by Alyson Chase
With a sigh, she pushed herself to standing and shook her skirts out. She moved in front of the mirror above the mantel and tried to fix her hair. “We’d better not. Even fully dressed, I still don’t look quite respectable. I’ll send a note to Hy tomorrow telling her that I had a headache.”
He plucked her fichu from the floor and shoved one end down her bodice. “I can’t say that I regret mussing you up.”
Juliana smoothed the lump he’d made with the fichu and tucked the other end of it in her gown. “I don’t regret anything about our time together.”
Their eyes met in the mirror. His gaze dropped away. “We should go.”
“Brogan,” she said, turning. She hooked her finger between the buttons of his waistcoat. “You don’t regret our affair, do you?” She knew he enjoyed it. But even the most pleasurable things could lead to remorse. To Brogan’s strict mind, probably the more pleasurable, the more remorse he felt.
“I regret acting foolishly.” He held her wrist, brushing his thumb back and forth over her skin before removing her finger from his clothing. “I regret not doing more to protect both of us from the inevitable disappointment to come.”
“You don’t know there will be disappointment.” If she was a foot-stamping kind of lady, she would have dented the Butters’s parquet floor by now. The man was too cynical. Too constrained. And much too frustrating to give her peace of mind.
He made a simple knot in his cravat and smoothed down the ends. “We should go,” he repeated.
She pressed her lips together. It was a strange tug o’ war they were engaged in. A woman shouldn’t have to work so hard to make a man want such a liaison. And the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach warned her she might not win this contest. He could end their relationship at any moment.
The smile she pasted on her face wavered only the littlest bit. “I’m ready.” She hurried to the door and poked her head out.
A maid lounged against the far wall, holding their coats.
“Maisey?” Juliana peered down the hall. “What are you doing here?”
“I saw you sneaking into this room.” The girl’s eyes twinkled. “The butler has positioned himself at the front door. You won’t slip past him unnoticed, and he notices everything.” She ran her gaze down Juliana’s rumpled gown, her smile widening.
Brogan followed Juliana into the hall. “Is there another exit we should take?”
Maisey tossed them their coats and pulled a dented top hat from behind her back. She popped out the crease and handed it to Brogan. “Down this hall and to the right. It will take you to the west garden. There’s a gate to the street from there.”
“You are a jewel, Maisey.” Juliana squeezed the girl’s hands. “I won’t forget this.”
The maid shrugged. “You’ve been good to me.”
With a last farewell, Juliana and Brogan followed her direction and escaped into the brisk night air.
She stepped next to Brogan, seeking his warmth. But though his body was inches from hers, he felt farther away than ever. She breathed deeply. “Maisey deserves a gift for that rescue.”
“Why?” Brogan trudged toward the wooden gate, poking his head above the slats. When a pedestrian had passed, he opened the gate.
She slipped through, frowning. “Because she went out of her way to help us. Because if the butler had suspected something and told Mr. Butters, he most likely would have forbidden Hy from seeing me.” Something she should have considered before dragging Brogan into the room. But all was well that ended well. “Because she acted as a friend.”
Brogan hailed his carriage which was waiting down the street. “She’s not your friend. She makes her living assisting your kind. She provided you a service, which was her job. Nothing more.”
Juliana scowled. She had half a mind to walk back to his apartments. She didn’t think she wanted to spend the next twenty minutes in a confined space with him, not when he was in this mood.
But she was a rational person, and she didn’t see why she should suffer blisters when Brogan was the one who was being a right pain.
She ignored the hand he offered to assist her into the coach. She settled herself into the far corner of the bench. Yes, Maisey worked for Mr. Butters, but that didn’t mean she had to help anyone who came through the doors of the house. The girl had a mind of her own, and she’d used it to help Juliana, without any expectation of payment, only because she liked her.
It had been a compromise of sorts across class and rank.
Why was it so difficult for Brogan to attempt the same?
Chapter Twenty-One
Brogan gripped his pen. His gaze drifted to where Juliana sat across from him at the agency's offices.
Her expression was placid, but he knew she felt the same frustrations swirling under her skin that he did.
It had been a week. A week of Brogan going out to question people while leaving her here in the offices under the watch of his fellow agents. He'd made sure everyone knew not to be fooled by her ‘wanting to use the necessary’ excuse.
She had been furious with him for investigating without her at the beginning of the week, but that fury had dwindled into intermittent irritation. She was at heart a sensible creature. She wouldn’t stay in high temper just for spite’s sake.
“You done with that report yet?” Wil called from his office.
Brogan turned back to the paper before him. “Not yet.” Reports. No one had told him becoming an agent of inquiry would require so much paperwork. He could have written the same damn thing each afternoon after he came back from questioning his suspects. The name at the top of the report for the person he’d interviewed would change, but since he had learned shit all from each questioning session, the rest he could write by rote.
No one suspected Pickens of anything beyond petty theft. Everyone thought Lord Withington a decent man with no enemies.
With a neat motion, Juliana slit open the seal of her letter. They’d set up a forwarding system for her correspondence to be sent here.
