A thick curtain of rage descended briefly over his vision. “Holman?” Leo growled.
His assistant swallowed audibly, looking one sharp demand from Leo away from bursting into tears. “D-do you require my services?”
The slap of betrayal earned a bellicose laugh from the viscount.
Fueled by rage and a knowledge that the summons he’d sent would arrive too late, Leo barked at the man he’d taken under his wing. “Traitorous bastard,” he hissed. He made a grab for the gun but Rowley leveled his pistol at Leo’s head.
“Stop,” Rowley warned.
Leo seethed; his fingers twitched with the need to grab the weapon so close at hand. There could be no doubting that his superior would fire. Dismissing him, he leveled his efforts on his apprentice. “You will never be anything within the Brethren or the Home Office, Holman.”
“It is not about that,” his clerk whispered.
Fury pulled the words from him. “What is it about?”
“Lord Rowley said you are a traitor. I—”
“Shut your mouth, Holman,” the viscount snapped.
Sticking his chest out, the man Leo had hired and groomed faced Rowley. “You are not presenting the facts correctly,” he said, his cheeks flushed. “You provided me evidence of his lordship’s—”
With a tired sigh, Rowley fired at Holman. The loud report of the gun thundered around the office.
Holman’s lips formed a small circle of surprise. And then, soundlessly, he pitched to the floor.
“Not another step, Tennyson,” he barked, freezing Leo midstride. From the corner of his eye, he evaluated Holman’s prone, awkwardly bent body, his face pitched to the floor. A small pool of blood had already begun forming. “One of us will be walking out of this office, and I intend for it to be me.”
Chapter 32
Chloe knew the moment she and Gabriel arrived that all was not right with her household.
There was no butler there to open the door.
Chloe lifted her gaze up at the townhouse she wanted to forever call home with Leo. The heavy cloud coverage briefly parted, the moon’s white glow painting eerie shadows upon the structure.
She tried the handle, and it turned easily.
Holding a hand up, a frown affixed to his lips, Gabriel entered ahead of her.
As she joined him in the foyer, the unease in her belly grew. Henry sidled up to her, and she found a reassurance in his nearness. Silence surrounded them. Thick and deafening, the kind that rang in one’s ears and buzzed loudly when all the house slept.
The mastiff’s ears stood up, and he pointed his nose in the direction of Leo’s office.
Danger.
She knew it, the same way she’d known her father’s approach was near and that a beating was imminent. Heart pounding hard in her rib cage, Chloe patted her leg once and rushed forward. Henry matched her movements, neither passing nor falling back.
“Chloe,” her brother whispered.
Glaring him into silence, Chloe continued on with Henry following in perfect step. The carpet muted the heavy fall of his paws and the click of his nails. Carefully dodging the floorboards she’d come to know were loose and staying close to the wall, Chloe didn’t stop until she reached Leo’s office.
Again, nothing but quiet greeted her.
And then she heard voices, low and muffled, by the door.
Her husband’s was one.
Relief brought her eyes briefly closed. He is all right.
That relief was short-lived, dying at the smattering of words that reached through the panel and doused her in terror.
“I’m going to kill you gladly—”
“No,” Gabriel rasped as Chloe reached for the handle and tossed it open. He grabbed her arm but she wrenched free.
It was harder to say who was more surprised, the unfamiliar mustached gentleman gaping at her… or her husband.
“Rowley?” her brother asked incredulously from behind her. He slipped into the room and moved slowly toward Chloe.
“Oh, bloody hell. This is unfortunate,” the stranger muttered, pointing a pistol at Chloe’s chest. Henry growled, baring his teeth. She immediately moved in front of the dog, blocking him from the gun.
Gabriel cursed and moved to put himself between Chloe and that gleaming weapon. “Not another step, Waverly. Your being here is deuced inconvenient. But it is certainly easier to explain that the angry brother did away with you, Tennyson, after you killed his sister.”
Her stomach dropped. She wrenched her gaze away from those merciless eyes and looked to her husband.
