Secrets for Seducing a Royal Bodyguard

by Vanessa Kelly

  She didn’t know whether to be angry or dumbfounded that he would take it upon himself to lecture her in so familiar a fashion.

  “I mean it, Vivien,” he said sternly. “You are not to get involved in either of your brothers’ affairs. Lord Blake can’t force you to do anything against your will if you simply mind your own business and let the other members of your family be responsible for theirs.”

  Anger. Definitely anger.

  “I beg leave to say that you have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” she responded hotly. “I’m already in the middle of it, and so is Kit. If I don’t take care of the problem, Kit will be in terrible—”

  She broke off when she saw the gleam of understanding spark in his eyes.

  Stupid, stupid, stupid. She’d walked right into that one, too.

  Lanced by a sense of betrayal, she turned from him and stomped off in the direction of Piccadilly. But he caught up with her in two easy strides, clamping a gentle yet unshakeable hand on her elbow. Refusing to look at him, she yanked her arm, trying to break free.

  “Stop struggling,” he said. “You’ll hurt yourself.”

  The faint note of amusement in his voice spiked her temper. “You tricked me,” she hissed out through clenched teeth.

  “It was necessary, sweetheart. You’re putting yourself in danger and I can’t allow that.”

  “I am very well able to conduct my own affairs,” she said, refusing to be seduced by his masculine wiles. “And do not call me sweetheart.”

  He glanced around the park, taking in the other strollers on the path and lawns. Fortunately, there was no one close enough to overhear them, although she supposed she looked mad enough to spit dragon’s fire.

  Not that she cared. She was ready to shriek with frustration—at him, but mostly at herself.

  He inclined his head, looking arrogantly aristocratic and not the least bit put out by her flash of temper. “Very well, but we need to discuss this matter calmly.” He slanted her an ironic glance. “Or I will discuss it calmly. You can listen, and simply nod when you agree with me.”

  She glared at him until he nudged her elbow, getting her moving again.

  “Let me see if I can figure this out,” he said. “Your brother is in debt for a shocking amount of money. He owes it to a moneylender, presumably one possessed of a highly unsavory character, even more than the norm of that ilk. Do I have it right, so far?”

  She gave a grudging nod.

  “Good. I suspect that your brother probably compounded the problem by borrowing even more in a foolish attempt to recoup his losses so he could pay off his debt.” He arched an enquiring brow.

  She let out a dramatic sigh and nodded again. Why had she ever bothered keeping it from him in the first place?

  He smiled at her. “See, we’re making excellent progress. Imagine what we could do if you actually cooperated with me.”

  Vivien narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s impolite of you to tease me, sir. This is a very serious matter.”

  “Yes, I’m an insensitive brute, but I do wish you would learn to fully trust me. I’ve repeatedly told you that I will let nothing harm you. If you will allow me, I can probably aid Kit, as well.”

  She wavered, torn by conflicting impulses. She wanted to believe him—no, she did believe he would do his best to protect her. But when it came to Kit, why would he get involved? Only a few minutes ago, he’d been counseling her to abandon everyone in her family to his or her own fate. What were his motives? Why would he even care about her family?

  Aden insisted that she share everything with him and yet he guarded his thoughts so carefully. Trust had to run both ways, as far as she was concerned.

  “That’s all very well,” she hedged, “but it’s very difficult to turn my life over to you when I know so little about you. You ask me to tell my darkest secrets, and yet you share so little of yourself.”

  A change passed over his features, like a ripple of wind across a still pond. She could almost feel him withdrawing from her.

  That made her even more determined to find out everything she could about him.

  “Vivien, I’m nothing that you haven’t seen before,” he replied in a cool voice.

  She let out a small snort. “You’ll have to do better than that.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw, hinting at his irritation. Vivien allowed herself a moment of smug satisfaction that she’d finally penetrated his façade.

  “If I tell you a little about myself, may we then return to the subject at hand?”

