Dueling With the Duke (Brotherhood of the Sword)

by Robyn DeHart

  Being near Lilith was a risk, but it was a risk he must take if it meant uncovering how far the plot to assassinate the queen went.

  Chapter Six

  Lilith said nothing to Gabriel as they rode from Ellis’s townhome to hers. Her nerves were on alert since her seduction had failed. She’d not retrieved any of the wanted information from him. She’d served only in whetting her own appetites rather than tempting his. There had been a time, as a young girl, she’d imagined herself to be a passionate woman; marriage to Thornton had left her nothing but cold. But in Gabriel’s arms, for the briefest of moments, he had lit a fire in her that still burned hot.

  Her suppressed passionate nature mattered not. She was not here to have an affair with Gabriel. They were two people whose lives had crossed, and now they were collaborating. That was the extent of their relationship. She’d do well to remember that. Gabe was interested in searching Thornton’s belongings to uncover any information about whom he might be working with. She wanted to find something, anything that might give her a clue about Isabel’s real identity. In order to fully protect the girl, Lilith needed to know who she truly was.

  After the carriage stopped, they made their way up the steps to her townhome. Nerves gnawed at her, making her palms sweat and her stomach twist. There was nothing about this place that made her feel welcomed or safe. This had been nothing but her own personal prison for the last six years. She shoved aside the feelings and used her key on the front door. She was met by the Nettleses, her butler and housekeeper. They were a kindly brother and sister whom she had hired herself shortly after marrying Thornton. They had been the only two servants that had remained with her from the beginning, and their loyalty meant everything.

  “Lady Thornton,” Miss Nettles said, relief pouring over her features. “We were so worried when you didn’t return.”

  “Yes, my dear, we were so concerned,” the butler said. He gave her a sweet smile.

  “All is well, I assure you,” she told them. “His Grace, the Duke of Lynford,” she motioned to Gabriel, “has been seeing to my protection.”

  “And the earl?” Mr. Nettles asked.

  “We know nothing for certain,” Lilith said. “But it is believed he is dead.”

  Miss Nettles covered her mouth, effectively silencing her shriek.

  Lilith nodded reassuringly. “All will be well.” How many times did she have to say that to someone else before she herself believed it to be true? “Now then, we shall be in the study.” She motioned for Gabe to follow her, and they walked down the corridor to Thornton’s study, a room he rarely allowed her entrance.

  She pulled the door closed, effectively barricading Gabriel and herself inside. The stale scent of Thornton’s cigars rolled over her, souring her stomach. The room appeared no different than it had when Thornton had been alive. The dark wood paneling and heavy wool draperies rendered the room a dark dungeon. Her heart tempo sped, and she willed herself to relax. He no longer held any power over her.

  “What do you suppose you’re looking for?” she asked. She, herself, was unsure where to start. Thornton had to have some information about Isabel.

  Gabe scanned the room. “There had to have been some correspondence between Thornton and his accomplices. Most people keep those sorts of things in their desk. I’ll start there.”

  She nodded. Was that where she’d find details about Isabel, too? Did Thornton have letters from Isabel’s mother? She and Gabriel couldn’t very well search the same area. They’d be entirely too close to each other. After their brief kiss, she’d already spent what felt like an eternity in the closed carriage with him. Just the sound of his breathing and the scent of his shaving lotion were enough to fill her senses and keep that kiss replaying in her mind.

  She decided that since Gabe would be searching the desk, she’d look first in the bookshelf behind it. “Is there anything I should be looking for, specifically?”

  “Anything that looks suspicious,” he said. Did that mean he still wasn’t telling her everything, that he did not fully trust her? The acknowledgment of that wounded her—she could not deny that. Of course, she didn’t trust him, either, so why should she bother being offended by such a thing? But with her, it wasn’t personal; she trusted no one. Still, she’d proposed a truce, one where they’d have to rely on each other.

