by Elisa Braden
Claudette served her tea, helped her wash, brushed and pinned her hair, and helped her dress. The long-sleeved gown she’d chosen was simple silk velvet with few adornments. But its color was extraordinary—the rosy blush of a ripened peach. Hannah smiled as she imagined tempting him, kissing him, loving him in this gown.
Her maid’s light humming soothed her as she fastened a delicate pearl necklace and secured a set of shell combs in her hair. Hannah reached for Claudette’s fingers as the maid tidied wisps of her hair. She pressed the girl’s hand and met her eyes in the mirror. “Thank you.” She held the maid’s lovely blue eyes. “Thank you for always taking such excellent care of me.”
Claudette’s smile beamed. “It is my honor, Mrs. Hawthorn. My honor, indeed.”
Mrs. Hawthorn. She was his wife. The knowledge filled her. Warmed her. Made her glow. She took a deep breath. “Let us go and find my husband, hmm?”
According to Mr. Nash, Jonas had requested a meeting with Lady Wallingham immediately upon their arrival, or so Claudette had reported. The house party guests, including Eugenia and Phineas, had all accepted an invitation from Lord and Lady Rutherford to visit Chatwick Hall and had been gone for hours. Consequently, the corridor and, indeed, the entire castle seemed empty and hushed.
Hannah’s leg pained her, though not as much as before. Still, she accepted Claudette’s help as they descended the staircase and entered the gallery.
“Heavens,” Hannah exclaimed seeing rain sheeting the gallery’s windows. “When did the downpour begin?”
“Would you like me to fetch your shawl? It will only take a moment.”
“No, I …” She watched water snaking down the glass. Her leg throbbed. A queasy sensation struck. She halted. Braced a hand on the window’s casing. “Perhaps. Yes, I think so. Thank you, Claudette.”
It was an odd memory, she thought as the maid hurried away. Rain on glass. Pain along her thighs and hips. A man stroking her hair as though he loved her.
But he hadn’t. He’d hurt her over and over, tried to destroy her, all while fashioning her into something different. Distorted. Wrong.
His darkness had nearly swallowed her. Then, he’d gone. And she’d been free—except that she hadn’t. She’d had to fight and fight and fight. She’d had to push and push and push. She’d had to heal.
She was still healing. Because of love. Colin and Sarah Lacey had made her feel safe for the first time. Maureen had reminded her what it meant to be cared for as a mother cares for a child. Lord Dunston and Mr. Reaver had offered their protection with no expectations. Phineas had given her a home and a family and a place to belong. Eugenia had tirelessly battered Hannah’s fortress of indifference until she’d given in and let herself love her. Then, Eugenia had taught her to understand her own strength.
And, finally, there was Jonas. Her wolf. Who had wanted her, challenged her, placed his body and his strength between her and danger, purely on instinct.
But he was scarred, just as she was. I survive. That is my lot. To watch others die while I live.
Hannah had lost her family once. Then, she’d endured the bad time. But she’d rebuilt a new family from the best people she could find. She would help Jonas do the same. She would help him discover his own strength, and she would be tireless about it. Like Eugenia, she would accept no less than his unconditional surrender.
Because she loved him. His cleverness pretending to be charm. His fight pretending to be carelessness. His heart pretending to be unattached.
A grin curved her lips. She traced rain’s path down the glass and considered how very relentless she would be. Her husband didn’t understand. She’d fought this battle. She knew every move. And she had a singular advantage—he wanted her.
The thought was satisfying.
Just then, she saw a flicker out of the corner of her eye. Thinking it was Claudette, she glanced down the length of the gallery toward the stairs.
But it wasn’t Claudette. It was a man, wearing a dripping hat and dark coat, slipping through one of the glass doors from the garden. Handsome—a lean, square jaw like Jonas’s, dark eyes like Atherbourne’s, a proud nose and long chin like Wallingham’s. He turned toward her.
He must have seen her eyes widen, her breath halt.
Oh, God.
She backed away, but he’d already started forward. Her heart pounded. Ears pounded. Everything felt slow. Her leg was sore and weak from her injury and all the exertions of the day. She stumbled backward as he reached her and gripped her arms.
