Graham waited, the click-click-click of the quill striking the page grating, until his patience snapped. “That is it?”
His superior paused, his gaze still trained on his page, and then resumed writing. “What else is there to say? You’ve done your work.”
“And I don’t even know the outcome that awaits the young woman?”
This time, Lord Edward did look up, his hard gaze leveled square on Graham’s face. “Ah, but it isn’t the role of an agent to know those details. Your role was to report on her circumstances.” He lifted the stack of Graham’s notes. “Which you’ve done. And now Miss Donaldson and her son will be passed on to the next agent.”
That was it.
Of course that was it.
That was the perfunctory, methodical flow of an assignment—no one person became too involved. Each agent’s interest was not to extend too deep or too far beyond the specifics of a mission. “What will become of them?”
“Does it matter to you?” the other man shot back.
The answer expected of him was no. Among the many rules and lessons ingrained in him had been to never let one’s subject close—it was a means of self-preservation.
“You’re hesitant to answer,” Lord Edward noted. Picking up his snifter, he took a drink.
“Because I know the answer expected of me. An agent gathers information but doesn’t care how the outcome might affect the figures being investigated.” He repeated the words by rote.
“And yet, you do.”
As it was a statement, Graham let it remain as such.
Lord Edward continued sipping his drink, contemplating Graham. “There’s been… debate among past and present members of the Brethren on… just how much we as an organization should ‘care’ about the men, women, and children involved in investigations. Nathaniel Archer, the Earl of Exeter upon his retirement, sought to set a new system of governance in place where mercy is shown to victims caught up in our work, or discovered through it.”
“Martha Donaldson,” Graham said, the reason for his assignment at last clear.
His superior nodded. “Miss Donaldson,” he repeated. “There were those in the ranks who took umbrage at the changes implemented by his lordship. The man who replaced Exeter as Sovereign, and those he appointed to roles of power decided the policies Exeter set into place before he’d left were ones that showed weakness. They reimplemented the oldest codes of the Brethren.” Never reveal a weakness or vulnerability. “The policies were reversed…”
“And Miss Donaldson and her son were abandoned,” he murmured.
Lord Edward lifted his head. “Precisely.”
She’d gone from a woman who’d lived a comfortable existence with her son and father, to a bigamist, her entire world fodder for village gossips and her struggles forgotten by the Brethren. Bitterness sat on his tongue like acid. Graham sat back in his seat. “And here I believed the Brethren was a branch within the Home Office that honorably served and protected all members under the Crown.” What a lot of rot. The organization and those within it were as self-serving as any other gentlemen.
“There has been an internal struggle for power that has seen a rapid changeover of leadership,” Lord Edward expounded. “It’s why many were asked out of retirement.” It was why Lord Edward now found himself in the position of the Sovereign.
Graham considered those revelations. “Why are you telling me this?” he asked cautiously. When, as a rule, leadership was to reveal little and say even less.
“Because I suspect you are one of those men who, once trained as a member, would ‘care’ about the fate of those deserving of the Brethren’s support.”
And with that, Graham was knocked off-kilter.
“I went through the files of rejected candidates and studied past candidates for consideration. They say one can tell much about a person by the way they treat their horses.” A faint grin turned Lord Edward’s lips. “I’m one who happens to ascribe to that truth. As such, I’d be alarmed had you continued to express a disinterest in Miss Donaldson and an eagerness to forget her and move on to your next post.”
“So this… All of it has been a test,” Graham said slowly as understanding dawned.
Lord Edward touched a fingertip to his temple. “Everything is always a test. As for Miss Donaldson, based on your findings, we’ll see that she secures employment.”
All his muscles tensed. “That is what you’re suggesting?” Graham asked, incredulity and disgust all wrapped around that question. “In addition to caring for her child and running a household, you believe adding additional work to her existence is helping her?” That was what they’d reduce her to?
“What do you propose, Whitworth?”
