She pushed him away and stood, pacing. And it was still true—Jamie was a traitor. He’d turned on Ireland, his people, his country. He’d spied on men like Fitzgerald and Emmet. People had died, cruelly, at the hands of the English. And her mother…
She pounded a fist into her other hand. “You don’t know what it was like.” She paced to the fireplace and leaned her head against the mantel. “Did he know, my father? Did he know Jamie was playing a double game?”
“I don’t know. If he did, would he have told you?”
She shook her head. “No. And it wouldn’t have mattered—Mother died inside when that ship went down, and her actual passing killed my father, though it took many years of the bottle to finish him off.”
He touched her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Sirena.”
She stiffened. Sorry. Was Shaldon sorry? Probably not. He would judge by the results, and not worry much about the means. He’d likely sent many men to their deaths. If he was capable of remorse, perhaps her marriage to his son and heir was a means to relieve any twinge of guilt that troubled him.
“What we must keep in mind is the possibility your brother is alive.”
Oh, that made her head hurt, to think of her mother dying of grief and her brother still living. And yet, if he were still alive, she would have someone.
Someone who was a lying spy, a traitor to the people of Ireland, someone who’d let his family suffer needlessly.
She shook her head. No. She couldn’t believe it.
“And if he’s alive, he’s the Earl of Glenmorrow.”
She wheeled around to face him. “But Sterling has already inherited.”
“I’m not sure the accession to the title has been finalized. In any case, we can throw up a legal challenge.”
Her hands tingled and itched. Oh, to have her cousin in front of her and a knife in her hand. She’d forgive the traitorous Jamie Hollister if she could bring down Sterling Hollister. “Would you do that? For indeed, I cannot do it. I have no money, and I imagine it would require a great deal of money and political influence.”
“I’d do it for you.” He smoothed his hands over her arms. “He’s in London.”
Hope flashed and then she realized he was speaking about Sterling, not her brother. “I don’t wish ever to see him unless I am armed with a dagger or…or a brace of pistols. But…he’s come to London already? Glenmorrow needs management and care.” Without her father there, without her, the tenants and servants were dependent upon Sterling and the steward he’d put in place, and God help them if this new steward was anything like her cousin.
“He’s here for the Parliament, and for the coronation.”
Of course. “I’d forgotten. The new lord taking his place with his peers.”
“No. The Irish have elected their members for the House of Lords and he’s not among them. He’s taking a seat in the House of Commons.”
“He can do that?”
“Yes, by giving up his privileges.”
Hope stirred in her. “His title?”
“No. His right to a trial by his peers. He can be tried as a common man for any crimes he commits.”
Her heart pounded, and she gulped in air. “No one would believe me, Bakeley. No one would take my word over his.”
“I would support you no matter what, Sirena, but I would never expect you to pursue a charge.” Bakeley’s jaw hardened. “A man like that, a man who would attack his own orphaned cousin, he’ll have other victims, Sirena. And when he attacks, I intend to have a net waiting to snatch him up.”
“Perhaps.” She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. “But it did seem very personal from him, like he hated who I was. He hated me.” She swallowed hard. “And he did make me an offer. He said he would keep me installed at Glenmorrow as his mistress until such time as he took a wife, and then I could live in a croft on the estate with his by-blows.”
Her head buzzed with the memory and a new flood of rage.
“It was as if he meant to humiliate specifically me, Sirena Hollister, the daughter of the old earl. And he didn’t even know me. So I don’t know that there will be others.”
“A scoundrel in big things will be a scoundrel in small things.” His voice cut like steel. “He will pay.”
Their dinner came and all discussion stopped until the door closed on the servants. It had given her a moment to think, and Bakeley a moment to brood.
More had gone on today that Bakeley was not telling her.
“Who did you meet at the Home Office? Is it a name I’ll recognize?”
He filled her plate and handed it to her. “Lord Farnsworth. Do you know him?”
