She covered her eyes with one hand. “They’re strained when they’re together now. It’s all my fault. Noah is angry that Griffin continues to interfere with our case. Griffin is angry that Noah doesn’t keep me out of this or protect me like some china figurine. What a mess.”
Hannah was silent for a while, neither denying nor verifying that the tension between Noah and Griffin was Audrey’s fault. “What will you do then, Audrey?”
Shrugging one shoulder, she uncovered her face and rose to her feet. She paced across the room, stopping at the fireplace to take the poker from its position beside the mantel. Stoking the fire with its tip, she said, “I need to get away from here as soon as possible. I need to end this case.”
“Why?”
“Because if I stay,” Audrey’s voice faltered. “If I stay I may forget all the good reasons I have to turn down Griffin’s proposal. I may find it harder than I already do to resist him.”
“And why is that such a bad thing?”
Audrey sighed, her eyes returning to the burning embers. “Because I’ve loved him for so long, I couldn’t bear it if he didn’t love me in return. It would be too hard to look at him with all the love in my heart and see him looking back at me with only friendship in his eyes.”
Hannah rose and crossed the room to place an arm over her friend’s shoulders. “Oh, lovey.”
They were interrupted by the knock of the chambermaids, who came in with a tub and gallons of steaming water for Audrey’s bath. Once they’d gone, she undressed and sank beneath the waves behind a screen. On the other side she heard Hannah bustling around the room, picking up her clothing and tidying up.
“Hannah?” She squeezed the sponge in her hand and lathered it with soap.
“Yes?”
“I think it’s time I pay a visit to Douglas Ellison’s house,” she called out, her mind spinning on the possibilities.
From the other side of the screen, she was sure she heard Hannah utter a quiet curse, then she poked her head around the edge of the barrier.
“You cannot be serious.” She shook her dark head. “You told me the man attacked you. Surely you don’t mean to continue pursuing him.”
“What choice do I have? It’s the only way we’ll get the information we need. I’ll have the perfect excuse. My host tried to kill Ellison tonight, I’ll tell him I don’t want him to be in danger by visiting Griffin’s house.”
“Whatever do you think you have to gain by walking into this man’s den?”
With a frown of disapproval, her friend disappeared back into the main room.
Audrey hesitated a fraction. “Perhaps I’ll have better luck than Jean did in finding the list of associates.”
Silence was her only answer. Audrey could practically hear Hannah contemplating the notion. Finally, sure steps guided her friend back to Audrey’s side of the screen. Hannah’s face was stern as she looked her friend in the eye.
“Do you really think you could discover his secrets?”
“After tonight?” Audrey nodded. “Absolutely.”
“And you feel it’s worth the risk you’ll be taking?”
She contemplated that question for a long moment. “Griffin is completely out of control. The longer we play this game with Ellison, the worse it’s going to get. He could get himself killed if he continues on as he was tonight. Or at least destroy our cover. I’m afraid if I don’t go to Ellison’s and find out the truth in the next few days, I won’t get another chance. After everything I’ve gone through with the man, I couldn’t bear to have him slip through our fingers.”
Hannah pursed her lips. Finally she gave a resigned sigh. “Very well, missy. But if you’re going to Ellison’s tomorrow, I’m going with you.”
***
Griffin sat in Douglas Ellison’s sitting room rubbing his knuckles. They were still bruised from his well-placed punch the night before, but hitting the man had been worth any pain that followed. Griffin’s only regret was that his fears for Audrey’s cover had kept him from doing more damage to the traitor.
Still, he didn’t understand why he’d been summoned to the house next door to his own. The footman had brought the request that morning, just about the time Griffin was having his early cup of tea and Noah was stumbling home from a night of work and play. After much deliberation and argument, Griffin had convinced Noah he should take the invitation.