Agony contorted his features. “I am so sorry,” he whispered.
“I want to be with you.” Chloe touched quivering fingers to her pounding heart. “I love you.”
Lord Rowley cocked his pistol, still pointing it at Chloe. The sight of the gleaming weapon fixed on her stole stability from her legs. She damned the way they shook under her. She closed her eyes. “Touching,” the gentleman drawled. “But I’ve really had quite—”
“No,” Leo thundered, drowning out the remainder of that death sentence.
Life spun in a whir of noise and confusion as the sharp report of a gun pounded in her ears. Chloe’s entire body recoiled, and she braced for the rush of pain… that did not come. Henry’s furious barking thundered around the office, and her skirts fluttered as he raced out from around her.
Her eyes shot open.
Lord Rowley’s mouth formed a small moue, and he touched the hole ripped in his shirt, before promptly falling over.
The prone gentleman on the floor, his spectacles eschew, lay with his arm outstretched and the unfired gun pointed at the man.
Henry snarled and barked at him.
A moment later, the stranger’s eyes slid closed.
With a scream, Chloe raced over to Leo.
He met her in the middle of the room. Catching her in his arms, Leo pulled her to him. “Why did you return?” he wept into the crown of her hair. All the while, he searched his hands over her body for a wound he didn’t find. “Why?” he pleaded.
Chloe clung to him, gripping him for all she was worth. “My place is with you, Leo,” she managed to cry between her tears. She drew back slightly and looked to her silent, staring, and unharmed brother a moment. And then she returned all her focus to Leo. “And I am not letting you send me away.” She gave his lapels a tug. “Is that clear?”
A shaky smile curved his lips. He cupped her cheek. “That is clear.” Lowering his head, he claimed her mouth in a kiss that promised forever.
Epilogue
Leo was terrified.
More specifically, he was terrified out of his everlasting mind.
“You needn’t be scared,” his wife murmured, their arms looped as they strolled through Lord Waverly’s—his brother-in-law’s—household.
“Oh, no. Nothing to be worried about,” he muttered. “It’s merely the first gathering between my aunt and uncle… and your entire family, since you were nearly killed in my office.” Any one of her male—and female—kin would be within their rights to off him for the peril he’d placed her in through their marriage. “What is there to be nervous over?”
“Precisely,” Chloe beamed. “You will adore Alex. He, too, is a reformed rogue.”
“I was a rake,” he pointed out.
“Is there really a difference?”
“Oh, certainly. Rakes are far more scandalous and immoral.” Had he truly lived that existence? In the two months since he’d been married, he couldn’t imagine his life any other way than it was now… nights reading with his wife, discussing their plans to help children of the streets who’d suffered abuse and cruelty.
Chloe squeezed his arm. “But immoral is immoral. Different degrees of it do not different it make.” They reached the next corridor, and laughter and rival discourses spilled from a nearby room. “We’re here.” She winked.
He wrinkled his brow. “You were distracting me.”
Smoothing her
palms over his lapels, she leaned up. “Did it work?”
“Undoubtedly.” Leo slid his hands around her lower back, drawing her close. Chloe gave a small gasp. “I’ve been distracted by you since I stumbled upon you in Waterson’s halls.”
Her eyes softened. “Indeed?”
“Indeed,” he purred, brushing a kiss along the corner of her mouth, lower, ever lower, until he found the sensitive skin at her neck. The flesh that, when attended, unfailingly drew forth her whispery sighs.
“N-now you are attempting to distract me,” she challenged, breathless.
Leo husked his voice. “Is it working?” he asked, guiding her against the wall.
“U-undoubtedly.”
He flicked her earlobe with the tip of his tongue.
“Even more so,” she whispered.
Grinning, Leo moved to claim her mouth.
“Aunt Chloe is here!”
The child’s voice doused his ardor. Oh, bloody damn. He winced.
A moment later, Violet was joined by her older sister.
“Eww. Were you kissing?” Faith balked and ducked her head inside the suddenly silent rooms behind her. “I believe Aunt Chloe was kissing Leo,” she exclaimed on a horrified whisper. “She’s all red and—”
Chloe snaked a hand around her niece’s mouth, stifling her rambling.
