Duke of Secrets (Moonlight Square, Book 2)

by Gaelen Foley

  “I love you,” she told him.

  “And I adore you.” He leaned down and pressed another firm kiss to her lips, then tore himself away.

  She winced, watching him stride toward his carriage.

  Paulson saw him coming, and got the door.

  “Get back inside before you catch your death.”

  She ignored her fiancé’s command, but folded her arms across her chest to ward off the chill. Worry for him still plagued her.

  “Azrael, if it’s really as dangerous for you to go to the Order as Papa said, maybe it isn’t a good idea.”

  “I’ll be fine. I still have that fellow’s signet ring, remember? It’s back at my house in Moonlight Square. That and the box of unpleasantness will be sure to make a fine peace offering for them. I’m not worried.”

  Liar. You’re very brave, she thought with an ache as she stood outside the manor’s front door. The hard truth, she suspected, was simply that there was no other way.

  “Come back to me unscathed, do you understand?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll miss you.”

  “I’ll miss you more.”

  “Well, we’ll have to make up for it next time we’re together.”

  A flirtatious, blushing laugh escaped her at his innuendo. “I’m game, Your Grace.”

  He stopped, staring at her. “God, look at you. How am I to leave when you smile at me like that? Hold on, Paulson. Just one more.”

  Azrael jogged back and swept her up in his arms, lifting her off her feet as he claimed one last, urgent kiss, hurried and hungry.

  It sent her world spinning and heated her blood from the bleak day’s chill. She kissed him back for all she was worth, loath to ever let him go.

  “Mm, that’ll inspire me,” he murmured, releasing her again. Then he tapped her on the nose. “I’ll see you as soon as it’s safe, my love.”

  She heaved a sigh, pained as he pulled away again. “Oh very well. Go, then! Before I tie you up and keep you here.”

  “That could be fun,” he said, flashing a roguish smile over his shoulder. “Homeward, Paulson!” he called as he marched away, his step light.

  “Very good, Your Grace.” Paulson held the coach door.

  “Send for me if there’s any way I can assist,” Serena called. “You know I’m not afraid.”

  “Indeed I do, my daring lady. You never shrink from a challenge, do you? I like that.” Then he blew her a kiss and sprang up into the coach.

  Serena flinched a little when his driver shut the door, separating them.

  “Achoo!”

  “Bless you, Paulson. And thanks for everything. I hope you feel better soon.”

  “Thank ye, milady.” The cheerful coachman bowed to her, but sneezed loudly again before swinging back up onto the driver’s box.

  Serena winced. She still felt guilty about the man’s cold.

  Then she waved as the coach rolled into motion, and somehow kept the smile plastered on her face. She refused to give in to the shadow that their parting had cast across her heart.

  Through the window, Azrael blew her a seductive kiss full of patient promise as the carriage circled the turnaround, with its center fountain, before trundling off down the tree-lined drive.

  She offered up a silent prayer for his protection, remaining outside with her arms wrapped around herself until his coach had disappeared.

  CHAPTER 16

  Angels & Demons

  Azrael made it back to his house in Moonlight Square late the next afternoon.

  “Well done, Paulson,” he said to his driver, who was blowing his nose into a large handkerchief. “I’ve imposed on you enough since we left. Feel free to take a couple of days off, and do get well.”

  “Dat’s very gederous of you, sir. Achoo!”

  “Bless you. God’s sakes, man, you should be in bed.”

  “Aye, sir.” Paulson chuckled, his jovial nature none the worse for wear.

  Azrael ordered his grooms to take care of the horses and put the coach away, then sent a footman to draw a hot bath for his ailing driver and to look after him.

  When he went inside, missing Serena but glad to be in his cozy home, he was startled to find Grimsley beside himself with worry.

  “Your Grace!” the old man burst out with an unprecedented display of feeling. The butler’s bony face was drawn into an expression of alarm fit to rival the wee gargoyles perched atop the fluted pilasters as he rushed forward to take the snakeskin box out of Azrael’s arms for him. “Is everything all right, sir? You were gone three days! I was beginning to fear something dreadful had befallen you.”

