by Lauren Smith
“Perhaps he had other uses,” Charles suggested. “And those uses had come to an end. Or perhaps, once Audrey had exposed him, he had been living on borrowed time. A man like that could have men all over England waiting to deal with him.”
“Someone did us a favor then,” Lucien mused. “But that rarely happens. I think this bears watching. Jonathan, it seems your unusual wooing technique will serve a greater purpose. I want you to be Audrey’s shadow, day and night. We all remember what happened to Horatia in this very house, abducted from her room and…” He left the rest unsaid.
And almost murdered. Jonathan knew that was a day which would haunt Lucien forever. Friendships had been fractured and loyalties strained. Though those involved had made amends, a fissure still lay hidden deep within the bonds they had formed.
“Will you be her shadow, Jon?” Lucien asked.
“Of course. She will hate me even more for it, though.”
Charles slapped Jonathan’s shoulder. “That’s when you know you are doing the right thing.”
Jonathan assumed his friend meant to comfort him, but the words had the opposite effect. If he had to be Audrey’s shadow, he was going to be put in an impossible situation.
“I’ll see to it that you are seated next to each other at dinner,” Lucien promised.
“We had better go. The gong rang several minutes ago,” Charles reminded them.
“True. We can’t have Horatia fretting. Not in her condition.”
Jonathan followed them out into the corridor. A flicker of movement at the end of the hall caught his eye, and hairs rose on the back of his neck. Had someone been listening at the door? Perhaps Lucien was right.
Starting tonight, Audrey would have him as her shadow, whether she liked it or not.
11
Tom Linley pressed his ear to the keyhole of Lord Rochester’s study, heart pounding.
“Will you be her shadow, Jon?” Rochester’s words were barely audible, but Linley heard them, as well as Mr. St. Laurent’s agreement. He’d heard all he needed to. He dashed into the nearest chamber down the corridor before the trio of gentlemen left Rochester’s study. They would soon be leaving for dinner.
“Mr. Linley?” Linley glanced around. Audrey sat in a chair by the fire, looking cozy as she read a book. They were in a small drawing room, a private one for members of the family only, but he’d thought it was empty when he’d scouted it earlier.
“My apologies, Miss Sheridan.” He straightened himself and prepared to leave, as if nothing was amiss.
“Oh no, please. I was just going. Dinner will be ready.” Audrey stood, her dark green gown a bold creation of satin and trimmed with Belgian lace. No doubt the earl and his friends were dressed with equal refinement. Fine clothing and pleasant evenings with friends who cared for one another… A flicker of envy darted around inside Linley, but he repressed it, just as he did every emotion. He could never have that kind of life.
He was here to betray the League and their families. It didn’t matter that the Earl of Lonsdale—Charles—had welcomed him and his baby sister, Katherine, into his home. It didn’t matter that he liked his friends and their families just as much, especially Audrey. If he did not do his job, Katherine would be taken from him, and with her the last of his spirit.
Audrey paused in the doorway, her eyes sweeping over him in a cryptic play. She leaned in to whisper, “I know your secret, Tom.”
Terror shot through him, tightening all of his muscles. Part of him screamed to silence her, and he knew half a dozen ways to do it, but he held back. He was to harm no one unless ordered to do so. Tom was just a cog in a greater and more menacing machine, one that was closing in tighter around the League every day, and yet none of them were any the wiser.
“You needn’t worry. I shall not tell a soul. But someday, I hope you will be brave enough to discuss it with me. We all have our secrets.” She patted his cheek, and his heart swelled with affection, then burned with the knowledge of his inevitable betrayal.
Audrey didn’t know his secrets. At least, none of consequence. If she did, this conversation would not have ended so amiably. Perhaps she did suspect that he was a spy, but of a less sinister sort, in the pay of a rival lord keeping tabs on his competition.
Ordinarily he would report this immediately. Even the hint of his position being compromised would be grounds to remove him from the field. But soon Audrey would be put on a path that would lead her away from the safety of her friends and family, even her country, and toward almost certain death. As much as he didn’t want to think about it, the problem would soon correct itself.
Poor naïve fool. You think spying is a game. If only you knew the truth. Nothing is a game when the object is survival.
Once Audrey was gone and he was alone, he sank into a corner of the room, wishing he could vanish. That it could be as if he’d never existed. Tom closed his eyes and embraced the chill of the cold wall.
I have no choice. For Katherine’s sake, I have no choice.
The only thing worse than owing the devil a debt was having it called in.
It was a dreadful thing to attend a dinner party looking splendid on the outside yet feeling completely wretched on the inside. Audrey knew she looked magnificent in her green satin gown. The décolletage was low, and the sleeves were short and trimmed with lace. It showed her figure to its best advantage, but she didn’t feel the magic of the dress tonight the way she usually did.
She strode into the hall where the guests had gathered, and all she could think of was being back in the leisure room with her trousers on and…kissing Jonathan.
She relished the look on Jonathan’s face as he entered the hall. She noticed a dark bruise on his chin where she’d hit him earlier. Her heart sank. She’d felt so victorious when she had defended herself, but she had hurt him. She did her best to mask her dismay as Horatia escorted Jonathan over to her.
