“Pinter told you that?” he interrupted hoarsely. “That I stole those papers because of my father?”
“Mr. Pinter said that what you stole was instrumental in bringing Sir John Sully to justice. And that your father had lost money in an investment with the man. He said that was the real reason your father killed himself.”
Giles fixed her with a dark glance. “How the bloody hell did he find all that out?”
“I don’t know.” She met his gaze warily. “He merely said he had it on very good authority. I gathered that his informant was someone high in government. Although the man knew the role of the papers, he didn’t know where they’d come from. But Mr. Pinter put it together after having heard my part of the story.”
When Giles muttered a curse and glanced away from her, she went on hastily, “What you did is nothing to be ashamed of. Who could blame you for avenging your father’s death? Surely you didn’t think I would.”
“You might,” he said in a dull voice. “If you knew what the result could be.”
She sucked in a breath. “You mean, because of whatever happened in Calais.”
He swung a startled gaze back to her.
“Come now, Giles, I know that something occurred in Calais to upset you. We were having a lovely honeymoon until that last night. And Mr. Pinter told me that the government used those papers to make Newmarsh help them send Sir John to the gallows. That in exchange for his help, Newmarsh was pardoned but exiled from England and is now living in France. It can’t be a coincidence that you wanted us to travel there.”
Despite his curse, she pressed on. “You saw Newmarsh in Calais, didn’t you? And he told you something alarming.” She prayed that she’d guessed right, because if that hadn’t been why Giles had insisted on hiding his actions that night, she would have to consider more upsetting possibilities.
Giles stared at her a long moment. “I should have known you’d never stay out of it. It’s not in your nature to let a man be, to let him keep his failures to himself—”
“You have no failures,” she protested. “I know you well enough for that.”
“Then you don’t know me at all.” He strode to the window and stood looking out. “Newmarsh figured out that I was the one who stole the papers.”
Her heart leapt into her throat. “Please tell me it wasn’t what I wrote that gave it away.”
“No, not that. I doubt he’s ever read anything more than a racing list, much less your novels.” He took a long breath. “My brother gave him a suspicion of the truth, quite by accident. And now Newmarsh is threatening to go to the press if I don’t convince the government to allow him back into England.”
Her stomach knotted. “Oh, Lord. How are you supposed to manage that?”
Giles was silent a long moment. “I . . . have connections that Newmarsh is hoping I’ll use on his behalf.”
She thought through everything Mr. Pinter had told her. “You mean Lord Ravenswood, I suppose. Is that why you met with him early this morning?”
Giles whirled away from the window. “Bloody hell, how did you know that?”
“Mr. Pinter followed you.”
“Wonderful,” Giles snapped. “Clearly I am slipping. I didn’t even notice that the bastard was around.” He cast her a look of betrayal. “Why the hell would you have Pinter do that? Bad enough that your grandmother set him on me, but to hear that my own wife has had him investigating me for God knows how long—”
“It’s only been since the wedding, and I didn’t tell him to follow you. He just thought he might find out for me why you’re always disappearing so mysteriously.” When Giles stiffened, she added hastily, “Anyway, is that why you were meeting with Lord Ravenswood secretly? You were discussing the Newmarsh problem?”
Giles hesitated, then gave a terse nod. “Ravenswood is the one who engineered the prosecution of Sully. He did it as a favor to me. And to gain justice for all those people whom Sully bilked out of their fortunes.”
“Will his lordship do what you asked?” she whispered. “Will he let Newmarsh have what he wants?”
“He’s going to let me know after he speaks to his superiors.” Giles snorted. “But the government has a strict policy about blackmail. They don’t give in to it without good reason.”
“Still, judging from what Mr. Pinter told me, Lord Newmarsh is a thorough villain. Surely even if he goes to the press, people will give no credence to what he says.”
“You sound just like Ravenswood,” Giles snarled. “Both of you are so sure that right will win out. I have less faith in that than you. I’ve seen too many criminals go free for no other reason than a lack of evidence.”
“Is that what worries you about Newmarsh? That he will ruin you somehow?”
“If it comes out that I stole those papers, I’ll be disbarred,” he bit out. “Lawyers don’t look kindly on other lawyers who make cases by stealing evidence. It’s illegal and arguably even punishable by death.”
“Giles!”
“Oh, don’t worry, they won’t hang me. They’ll brush it under the rug as much as they can, but disbarment is still a distinct possibility.” He waved his hand about him. “This house, these furnishings . . . all of it would instantly become beyond our means. My brother will give us as large an allowance as he can afford, but we’ll have to live on his largesse for the rest of our lives. If Ravenswood can’t convince them to let Newmarsh return and I can’t work it out otherwise, your life will be vastly different than the one I promised to you.”
Understanding finally dawned. “Is that why you didn’t tell me about meeting with him in Calais? Why you lied to me about where you were? Because you were worried about how I would take this news?”
“I didn’t lie,” he said stubbornly. “It was a matter of business. And yes, that’s why I didn’t reveal the truth. How was I supposed to tell you that our lives might be over? That your husband might be dragged through a scandal that could have you and your family once again in the papers?”