Skin crawled. Old membranes of fear blended with new swells of imminent danger, sending her head spinning. Her lungs panting. Her mind floating away, a yard behind her eyes. Then upward.
He was clutching her, his fingers digging into her arms. “… won’t hurt you unless I must. Now, stay quiet, beauty.”
Her head wanted to float. Escape. He held her against him. Had a knife. Knives were bad. His pressed against her ribs.
Syder had never cut her ribs. He’d always worked upon her thighs. He’d always known how deep he could go before the wounds became fatal.
Her mind floated higher.
He shook her. Demanded. A place to hide.
Cold soaked her. Rain slithered down the window.
A reflection flashed there amidst water and glass. White shawl. Blue eyes. Filled with horror.
Claudette. Her sweet maid with the soft hands.
Hannah could not let her become prey, too. She must stay. She must fight. Before he noticed Claudette standing behind him clutching a shawl.
The man was shaking her hard enough to bruise. “Move. What the devil is wrong with you?”
She forced herself down, down, down. Forward into her eyes. She willed herself to move and speak. “I—I know a place where you can hide. A cellar. No one ever goes there. I’ll take you.”
He spun her, grasping her upper arm painfully tight, then pressed his blade harder against her side. “I don’t wish to cut you, beauty, but I will. Make a sound, try to summon help, and I will.”
*~*~*
An hour earlier
Jonas dragged the miserable piece of shite behind him like a bag of horse leavings. He rammed the man’s head into the drawing room door. The man groaned.
The sound was bloody satisfying.
He hauled him twenty feet to where the dragon sat sipping her tea. Tossed the wretch aside. Set the trunk down beside him. Gave her a low bow. “Your trunk and your thief, milady.”
With an imperious sniff, she arched a brow and set aside her tea and lorgnette. “This is, indeed, my trunk.” Her fingers waved dismissively toward the bag of horse leavings. “But that is not my thief.”
Jonas glared. “He took a shot at my wife.”
Her eyes sharpened into brilliant emeralds. “Well, kill him if you must. I shan’t gainsay you. But he is not the man who stole from me.”
Behind him, the drawing room door slammed closed with a crack. “You’re right, Mother. He is not.” Wallingham strode into the room, hauling Cecil Bainbridge in much the same way one might haul a reluctant hound—by the collar. The marquess shoved his slovenly, drunken cousin into a chair and came toward Jonas with a dark glower. He pulled a sheet of paper from inside his coat and unfolded it, holding it up for both Jonas and Lady Wallingham to see. It was Jonas’s sketch, though copied by a finer hand than his.
Wallingham looked furious. He dangled the sketch in front of his mother, who turned her cheek. “When Lady Atherbourne completed her first copy, Atherbourne showed it to me. He’s rather admiring of his wife’s talents. Imagine my astonishment when the face so closely resembled my father’s that it might as well be his ghost.”
“Oh, do cease with the dramatics, Charles,” the dragon chided. “Your father had sharper cheekbones and a higher brow. Additionally, his lips were more defined. This man may be handsome, but he is not your father.”
“No,” Wallingham snapped, pointing at his drunken cousin. “According to Cecil, he is my half-broth
er. A by-blow and a blackmailer, as it happens. Why in blazes did you never tell me?”
The old dragon’s features stiffened until every wrinkle and line seemed etched in stone. The only lively thing was the emerald fire of her eyes. “That low creature is no brother of yours.”
“For God’s sake, Mother. He could be Father’s twin.”
“Nonsense. Your father did not have mistresses.” She sniffed and turned her green fire upon Jonas. “I expect you to find him, Mr. Hawthorn. You shan’t receive a farthing until you do.”
The bag of horse leavings groaned again, rolling onto his side. With his hands bound, there was little else he could do.
“Cecil claims this man approached him three months ago.” Wallingham flicked a long finger against the sketch. “He demanded payment in exchange for silence. Something about Cecil’s recent spate of luck in racing wagers.”
“Hmmph. Am I meant to be surprised? Cecil couldn’t fall off his horse without cheating.”
“Explain, Mother. Explain who he is.”
“He is a blackguard and a thief.”
Cecil began snoring. Jonas glanced back at the large-chinned sot with disgust.