He searched his mind. “I…don’t know.” She deserved more. So much more. There’s this feeling I have… I don’t know how to describe it. This… feeling that can only come in creating something from nothing. It’s equal parts wonder, and frustration, and exhilaration, all wrapped together. “The young woman has artistic talents,” Graham said into the quiet. “If I may suggest that work be found that allows her to use those abilities.”
If he had to leave, that was one small deserved gift he’d leave her with.
Picking up his pen, Lord Edward jotted something in his book. “I’ve noted it.”
Panic filled him. The end was closing in. It couldn’t simply just… end. Not like this. “I’d like to petition for more time.” The request was pulled from him before he could call it back. And if he were honest with himself, he didn’t want to call it back.
Lord Edward again set his pen down and clasped his hands on the desk. “Go on.”
“Martha and her son are being persecuted by the villagers. At one of our first meetings, I discovered her knocked down by someone. Her son was nearly harmed yesterday.”
Lord Edward’s brows came together. “Were either injured?”
“They did not sustain physical wounds.” The pain Martha and her son knew went far deeper.
“You identified the assailants?”
“Two of Frederick Donaldson’s. I’ve reason to believe the young men who attacked her son were different than the lady’s attackers.” At Lord Edward’s probing look, Graham explained, “I identified and measured the tracks made by all. The tracks of whoever was following Martha were larger, and there were two of them.”
“And you suspect there is something more at play than small-minded villagers taunting a woman accused of bigamy?”
How casual the other man was. “I don’t have any proof of such,” he reluctantly conceded. “But neither can I say definitively that she is not being threatened for other reasons.”
“Who might wish her ill?”
“Mayhap her late husband’s legitimate family.” It, of course, made the most sense. “Perhaps the man’s legitimate son.”
Lord Edward leaned forward. The slight shifting of his slender frame sent the leather to groaning. “How do you know about the young woman’s past?”
“She confided in me.” On a lie. She believed Graham was something other than he was, someone other than he was, and trusted him.
Frowning, his superior reclined in his seat once more. “Unless you have proof, I suggest you kill that empty supposition. The late viscount’s ‘legitimate’ family is, in fact, linked by marriage now to Nathaniel Archer.”
An incessant muscle ticked at the corner of Graham’s eye. “I’ve no proof.”
“Then you have no reason to stay,” Lord Edward said, finality in that statement. “And as you’re concerned Miss Donaldson will be suspicious of your absence, I suggest you make your return.”
Graham remained seated for a moment, wanting to battle the older man on the point, wanting to insist he allow Graham to remain on at the Donaldson farm. What grounds could he provide, however? “My lord,” he said stiffly and climbed to his feet.
A short while later, Graham quit the offices of the Brethren and rode hard for Martha’s properties. Riding ha
d always managed to clear his head. Not this time. Now, his mind clamored with thoughts of Martha and her son and his concluding time with them. She deserved a goodbye, and it was, of course, easy enough to give her a false reason. All he needed to do was tell her he’d secured a paid post as a stable master and be gone.
Graham conceded the accuracy in Lord Edward’s statement: There was no reason for Graham to remain behind with Martha and Frederick.
Aside from one dangerous, undeniable one—he wanted to.
Around noon, Graham arrived at the path leading to Martha’s cottage. Dismounting, he collected the reins and guided the sweaty mount on to the stables.
The moment he opened the doors, he blinked to adjust his eyes to the dark space and immediately found Frederick. The little boy sat on a hay bale in the middle of the stables, twisting Graham’s John Bull hat.
“Mr. Malin,” Frederick whispered, and then jumping to his feet, he came flying across the barn. He launched himself at Graham, knocking him slightly back.
“Oomph,” he grunted, automatically righting him and the little child. His arms came up reflexively about Martha’s son in a light, foreign embrace. The duchess had always been free with her affections. Graham’s father, however, would have sooner lopped off limbs than use them to display warmth and be perceived as weak.
