by Gaelen Foley
As he ducked his head against his shoulder to wipe the blood out of his right eye, not letting go of his horse’s mane, it was hard to say which he was more frightened of: Amberley tracking him here and killing him, his father’s reaction to his failure tonight, or the law catching up to him and sending him to the gallows.
Seth did not intend to let any of these disasters befall him. He had not survived the goddamned war just to come home and swing from a noose in a futile effort to satisfy his father.
No, thank you. He was giving up. Amberley had won, and Seth just didn’t care anymore. He was getting the hell out of England.
As his horse clattered up to the house, he slithered off the side of the animal and landed with a wince, whispering his thanks to the beast for getting him home. He had no time to cool the horse, though, for he wasn’t staying long.
On legs that shook beneath him, he tied the blowing animal up as best he could with his latest broken finger. Moving slowly, indeed, weaving on his feet, he noticed he was seeing double when he turned to face the few stairs that led up to the back door.
In and out fast. He would quickly clean himself up, get his things, and flee. He made a mental note to take more money out of his father’s desk.
Seth knew where Father kept the ready blunt, and was not above stealing it. Alas, he could kiss his huge inheritance goodbye, but he could still set himself up somewhere on the Continent, where officers on half pay could live in relative ease.
His hands were shaking as he reached for the door. When he opened it and went inside, he grimaced at the light from the sconces. It was too bright; black blotches appeared across his field of vision.
He shut the door quietly behind him, and almost didn’t have the nerve to glance into the mirror as he passed it in the foyer. He did not want to see the mangled mess that Amberley had made of his face this time.
Nevertheless, he caught a glimpse of himself out of the corner of his eye on his way to the staircase.
What he saw chilled him. He had been pounded into some sort of misshapen, blood-covered monster.
As self-hatred for his latest failure spurted through his veins, mingling with dread in a hellish concoction of inner turmoil and pain, Seth gripped the banister and steadied himself on it, then began to climb the stairs.
He had only gone three steps, however, when a terrifying sound reached him from above.
“Back so soon?”
He froze. Father’s voice.
When Seth looked up to the top of the staircase and saw his old man standing there, feet planted wide, bald head gleaming by the lamplight, he felt his stomach drop all the way down to his feet.
He gripped harder to the railing to keep from tumbling back down the stairs under the force of his sire’s withering gaze.
“You failed. Didn’t you?” Father’s tone was accusing, yet he did not sound surprised.
Before Seth could answer, two females came skipping out of the upstairs hallway, both scantily clad, one toying with a riding crop.
They were gorgeous creatures, the kind of girls his father reserved for the richest ton clients. They pranced over to hang on the rugged seventy-year-old, one on each still-strong shoulder.
Elias Flynn ignored them. They were merely merchandise, after all, but apparently, he hadn’t felt like waiting for Seth’s return by himself.
He shook his head at Seth. “You disgust me,” he finally said. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll handle matters henceforward.”
Flynn took the riding crop from the long-legged blonde on his right. He tapped the girls on their lovely hips with it, shepherding them back toward one of the rooms. “Go put your clothes on. I have an assignment for you.”
They obeyed instantly, of course. He was king around here.
“And as for you”—Flynn pointed at Seth with the riding crop—“I’m taking over. God, I should’ve known. If you want something done right, ye do it yourself.”
“Father,” Seth pleaded, “what did you want me to do? I took the shot. Someone was with him—she saw me! She pulled him out of the way.”
Flynn’s face turned incredulous. “A woman bested you?”
Seth lowered his head, hating that girl, that lady. God, he wanted to hurt her.
“That hardly speaks in your favor. Well, it’s obvious the duke caught up to you.” Disgusted, his father scoffed at the bloody pulp Amberley had made of Seth’s face. “I thought the Army taught you how to fight.”
Seth stood shaking on the stairs. He wasn’t sure how many more minutes he had in him to remain upright. But he could not bring himself to admit the worst of it yet to his father—that Amberley knew about him, as well.
