“So we’ll stay and eat here, then skip out,” Leo said with a grin. “Plenty of amusement to be had in Town after midnight.”
The twins chuckled with clear and premeditated devilment.
Amusements after midnight, Drake mused. He could certainly think of a few of those himself. Already he was missing Anne and looking forward to returning home to her. Home to Anne, he repeated, liking not only the sound of it but the rightness of the idea.
Gazing across the table at the two couples still seated, he considered the obvious happiness of their unions. Cade had returned from war a man broken in both body and spirit. Then Meg had come into his life and exorcised all of his demons. Love had quite literally brought him back from the brink.
As for his cousin India, she’d charmed Quentin Marlowe, a cynical rake with a hardened veneer that had cracked open to reveal a loyal and loving heart, which now beat only for her.
Once, not long ago, Drake would have scoffed at such maudlin, sentimental fancy. But now that he’d met Anne . . .
What had begun as a lusty, passionate affair had turned to something far more intimate, far more meaningful. She was no longer just his bed partner. She was the woman he missed when he was away. The woman he thought about during the day and wanted to sleep with at night. The woman who he wanted to talk with and laugh with and make happy. Plainly put, she was the woman he loved, of that he had not an ounce of doubt.
She was in his employ and not of his class, but such matters scarcely signified to him. She was intelligent, well-spoken and had far finer manners than many aristocratic ladies of his acquaintance. She was a credit not only to herself but to her gender. And if she had secrets she was reluctant to reveal, well, with time, the necessary trust would come. With time, she would come to love him as much as he did her.
So what came next?
More stolen nights and clandestine encounters that never seemed to be enough?
More dissembling and denying the real nature of their relationship?
More pretending she meant nothing to him when actually she meant the world?
He’d offered to make her his mistress, to shower her with leisure and luxury and love. But she refused. So if she wouldn’t be his ladylove, would she be his lady instead?
Would she consent to be my wife?
He froze, inwardly stunned by the idea.
Me? Married? No, he thought, as all the old reasons came to mind.
He didn’t want to get married.
He had no time for a wife, or children for that matter.
His life was too erratic, too complicated and complex.
A wife would never understand him or tolerate his habits and distractions. A wife would nag and complain and want to change him. A wife would interfere with the well-ordered chaos of his life.
But Anne wouldn’t, came a resounding voice. Anne understands me already. She knows who I am, good and bad alike, so there wouldn’t be any unpleasant surprises in store. Anne Greenway suits me right down to the ground.
“Drake. I say, Drake. Are you in there?”
Drake blinked and looked across the table at Leo, who was waving a hand back and forth, not far from his eyes. “What?” he said, scowling and pulling his head away.
“Sorry to intrude on the wheels turning in your head, but I just wanted to make sure you’re all right before we leave,” his brother said. “You looked kind of odd, you know, even for you.”
A glance around the table confirmed Leo’s remark, since everyone else still seated was regarding him with a combination of interested concern and resigned amusement.
“I’m fine,” he snapped. “Just thinking. I do that sometimes, you know.”
Cade laughed. “Had an epiphany, have you? For a minute, you looked as if you’d gone a round with Gentleman Jackson and lost.”
Had he? He supposed that perhaps he had. It wasn’t every day a man changed his mind about something as fundamental as marriage and his willingness to enter into the state.
Drake cleared his throat and pushed back his chair. “Hmm, something like that. Now, if you’re all done amusing yourselves at my expense, I’m taking myself off to my old bedroom for a couple of hours’ sleep.”
Meg yawned delicately, her silvery blue eyes watering at the edges. “Sleep sounds delightful. I believe I shall follow your lead. Cade, are you ready?”
“Always, darling. Ready and able.”
She flashed him a look of teasing reprimand. “Behave yourself, my lord.”
“But if I did that, love,” he said as he followed her from the room with his halting stride, “just think how bored you would be.”
Meg’s lilting laugh trailed them out into the hallway, making Drake suspect it would be a while before the pair settled down to rest. India and Quentin, who exchanged secret smiles of their own, departed as well. The twins walked out next, heads bent together as they debated the variety of entertainments they could pursue later that night.
Alone, and rather glad of it, Drake followed. But even as he turned toward his bedchamber, he hesitated. He wasn’t all that tired, at least not anymore. What he really wanted to do was go to Anne and propose. But first, he needed a ring.
Making an about-face, he headed for the staircase and took them down two at a time.
Drake entered his town house a few minutes before eleven that evening, the ring he’d purchased from Rundell, Bridge and Rundell warm in his pocket. With the assistance of old Mr. Rundell, he’d selected a bloodred ruby with an elegant circlet of diamonds that he thought suited the passionate streak in Anne’s personality. He hoped she liked it. Even more, he hoped she accepted, both the ring and his proposal of marriage.
A ripple of nervous anticipation ran under his skin, making his stomach rebel slightly against the elaborate dinner he’d consumed at Clybourne House a couple of hours earlier.