Wallingham rubbed at his brow, his mouth tightening. “You simply don’t want to see it. I know you loved him, Mother, but it is not impossible.”
“Yes,” she said calmly. “It is.”
Jonas watched the marquess’s reaction—the sadness, the fury, the reluctance to wound his mother—and felt something he rarely did for nobs like Wallingham: sympathy. The dowager was an exasperating dragon with high-handed ways and a formidable will. But something about her circumstances prickled his nape. He glanced at the trunk. These are her memories, Jonas. Her memories of him.
Without thinking, his hand brushed the outline of the box in his lowest pocket.
Another groan from the bag of shite drew his attention. After taking the sketch from Wallingham’s hand, he grabbed a fistful of the man’s coat, held the drawing in front of his swollen eyes, and demanded, “Tell me where he is.”
“Don’t rightly know.”
Lady Wallingham warned, “Mr. Hawthorn’s thirst for vengeance is surpassed only by his savagery. I advise answering his questions. Else, he may leave nothing at all for the hangman.”
The man’s eyes flew back to Jonas. Widened. Grew fearful. “He paid me to watch her so she couldn’t tell thee more about his plans. That’s all. ’Twere a job. I didn’t steal nowt.”
“What is his name?”
The man shook his head and winced. “Bloody hell. Thy fists’re like stone, ye—”
“What is his name?”
“Lynch.”
Jonas glanced at both Wallingham and his mother. Neither appeared to recognize the name. He turned his attention back to the bag of shite. “You say you were paid to watch the girl. Do you mean the maid—Elly Allen?”
“Aye. Elly. Sweet one, that. Never gave me a bit of bother.”
“Where is she?”
The man shook his head, looking forlorn. “Don’t rightly know. She fancied Lynch at first. He has a way with the lasses. But I went out to fetch breakfast, and she disappeared. He were fit to be tied. Set me to watchin’ the cave while he searched for her.”
“Did he tell you to shoot my wife?”
The man’s looked convincingly horrified. “Nay! Don’t say she were hit. I fired high above both of ye. Only aimed to drive thee back inside the cave for a time while Lynch found Elly.”
Wallingham interjected, “Reaver discovered she has a sister who lives nearby. He’s gone to question her. Perhaps she’ll know where the girl’s gone.”
Jonas ran a hand through his hair and braced his hands on his hips. No maid. No thief. No bloody clue. “What business did Lynch have with the Bainbridge family?”
The man closed his eyes and groaned again, complaining about the pain in his head.
Jonas grabbed his coat and shook. “Why did he steal the trunk?”
The man squinted past Jonas’s shoulder. “Ask ’im. He’s where all this began.”
Cecil, who had emerged from his nap slightly less inebriated, looked positively green. He tried to rise from his chair, but Wallingham held him in place. “Now, now, Cousin. Mustn’t leave the party early. Dreadfully rude.”
“I already told you, I am the victim. Lynch attempted to extort a fortune from me.”
Wallingham glanced at his mother. “Explains all those letters begging an increase in his allowance.”
“Mmm,” she agreed. “Whereas there remains no explanation for your continued tolerance of this scapegrace. Cecil has done nothing but exhaust his allowance and your supply of cognac for the past decade.”
“He was my heir at one time.”
“I warned you to cut him off after Bain was born.” She waved to the bag of dung moaning about his head. “You failed to heed my advice, and this is the unfortunate result.”
Wallingham continued questioning his cousin. Cecil admitted that Lynch had approached him in London the previous year. “I think he was surprised by the resemblance in the beginning,” the drunkard said. “I paid him to go away. Thought that would be the end of the matter.”
“But it wasn’t.”
“No. He returned for more. More and more. Eventually, he demanded payment in the form of information.” Cecil gestured toward Lady Wallingham. “Wanted to know about her. Grimsgate. Our lineage. One night, he came to my father’s old house in Surrey. I was preparing to sell the property, and your father’s portrait was down from the attic.” Cecil’s mouth twisted. “When he saw it, he knew. I hadn’t told him, I swear it. He might have suspected, but once he saw the portrait, he knew with certainty. He vowed to find proof that even Lady Wallingham couldn’t deny.”