The girls returned, elegant and tall, a pair of leggy sylphs. As they quickly buttoned up their tailored pelisses and perched expensive hats atop lovely heads adorned with shiny, coiffed hair, one could not distinguish them from proper ladies.
Seth thought wistfully of Saffie. Who was nothing like them, of course. Those two could probably converse with their clients in French.
Father was as rough with them as with any others, but the girls knew he was the god deciding their futures. Under his management, they, too, might marry lords, just like ol’ Lucky Lucy Bly, devil take her.
“You two get your arses over to Moonlight Square and watch the Duke of Amberley’s house for me. Now. You know the place?”
“Oh yes, yes, sir.” The pair exchanged sly smiles.
“You see anything, one of you report back to me, while the other stays in place and keeps watch. I want to know if anyone comes or goes. Find out whatever you can.”
“Yes, Mr. Flynn.” They sketched curtsies to him and flitted off down the side corridor to slip out the front door into the night.
“As for you.” Father turned and studied Seth with cold disgust. “Clean yourself up, for God’s sake. You do not have my permission to black out until you tell me exactly what happened.” He started to turn away, but could not seem to help himself. “You are a disgrace, you know that?”
“Oh yes, Father.” Seth lowered his head. “You’ve made that very clear.”
“Good. And as for this Amberley, watch carefully and learn, son. You want to destroy someone? Let your old man show you how it’s done.”
* * *
Later that night, once he’d finally got rid of the guests, Connor closed himself up in the drawing room with Aunt Lucinda and told her what he’d learned about her past and what she needn’t bother hiding anymore.
Now he stared at her, waiting for her to fill in the blanks.
She had already tried a few verbal dodges, but this time, he refused to relent, and when she read it in his face that he was not letting her go without answers, she gave up the game, though she was still entirely defensive.
“Is it my fault I was born in poverty and did what I had to do to survive?” she exclaimed, her fleshy face trembling as she gripped the head of her cane. “What was I to do? I had no way of knowing Elias Flynn was so vicious until he had already trapped me in his web.”
“Extortion is a crime. As a victim, you could’ve gone to Bow Street.”
“Oh, don’t be naïve!” she retorted with a scowl. “Flynn has incriminating information about half of London, including Bow Street. How do you think he gets away with so much? Besides, I’d agreed to it, and Charles could afford it.”
“Did your husband know about Flynn’s monthly fees?”
“Of course not. There was no need to tell him. Why make a fuss? I simply took it from the pin money he gave me every month. He was very generous with his gold to me. But fifty years was long enough to pay any blackmailer, I daresay.”
“And to keep a secret from your husband?” Connor said, raising an eyebrow.
“For God’s sake, man, don’t delude yourself! Your granduncle was a devil. You think he married me for love? Don’t make me laugh. He did it to impress his friends and horrify his parents. And he succeeded in that. But don’t worry; he regretted it in due time.
Just like his father said he would. Especially when we discovered I could not have children.”
Connor shook off his astonishment at her blunt response, trying to stick to the topic at hand. “So, after Uncle Charles died, you told Flynn you would no longer pay?”
“Yes. It seemed reasonable to me, but that’s Flynn for you. He’s quite mad. How was I to know he’d send his stupid son to go push Rupert off a cliff? Rupert,” she added with a snort, shaking her head as she gazed at the fireplace. “Self-righteous prig. Though not as bad as that dreadful wife of his. Caroline. Ugh, pair of Pharisees. You’d think that precious God of his would’ve protected him from Seth if he was as holy as he pretended to be.”
Connor looked at her in amazement. She seemed to have no remorse whatsoever that her own decision had got her brother-in-law killed. “What about Cousin Richard? Did he deserve to die, too?”
She rolled her eyes. “That ponce.”
“My God, I’ve never seen anyone so hardhearted.”
