The Dangerous Duke

by Christine Wells

  “My work. Yes. That secret government work that you know nothing about.”

  “Oh, that. Yes, of course. I’d like to help.” She sighed. “We are so prosperous these days that I hardly know what to do with myself. I shall relish the challenge.”

  “Wait until you see your new home,” murmured Max. He studied her. “Don’t you have several hundred balls and parties to go to this season? I’d thought you were living a life of frivolity and dissipation.”

  Louisa shrugged, glancing away from him. “I am nine-and-twenty, my dear brother. Neither debutante nor matron. An old spinster of no account. And all of those balls and parties become the same after a while.”

  She grimaced and then laughed. “That makes me sound unforgivably maudlin, doesn’t it? Suffice it to say that I will enjoy this task you have set me far more than any social engagement.”

  He guided her into a small grove of trees where they’d be screened from observers and reached into his coat pocket.

  “Here.” He handed over the diary. “Now, you might find some of its content shocking, but I count on you to translate it faithfully. I need to know everything, right down to the last syllable. Keep it somewhere safe and send for me as soon as you’re finished.”

  Louisa put out her gloved hand to accept the small diary. Her horse remained obediently still while his mistress buttoned her short jacket over the precious volume.

  “I doubt I’ll begin until this evening,” she said. “Mama has every minute of my day planned. But I shall plead a headache and stay at home tonight.”

  She glanced at him, and in a voice that seemed a little hard, added, “You needn’t worry that I can’t keep a secret. I can.”

  He smiled down at her. “I’m not worried about that.” He reached over to her and took her hand, giving it a small shake. “Thank you, Louie.”

  Louisa smiled. “It is good to be useful.”

  “I came as soon as I could, yer ladyship.” Ives wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and shifted his feet. His beady eyes gleamed as he scanned the bookshelves that lined the room.

  Trying not to show her revulsion for her unprepossessing go-between, Kate asked, “And how fares my brother?”

  “Moved him to another cell, they have. Has a proper cot and a blanket and water to wash with and boiled mutton for his dinner. All the comforts he could wish. He says to tell you he is quite easy and you need not bother your head over him.”

  Kate rolled her eyes. “He did not tell you who might help us free him?”

  “It’s as I said to you before, my lady. The man don’t want to be saved.” Ives shrugged and spread his hands. “What could I do? Weren’t nothing the likes of me could say to persuade him.”

  It seemed fantastic, yet, knowing Stephen, she could well believe it. Stubborn, muddle-headed fool!

  “Does he know he is being held for sedition?” she demanded. “Does he know what the penalty for that is?”

  “Aye, he knows all that, but he says they won’t try him seeing as how he ain’t done nothing wrong. They’re just holding him so he’ll spill his guts about that fire they had at Lyle.”

  Yes, the duke had mentioned it. Kate narrowed her eyes. “So if he tells where those men are hiding, he can go free. He knows that?”

  “Yes, my lady. But he vows he won’t, and he’s got a will, has our Mr. Holt.”

  “He has, indeed,” said Kate, thinking of her bullnecked, righteous, darling of a brother. “All right, you may go.” Kate handed Ives a purse containing the rest of the money she owed him.

  He stopped and began to count it. Kate blew out an exasperated breath and swept from the room.

  With the first chapter of her memoirs safely dispatched to her solicitors, Kate paced the floor of her drawing room, considering her next step.

  She’d already decided she needed to approach Sidmouth casually, in a social setting.

  Perhaps her brother-in-law might be persuaded to invite the Home Secretary to dinner . . . She folded her arms and gazed blindly into the gardens below. Oswald was a staid, unimaginative fellow, loyal to the government. He’d already refused to help her free Stephen; she could well imagine his reaction to the news that she planned to blackmail Lord Sidmouth.

  Fingering the velvet curtains, Kate watched a swallow dart and swoop in the street outside and a sudden longing for a similar freedom beat within her. The burden of sole responsibility for Stephen’s plight seemed almost too heavy to bear. Did she really have the courage to take on His Majesty’s government?

  For Stephen’s sake, she would have to try.