“You two will be paired this evening. I trust that is all right?” Her older sister’s eyes twinkled with mischief. Audrey was about to protest that her sister had clearly set her up, but Horatia suddenly paled and placed a hand over the swell of her unborn child.
Audrey put an arm around her at the same time Jonathan leaned in, asking if he could help in any way.
“Horatia, you shouldn’t be down here, you ought to be resting if the babe is making a fuss.”
“I agree,” said Jonathan. “Surely we can proceed while you get some rest?”
For a moment the two were united in their desire to aid Horatia, and she couldn’t help but offer him a relieved smile. He returned it with a soft expression that made her heart flutter.
Her sister sighed. “I know. But I cannot stand the idea of confinement. I told Lucian I would not be locked in some dark room until the child was born.”
“Did he want to do that?” Jonathan asked, confused.
“Not in so many words,” Horatia amended. “But it’s what most men demand of their wives. The thought of being trapped, even for a few days, makes me feel delirious. You understand.”
“I do,” Jonathan assured her. “Would you like me to help you sit in the dining hall?”
Horatia waved him away. “No, thank you. Lucian will see to that.” She waited for Lucian to join them, and Lucian nodded his thanks to them for watching out for his wife. He escorted Horatia into the dining room, and the other couples paired up and proceeded after them. Audrey saw Gillian and Lord Pembroke. They were both paired with other partners, yet they could not keep their eyes off one another. Audrey grinned. Her matchmaking efforts were well underway.
Jonathan leaned in to whisper in her ear. “You’re scheming again, aren’t you?”
“If you mean Lord Pembroke and Gillian, then yes. Nothing has changed in that regard.”
“So you see no problem with her being…” He paused, his green eyes dark with sudden shadows. “Being seen as less because of her station?”
“Heavens no. A person’s station has little to do wi
th who they really are. I thought you of all people would understand that.” She was surprised at him for assuming she would think like that. Did he not know her at all?
His brows rose. “Because I was a servant?”
“Exactly. And you are quite a fine gentleman now.”
His tone took on a dark edge. “So it’s money and a higher station that improved me?”
“What?” she hissed. “That is not at all what I meant. You were quite perfect before you discovered your connection to Godric.”
“And how would you know that? We never even met until last September.”
She bristled. “Because I asked about you after we met. I do check on these things, you know. Everyone spoke very highly of you. The worst that could be said was you were known for chasing skirts, but it seemed you stopped that once you found out you and Godric were brothers.”
So she had asked around about that, too. She was fine with letting a rogue court her so long as she could be assured that he could be reformed. And from all accounts, Jonathan had stopped pursuing women the moment he’d learned of his legitimate birth. She wondered if perhaps it was because he now saw himself trapped between the world he’d once had and the one he found himself in.
“Why did you stop chasing skirts?” she asked as they reached her chair in the dining room.
He blinked twice, startled by the question, but soon recovered himself.
“The answer is a private one. Keep showing promise in your lessons and I might tell you.”
That was not the answer she expected at all. He pulled her chair back, and she lifted her skirts to sit. As he carefully pushed her chair close to the table, his fingertips whispered over the bare skin of her shoulders before he dropped his hands and took a seat beside her. On her other side was Gillian, who seemed to be doing well talking with the gentleman on her left, a quiet but sweet vicar who lived nearby.
“About our lesson today- I’m sorry about hurting you,” she whispered to Jonathan. Their chairs were pressed close due to the number of guests, and their knees bumped under the table. Her body flushed as his booted foot lightly brushed her ankle.
“Don’t apologize.” His gruff reply didn’t assuage her guilt, however. “The goal is to teach, and what you did was an excellent example of applying your lessons.” His tone became warmer and his face more open. She took a chance to tease him.
“Should I apply for a membership at Jackson’s Saloon?”
Jonathan’s lips twitched as he reached for his wine goblet. “I think Gentleman Jackson would be terrified to face you in the ring.”
“Would he? I shall have to stop by. Prove my pugilistic skills to him.”
The servants brought in bowls of leek soup and a variety of meat and fish dishes. The guests engaged in lively discussions on the latest horse races or the scandals currently sweeping the ton. Audrey was only half listening, but when a gentleman named Alfred Taylor spoke about someone who’d shot himself in the Temple Bar district, her focus turned on him.
“Mr. Taylor, who did you say they found? Did you say he shot himself?”
Mr. Taylor was an older man in his fifties, well known for his access to gossip, and he had a keen way of filtering out those stories that were wholly untrue. Some of Lady Society’s better leads had come through him, though the man had no idea of that fact. Audrey knew he thrived on a good captive audience, and he quickly returned to that role.
“Well, the matter has already been announced in the papers, but there is some disagreement, or so I’ve heard, as to whether it was a matter of suicide or murder. His sister is insistent that he would not have taken his own life, but given the man’s fall in reputation, I find it quite possible, though perhaps not entirely without encouragement. They found him at a townhouse notorious for hosting hellfire meetings.”
Her heart leapt into her throat. Audrey did not believe in coincidences. How many hellfire clubs met in the Temple Bar district? “Mr. Taylor, who was the gentleman that they found?” Jonathan went still beside her, his hand half extended toward a tureen of gravy.
