“If you say so.”
Gabe glared at Rook, who leaned in the doorway of his office. “Shove off, peacock.”
Rook smirked easily, striding into the room and closing the door behind him. He was dressed less finely than usual, which always was appreciated in these offices, as finery had no place here. And it was easy to forget that Rook was just as impressively skilled as the rest of them, and possibly more so when he was all frills and airs.
It didn’t make Gabe any more pleased to see him, but it did bear remembering.
“What’s the trouble?” Rook asked, taking a seat without invitation.
Gabe hesitated, unwilling to let anyone else in on his hunt for the goddess, and embarrassed that he was struggling with what ought to have been a simple enough task for him. And then there was the fact that it was completely unrelated to any of his professional interests, either for the Crown or otherwise, and he was not supposed to have a personal life.
Besides all of that, it was Rook. There was no way in hell he would tell him anything remotely personal about himself. Or the woman he wanted.
No way.
“Rogue, I’m not about to intrude upon your privacy or make you divulge secrets,” Rook announced with a snort of indifference. He crossed a muddy boot over his knee and gave him a wry look. “You’ve been a right bear these last few days and now that Gent’s back, I’ve lost my traitors. I’m bored out of my mind, and nothing is happening in my finer circles. Give me an occupation, I beg you. Or I’ll be reduced to going to Weaver for suggestions, and I hate begging.”
Gabe scoffed and sat back in his chair, feeling himself relax a little. “Boredom is not something we are accustomed to here.”
Rook smiled without humor. “I am not accustomed to it at all. Not in my nature.”
“Nor mine.”
There was a long pause that felt oddly companionable, and then Rook spoke again. “It’s too quiet, Rogue.”
He nodded once. “I know.”
“I don’t like quiet.”
“Nor do I.”
Rook drummed his fingers against the fabric of his trousers, his brow furrowed in thought. “Why the quiet?” he asked carefully. “We hardly thwarted their grand scheme by removing Castleton’s source of funds, yet everything has gone silent since then.”
Gabe shook his head, an odd shiver starting down his spine. “I honestly don’t know. My contacts have not had new intelligence for ages, and there doesn’t seem to be any movement in any other quarter. It doesn’t make sense, but we only ever had a small glimpse into various pieces of their plans.” He sighed and rubbed his brow hard. “And it doesn’t help that my life is getting ever more complicated. I cannot go undercover as I have done before, and it drives me mad.”
That drew a chuckle from Rook, who slung an arm over the back of the chair. “Well, I am very good with complications.” He gestured faintly at the papers under Gabe’s arms. “Something in there I can assist with?”
“Not this, no,” Gabe replied at once, shaking his head. “But perhaps…” He glanced towards the door of his office, mercifully still closed from Rook’s entrance. “Something else.”
Rook sat forward, suddenly looking eager. “Do tell.”
Gabe smirked a little. “Would you prefer dockside or high Society?”
“Either.” Rook grinned when Gabe raised a brow. “Believe it or not, cravats are not as fun as one might expect.”
“I believe it.” Gabe nodded thoughtfully, then said, “But I’m afraid it is cravats for you for now. I need you to take a drawing around to some of your more discreet associates there and see what you can drum up.”
“What are we looking for?” Rook asked, not looking disappointed in the least.
“Anything,” Gabe told him, handing the picture of Amelia over. “Quite literally, anything.”
Rook took the picture in hand, and his brows shot up. “You’re not serious…” He looked up at Gabe for confirmation, all traces of humor gone.
Gabe felt the need to wince but avoided doing so. “Nothing adds up,” he admitted reluctantly. “Why seek me out specifically? Why hide things when she claims she has nothing to hide? Why the desperation? Why…?”
“Why does she speak French better than I do?” Rook murmured, a knowing look entering his eyes. “Especially when she has no reason to.”
“Exactly.”
The two shared a look, and Rook nodded somberly. “I’ll see to it.” He rose fluidly, turning towards the door. “You know, I like Amelia. Quite a lot. I hope I find nothing.”
“So do I,” Gabe replied quietly, belatedly realizing how the words could be taken. He glanced up at Rook, who was suspiciously composed.
Rook tilted his head slightly. “Did you know she knows all of the good French curses? Some that even I had never heard of.”
Gabe snorted. “That does not surprise me in the least.”
“That she knows them or that I don’t?”
“Both.”
Rook sneered and gave a mocking bow as a farewell, then left the office as silently as he had entered.
Gabe stared at the doorway for a long moment, wondering if there might be more to Rook than he’d considered before as well.
But that might be nothing, and it was best not to get carried away with ideas.
“Rogue!”
Gabe groaned and put his head down on his desk. Amelia had been blessedly absent from the offices for two days seeing to the shops he’d listed. They were viable places to investigate, granted, but he’d handed those off merely to be rid of her for a time, and he highly doubted anybody would be able to give them anything of use. It would have been more than twenty years ago since Mary worked there, and the odds of anyone remembering her were low.
He was hoping Amelia would have gotten distracted or stalled in the efforts, and knowing her stubbornness, she would have continued to work at it without involving him until she could give him some progress.
