The Lady Who Loved Him

by Christi Caldwell

  “When I obtain the information, I’ll be sure and deliver it to your offices, my lord,” Holman finished.

  Leo creased his brow. What in the blazes? What had the man been saying?

  “Married not even a day and hard at work as you always are, I see.”

  Oh, bloody hell on Sunday.

  His uncle’s booming voice echoed around the room. Blast. He was everywhere. Everywhere that Leo was, rather.

  “You,” he groaned, waving off his clerk. The young man dropped a respectful bow for the duke and then hurried around him. Needing liquid comfort, after all, Leo grabbed the glass and carried it to his desk.

  Uncle William closed the door behind him. “That’s hardly the warm greeting for a beloved godfather.”

  “Don’t you have a beloved wife to see to?”

  His uncle arched an eyebrow. “I would ask the same of you.”

  “I hardly believe our hasty union constitutes the blissful marriage enjoyed by you and my dear aunt.” Nor was it one he aspired to. As a young man who’d been captivated by an unconventional young lady new to London, he’d allowed himself the fantasy of what his aunt and uncle enjoyed. No longer.

  His uncle claimed the seat close to Leo’s desk. “Following your wedding,” he began, setting his cloak on the back of the empty chair, “I met with Rowley and Higgins.”

  He stiffened. “Oh?” His pulse accelerated. It was the meeting he should have been thinking of since he’d exchanged the vows that had ended his bachelor state. Not the breathy moans and pleas of the delectable Chloe Edgerton… Dunlop. She was a Dunlop now. “And how did the meeting go?” he asked with feigned disinterest. This time, as he reached for his glass and took a sip, it was liquid fortitude he desperately required.

  “Higgins was incredulous.”

  Higgins required less swaying. As one of the heads of the organization, he well knew how crucial Leo’s role had been over the years. He’d lull himself into believing the lie. “And Rowley?” he asked, swirling the contents of his drink. That son of a sod.

  “He called your hasty marriage the weakest act you’d yet perpetrated.” The hint of a smile ghosted his uncle’s lips. “They want to see you together.”

  He stitched his eyebrows into a single line. “How do you propose I explain my relationship to those gentlemen?” Those starchy, proper lords were never the manner of men Leo would keep company with. “She’s too clever to not ask questions about that connection.”

  The duke reclined in his seat. “Indeed?”

  Leo’s ears fired hot. “Don’t make more of that statement than there is.” The lady, with her retorts and unwitting ability to lay command of her… and his future, had proven herself more intelligent than any woman—of any station—to whom he’d linked himself.

  “Hmph.” Do not rise to that bait. His uncle had been more a parent than the man Leo had called Father. He’d always known precisely what to do and say to elicit a reaction. “I said… hmph.”

  “I heard you.” Leo downed another quick swallow, grimacing at the fiery burn. He set his glass down hard and grabbed his file.

  “Higgins expects you and your clever wife to become a pillar of respectability. Attend ton functions.” Bollocks. “Maintain connections with proper ladies and gentlemen.” This was bad. “Host balls and soirees.”

  The thick folder slipped from his hands. “Absolutely not.” Absolutely not for so many reasons. The least of which was that he hated balls. “Chloe despises balls.” It had been one of the remarkable terms set forth that further stirred his intrigue with the peculiar minx.

  His uncle laughed. “A lady who despises balls and soirees as much as you do? I do believe you have found your match.” The duke’s amusement faded, and he gave Leo a long once-over. “Furthermore, when was the last time you let another person’s feelings get in the way of what you want or need?”

  It had been thirteen years. Thirteen years since another person’s misery had cut him to the core.

  Had there been a stinging recrimination there, it would have been easier to take than that pragmatism. And he hated that his uncle’s opinion should still matter when nothing else did.

  “It’s not about how the lady feels or what she wants,” he said coolly, reinforcing the walls he’d kept up. “I signed an agreement promising I wouldn’t expect Chloe to attend or host a bloody function. I cannot very well go about asking to alter the terms less than one day into the union.”