Jonas eyed Cecil, who was still half-sotted but lucid. Then, he examined Lady Wallingham. “He tried to blackmail you, didn’t he, my lady?” Jonas asked softly.
She glanced at the trunk then raised her chin. “Mr. Lynch approached me some weeks ago in London. He assumed I would pay rich sums to prevent him from stirring up a bit of gossip. He assumed wrong.”
“Because you don’t countenance blackmail?”
“Because his assertions are preposterous. My husband did not father any bastards.” She clicked her tongue. “Even if he had, do you suppose I give two figs for gossip, Mr. Hawthorn? I could stifle that blackguard’s slander in an afternoon and still have time for a beach ramble with Humphrey. Mr. Lynch was never a threat.” She gestured to her trunk. “He is a thief. No better—and certainly of no greater importance—than that.”
“Then why did you not mention him as a possible culprit?”
“When he appeared at the house on Park Lane, I sent the cur away with his tail between his legs. The matter was settled. He didn’t offer his name, and I didn’t care to ask it. Until I saw your sketch of Mr. Lynch this morning, I suspected one of my lady’s maids to be the culprit. A resentful, ungrateful lot. More than one has stolen from me in the past.”
“You should have told me.”
“You should have kept me better informed of your progress.”
“What do you suppose Lynch hoped to find in your trunk?”
“I’ve no earthly idea. Evidence of his parentage, I presume. Had he asked, I could have spared him the trouble.” She eyed Jonas’s coat. “And myself the expense.”
Expense was right. She’d offered Jonas the equivalent of a fortune to return one small trunk to her. Again, he traced the lines of the box in his pocket.
The drawing room doors opened. This time, it was Sebastian Reaver. His hair was damp, his expression stern. And beside him, looking bedraggled and wide-eyed was Elly Allen. Several loose feathers dotted her hair.
“Found her hiding in her sister’s chicken coop.” The giant’s twice-broken nose twitched. “Best keep your distance.”
The young maid instantly started weeping. Loudly.
“Cease your caterwauling, girl,” the dragon snapped.
&n
bsp; Miss Allen closed her mouth and hiccupped to a stop.
Jonas approached, nodding his thanks to Reaver and giving the young maid one of his more charming smiles. “Miss Allen. Are you injured? Did Mr. Lynch harm you?”
“N-no, sir. He wouldn’t let me leave, but he never hurt me.”
Nodding to the bag of shite staring at Miss Allen with a daft grin, he asked, “What about that one?”
“Eddie? Oh, ’ee were a lamb. Kind an’ gentle.” She sent an equally daft grin back to Eddie. “I wouldn’t ’ave left ye, Eddie. It’s just that I knew my sister would start to frettin’.”
“I forgive thee, Elly.” The man began to weep, too. Before long, both pathetic wretches leaked like cracked pots.
“Good God,” Jonas muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Miss Allen!”
The girl sniffled to a stop. “Aye, sir?”
“Do you know where Mr. Lynch might be at present?”
Her eyes went wide. She shook her head. “No, sir.”
“Did he share his plans with you?”
She blinked. Sniffed. “He talked of Paris a fair bit.”
“Paris.”
“’Ee promised to take me there once ’er ladyship came round to seein’ sense. Said as there’d be many fine slippers. I thought to accompany ’im. But that were before I met Eddie.” The maid blinked, her brow crinkling. “You know, I’ve come to think much of what Mr. Lynch says is a great lot of blather.”
Bloody hell. This entire farce had been orchestrated by a blathering schemer who resembled a dead marquess. Eddie and Elly were pathetic fodder, nothing more. Eddie would still pay for wounding Hannah, but it was clear the thickheaded simpleton hadn’t intended to harm her.
He spent the following half-hour questioning Eddie, who had worked with Lynch sporadically for years. Lynch was a swindler of the sort Jonas occasionally encountered in his work for Bow Street. He drifted from place to place, seducing gullible women of the servant class into helping him gain information and access to his targets. He likewise seduced vulnerable widows with minor fortunes then left them penniless. He blackmailed men like Cecil Bainbridge, which was no less than men like Cecil Bainbridge deserved. But he’d also blackmailed senile old men after convincing them they’d committed nonexistent crimes.
