by Bec McMaster
"I doubt it."
"And yet, he took a circuitous route to his destination as if he believed he might be followed."
Lena nodded. "He was definitely trying to give someone the slip. He went into one of his clubs and then slipped out the back fifteen minutes later and into a waiting hackney. If Will wasn't on the rooftop, he'd have missed it."
Hmm. Adele's pacing slowed. Hardcastle Lane, she'd said.
"Did you happen to have the precise address?"
Lena's eyes narrowed. "Just what are you planning?"
"I think it's time to demand some answers," she replied grimly.
She'd been expecting a raven-haired beauty to answer, but as the door to 45 Hardcastle Lane jerked open, Adele came face-to-face with an impeccable butler.
Who blinked at her.
"I'm sorry, my....?"
"I am here to see my husband," she said, lowering her dripping parasol and taking a step up onto the lintel as if to enter. Rain darkened the skies behind her, but it suited her mood.
The butler didn't move. "Your husband...?"
"I'm told he visits here," Adele said boldly. "You may know him as Malloryn."
She might as well have set fire to his well-ironed tails. The butler's gaze suddenly focused on her intently, as if he hadn't recognized her before, and she could have sworn a line of sweat sprang up down his spine. His eyes had that look.
"Your husband," the man repeated stupidly.
"I know he was here last night," Adele growled, taking the chance to duck under his arm and into the entry. "And I know the lady of the house is a rather remarkable brunette."
There was no sign of anyone else, but what did she expect? A lady's petticoat draped over the armchair in the parlor? A pair of stockings hanging from the light fixture?
"Y-Your Grace." The butler stopped just short of grabbing her, his hands twitching in midair. "You cannot— You can't just—"
"I'm not supposed to be here?" she asked icily, turning on him with a hint of the wrath boiling in her veins. "Oh, I daresay I'm not. Malloryn would prefer me tucked up at home with no idea what he's up to at night. Where is he?"
A scalded sound echoed in his throat, and he looked beside himself. "It's not.... You can't.... He's not here."
"You're lying."
"I'm not!" He tried to usher her toward the door without actually laying hands on her. "If you'll just wait a moment, I'll, ah, I'll send for your carriage and—"
"I am not going anywhere until I see Malloryn." Adele stepped right up into his face. She was done with being toyed with. "So either you fetch him or I will."
Chapter 10
The message reached Malloryn at his club, just as he was about to corner Barrons about cancelling the queen's celebrations completely. He'd need Barrons's vote if he had any hope of pushing this through council, for the queen was determined to keep her parade and her ball despite the dangers.
Urgent assistance required. Intruder apprehended at HQ.
It stopped him in his tracks.
Herbert's impeccable handwriting held an unusual flourish, as if he'd either been in a hurry, or somewhat flustered. He'd even sent the message with an errant newspaper boy, which was a breach in security protocols.
Herbert was never flustered.
He was unflappable in any situation, and yet the note seemed to disprove that theory.
Herbert was in a flap.
Malloryn demanded his coat and scarf and headed for the door with sharp, rapping strides. It had to be Balfour. The snake had finally reared his head. Or maybe Byrnes had had some luck tracking Jelena, despite the fact he and Lady Peregrine had lost the trail yesterday. Summoning a hack, he gave terse directions to Covent Garden, where he slipped into the morass of people on the street. A brief detour through a house advertising "French Lessons" in the window, and then a hurried set through a series of alleys, and he was entirely certain he'd lost any tail that might have been given him.
Ten minutes later he was standing out the front of 45 Hardcastle Lane.
The entire Company of Rogues awaited him in the foyer, and Ava was kneeling beside Herbert, who sat with his head bowed on the bottom step of the staircase, a cool rag draped over the back of his neck. Gemma's skirts swished as she paced, and the second he entered, relief broke over her expression like a sunrise.
"What happened?" he demanded.
Movement shifted upstairs, sharp heels rapping on the floor of his study. Malloryn's gaze shot upwards, then he took in Herbert's face—the way his butler couldn't quite meet his eyes. There was a faint trace of foreign perfume in the hallway, something that smelled like...