  “Your dear wife also detests them,” Leo felt inclined to point out, needing to make that unique fact less important… for reasons he didn’t understand. Nor cared to consider.

  “Your dear aunt is displeased,” his uncle segued, loosening the clasp at his throat. He removed his cloak and rested it over his arm. “She wants a celebration between our family and Lady Chloe’s.”

  Leo scraped a hand through his hair, the noose tightening. “I don’t have time to play at proper husband.” The sole reason he’d entered into marriage with Chloe was so that he could continue his work for the Brethren. He cursed blackly. “It’s more vital I focus on the Cato case. I believe I was wrong in my original supposition—”

  “Leo,” his uncle interrupted.

  He continued over his uncle. “I think there is more at play here—”

  “Leo.”

  “My research revealed vast sums that were siphoned to Lord Ellsworth in exchange for—”

  “Leo, enough,” Uncle William said firmly. “I’m not here about your assignment. Your role in the Brethren won’t even exist without a legitimate marriage accepted by the leadership.”

  That silenced Leo.

  “Now, I’ll remind you one last time: The reason you married her was to convince the world—particularly your superiors—that you’d turned from rake to respectable gentleman.” He glanced pointedly at the cluttered desk. “So, I suggest you get on your horse and put the same effort into your marriage that you did creating your façade as a rake.”

  “It’s not a façade,” he gritted out. Not a single lord or lady in all of London would ever call him anything less than a scoundrel.

  Uncle William leaned over and gripped the sides of the desk. “Then, if you managed to go from bookish scholar to this, I trust you can also fall as easily into the role of honorable husband changed by the influence of a young, respectable lady.” He jumped up with an agility better suited to a man twenty years his junior. “Go home, Leo. That,” he slashed a hand at Leo’s work sprawled out before him, “is dependent on your ruse with Lady Chloe.”

  After his uncle had gone, Leo remained in his office.

  Go home, the duke had advised.

  Yet, he sat rooted to the familiar folds of his leather chair.

  Dropping his forehead into his palm, Leo stared blankly at the Earl of Waterson’s name scratched at the center of the page with an enormous question mark alongside it.

  “I’m a bloody coward,” he muttered.

  “What was that, my lord?” Holman’s query came muffled from the other side of the oak panel.

  “Nothing,” he called out. “I don’t require anything else this evening.”

  “As you wish, my lord.”

  Except…

  “Holman,” he called after his clerk. “There is something you can do.” If he had to cede his efforts and energies to his pretend marriage, he could, at the very least, have Holman conduct the most basic forms of research on his behalf.

  Eager-eyed, his clerk trotted back over.

  Fishing out several pages from his file, Leo turned them over to the younger man’s hands.

  Holman’s eyes devoured the sheets the way a child did a puff pastry at dessert. He cradled them close, covetously.

  Yes, Leo himself had once been that energized at the hint of a role in any case. A lifetime ago, he’d been that boy. “I want you to look into the financial accounts and business dealings that are in direct contradiction with Lord Liverpool’s Cabinet.” The best way to identify those who’d wish to do aw
ay with the prime minister’s Cabinet was to determine who had the most to gain by their absence.

  “Yes, my lord.” Holman knocked his heels together. “As you wish. Is there anything else?”

  He waved the young man off. “That is all.”

  His clerk all but tripped over himself in his haste to be free of Leo’s office.

  Snapping closed his file, Leo abandoned all earlier efforts to lose himself in his work. He then confronted, head on, the reason for the tightness in his chest.

  His wife.

  That morning, when he’d taken her in his arms, Leo’s sole intention had been to silence her. He’d kissed Chloe Edgerton—nay, now Chloe Dunlop—to stop her intimate flow of words about his past.

  The moment he’d tasted her, however, his insecurities and annoyances… and clear-headedness had all faded away, to be replaced with a fierce hungering to explore her mouth and then discover all of her.

  And that need for her had scared the everlasting hell out of him. So much so that he’d fled to the Brethren estate and shut himself away.

  Because Leo was a man who gave pleasure… but also expected it in return. He wasn’t so selfless a lover that his partner’s sexual gratification was enough. Or, he hadn’t been.