Gabe shuffled the papers on his desk so that her affairs were on top and leaned back in his chair just as she burst through the door, beaming like a bloody ray of sunshine.
Perfect.
“You’ll never guess what I found!” she chirped, flinging off her bonnet and starting on the buttons of her coat.
“I know what I hope you found,” he muttered, pretending to make notes on the paper before him. Honestly, how was he supposed to manage to find the goddess with all these cursed interruptions?
Amelia ignored him completely and perched herself on the small table against the wall. “I found three people who knew my mother.”
Gabe paused his pretend marking and glanced up at her. That was unexpected. “Did you, now?” he asked, keeping his voice even.
She nodded rapidly, her smile somehow spreading further still. “Mr. Clark at the mercantile did not recall her, but said his father might have done, and asked me to return today, which I did, and we had a lovely afternoon tea while he told me all about her. It seemed she worked with him while she waited for her intended to establish a home for them so that they could wed.”
Gabe raised a brow at her. “Why not just marry her straight away? There’s plenty of cheap housing for a couple in need, and I presume they were both working…”
Amelia scowled at him playfully. “I will have you know my mother was cut off by her family, and working was difficult for her at first.”
“Poor thing,” Gabe said with absolutely no sympathy whatsoever. “Perhaps she should have chosen better.”
That earned him a dramatic eye rolling. “One cannot choose where one plants one’s affections, Rogue.”
“One most certainly can,” he protested, “and it sounds as though your mother chose poorly. At any rate, continue.”
It might have been better for her to ramble on than actually to engage in conversation.
He could ignore rambling.
“She was still Mary Clairbourne, the elder Mr. Clark said,” Amelia went on, swinging her legs li
ke a child. “I found that odd. Why would she not change her name when she had been cut off?”
Gabe thought that was a stupid question, as it gave her some answers, and who would know the Clairbournes in that part of London? But he kept his mouth shut and continued to look busy.
“He was simply lovely,” Amelia was saying, sighing a little. “Much kinder than I would have expected. And I suspect he was the first one to hire Mother, which would have been shocking, considering she had no practical skills. But he said she was good with numbers, so…”
Gabe stopped listening for the sake of his sanity. He really did not care what skills her mother possessed or did not possess. He needed clues as to the man her mother married if they wished to get anywhere in this investigation. And as nothing Amelia was saying had any validity there, he could ignore her to his content.
It was interesting, however, how different her voice sounded when she was pleased. He had grown so used to her sniping at him, to their heated discussions, or to her matter-of-fact recitations, that this particular tone was virtually unknown. It was almost musical in quality, and not grating or tinny like others he had heard. It was quite a pleasant voice, not that he would ever admit that or compliment her in any way.
Heaven only knew what that might do to her.
“Mrs. Folsom at the milliners, however,” Amelia said suddenly, raising her voice with some agitation, “was of the opinion that my mother was a perfect waste of space.” She broke off with a snort. “I don’t know why she hired her to help if she was so useless.”
Neither did Gabe, but it seemed to fit. A young miss from a decent family working in that part of the city? She would have been dreadful at anything.
Amazingly, Amelia was still talking. “Her interview was terribly short. No loss to me, I’d rather move on myself. I showed the picture to nearly every shop up and down that street and the two beyond, so I got quite a good idea of the area. Many of the others said the picture looked familiar, but could not give me any details, as I expected.”
Gabe pushed himself out of his chair and moved to the bookshelf as if looking for some reference to aid him. In truth, he would rather have used one of the dusty tomes to bash himself in the head and end this. He could yell at her, he supposed, but it took so much effort, and she was more easily dealt with if not being attacked. And besides, he liked this musical voice, if only he could tune out the words themselves.
“And then I went to the dressmaker’s,” Amelia gushed, “and Mrs. Talbot and her aunt were kindness itself. The aunt worked with my mother, and said the sweetest things…”
Oh, this was worse than being tortured, and he knew that from experience. He closed his eyes as he stood there, hoping to drift off at some point. Musical voice or not, it was wearing on him. If he were asleep, it would be only music and no lyrics.
“But, and this is interesting, she was Mary Cole when she worked there, and though the aunt could not place a year on when Mother worked for her, she did say that she had to give up her position when she was too great with child to help.” Amelia made an amused sound that seemed half a sigh, half a laugh. “I could have talked with them all day, Rogue. It was like having Mother back with me, only she was happy.”
There was something about her voice that he could not grasp, something about those warm tones that took him to another place entirely. The more she spoke in that way, reminiscing and inviting, the more torment he felt. If he imagined it enough, if he let go of his reality enough, he could almost find himself back out on that terrace, with a tempting and sweet creature born out of his most secret desires. She was speaking to him in her soft lilt, light as a breath and twice as entrancing, and he was just as captivated. He could almost feel her hand on his again, could smell that faint floral scent that followed her, and his heart pounded thunderously in his chest and ears.
He had to have her. He had to.
Blindly, he turned to his goddess and took her face in his hands, feverishly pressing his lips to hers in a maddening frenzy he could not help, could not control. He could not let her go, his hands tightening against her face as his desperation heightened. He could not. He would not.
