
“You may go away, Miss Jane Palliser,” he said, his tone blistering.
She did not understand the emphasis he placed upon Jane, but it was noteworthy in its oddness. Bridget tucked the observation away inside her mind and proceeded with her plan. “Allow me to take your waistcoat, sir. It appears to have absorbed most of the damage. I will see it laundered and returned to you.”
His brows snapped together. “You are not my valet, madam. I shall attend to the matter myself.” He paused, seeming to belatedly recall the necessity for niceties. “And thank you.”
“Please, sir,” she persisted, making her voice small. “It would be my honor.”
Carlisle’s dark gaze, as sharp as a knife, homed in upon her. “How very agreeable for a lady who could not wait to be free of my presence yesterday. Tell me, Miss Palliser, what is the difference between last night and this morning?”
Responsibility. Duty. Her mind overruling her…everything.
She swallowed. “I am sorry, Your Grace. This position is new to me, and I cannot afford to lose it.”
Something in him softened then. She could see it as well as sense it. Could it be a man who would so vociferously fight against her native land to keep it from having its own rule, possessed an inner sense of fairness?
It seemed improbable indeed.
“Forgive me, Miss Palliser.” His fingers were at work on the buttons of his waistcoat, flicking them from their moorings.
She could not wrest her gaze from his long, patrician fingers nor his broad, strong shoulders shrugging. To her amazement, he divested himself of the garment and held it out to her, an olive branch of sorts.
Bridget took it, her fingers brushing his. A fresh spark of awareness jolted through her, singeing down her spine and landing between her thighs in a blossom of heat she could not deny no matter how much she tried.
If only they had not touched. If only she had never kissed him.
For all she could think now, in this moment, was the delirious luxury of his lips upon hers. That mouth—all sin, all seduction—had worked over hers with skillful precision.
“I shall see to it that your waistcoat is properly cleaned,” she forced herself to say.
“I don’t give a bloody damn if it is.”
She stared at him, struggling to understand. “Your Grace?”
“I can purchase another hundred to take its place. The loss of one is no loss at all. But since you are so determined, take the waistcoat, Miss Palliser, and go,” he ordered coolly.
And once again, everything in her attempted to overrule all the rest. She wanted to tell him what he could do with the scrap of soiled fabric in her grip. She wanted to rail against him. To remind him her nation deserved to be represented by its own people rather than drowned out by English MPs, by people who lived within its beautiful shores, who knew the struggles and the land.
Clutching his waistcoat firmly in her grasp, she curtseyed and did as he bid. Her heart hammered at the idea of uncovering his hidden correspondence. But as she turned her back on him and left the library, the scent of him, stronger and more delicious than any spirit, dogged her.
Gripping his drenched waistcoat, she hastened back to her own chamber. Her walk could wait. The promise of information proved too potent a lure. She had at least an hour before her charge, the young duke, would arise. Moreover, far too much depended upon the information she could glean. She would not disappoint those relying upon her.
John awaited her. Cullen had no one, save her.
Cullen’s life, more than hers, was her motivating force. For he alone was her responsibility. He alone was where her allegiance lay, more than herself, more than Ireland, more than Home Rule.
She had been born without a choice. After all, she was but a woman in the world. A woman in a society fashioned to drown out all females, to overrule and silence them.
A woman who had never had a chance.
Bridget sat by the light of the windows, turned up an oil lamp, and examined the Duke of Carlisle’s whisky-soaked waistcoat. It was of excellent construction, crafted from expensive fabric. At first glance, it looked like any other garment a wealthy gentleman would wear. But upon closer inspection, she spotted evidence of stitches that were less refined, made in a slightly different shade of black—darker, more pure.
She took up the blade she always kept sheathed in her boot and carefully attacked the seam in question. With tender precision, she sliced the stitches holding the lining of the waistcoat in place, taking care not to damage the fine fabric itself. She inserted her finger, wiggling it about until she found what she was looking for.
A folded scrap of paper.
She withdrew and cut again, creating an opening large enough for the paper to emerge. Bridget extracted it, heart fluttering wildly. Here perhaps was something of value, something she could offer John to ensure Cullen’s liberation in addition to the task originally assigned her.
She unfolded the paper to find a neat, masculine scrawl blurred by the whisky it had absorbed, rendering it almost illegible. What she could discern appeared to be a series of letters and numbers.
A cipher key, she realized. Perhaps a means for him to recognize correspondence he received. She consulted the mantle clock in her chamber—half an hour until she was on duty for the day. Plenty of time to copy everything legible to a fresh sheet of paper. The more she could bring back to John, the greater the chance of Cullen obtaining his freedom.