...a woman?
Malloryn shrugged out of his coat, handing it to Charlie as his mind raced. "You said there was an emergency."
They all looked at him, no doubt gauging his temper accurately by the looks on their faces.
Then Byrnes snorted, a slight laugh escaping him. "There was a break-in. We've managed to contain the perpetrator—your wife—in the study."
"My wife."
What the hell was Adele doing here? And why were half his agents arrayed in the parlor like they were too afraid to go upstairs?
"It wasn't easy," Byrnes reported, still laughing at him, goddamn him. "She put up one hell of a struggle, and we weren't certain just how far we were supposed to subdue her... being your wife and all."
That still didn't answer the questions he had. Why the hell was Adele here? Suspicion slithered through him. He'd swallowed her story about the big bad Echelon taking advantage of her, but had he been played? Maybe she was a plant. There could be no other reason she'd be here. Could there?
That kiss sprang to mind again, doubt curdling his insides.
"And why is my wife in my study?" he asked, once he was certain he had his emotions under control.
"Well," Gemma started, "She—"
Byrnes held a hand up, silencing her.
"Oh, no," he said, with a nasty-looking grin. "We're not allowed to spoil this one. If the duke wants to know why his wife is here, then perhaps he should ask her? We'll wait."
"She was looking for a Mrs. Danner," Ingrid suggested helpfully.
"Or me," Gemma replied pointedly. "A Mrs. Townsend who was keeping you company."
Malloryn's gaze shot to her, then lifted steadily to the roof as a half dozen conclusions drew themselves. Mrs. Danner? His fake mistress? His cover? Why would—
A sudden memory of Adele's glare regurgitated itself. "You want an heir? Then I want her gone," she'd snarled, in a most un-Adele-like way.
And he had the sudden sensation that something was going on, something that had nothing to do with the SOG, or Lord Balfour, or the fate of the country.
His mind made one of those brilliant leaps of conclusion it sometimes made, and the result ended up somewhere around the vicinity of oh, fuck.
"Herbert?"
"Yes, sir." The man's cheeks reddened, as well they should, damn him.
"May I ask how my wife got in here?" He paid the man a small fortune to keep the house safe, after all.
"Ah, I let her in, sir, and claimed the master of the house was away. But she was armed."
"Armed?" His voice sounded cold and flat. "Adele was armed?"
Herbert cleared his throat. "Hemlock, sir. I didn't expect it."
Hemlock.
He made his way toward the stairs as he digested this. Of course. Those bloody rings that were all the rage among the latest crop of debutantes.
From what he'd learned, his bloody wife supplied them.
"Careful," Byrnes called. "She's already taken one of us down. I should absolutely hate to see her unman you too. Charlie took a tray of brandy up to her, and we heard something smash about ten minutes ago. I suspect she's not feeling very wifely round about now."
"Is she ever feeling very wifely?" Kincaid joked.
"Are we taking odds?" Charlie stage-whispered. "Who wins this bout? The duchess? Or Malloryn?"
"My money's on the duchess," Kincai
d shot back.
"Seconded." Byrnes and Gemma.
"And me," Ingrid added.
"Damn it." This from Charlie.
Only Herbert spoke up for him.
Malloryn shot them all a scathing look and started tugging his gloves off as he took the stairs slowly. They could be useful, he told himself, as the muscle ticked in his jaw. Especially Byrnes. There was a reason he put up with the man, after all. "Herbert, if you want to redeem yourself in this situation and save some face, then I would suggest you see the house cleared of this pack of gossiping rabble, and then take up station outside until I give the order it's safe to come back inside."
"Yes, sir," Herbert barked, even as Byrnes made a disappointed sound.
Then Malloryn went to corner his wife.
Chapter 11
The door opened and closed with a quiet click.
Adele didn't bother looking up from the board she'd been perusing, with its variety of notes, photographs, and red string pointing from one photograph to the other. She knew who it was.
"I didn't know you missed me so much," her husband said into the stillness.