  “I’m fine, Grimsley,” Azrael said. He immediately reproached himself for worrying his staff. It was easy to forget that his longtime servants were well aware of the enemies he had out there in the world. “We had a slight change of plans on the road, that is all. Sorry to have worried you. I trust everything is in order here at home?”

  “Well, yes, sir—of course, Master Raja requires your attention. He’s been rather bored.”

  “Ah.” Azrael slipped off his greatcoat.

  “And there’s an abundance of mail for you, as well. Including a letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s offices,” Grimsley added, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes?” Azrael couldn’t help but grin. “Bring it to me at once.”

  Grimsley hurried off to set the snakeskin box in the library and find His Excellency’s reply among the many letters on the mail tray on Azrael’s desk.

  When he returned with the envelope, Azrael took it nervously, braced himself, and cracked the holy man’s letter open.

  He read it and looked up slowly from the paper a moment later, wonderstruck.

  Grimsley was staring at him. “Good news or ill, Your Grace?” he asked.

  The question snapped Azrael back to reality. He blinked off his daze. “The best news possible, Grimsley.” He suddenly laughed, which in itself was enough to shock his butler. “I’m getting married.”

  He held up the letter as proof, and Grimsley’s jaw dropped.

  The letter contained the Archbishop’s blessing on the match, along with instructions on how to collect the special license—and where to pay the exorbitant fee for the convenience it secured.

  “Don’t tell the rest of the staff yet, though,” he instructed. “Only Paulson knows so far. But the girl I drove out to the country with, she will soon become the lady of the house.”

  “You found your duchess,” Grimsley said, amazed.

  “I have. And she is…magnificent.” He clapped his butler heartily on the shoulder, shocking him anew with the simple contact.

  “Er, c-congratulations, sir!”

  “Thank you very much, Grimsley. I can hardly believe it myself. Well! Much to do. Have them draw me a bath, would you? I haven’t changed my clothes in three bloody days. His Grace stinks.” He began marching away to go and reassure the leopard he was home. “Oh—and Grimsley?”

  “Yes, sir?” the ordinarily gloomy fellow asked, blinking out of his daze.

  “Do make sure to have the staff look after Paulson. It snowed, and the poor man caught a dreadful cold.”

  “Should I send for the physician, sir?”

  He shrugged. “That’s up to him.”

  The butler bowed, then Azrael jogged up the ornate wooden staircase, his mood buoyant, his steps light. It was good to be back, and he couldn’t wait to share his home with Serena.

  After he had paid his respects to the lonely and disgruntled leopard, who was quite cross at him for his absence, Azrael retired to his chamber to find the steaming bath waiting for him, set up next to the crackling fire.

  He quickly stripped, noting the dried copper trace of Serena’s maiden blood that had lightly brushed the inside of his drawers when he’d dressed again after making love to her. The memory of that night filled him with anticipation, and he sank down into the hot bath with a sigh of pleasure.

  As he rested his head back against the tub, he still
couldn’t believe that he had seduced her, or for that matter, all that had transpired between them. It stunned him to contemplate how that little vixen had sneaked into his masked ball and proceeded to upend his quiet, orderly existence altogether.

  He’d tried, God knew he’d tried to fight the attraction. But he’d failed completely.

  And he’d never been happier.

  Good thing I didn’t accidentally drop her off the balcony that first night, he thought, chuckling to himself, and savoring the memories of all that had occurred between them.

  To be sure, dwelling on the joy she brought him was better than brooding on the uncertainty of his venture tonight.

  Unfortunately, the reprieve did not last long.

  For within an hour, he had dug out the dead agent’s signet ring from its hiding place in the jewelry box with his cufflinks and cravat pins; he ordered his phaeton made ready with fresh horses under harness; and for a driver, he secured the assistance of his wily footman, Jenkins—the same discreet fellow he had previously sent to spy on Lord Toby.

