Her Majesty’s Scoundrels

by Christy Carlyle

  If Forsythe had any notion how much she mattered, he’d see her as a pawn.

  “She means nothing more to me than any other woman,” Killian lied. “But I want a witness to what occurs here between us.”

  Forsythe’s black eyes flashed with interest. “What did you have in mind, Strathmoor?” After gesturing toward his toughs, the thin man stepped forward and produced a decorative pistol from inside his coat pocket. “Are you prepared to do the deed yourself? That would be a tidy way to resolve this matter. You’d save me a good deal of trouble.” Forsythe held the weapon out, stock first, toward Killian. “End it, Strathmoor. Surely, you’ve considered such a fate. No more guilt of surviving when better men are dead. No one nipping at your heels about a dukedom. And speaking for the entire Forsythe family, I would consider the debt you owe repaid in full.”

  The pistol was the prettiest weapon Killian had ever seen, delicately etched and meticulously polished, just the sort a man might choose for such a consequential act. An old dueling pistol, he suspected.

  He’d never admitted to anyone how often he’d considered cutting short his own existence. Eventually, he’d convinced himself he lacked the courage. That he was too selfish, too preoccupied with saving his own skin. Hadn’t that been how he’d survived Maiwand, after all? Yet, many days, the reasons to persist were much less convincing than his desire to cease. Some hours he’d hung at the edge of a precipice surrounded by darkness, in his head and in his soul.

  “Don’t listen to him, Killian,” Tavia whispered. “He’s mad.”

  He gazed down at her. She was life. Beautiful and vibrant and full of fiery determination. The kind of woman who gave a man reasons to persevere. The kind of woman worth living for.

  “Sit down, Forsythe.” The words came up from somewhere deep inside Killian, where all his secrets were locked away. “I have a story to tell you.”

  “Ah, yes,” Forsythe said as he lowered himself onto the settee, crossing one long black-clad leg over the other. He laid the pistol on the stretch of damask beside his thigh. “A confession. I’ve waited a long time for this.” He snapped his fingers, and the blond man slid a blank sheet of paper and fountain pen from his pocket, passing them to his employer. “Don’t forget to sign your name before eating a bullet, Strathmoor. Legalities, you understand. Let us do this in the neatest possible way. For Caroline’s sake.”

  Killian reached back, and Tavia immediately took his hand into hers. Careful to keep her out of Forsythe’s reach, he led her to a chair, waited for her to seat herself, and positioned himself at her side. He would not sit. He would not give Forsythe and his lackeys that advantage over him.

  Crossing his arms, he tipped his chin to his chest and weighed what he should say, whose secrets he needed to conceal, and how much loyalty he owed to those involved.

  “Get on with it, Strathmoor,” Forsythe barked.

  “How dare you command a duke!” Tavia burst up from her chair and lunged toward Forsythe.

  Killian pivoted to stop her, slipping an arm around her waist.

  “These men need to leave. Now.” She spoke low, her jaw tight, eyes alight with raw fury. “If you did not kill his brother, why do you owe this lunatic anything?”

  “Trust me,” Killian whispered. “Just a little. It’s long past time I put this matter to rest.”

  Facing Forsythe again, Killian took a deep breath against the band of tension crushing his chest. “The man who murdered your brother is dead.”

  “Is that a euphemism?” With a flap of his hand, Forsythe dismissed Killian’s words. “Yes, yes, you’ve been struck with a terrible case of ennui. Guilt will eat at a man’s soul.”

  “You would know, Forsythe. If you were capable of guilt.” Killian knew more than he wished to about the crimes of Neville and Clive Forsythe. “You mentioned Caroline Bannister. Do you know what your brother did to her?”

  “He wanted to marry the girl. Poor chit was distraught after Neville’s murder.” Forsythe flicked a bit of lint from his trouser leg, as if the whole tale didn’t interest him overmuch.

  “Caroline never wished to marry your brother.” Killian cast Tavia a brief glance before continuing. “Especially after he forced himself on her.”

  “Liar!” Forsythe palmed the pistol and lunged toward Killian. Tavia jumped up from her chair, lifted her revolver from her pocket, and pointed the weapon at Forsythe’s chest. His two thugs produced weapons too, but only the blond had the temerity to raise a pistol toward Tavia.