  But while exploring her tight, hot sheath and feeling her desire for him, all he’d wanted in that instant was for her to come undone because of his touch. Her pleasure had mattered to him more than his own. Not only had he hungered for her release above all else, he’d offered to accompany her to her family.

  And he’d gone into hiding because of it. Leo snapped his folders closed and neatly stacked them. As his uncle had properly pointed out, Leo could not hide with his work. Not if he wished to convince Society and his superiors that he was capable of restraint and respectability. No, Leo could not accomplish that essential goal here on the fringes of London. As such, he needed to return home to the wife who terrified him more than any ruthless nemesis he’d faced in his line of work… even more so than the man Leo had called Father.

  So why, as he took leave of his office and traded out his mount for a rested stallion, did it feel his return had nothing to do with his work and everything to do with a restive excitement to tangle words—and more—with the woman he’d made his wife?

  Chapter 15

  Her brother had returned more quickly than she’d expected.

  As soon as Leo’s butler drew the door shut behind Gabriel, he spoke on a rush. “My God, Chloe. What have you done?”

  She opened her mouth.

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said hoarsely as he strode over. He grabbed her by the arms and did a methodic search.

  She grunted. “Gabriel, I am fine,” she said gently, stepping out of his reach. “I wrote you because—”

  “You asked for help.” He brandished the note she’d penned. “I’m here now. I’ll fix this. I’ll—”

  “I’d like our family to smooth Leo’s entry into Polite Society,” she interrupted, bringing his words to an abrupt halt.

  He cocked his head. “What?” he blurted.

  Chloe motioned to the letter he held. “As you are probably aware,” she went on with a little flounce of her curls, “Society’s opinion of Leo is not the most favorable.”

  A growl worked its way up Gabriel’s throat.

  She forced a smile, refusing to give in to the unease stirring in her belly. “Oh, very well,” she said with a beleaguered sigh. “Their opinion is not at all favorable. But we, the Edgertons, that is, and the Brookfields can help with that.”

  “What?” Gabriel bellowed.

  She jumped. And for Chloe’s incorrect estimate on the time of her brother’s return, she had proven wholly correct in one estimation—his fury.

  To hide the slight tremble to her fingertips, she smoothed them over the front of her skirts. She forced her most winning smile. “You’re taking this a good deal better than I expected,” she drawled.

  “This is not a matter to jest about, Chloe Edgerton,” he exploded. “You marry a bloody blackguard like… like…” Oh, dear, things were dire if Gabriel was cursing and losing control of his temper. “Like…”

  “The Marquess of Tennyson,” she supplied calmly, refusing to be cowed. “And he has expressed a desire to reform.” Which wasn’t altogether untrue. She, however, took care to leave out the self-serving goals that motivated the gentleman. “As such, I’d like to solicit your help.”

  Gabriel resumed his tirade. “You sneak off, marry in my absence, and summon me to… to… help that bastard? That is the reason for your note?”

  She mustered a smile. “Given I married the gentleman, I summoned you to help us.” Not to save her like some wilting damsel.

  Her brother froze and then slammed his fist onto the rosewood sofa table. “You are bloody mad. Mad, Chloe.”

  Heart pounding, Chloe fisted her hands.

  This is Gabriel. Not your mercurial dead sire who’d smile one instant and clout you in the temple the next.

  Except, this was Gabriel as she’d never seen him: in rumpled garments, smelling of horses and sweat, his face unshaven, his eyes bloodshot.

  Her teeth chattered in the silence, and she immediately clamped them tight. The day she’d thrown dirt upon her father’s casket as it was lowered into the ground, taking him on the path to hell, she’d made a vow to herself. She would allow no man to so terrorize her. Not again. Not her brother. No man.

  “Dunlop,” she said quietly, her earlier bid at humor gone. She edged her chin up, meeting her brother’s gaze unflinchingly. “My name is now Chloe Dunlop.”

  Crimson splotches stained his cheeks. He said nothing for an interminable moment.