“Mwhshaa,” Faith muttered. “Yes, well, they’ve stopped, then,” she announced with a flounce of her curls when Chloe released her. She skipped back into the room, her sister following along at her heels.
Chloe buried her face in his shoulder, her body shaking.
“I am so thrilled you find this to be of some amusement,” he whispered against her temple.
Her eyes twinkling, Chloe took him by the hand and tugged him reluctantly into the crowded… and still silent room.
The first person Leo noted was the brother.
Not Waverly, who’d proven himself onerous in his own right. But rather, the spare, with ice in eyes slitted like razors, and all that seething ire was reserved for Leo.
A pretty, redheaded woman, cradling a babe in her arms, whispered something… that had little effect.
“Alex,” Chloe cried, abandoning Leo as she bolted forward to greet her sibling. Tossing her arms about the other Edgerton male, she knocked him slightly off-balance.
He grunted, and all his attention shifted to his sister. Lord Alex folded Chloe in a protective hug and said something.
Chloe nodded and fired back with her own hushed words.
Through that discussion, Leo lingered at the entrance. His hands were clasped at his back. For a brief moment born of cowardice, he contemplated the door behind him.
Close-knit families and overprotective siblings were as unfamiliar to him as venturing off onto a new planet.
His uncle, where he stood with his wife and the dowager marchioness, taking entirely too much pleasure in Leo’s misery, grinned.
“I’m not pleased,” Lord Alex said, shifting his focus back to Leo.
“Of course you’re not,” Chloe said. Rushing back to Leo’s side, she caught him by the hand and pulled him forward. “You’ve not yet had the pleasure of meeting my husband.”
“We’ve met.”
Both men said it simultaneously.
“Truly?” Chloe widened her eyes. “Perhaps one of you’d care to regale us with tales of your previous meetings.”
Just like that, his wife managed to effectively silence her brother.
Lord Alex stuck a hand out. “Tennyson,” he greeted reluctantly.
“Lord Alex—”
His brother-in-law drew him close for a half hug. “If you hurt her,” he whispered, “I’ll kill you.” He squeezed Leo’s hand hard.
“And you may do so with my blessings,” he promised.
As soon as the other man released him, all conversation resumed, with Chloe performing introductions to her sister-in-law Imogen and he performing the long-overdue ones to his aunt.
“So, you are the one who tamed Leo?” Aunt Elsie murmured, clasping Chloe’s palms.
“Or rather, I’m the one who corrupted her,” he drawled. He winced when Chloe delivered him a well-delivered pinch. “Ouch.”
“Behave,” she scolded.
“My apologies,” he demurred, bowing his head.
“I always knew all you needed was the love of a good lady,” the duchess said, affectionately adjusting his cravat.
Over the top of her dark curls, he winked at Chloe.
From across the room, Faith shot a hand up. “Come, Aunt Chloe. I want to hear how you saved Leo. Mama and Papa are refusing to tell us.”
“Go,” Leo encouraged, raising Chloe’s fingertips to his lips for a lingering kiss. “Tell them all the ways in which you saved me. I’ll be over shortly.”
Chloe hesitated.
“I shall join you. I’ve still not managed to gather all the details from that day.” Aunt Elsie sent a scolding look at Leo’s uncle.
“I don’t believe that,” Leo said under his breath as the two ladies joined the girls.
“You’d be correct on that score,” his uncle whispered. “There isn’t a secret between us.” His features formed a somber mask. “I trust she just sought to allow us some time alone.”
Leo narrowed his eyes. “What is it?”
“Holman’s expected to recover. He’s suffered some paralysis, but has been quite… informative about the extent of Rowley’s ring of lies and support.”
Leo flattened his mouth. A large part of him chafed at the betrayal on the young man’s part. But then… “Many of us have also made decisions we’ve come to regret.” Leo had more regrets than every lord in London combined. “Holman was young, impressionable, and easily swayed.” Leo had mistakenly seen only the devotion and not acknowledged the perils posed by that personality. “His injuries will always be a reminder for him,” he said without inflection.