The family-only party had been festive, especially when Claire, looking far too young to be a mother, with her long blond hair tied back in a ribbon and attired in a flowered silk dressing gown, joined them for dessert. Smiling serenely, she’d informed them that being brought to childbed that morning seemed to have left her with a sweet tooth. Forty-five minutes later, her eyelids drooping, Edward had carried her back to bed.
Drake had departed not long after, promising to visit again soon.
Next time he stopped at Clybourne House he hoped to bring news of his impending nuptials, and shortly after that, the bride-to-be herself. He wanted the family to meet Anne and to like her. Most of his brothers had made her acquaintance already though not in a social context; they knew her instead as his housekeeper. But they would accept the reversal of roles without a great deal of bother, he suspected. As for the Byron women, they would come around as well, he felt sure, even if it might take them a little while longer. Although to give Mama credit, she had welcomed the rest of her daughters-in-law with open arms regardless of their wealth or lineage, so perhaps she would do the same for Anne.
The Ton, on the other hand, might prove tricky. Society matrons in particular could be a pack of narrow-minded old bats when they wished. Knowing Anne as he did, however, he guessed she would stare down each and every one of them and win their favor in spite of themselves.
First, however, he had to secure her hand. After that, everything else would seem easy.
“Good evening, Stowe,” Drake said as he strode into the house.
“Welcome back, my lord. It is good to have you home. And may I offer congratulations on the arrival of the new Clybourne heir.”
Drake smiled. “You may indeed. Mother and son are doing splendidly.” Sliding a hand into his pocket, he touched the small jeweler’s box containing the ring. “Is Mrs. Greenway still about? If so, would you ask her to come to my study.”
Stowe’s normally placid brow drew taut, his gaze fixed. “I am afraid Mrs. Greenway is no
t here.”
It was Drake’s turn to stare. “What do you mean, not here?”
“With you absent, my lord, she informed me this morning that she would be taking her usual day off today. I thought it a prudent decision under the circumstances and bid her good day around ten o’clock. We expected her for dinner, but she has not yet returned. The moment she does, I will send her to you.”
Drake’s fingers tightened around the ring box, tracing its edges. She usually took Friday off, but owing to the sojourn to the park, she had missed her free day this week. She had every right to leave the house for a few hours, of course, but where could she be at this hour of the evening? It wasn’t like her to be out late, and she had known he planned to return home this evening. Surely nothing untoward had happened to her.
His stomach pitched at the thought.
No, he assured himself, she must be fine.
With the warm weather and late sunset, perhaps she’d decided to attend the theater and take a bite of supper afterward. Still, it didn’t seem likely, as she was alone. At least he assumed she was alone. Mayhap she had gone with a friend.
His scowl deepened, a slow ache starting in his chest.
“There is one other matter, my lord,” Stowe said, breaking into his reverie.
Drake met the butler’s gaze. “Yes?”
Stowe’s upper lip curled slightly. “A man is here to see you . . . a Mr. Aggies, or so he says. His evening call is most irregular, but he insisted on remaining until he had spoken to you.”
Aggies? Here tonight? He was one of Edward’s men, an ex-Bow Street Runner who’d been set to watch the house and the man they’d seen spying. They’d agreed that he would report on any further suspicious activity. The fact that Aggies had seen fit to arrive on his doorstep an hour shy of midnight did not bode well.
“Why didn’t you tell me he was here?” Drake said, worry adding a clipped edge to his voice. “Where have you put him?”
“In the tradesman’s parlor, my lord. I didn’t know where else to have him wait.”
The tradesman’s parlor was little more than a closet with a pair of chairs inside. But Aggies wasn’t the fussy sort, so Drake supposed he’d been comfortable enough waiting there.
“Send him to my workroom,” Drake ordered. “And advise me the moment Mrs. Greenway returns. She ought to have been back by now.”
The ache in his chest spread another inch.
“Yes, my lord,” Stowe replied, striding quickly away.
Drake squeezed the ring box in his hand again and strode down the hall.
Aggies arrived less than five minutes later, his hat clutched in his grasp. A small, wiry man with a narrow face, he always reminded Drake of a hunting terrier, albeit a hairless one, the man’s bald pate gleaming dully in the candlelight.
“You have news?” Drake said without preamble as he took a seat behind his desk. Waving a hand, he indicated that Aggies should take one as well.
But Aggies remained standing, pacing a few steps before drawing to a halt again. “That I do, yer lordship. The kind what couldn’t wait.”
“Is it the man you and your team have been tracking? Have you located him again?”
“That we have, and he’s a right nasty customer, ’e is. Goes by the name of Jones, but I don’t believe that’s ’is real name fer an instant. Got that much from one o’ the girls what works the Garden. He left her in a bad way, he did, beat her senseless and more besides.”
Aggies’s face puckered with disgust, his mouth screwing up as if he wanted to spit, then thought better of it given his present surroundings.
“But that’s not the worst of it,” he continued, swallowing his gall. “One of me best snitches, good man even if he ’as been known to work the lightfinger trade on occasion, well, I set him on ter Jones. Wished I hadn’t now, since he’s gone missin.’ Ain’t seen ’im this last week entire. He might ’ave gone ter ground, Smiley’ll do that sometimes. But he’s left a fair lot ’o his possessions behind, and I gots a bad feelin’ about it. Awful thing is, if he does turn up in the Thames, might not be enough left ter recognize. Plenty ’o unidentified corpses fished regular-like out ’o that river.”