  “Of course,” she said magnanimously.

  “Very well. What do you want to know?”

  She could think of a hundred questions—most of them too personal to voice—so she stuck with the one that seemed most pertinent. “How is it that you can do the things that you do?”

  He gave her a questioning glance.

  “Your skills,” she prompted. “Disarming desperate men, infiltrating smugglers’ lairs, planning escapes . . . it hardly seems the sort of thing one learns at Oxford.”

  “Are you saying I’m not a gentleman?”

  She’d obviously hit on a sore point. “Of course not. You’re the son of Lord and Lady Thornbury. Still, you’re not like any gentleman I’ve ever met.”

  He stared straight ahead, then took a deep breath and exhaled, as if letting go of some troubling thought. “I learned what you call my skills in the military. I was very young when I joined my regiment, and I’ve seen a great deal of action over the past eleven years.”

  “Really?” She counted a number of officers among her acquaintances and she doubted any of them could do what Aden did.

  “Not all victories are won on the battlefield, Vivien. Sometimes stealth is called for, and sometimes a man is called to do things he might loathe. Things even more destructive than the thrust of the lance or the shot of a pistol. But if that man wishes to serve his king and survive, he learns the necessary skills and then puts them to use in whatever way he must in order to accomplish his task.”

  The angles of his face had gone sharp, as if cut with furious strokes from a piece of marble. “And come home in one piece. More or less.”

  She heard it then, a heavy bitterness lacing the words. She’d obviously disturbed some dark place in his soul.

  “Oh, I see,” she said lamely.

  “No, you don’t.”

  She had no answer to that.

  “May we return to our previous conversation?” he asked after an uncomfortable silence.

  She nodded, deciding she’d done enough probing for one day.

  “Good,” he said. “Then let me make plain what I think you’re worried about. You believe that your brother’s moneylender made threats against him and his loved ones. And when your brother did not make good on his debts, this nefarious character kidnapped you, hoping to hold you to ransom. Is that correct?”

  Vivien stopped in the middle of the path and eyed him suspiciously.

  He tapped his chest with an index finger. “Skills, remember?”

  She couldn’t help peering at him anxiously. Now that he knew, would he feel obligated to share his knowledge with Sir Dominic? Even Cyrus?

  Dropping her muff to the ground, she grabbed his sleeve. “You won’t tell Cyrus, will you?”

  He swept up her muff, handing it back to her. “Let’s keep walking. We’re starting to attract some attention.”

  She glanced around her. They were indeed encountering some curious looks from other strollers, including Mrs. Baird and her two prissy daughters, incurable gossips all. She forced a friendly smile as she took Aden’s arm and strolled past them.

  “To answer your question,” he said once they were out of earshot, “no, I will not tell Lord Blake. At least not now. That would simply confuse the issue and make my job more difficult. Besides, I’m not convinced Kit’s situation is what prompted your abduction in the first place.”

  Her brain stuttered. “I don’t understand,” she said slo
wly.

  They turned into Piccadilly, skirting the edge of the park.

  “Khovansky comes to mind as another candidate,” he said.

  “But he’s a prince,” Vivien argued.

  “Princes do all manner of ugly things, I assure you. And after witnessing that prime example of Khovansky’s behavior last night, I believe him capable of anything.”

  Troubled, Vivien tried to sort through her jostling thoughts. “I grant you, the prince is adamant about marrying me—”

  “Obsessive seems a more accurate description.”

  “But I just can’t believe he’d do such a thing. It’s demented to think he would take such a risk. Can you imagine the scandal if it was discovered? I’m hardly worth the trouble.” She shook her head. “No, he’s only persisted because I hurt his pride by refusing him in the first place. I’m sure he’ll want nothing more to do with me now. Not after last night.”

  “You underestimate your charms, Vivien. I suspect the prince won’t give up nearly so easily.”

  She flashed him an impatient look. “I’m sure he hates me by now.”