  AS a solicitor’s clerk of the finest caliber, Mr. Tibbits appreciated order and method. Upon the death of his former employer—a man almost a decade younger than Mr. Tibbits himself—he’d been fortunate enough to secure a position with Mr. Crouch. That gentleman possessed an equal appreciation for order and method and so many wealthy and distinguished clients, it was a wonder he could keep pace with them all.

  Happily engaged in enumerating the manifold pleasures of his occupation, Mr. Tibbits dipped his quill in the ink-stand, preparing to draft an affidavit in his neat, looping hand.

  Before he set pen to parchment, a large shadow fell over his desk.

  He nearly jumped out of his chair. His gaze flew upwards. A tall, dark man loomed over him.

  He put a hand over his racing heart. “Good heavens, sir! You scared me.”

  He didn’t know this stranger, but from the fine quality of his garments to the arrogance of his bearing, he was Quality, through and through.

  Large, white, elegant hands settled on his desk. The stranger leaned in. “Tell your employer I wish to see him.”

  The clerk’s heart pounded harder. There was distinct menace in the stranger’s stance and in his glittering dark eyes.

  Still, Mr. Tibbits knew his duty and he was conscious of the younger clerks around him who had raised their heads to watch the exchange. “Do you h-have an appointment, sir?”

  “An appointment?” The man’s teeth gleamed. He barked a laugh, turned, and ran lightly upstairs to the gallery floor, where Mr. Crouch’s office lay.

  “Sir! You can’t go up there without an—”

  The office door opened and slammed.

  “—appointment. Oh, dear!” Mr. Tibbits hurried up after the man, fear lending wings to his heels.

  Oh, dear. Oh, gracious. Mr. Crouch would be ever so angry if this man arrived without an appointment and Mr. Tibbits hadn’t stopped him.

  Puffing, Mr. Tibbits reached the office door, knocked briefly and turned the handle.

  The door was locked.

  “Mr. Crouch, sir!” He raised his voice and spoke through the keyhole. “Are you all right?”

  He listened at the door, but the voices were too low for him to make out what was said.

  In less than a minute, the door flew open, and Mr. Tibbits almost fell into the stranger’s arms.

  The stranger gripped him by the elbows and set him back on his feet. “Steady, old man.”

  With a flash of that devilish smile, he was gone, tucking a sheaf of papers into his waistcoat as he jogged down the stairs.

  Mr. Tibbits took a deep breath and opened the door wider, preparing himself for a reprimand.

  His employer sprawled in a chair, his usually neat cravat askew, gasping for breath.

  “Sir!” Mr. Tibbits bustled into the room. “Are you hurt? Shall I send for a doctor? Call for the constable?”

  Mr. Crouch shook his head, his eyes troubled. His mouth worked.

  “No, Tibbits. I beg you to forget this incident altogether. But you must send word to Lady Kate Fairchild. I must . . . I must see her. Immediately!”

  FAULKNER’S secretary showed Max in promptly. No kicking his heels in the waiting room as he’d been obliged to do so many times before.

  If Max had cared to flaunt his new ducal dignity, he would have refused the summons and issued one of his own. He couldn’t abide such posturing, however, so he complied
with Faulkner’s request. He needed Faulkner’s cooperation and he was more likely to get it if he didn’t ruffle the old man’s feathers.

  For many moments, his presence in the inner sanctum went ignored. Max gave a sardonic smile. Things hadn’t changed so very much, after all. The head of operations sat behind his huge oak desk, leafing through a report with the calm deliberation of someone who wanted to set his guest at a disadvantage. That was all part of the game, and it had been many years since Max had let the tactic intimidate him.

  He stared at the precise line of scalp parting the thinning strands of Faulkner’s grizzled brown hair and wondered how long it would take his sister to translate Lady Kate’s diary.

  The silence stretched. Max was half-tempted to leave. He needed Faulkner’s help, however. He needed to keep Stephen Holt in jail.

  The click of an interconnecting door opening made Max tense, all senses alert.

  Another player walked into the room, and suddenly, the rules changed.

  Jardine.