Now he sat in the drawing room of a man he despised, surrounded by an Oriental theme that almost made him laugh. After all of Ellison’s hatred for Prinny, he had something in common with him. Both men favored the rich fabrics and designs influenced by what the spice traders brought back from the Orient.
Tapping his foot impatiently, Griffin checked his pocket watch. He’d now been waiting for over a quarter of an hour. Though this was just a tactic to irritate him, Griffin couldn’t help but feel it had succeeded. He wasn’t a man accustomed to delay.
Just as he was about to get up and leave, the double doors to the sitting room opened and Douglas Ellison stepped inside. Griffin was pleased to see the man’s nose was bruised and painful looking. He kept himself from grinning with pride. Barely.
With a yawn, he stood.
“Ellison,” he said, using the practiced cold and distant voice of a displeased aristocrat.
“Berenger.” The other man shut the door behind him with a smug smile. He, too, would have sounded cold if his voice hadn’t been so nasal due to the injury to his face. “Thank you for coming. May I offer you a drink?”
Griffin returned to his seat. “No. It’s a bit early for me. Though I’d understand why you’d need one, you look a fright.”
“Yes.” Ellison’s eyes narrowed before he turned to the bar behind him. “Some animal attacked me last night.”
Griffin watched as Douglas poured his drink with trembling shoulders and took a long sip. Finally, he sat down across from Griffin with a hard stare. For a moment the room was silent as the two men sized each other up. Finally, Griffin broke the silence with another yawn.
“Not that I don’t enjoy spending time with a neighbor,” he said, leaning his elbows forward on his knees. “But I wonder why you’ve invited me here today of all days.”
The smug smile returned to Ellison’s cold lips. “I think you know.”
Griffin shook his head. “I’ve no idea, I assure you. It isn’t as if we’re friends, and we’ve seen far more than enough of each other lately for both our tastes.”
“Yes.” Ellison’s eyes lit up as he set his drink on the table beside him. “But never in private. What I have to say to you cannot be said in public.”
Griffin’s body lurched to attention, but he forced himself to maintain a bored exterior. “You’ve piqued my curiosity now. Whatever could you have to say to me that cannot be said in polite society?”
Ellison’s smile widened, though he winced with pain at the motion. Leaning back, he curled his hands around the arms of the chair, clutching them with enough force to whiten his knuckles.
“I brought you here to tell you that Audrey Jordan belongs to me.”
Griffin’s blood turned to ice in his veins. His initial reaction was to get up and finish the job he’d begun the night before, but then he calmed himself. Remembering that self-control wasn’t only noble, but intelligent, he took a deep breath.
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me.” Ellison’s voice was little more than a growl. “She’s mine.”
“Well, I would wager she’d have something to say about that, considering how hard she was fighting against you last night.”
Ellison waved a dismissive hand. “An innocent will always resist advances the first time. It’s in her nature and societal training to do so. Before I was finished with her, she would have been begging me for more.”
Griffin held back a howl of rage as every muscle in his body tensed. The thought of Ellison hovering over Audrey made him reel with fury.
Ellison ignored his guest’s reaction an
d continued, “For the past few weeks I have observed you watching her. You drag her off every time I get near. You’ve interfered with my plans more than once.”
Griffin blinked to clear his eyes, thanking his father silently for the calm he’d taught him. “Audrey is my best friend’s sister and is under my protection while she lives in my home.”
Ellison laughed, an unpleasant, grating sound. “Oh it’s much more than that. You want her.” Now he was leering, taunting Griffin. “You want to peel off all her layers and feel her writhe beneath you.”
“Enough,” Griffin breathed, surprised he hadn’t yet broken the chair with the force of his grip.
“No worries, friend,” Ellison chuckled. With a smug smile, he leaned back. “I understand completely. I feel the same way, but there is a difference. I need Audrey. And after all her troubles in the past, she needs me to need her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Why the rumors surrounding her a few years ago,” Ellison explained with a smile. “They weren’t enough to truly ruin her reputation, but she’s past the flower of her youth so most men won’t look at her. I’m willing to overlook those flaws, to make her my wife. There’s much to be gained from a wife with a fortune and a mild reputation. Not so much as your Lucinda had, of course…”
“Why you…” Griffin flipped his chair over as he stood.