Drake frowned and slowly drummed his fingers against his desk. “What a dreadful commentary on our society. Let us sincerely hope your friend is not among such unfortunate souls.”
Aggies nodded in sorrowful agreement.
The other man’s gruesome tale made Drake think about all the possible dangers in the city, especially at night, and the fact that Anne still had not come home. Stowe would have alerted him if she had.
Where in the deuce is she? It will be coming on midnight soon.
Forcing the unsettling thoughts away, he refocused his attention on Aggies, who was speaking again.
“Afore Smiley disappeared,” Aggies said, “he had word ’o some exchange supposed to take place and the address of an ’ouse in Cheapside. Decent middling sort of place, not the kind you’d think to suspect. I put a man on it to watch. Ordinary couple lives there, husband, wife, pair o’ kids. There weren’t nothing unusual until today.”
Drake met Aggies’s gaze with interest. “Did Jones show up?”
Aggies shook his head. “No, but someone else did.”
Drake waited, taking note of the way the older man was absently turning his hat brim between his fingers in a nervous sideways motion.
“Well?” Drake prompted, wanting to get this interview over, so he could go out and look for Anne. “Who was it?”
Aggies swallowed and stopped turning the hat. “It were someone ye know, my lord. Someone none of us would ever have suspected. It was your housekeeper, Mrs. Greenway.”
Chapter 24
Drake stared for a long, incomprehensible moment, his fingers grown abruptly still atop his desk. “What?” he said dumbly.
“Yer housekeeper. Who would ’ave thought someone so close to ye, someone from yer own household staff, would turn out ter be in league with the other side?”
Drake’s ears began to buzz with an odd sort of hum, his heart contracting in shallow draughts as if it couldn’t quite pump enough blood.
No, he thought, there must be some kind of error. Aggies could not have seen Anne doing what he said he had.
“Perhaps you are mistaken and it wasn’t Mrs. Greenway at all,” Drake countered.
Aggies shook his bald head. “Nah, it were her all right. Can’t miss a woman with so many shades o’ color in ’er ’air, an’ such a pretty Nancy besides.”
Drake’s heart gave another thick beat. “Maybe she was at that house for a different reason then. You said yourself the family seems harmless. Her presence could just be a coincidence, and she is nothing more than a friendly acquaintance of theirs.”
Aggies sent him a pitying look. “Might have thought that meself except one of the boys what lives in the house went running with a note as soon as she showed up. He came back near two hours later with another. She left not five minutes after his return, looking grim around the mouth.”
“Go on,” Drake said, forcing himself to take a breath.
“We followed her, of course, to see where she was off to and she led us to St. Paul’s Church in Covent Garden, then straight inside. She slid into a pew and waited. That’s when he showed up, Jones. Sat right next to her, and it were clear she knew who ’e was though to her credit she didn’t seem to like ’im much. You could tell from her face that she weren’t happy.”
Drake gripped the arm of his chair, Anne’s lovely face swimming in his mind’s eye as he imagined the scene. “Then what,” he said in a dead voice.
“They talked for minute, Jones lookin’ none too ’appy hisself, as if she’d done somethin’ she weren’t supposed to. Then she handed him a piece ’o paper, and his face cleared up right quick. Bastard smiled this nasty, toothy grin, he did, as if she’
d just given ’im the crown jewels.”
Drake’s forehead drew tight as he considered the information. Anne had handed Jones a piece of parchment that visibly pleased him. Drake could think of only one item that fit such a description, and that the French—who he was sure Jones must work for—would give their firstborn to possess.
The cipher.
But it wasn’t possible. Even if Anne had somehow discovered his hidden safe, she wouldn’t have had access to the key. He kept it around his neck four-and-twenty hours a day. Except that lately, he reminded himself, she’d been spending a portion of those hours in his bed, including that first night together when he was sure he’d been drugged.
His scowl deepened at the implications.
“Where is she then?” he demanded, low and strained. “You have her in custody, I presume? And Jones as well?”
Aggies crushed his hat inside his hands. “Well now about that . . . we had ’em cornered right ’n’ tight, but Jones is no rube when it comes to such matters and must have caught wind we were there. Before we realized, he had her up and out through one of the doors behind the altar and into a nearby alley. Disappeared like a pair ’o black cats at midnight.” Pausing, he ran a palm over his smooth pate, eyes averted. “We searched for ’em for hours, which is why I didn’t show up here at yer town house afore now. Plain truth is, the pair ’o ’em could be anywhere by now. Even France.”
Even France?
But Anne was English, or at least he’d thought so until tonight. Now he didn’t know for certain who or what she was. For all he knew, her name wasn’t even Anne Greenway. She could be anyone since clearly she had lied about her reasons for being employed in his house. And in his life. Had she lied about that as well? Had she come to his bed to steal the key, uncaring that she had stolen his heart as well?
His hands turned to fists, sudden anger burning away the sick sensation in his belly, leaving a raw scalding heat in its wake.
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