“Violet,” huffed Aunt Hortense.
They were nearing Lark House now. The houses and street were as familiar as the lines crossing her palms. “We are almost home, Aunt.”
“You do not think one of those jackanapes can shoot you at your home just as well as two streets away?” demanded Aunt Hortense. “Get away from the window at once!”
Aunt Hortense rather had a point, but at the moment, Violet was feeling too rebellious to comply. “Let him shoot an innocent woman. I dare him.”
She cast a grim eye about the street, searching for any sign of a man with a gun, or even a man who appeared suspicious. And that was when she saw him; a short, slight youth, with light hair peeping from beneath a hat, jogging away.
It had to be the shooter.
Her first instinct, and her every suspicion, told her the man could only be one and the same. She rapped on the window of the carriage with so much force her knuckles smarted. But the man was beyond hearing her, and even if he had, he would not stop.
“It is the Fenians,” she said, as much to Aunt Hortense as to herself.
Of course it was, for there would be no other reason for shots to be fired at a carriage bearing the crest of the Duke of Arden. Now that Lucien’s involvement in the shadowy Home Office agency had been revealed, there would undoubtedly be a great unleashing of similar attacks. Attacks that would be worse. Attacks that would be even more dangerous.
She could not help but to suspect that, if whoever had been watching them had been daring enough to take not one shot, but two, and perhaps even follow them as well, he would also have been observing from the moment she and Aunt Hortense had left Charles’s home. They could have been shot so easily.
The notion made the breath flee from her lungs.
She sat at last, her knees giving out. It was the first time she had ever been confronted with the notion of her own mortality. She was relatively young—four-and-twenty was not yet ancient—and though she and Lucien had lost their parents in their youths, she had foolishly never imagined something ill could befall her. Being confronted with the fragility of life was shocking, and it seemed, somehow, to underscore the necessity of reevaluating the future she had imagined for herself with Charles.
The carriage rocked to a halt.
“We are home now,” she announced to Aunt Hortense.
“Oh dear.” Aunt Hortense stared up at her, decidedly unlike her ordinary dragon self. “I am not certain I will be able to regain my feet.”
The august woman’s bearing had been growing stiffer of late, and Violet had noticed. “I shall help you. But you truly ought to be using the ointment Sally made for your joints. Are you using it?”
Sally was Violet’s lady’s maid, but she was also well versed in the arts of healing. Her salves, creams, and teas never failed to work wonders. Aunt Hortense, however, had been rather mulish in her refusal to accept the aid.
“I do not need it,” Aunt Hortense said grimly.
“Yes,” Violet countered, brows raised meaningfully, “you do.”
“My knees are—”
“Nonsense,” Violet interrupted sternly, holding out her hands for Aunt Hortense to grasp, bracing herself to better enable the aid which would be required. “On the count of three. One, two, three.”
On a weary-sounding groan, Aunt Hortense was righted once more.
If only every ill and injustice could be righted with the firm hold of two hands and a caring heart. Violet heaved a sigh, supposing it was too much to ask for.
Abruptly, the carriage door was torn open, sunlight and the sounds of the outdoors assaulting the interior of the cabin. “My ladies, are you injured?” their driver demanded, his expression stricken as he took in Violet assisting Aunt Hortense with rising and seating herself properly once more.
“We are both well,” she reassured the man, “but I shall need an audience with my brother, His Grace, forthwith.”
Gulping, the coachman bowed. “Of course, my lady. Anything you wish.”
What she truly wished was that the Fenians had not chosen herself and her family as targets in their vicious vendetta. But there was nothing she could do to change that now. The battle lines had been formed.
Griffin sat opposite the Duke of Arden and alongside his aide-de-camp, Robert Swift, in Arden’s study. The scene was familiar to him, little different from the many occasions in his past upon which he had found himself seated opposite a friend. But those occasions were markedly different from this particular circumstance.
