by Anna Bradley
Lyndon frowned after him. “That manservant of yours has gotten awfully high and mighty of late—”
“How do you know there’s mischief afoot?” Tristan wasn’t in any sort of mood to quibble over servants. “It’s not difficult to imagine Ives is really dead, given his condition.”
“No, but he’s not dead, for all that. I’ve got a man or two at Newgate, just as you have. Damn clever bit of work, how she got Ives out, but then Lady Clifford and her collection of sorceresses know how to execute a crime.”
Tristan didn’t argue that point. Sophia Monmouth had all the behaviors of an accomplished criminal. He’d known that since he’d spied her on Everly’s roof. He should have listened to his instincts from the first.
“Seems Ives was taken out in a coffin well before sunrise this morning, but curiously enough, not a single soul saw his corpse aside from one guard, and what do you suppose has happened to him?”
“Disappeared,” Tristan muttered through clenched teeth. “Who was it?”
“Hogg.”
Tristan had been pacing in front of the fireplace, but now he stilled. Of course, it was Hogg. Who else would it be? He may as well have handed Hogg to Miss Monmouth on a silver platter.
“Hogg’s fond of a gold coin, from what I understand,” Lyndon said. “Newgate Prison’s secure enough, until you bribe a guard.”
Tristan muttered a curse. He’d shown Miss Monmouth precisely which guard to approach with that bribe. “Jeremy Ives is proclaimed dead. Someone shows up at Newgate with a coffin and takes his corpse away, but no one aside from Hogg sees either the dead body or who took it, and now Hogg is gone. Do I have that right?”
“Yes. I’d hazard a guess Hogg isn’t returning anytime soon, either. Lady Clifford has the means to make it worth his while to stay far away from London.”
Tristan had heard enough. He snatched up his coat and threw it on over his shirt, not pausing to bother with a cravat or waistcoat. This wasn’t a social call.
“Off to the Clifford School?” Lyndon asked, following Tristan from his bedchamber. “I’ll go with you, if you like.”
Tristan shook his head. “No, thank you, Lyndon.”
He had quite a lot to say to Miss Monmouth, and all of it for her ears alone.
* * * *
Tristan’s lips twisted as he gazed up at No. 26 Maddox Street. The utterly unremarkable stone steps led to the utterly unremarkable front door of an utterly unremarkable house.
But inside? A half-dozen or more criminals, hiding in plain sight.
He marched up the steps, pausing on the landing. It wasn’t calling hours, but his fist met the door with the sort of vehemence that made it clear he wouldn’t be denied entrance, no matter what time it was.
After a short wait, a lady with tight gray curls opened the door. Tristan stared down at her, some of his righteous anger fading. A part of him wanted to rage at anyone associated with the Clifford School, but it was difficult to shout at a lady so tiny he could see the top of her head.
“Good morning, Lord Gray.” She stepped back from the door and ushered him into the hallway. “Please do come inside.”
Tristan raised an eyebrow. He’d never laid eyes on her before, but she knew who he was, and she didn’t look at all surprised to see him on the doorstep, despite the early hour.
There was no sign of Lady Clifford, or, thankfully, Daniel Brixton.
He stepped into the entryway. “I’ve come to see Miss Monmouth. Indeed, I insist upon it.” Saying her name made anger surge through him again, but he could hardly give vent to it while he was looming over this small lady like the hulking monster from every child’s nightmare.
Why were all the ladies at the Clifford School so tiny?
She answered him with a serene smile. “Of course, my lord. Miss Monmouth has been expecting you.”
Yes. No doubt she has.
“This way, if you would, my lord. Ladies,” she added. “If you’d be so good as to return to your work, I’d be grateful, indeed.”
Tristan heard a shuffle of feet above his head, and looked up to find three pairs of eyes gazing down at him from the third-floor landing. The three young ladies he recalled from his previous visit were measuring his progress down the hallway as if calculating how quickly they could drop down onto his back from their places on the landing if he dared to threaten their friend.
Miss Monmouth wasn’t the only one who was expecting him.