  It is coming… just as all explosions of fury invariably did.

  Gabriel thundered, “What have you done?” He proceeded to pace, his movements frenetic, jerky.

  Even as she’d been expecting it, terror lanced through her.

  “He is a rake.”

  “He is my husband.”

  “That doesn’t change what he is, Chloe,” he shouted, his anger echoing from the walls. “You know nothing of him.”

  No… and yet. “I know he agreed to a legal contract allowing me to retain possession of my dowry. He agreed to let my family’s solicitor oversee the documents when you yourself orchestrated your own wife’s future.”

  Gabriel stumbled and quickly righted himself. “Are you saying Tennyson is more honorable than me?” he choked out, shocked hurt dripping from that query. “That dastard? That… drunk?” With every allegation, fury grew in his tone. “A despoiler of innocents?”

  She flinched. “You can’t know that. You’re basing that opinion on rumors.”

  Her brother scraped a hand over his face, muttering words that might or might not have continued to call into question her sanity.

  Chloe frowned. Surely her husband wasn’t… that manner of rake. What other types are there? They took their pleasures when and where they would. And your rake of a husband has been gone for more than ten hours now.

  As if he’d followed the unwelcome path her thoughts had traversed, Gabriel dropped his arms to his sides. “Very well. This,” he sneered, “gentleman wishes to reform his rakish ways and set himself on a path of respectability? Where is he now? At his club? Drinking? Wh—” He stopped, pressing his lips into a hard line.

  The rub of it was, she and Leo had struck an agreement that was to be mutually beneficial. Why then did her insides twist in vicious knots at the likely possibilities dangled by her brother? “Enough,” she said, as much for herself as for Gabriel. Shoving aside the unpleasant question about her husband’s whereabouts, she nodded. “You will focus on the ugliest rumors you’ve heard about him. I’ll, instead, focus on ways in which he’s proven honorable.” She stared at her always proper sibling who’d made it his life’s mission to coordinate other people’s lives based on what he thought was best for them. “Leo,” her brother blanched, “allowed me to dictate the terms of our marr
iage. I am the one in control of my future, and he accepts that.” How many other gentlemen would have so willingly ceded those controls? Certainly not her own brothers.

  Gabriel gave his head a pitying shake. “If you believe that, you are a bloody fool,” he said quietly. The calm to that pronouncement cut sharper than any charge he’d shouted.

  The thin thread of her patience snapped. “How dare you?” Grabbing her cane, she propelled herself into a stand. “First, you’d dictate to Philippa whom she should wed. And even though she found herself in a miserable marriage to a man who didn’t appreciate her or her children, you continued to play the role of one who knows what it is best for all your female siblings.” The color leached from his skin, leaving it an ashen shade of gray. Fueled by her indignation, she took a step closer.

  “Then you attempted the same for Jane. Lying to her… you lied to her, Gabriel, about her inheritance in order to protect her.” She gave her head a hard shake. “That was not your choice to make, nor is it your role to save me from my own actions.” Rather, she’d wanted Gabriel, her mother, all her siblings, to see her as her own individual deserving of her own decisions.

  His throat worked. “I only sought to help.”

  He still couldn’t understand. How could she make him see? “I know that, and I appreciate it, Gabriel. This, however, was my decision.” Her marriage to Leo had been a well-thought-out grasp at a future she wished for, for herself.

  Sadness filled her brother’s eyes. “And it is one you’ll live with forever,” he said with an air of ominousness that raised the gooseflesh on her arms. “For there can be no undoing this.” Hope blazed in his eyes. “Unless an annulment is immediately obtained.”

  Even meaning well, as he did, he could not relinquish his role as head of the family. “There are no grounds for an annulment,” she lied, determined to quash his relentless attempts to maneuver her future.

  Gabriel’s cheeks went red. “Oh, God.” He sank onto the edge of a nearby needlework side chair. The colorful tableau of doting mother and father beside two small children stood in mocking irony to the cold agreement she’d struck with Leo. “This is my fault,” Gabriel whispered. “I should have never left. I was so concerned with fetching mother.”