Before he could continue, the door opened and the butler stepped in. Though his eyebrows came up at the sight of Griffin’s overturned chair and Ellison’s raised fists, he made no mention of them.
“Excuse me, Mr. Ellison, Lady Audrey is here to see you. Shall I tell her you’re in?”
Ellison’s eyes widened with his smile as he laughed at Griffin. “You see, Berenger? She comes to me. Send her in, Kendrick.”
Griffin swallowed hard, thrown by this latest development. His rage was still just under the surface, fed by the fact that Audrey continued to put herself in danger. Even after last night’s near-tragic events she insisted on pressing forward.
“You look sick, Berenger.”
“Sick is a good word for one of us.” With a bang, he righted his chair just as the door opened again and Audrey and Hannah entered.
At first, her eyes were only for Ellison.
“Oh Douglas, it’s worse than I thought. Does it hurt very much?” she gushed, taking a step and holding out her hand, then drawing it back as if she’d thought better of it.
“Not much.” Douglas smiled as he motioned to Griffin. “And how pleased Lord Berenger and I are to see you.”
Audrey’s face fell as she turned to see Griffin standing beside his chair, clenching his fists at his sides. Her blue eyes widened, flashing a variety of emotions before she blocked them out with a false smile.
“L–Lord Berenger,” she stammered as she slanted a worried look over her shoulder at Hannah. “I didn’t realize you were here.”
“No,” he said, his voice cold as he began to understand her visit. Instead of playing it safe, keeping the hell away, she once again charged ahead. Damn her and damn this mission she seemed so bloody focused on finishing. At the risk of her body and her life. “I expect you didn’t.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Audrey shivered as Griffin looked at her, then through her as if she didn’t exist at all. The fury in his cold eyes was tangible, burning despite his icy exterior. Whatever had been happening in that room before she entered wasn’t a pleasant chat about boxing or racing.
She’d seen that look in Griffin’s eyes before. He was furious with Ellison, but also with her for coming here so soon after she’d been attacked. If only she’d known he’d be there, she would have waited to pay her call. Now his presence put her entire plan in jeopardy.
To her surprise, Griffin bowed stiffly first to her than to Ellison. “I can see I’m intruding so I will bid you both farewell.”
“Good day, Berenger,” Ellison said with a nod. “And don’t forget what I said.”
Griffin paused at the doorway to look over his shoulder in disgust at Ellison. “No, I don’t think I shall be able to.”
When the door had shut behind him, Audrey took a step toward Ellison, though her body was screaming at her to run after Griffin.
“You two weren’t arguing about what happened…” She paused with a blush she didn’t have to force. “About what happened last night.”
“It isn’t important, my dear.”
Ellison motioned to the chair Griffin had vacated. She took it, trying to ignore the warmth that still radiated from the cushion where Griffin’s body had been.
“It is very important to me if Lord Berenger was threatening you because of a misunderstanding caused by me,” she said as she leaned forward. God help her if she didn’t look earnest. “He didn’t harm you, did he?”
“Of course not,” Douglas scoffed with a roll of his eyes. “There’s little a man like that can do to harm me. A broken nose is secondary to what I can do in return.”
Drawing in a sharp little breath, Audrey glanced at Hannah. Though the maid kept her eyes down, Audrey could she that she, too, had registered Douglas’s threat.
“I don’t want you two to fight over me.”
Ellison let out a laugh. “Of course you do. All women want men to fight over them.”
Holding back a barbed comment, Audrey smiled without answer. There was no use getting into a debate on the feminine mind with a man who didn’t believe she had one to begin with.