He followed the little gray-haired lady down the hallway and into the elegant drawing room he’d been shown into at his last visit. A tray of refreshments waited on a table, a cheerful fire was roaring in the grate, and Lady Clifford’s stout little pug was snoring contentedly on a rug beside it. It was all very comfortable and proper, a glossy veneer of respectability concealing a multitude of sins.
“I’m Mrs. Browning, Lord Gray. I’m Lady Clifford’s housekeeper. If you require anything, please don’t hesitate to ring the bell.” Mrs. Browning punctuated this polite speech with a nod and left the drawing room, closing the door behind her.
Tristan didn’t spare her another glance. His gaze was fixed on Sophia Monmouth, who was waiting for him in front of the fireplace, as still as a marble statue, with her hands clasped neatly in front of her. “Good morning, Lord Gray.”
She was wearing a dark green gown today. The muted color shouldn’t have suited her, but every color seemed to flatter Miss Monmouth, even the dull, somber ones. This gown emphasized the unusual color of her eyes, turning them a soft, mossy green.
Tristan didn’t bother with pleasantries. “How did you do it?”
Her expression didn’t change, but her shoulders stiffened. “Do what, my lord?”
“Don’t,” Tristan grated. He stalked across the room to stand before her, so close a deep breath bathed him in the seductive scent of honeysuckle. “Don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m referring to. It demeans both of us.”
She lifted one slender shoulder in a shrug. “I beg your pardon, my lord. I’m afraid I don’t understand you.”
“I think you do, Miss Monmouth. I think you understand me perfectly.” Tristan edged even closer to her, studying her face for the faintest hint of guilt, the merest twitch of consciousness, but there was nothing. “Very well, if that’s how you wish to proceed. I’m speaking of Jeremy Ives’s miraculous escape from Newgate.”
“Escape?” Her smooth brow furrowed. “Jeremy Ives is dead, Lord Gray. His death was announced in the Times this morning. Surely you saw it?”
“I saw it, yes,” Tristan bit out. “Saw it, and knew it at once for the lie it is.”
Her chest rose and fell as her breathing quickened, but otherwise she showed no signs of agitation. “Lie? I don’t know what you mean.”
Tristan’s lips twisted, but it was a cold mockery of a smile. “Come now, Miss Monmouth. Of course, you do. Tell me, was the coffin your idea? I don’t deny it was an ingenious one. Jeremy Ives was in no condition to rise to his feet on his own. You sidestepped that problem neatly enough.”
She said nothing, just stared over his shoulder, her green eyes blank.
All at once, Tristan couldn’t bear her silence, her icy composure a moment longer. “If you’re going to lie to me, you’ll do me the courtesy of looking me in the eye, Miss Monmouth.” He caught her chin in his hand and turned her face toward his. He wasn’t rough, but he wouldn’t let her look away from him, either. “You owe me your gratitude. Aren’t you going to thank me for my part in Jeremy’s escape?”
“Your part? I don’t under—”
“You don’t understand? Curious, that a clever, clever young lady like yourself should be at such a loss this morning. I gave you Hogg, Miss Monmouth. If it weren’t for me, you never would have known which guard to bribe.”
“Mr. Hogg? You mean the guard from yesterday? Has someone bribed him?” Sh
e took care to keep her voice flat, but her green eyes darted away from his.
“No. Don’t look away from me.” He tightened his fingers on her chin, forcing her to meet his gaze. “You’ve implicated me in this debacle. Have you forgotten I brought you to Newgate, and called Hogg to your notice? Should news of our visit to Ives reach the magistrate, they may choose to conduct an investigation. Don’t suppose they won’t discover we were there, and spoke to Ives.”
Her chin rose. “There will be no investigation, my lord, and even if there was, you didn’t commit any crime. According to your own words, you have nothing to fear from the law if you’re innocent.”
“What would you know about innocence?” He swept a hard gaze over her, lingering on the pulse fluttering under the smooth skin of her throat. “You seem nervous, Miss Monmouth. Committing a crime does tend to agitate people, but then this isn’t your first crime, is it?”