She cackled. “Wait until you meet Elias.”
Connor frowned at her, then pushed away from the mantel where he had been leaning and paced. “What can you tell me about him?”
“Other than he doesn’t have a soul?” She sneaked a quick swig from a little silver flask, wiped her lips, and continued. “Elias Flynn is one of the most well-established criminal chiefs in London—and the most ruthless. He has dozens of men at his disposal. Spies everywhere. And all the dirt he has on the fellows in the Home Office makes him quite immune to prosecution.”
“Does he have any weaknesses I can exploit?”
She lowered her head, as though searching her thoughts, then finally said, “No. Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
She glanced about impatiently. “From what I understand, he had a certain soft spot for his younger son. That died.”
“Do you know anything about this lad’s death?”
“No. Nothing,” she said.
“What of the elder one, then?”
“Seth. Captain Seth Darrow. The sons took their mother’s surname.”
“Is that even legal?”
She heaved a sigh. “How many times must I tell you? Flynn can get away with anything. He is a…a force of nature!”
“I see. So, this Seth fellow. Tell me more about him.”
She shook her head, lowering her gaze. “Flynn forced me to use my influence to get him into the dragoons. ’Twas easy. Considering I used to bed the young officers who are now the old generals.”
“Oh God,” Connor said under his breath, wincing at this revelation. For a moment, he wondered if that could be why he’d been given such great leeway in the Army and selected for just the sorts of assignments he liked.
All this time, he thought sardonically, could it have been not so much due to his own prowess or his fine military heritage, but because the old goats knew who his grandaunt was?
Was it possible the brass still got giddy over Lucky Lucy Bly, the way Gable’s father had? Connor rather wanted to bang his head against the wall at that thought.
“Please tell me you never knew Wellington.”
She chortled. “Oh, please, he’s half my age.”
Thank God.
Putting Her Grace’s scandalous past aside, Connor weighed what she’d told him with a chill down his spine. He was glad to have some answers, at last, but this information merely steeled his resolve to remove the ladies from Town as quickly as possible—both of his aunts as well as Maggie. Only males in his family had been harmed so far, but if it came down to it, he would not put it past Flynn and his son to hurt the ladies.
Especially after the way they’d made their fortune.
Connor studied his aunt with lingering suspicion. Because, for the life of him, something here still didn’t seem to add up. “So, Elias Flynn has done all this to our family—sent his soldier son to kill Uncle Rupert and Cousin Richard—simply because you stopped paying his extortion fees after your husband died? Because that certainly seems excessive.”
She shrugged. “That’s how he is,” she replied, then pursed her lips. “He had to make an example of me. He blackmails all the girls he marries off to rich men. He can’t have them all refusing to pay like I did. He had to crucify me.”
Connor considered this for a long moment in silence, still unsatisfied.
“Aunt Lucinda?” he prompted gently as he sauntered closer. “What are you not telling me?”
“I’ve told you everything!” She looked offended, but it was hard to tell if she was being genuine.
“But to kill two innocent men over a bit of money—”
“Killing means little to him, while money means a great deal.”
“Then why didn’t you warn Rupert and his son of the danger they were in?”
She faltered. “I really didn’t think he’d go that far. But, apparently, arrangements like mine are too lucrative a source of income for him to let his married girls begin balking about the payments after he’d set them up in life. That is why, as I said, he had to make an example of me, since they all know I’m the strongest. He had to show the others what would happen if they tried it.” Then he saw her bulldog jowls tremble. “He thinks he can break me, but he can’t. I won’t let him.”
Just for a moment, Connor thought he caught a glimpse of the fiery beauty she’d once been. But the strangest thought occurred to him; he got the feeling that maybe it wasn’t Lucy Bly’s looks that had made her stand out, but her indomitable spirit.
The very trait that made her so damned impossible now.
“I see,” he said at last. “So all this is just business, then? Begging your pardon, aunt, but I’m still having trouble believin’ that.”