For one, they often shared port, brandy, whisky, or some other spirits. For another, the mood had been awash with camaraderie and respect, rather than animosity, suspicion, and mutual enmity. And he had never before stared down a man intent upon his utter ruination.
There was no other means of describing the viciousness in the Duke of Arden’s expression when he gazed upon Griffin now. It was hatred, vengeance, and murderous intent at once. He truly believed Griffin guilty.
“Swift said you wished to see me,” Arden said into the seething silence, his voice dripping with ice.
Arden had been avoiding him, and Griffin knew it. His days, aside from his brief interludes with Lady Violet, were a monotonous stampede of isolation and frustration. He had no answers and he remained cloistered within his chamber, beset by a barrage of anxieties and suspicions.
He had finally sought out Swift, deciding enough was enough. To hell with his jailer’s indirect manner and his subtleties. Griffin was a man of action, and he always had been. He dealt in truths, even the truths he despised.
“You’re damned right I did. You cannot hold me here indefinitely,” he bit out angrily, flouting every word of caution he had inwardly delivered to himself prior to this meeting.
Arden, smug bastard that he was, merely shrugged. He held all the power, and he knew it. “You and I both know I am fully within my rights to keep you here for as long as I please. You can consider yourself fortunate you have yet to be tossed into prison after the evidence I discovered against you.”
“That evidence was planted,” he bit out.
“By you?” Arden considered him, unmoved.
“By the traitor.” Griffin slammed his fist down on the polished surface of the duke’s desk, unable to help himself.
“I discovered the evidence myself, Strathmore,” Swift interjected mildly.
Yes, he had, hadn’t he?
Griffin studied the younger man. He had been trailing after the Duke of Arden like an obedient little puppy for the last year or so. Griffin knew little about the fellow’s background, aside from the fact that his father was a policeman and his mother the daughter of a vicar. Though he and Swift had been on pleasant enough terms, perhaps Swift would be an excellent addition to his list.
“There is no man I trust more than Swift,” Arden said. “I would trust him with my life. You, on the other hand, Strathmore, I would not trust beyond my sight. Hell, I do not even trust you within my sight.”
Griffin wondered how the arsehole would react if he knew what had been happening beyond his sight. With his sister. Grim satisfaction unfurled within him. He did not know when the mutual enmity between himself and Arden had precisely begun, but time had not dulled its flame.
“I may be many things, but untrustworthy is not one of them,” he defended himself. “I have been a loyal member of the League for over a decade.”
“You have undeniably been a member,” Arden allowed coolly, “but as recent circumstances have proven, your loyalty is a question rather than a certainty.”
The urge to plant Arden a facer was strong. He gripped the arms of his chair to keep himself contained. “My record is impeccable.”
“I have reviewed your history with the League,” Swift said, “and I am afraid I must disagree with that assertion. When you were held in Paris during the war, for instance, there was a woman with whom you involved yourself, a Madame Martin, who was a suspected spy.”
Angelique.
Re
membrance hit him, along with an old, familiar wave of bitterness. It was not as sharp as it had once been, more the sting of a bee than the cut of a blade. But it remained, nevertheless, a part of himself and his past he could not deny.
He had been young and green, on his first assignment for the League as an agent within France, when he had fallen under the spell of the beautiful older widow. If indeed she had even been a widow. And if her name had indeed been Angelique at all.
He would never know the truth, and a veritable lifetime had passed since he had seen her last, but hearing her name aloud now, all these years later, jarred him.
“Madame Martin betrayed me,” he said calmly, striving to scrub all inflection from his voice. “She was never privy to any information concerning the League. Need I remind you I was held captive during the Siege of Paris?”
His captivity was a dark time in his life, and though it, like Madame Martin, was a relic of the past, it nevertheless had the power to haunt him. The mere mentioning of his imprisonment, benign enough in casual dialogue, was enough to make his gut clench and his muscles tighten. The scars on his body were a visual reminder, but he had grown accustomed to their presence with time, and the sight of them did not make him sick as they once had. Even so, he had never allowed another to see them. Not even his valet. Nor any of his lovers.