  She moved to the bookshelf while Gabe took a seat in Thornton’s chair. He opened a drawer, carefully looked through each item. The bookshelf was, of course, lined with books, some of them ledgers, while others were books on mathematics and science. She started first with the ledgers. They were all the same, littered with her late husband’s even penmanship. Every single expense was detailed with the date, amount, and what was purchased. There in black and white, she could see every time her husband purchased her clothing or ribbons and hats. In their early years, it had been more often. Perhaps he’d been willing to please her then, but as he’d grown colder to her, the more infrequent his gifts had become.

  While she’d never loved William Crisp, she had gone into the marriage believing that if she were patient, theirs could be a good union, perhaps never a love match, but one built on mutual respect and affection. She’d been a fool…believing in the fleeting feeling of love. She’d stopped believing in such nonsense years ago. She moved from the first ledger to the second and then on to the third. They were all the same, except at one point in the fourth book, she noticed that the monthly payment to Saint Bartholomew’s School for Girls stopped. It simply disappeared.

  “Curious,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  She looked up to find Gabriel watching her. “Oh, I hadn’t realized I’d actually spoken aloud. I’m looking at the ledgers, and it is odd that his payments to Isabel’s school stopped more than two years ago.” She flipped through the ledger again to confirm her finding.

  “That is odd. Would he have had it paid out of a different account?”

  “I have no idea. He never shared anything with me about our monies, except to bark about how expensive things were and that I need not purchase anything new this Season.” Of course she’d been hoarding the money she’d requested and making adjustments to her current gowns to freshen them up. The truth was she had no notion of how much money Thornton had or whether or not he’d made arrangements for her or Isabel.

  She hated admitting that, though why should it matter now? The illusion of her happy marriage no longer made any difference.

  “Have you found anything there?” she asked, attempting to divert the focus of the conversation.

  “Not yet, at least nothing out of the ordinary. See if you can find additional ledger books or anything that would explain the lack of payments.”

  …

  Gabe did his best to focus on the task at hand and ignore the sadness that filled Lilith’s eyes. She spoke of her marriage as if it had not been happy, but what had she expected would happen when she married a man for nothing more than money? And one as cruel as Thornton. The man’s reputation had not been a secret.

  Yes, such unions were done again and again in London. It was part and parcel for the aristocracy. Practically expected. Still, when he’d first met Lilith, Gabe had thought her different.

  They’d met, by chance, at a ball when he’d been a young man of nineteen. Somehow they’d ended up discussing their academic interests, him the study of philosophy, and her the study of the heavens. She’d practically glowed as she’d spoken about the stars and constellations. He’d had a thought to take her out to the garden then and have her show him her favorites, but then Rafe had arrived, and she’d ended up in his brother’s arms dancing too many dances to be proper. Three months later, his brother was dead and she’d been engaged to Thornton.

  He watched her now. Her lips parted as if she had something to add, but thought better of it. She was a stunning woman, exotic and sensual in every way. He wasn’t certain which part of her face was the most attractive: the delicate arches of her eyebrows that fra
med thickly lashed dark eyes, or perhaps the classic Cupid’s-bow shape of her perfect red lips.

  He could not ignore the small cleft in her chin, nor the graceful line of her neck that led to equally graceful shoulders. Before he could look away, Lilith bent over to examine a lower shelf. Her dress molded so nicely to her rounded bottom, his mouth went dry. This was a most dangerous alliance indeed.

  He forced himself to turn away from his scrutiny of her features.

  He shoved his hand through his hair, then removed his spectacles to clean them on his shirt. Resuming his search, he opened another drawer and riffled through the contents. He found more of the same—bill notes, invitations, old copies of some gossip broadsheets, and a scattering of coins.

  He opened the next drawer and found mostly newspapers. The next drawer he tugged on, but found it locked. Interesting. He scanned the area for something he could use to open the lock and spied a metal letter opener. Gabe fiddled with the letter opener and the lock for what seemed like an eternity, but eventually he felt the lock give way, and the drawer loosened.