  Going out in a carriage again was the last thing he felt like doing, but he was eager to get this mission underway, the sooner to have it over with.

  And so, with the Order signet ring tucked into his waistcoat pocket and the snakeskin box of his father’s papers on the seat beside him, Azrael set out for Dante House. The agent had insisted the eerie old Tudor mansion on the Strand, believed by the world at large to house the notorious Inferno Club, was actually the Order’s headquarters.

  What mattered was that this was the place where he’d been told he might find allies against his father’s henchmen.

  He only hoped it wasn’t too late.

  Before long, Jenkins drew the phaeton to a halt outside of the decrepit-looking black mansion on the Strand. Its twisty spires rose like devil horns reaching for the stars, and Azrael mused on the irony of it—how all the members of the exclusive Inferno Club posed as decadent rakehells of the most godforsaken stripe to keep prying eyes away, while his father’s Promethean brethren usually presented themselves as pillars of society. They pooh-poohed the gossip about them as malicious rumors.

  Of course, the previous Duke of Rivenwood had refused to hide behind such masks. He had been insolently open about his fascination with the occult. No wonder the Order had sent that agent to investigate him, but Father’s untimely death must’ve brought their interest in him to a halt.

  No doubt they wondered what had happened to their agent. No one had ever come inquiring, though, so maybe the “vagrant” had been working independently and his superiors hadn’t even known he had gone there.

  Azrael had heard these gentlemen were given a great deal of latitude on how they operated. The fact that they answered directly to the sovereign without a complicated chain of command, as with military intelligence units, no doubt proved a boon.

  At any rate, his answers on the tragic fate of their agent was only one of the many riches he could share with them tonight, if they were willing to help him in return.

  For a moment, nervously drumming his fingers atop the snakeskin box on the seat beside him, Azrael studied Dante House. The Thames ran behind it, slick and glimmering with oily reflections.

  As he waited for Jenkins to come and get the door, he noted that the broad avenue was quite deserted at this late hour. It worried him that Dante House looked forsaken, too. What in the world was he going to do if the Order was no longer here or had disbanded?

  The question left him floundering. He had staked everything—his future with Serena—on these fellows helping him. If they refused, or worse, if they were all gone, he truly did not know what else to try.

  Dread skittered through him, but he shunted it aside, grabbed the box, and alighted from the phaeton. He turned to his trusty servant, shifting the leather cask under one arm.

  Jenkins looked uneasy, his breath clouding around him in the windy chill along the river. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go to the door for you, sir?”

  “No—and I do not wish you to tell anyone else on the staff that I came here, either.”

  “Understood, sir,” Jenkins said with a nod.

  Azrael glanced up at the spiked wrought-iron fence that girded in the property. If this place indeed housed a nest of spies for the Crown, then those gates were more than just a remnant of centuries-old fortifications. And if that represented the place’s first line of its defenses, then any sort of traps might wait for him inside.

  He looked again grimly at his man. “Wait for me for half an hour. If I do not reappear by that time, you may go. And, er, if I have not come home by morning… Well, I do not know what to suggest in that case, actually. Because it probably means I’m dead or in a dungeon somewhere.”

  The footman’s eyes widened. “Shall I go to the authorities in that case, sir? Lead them here? The Bow Street boys could storm the property—”

  “Ah, there would be no point.” Azrael sighed, for after all, these men were the heroes of the play, while he was of the villains’ party, at least by birth. “This place, you see, is not what it appears, Jenkins.” He gave him a taut half-smile. “Let’s just hope for the best.”

  With that, Azrael strode toward the spear-tipped gate, hauled it open, and winced when it let out an earsplitting metallic creak.

  “Right,” he whispered to himself, squaring his shoulders. “Wish me luck, Jenkins.”

  “Good luck, Your Grace.” Jenkins squinted at his fob watch to mark the time, then stood by the horses, worriedly clutching his hat.

  With the snakeskin box under one arm, Azrael marched up to the house and gave a confident rap on the door. He arched a brow as a clamor of vicious canine barking immediately assaulted the other side.