  He laughed, and his dark mood seemed to lift. “Very well. But I don’t trust the man, and I insist you keep your distance.”

  “Thank you for stating the obvious. But I still think Kit’s moneylender is the likely explanation for my abduction.”

  “I have my doubts, given that no ransom demand was ever made. With your permission, however, I will speak with Kit directly. It makes sense to explore every possibility.”

  “I suppose that makes sense,” she said dubiously. “But let me explain the situation to Kit first. That way he’ll be more amenable to your questions.”

  He nodded. “Fine, but the less detail you give him about my role in this affair, the better. You can simply say Sir Dominic asked me to look into it.”

  “Would it help if I was with you when you questioned him? Kit might be more forthcoming,” she said, unable to repress her instincts to protect her brother.

  That raised an eyebrow. “The opposite would be true, I fear. You’ll just humiliate him.”

  She began to starch up, but he held up a forestalling hand.

  “Vivien, you are not to worry or try to intervene in any way. Sir Dominic and I will deal with this. All we ask is that you exercise caution and not go anywhere without an appropriate escort. In fact, the best thing you can do for now is to stay safely at home as much as possible.”

  She had a number of objections to that confining course of action. None, however, that she could share with him.

  “I’ll do my best,” she said. “But I’ve already accepted a number of invitations. It would look odd to decline at this late date, especially after last night.”

  Aden started to object, but she cut him off. “I will not spend my life in hiding. You must trust me to exercise the appropriate caution.” She mentally winced a bit at that, considering what she had planned, but with any luck he’d never know about it.

  A deep frown marked his brow but he finally nodded. “Then perhaps you would be so kind as to give me a list of your invitations when we return to Blake House.”

  She cut him a puzzled glance. “Why? Are you going to have someone follow me?”

  “No. I’ll be escorting you to those affairs.”

  Her heart gave a funny little skip. “I don’t understand.”

  He glanced down at her. “Don’t you? Then let me explain. From now on, until we find the man who planned your abduction, I’ll be escorting you on every one of your social occasions. That will serve the dual purpose of allowing me to keep an eye on you and to observe those you come in contact with.”

  She slowed as they approached the first row of shops. “But that will appear very odd, won’t it? How will we explain all this . . . togetherness?”

  For the first time since she’d met him, he seemed a trifle embarrassed. “I will be seen to be courting you, of course. It’s the obvious conclusion.”

  “Courting me?” she yelped.

  “Just pretending,” he hastily added. “And hopefully for only a short time.” He reached up and tugged on his cravat, as if it was too tight around his neck. “It was my mother’s idea,” he finished in an apologetic tone.

  “Oh. I see,” she said in a faint voice. She didn’t, actually. Her brain had been stunned into a daze at the idea of Aden courting her, pretend or not.

  “It makes perfect sense when you think about it,” he mused. “For one thing, it should keep Khovansky at a distance, which you must admit is a definite advantage.”

  “Yes, I suppose so,” she managed.

  He smiled his approval. As he ushered her into Hatchard’s, he launched into a quiet recital of all the reasons why a fictional courtship would be just the thing. She listened in silent dismay, convinced that his plan would destroy her plan before she even had a chance to put it in motion.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Yanking his collar up against the needling sleet, Aden turned into Jermyn Street at a pace barely short of a run. The streets bustled with activity—mostly young bucks and other men out for a convivial evening in the clubs and gaming hells populating the area around Pall Mall.

  He was headed to one of the most notorious hells, although not by choice. A note from Griffin Steele had pulled him from the peace of his apartments only minutes after he’d settled in with a brandy and book for a quiet read.

  Aden had spent the day chasing dead-end leads, and that was after a frustrating interview with Kit Shaw—whom he’d finally run to ground at White’s—regarding his possible role in Vivien’s abduction. Kit had been alternately guilt-ridden and defensive, insisting he could take care of the problem on his own. Only when Aden had outlined in detail what had happened to his sister and what could happen in the future had Kit relented. Then, white-faced, he’d confessed everything, in more detail than Aden had wanted to hear. But at least he’d offered up the necessary information—the name of the cent per cent who had Kit in his thrall.

