by Julia Quinn
And it had all been a jade’s trick—her kiss hadn’t been for passion, but distraction. Her hand sliding down his chest hadn’t been a caress. Lust-filled idiot that he was, he hadn’t seen that it was all a ploy until was almost too late.
Making matters worse, he couldn’t even blame her for her actions. The coin belonged to her. He’d taken it to use as a bargaining chip, but when that had failed, he ought to have just given it back to her. Instead, he’d taunted her with it across a ballroom floor, and now he was the one being taunted—by his own memories of what he’d once had and lost. For that, he had no one but himself to blame.
He opened his eyes, staring at the black roof of the carriage overhead, but in his mind, he saw nothing but Ellie’s moonlit face and parted lips.
What about a kiss? Would that persuade you?
The arousal in his body flared even higher, and he groaned, rubbing his hands over his face and cursing his folly. Why hadn’t he just given her the blasted thing when she’d asked for it? If he had, he’d have been spared this torture. And yet . . .
His hands fell to his sides, and he closed his eyes again. Yes, he’d have been spared the taste of her and the scent of her and the feel of her in his arms. But if he had it to do over again, he realized in hot chagrin that he wouldn’t change a thing. He still wanted her, and despite the agony of having to relive it afterward, the episode in the folly had allowed him the illusion of believing, if only for a few heavenly moments, that he’d never lost her.
The carriage jerked to a stop. Lawrence opened his eyes and glanced out the window to find that he had arrived at his offices. Unfortunately, he was also rock-hard, burning with unrequited lust, and not fit to be seen.
He fell back in his seat, took a deep breath, and raked a hand through his hair as he worked to contain his arousal and remember his duty. He had work to do, and that work didn’t stop just because memories of Ellie’s kiss were making an unholy mess of his body.
By the time his driver had rolled out the steps and opened the door, Lawrence felt he was sufficiently in control that he could enter the offices of His Majesty’s Government without eliciting raised eyebrows and chortles of laughter from his colleagues, but though his body might once again be under his regulation, he soon realized that his brains were a different story. When he turned to reach for the portfolio that contained the evidence Hammersmith had given him, he found that he had left it behind.
Of all the brainless things to do. Muttering an oath, he looked at his driver. “I’m afraid we have to return home, Jamison. I’ve forgotten something.”
“Very good, sir.” Jamison rolled up the steps and closed the door, and half an hour later, the carriage was pulling up in front of his great-aunt’s house in Cavendish Square.
As Lawrence entered the house and ascended the stairs to his room, he vowed that when he departed for his offices this time around, he would not only bring Hammersmith’s evidence and his own wits with him, he would also leave any thoughts of Ellie behind. He would not see her, he told himself, nor even think of her, until after the trial was over. He would avoid her like the plague.
The moment he opened the door of his bedroom, however, any notion he would be able to steer clear of Ellie Daventry went straight out the window because she was standing right in front of him.
Chapter 7
“What in blazes are you doing?”
Even as he asked Ellie the question, Lawrence glanced past Ellie and knew the answer, for he could plainly see one blackened corner of Hammersmith’s account book on his writing desk.
He looked at her again, noting the drab gray servant’s dress, white cap, and apron, and rage flared up inside him like white-hot sparks, igniting all the other emotions he’d been trying so desperately to contain since last night.
She seemed to appreciate the depth of his fury, for as their eyes met across the room, hers widened a fraction. When the door slammed behind him, the sound made her jump. And when he started across the room toward her, she retreated, but she’d barely taken one step before her bottom hit the edge of the desk behind her and she was forced to stop.
With no choice but to brave his ire, she faced him squarely. “I came for my sixpence.”
“I see.” He leaned a little sideways and noted that along with Hammersmith’s account book, several of the other man’s letters were scattered across his desk. “And yet,” he said through clenched teeth, “the sixpence doesn’t seem to be what you found.”
“Lawrence,” she began, but that placating word was too much for his fraying temper.
“Don’t,” he ordered fiercely. “You’ve been caught poking and prying amongst my things, even reading my private correspondence. By God, if you make any attempt to justify yourself, I will throttle you.”
“You needn’t worry.” She looked away. “You interrupted me before I could find out anything useful.”
“Even if that’s true, which I doubt, you’ve nonetheless read far enough to compromise my entire investigation.”
She tried to step around him, but he grabbed her arms. “Oh no. You’re not going anywhere. Tell me exactly what you know.”
She tried to free herself, but when he didn’t let her go, she gave a sigh and went still. “I know John Hammersmith is alive, for one thing. Although why he’s living in Ireland, I can’t imagine.”
He felt a jolt of panic. “What do you intend to do with that information?”
She didn’t answer, and he gave her a little shake. “Do you intend to tell your father?”
“What if I am?” she countered, her dark eyes flashing. “What will you do to stop me? Lock me in a prison cell?”
He studied her face, noting the defiance in her eyes, the press of her lips. It was a look he knew well, the same sort of look a mule might give when being pulled in a direction it did not want to go. Having dealt with Ellie’s stubborn streak many times in his life, he reminded himself that in such circumstances as these, persuasion could often be far more effective than dominance.
