The Rogue Who Rescued Her

by Christi Caldwell

Lord Exeter’s eyes slid closed, and his body slumped.

  “No… Do you know what I believe?” Graham answered for the earl. “Mayhap a small part of you was determined to protect Miss Donaldson. But a larger part was determined to keep your wife and her family’s dirtiest secret from ever sullying your names or lives.”

  Met with only a damning, guilty silence, Graham let out a sound of disgust and released him.

  Setting aside his personal loathing for the earl, Graham focused on Martha’s disappearance. “Whomever is responsible for Martha’s abduction is someone who lives amongst the ton.”

  Lord Edward snapped his brows together. “Go on.”

  Quickly striding back to his desk, Graham retrieved the file that contained the enumeration of threats Martha had faced these past months. “Had it been someone in High Town, they had ample opportunity to do her harm without the Brethren ever being the wiser.” He sneered once more at Lord Exeter. “We had, after all, forgotten enough about the lady where they could have killed her and her family. By the time you people developed a conscience and recalled broken promises, she would have already been dead.”

  Lord Exeter caught his jaw, and his gaze grew thoughtful. “He’s right,” he said to Lord Edward.

  Succeeding where he’d only ever failed should have been the greatest triumph. Now, there was no victory with Martha gone. “Here.” Graham passed his notes to his superior. “Someone wanted to drive her to London… to scare her, to show she was in danger, but to stop just short of harming her. They were sending a message.”

  “Why…?” Lord Edward’s question, as he read through the notes, was the same Graham had been asking himself since his return from Hyde Park.

  “She serves some use to someone,” Lord Exeter murmured.

  “Who would stand to benefit from Miss Donaldson’s secret staying a secret?” Lord Edward talked the puzzle through. “Exeter’s family.”

  That uttering, a cold, emotionless pronouncement about the woman who owned every last corner of Graham’s heart, sent his rage spiraling.

  Graham tamped down his resentment for the man before him and focused on his mentor’s contemplative musings. “Lord Exeter’s family, which now includes the Barretts.”

  Lord Exeter turned a hard look on Graham. “Are you implying my family is responsible…?”

  “I’ve considered it and already decided they aren’t the suspects, for the same reason it couldn’t have been a High Town villager. You or yours could have… made Martha Donaldson disappear long before this, and without anyone the wiser.” Turning his shoulder dismissively, he looked to Lord Edward. “Ask your previous question in reverse.”

  “Who… would stand to benefit from Miss Donaldson’s secret coming to light?” he asked slowly.

  Precisely. “Someone wants something. And no doubt plans on extorting.”

  The faintest look passed between the older members of the Brethren. He narrowed his eyes. They knew something. “What is it?”

  Lord Edward gave the slightest nod.

  The earl fished a small scrap from inside his jacket and held it out.

  His heart slowed and then resumed a frantic beat. He ripped the note from the older gentleman’s fingers and read.

  46 Cyrus Street

  London

  3 o’clock

  “It is an address,” he said flatly. There were no sentences. This note was also the closest he’d felt to Martha since she’d disappeared into that copse.

  “We both received one,” Lord Edward murmured.

  “I’m going with you.” When the earl made to protest, Graham leveled him with a silencing look. “I’m going with you,” he repeated.

  The requests for the two former members of the Brethren, however, confirmed one obvious fact: Someone wanted something from both men… and somehow, Martha was a pawn the unknown foe sought to use to get it.

  *

  A short while later, the ride quick through the London streets emptied for the holidays, Graham, the Earl of Exeter, and Lord Edward brought their mounts to a stop before a red brick townhouse.

  Registering his superiors’ silence, Graham looked over. “What is it?”

  Both men exchanged a glanced. “It is a former office of the Brethren,” Lord Exeter finally said.

  “It is where I was trained,” Lord Edward clarified.

  Graham narrowed his eyes once more. Which meant… whoever had taken Martha was someone within their ranks. Someone who served the Home Office might have harmed Martha.

  Oh, God. He fought back the panic that lingered at the back of his mind, wanting to pull him under, nearly succeeding.