“I don’t care about that!” she cried. “I only care about you.”
He gave a bitter laugh. “Mere weeks ago, you called me a scoundrel and a rogue. It took me a great deal of effort to convince you otherwise. So forgive me if I didn’t think you’d be thrilled to hear that I’d turned out to be the failure you already thought I was.”
“I never thought you a failure,” she said softly. “I just thought you reckless and heedless. Like my brothers.”
“Which is exactly what this mess with Newmarsh proves me to be,” he countered.
“That’s not true.”
He glanced away, pain slashing over his face. “I knew the law, but it didn’t matter to me. I did what I pleased, for the fleeting satisfaction of gaining vengeance.”
“That’s not the only reason you did it, was it?” she pointed out. “You wanted to stop Sir John and Newmarsh before they could hurt others.”
“But if I’d been less impetuous, I would have found a legal way to catch them. Then I would have gained a justice that was built on the law, unshakable and fair. Not a justice that was built on sand and has now come back to ruin me.”
She began to see why this bothered him so. “Did Ravenswood know that you’d stolen the papers?”
His gaze slid back to her. “Yes. Why?”
“He has always been considered a careful man, full of good judgment. Yet he took the risk of using information illegally obtained. Because he knew that sometimes the end justifies the means.”
That seemed to give him pause. “He did it because he was my friend and because—”
“It was the right thing to do.” Though Giles’s expression grew shuttered, she pressed on. “That’s why no one used the documents in court, isn’t it? So that the prosecution would be legal. Mr. Pinter said they just used the papers to force Newmarsh’s hand and gain his cooperation with sending Sir John to jail. So justice wasn’t built on sand.”
“Yes, but—”
“Do you regret wha
t you did?”
He blinked at her. “What do you mean?”
“It sounds as if you regret sending Sir John Sully to jail.”
His gaze locked with hers. “I regret not doing it properly. I regret being such a thoughtless scapegrace that I didn’t even attempt legal avenues. I regret thinking myself above the law. Most of all, I regret risking my entire future just to avenge a man who—”
He broke off with a curse.
“A man who didn’t even care enough to stay around and take care of his own mess,” she said softly. What had Giles said the day of Gabe’s race? I knew my father’s faults as well as I know my own.
Giles looked lost now. “I was like him for so many years—selfish, heedless of the cost. My brother wasn’t. He knew Father would ruin us all. He watched Father making ever more reckless investments and warned me that one day we’d have to pick up the pieces.”
He paced the floor. “And what was my reaction? I laughed and told him he was mad. I went on my merry way, gambling and whoring through London. I barely exerted myself in my studies—it’s a miracle I was even called to the bar. The law meant little to me until the day Father . . .”
His expression chilled. “After he died and left us nearly destitute, I wanted to make up for those years, for the waste that had been my life. Newmarsh had been a friend of my father’s. He convinced many of his friends to invest in Sully’s scheme in exchange for part of the profits. I’d already figured that out when Newmarsh invited me to his party.”
“I’m surprised that he even invited you,” she put in.
A harsh laugh escaped him. “He believed me to be more concerned with pleasure than with reclaiming the family honor. He didn’t think he had anything to worry about.” His voice hardened. “He was wrong. I decided that his party was my chance to beat him, and I took it. Then I brought the papers to Ravenswood, and he said he would pursue justice if I’d only agree to—”
He halted, a look of chagrin crossing his face.
“If you’d only agree to what?” she prodded.
Scrubbing his hands over his face, he let out a curse.
“Giles, what did Ravenswood ask you to do?”
“I suppose there’s no point in your not knowing now.” He met her gaze steadily. “Ravenswood asked me to keep my eyes and ears open in society and . . . elsewhere. To give him information from time to time. To inform upon my peers.” He drew in a ragged breath. “You asked about my ‘mysterious disappearances’? That’s what they were about.”
She stared at him in shock. “You’re a spy? For Ravenswood?”
“More like an informant. For the Home Office.”
She just gaped at him, hardly able to believe it. All this time she’d told herself that such an idea was ludicrous. Leave it to Giles to thwart every one of her opinions about him. “For . . . for all these years? Ever since that night at the party?”
“I quit when I heard I had a chance at being King’s Counsel. I thought I was done with it all until Newmarsh asked Ravenswood to have me meet with him in Calais.”
“Oh, my word.” The pieces fell into place at last. “That’s why you could pick locks and lie so convincingly at the inn. Why you could seem like a scoundrel one moment and a responsible citizen the next.”
He shrugged. “People say things to a scoundrel that they’d never say to a responsible citizen.”
“So you’ve been acting the scoundrel to hide your spying.” She’d been so wrong about his true character. “Do my brothers know?”
“No one knows,” he said in a warning tone. “If I’d had my way, you would never have known.”
That wounded her. “Why not?”
“For one thing, it was in the past, and I was hoping to put it behind me. For another, I’m not really supposed to discuss it.”
“Not even with your wife?” she asked, unable to keep the hurt out of her voice.