Scant seconds later, with the stiffening of the goddess in his arms, sense and reason returned to him, and Gabe realized with horror that he was not holding the goddess.
Just Amelia.
He flung himself away with a curse, barely acknowledging her widened eyes and bewildered expression. How could he have done something so foolish? How had he completely lost himself in his own thoughts and daydreams, enough to push him into madness and embrace Amelia instead?
Embrace. He thought back faintly and cringed. He had practically assaulted her in his energy and enthusiasm.
“I am… so sorry,” he panted, pressing his fists against the nearest wall and lowering his head. “So very sorry. I cannot…”
Amelia said nothing, but he could hear her breathing, hard and unsteady.
He clenched his eyes shut, every muscle in his body tightening. “Amelia, I cannot apologize enough. I never meant to…” He forced himself to push away from the wall and look at her.
She stared at him, blinking slowly, utterly inscrutable even for him.
Gabe forced his arms to remain at his sides and unclenched his hands. “Amelia, I am so sorry. Please forgive me.”
Her throat worked on a swallow, and she wet her lips carefully. “For kissing me? Or for thinking I was someone else?”
Impossibly, he could not find the words to answer her straightaway. In a bizarre twist of fates, the moment her tongue had touched her lips, his attention had gone there as well. And now the only thought crossing his mind was the mad idea to kiss her again.
Except it seemed the furthest thing from mad he’d ever thought.
Which was, of course, entirely mad.
“I don’t… normally,” he began unsteadily, trying to keep his thoughts in line, “just kiss a woman.”
Amelia exhaled roughly, shaking her head, pressing a hand to her chest. “Could have fooled me. You seemed keen enough.”
He took two hasty steps in her direction. “It wasn’t…”
“Me?” she interrupted with a tilt of her head. “I know. It’s whomever she is in your head. The one you can’t find. You’d rather be kissing her than helping me, and considering your response just now, I can see why.” She chuckled a little roughly, smiling at him. “If she can make you forget yourself, and who you are with, she must be quite a woman. You don’t even like me, and you nearly hauled me off.”
Gabe ran a hand through his hair, trying not to smile as he scoffed. “I did not.”
“Close enough,” Amelia retorted with a snort.
He gave her a frank look, letting his mouth curve a little. “I like you well enough.”
Another snort. “High praise.”
Now he exhaled with some irritation, the madness passing. “Look, can we move past this? I’d rather just forget…”
“Forget you kissed me?” Amelia quipped, quirking a brow. She shook her head quite firmly. “Not likely. It was quite a kiss. I’d love to see what it’s like when you actually mean it.”
She was teasing, he could see it. She was on the verge of laughing.
But he wasn’t.
He was so very far from laughing it was almost laughable.
Could he? She was pretty enough; he’d already admitted that, and he liked her well enough. Why not? His heart pounded harder at the thought, curious and willing, and wondering.
Willingly kiss Amelia?
“It’s a thought,” he murmured, considering her carefully.
Her eyes widened again, and she reared back a little. “What is?”
He allowed his lips to curve more fully. “Kissing you.”
Amelia gasped faintly, her body going completely still. “How…” she finally managed, her voice breaking. “How much of a thought?”
He was already moving towards her as she finished. “This much,” he whispered a
s he took her face gently in his hands and kissed her much more carefully than before.
She did not stiffen this time, but she did not respond for several heartbeats. He was undeterred, and gently brushed his lips against hers, grazing and teasing until she relaxed in his hold. And he was startled to find that he enjoyed kissing her. Quite a lot, as a matter of fact.
Her hand eventually slid up to gently rest on the back of his neck, and he rather enjoyed having it there, toying a little with the curls at his nape. She was very sweet, he decided. Sweet and soft, and while not particularly responsive, she was rather indulgent of his innocent display. He kept it all very controlled, very contained. He did not want to get carried away again, or Amelia would get the wrong impression.
What exactly that impression would be, or what the current impression or intention was, he could not have honestly said. All he knew was that he wanted to kiss her and keep kissing her.
What a startling thought.
Gabe broke off gently, leaving his hands fixed along her jaw and in her hair, touching his forehead to hers. He noticed, with a small grunt of appreciation, that her breathing was just as rough as his.
Ah, so she was responsive after all.
Excellent.
“What was that for?” Amelia whispered, eyes still closed, trying to find her breath.
Gabe chuckled and brushed his nose against hers. “You asked.”
“Did not.”
“Did too.”
She shuddered a little and sighed. “Well… Rogue…”
“Gabe,” he said before he could stop himself.
She opened her eyes and pulled back just a little. “Excuse me?”
He considered her for a long moment, wondering if he dared to repeat himself. He’d never told anyone his real name. He was far too private and protective of his identity. He didn’t even know if he trusted this woman, or her story, or anything about her. But he could not find the suspicions he once had. He could think of a thousand reasons not to tell her. But none of those reasons seemed to find their way to the front of his mind.
He wanted her to call him by his real name.
And it scared him senseless.
A Rogue About Town (London League, Book 2) Page 17