“Is he Irish?”
“No. That is, I don’t know.”
“We shall look him up in Debrett’s.”
“Yes, well, he’s also one of Shaldon’s spies. And it wasn’t the Home Office we visited. It was a townhouse in Knightsbridge, very likely owned by the Home Office.”
His sharing such confidences raised her spirits. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For trusting me with state secrets.”
That brought a smile from him. “And how was your day?”
She told him about Perry’s plot to move Lady Jane in and to have him fund a dressmaking establishment. It didn’t coax a laugh as she’d expected.
“Would you like to have Lady Jane move in?” he asked. “We could phrase it as an invitation to help you learn as you adjust to your new duties. However, if she lets go of her lodgings and wishes to continue here, it would not be easy to undo, so you could expect something of a permanent arrangement.”
“Perhaps. But when her cousin comes to town, ’twill be easier for her to lodge with him if she wishes, now that she’s rid of me. And what of the modiste shop?”
“A business is a business. It can’t be so very different than other endeavors. If you wish it, I’ll consider that also.”
Her heart swelled. She’d been treated well by Lady Jane and Barton. To think that she could share some of her new-found prosperity with them made her happy.
A footman appeared at the door.
“We’re not quite finished,” James said.
“Pardon, my lord. A letter came for you.”
She took a drink of wine and watched as James glanced at the letter and closed the door on the servant, a frown marring his handsome face. Instead of returning to the table, he picked up a candle and proceeded into the dressing room.
She found him there, still frowning. “What is it?”
His mouth thinned. “I’m going to dress. I must speak to father.” He grasped her hand and placed the letter in it. “After the interview with Farnsworth, I went to investigate your cousin. This message comes from the proprietor of the inn where he was lodging.” He kissed her forehead and started pulling out drawers.
“That one.” She pointed to the cabinet where his valet had stored his clothes.
She spread the folded paper and read.
The man you inquired about returned tonight with his two servants. You did ask for any peculiar news. Both his men are injerred and we have sent for the apothecary.
“What does it mean?”
James was pulling on his breeches. “I don’t know for sure.”
A tremor went through her. Oh, aye, he was keeping secrets. She must keep her own guard up.
“He went north, the landlord said, a couple of days ago.”
North. And his servants were injured. And Bink went north with the O’Brians.
Yes, James was not sharing everything he knew.
She shed her robe, her skin rippling with the cold, found a clean chemise and tugged it on. “Will you help me with my stays?”
“Sirena, no—”
“Very well. No stays.” She ran for the brown dress, the one that shouted Sirena Hollister, serving wench.
Lord Bakeley had a taste for keeping secrets, and wasn’t that something to keep in mind when she found a few of her own?
Chapter 18
As he led her up the stairs, Bakeley let his hand drift along Sirena’s waist under yet another ugly woolen shawl. Shaldon had not been in the library and they were on their way to his father’s private study.
He liked the feel of her soft curves without the tight boning. “You don’t really need stays.”
She bounced up the steps. “I saw almost everything today. But not this room. The housekeeper begged off letting us in.”
“She doesn’t have the key,” he said.
Her manner had been chilly, and not from the lack of heat in the frigid dressing room. He’d offended her in some way unrelated to her cousin or his father.
And blast it if he could figure out what was wrong. “I’ve been told that dresses don’t fit properly without stays. Perhaps I shall ask your dressmaker to make you a whole wardrobe that doesn’t require them.”
She stopped on the stairs, indignation lighting her face. “Aye, your Paddy bride, flopping about in public all over the isle of Britain. I think not. I’m bought and paid for, and you can have me without stays every night, Bakeley, but I’ll be respectable when I’m out and about.”
The words slammed him. Bought and paid for—was that what she thought of him? Or…was that what she thought of herself.
He drew himself up. “What is really wrong?”
She chewed her lip. “Nothing.”