Suddenly she remembered what he’d told her that day at the pond. There are things in my past that I can’t talk about with you. Things I’ve done. Things I’ve been. And I’ll be damned if I lay them all out for you just so you won’t worry that I’m like your father.
“Especially with my wife,” he said defensively. “Who has a tendency to put things about me in her novels.”
“Only because I didn’t know the significance of what you were doing! If I’d realized it was so important, not only to you but to the country, I would never—”
“I told you it was important,” he snapped. “I asked you not to reveal it to anyone, and you did so anyway, all because I hurt your pride.”
“It wasn’t my pride you hurt,” she blurted out. “I was in love with you, you dolt!”
When the words made the blood drain from his face, she cursed herself for letting him see her vulnerability. But there was no going back now.
“I was in love with you, and you broke my heart. That was why I wrote about you in my books.”
Chapter Twenty-four
Giles stared at Minerva in disbelief. She’d been in love with him? “But . . . but you were only nineteen.”
“Good Lord, Giles, by the time we had that kiss, I’d been in love with you for years. Ever since you were so kind to me at Mama and Papa’s funeral.”
“That’s infatuation, not love,” he protested.
“Don’t tell me what love is,” she said softly. “I know whether I was in love or not.”
And that’s when it hit him. She’d said “I was in love with you.” Not “I am in love with you.”
Bloody hell, why did that matter? He didn’t want her to be in love with him. Did he?
She turned away from him and went over to pour herself some tea, though it had to be stone cold by now. Her hands shook as she lifted the cup to her lips. She barely took a sip before replacing the cup in its saucer.
When she spoke again, it was in a low, halting voice. “I’d practically worshipped you for half my life. I used to watch you with my brothers and pray that one day you would notice me, see me as a woman.”
He’d had no idea. He tried to dredge up memories from those years, but all he could remember was how he’d wasted his life on drink and women and cards. It had been one long bacchanalia after his father had killed himself.
Her voice grew bitter. “But you never saw me as anything but the silly sister of your friends. Until that night.” She faced him, tears sparkling in her eyes, and he felt something twist in his chest. “I was so happy to see you at that party. That’s why I’d gone there—hoping that you would be there. I thought perhaps if you saw me in that low-cut gown, you’d desire me and fall madly in love.”
“I did desire you in that gown,” he said, wanting desperately to soothe her hurt. “You were a revelation.”
She arched one eyebrow. “Just not the sort of revelation you wanted.”
“Not then, no. My life was in a shambles. My father had just killed himself, and I was seeking justice for him. I’d begun to realize that I couldn’t go on in my same hapless manner, but I wasn’t sure how to change my path. Adding a woman to that mess would have been unconscionable.”
“Then you should have said that to me, instead of . . .” She waved her hand. “Oh, it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s long in the past.”
“I can tell from your face that it does matter.” When she said nothing, he said, “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Then or now.”
“I still don’t see why you couldn’t have faith in my ability to keep your secrets. I understand why you didn’t before, but after we were married—”
“It’s hard for me to have faith in anyone,” he admitted. “Ravenswood says it’s because I’ve spent so many years playing both sides of the fence, hiding my true self from everyone, that it’s become second nature to be secretive.”
“That’s not why,” she said.
He eyed her warily. “What do you mean?”
A pitying expression crossed her face. “You don’t have faith in other people because you don’t
have faith in yourself.”
He dragged in a heavy breath. “I have faith in myself.”
“If you did, you wouldn’t be chastising yourself for what you did years ago. You wouldn’t be calling yourself a failure for something that’s out of your control now.”
“It’s not entirely out of my control,” he bit out. He drew in a deep breath. Time to tell her the worst of it. “It’s possible I could get out of this by agreeing to go on working as an informant. The government doesn’t want me to quit, so if I agree to continue, they might give in to Newmarsh’s demand.”
“Is that what you want?”
“No, damn it! But I can’t see any other way through. If I don’t do it, Newmarsh may very well ruin me. Ruin us.”
“And what does Lord Ravenswood say to that?”
Giles shook his head. “The bloody fool says that I should call Newmarsh’s bluff, and trust him and his superiors to make sure nothing comes of his threats.”
“Then perhaps you should listen to him.” She stepped forward to cup his cheek. “I know you must have done a great deal of good for them since that night years ago. And I’ve seen firsthand what good you’ve done in the courtroom. Surely that will count for more than you think.”
“Will it? I know how easily such things can all be wiped away because of politics,” he said hoarsely.
“I believe we reap what we sow, and you’ve sown loyalty and honor and justice for many years. It’s time for you to reap that harvest.” She caressed his cheek. “Ravenswood clearly trusts you, and his superiors probably do as well. I certainly trust you. So perhaps you should consider trusting us, at least a little. We’re not your father. We won’t abandon you in your time of need, I promise.”
A lump caught in his throat. “I may hold you to that promise, if I’m booted out of the legal profession and can’t support you.”
“I have a sizable inheritance coming to me, assuming Gabe and Celia marry. And there’s my dowry—”
“I don’t want your family’s money,” he ground out. “Not after everything they’ve said about my motives for marrying you.”
How to Woo a Reluctant Lady Page 27