“Gerald Langley. You didn’t know him, did you?”
Gerald Langley was dead? “No…but I am familiar with the name,” she found herself saying in a soft voice.
“It’s all very scandalous.” Mr. Taylor preened as he now had her undivided attention. “One has to ask, if it is murder, or, as I suspect, if the suicide was coerced, just who Langley might have had for an enemy.”
“When did they find him?”
“I believe it was a week ago now.”
That could have been the night of the hellfire club meeting. If there was one thing she was certain of, he was the sort of man to go after those he believed to have wronged him and take them down with him, rather than take his own life.
The temperature in the room seemed to rise, and she couldn’t breathe. Audrey shoved her chair back and rushed from the dining room without making any proper excuses. As she reached the main hall, she gripped the banister by the stairs and used it for support.
Lord, the man was dead. Possibly murdered. The man she’d been focused on ruining. It wasn’t that she felt guilty. Most of her was relieved. Langley was a wretched man, but his death could not be a coincidence. Perhaps he had seen no way out of his downward spiral once she had escaped. But what if Mr. Taylor’s insinuations of another force at play were accurate?
“Audrey?” Jonathan was suddenly beside her, holding on to her, one arm curled around her waist to support her. She was grateful for that. She realized now she had been on the verge of collapse.
She sucked in a panicked breath, her legs buckling. “I can’t—”
“Sit.” He urged her down on the steps and leaned over her, cupping her face in his hands. “Focus on me, on my eyes. Breathe with me.” He made a show of drawing a breath and letting it out, and she did her best to mimic him. It took several such breaths before she finally felt in control again.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know what came over me.”
“No need to apologize. You had a shock. It happens.”
She closed her eyes, breathed slowly a few more times, and opened her eyes.
“He’s dead. Langley is dead.”
“Yes, I heard.”
“I do not believe he would have taken his own life. Not unless he’d been given no other choice.” Had it been one of the other lords in the club? She shuddered again, thinking about how she, Gillian, Jonathan, and James had all been close to a man whom fate had marked for death.
“It’s possible. He was a man who acted only out of self-interest.” Jonathan wrapped his thumbs over her cheeks, and the soothing touch calmed her. She stared at him, focusing on his clothes. His boots shone, and his claret-colored coat was well cut, showing his muscled form to his best advantage. Most of the men at the table had worn blue, which was customary for evenings like this, but Jonathan, like Charles and Lucien, was determined to stand apart from the crowd. Rogues, even when it came to their attire.
The thought made her smile. Jonathan smiled back.
“There’s the Audrey I know. What is it that’s amused you?”
“Your coat. It’s not a proper color for dinner.” His grin changed to a frown, but she continued. “But I rather like it. Blue would have enhanced your eyes, but this claret works wonderfully with your hair.” She touched his hair without thinking, running her fingers through the burnished gold strands. He eased down on the step beside her.
He shook his head. “Only you would think about the color of my clothing at a time like this.”
“And what would you be thinking about?” she demanded. Lord, this man could make her pricklier than her sister’s pineapples.
“This.” He dipped his head and brushed his lips over hers. The soft kiss felt like butterfly wings brushing against her skin. A dreamy haze rolled through her, and she reached for him, curling her arms around his body, clutching at him as she leaned in. He kissed her slowly, like a man savoring the v
ery taste of her.
“Lord, you are sweet, like a ripe peach.”
“Not tart like a pineapple?” She giggled and was rewarded with another of his low, rich laughs. There was something enchanting about sharing her breath with this man between kisses. It was how she always longed for passion, how she hoped it would be for her and the man she would someday marry.
But Jonathan isn’t that man. He doesn’t truly want you. Only to play with you like a cat with his toy.
The melancholic thought cut through the joy that had been building inside her.
“Stay with me,” he said. “Whatever shadows I see in your eyes, don’t let them take you away from me.” He kissed her again, as though trying to breathe life into her.
“Why do you want me to stay?”
“Because…” Someone dropped a serving dish in the dining room, and the crash jolted them. He let go of her and surged to his feet, putting some distance between them. The moment passed, and he regained his composure. “We should return to dinner, or people will begin to talk.”
“About us?” she asked. Of course he didn’t want anyone to think they were together. That was the Jonathan she knew, the one who had turned his back on her.
“Yes.”
“And you would just hate that, wouldn’t you?” She’d never known a person could make her feel so hollow, but he did. The feeling was unbearable, and it threatened to choke her.
“I would,” he said coldly. “I never want there to be any gossip about us. Ever.” His vehemence was so strong that it revolted her.
“You may return to dinner then. I will not.” She stood and walked off toward the library. Jonathan didn’t follow.
12
Audrey rejoined the ladies in the drawing room after dinner. She had to assure them all, especially Horatia, that she had merely been shocked at the news she’d heard. She was seated on the couch, watching the ladies catch up on their gossip. Usually she enjoyed being in the midst of those circles. They often laid the seeds for what would eventually turn into stories for her Lady Society column. But instead she was, for lack of a better word, moping.