He took a deep breath, forcing anger down. He relaxed his grip on her arms, though he did not let go. “You know, putting you in prison is a splendid idea. A few days down there, in a dark, damp cell with the rats . . .” He paused as if contemplating it, and when he felt her shiver, he pressed his advantage. “Big, hungry rats that bite and gnaw your flesh. There’s also the maggots. They squirm about in your daily bread ration and—”
“All right, all right,” she cried. “I discovered that when he worked in the factory my father owned, Mr. Hammersmith seems to have paid for great quantities of tin.”
“Quite right. And what conclusions did you draw from that?”
She didn’t answer, and he went on, “Hmm . . . what could a factory that manufactures guns possibly want with tin? Oh yes,” he added brightly when she didn’t answer, “the faulty guns sent to the British army by your father’s factory had some components made of tin. That’s right.”
“That’s not evidence. That’s a theory. Even if you could somehow prove that this tin supposedly purchased by Papa’s factory was used to make the flawed muskets, all purchasing decisions would have been made by Mr. Hammersmith.”
“Ah, so that’s the way your mind’s working, is it? It’s all Hammersmith’s fault, and your father was an innocent dupe?”
She lifted her chin a notch, her favorite pretense at haughty dignity. “I saw nothing in what I read that proves Papa knew anything about what Mr. Hammersmith was doing.”
If what she said was true, then she hadn’t yet seen where Hammersmith had recorded the actual dates the flawed guns had been shipped and to which regiments they had gone. Or perhaps she had, but she hadn’t yet appreciated just what a valuable trail of bread crumbs such a record would be.
“If that’s all you know,” he said, watching her closely, “then you didn’t read very far. Good.”
Her attempt at hauteur wavered a bit, and a hint of fear showed in her eyes. “So you see? What I know is very
little. You can let me go now.”
“Not a chance. I want to know every scrap of information you’ve gleaned. Every scrap, Ellie, no matter how trivial.”
She didn’t answer.
“If you continue to keep mum,” he murmured, “we shall have to return to the topic of maggots.”
She gave an aggravated sigh. “I read through his letters to you. Try as you might, you haven’t been able to persuade him to come before your precious committee and tell his lies about my father. So, all you have is an account book that Hammersmith may very well have fabricated. And though I didn’t have the chance to read much of that before you came in, it’s obvious to me that without Hammersmith’s actual sworn testimony, the book doesn’t do you much good. You still need corroboration. Isn’t that what you barristers call it?”
He cursed himself for all the times he’d discussed the law with her when he was a barrister. “You have no idea what other evidence I have,” he said instead, trying to take solace in the fact that she didn’t know about Sharpe. “And you won’t, until your father goes before the House of Lords. But tell me,” he added before she could reply, “have you any theories as to why Mr. Hammersmith is unwilling to testify?”
“Because he’d have to lie under oath?”
His gaze locked with hers. “Or because he’s afraid for his life.”
She stared at him for a moment, then shook her head, laughing as if the suggestion was outrageous. “What are you saying? That my father would . . . would harm John Hammersmith? That’s absurd!”
He didn’t reply. Instead, he studied her face, noting the uncertainty in her expression, watching it grow stronger with each passing second. Uncertainty was something he’d never seen in her face before, and hope stirred within him. “You thought the idea of Daventry being a war profiteer was absurd, too. Until today.”
“Be damned to you!” With sudden violence, she twisted sideways, landing a blow to his ribs with her elbow. It knocked the wind out of him enough to slacken his hold, and she pulled free and ducked around him. But she’d barely taken one step toward the door before he turned and caught her again, his arms wrapping around her as tightly as a straitjacket.
“Let me go.” She struggled, legs flailing as he lifted her off the ground. She tried to kick him in the shins with her heels, but hampered by her skirts, she couldn’t land a blow painful enough to loosen his hold. “Let me go, damn you!”
“The hell I will.”
“I’ll scream.”
“Go ahead. Do you really want my aunt’s entire household to come running and find you here? That story would make quite a sensation. I can see the headline in the scandal sheets now: ‘Lady Elinor Daventry caught in Mr. Lawrence Blackthorne’s bedroom!’ My, my, what will Bluestone and his father make of that, I wonder?”
She stilled, panting. “God,” she choked between clenched teeth as she turned her head to glare at him over one shoulder, “how I hate you.”
He studied her face for a long moment, and though he saw resentment mingled with her new uncertainty, he did not see the loathing for him that she so vehemently declared. “I don’t think you hate me,” he said, crossing his fingers that he wasn’t engaging in a serious bout of wishful thinking. “What you hate is that you’ve been blatantly lied to by your own father for most of your life, and you’re now beginning to realize it.”
She shook her head in vehement denial. “My father would never hurt or kill anyone.”
“Even the man who can expose his crimes in full? Hammersmith knows—”
He stopped in chagrin, realizing he had almost revealed crucial information to Daventry’s loving, loyal daughter, a woman he couldn’t trust an inch.
But, God help him, he wanted to.