  Black hair sprang back from his forehead to form a widow’s peak, and the eyebrows beneath flexed like arrowheads, giving him a rakish, almost devilish air. He looked as if he’d be good for nothing but self-indulgence and vice, but Max knew the façade of decadence masked a Machiavellian brain and remorseless determination.

  They’d been rivals of a sort ever since Eton, but whereas Max had needed the Home Office work, needed the money, been obliged to toe the line, Jardine came and went as he pleased.

  Jardine chose this life, returned to it again and again like an addict, while Max had always felt more akin to a slave. A slave on the verge of freedom.

  Not long now . . .

  “Did you get it?” Jardine came straight to the point, dark eyes glittering with mockery. Max could almost believe he knew everything that had transpired last evening. But of course, that’s what Jardine wanted him to believe.

  Faulkner glanced up, forehead creasing like a bulldog’s.

  Max wouldn’t give Jardine the satisfaction of showing discomfort. He sat without an invitation and lounged back, apparently at his ease, while his brain teemed with speculation. Perry must have passed on the details of their encounter last night. But the lad hadn’t known what Max sought.

  He raised his brows in mild surprise. “Get what?”

  “Oh, come now, Your Grace,” murmured Jardine. “The boy told me you broke into a certain lady’s house last night. What were you looking for?”

  Max gave a saturnine smile. “I would have thought you, of all people, might guess the answer to that, Jardine.”

  “Ah. The fair Lady Kate. Boasting of your conquests, Lyle?”

  “Hardly. I’ve made no secret of my object regarding Lady Kate. I’m trying to persuade her to use her influence with her brother to make him see reason.”

  “And was your, ah, persuasion successful?” purred Jardine.

  Max repressed a wry smile. “Unfortunately, I was interrupted. Someone else broke into the house while I was there.” He spared a scathing glance for his former superior. “You should keep a tighter leash on that cub Perry, Faulkner. He’s a damned liability.”

  A glance passed between Jardine and Faulkner, so swiftly, he might have imagined it.

  “He’s your protégé,” Jardine pointed out.

  “He’s nothing of the kind,” Max said. “Faulkner recruited him. Against my advice, if you’ll recall. I’ll not take responsibility for that. If I’ve tried to keep the lad out of trouble and given him enough skills to keep himself alive, it was out of compassion. I never wanted him mixed up in this.”

  “We’ve been watching her ladyship,” said Faulkner as if Max hadn’t spoken. “Seems to us she’s going off half-cocked about this brother of hers. Begging most of the cabinet to intervene in the matter. Much more agitating on her part and we might have to do something to keep her quiet.”

  Jardine interposed, watching Max. “Of course, we could simply act as she wishes. We could let the brother go.”

  Max glared at him. “He’s our only link with the Lyle arsonists. We’ll just have to break him sooner, that’s all.”

  “Work on the woman,” growled Faulkner. “You’re a smooth bastard, Lyle. You should know how to get her to dance to your tune.”

  Jardine snorted and turned away. So that affair still rankled, did it? A faint glow in his chest told Max he wasn’t quite above petty triumphs when it came to Jardine.

  “I’ll take care of it, one way or another.” He frowned. “Does Sidmouth know about Lady Kate’s campaign? I thought it best not to mention the subject to him yesterday evening.”

  Faulkner shuffled his papers, looking disinterested. “Of course not. He’s nervous enough as it is, what with all the unrest in the country. Man’s starting to believe his own rhetoric.”

  “What is really going on?” Now he’d leaped the hurdle of the diary, Max relaxed a little. “Despite the scaremongers I find it difficult to believe we’re on the brink of revolution.”

  Jardine shrugged. “We have our sources, of course, but they’re far from reliable. Sorting the wheat from the chaff, I’d say there are pockets of unrest all over the country, but hardly on a scale that’s likely to sweep the nation. Certainly, the situation is less dire than Sidmouth would have the English public believe. But that is strictly entre nous, of course.”

  “Oh, of course,” murmured Max.

  Faulkner grunted. “That’s not to say we can tolerate the kind of trouble Lady Kate is capable of causing. Regardless of how volatile we believe the situation to be, the fact remains we can’t afford to let the mob get hold of anything damaging. The story of a country vicar imprisoned for sedition without trial is just the kind of tidbit our detractors will latch onto and distort for their own ends. It could spark a nasty rebellion, if not outright revolt.”