  “Egads,” he murmured, then quickly took the dead agent’s ring out of his waistcoat pocket. He’d better have it ready, if that was any indication of the welcome he was likely to receive.

  He heard shouts in some foreign tongue from behind the door, and eventually, the pack of dogs quieted. Azrael braced himself and lifted his chin when the portal swung open with an eerie moan.

  “Good evening,” rasped an old, gray butler who resembled a reanimated skeleton. He was a small man; the heads of the half-dozen thickly muscled black-and-tan guard dogs seated in a deadly arc behind him were nearly up to his waist.

  Azrael hid his blanch.

  The butler narrowed his eyes at Azrael in disapproval, as though he had been woken from the grave to answer the bloody door. “May I help you?”

  Azrael steeled himself. The moment had come to see if that agent twenty-two years ago had been telling the truth. God help me if he wasn’t.

  With a crisp, precise motion, Azrael lifted the dead agent’s ring and showed its insignia to the butler. “I am the Duke of Rivenwood,” he said. “I’ve come to see the Order of St. Michael.”

  The butler cocked a bushy pewter eyebrow at the ring, then gave him a deadened look. “I’m sorry, sir. I fear you have the wrong address. This place houses the Inferno Club. Members only.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard. Nevertheless, do me the honor of presenting that trinket to your master. And then we’ll see if I have the right place.”

  The dogs growled behind the old man.

  Who looked exceedingly annoyed. “Your name again?” he grumbled.

  “Rivenwood,” Azrael replied, all the more convinced the Order of St. Michael was indeed here, for this was not how a normal butler behaved.

  This old chap had obviously been paid for many years to keep visitors away. “You may tell your masters that I have some rather interesting information for the…gentlemen of the club.”

  The butler scrutinized him. “As you wish. Perhaps you should step in, sir. It is a ghastly night.” He opened the door wider after taking a wary glance at the ring.

  It was a curious thing to say, for the weather seemed the only normal thing about this night, at least in his estimation. But while Azrael appreciated the invitation to enter,
he looked at the white-fanged, panting dogs and couldn’t help but hesitate.

  The butler gave the pack another order in what Azrael now identified as German, then glanced expectantly at Azrael, who took a wary step over the threshold. “May I tell my master what is in the box, sir?”

  Azrael duly lifted the lid to show it contained no weapon, merely papers and books.

  “A peace offering of sorts. I’m sure they will find its contents most enlightening.” Then he closed it again and offered the cask to the strange old man, his heart pounding.

  He could feel that they were being watched all the while, and not by just the dogs, whose black eyes shone with eagerness to tear him limb from limb.

  Someone unseen was sizing him up, and had no doubt heard their whole exchange.

  To be sure, a visitor here must be a rarity.

  Azrael glanced around to see if he could spot the unseen watcher’s hiding place. Unfortunately, the florid décor concealed it too well.

  The inside of Dante House was as gaudy as one would expect for a gentlemen’s club that was said to be comprised of London’s worst scoundrels. From its red velvet furniture to its sticky floors, the place had the feel of a decadent brothel.

  It smelled of mustiness, which was why he’d left the door open behind him, but the butler reached past him and shoved in closed. Azrael heard it automatically lock.

  “Remain here, please. I will take these items to my master.” The ancient guardian of the house then gave the dogs an order that Azrael very much hoped meant Heel!

  Instead, the command apparently meant Stay, for the dogs sat planted, keeping him pinned against the wall where he stood.

  “I shall alert the master you are here.” Having taken the snakeskin box and the ring, the butler pulled on a bell rope, but large as the hulking mansion was, Azrael did not hear the clang at the other end. The old man started to walk away, but paused. “For your own safety, I very much suggest you stay exactly where you are—Your Grace,” he added skeptically, as though he did not entirely believe that Azrael was who he claimed to be.

  Azrael frowned.

  Then the butler marched away slowly into the depths of the house, leaving Azrael cornered by the half-dozen slavering beasts.