He wanted to tell her everything he knew. He wanted to confide to her every detail and show her all the evidence he had because he still loved her, and if he could somehow convince her of her father’s guilt, he might regain the love she’d once had for him. But that was a fantasy, and even if it weren’t, his duty remained.
Lawrence shored up his resolve and shoved foolish hopes aside. “I have all the evidence I need to prove your father’s guilt, and I will prove it. When I show the committee what I have, he will be brought before the House of Lords, he will be tried for misappropriation of military funds, for war profiteering, and—if I have my way—for treason. No matter what you may know, or what you may tell your father, you cannot stop him from facing the consequences of what he did.”
“He didn’t do anything wrong, and nothing you say will convince me otherwise. Even if my father’s factory made those flawed guns, even if my father himself and not Mr. Hammersmith was the one who made the decision to use flawed materials for their manufacture, nothing will convince me he knew such a decision would harm anyone. He didn’t know.”
The doubt in her voice was stronger now, strong enough to be unmistakable. Because he couldn’t be sure of what she actually knew, the only card he could safely play to gain her silence was her own conscience. “Mr. Hammersmith,” he said, “doesn’t seem to share your faith.”
“I told you, Papa would never harm John Hammersmith. Why, the man’s my godfather. The two men have been friends since boyhood. Papa would never do anything to hurt him.”
“No? Hammersmith allowed everyone to believe he died in the fire that burned down your father’s factory. Why would he do that? Why would he remain in hiding for the past thirteen years, living in a foreign country? He’s terrified that if Daventry finds out his whereabouts, the earl will have him killed. Like it or not, Ellie,” he said, as she shook her head, “if you tell your father anything about what you discovered today, you will be putting a good and honorable man at risk. Would you do that? Would you put the life of your own godfather in jeopardy? A man who called you little Ellie and carried you around the factory floor on his shoulders? A man who, according to everything you’ve ever told me, loved you like a daughter, and still does?”
She shuddered, and a sob came from her throat. “My father is not a war profiteer or a criminal,” she cried, and once again began thrashing in his hold, denying the truth for all she was worth. “He’s not a murderer or a traitor. He’s not. He’s not. He’s not!”
With each denial, her vehemence lessened, whether due to fatigue or futility, he didn’t know, but at last she stilled again, sagging in his arms. “He’s not,” she whispered, panting, staring at the floor.
“Either way, the question remains. Are you going to tell your father what you’ve discovered?”
“Will you put me in prison to stop me?”
The bitter tinge of her voice was like a knife slicing through his chest. “No,” he muttered. “I’m an utter fool, I daresay, but no.”
“What . . .” She paused and lifted her chin, but she didn’t turn her head to look at him. “What are you going to do, then?”
His options, he knew, were limited. In fact, he had only one. “I’m going to let you go.” He eased back, but before she could step away, he put his hands on her shoulders and turned her around. “Last night, you accused me of not trusting you. Well, you’ll have to take it back, because I’m choosing to trust you now. I’m trusting that you won’t tell your father anything of what you’ve discovered.”
“You expect me to sit back, meek and silent, while you build your case against him?”
He couldn’t help a laugh at that. “Expecting you to be meek and silent would be as pointless as expecting England to have a drought.” He paused, and took a deep breath, hoping like hell what he was about to do would not further compromise his investigation or put Hammersmith’s life in jeopardy. “I am trusting that you have enough affection for your godfather not to take the slightest chance of endangering his life. I am trusting you’ll start to think about the men who died, good men who fought for England and didn’t deserve to die with faulty muskets in their hands. And I’m trusting you to find the courage to confront your father with all those rumors from years ago. Lo
ok him in the eye as if you don’t know anything, and ask him about the muskets and about the fire that burned down his factory—”
“Why should I ask him about the fire?” She stared at him in shock. “That fire was an accident!”
“Was it?”
“Of course it was!”
“If you ask him, I’m sure he’ll say it was. In fact, he’ll deny any wrongdoing, just as he did with me. But when he does deny it, be sure you’re looking into his eyes, Ellie. That way, I’m hoping you’ll see the truth.”
“I already know the truth.”
“Or perhaps the truth is what you’ve always been afraid to face.”
That flicked her on the raw, he could tell. Her chin went up again, all the proud hauteur of an earl’s daughter in her face. “I’m not afraid of anything. I’m not a child.”
“I didn’t say you were a child.”
His voice was mild, but it seemed to raise her ire even higher. She stirred, scowling at him. “I am quite capable of facing unpleasant truths.”
“Good. Then confront your father, ask him what really happened, and see what he tells you.”
He lowered his arms and stepped back, releasing her, and at once she started for the door, but he spoke again before she could open it.
“Ellie?”
She paused, one hand on the knob, and looked at him over her shoulder.
He met her inquiring gaze with a hard one of his own. “You know Hammersmith is alive, you know from the text of his letters that he is living in Ireland. I can’t do anything to change that. But I want your solemn word that you won’t tell your father about him, or about anything else you’ve discovered today. I know you don’t believe you would be putting the man in danger, but you must trust me when I say that caution and complete discretion are called for here.”