“Did not your captivity also result in great danger to fellow League members who were then tasked with your rescue?” Arden asked.
“Yes it did,” he ground out, his frustration returning, taking on a new power. “But what the bloody hell does what happened in France eleven years ago have to do with planted evidence against me now?”
Arden considered him. “Perhaps nothing. Perhaps everything.”
What the hell was the bastard after?
Before he could offer another word, a knock sounded on the study door, followed by the appearance of Arden’s butler, whose expression was unusually aggrieved.
“There is a matter that requires your immediate attention, Your Grace. It pertains to Lady Violet.”
The mention of Lady Violet had Griffin on alert. The hackles raised on the back of his neck, but with great effort, he reminded himself he must not allow his interest to show. Not yet. And so he kept himself as composed as he was able, even as concern flooded him.
Arden stood, his face going instantly pale. “What the devil is it, Bunton? Is something wrong with her? Has she taken ill?”
“She is well,” the butler reassured him. “However, there was an incident involving her carriage.” His eyes flitted to Swift and Griffin. “Perhaps you ought to accompany me.”
Arden nodded. “Swift, please be kind enough to escort Strathmore back to his chamber. I fear I am needed elsewhere.”
“Of course, sir,” answered his puppy immediately.
Griffin watched Arden scurry from the chamber.
One thing was certain—heartless, soulless wretch though he may be—the Duke of Arden cared very much for his sister. And Griffin was not above using those feelings and that knowledge against him. It was becoming more apparent by the moment that he would have no other choice.
“I want a pistol, and I want to learn to shoot,” Violet announced to Lucien.
“That is out of the question,” he denied, his tone grim.
He had just returned from inspecting the damage the bullets had inflicted upon the carriage, and his countenance was pale and harsh. Worry emanated from him, unusual since he considered emotion a sign of weakness and used every opportunity to expunge it from his life.
“I need to be prepared to defend myself,” she argued, not about to accept his refusal.
“I will protect you, damn it,” he growled.
Aunt Hortense still looked as if she may swoon at any moment. The incident had ruffled her feathers. “I must agree with Arden that your request is most unladylike. You simply cannot go about London brandishing a weapon, Lady Violet.”
“Perhaps if I had, no one would have shot at our carriage,” she countered.
“Or they would have shot you instead of the goddamn carriage!” her brother roared.
Violet jumped. Aunt Hortense made a startled sound of surprise, her hand fluttering to her heart.
“No one can shoot me if I shoot them first,” she said, determined to have her way.
How could he possibly believe she would be safer unarmed? Was it because she was a female and he believed her incapable of defending herself, or was it because his sense of duty would not allow anyone other than himself to be her protector?
“There will be no pistols or shooting for you, my lady.” His jaw was hard. “What the devil happened to your hand?”
The cut from Charles’s ruined orchid pot. She had quite forgotten in the mayhem that had unfolded in the carriage. “One of Lord Almsley’s flower pots fell in his conservatory during my visit. It is nothing.”
She refrained from adding the reason for the pot’s decent, which had been her betrothed’s kiss, both unpleasant and unskilled. Lucien was already upset enough. She had no wish to send him into more of a furor than he already was in.
His kiss is nothing like the Duke of Strathmore’s, reminded Wicked Violet then, at a most inopportune moment.
Her cheeks went hot. Her brother’s gaze narrowed upon her, almost as if he had heard Wicked Violet’s voice aloud. Above all, Lucien must never know she was aiding the duke in his quest to prove his innocence. He would make good on his threat to send her away to Albemarle, and then she would never again have the chance to kiss—er, assist—Strathmore.
“Why were you in the conservatory with the earl?” Lucien demanded, his voice colored with suspicion now.