  He opened it, fully expecting to find it full of money or scandalous pictures, something worth hiding. The drawer was much more shallow upon opening it than he’d first imagined, and it contained nothing resembling money. All the thin drawer contained was blank parchment. He pulled it all out and fanned through it, but found nothing but page after page of unused paper.

  He went back to the deceptively small drawer to further investigate, going so far as to pull the drawer completely out. “There’s got to be a hidden compartment in this drawer,” he said. “Though I’ve not discovered anything worth hiding, it’s too small to be considered functional.” He tapped on the bottom trying to find a secret latch. As he did, a small wooden box fell to the ground. “Things are not always what they appear to be.” He retrieved it and opened it to reveal a bundle of letters.

  She moved over next to him and peered at the stack in his hand. “Letters?” she asked.

  He withdrew the first letter and handed it to her, then he opened a second. “This one he’s quite obviously told someone”—Gabe flipped the parchment over looking for a signature—“whomever this letter is from, that the school has requested a larger sum of money. The person then informs Thornton that from now on, he’ll pay the school directly.”

  Lilith frowned. “As far as I ever knew, Thornton paid for all of Isabel’s costs.”

  “Did she ever have any other visitors to the school? Or here when she’d come home for Christmastime or in the summers?”

  “She never came home for anything. I’d go see her, but I’d have to do so without Thornton knowing about it. He did not approve of my relationship with her,” Lilith said.

  He handed her the letter. “Any idea from whom is this letter?”

  She read over the letter, examined the large, looping penmanship, but nothing about it looked familiar. “No. What is J supposed to mean?”

  “I suspect it is the initial of our letter writer—either his given name or surname. Anyone with that initial a frequent part of Thornton’s life?”

  “In truth, I have no idea. He never had guests here, and we did not attend parties together. At least we haven’t in years.” Again those admissions that her marriage hadn’t been a happy one. “Do you think that this J person knows something about Isabel’s real identity?”

  “I’m not certain.”

  He looked further into the box, beneath the rest of the correspondence, and found a key.

  “I’ve never seen that before,” Lilith said as he showed her the key. She turned it over in her hand. “I am almost certain I know where it goes, what it unlocks.”

  “I don’t suppose that something is here?” he asked.

  “Not in this room, but upstairs in Thornton’s bedchamber.” She brushed past him without another glance.

  Gabe seized the box and followed suit. They hadn’t searched the rest of the study, but odds were he didn’t have an additional hiding place here in this room. Instead, they’d go upstairs and discover what the man hid behind two locked compartments.

  He followed her up the stairs and down a corridor to a bedchamber door. The large room hosted a massive bed—the bed Lilith had shared with Thornton. The thought filled Gabe with anguish. Thornton’s clumsy, cruel hands on Lilith’s beautiful body; it was more than Gabe could endure. They needed to get out of this room and quick.

  “So where is this locked compartment or whatever it is?” he asked.

  “This way.” She led him to the dressing closet. “Ugh, that smell.” She winced, shook her head in disgust. “I’m thankful to finally be rid of those wretched cigars.”

  She walked to the far wall and shoved the hanging coats out of the way. Hidden behind them was a small door.

  “Well, let us give this a try.” Gabe walked over to the door and twisted the key. The lock gave way. He pulled open the door and found a series of small shelves. On one sat two pistols. Gabe retrieved them both, noting there was nothing unusual about the first. The second, though, was quite familiar. He turned the pistol over in his hand knowing that it had once belonged to his brother. Bastard had killed Rafe and then pocketed his dueling pistol. Gabe took them both.

  He went back to the hidden compartment. The second shelf was empty, but on the third he found drawings of tunnels, the same tunnels the Brotherhood had created that connected Buckingham to Parliament. Certainly this was proof that Thornton had been the man who’d attempted to assassinate the queen.

  “What are those drawings?” Lilith asked.