  “Enough!” Killian pushed Forsythe’s arm away and crossed to the blond tough in two strides, ripping the young man’s gun from his clammy hands. “Your brother raped Caroline Bannister, and she wasn’t his only victim. You know the truth, Forsythe, having a predilection for the same crime.”

  Color leached from Clive Forsythe’s face, but he sniffed in haughty disdain. “More lies. But what else could I expect from a false hero?” After he swallowed convulsively, his mouth stretched in a quivering smirk. “So you killed my brother to avenge some soiled dove?”

  “No. But there was a man willing to kill to avenge her.”

  With a snort, Forsythe named the very man. “Lieutenant Hollis? The limper who lost an eye in battle? He was a weak, disfigured monster. A freak. You give him far too much credit.”

  “I advised him not to kill Neville,” Killian went on, ignoring Forsythe’s interjections. Now that he’d started, he needed to air the whole tale. “I spoke to Caroline Bannister, attempted to convince her to testify against your brother.”

  “Nonsense. You spout scurrilous slanders.”

  “When I heard of your brother’s death, I suspected Hollis.”

  “You are the murderer, Strathmoor.”

  “Yes, I am a killer, but not your brother’s.” Killian glanced at Tavia, then down at Forsythe’s pistol, pointed at the floor but still clenched in his hand. “If you’d offered Hollis that gun, he would have used it. He was distraught. He’d avenged Caroline, but he couldn’t face her after what he’d done. As a brother of my own regiment, I safeguarded him from the law, but I couldn’t protect him from himself.” Killian cast Forsythe a hard stare. “Stride thirty yards west of the house, and you’ll find his grave marker.”

  Forsythe swiped a hand over his mouth, then gestured toward his blond lackey. “Go.”

  “You wanted the debt repaid, Forsythe, and it has been.” Killian reached for Tavia again, pulling her close to his side. “Now get the hell out of my house.”

  Tavia raised her revolver, holding the weapon remarkably still, despite the tension tightening the tendons of her arm. “You heard him, Mr. Forsythe. Get out.”

  For what seemed like an endless stretch, Forsythe didn’t move. Except for his eyes. They darted about like a nervous squirrel. “This settles nothing, Strathmoor.” He toyed with his pistol, stroking the etching along its polished body. “Perhaps you killed Hollis yourself, just as you murdered my brother.”

  Forsythe’s pistol-filled hand twitched, and Tavia reacted, pulling her trigger without hesitation. The shot rang out, a sharp echo in the low-ceilinged room as gunpowder clouded the air. Killian dove for the thin man. Forsythe let out a high-pitched scream, his pistol clattering to the floor as he clutched his wounded hand. Blood dripped from his thumb and spread onto his wrist, staining the pristine white cuff of his shirt.

  Killian knocked a knife from the thin man’s grip. Whipping his arm around the rotter’s neck to restrain him, Killian removed another blade from the man’s coat pocket and tossed it away.

  In the middle of the room, Forsythe bent and reached for his gun. Tavia lunged forward and sent the pistol spinning into the hall. Standing over the bowed man, she positioned the muzzle near his temple.

  “Four bullets left in the barrel, Mr. Forsythe. The next will do a bit more damage than a nick to your hand.” She cocked the hammer. “Take your men and go.”

  Killian released the thin man with a hard shove and he stumbled across the threshold, not even
looking back to see about his employer.

  Forsythe rose slowly, casting both of them a look of loathing and rage. “You will pay, Strathmoor.” He winced as his spoke, keeping his fingers pressed to his bleeding hand. He clenched his jaw so tight, spittle trickled onto his chin.

  Tavia kept her gun trained on him as he stumbled from the room, only uncocking the hammer once he was out of the house and Mrs. Teague had slammed the front door behind him.

  Letting out an enormous sigh, Tavia leaned against Killian. He stroked a hand down her arm and retrieved the revolver from her fingers before casting the weapon aside.

  “He’s gone,” she whispered against his shirtfront as he embraced her.

  “Yes, sweetheart. You were magnificent.”