“I see. Or, I don’t see. I have a feeling that father can shed some light on your cousin, and if you’re coming with me, than you need to be with me. We need to work together. Agreed?”
“You want me to what…charm him?”
He ignored the sarcasm. “If that works, yes. And if it doesn’t, try something else. You’ve not had more than one chat with him after our wedding. He seemed inclined to be conciliatory.”
“We spoke this afternoon also.”
“Did you? Yes, he did tell me he would speak to you. Is he having you keep secrets from your husband?”
Her eyes flashed, and she quickly sent them rolling.
Sirena would keep secrets. She would lie to him. Jocelyn had been right—he’d need to seduce her.
“Oh, now I am curious. What did he say?”
“Nothing of import. He hopes I’ll be happy here, or some such. The housekeeper came to take me to look at the silver, and that was all that was said. I believe he set her up for the interruption so he wouldn’t have to share anything of importance with me.”
A flood of affection swept through him and he pulled her closer. “Then your perceptiveness puts you one step ahead of him, love.” He squeezed her hip. “Come. Let us find out what he really knows.”
Insides quaking, Sirena let Bakeley handle the door-knocking. A gruff voice called out and they entered. Two lamps shed pools of light and a low fire warmed the small room. Half-hidden behind a dark wooden desk, Shaldon sat erect. A brown file lay precisely squared up an inch from the edge of the desk, like it had been laid by the footman preparing the dining table.
Shaldon did not look at all surprised to see them, but, she reflected, in the few times they’d met, his face had worn that same haughty bored look she saw often on Bakeley’s handsome mug. Her own father had been like a badly loaded musket most of the time, easy to set off and unpredictable. Not at all like the Shaldon men. It would be her greatest achievement to rouse some emotion in her new father.
“Yes?” Shaldon asked rather impolitely. That one lonely word dropped off into a conversational abyss.
Next to her, her husband had stiffened up like the fireplace poker.
“I received a message tonight I wish to speak with you about.” Bakeley moved a chair from before the fireplace for her, but he remained standing.
Very well. She would play the demure lady. She wrapped her shawl a little tighter and sat.
Shaldon took the proffered paper and scanned it. “Who is this about?”
“Sterling Hollister.”
Shaldon’s eyes flickered, but he shuttered his gaze before turning it on her. “Your cousin.”
“Do you know him?” she asked.
“We may have met at some point.”
She glanced at Bakeley. His arms were folded under his hastily-tied neck cloth, and his hair still glistened from the bath. And he hadn’t shaved. He wore his I’m-a-lord-and-intensely-bored look, and that combined with the delicious, disreputable appearance niggled at her hard-won composure.
“The note is from the landlord of the inn where he’s taken rooms,” Bakeley said. “I went to visit Hollister today, and he was away. He and his servants have been gone. They’ve returned, as you see, with injuries.”
His lordship’s chin came up an inch. “And what is that to me?”
Bakeley moved another chair and sat, lolling back and kicking one foot over his knee.
Both men looked at each other. Not as if they were staring daggers, or not even butter knives. They were two icicles facing one another, not even melting.
Anger rolled through her in great waves. At this rate, the conversation would stretch until bacon and toast were laid out for breakfast. Aye, she must intervene. What was Sterling Hollister to Shaldon? If he was another one of Shaldon’s spies, some hard facts for his lordship might move things along, and let him hear what he’d got for a new daughter.
Sirena rose. “Father—you did ask me to call you that, sir—Sterling Hollister was a distant cousin of my father, who was, you know, the Earl of Glenmorrow. Sterling appeared at Glenmorrow last summer, coming to claim title to the land, bringing along papers and my father’s solicitor from Belfast to explain them all. I’d been expecting it, ’twas true.” She paced to the fireplace. “I’d had but a few friends in the neighborhood. My brother was a scandal, and my father became one with his drinking, and in any case he’d given up on everything except his horses.”
Shaldon still watched her.