“We took a turn about whilst Aunt Hortense and Lady Almsley enjoyed their tea. He wished to show me a rare orchid.”
“They were well within my range of sight, Arden,” Aunt Hortense added, which could not have possibly been true.
Thank heavens for the older woman’s weakness for Charles.
“At all times,” Violet lied blithely. She may lead a boring, sheltered life with her overly protective brother dogging her with the persistence of a shadow, but even she knew when deceit was a necessity.
Poor Charles would not emerge the victor in a bout of fisticuffs with Lucien.
“Nonetheless, I do not like it,” her brother announced, as if delivering a royal edict.
On this matter, however, she would not bother to argue the point. Kissing Charles again was not an action she wished to take any time soon. Kissing the Duke of Strathmore, on the other hand…that held infinitely more appeal.
Only think of his wonderful lips, urged Wicked Violet.
And she did, much to her shame.
Her cheeks went hotter still.
“Are you warm, my lady?” her brother asked sharply, peering at her more closely.
She blinked. “I do believe all the excitement has set me at sixes and sevens. I should like to return to my chamber for a nap before dinner.”
Requesting a nap was her signature means of escaping Lucien, and he invariably fell for the ruse time after time.
He nodded. “Very well, but before you go, I would like you and Aunt Hortense to join me for an interview with Swift. We need to ask you some questions concerning the events that unfolded in the carriage.”
Drat.
Of course this would be the one occasion upon which her brother could not be so easily routed. She did not particularly like the young gentleman Lucien had taken under his wing. There was something about him she had yet to define, an instinct, perhaps, that told her Mr. Swift was not entirely as he seemed. For the last year, he had followed her brother’s every step, eventually becoming his trusted right hand.
Sometimes she suspected Lucien thought of Mr. Swift as the brother he had never had, and she rather resented him for that. She was forever cognizant of her status as a lady. Her brother believed, she was certain, that since she was a female and their mother had been mad enough to drown herself in
the sea, she was more at risk of succumbing to the same fate than he. For her entire life, he had cossetted her, but he had never treated her as an equal.
“Why must Mr. Swift be present?” she asked, aware her own judgments had flared to life. Another thought occurred to her. “If Mr. Swift asked you for a pistol, you would give him one and gladly. Why will you not consent to one for me?”
“Swift already possesses a pistol and he knows how to shoot it.” Lucien frowned at her. “Do cease prattling on about this nonsense, Violet. You will be well-protected from this moment forward. That much, I swear. I have ordered additional armed guards for Lark House, but you must be prepared to go to the country should the danger here become too great.”
“You think they will come after us again.” It was a statement rather than a question, for she was no fool. “It is the Fenians, is it not?”
Lucien’s jaw clenched. “Until I have more information, I cannot say who was behind this or whether it was a planned attack or an unfortunate, random incident. I have my suspicions, but we will only know after we do some further digging into the matter.”
His words gave her no comfort.
“We shall stay indoors and at home until we have a better answer,” suggested Aunt Hortense, her expression pained, drawn tight with worry.
Lovely. More time to crochet.
More time to spend with the Duke of Strathmore, chimed in Wicked Violet.
Yes, there was that. More kisses too.
“What an excellent notion, Aunt Hortense,” Violet said, prompting her brother to send her another disapproving frown. “I need to finish Lucien’s scarf. He is most eager to wear it.”
“His scarf?” Color returned to Aunt Hortense’s pallid cheeks for the first time since the carriage kerfuffle. “It is dreadfully uneven, my dear. Perhaps you ought to take it apart and try from the beginning.”
Perhaps the scarf was woefully constructed, as much of her crocheting was. And she supposed she ought to be grateful her sad attempts at constructing a garment for her brother were responsible for extracting Aunt Hortense from her doldrums.
Her brother’s lips twitched, the wretch. “Now then, come along. It is best to conduct such interviews while the information remains fresh in your minds.”
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