He hoped reading and replying to her acquaintances would alleviate some of her boredom at her confinement. Guilt gnawed at Brogan. It was for her own good. No one would be throwing rocks at her head if he could help it.
But it was for his own good, too. And that’s what made his guts twist. He was depriving her of her right to investigate in order to keep himself sane.
Wil had brought in a couple of books for Juliana to entertain herself with while Brogan was away, something Brogan should have thought of himself. He didn't know if Juliana actually read them. Every time she picked up a book, it looked like she wanted to chuck it at his head instead of dive into the pages.
Brogan needed this investigation to end to preserve his own sanity. He put the finishing touches on his day’s report and shoved the paper into the corner of his desk. He laced his fingers together and placed them behind his head. “Anything the matter?” he asked when Juliana’s lips pursed.
“Nothing.” She put down that letter and went for another. “Just a ball I was invited to. I didn't want to go in any case.”
He remembered Juliana dancing by herself in her friend’s room when he’d found her. She enjoyed such frolics. She deserved to have fun, deserved to get her life back.
Even though it wouldn't include him.
He sat up straight and put his pen and inkwell away.
It shouldn’t include him. Juliana might think she wanted him now. After all, she'd made herself quite comfortable in his little apartments, taken to cooking them dinners, even darned a pair of his socks.
He’d pretended he didn’t see the unevenness of her stitching, eaten everything she’d served even as he breathed through his mouth so he couldn't actually taste the food. She was trying everything in her power to show him they weren’t as unsuited as he believed. And he loved her for it, even knowing how futile her efforts were.
They were too different. She would have to sacri
fice too much to be with him. He was resolved to let her go as soon as the investigation ended.
It didn’t help his resolve that they fucked like animals every night. The way she shuddered when he slid deep was like a blow from a chisel to his willpower. The jokes she told to make him smile when they lay sweat-slicked in bed after their crises were another blow. She was like a damned sculptor, chipping away at him all day long.
It was enough to make a man want to believe that their lives could suit, that she could content herself to live in relative squalor.
But he knew better. The lack of her usual comforts would gnaw on her, dimming her spark day by day until she looked at him with resentment. If Juliana didn't marry a nobleman, she should at least partner with a man who was her intellectual equal. Someone who enjoyed going to those damn salons. Who could match her fact for fact in talking about the planets, about philosophy.
Brogan wasn't that man. He rubbed at the ache in his chest. He needed their affair to end, and soon, if he wanted to remain whole at the end of it.
Juliana’s eyes flew wide. She quickly sliced open the next letter. “This is from my father.”
Her eyes flicked over the lines. “He says he's returning to London in a month's time.” She bit her lip. “We will have found our suspect by then, right? We must.”
Brogan stood, his legs twitching with the need for motion. He walked back and forth. “At the rate I'm going, I don't think I'll ever find the perpetrator,” he admitted. “I’ve learned nothing new this past week. Nothing to indicate who paid Pickens. Nothing at Bluff Hall to think something is amiss.” He blew out a breath. “I believe that someone is after your father, but I'm damned if I can prove it.”
She sagged back in her chair, draping her arms over the sides. “We must do something.”
Agent Verity at the next desk over snickered. “It's tough using your head instead of your fists, eh, Duffy?”
Brogan flexed his hands. The agents all teased each other. He knew it was meant in good fun, but still he wanted to throttle the man. Mainly because he was right.
Brogan was more comfortable beating answers from someone instead of investigating. He thought about his fights, thought about the broken ribs, the blows to the head he’d taken. Boxing might have been where he’d excelled, but he didn't want to return to that life. He needed to start using his head, for Juliana’s sake, if not for his.
He dug a bit of wood from his pocket and tossed it from hand to hand. The kernel of an idea formed. Even in the boxing ring, he had needed to employ some strategy. One didn’t win purely from brute force. One of his tactics had been to lure his opponent in, make him think Brogan was tired so he would draw in close.
Then Brogan would snap the trap around him.
“Your father will be here in a month?” he asked.
Juliana nodded. “Only a month left.” She sighed.
A vise wrapped around his ribs. A month. It seemed like forever when he needed her out of his home, out of his life, in order to find peace again.
The fading sun caught her dark hair, making it glint auburn.
And a month also seemed like no time at all. Not when he knew he would no longer see her again at the end of it.
He hardened his shoulders. “I have an idea. It will require your father's cooperation, but if we can get him to go about on errands alone, to places that would tempt our assailant to strike, then I think we can lure his enemy out into the open.”
Juliana jerked up straight. “You want to use my father as bait?”
He nodded.
“No.” She narrowed her eyes. “The risk is too great.”
He cocked his hip on the edge of his desk, his leg inches from her knee. “We can make it safe. It won't just be me protecting him. There will be other agents there, watching. We’ll only make it look like he’s alone, unprotected, and when the assailant strikes, we’ll catch him.”
It was a good plan. It was his only plan, and he knew Wil and the others would back him up.