  “I’ll explain later. We should leave.”

  On the way down she stopped in her own bedchamber and gathered a few items and spoke quietly with her maid. Then she rejoined Gabe, and they went back down the stairs. The Nettleses stood lining the foyer. “I shall return when I can.”

  When they were alone in the carriage, Lilith finally released a puff of air.

  “Good heavens, but I will be pleased to rid myself of that house.”

  “Have your servants always been so…” Gabe fumbled for the right word. “Expectant for your guidance?”

  “The Thornton household is not an easy one to work for. I did what I could to make things better for them.”

  “Makes it challenging to run a household, I would imagine,” Gabe said.

  “I was never under the delusion that I ran Thornton’s household. I was a decoration. No more than a pretty bird, trapped in a cage. With my wings clipped.”

  He wanted to ask her more, but he stopped himself. He was already feeling dangerously close to sympathizing with her. He needed to remember who he was, and more importantly, who she was.

  …

  They had been enclosed in the carriage for only a few moments before Lilith asked, “So how is it that the irresistible Gabriel Campbell, Duke of Lynford, has remained unmarried? I would have thought you would not have been able to outrun the marriage mommas in London.”

  “I do well to keep myself hidden.”

  She nearly missed the tweak of his lips, a shadow of a grin. “A jest. Well done, Gabriel.” It was best, truly, that he did not smile more often, for when he did, it transformed his face so that one could not look away. When he made no move to continue the conversation, she asked, “Are you going to ignore my question then?”

  “I hadn’t realized it was a serious inquest.” His eyes met hers. The warm brown beckoned her as a hot mug of chocolate did on a cold winter’s day. “Very well. I am unmarried, but I shall likely be married before the end of next Season.”

  She ignored the jab that echoed though her. What did it matter to her if he was married or not? She certainly held no claim over him, nor did she want to saddle herself with another man to bully her about. “So you are betrothed?”

  “No, but I have selected the girl.” He pulled back the small curtain of the carriage and peered out.

  Leave it to Gabriel to make the selection of a wife as unromantic as possible, granted that had bee
n her experience also. When she’d first been introduced into Society she’d had romantic notions, even though her father had all but told her he planned to give her to the highest bidder. She’d felt certain she could find a love match somewhere in London who had a heart as big as his coffers. That had not been the case. And then Thornton had seen to it that she become his countess rather than Rafe’s duchess, shooting the previous duke in a foolish duel so many years ago. She’d been starry-eyed, and she’d seen the younger Campbell son enter the ballroom and she’d been enchanted.

  It was quite difficult to reconcile the stoic man before her with the rake he’d been years ago. Even the curls on his head had seemed to become tamer, no longer falling into his face, giving him the look of a seductive poet. Now it was as if every hair knew precisely where to go. “Is she aware of this?”

  “Who?” he asked with a frown, looking away from the window.

  “The girl you plan to make your duchess.”

  “Ah, nothing is official. We have met. Conversed briefly. Danced once. She shall make a good duchess.”

  “And what of other suitors? Are you so certain she’ll still be available next year?”

  He paused as if considering that notion for the very first time. “She is neither handsome enough nor in possession of a large enough dowry to garner too much competition. I suspect she shall still be waiting for a good match, as they say.”

  Lilith barked out a laugh. “Why not simply marry her now? If you have already selected her, what is the reason for waiting?” She could neither see nor hear any urgency in his countenance or voice.

  “My work is far too important. I have time to wait a little longer before marrying and securing an heir,” he said.

  “If she is neither handsome nor rich, why do you want her?” It was a question she shouldn’t ask. She’d known why men wanted her. She had a body made for sin, as Thornton had so crudely put it on more than one occasion. She’d known as a girl just in the blush of womanhood that she had the sort of appearance that would turn a man’s head. It made it impossible to hope for someone to look past her bosom to the woman she was beneath. And now she was unsure if there was anything there at all.