“It’s curious, Lord Gray. I recall you telling me just the other day Peter Sharpe hadn’t been convicted of a crime, and therefore was an innocent man.” She spread her hands wide. “I haven’t been convicted of any crime. Am I not to be allowed the same courtesy as Mr. Sharpe?”
Tristan tipped her chin higher, and brushed his thumb over her cheek. “You look innocent, with that delicate face and those wide green eyes, but you’re not, are you?”
The eyes in question flashed with temper. “Do you truly believe you know anything about guilt and innocence, Lord Gray? You know Jeremy isn’t guilty of any crime, yet even knowing that, you still believe the courtroom the best arbiter of justice.”
“You’re right, Miss Monmouth. I do believe it. How else do you propose to judge guilt and innocence? With your intuition?” He released her chin, but he didn’t step back, and she refused to back away, either. Her body was nearly flush against his, so close he could sense her trembling, feel the warmth of her through his clothing.
“It truly is that simple for you, isn’t it, Lord Gray? I envy you. How comfortable it must be, to live in a world of absolutes.”
“Is that how you see it? How strange.” He dragged his finger over the hollow of her throat, fighting the urge to close his eyes at the sensation of her warm, soft skin under his rough fingertip. “I would have thought it was far more comfortable to determine guilt and innocence according to whim, as you do.”
Her lips parted at his touch, and God, he was so furious with her, yet at the same time he was desperate to kiss her, to sink his hands into her thick dark hair and still her for his mouth. A low moan of lust and despair threatened to burst from his lips. He shouldn’t want her like this, but he could no longer deny he did want her. That pert, pink mouth drove him to such madness he didn’t know whether to arrest her, or devour her.
Whatever this strange pull was between them, she felt it, too. He knew it by the way the color flooded her cheeks, the flash in her eyes, the wild throb of her pulse under his finger.
She raised balled fists to his chest, but she didn’t push him away. “Did it ever occur to you, my lord, that the laws work best for those who wrote them and enforce them? Do you suppose they work for the men and women in Seven Dials? For the ragged street urchins? The debtors locked up in Newgate?”
Her fingers went to her neck, and Tristan knew instinctively she was grasping for the locket that was no longer there. For reasons he didn’t understand, he found it unbearable to watch the panicked movement of her hands. “Don’t. Stop it, Sophia.” He seized her wrists and dragged them away from her throat.
“You saw Jeremy, Tristan.” Her voice broke on his Christian name. “You saw what they’d done to him. Is the law working for him? Do you fool yourself into thinking he’ll see justice? A man who doesn’t even understand the crime of which he’s accused, condemned and sentenced to die. Is that justice?”
It was true. Every word she said about Jeremy was true. Justice wasn’t perfect. It never would be, yet it was all they had, and it served more people than it hurt. Tristan leaned over her, and let his forehead touch hers. “I don’t fool myself, no, but the answer to an injustice isn’t another crime, Sophia. Would you free every prisoner at Newgate?”
“No! Just one. The one I know to be innocent.”
“If everyone in London did the same, what then?” He released her wrists to cup her face in his hands. “Flawed justice is preferable to no justice, Sophia.”
“For some people, there’s little difference between the two.” Her green eyes were dark with anger, but her lips were soft, and still parted for him, and there was nothing more to say, nothing he could do but cover her mouth with his own.
This wasn’t a soft, tentative exploration. It wasn’t gentle. Tristan took her lips hard, his tongue insistent, demanding she take him into the slick warmth of her mouth. She opened to him at once, meeting him stroke for stroke, the kiss angry and desperate, each demanding the other yield and both of them resisting, their lips clinging together in a battle of wills that threatened to drive Tristan to the edge of his sanity.
He wasn’t a man who allowed his passions to overrule his logic, but he hadn’t counted on Sophia Monmouth, the wild temptation of her. He was on the edge of tumbling into a madness where he dragged her to the settee in the middle of Lady Clifford’s drawing room, hiked up her skirts, and covered her body with his…
“No.” Tristan tore his mouth from hers with a gasp.