And that, she reminded herself, was all she could afford to care about.
Even as her lips still burned with the Duke of Carlisle’s kiss.
“My darling boy.”
Leo had yet to make good on his escape from the library—and his ignominious stay there on the settee—when he was importuned by yet another female. He was dressed in only his shirtsleeves of the night before, he hadn’t shaved, his head thumped, and his neck and back ached. Moreover, he was certain he looked as bedraggled as a man who had been drawn on his back behind a runaway carriage.
But that did not stop the next woman who intruded upon his solitude. Nor did it hamper the beaming smile on her face. Lily Ludlow was the woman
his father had loved, his longtime mistress, and more of a mother to Leo than his own mother could ever hope to be. She was the one female he trusted implicitly in this life, and the only one he would happily sacrifice his for.
“Mother,” he greeted her, aware the word still sounded stiff on his tongue. She was the mother of his heart, but some part of him was still the young lad he had once been, who had only known rejection and his own mother’s icy resentment.
“Son.” Her smile was as warm as the bright golden-yellow of her dress as she opened her arms to him. “Why has it been so long since I have last seen your handsome face?”
Guilt snaked through him, landing heavy as an anchor in his gut. Though he had written, he had not visited her as he had promised he would do. There had never been time. His days and nights were spent stalking his prey and determining the means of not only defusing their bombs, but seeing them all in gaol where they belonged.
And now he stood before her bleary-eyed, mouth tasting as if he had been drinking donkey piss the night before. He may as well have been.
What the hell had he been thinking?
A woman, that’s what.
A beautiful, raven-haired governess whose lips tasted like bergamot—surely from her tea, unless all goddesses tasted like citrus. Who kissed like a courtesan. Who he had wanted so badly, he’d sported a cockstand until he had been too inebriated to recall he even possessed a cock.
Fuck.
It would seem Fate’s fickle wheel had decreed he must be plagued by Janes.
But he could say none of that aloud, so he smiled at Lily, embraced her, and bussed her cheeks. “I have been otherwise occupied, and for that I am wholeheartedly sorry.”
She took several, exaggerated sniffs. “Darling, why do you smell as if you have fallen into a river of whisky?”
Why indeed?
He was reasonably confident he had fallen asleep only after placing the bottle of Clay’s excellent liquor atop the table. He had never previously awoke drenched in spirits. How fortunate for him that pretty, vexing Jane Palliser had been present to witness his shame.
Unless…?
Suspicion stirred within him. There was something different about the governess, and it was not just the melancholy in her eyes. She had seemed awkward this morning, and though he may be wrong, he suspected the change in her air was not because of the kisses they had shared the night before but for another reason entirely.
One he would necessarily investigate as soon as possible. Jane Palliser was an enigma. A beautiful, lush-lipped mystery. Perhaps it was that she was looking after his nephew. Perhaps it was something more. Whisky-bit as he was, he couldn’t say.
“I have no notion why,” he answered his mother’s query with utter honesty.
“No notion at all, Leopold?” Lily’s voice, taut with concern, splintered through his thoughts. He scarcely recognized the name “Leopold” as referring to himself.
“None,” he agreed, knowing he was playing the role of cad and not having anything to say for himself. She had already caught him at far too many games. “Please do say whatever it is you wish, Mother. You know I cannot abide by your looks of quiet censure.”
She pursed her lips. “I am sure I have no such looks. You were drinking, Leo.”
He tensed. “Yes.”
“Oh, my darling. You are not over-imbibing again, are you?” She frowned.
Of course he had been. He closed his eyes for a moment, wincing. But that did not mean he was once again drowning himself in drink. There had been a dark time in his life where he had turned to spirits and opium to sate the restless devils in his soul. But altering his mind did not kill the devils—it only drowned them out temporarily. And he was of no use to anyone when he was lost inside himself or lying abed, coming down from a cloud of indulgence.
“Only last night,” he admitted with great reluctance. Here again was one of Lily Ludlow’s unique talents: she could make him confess almost all, lay him low, with one soft look or one sweetly crooned my darling son. He bit his lip before he mentioned last night had been the first he had slept in three days. Spirits were not a cure, but they were nevertheless a balm for the darkness burning inside him. An escape, albeit a fleeting one.
“Are you certain?” Her worried gaze searched his.
Brilliant. Just bloody brilliant.
“Certain, Mother. It was a long and trying day.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Leopold! Did you sleep in the library last night?”
He grimaced. “Yes, but as I said, it was a long and trying day.”
“Is this about Clay’s impending nuptials?” she asked softly.
“No.”
Yes.