A shiver of anticipation went through her, but she swallowed it down. The last time she'd seen him, he'd had his face buried between her thighs. And her treacherous body replayed a succinct memory of that sensation, leaving her lips, her thighs, and even that area he'd kissed tingling.
Gathering herself, she turned around.
And was undone once again.
The wind had tousled Malloryn's hair, and his piercing gray eyes locked on her with a dangerous intensity. She rarely saw him in a relaxed state; his attire was usually impeccable, his hair combed and pomaded. Even when he'd tied her to the bed and had his way with her there hadn't been a button out of place, which was frustrating, to say the least.
He tossed his scarf over the back of a nearby chair, perusing her with a coolly detached sort of curiosity that roused all her ire.
"Well? Did you find what you were looking for?" Malloryn asked, and it was almost a taunt, as their eyes locked.
Adele took a steady breath, her fists clenching. Anger had sustained her on the carriage ride here, but it had evaporated in the brief two hours she'd been locked in the study, as her mind started working. She'd been played for a fool, and she did not enjoy the sensation. Worse, she'd made a fool of herself. The new Adele had been a concept that invigorated her, and yet she saw immediately there'd been traces of her old self left behind.
A hint of naiveté.
A slightly breathless feeling of hope.
She would not make that mistake again.
"No opera singers hiding under my desk?" Slowly, he tossed his gloves on the nearest chair and took a step toward her, moving with predatory grace. "No perfume on my coat? No undergarments belonging to some other woman in my drawers?"
"I haven't checked the drawers yet. The map of London and all the photographs of dead men sidetracked me. I knew Lord Ulbricht was missing, thanks to the London Standard, but I see he's been accounted for. Did you bury him yourself?"
"That's what I pay others to do."
"I see." Adele captured her skirts and swished around the desk, keeping it between them as she moved. Nervousness lit along her spine. She wasn't precisely certain what put that look in his eyes, or what he intended to do with her. None of this was what she'd expected, but she was starting to put the pieces together. "Just why do you have a photograph of the bomb scene from our engagement party on your map?"
"Maybe I planned it."
Adele's eyes narrowed. "It's not your style."
"Oh. What is my style?" Malloryn undid his cravat, dragging it from around his throat and curling the strip of linen around his fist. The movement was oh-so-precise and hearkened back to the other morning in her bedchamber when he'd bound her wrists to her bed. Probably meant to intimidate her, but then she was starting to understand this man. Starting to learn all of his tells.
The second she let him intimidate her was the second she let him play her. She'd grown up under her father's thumb; Malloryn was good, but he had nothing on Sir George Hamilton.
With a smile, she stopped by the brandy decanter and poured herself a drink, nursing it as she leaned back against the bookcase. "The bombing was far too messy. Your style is a knife in the dark, isn't it? It's a disappearance that cannot be accounted for—rather like Ulbricht. And there's never, ever, any messiness left behind. You hate it when I rearrange the saltcellars on the dining table" —which was precisely why she did it so often— "and you have to put all the books back in their right place after I've been through your library and left them lying around. And interrupting your daily schedule makes that muscle in your jaw jump, just like it's doing now." Lifting the brandy to her lips, she sipped it, the fiery liquor scoring her mouth. "You like the queen. You keep the pin she gave you after you helped her overthrow her husband in your desk drawer. You like the Duchess of Casavian and her husband, Lord Barrons, and they were directly in the path of that bomb. Which brings me to the conclusion you didn't plan it." She looked at the board, at the map, all those pins, and felt again the revelation she'd discovered earlier. "You're trying to find who did."
It made sense.
He had been taking care of business, after all.
Someone was taking all of Malloryn's neatly ordered plans—his precious London, the city he'd fought so hard to bring to order—and casting chaos into its midst.
"Those people downstairs.... I remember them from our engagement party when that vampire suddenly appeared. And from our wedding, when someone tried to kill me. They stopped it all from happening. They're working for you. They're trying to hunt the people behind all of this." She was breathless. "That's what you're doing here, isn't it?"