They stood there staring at each other, both of them panting for breath, until he forced himself to turn away from the temptation of her swollen pink lips. He dragged in a few calming breaths until he subdued the demands of his body, then he turned back to her. “Where’s Ives, Sophia?”
“He’s safe,” she whispered. “Safe at last.”
Tristan dragged a hand through his hair. “Tell me where he is. For your own good, you need to tell me where you’ve taken him.”
Her face grew as hard as stone, but underneath her coldness she was trembling, her chest heaving as she struggled for breath. “I don’t know what you mean, Lord Gray. I haven’t taken him anywhere. I told you. Jeremy Ives is dead.”
Tristan knew she’d say no more about Ives, but he wasn’t yet finished with her. “None of this was really about Sharpe, was it? It wouldn’t surprise me to discover I was your target all along.”
“My target?” She looked puzzled for an instant, but then her face drained of color. “No! It wasn’t…you weren’t—”
“You must have realized only I would be able to see you on the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment.” Tristan had promised himself he wouldn’t touch her again, but his hand seemed to move without his consent, reaching for a loose lock of her hair. He rubbed it between his fingers, his gaze holding hers. “Perhaps this was about me from the start.”
She opened her mouth, but he dropped her hair and held up his hand before a word could pass her lips. “No. I don’t want to hear any more.” Because a part of him was afraid she could make him believe anything she said.
“Tristan—”
“No. This ends here.”
For her, it did end here. Sophia’s part in this business was done. Jeremy Ives was innocent of the crime of which he’d been convicted, but he was free now, and all of London believed him to be dead. It had all ended just as she’d hoped it would.
But it hadn’t ended for Tristan. It would never end for him until Henry’s murderer was swinging from the end of a rope. Henry had been a good man, a just man, and a loyal friend. He and his wife and son deserved justice.
But none of that had anything to do with Sophia Monmouth. “You should be pleased, Sophia. Jeremy is safe. Isn’t that what you wanted all along?”
“I don’t know,” she whispered. “I don’t know what I want.”
Tristan had no answer for that, other than that it didn’t matter what either of them wanted. He didn’t say it. Instead, he reached into his coat pocket and drew out her locket.
He cradled it in his hand for a moment, warming the silver against his skin, then he held it out to her. “I took this from Hogg yesterday. I thought you’d want it back. Take it.”
Her hand trembled as she reached for it. He dropped it into her palm. “There’s nothing more that needs to be said between us, and no reason for us ever to meet again.”
She said nothing, just closed her fingers tightly around the locket.
“Goodbye, Miss Monmouth.” Tristan offered her a formal bow, then went through the door without another word, and without a backward glance.
The housekeeper, Miss Browning, was nowhere to be seen, but the three young ladies were still hanging over the edge of the railing on the landing. Their eyes followed him as he came down the hallway and let himself out the front door.
They might as well look their fill now, because he had no reason to ever return to No. 26 Maddox Street, or see Sophia Monmouth again.
He went directly back to Great Marlborough Street, where he ordered Tribble to say he wasn’t at home to any callers, not even Lord Lyndon. After that, there was nothing to do but wait for the long, empty day to pass into dusk.
He spent it at his library window, staring out at the roof of Lord Everly’s pediment. He watched the shadows lengthen, and told himself he couldn’t still feel the strands of silky dark hair drifting through his fingers, see the glitter of tears on dark lashes, or taste the full lips that had opened so sweetly under his.
Chapter Twelve
Sophia was sitting on the edge of the settee staring down at the locket in her hands when the door of the drawing room opened, and Cecilia peeked around the edge of it. “Sophia?”
She had to take a moment to compose her face before she dared to glance up at her friend. “It’s all right, Cecilia. There’s no need to look so dejected.”
No need to feel so dejected, either. It wasn’t as if Lord Gray’s fury had taken her by surprise. She’d been waiting for him for several hours before he arrived, pacing from one end of the drawing room to the other, rehearsing how she could reconcile him to Jeremy’s sudden disappearance from Newgate without revealing the truth.