  Aden actually knew the man, a jeweller whose shop trafficked as much in foolish young men like Kit as it did in gold. But although Ben Cribbens was an ugly customer, Aden was convinced the man’s threats were more bluster than fact. Nonetheless, he had paid him a visit, making it clear that if he made any more threats against the Blake family—veiled or otherwise—hellfire would rain down on his head. Blanching the shade of curdled milk, Cribbens had agreed to give Kit extra time to meet his obligations.

  That left Aden back where he’d started, with Lord Blake as a possible conspirator in the abduction scheme along with his newest and favorite suspect, Khovansky. The prince was clearly obsessed with Vivien. Naïvely, she seemed determined to ignore that pertinent fact, but Aden could not. Starting tomorrow, his investigation into the prince’s background would begin in earnest.

  But first he had another and more urgent chore to attend to—namely, pulling the blasted girl out of one of the worst gaming hells in the city. Already worn thin by the frustrations of the day, Aden’s temper had shredded when he’d read the terse note delivered by one of Griffin’s street urchins. A fast jog through the streets of Mayfair, quicker than catching a hackney, hadn’t improved his mood, especially given the sodding November rain that fell in driving gusts.

  Vivien, sadly for her, would be the recipient of his temper. The woman clearly hadn’t an ounce of sense in that beautiful body. He should have known her quiet compliance this morning was a ruse. Well, he wouldn’t make that mistake twice. It was time for her to learn that although she might be able to run circles around the other people in her life, she could not do so with him. He’d pull her over his knee and paddle her little bottom to make the point clear, if he had to. Vivien obviously needed a sharp reminder that she was still in danger, and he was the man to give it to her.

  He reached the deceptively genteel-looking house on Jermyn Street, with its red brick façade and imposing marble porch. Griffin’s establishment had the best whores, the finest food, and
the deepest play in London. The surroundings were luxurious and the patrons hailed from amongst the wealthiest and most powerful men in the ton, men who came to the house to let slip the bounds of propriety.

  But the real draw was Griffin, himself. Rumors had swirled about him almost from the day he appeared in London at the age of fourteen. The most persistent of those whispered rumors was that he was not simply the proprietor of wildly successful gaming houses, but was a crime lord as well.

  That rumor wasn’t true, but Aden did know that Griffin ran a growing financial empire that sometimes operated within the gray areas of the law. He might not be a criminal, but his tentacles of influence snaked in multiple directions—in the dank streets and rookeries, in the wealthiest drawing rooms of the beau monde, and even to the highest levels of government. There were many who owed Griffin Steele favors—or money—and who feared him in equal measure. No man in his right mind ever crossed him. His enemies had a way of quietly disappearing, or coming to ruin in so absolute a way they might have preferred a bullet in the back of the head.

  But once a man stepped foot into Griffin’s gaming hell, he felt his pulse race with excitement. Something forbidden and dangerous scented the air, like the perfume of the most expensive of courtesans, enhancing the thrill of pitting one’s luck against the house.

  Griffin was also Aden’s cousin—another bastard with royal blood simmering in his veins.

  He knocked on the door of Cormorant House and was received by a burly footman dressed in elaborate livery highly suggestive of the costumes worn by staff in service to the Prince Regent. Griffin did have a nicely twisted sense of humor, which Aden could certainly appreciate.

  “Good evening, Captain.” The footman took his greatcoat and hat. “Mr. Steele is waiting for you in his office.”

  Aden nodded, repressing the impulse to storm up to the gaming rooms to find Vivien and haul her out of the house. But Griffin surely had eyes on her, so she would be safe for now. Given that Griffin was in his office rather than up in the gaming rooms where he would normally be at this time of night, it meant there was something he needed to tell Aden in private.