  They passed their reins off to a pair of street urchins, and matching one another’s long strides, Graham, Lord Exeter, and Lord Edward climbed the handful of steps.

  Graham pounded on the front panel.

  “Always remain in control,” Lord Edward said from the corner of his mouth.

  Surprisingly, the door was immediately opened by a bald butler with kind, rheumy eyes.

  Lord Edward rocked back on his heels. “Oh, bloody hell,” he muttered.

  Unlike his counterpart who’d let loose that outburst, Lord Exeter, remained remarkably implacable.

  “Edward. Nathaniel.” The servant greeted him as if welcoming old friends. “Allow me to take your cloaks?”

  “This isn’t a social call,” Lord Exeter said frostily. “We’ll keep our cloaks.”

  So his superiors knew, if not what the purpose of the meeting was, then the identity of who’d summoned them. Questions raced through Graham’s head as they followed the butler, who led them down a long corridor and stopped at the first door. The servant knocked twice.

  “Enter, Trombley.”

  All the color bled from Lord Edward’s face.

  “Who…?” Graham mouthed, and Trombley glanced over his shoulder.

  When he’d turned back, Lord Edward gave an imperceptible shake of his head.

  The moment they entered the rooms, Graham did a sweep.

  An older, slightly graying gentleman, came forward.

  Lord Edward cursed. “It is you, Fitzmorris,” he hissed.

  The other man smiled. “Surely you didn’t think another could orchestrate all this?” He spared Graham a brief, dismissive look before turning all his focus on the pair near in age to his own years. “I see you’ve brought your recent recruit with you.” With that slight emphasis, Fitzmorris managed to make that title an insult. “That is… unexpected.” Lord Fitzmorris smirked. “Though, with the way you’ve currently been running the organization, not at all a surprise.”

  That slur, however, rolled off Graham. He didn’t give ten damns about this man or anyone’s opinion about himself. Martha. She was the one that mattered now. As the assembled party spoke, Graham continued his search.

  His heart sank.

  She wasn’t here.

  “What do you want, Fitzmorris?” Lord Exeter was asking.

  The tall, wiry Fitzmorris chuckled. “And impatient, Exeter? But then, your timing was never great. It’s why you were captured. Please, please, why don’t we all sit and focus on the business that brings us together?” None would ever dare confuse that as anything other than the command it was.

  Lord Exeter was stiff, silent, and unmoving, the glacial glimmer in his containing the threat of death for the man orchestrating whatever play they now took part in.

  When everyone sat in the circular arrangement of chairs at the center of the room, Lord Edward repeated, “What the hell is this, Fitzmorris?”

  “You know one another,” Graham noted, an outsider in some… intimate exchange he wasn’t supposed to have been part of.

  “He was a mentor,” Lord Edward quietly supplied. Sadness sparked in his gaze. “He recruited and trained past members for”—the Brethren—“the Home Office,” he neatly substituted.

  “And I was, of course, the best at what I did.” Fitzmorris grinned. “What I… do.”

  Lord Exeter leveled a
black glare on him. “What you did,” he reminded. “You no longer serve the Home Office.”

  All business for the Brethren could go hang. “I trust you are the one who has abducted Miss Donaldson?” Graham asked, tired of whatever game this man played.

  Resting his folded hands on his flat belly, Fitzmorris reclined. “Very impressive… and as impatient as Helling. All in due time. You see, Miss Donaldson is directly connected to… Brethren business.” Another time, that thinly veiled insult would have chafed. Martha, however, had helped Graham to see his own worth.

  “Say whatever reason it is you have us all here and be done with it,” Lord Exeter said on a silky warning.

  “You’ve failed the organization, Exeter. As did Aubrey and Helling. All of you.” Fitzmorris rested his fingertips on the arms of his Louis XIV chair and drummed, that off-beat tap a contradiction to the vein pulsing at the corner of the older man’s right eye. “I trained you.” He glanced between the older gentlemen. “Both of you. You knew the men we made agents. Driven, calculated, unimpaired by emotion.”

  “We failed countless men and women with that heartless approach,” Lord Exeter said quietly.