  “Everyone’s all right?” She twisted her head toward where she’d last seen the Teagues. “Even Grady?”

  At the sound of his name, the patter of paws sounded in the marble hall and the wolfhound trotted forward. He hung his head as if ashamed that he hadn’t succeeded in his guard duties, but Tavia dropped to her knees and treated him to a thorough petting.

  Killian’s chest pinched, but it wasn’t pain. It was fullness. Gratitude. Relief. A spark of happiness that felt so odd, he was reluctant to let it kindle.

  Forsythe was gone. Tavia and everyone at Finsbury Hall was safe. But a pernicious cynicism, honed by years on the battlefield, sank in Killian’s belly like a millstone.

  This, he worried, would not be the end of Clive Forsythe’s menace. As much as he wanted Tavia near, he couldn’t bear to endanger her again.

  Chapter Nine

  Several hours after Forsythe and his men departed Finsbury Hall, Tavia still fought tremors that came and went as if she was feverish.

  Danger had come too close.

  Forsythe’s hand had presented an easy target, and she’d aimed to graze him, intending to deter the man rather than do any permanent harm. Now she wondered if she’d made the right choice. The murderous look on Forsythe’s face haunted her. He would do Killian harm if he could, and that prospect terrified her.

  She couldn’t lose him. Her feelings had nothing to do with duty or why she’d been sent to Yorkshire.

  The tremors came again, and her skin grew flushed and clammy, but she wasn’t ill. Unless excessive fretting could be considered an ailment.

  Movement—a walk, a swim in the pond, or a horse ride across the meadow—usually provided a cure when a storm of thoughts whirled in her head. But there was no pond or horses at Finsbury, other than the old mare Mr. Teague had hitched to his pony cart. A wander around the estate might have suited her, but she only wished to amble with Killian by her side.

  He and Mr. Teague had been gone for awhile. They’d taken their rifles and insisted on inspecting the house’s perimeter before she or Mrs. Teague ventured out of doors.

  In the past year, investigation had been Tavia’s salvation, forcing her to focus on deduction rather than emotion and escape the spiral of sadness after her father’s death. But the matter of finding Killian wasn’t a case like the others.

  She might have come to persuade him to return to London, but now, impractically, recklessly, she wished only to be with him.

  He wasn’t a case to her anymore. He wasn’t simply a mystery to solve. Or perhaps he was. There was much about him she didn’t know.

  He’d shared more of his past in the parlor with Clive Forsythe than he’d offered during any of their private moments. Though they were, admittedly, few.

  Standing, Tavia swept a hand down the plain blue cotton gown she’d stuffed in the bottom of her travel satchel before leaving London. She’d come upstairs to wash and change and settle her nerves, but she was expected downstairs soon. Mrs. Teague insisted she’d serve them a meal in the dining room this evening. Killian had seemed shocked to discover he possessed a dining table and chairs.

  The house was eerily quiet as she descended the stairs. She didn’t even detect the clip and shuffle patter of Killian’s wolfhound. Savory scents tickled her nose, but there was no sign of Mrs. Teague.

  “Where is everyone?” she asked Killian when she entered the cobweb-festooned dining room and found him staring out a window along the far wall.

  “I’m here.” He turned instantly, wearing a smile that warmed her from cheeks to chest to the center of her thighs. “I sent the Teagues into the village to visit Doctor Evans. Mrs. Teague was in a bad way, and it was well beyond time.”

  “So we’re alone.” Tavia hoped he didn’t hear the catch in her throat.

  He gestured toward the table, where he’d peeled back the edge of a dustcloth and a tray sat, laden with glasses of wine, a steaming tureen, and a loaf of Mrs. Teague’s hearty brown bread. “I hope this will do.”

  “I’ve no appetite, to be honest.” Tavia pressed a palm to her belly.

  “The time has come for that, hasn’t it?” He nodded as if answering his own question. “Time for us to be honest with each other.”

  “Have you lied to me up to this point?” The warmth in Tavia’s belly wound itself into a tangled knot.

  His clean-shaven cheeks creased in a grin that didn’t match the misery in his eyes. “Both of us have our secrets. Don’t we?”