She sensed him thawing, even as icy anger built within her. She forced her fists open and took a deep breath.
“Might I have a season? No. Might I entertain a regular kind of courtship from a respectable man? No. We were outcasts, you see, and also, the meager bit that was to be my dowry was gone. Yes.” A hard knot of anger strangled that last word and she swallowed it down. “So, no social standing. No gentlemen callers. I know horses, and I can manage their breeding and training, but I had no dowry. Even a yeoman wants a wife to bring something more than unwomanly skills and her fair self to the marriage. And then along comes Sterling Hollister.”
Warm hands settled on her shoulders, and she realized, she’d been trembling.
“Sirena, shall I tell the rest?”
Bakeley had joined her near the fireplace.
She craned her neck around and searched his eyes, glad there was no pity there.
She didn’t want pity. She wanted revenge. “I suppose he knows it already.”
“Tell it anyway.”
She took a deep breath. Bakeley’s hands circled her waist, lending her strength. “The vicar’s wife told me I could expect my cousin to provide for me, being an orphan. She said that everyone in the neighborhood was whispering he might even propose a marriage, since the rumor was he had no wife. I thought upon it, you know, and decided it wasn’t completely impossible. We weren’t rich, except in land and of course what horses we had left. If we managed better, if we switched to sheep and put more land to planting...” She shook her head. “Sterling Hollister arrived on Saturday. He accompanied me to services the next morning.” She looked down and found her hand resting in Bakeley’s. “Lord and Lady Cheswick and Lady Jane were visiting our neighbor. We met one day when both ladies came to see a horse. Well, at church on Sunday, Lady Jane pulled me from his side. She’d seen him touching me. Seen me slapping his hand away.”
Heat flooded her at the memory and she bit her lip.
“Do you need my handkerchief?” Bakeley whispered.
“No.”
Shaldon had come round his desk, as tall and as dark as his son, ready
to catch her the other way.
Well, she would not collapse on either of these Englishmen.
“In short, sir, the new Earl of Glenmorrow did say he would provide for me. Since my father had mismanaged the estate so badly, the cost to me was that I would be privileged to share my cousin’s bed, while he looked for an heiress to fill his coffers. And after that, he promised he would only throw me as far as one of the crofts on the estate.”
Shaldon’s firm jaw moved, and the lines between his eyebrows deepened. Perhaps he had not already heard this story after all.
Her chest tightened and moisture pricked her eyes. She took a deep breath. “Was Sterling another of your spies, my lord?”
Shaldon blinked. “No. Never. And you are a very brave girl.”
She turned away and squeezed her eyes shut, surrendering to Bakeley’s arms. Not brave at all. Naught but a weak weeper.
“Hollister tried to violate Sirena.” His words rumbled through her. “He followed her to her chambers. The housekeeper had slowed him down by dosing his drink, the butler bashed him, and Sirena ran away. Lady Jane rescued her.”
She heard a loud audible sigh that did not echo in Bakeley’s chest.
“You’ve sent someone to watch him?” Shaldon asked.
“I borrowed Bink’s groom, Johnny.”
“A good man. Sirena, my dear, are you all right?”
She had squeezed back the tears, though her face must be blotchy.
Bakeley looked down on her. “I’m glad you’ve not got my coat wet.”
“My dear.” Shaldon was next to her, freeing one of her hands from Bakeley, his grip as firm and as solid as his son’s. There was none of the papery smoothness of old age in that hand, or in truth, anywhere about the man. He pushed her chair closer to the desk and seated her again.
“Bakeley, pour us all a brandy. You’ll have one, my dear?”
“Only a bit.” She sat up straight. Brandy weakened the mind. So could a sneaking man’s kindness. “Did you know all of this about my cousin already?”
“That he tried to molest you? No. That he’s the worst sort of villain? Yes.”
The Viscount's Seduction: A Regency Romance (Sons of the Spy Lord Book 2) Page 17