“Let’s not talk of your friend any longer,” Ellison said with a smile of his own. “I’m surprised to see you here after last night. I planned to call and apologize to you this afternoon.”
Audrey swallowed past the bile that kept her from saying what she’d practiced. “I feared you might encounter trouble with Lord Berenger if you called at his home today, so I came here instead. I owe you an apology, as well.”
Ellison’s eyebrow went up and he leaned back. “Really?”
Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, she looked around her as if she were ashamed and whispered, “You frightened me with your forwardness, but… but I liked it in a way, too.”
His face darkened as he glanced at Hannah then back to her. “Did you?”
“Yes. You’ve been such a kind friend to me and I repaid that kindness by allowing someone to harm you, then running away from you.”
The tears gathering in her eyes were painfully real, and though Douglas might think they were for his ordeal the night before, they most certainly were not.
He angled closer. “I would like to be much more than a mere friend to you. After last night, you’d be a fool not to realize that. But if you’ll allow me a private moment, I’ll tell you what I mean.”
“Hannah…”
“Ma’am,” Hannah’s voice was sharp. “That wouldn’t be proper.”
“Just for a moment, Hannah.” Audrey gave her friend a hard, pointed look.
Hannah took in a breath to say more, but didn’t. Her position didn’t allow her to scold Audrey, at least not in front of Ellison. Later, Audrey knew she’d hear plenty. With a grumble, her ‘maid’ left the room.
“When we’re married, we’ll hire a better attendant for you,” Ellison muttered with a glare at the door. “One who doesn’t hover around like a mother hen and have the gall to correct you.”
Audrey’s head spun. “Married?”
With a smile that would have been gentle if she hadn’t seen the predatory gleam in his eyes, Douglas took both her hands. “This wasn’t the way I had envisioned asking you, but I want you to be my wife.”
Audrey had the strangest urge to giggle. Not five years before she had longed for a proposal of marriage. Now she didn’t want any and had received two within the span of a few days, plus one from Jean who was only partly serious.
Douglas filled her hesitation by saying, “We would be the perfect match, Audrey. You bring your money and your family name to the relationship and I could take care of you as no other man
could.”
Audrey fought to hold back a plethora of retorts to that statement.
“I’m not sure,” she finally replied.
At that, Douglas rose up from the chair to look down at her. His gray eyes were cold as steel and his manner had changed completely. Instead of being the attentive man he always played while with her, she saw the monster he could become toward anyone who crossed him.
“You spend time with me, you encourage my attentions, but then deny me when I make an honorable offer to you?” His tone was a combination of disgust and outrage. “It makes me wonder what you are doing with me. Are you a tease as the rumors said all those years ago?”
Audrey froze at this second mention of the past she’d always thought was a secret. Douglas had to have done much investigation to find out about it. The thought terrified her.
Standing, she shook her head. Backtracking was her only escape route.
“Because of my past, I’m very shy of men. The things that were said of me then were vicious rumors told by vindictive people.” Audrey dipped her head in mock subservience. “Please don’t take my hesitation as a refusal or a game. I do… care for you.”
“Then be my wife.”
This time it wasn’t a question, but an order. Audrey glanced up at him, wondering why he was so adamant about the issue. Was his organization running out of money, so he needed her dowry? Or were his plans to assassinate the Prince coming to fruition and he wanted her to be his if he was forced to flee the country?
The possibilities spun through her head. It wasn’t as if she would truly have to marry Douglas Ellison. Noah and she would unmask and arrest him long before any wedding. In the next few days she hoped to bring the man to justice. But being his fiancée offered her the opportunity to move closer to him, while it would push Griffin further away from her and from danger.
“Yes, Douglas, I will.”
He flashed a grin before he grabbed her upper arms and pulled her against his chest in a tight embrace. Audrey thanked her stars he didn’t kiss her. The thought of his lips on hers made her already queasy stomach even sicker.
The Secrets of a Lady tj-1 Page 22