  “And we saved more lives than we lost with it,” Fitzmorris snapped.

  Planting his hands on his knees, the earl leaned forward. “Don’t you speak to me about what was lost. I was one who lost.”

  “You paid that price because you were careless… and you’re instilling weakness in our ranks.”

  “They are not ‘our ranks,’ Fitzmorris.”

  “Ah, but they are. A member of the Brethren remains one until he draws his last breath. That”—Fitzmorris stuck a finger up—“is a vow I uttered and believe, Helling. Unlike you. Unlike both of you.”

  “I believe we can rule with kindness,” Lord Exeter commanded.

  “You were weak, Nathaniel. You let love soften you, and because of it, you allowed it to weaken the Brethren. I should have been Sovereign.”

  A muscle leaped at the corner of the earl’s mouth, but otherwise, he gave no response to Fitzmorris’ rebuke.

  “And Helling, you’ve gone and perpetuated that folly by hiring… men like”—Fitzmorris peeled his lip in a sneer—“Whitworth. And,” he went on, glancing around the assembled group, “all of you have demonstrated further weakness by looking after a woman who, if her relationship to the Brethren is discovered, taints the organization and all we stand for.”

  Fury stung Graham’s veins at hearing a ruthless bastard like this former agent disparage Martha. She had more worth than every man gathered in this room.

  “We stand on the side of right and doing what is right,” Exeter said coolly. “And I’ll make no apologies for it.”

  “Do you truly believe showing softness and emotion is the right way, Exeter? Good God, man, at what point did I fail you?” Exeter gave his head a little shake. “Your need to see Miss Donaldson protected made you all so careless that you rushed her off from where she was most safe”—he shrugged—“if uncomfortable with the village gossips, headfirst into my clutches. Furthermore, had you not promised to see the woman settled, I wouldn’t even now have use or need of her.” Fire snapped in Fitzmorris’ eyes. “Therefore, do not act as though you’re right in how you’ve led.”

  “She’s a pawn,” Graham breathed. As he’d predicted. However, new to the organization, he’d not been aware of the internal strife that dwelled within the secret division. “Your dying faction of the Brethren used the protective nature of its new members against us.”

  “Precisely,” Fitzmorris said with a snap of his fingers. “You’ll see how easily I turn that softheartedness against you. How I use it”—he grinned coolly—“her as a weapon to exact that which I want.” He gave Graham a long look of consideration. “Mayhap you are not so much the failure I’ve taken you for.” All hint of pretend geniality died as he looked to Exeter. “We, the older ranking members, are retaking the organization. We’re going to reshape it in the original image it was crafted.”

  “The hell you are,” Lord Edward spat.

  Lord Exeter, however, was a study in calm. He stretched an arm along the back of his chair. “Do you truly believe those of us who’ve set the Brethren on a more honorable path will ever relinquish it?”

  “If you convince them it is in their best interest to do so. Enter,” Fitzmorris called out.

  The door opened and—

  Graham shot to his feet.

  Martha.

  Oh, God. Relief swept through him, a tangible gift that blazed through him, lifting his heart and driving away the madness that had gripped him.

  Her lower lip trembled. “Graham.”

  “Are you all right?” he demanded, stalking forward. Then his hands were on her, verifying for himself, searching for signs that she’d been in any way harmed, and if she had, he’d rip apart with his bare hands the man responsible.

  “She is fine. I’ve already assured her that had I wished to harm her, she would have been dead by now.”

  They joined the circle of assembled guests.

  “You’ve left me a way to address the situation within the Brethren and the Crown. Miss Donaldson has just been a clever, beneficial bargaining tool.”

  Dread slithered around Graham’s belly.

  Fitzmorris reclined in his seat and hooked his ankle across his opposite knee. “There has been a faction, as you’re aware, attempting to… restore a greater sense of control to the kingdom.”

  “They are acts to repress the people,” Lord Edward said curtly. “You were never one to condone those restrictions.”

  “Because the times then did not merit it, but these times? They do. Among those, there is a faction that wishes to”—his nose shifted as if in distaste—“loosen the restrictions on the Marriage Act of 1753. The legislation is in… draft stages.”