  Max doubted it but said nothing.

  “Keep her quiet until we’ve wrapped up the arson case, Lyle. I don’t care how you do it. Scare her, seduce her, use the brother. Do all three. Whatever it takes.”

  “And afterwards? What happens to Lady Kate?” Max tried to keep his voice completely neutral, but the tautness in his body must have alerted Jardine.

  The black eyes gleamed, and Max was uncomfortably aware that Jardine had sniffed out his . . . partiality for Lady Kate. Well, nothing startling in that. He’d made it clear at the ball he admired her. But he couldn’t let Jardine see just how important she’d become.

  “If she’s a good little girl and gives us no further trouble, nothing at all,” said Faulkner.

  Somehow, Max doubted Lady Kate would take the loss of her diary meekly. She possessed intelligence and a fair degree of subtlety, but driven by fear for her brother there was no telling what she might do. She was a powder keg, ready to ignite.

  If only that damned brother of hers would cooperate, Max could have him released and remove the imperative driving Lady Kate to blackmail.

  “And if Lady Kate persists?” he inquired, knowing the answer.

  “Then, my dear fellow, we must eliminate her. An accident to her carriage, perhaps.” Faulkner flicked a glance at Jardine. “I’m sure I can trust you with the details.”

  Five

  Stolen moments, now. Caution demands too high a price.

  He is everywhere. In my mind, in my heart, in the deep, midnight sky among the stars. I teeter on the verge of something dangerous . . .

  Longing for the fall.

  “A word with you, if I may.” Jardine strolled out of Faulkner’s office close on Max’s heels.

  What now? thought Max.

  “Of course.” He drew on his gloves in a leisurely fashion, as if he had all the time in the world. He couldn’t let Jardine sense his urgency. There were a thousand things to attend to before he could put his plans in place and he only had a few hours before Lady Kate left.

  Jardine waited until they were outside. He put on his hat and gestured for Max to walk with him.

  Finally, he said,
“You might be interested to know that a document was delivered to Oddling and Crouch Solicitors this morning. The first chapter of a certain lady’s memoirs. With instructions to make the writings public if anything happens to the lady.”

  Good God! The little fool . . .

  Those ridiculous eyebrows flew upwards. “You didn’t know?”

  Silently, Max shook his head. Damn him to hell, Jardine was enjoying this. He shouldn’t be so surprised that Jardine also had an informant in Lady Kate’s household. What riled him most was that Perry hadn’t brought him the news first. When he found that boy, he’d string him from the nearest lamppost.

  Max didn’t allow his fury to show. “And how did you discover the document’s contents? Surely the lawyer claimed privilege?”

  “Threatened to rape his wife,” said Jardine flippantly. “Oh, don’t look at me like that. I wouldn’t have done it.”

  Max considered Jardine with unwilling fascination. “Your methods have always been direct, haven’t they?”

  “It saves a considerable amount of time,” Jardine drawled. He sighed and went on. “A little bird tells me your Lady Kate is bound for Richmond this afternoon. What do you make of that?”

  Max shrugged. “I would have thought that was obvious. She’s running our esteemed Home Secretary to ground so she can blackmail him with these memoirs of hers.”

  “And thereby put her neck in the noose,” murmured Jardine. “Such a pretty neck, too.”

  Anger ripped through Max at the personal remark. Anger tinged with alarm. It was one thing for Jardine to sense Max’s interest in the lady. Quite another for him to express interest on his own account.

  But instead of reaching down Jardine’s throat and ripping his lungs out, Max replied evenly, “You and I both know she’d never be tried. Even if it weren’t for the political implications, a jury would acquit her in the blink of an eye.” He paused. “But Faulkner won’t let it come to that. He’d kill her first.”

  Jardine flicked lint off his sleeve. “Of course. Wouldn’t you? There’s no telling how much she knows. Even if she knows nothing at all, the merest hint of her intentions in one of the broadsheets would set the public baying for blood. Faulkner couldn’t afford the publicity of a trial. I imagine the lady knows that.”