But that left him with Juliana. For a month. With her close enough to touch. To taste. To worship.
He didn't know if that month would kill him, or be something he remembered for the rest of his life.
Juliana popped to her feet and paced about her chair, her skirts swishing angrily. “Why wait?” she asked. “We already have bait you can use.”
He cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”
She spread her hands wide. “Me. That same person wants to kill me, as well. We can lay a trap for him to try and kill me again.”
“No.” His voice brooked no dissent. There was no way in hell he was going to let Juliana risk her neck.
“You said it was perfectly safe.” She smiled sweetly. “That there would be no risk to my father. Then there should be no risk to me, either.”
His palm itched to spank the smug right out of her. She thought she’d caught him in a neat trap. What she didn’t know was that he didn’t care if he was hypocritical, not when her safety was at stake. He wasn't going to let her do it.
“We would all be there for her.” Verity and the other three agents in the room nodded.
Brogan glared. They all were much too friendly with Juliana, but he understood it. They were the ones spending their days with her. Watching her, talking with her, enjoying her. Of course, she'd crawl her way into their hearts.
“I said no.” He slammed the half-formed badger on his desk. The bang was loud enough to bring Wil out of his office again.
“Problems?” he asked.
Brogan squeezed the wood piece until he felt the badger’s claws imprint into his skin. “No problems.”
“No, there isn't a problem,” Juliana agreed. “Brogan came up with a plan to catch the man after my father, and we're just deciding how best to implement it. If I’m to be used as bait, how will we make it look realistic that I'm off on my own without Brogan following me around?” She tapped her fingers to her lips.
“It’s not happening,” Brogan said.
Wil stepped further into the main office. “It's not unheard of for you to sneak off without a chaperone.” He gave her a wry grin. “If any woman were to go about alone without it causing suspicion, it would be you.”
Agent Hurst planted his elbows on his desk. “No, I think she's right. We need a better pretext.”
“She doesn't need a pretext,” Brogan said, “because she's not doing it.”
They all ignored him.
“A fight?” Juliana said. “A public break with this agency?”
Wil limped closer, rubbing his thigh. “Where could this fight happen?”
Juliana hurried to Brogan’s desk and picked up one of her discarded correspondence. “This ball. It's in two night's time. I can have the fight with Brogan there. If we make it loud enough, word of my separation from this agency should reach whoever's behind this.”
Heat rose up Brogan’s neck. “I said—”
“That is a good idea.” Wil nodded. “But if you severed ties with our agency, you would naturally return to live at your London home. That'll be a hard place for us to protect you.”
“I'll stay with Hyacinth again.” Juliana shrugged. “There won’t be a problem.”
Brogan threw the wood piece across the room. “I said no,” he roared. He was the lead investigator, damn it. He was the only one who truly cared about Juliana's well-being. They would listen to him.
Silence descended. Every eye was on him, some pitying, some confused.
“Brogan,” Juliana began.
“No.” He planted his hands on his hips. “Not happening. It isn’t your place.”
“My place.” Her voice was flat. “And you think you have the authority to tell me what my place is?”
There was a loud shuffling as the other agents stepped out from behind their desks and hurried towards the back. “We’re just…” “This seems private…” “Good luck.” This last was directed at Bro
gan and said with a snort.
Wil followed them into his office. “Let us know what you decide.” He closed the door.
Juliana waited for his answer, eyebrow raised, hip cocked to the side.
Brogan rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m only thinking of your safety. You’re the daughter of an earl. You should be enjoying your teas and balls and salons. Leave the work to me.”
She swallowed. “You still think I’m spoiled.”
He huffed. She had everything and didn’t even see it. “Only someone who has every comfort provided for would risk them so easily. You think life is a grand adventure. You don’t know how easily everything can be taken.” Someone in her position couldn’t know that, and for that he was glad. He didn’t want her cynical. He didn’t want her exposed to the harsh realities.
She turned her back on him. Her shoulders were rigid blocks, and he fought the urge to rub the tension out of them.
“I…” She cleared her throat. “I want to help. Be useful for once. I’ve never felt more alive than I have during this investigation.” She laughed bitterly. “Which must prove to you just how horrible I am, enjoying myself when my father’s life is at risk.”
He did move to her then, resting his palms on her shoulders and drawing her back to lean against his chest. “It’s natural to feel a thrill at life and death situations.” He rested his chin on top of her head. “That doesn’t mean you should seek them. You can be useful in many other ways.”
“Are you certain about that? The daughter of an earl is expected to look pretty and keep her mouth shut. Be an adornment instead of a partner.” She rested her head against his shoulder. “You think you’re protecting me, but it feels like you’re taking away my one chance to live a life with value.”
His resolve wavered. Men could choose to go into war, duel over their honor, even become investigators. They could seek glory or execute their duty without anyone trying to cosset them away, protect them from harm. He didn’t want to deny Juliana the same opportunity.
But he didn’t want to see her body knocked senseless by a rock. Or pierced by a bullet. Or hurt in any manner of ways that his imagination provided.