  Tavia began shaking her head furiously. “I’ve never lied to you.”

  A low chuckle burst from him. “Except when you told me you were a housemaid. And a former lover, to whom you bear no resemblance whatsoever.”

  “Yes, of course. All of your previous lovers were fine, delicate noblewomen, with flawless skin and proper interests.” Without freckles, no doubt. Or the tendency to let their emotions rule their reason.

  In three strides, he was before her, reaching out to cup her cheek in his hand, sweeping the pad of his thumb across her lower lip. “None of them made me ache as you do, Octavia.” He dropped his hand to her shoulder, sifting her hair through his fingers. “None of them had hair like a fiery sunset.” His hand dipped lower, cresting the swell of her breast to curve around her waist. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.” Glancing behind him, he added, “If we’re confessing, I must admit that all I can think about right now is making love to you on this bloody dining table.”

  “You’ve mentioned my falsehoods, but what are you hiding?” As much as she desired him, she craved the truth too.

  “Mostly regrets, Tavia. Actions that haunt me. Sins that eat at me.” His hand clenched at her waist. “Do you wish to hear why I won’t return to London?”

  “Yes.” She curled her hand in his shirtfront, savoring his warmth, his scent. “And anything else you wish to tell me.”

  “I will fail.” The three words emerged quietly, on a raspy murmur. He swept his fingers into the line of her hair, tucking a few strands behind her ear. “I fear destroying everything I touch, but I won’t bring you harm.”

  “I can defend myself.” How could he doubt her? Or see her as some weak, fragile woman. “Have I not proved that to you?”

  “You have.” A sad smile curved his full lips. “But you might have a killed a man today. Thrown your life away for a monster like Forsythe.”

  “I never intended to kill him.” Though for the first time in her life, she’d purposely wounded another, and the whole incident had shaken her.

  “Death follows me around, Tavia.”

  She pushed at his chest, creating a few inches of distance between them. His hopeless, defeated tone disturbed her far more than the prospect of Forsythe returning and wreaking havoc in their lives.

  “You said you had nothing to do with Neville Forsythe’s murder. Why live in fear of his brother?”

  “I don’t give a damn about Clive Forsythe. Nor do I fear him.”

  “Then why not return to London? Why not go and manage your estate and tenants? Become the duke you were meant to be.”

  Killian lifted his hands from her as if she’d singed him. He reminded Tavia of her first view of Finsbury Hall—shutters down, his expression smoothed to a stony facade,
and all the light extinguished in his eyes.

  But she wouldn’t take her words back. She wouldn’t let him sink into defeat and the reclusiveness he’d clung to for years.

  “What’s in your satchel, Octavia?”

  Tugging at the fabric of her sleeve, she told him, “This dress was in it, for one thing. Which is why it’s wrinkled and smells of old leather.”

  “And what else? You were provided with a photograph of me for your search, but what more were you told?”

  She didn’t want to lie to him, but much of what she’d read in the dossier only confirmed his dire view of himself. His history was one of loss and violence. Battles and tragedy at every turn.

  “Shall I go and discover the truth myself?” Without waiting for her answer, he strode past her and dashed for the stairwell.

  Tavia followed, but he was already at the upstairs landing by the time she reached the hall. Lifting her skirt, she ran up the stairs, nearly tripping on the top step when her ankle began to twinge. He slipped into his bedroom at the end of the hall as her feet pounded the bare wood floor between them.

  At the bedchamber threshold, she slid to a stop and gripped the frame.

  He held her satchel over the bed. With one hand, he flipped the soft leather bag upside down, and her fountain pen, notebook, train ticket stubs, and underclothes fell out. After a firm shake, Lord Cecil’s dossier and her spyglass plopped onto the coverlet with resounding thumps.

  “I’ve nothing to hide from you, Killian.” She’d been given a dossier about him. Why should she feel guilty for knowing details about his life and loves and sins that most people had no business knowing? She was an investigator. Discovering such intimate particulars was her job. He was her job.

  And she’d forgotten that fact the moment she’d laid eyes on the man. And, of course, when she’d kissed him. Now the facts she’d learned about his past had little to do with the tenderness and affection she felt for him.