Silence.
"You put all of that together... from a map?" he asked incredulously.
Malloryn wasn't the first person who'd underestimated her. But it infuriated her suddenly. Her father had scorned her mind and forced her into her preordained role as a thrall. Her mother had never offered her a chance to escape. She'd always known she was more than what they'd tried to make her.
And somehow, in the last week, she'd begun to feel as though her husband believed it too. "Did you think me an idiot?"
Malloryn blinked. Then those gorgeous eyes became half-lidded again, as if he was sorting through possible answers in his mind. "No. Never that. How did you find me?"
"I asked a friend of mine to follow you. I thought you were with.... The letters that kept arriving at the house at all times of the day. The constant 'something came up' or 'business.' I thought you were still seeing her."
"Her." Her husband stared at her, his eyes calculating and only his fingers twitching slightly as he caressed his cravat. Slowly, he let it drop. Then he crossed his arms over his chest. "Her, who?"
"Your bloody paramour—" She paused. Malloryn wasn't stupid, and he looked cautious now. That wasn't a denial, but more of a sounding out. "Who else would you have thought I suspected?"
Was there someone else?
"I have many contacts. I just wasn't certain who you were referring to."
"Contacts? Like the women downstairs?"
"The women downstairs work for me," he replied. "And if I even looked twice at any of them, I'm sure their husbands would take askance at such a thought."
Something wasn't right here. Her husband was known for playing games, for dictating the narrative about his life. "Was there even a Mrs. Danner?"
"There is a Mrs. Danner onstage at the Capitol," he replied calmly. "A very voluptuous brunette with a known temper. I send her flowers once a week, and spend at least one evening out on the town with her before we 'retire.'"
"Retire?" She hated how stupid it made her sound.
"Giulia goes to bed and reads, and I slip out her back window where no one can see me."
The floor dropped out from under her. "You let the world believe you were having an affair with an Italian soprano?"
"Is it the world that has you so bothered, or is it you?"
"You let me believe you were having an affair with an opera singer."
Just to be clear on the matter.
"I didn't let you believe anything. You reached that conclusion yourself. It was convenient for me to have a reason to disappear at times. Mrs. Danner played into that illusion. I paid her quite handsomely to be discreet and to make reference to me, and in return I got to slip quietly about London when people think I am elsewhere."
Adele's mouth fell open. She had been played. And right on the heels of that realization came other conclusions. The photograph with Devoncourt. The begetting of an heir. The sudden interest her husband took in her.
It left her breathless.
If he'd wanted an heir, he would have bedded her. But no, he'd been amusing himself with her. Whispering promises of seduction... and fulfilling none of them.
There were too many doubts suddenly rearranging themselves into suspicions in her head.
"You didn't want a child from me, did you?"
Barely a flicker crossed his face, but she had the sudden feeling he was cautious. "I'm a duke. I require an heir."
"You didn't want an heir, did you?" Adele stabbed a finger toward him. "That was an excuse. This whole game was a joke to you. Seduce me? Ha. Something about Devoncourt set you off. Who is he? What is he to you?"
It had to be Devoncourt that had roused her husband's interest. All this had occurred in the wake of that damning photograph.
Malloryn's gaze grew narrow again. "Devoncourt works for my enemy—"
Adele barely heard him. "Oh, my goodness." She pressed her fingers to her temples. "Oh, my goodness." None of it had been true. "I cannot believe I actually thought you suddenly interested in me, after so many months of indifference. I'm an idiot."
"You're not an idiot," he replied carefully. "You're quite an intelligent young woman. I've always known that—"
"I am an idiot," she declared. "I actually thought...."
That you wanted a child with me.
Her heart threatened to punch its way through her ribs. The image of the baby she'd begun daydreaming about, the one with little Alex's face, was suddenly ripped to shreds. And it hurt. It hurt so badly she thought she was almost going to cry. And worse, she'd actually begun to soften toward her husband. He'd kissed her as if she were made of spun sugar. He'd charmed his way into her bed with one flicker of his perfectly arched brow.