“Higgins wants me to convince you not to retire,” his uncle said quietly.
Five weeks had passed since Leo had ended his tenure with the Brethren. This had been the first any talk of his decision or future with the agency had been broached by his uncle… or anyone.
“With Rowley dead,” his uncle went on, “and you finding an internal rift within, Higgins wants to promote you to the late viscount’s position. He wants me to convey how desperately the organization needs you.”
There it was. What he’d always aspired to—respect within the ranks of the Brethren and a position that recognized his value to the Crown. He’d given almost thirteen years of his life to that service and had known nothing but the role he’d crafted.
Leo stared over at his wife. She squatted beside the camelback sofa, animated in the telling of her story. Chloe moved her hands and arms as she spoke. Her audience of three sat wholly enrapt.
But that was Chloe’s power. She possessed an effervescent glow that commanded a person’s attention and allowed one to see or hear only her.
Just then, she looked over. “I love you,” she mouthed.
Faith tugged at her white puff sleeve, calling her focus away from Leo.
He contemplated his uncle’s offer on behalf of the Brethren. Leo’s had been a purposeful life, and yet… so empty, too. Chloe had slipped into his life and filled every void of emptiness that had made him the cynical, ruthless scoundrel he’d been. And selfishly, he didn’t want to go back… not for the Crown, not for the king, and not for anything. He wanted only her. Always.
“I’m… honored,” Leo finally said. “But the Brethren does not need me. Not truly. There will always be other good, honorable men to replace those who currently serve. I’m just a man.”
His uncle slapped him on the back. “I knew the moment that girl caught you in Waterson’s office that she was the one for you.”
“I knew it, too,” Leo acknowledged wistfully. His gaze was fixed on his wife. Deep down, in a part he could have never acknowledged nor accepted until now, with his heart opened to l
ove, he knew Chloe had captivated him, mind, heart, soul, and body, from the very first.
His uncle squeezed his shoulder. “I am proud of you, Leo. If you’ll excuse me, I’m off to join my duchess.”
Leo remained at the hearth, observing the room filled with proper lords and ladies and leading societal matrons and small girls. At one time, he would have shuddered at the collection of guests assembled.
His wife sailed over. “Lord Tennyson,” she murmured, sliding her arm through his.
“Lady Tennyson.”
“Your discussion appeared… serious,” she noted, no longer teasing.
“You miss nothing.”
“What is it?” she pressed.
“They wish to promote me within the Home Office.”
She wet her lips. “I see… and what did you say?” she asked haltingly.
How could she not know? How could she not know how much she meant to him? That she was all he would ever want.
“I said I am honored.” Leo dusted his thumb over her lower lip, and that flesh trembled under the slight caress. “But I have a new life now. One with a wife I desperately love.” Her lips curved in a tremulous smile. “And as you reminded me, there is so much for us to do—together. An establishment created by both of us to help those boys and girls who most need it.” Several tears streaked down her cheeks, and he gently brushed them back. Leo held her gaze. “And one day, I hope, children brave and spirited just like their mama.”
A small sob escaped her.
“Shh, love.” He raised each of her hands to his mouth, kissing them. “Your brothers will have my head thinking I’ve hurt you.”
“They can go hang,” she rasped. Another crystalline drop rolled down her cheek. “I love you.”
“I love you,” he whispered.
This was his life.
He had that which he’d never known and had never so much as held the dream of—a family with Chloe… and the noisy, boisterous, devoted group gathered around them.
Leo smiled.
The End
Author’s Note
One of my favorite parts about writing The Brethren series has been that it’s allowed me to really dig into some riveting moments in British history. The Cato Conspiracy or Cato Event which is a central part of the first two books in the series is based on the actual Cato Street Conspiracy—a plot carried out to murder all members of Prime Minister Lord Liverpool’s cabinet.
The Lady Who Loved Him Page 37