“Frederick,” he greeted, his voice slightly hoarse.
I’m going to miss not only Martha, but her son, too.
Bloody hell. It had been just eleven days since he’d known them. He wasn’t supposed to care.
Frederick’s little frame stiffened, and then he hurried out of Graham’s arms. Clearing his throat, he stuck a hand out.
Graham eyed it for a moment and then took those little fingers in the boy’s surprisingly strong handshake. “I th-thought you left,” Frederick said, a faint tremble to his words serving as an unneeded reminder that, for this display, he was still just a child. Frederick’s stricken eyes went to the hat he still clenched in his other hand. “Or-or did you only come back for your hat?”
“No, that isn’t why I’m here,” he said, swiftly reassuring.
“But your things were gone.” The boy looked to the bag Graham held.
He followed his stare. “I had… business I needed to see to.”
Frederick grinned, the smile dimpling his left cheek. Just like his mother. “But you’re back. For good.”
Oh, God. Pain continued scissoring away at his heart. Calling forth the indolent mask he’d crafted early on, he offered a smile. For he was here for another three days. He’d deal later with the reality of never again seeing Martha or this child before him. Now? Graham did a sweep, filled with an inexorable hungering to see her.
Then he registered the sudden darkening of Frederick’s features. “What is it?”
Frederick scuffed the tip of a frayed boot along the dirt floor. “I may have shouted at my mother,” he whispered.
“You… may have?” Graham asked guardedly.
With a sigh, Frederick stuffed his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth. All the while, he avoided Graham’s eyes. “She told me that she told you about… about”—he stole a peep at Graham—“being a bigamist. And I… We thought you left because of it. I blamed her.”
Graham swiped a hand over his face. “Oh, Frederick.”
“It is her fault, though. You wouldn’t be wrong—”
“It’s not her fault.” He went to a knee and touched the boy’s nose. “Look at me?”
The boy immediately complied.
“It’s not her fault. Your mother… was wronged. Lied to. And hurt because of it. Men have a responsibility to be honorable, truthful at all times.” He winced, stumbling over that. “And respectful to women,” he finished. “Your mother deserved that from the viscount, and she deserves that from you. Because that is the way a real man should be. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“That I should be kind to my mother,” he mumbled.
“No, I am saying you should be respectful to all women.” He winked. “But especially your mother.” Gathering up his bag, he looked around. “Where is she?”
“I left her inside.” His cheeks went red, and as he spoke, Graham struggled to hear the whispery-soft remainder of his words. “With Squire Chernow.”
“Who in blazes is Squire Chernow?”
“He’s the man who bought our cottage. He used to be friends with Grandfather. He was going to have Mother sketch his manor, but he keeps telling her that her work isn’t any good. But I… I don’t like how he looks at her. He stands close to her, and I probably shouldn’t have left, but I was angry.”
Graham narrowed his eyes and forced a calm he didn’t feel. “Run along and rub down Scoundrel, will you? I’m going to visit your mother.”
The boy nodded, and they fell into step, exiting the stables.
Graham continued on, his large strides eating the remainder of the distance to the cottage, and with every footfall, a red-hot bloodlust pumped into his veins.
Chapter 14
Martha stared down at the lengthy list compiled by Squire Chernow and his wife.
Rules of decorum, propriety, and expectations.
“Number thirty-six, I trust is clear,” he was saying. His reading spectacles perched on the bridge of his nose, he studied the sheet.
“No impolite visitors,” she drawled. “You may trust that I’d never voluntarily keep company with any impolite guests.” Whether he heard that veiled rebuke, he gave no indication.
“And the last item, Miss Donaldson,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, like a tutor doling out uninventive lessons to a student.
Martha turned to the final sheet. You’ll not keep company with any man as long as you reside in High Town. Of course, that was what this was really about. “I have a stable master, Squire Chernow,” she said tightly.