  Martha sat upright. Graham gathered her fingers, cold and moist, and held tight.

  “Ah, you’re a clever one, Miss Donaldson,” Fitzmorris praised. “The legislation, if it succeeds, will greatly facilitate clandestine marriages. Such as the one Miss Donaldson found herself in.”

  “Don’t do this,” Lord Exeter said quietly.

  “Of course,” Fitzmorris went on. “I could care less about such legislation… but there are some who do and would greatly love to use Miss Donaldson as their political rallying cry. Those who are desiring to put a death knell in that faulty legislation would benefit greatly from one who serves as a reminder that bigamy is a threat to our noble families.”

  “You bastard.” Graham shoved back his chair. “You’d use her as your pawn.”

  Martha gave her head a small shake.

  Fitzmorris nodded. “I would. I will. I want the organization restructured as it was. I want the previous codes reimplemented. And you can see that happen, Exeter. And if you don’t?” He shrugged. “Then Miss Donaldson’s past will be used to ensure that your wife’s family bears the shame of that.”

  The former leader of the organization let that sit in silence.

  Martha spoke first. “Do not answer that or agree to that.” Resting her hands on her knees, she leaned forward. “This is why you’ve terrorized me? To see my past brought to light so I could be used by you? I’ll no longer be used. If you wish to destroy me, then so bet it. But I’ll not have my life and my circumstances used as a chess piece by you… or any man.”

  And God help him, Graham fell in love with Martha Donaldson all over again.

  “Ah, but I don’t really need your decision, Miss Donaldson. I need Lord Exeter’s.”

  All eyes went to the earl.

  His skin waxen, Lord Exeter sat motionless, a man with torment in his eyes. A man at war with himself, caught between what he knew was right and the family he sought to protect. “Lord Whitworth, you were correct,” he said unexpectedly. Coming to his feet, he strode past Graham and to Martha’s side.

  She eyed him warily.

  “Lord Whitworth accused me of failing you and not se
eing that your secret was kept and your family safe,” he murmured. “He accused me of putting my family first, preserving their reputations, and keeping the scandal from them. I love my family. I’d protect them at all costs.”

  “You bastard,” Graham hissed.

  The earl ignored him, his gaze remaining locked with Martha’s before he finally turned to face Fitzmorris. “Share our scandal, Fitzmorris. We’ll not be extorted or threatened by you. My family stands with Miss Donaldson’s.”

  Tears filled Martha’s eyes, and she pressed a hand to her mouth.

  Lord Exeter bowed his head.

  Fitzmorris’ rushed forward, cheeks florid. “You’ll fight me on control of the Brethren, Edward? I trained you.”

  “You’re no longer the man you were,” Helling said sadly.

  “Whitworth,” Fitzmorris tried, “y-you would let Miss Donaldson be destroyed?”

  Graham flashed an icy smile. “Ah, Fitzmorris, for one who prides himself on his skillful reading of men and women, you’ve proven yourself a marked failure. Miss Donaldson? She cannot be destroyed.”

  With the other man’s shouts following behind them, the three noblemen and Martha left.

  Chapter 23

  After Lord Fitzmorris’ threat, Martha should be braced for her scandal to come to light.

  It was inevitable.

  Just as it had been inevitable that the people of High Town would find out, so too would the whole world eventually know.

  Before, that realization had hung heavy over her head, like a sword about to fall and sever the too-fleeting joy she’d known.

  Now… Martha had found peace in the secret for which she’d harbored guilt and shame when Graham had opened her eyes to the truth: She was not responsible for those crimes. They belonged squarely with the dastard who’d made her life a lie.

  Her life, however, was more ordered now than it had… ever been. With the help of Lord Exeter and Lord Edward, Martha had received a cottage in Leeds, where she could begin again with her son.

  And it wasn’t enough.

  Because she was ungrateful.

  Because she was selfish.

  Her son sat atop the black lacquer carriage, finer than any conveyance she’d ever sat within, chatting with the driver and laughing happily.