“Oh, very well!” she said with a huff. “If you must know, Elias and I were…involved.”
Connor’s eyebrows shot up.
Aunt Lucinda nearly smiled, staring into the fireplace. “He said I was the only one who ever got under his skin.”
To go to such lengths for a bit of money did not quite ring true to Connor’s ears, but if Flynn’s love had turned to hate for Lucinda somewhere along the way, at least that made sense.
“Ah well,” she said, staring into the unlit fireplace. “Whatever it was that Elias thought he felt for me, all I know is that he did not object when I got the offer from the young marquess, who soon became the First Duke of Amberley.”
She looked cynically at Connor. “He sold me to the highest bidder: your granduncle. And from that moment on, Elias Flynn was dead to me. Oh, I paid his fees faithfully, of course. I did the favors he insisted on, regarding his sons’ places in Society. But I sure as blazes never let the blackguard touch me again.”
Connor gazed at her.
“The fool actually thought I would keep him for a lover once I became a duchess.” A bitter laugh escaped her. “Instead, I told him after the wedding that I wanted nothing more to do with him. Oh, he didn’t like that much, I assure you. He had the nerve to claim that I had used him. But what,” she whispered, “does that devil know about being used?”
“I am sorry, Aunt Lucinda. Truly. For everything you’ve been through.”
She looked up at him with a sea of unshed tears in her eyes. “Kill him if you can, Amberley Number Four. Put a bullet in his black heart, and Lucy Bly will dance a jig on his grave.”
CHAPTER 27
Leaving Town
The delicate, rosy light of early morning illumined Maggie’s bedchamber as she finished folding up her favorite dressing gown, which she had taken off less than half an hour ago. Hectic with the knowledge that Connor’s traveling chariot was already waiting outside to whisk them away to some remote country house, she squashed the bulky garment down as small as it would go into her brown leather traveling trunk.
Meanwhile, Penelope, mid-task, lingered at the window in distraction near Maggie’s dressing table, gazing down onto the street where Sergeant McFeatheridge lounged atop the driver’s box.
Penelope turned with a startled glance, then hurried over to help. “You sit, my lady, I’ll latch. Just admiring the scenery, even though our journey hasn’t even started yet.”
Maggie chuckled and sat atop her traveling trunk. “You like him, do you?”
“He has a nice smile. And a very jolly laugh.”
Snap went the first latch.
“Although,” her maid added, “Major Carvel is certainly handsome, too. Not much of a smiler that one, of course.”
“No,” Maggie said. “Fortunately for us, he does seem very capable, though. It’s good of him to help us.”
Penelope snapped the second brass latch shut and nodded.
Last night, after the other guests had left the soirée, Connor had put Major Carvel in charge of the small group of handpicked men tasked with transferring Maggie from the dragon lady’s house back to Moonlight Square, while he had remained there to interrogate his aunt in private.
Instead of being taken back to Edward and Delia’s, however, Maggie had been escorted to Rivenwood House, one of the large ducal mansions on the four corners of Moonlight Square—in this case, the neo-gothic home of her friends Serena and Azrael.
Apparently, Connor deemed Azrael a fierce enough fellow to be entrusted with protecting Maggie, while he saw to the safety of his aunts, questioned the dowager duchess, and made his preparations for today’s journey.
It had been awkward, to say the least, arriving on her neighbors’ doorstep in the company of armed men, with no idea of how to begin to explain. She remembered what Trinny had told her about the couple leaving in a huff after Grandaunt Lucinda had been so rude to them.
Curiously enough, the Rivenwoods had taken Maggie’s unannounced arrival in their stride. It didn’t take long for Maggie to realize they’d had their own violent encounters with unpleasant people in the past.
Apparently, Connor had found out—most likely at the Grand Albion’s gentlemen’s club—that the pale-haired duke had a deadlier side than Maggie had ever suspected.