“A man whom you do not pay for his… services.”
Heat splotched her cheeks. She’d not even dignify that accusation with a response.
“I’ll not have you taking up with another in my property, madam,” he said, thumping his pages onto the table next to him.
With that presumption and gall, the veneer of civility she’d forced around this man lifted. “Let us be clear, you’ll not have me taking up with a man other than you,” she shot back. “That is what this is about.” She came to her feet. All these years—with the viscount, even her father, and now this man—she’d tiptoed around how she felt or softened how she spoke.
“How dare you?” he said.
Graham had been the first man… nay, person, she’d shared freely of her feelings and thoughts, and in that, she’d set herself free. This man might own her cottage, but she needn’t fall down weak before him. “I dare because it is true,” she said. “What would Mrs. Chernow say should she learn of your advances?”
His eyes bulged behind his glasses, and he lunged for her.
Martha easily sidestepped the balding squire, keeping her chair between them.
Squire Chernow smirked and, with methodical movements, removed his spectacles and tucked them in his jacket. “She’ll know what I tell her… That the High Town Whore offered herself to me in exchange for living on rent-free. A shameful offer which I, of course, declined.”
And the world would believe him. Because ultimately, no one ever trusted the word of a woman. When a woman rebuffed a man’s advances, those cads would take what they wanted anyway and leave a woman with nothing more than a blackened name and sullied soul.
“I’m not agreeing to these items,” she said flatly, holding out the sheet. “How many of your widowed tenants have you put such terms to?”
He scoffed. “That is entirely different. You are a young woman, on your own, already with a reputation as a whore. You sully the village by simply being here. And I’ve been magnanimous enough just letting you rent from me.”
“Yes, how kind,” she shot back, her voice dripping with condescension. And this from a man who
’d been her father’s friend. But then, her father, even with all his lessons on ‘paying attention to how a man treated his animals’, he hadn’t followed his own advice, and proven rubbish at judging a person’s character. His approval of Viscount Waters was testament enough of that. Martha folded those sheets and handed them over. “I’ll not agree to any of them. And I’ll certainly not send away Mr. Malin.” She and Frederick would find another cottage to rent and begin again.
On the heel of that was a swift panic at the sheer impossibility of finding a new home. There was no money. There was—
Squire Chernow pounced.
She gasped as he caught her by the arm.
“I don’t take kindly to those who threaten me, Marti,” he scolded, giving her arm a squeeze. Martha wrenched at it, but the older man demonstrated a surprising display of strength. “Now, I’ve been nothing but fair. I’ve been patient. Waiting for you to come round. But I’ll not sit about anymore while you freely give to some bloody servant what you’ve been withholding from me.”
“Release me,” she ordered, hating the warble in the demand. Her heart pounded hard in her chest as she tried to pull out of his reach, but he retained his hold, drawing her closer.
“If you’d rather put on a show of offended sensibilities,” he whispered against her ear, “I will play the game, kitten.” He roved a hand along her hip, just as another man had before. This touch was so different from Graham’s.
Graham, who’d left her and Frederick. She squeezed her lashes shut.
He brought her around to face him, and there was nothing paternal in the roving hands that moved punishingly along her waist and then higher. He cupped her right breast, and an animalistic groan filtered from his lips. Eyes closed, he lowered his head.
Martha brought her knee up, and he shifted, rendering her blow ineffectual.
“So we are still playing this game, then, kitten,” he rasped. “Splendid.”
The door burst open, and her heart soared.
“Graham,” she whispered. Only, this was Graham as she’d never seen him. Not even at the riverside with a pistol leveled on the town bullies. The threat of death glinted in his gaze. That gaze shifted briefly over to her, and he did an up-and-down sweep of her person, taking in her wrinkled skirts and touching on the strands that had pulled free from her braid. His eyes narrowed, a question there.
The Rogue Who Rescued Her Page 16