Partially, anyway. It was about living his life beneath the thumb of the League and all his infinite duties. About realizing his brother was about to find happiness, and he would never find his own because he no longer had the capacity to feel.
“It is about Jane, is it not?”
He frowned, thinking of the perfect pink lips he had kissed, the compelling sadness in her eyes, the way her voluptuous frame had felt against him. “The governess? Of course not. Why should she concern me?”
Lily raised a brow. “I was referring to Lady Jane Reeves, now the Duchess of Ashelford.”
Damn it.
“Yes, of course.” He cleared his throat, aware his cheekbones were scalding hot and likely red. Devil take it, he never flushed. Never showed a weakness. Except before Lily Ludlow, it would seem. “I cannot deny weddings grieve me.”
As did Jane.
Jane. Beautiful, golden-haired Lady Jane Reeves, who had stolen his heart and then mashed it to bits with her defection. She had been promised to him, and yet she had thrown him over for another. When last he had seen her, she had been happy, belly swollen with Ashelford’s get. Little wonder why he no longer participated in societal whims. He had no time, nor did he care for reminders of the crushing sting of betrayal.
He preferred not to think of her, but Lily’s mentioning of Jane sent a crashing wave of memory over him. The sort that could only be stymied with more drink. He closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to find the strength to abstain. He was pleased for his brother. No one deserved happiness more. No one deserved love more.
As long as the Duchess of Burghly was worthy of him.
“Your brother is marrying the woman he loves at long last,” Lily said. “I know it will be difficult for you, but nothing will please him more than having you at his side.”
“She makes him happy?” he asked his mother, for the question had eaten at him for his entire trip to the countryside. He knew what it was like to believe himself in love with a woman. To believe that love was returned. And then, to have it all torn away from him as if it had never been.
“Yes. She loves him, and he loves her.” Lily’s expression softened, a smile curving her lips. “I want more babes, Leo, and they shall give me those. You must as well, with the right woman. At the right time.”
Those two things did not exist, but he didn’t bother informing her of that. He had learned his lesson, and he had learned it well. Dallying was well and good. Slaking his needs. His heart had died a long time ago, and nothing remained but a blackened husk where it had once beat.
He inclined his head. “I am happy for the two of them. The duchess seems to be a good woman.”
“The best,” Lily agreed. “And now I must have both my sons so happily situated. I shall go into my dotage the happiest grandmother in all the world.”
He frowned. “I am happily situated, Mother.”
He had the League. He had his duties. He had two dozen men beneath him, all awaiting his orders. He had lives to protect, loyalties and oaths to uphold. That was what made him content, what made him feel at home.
Sadness lurked in her eyes, her expression sobering. “And is that why you spent last evening sleeping in the library and why you stink of spirits?”
Ah, hell.
The answer to
that question was simply, hopelessly complicated: yes and no. More no than yes. Or perhaps it was more yes than no?
Damn him for drinking so bloody much swill at the tavern and then upon his arrival. His head felt as it were stuffed with jeweler’s cotton.
He decided a change of subject was in order. “I have come bearing good news for Clay. The Crown is bestowing a viscountcy upon him in recognition of his service. He will become Lord Stanwyck.”
“Oh, Leo!” Lily wrapped him in another impulsive hug. “I know how hard you fought for him. Thank you. You are a good brother.”
The back of his neck itched, but he returned her embrace just the same. Emotions were a devilishly tricky thing for him. He did not like the unfettered showing of them. “Clay earned the right with his dedication and selfless devotion.”
Lily was aware of their covert work, though not the precise nature of it, nor the details. “Of course he did, but pray, do not act as if you had no hand in this, for we both know you did.”
Yes, he had, but that did not mean he wanted his praises sung. Praises, hugs, and treacly sentiments made his gut ache. “Nonsense.” He extracted himself from her arms. “It was Clay and nothing more. Where is my brother this morning? I ought to impart the news.”
“Still abed.” Lily’s dark eyes shone with tears. “I love you, my darling son.”
Christ.
Crying appalled him.
He fidgeted, needing to escape. “Well. I ought to restore myself to a civilized state before greeting the groom and bride.” He bowed. “Mother.”
With that, he took his throbbing head and his body that smelled as if he had spent the evening on the floor of a dockside tavern, and all his regrets, and fled.
Chapter Three
The day of the wedding had come, and Bridget was a bundle of knots and worry, for she knew what it meant. She would have to steal away her charge, the young duke, as she had been ordered to do. The commotion of the celebrations, combined with the new addition of guests, and the couple’s wedding night would facilitate her actions.
Heartless Duke Page 3
