That, in truth, was much of what James Everly, Lord Bakeley was. Queen Brighid, help her.
Ah, but she’d learn how to spike his cannon. And she knew, at least on the topic of breeding, that a passionate man hid beneath all that aplomb. When they returned to his townhouse tonight, she’d get his eyes dancing and his blood racing, and once she got through that, he’d damn well help her search for her brother.
Shaldon’s gaze narrowed on them. “Yes, of course, it is your wedding day. You are impatient to get away. I am looking for a man named Donegal.”
Her hair prickled. “Donegal?” Donegal was the man the O’Brian boys were looking for, the man she was supposed to meet.
“You are not going to use my wife as a lure. I will not have Sirena placed in danger.” Bakeley might have been describing the weather.
Shaldon steepled his hands.
“Come, Sirena.” Bakeley planted his feet as if to rise.
“Donegal may have information on your brother,” Shaldon said.
Her new husband never so much as twitched, yet she sensed his rising anger. Her own heart had quickened to a mad race. He took her hands in his.
“’Tis what I hoped for,” she whispered.
“What do you want from us, Father?” Bakeley asked, but his eyes never left her face.
She was trembling, she knew, and it irritated her. The old lord was playing with her, she knew that also, in the way a cat played with a broken beetle as it died.
She was not broken, nor would she die for him.
Shaldon folded his hands in his lap. “Donegal might be willing to speak to the sister of Roland James Hollister.”
“Aye, but will he share secrets with Lord Shaldon’s daughter-in-law?” Her cheeks were on fire. She could never match this English coolness.
“Speak plainly, Father. What do you know of Sirena’s brother?”
“Only what you know. His body has not been found.”
Her head buzzed with the vision of that day—the rider, the note, the chain, Mama’s head hitting the heavy table.
Mama had died the next day.
“But it was,” she whispered. “It was.”
Shaldon’s gaze softened. “A body was pulled from the sea, so badly…well, I’m not convinced it was his.” One long, strong finger tapped the arm of his chair. “Nor are you, Sirena.”
The rush of emotion confused her—gratitude, vindication, more anger. How could he reach into her heart and pull out that knowledge?
“And why do you seek this Donegal?” Bakeley asked.
Shaldon glanced at Kincaid.
“She is family now,” Shaldon said.
A chill went through her. She was family to this man who was part of the machine that spread such sorrow through her land.
“You’ve heard of the Cato Street Conspiracy, and the actions of the radicals last year in Scotland?” Kincaid asked.
When Kincaid spoke, she noticed the burr. “You’re…Scottish?”
“I am. But Lord Shaldon and I spent many years on the Continent seeing what happens when radicals rip apart the social order. They promise change and then install their own despots.”
“But all the radical conspirators were executed last year.”
“There is always a conspiracy afoot.” Bakeley’s voice sounded leaden. “I will not allow my wife to be placed in danger.”
Rebellion stirred in her. This was how it was when one was married. The husband decided what one would and would not do.
She would, of course, try again to find Donegal, though whether she was willing to lead him to Shaldon and Kincaid was an open question. Perhaps not. If he was but an Irishman seeking freedom, she couldn’t wholly condemn him to the English Secret Service. And she wouldn’t discuss any of this with Shaldon, not without speaking first to Bakeley.
If she decided to discuss the matter with Bakeley at all. Wife or not, he wouldn’t control her in that way.
“Perhaps you could tell us something about this Donegal,” she said.
Kincaid jumped into the breach again. “He’s said to be Irish. Believed to have left Ireland about the same time as your brother, possibly on the same ship. Where he went then, we don’t know, but he resurfaced in Scotland two years ago.”
Her brain muddled through the calculations. “That’s more than ten years since he vanished.” And on the same ship as Jamie? The one that sunk? Was he tied up in Jamie’s supposed death?
A chill went through her. Donegal had promised a meeting and not shown up, and perhaps sent that crowd of ruffians after her. “Is he…do you believe he’s dangerous?”
“Yes.” Shaldon spoke. “And quite elusive.”
She wanted to ask what he had in mind. She wanted to say more.
Bakeley gripped her hand like she was sliding off the side of the Honey Bee herself and about to fall into roiling waters, which she would, if she loosened her tongue and spoke her mind.
She hadn’t survived the years of her father’s drunkenness, or the assault by the new Lord of Glenmorrow, or her months of serving Lady Jane without being able to hold her tongue a little. Aye, and wouldn’t marriage and the care and feeding of a titled husband and his treacherous father present new opportunities for keeping silent?
Perhaps Shaldon would say more without her there. She wouldn’t work for the Spy Lord, not against good Irish people, and she didn’t know just what Donegal was yet.
But she knew what she was. ’Twas the sad truth, no matter how many horses she’d bred and trained, she was but a woman, made specially valueless by her lack of a dowry.
Bakeley turned his gaze on her, and her heart did a jig. Valueless, she was, but he’d taken her anyway. Perhaps…perhaps if she handled this husband correctly, he truly would help her.
“Well, then. I’ll go and say my thanks to Lord and Lady Hackwell, and leave you to discuss this matter with your father.” She stood, and so did Bakeley and her new father-in-law.
Her husband moved by her side to the door. “I shall be along directly,” he murmured.
She nodded. “Counting on it, I am.” She leaned in and dropped a kiss on his cheek. “Find out everything.”
Chapter 13
Bakeley strode back and braced his hands on the back of his chair. “Father. Have you gone mad? Call me Father, Sirena? Only days ago you were telling me to stay away from her.”
Kincaid cleared his throat. Bakeley ignored him.
“Did you listen?” Shaldon said. “Did it keep you away from her? No. You were as besotted as a puppy the moment you took her in the dance.”
Fire rushed through him. Besotted, yes, and he should be well on his way to taking her in more than just a dance, instead of talking about using her as bait to draw in a radical.
“But we have learned, have we not. Kincaid, that when circumstances arise, one makes the best of the situation.”
Kincaid turned away to hide a smile, and then he knew. He knew.
Shaldon had engineered his marriage to Sirena as surely as he’d done with the marriage of Bink and Paulette, though he’d used a different set of wiles.
He rubbed a hand on his cheek. He’d been dodging every one of his father’s conspiracies and plots, ever since the fiasco with Bink. Shaldon had thrown Denholm’s chit at him, knowing he would reject Lady Glenna, purposely telling him to stay away from Sirena.
He walked to the sideboard where Hackwell had bottles of liquor and poured himself an amber liquid from a cut glass carafe. Brandy, he hoped.
He quaffed it back and almost choked. It was a strong Scotch whisky, with a bracing burn that smoothed out on the way down. He poured another.
“Not too many, my son, if you’re going to take effective action with your bride tonight.”
He cursed low under his breath and drank.
His mind swam with pictures of her in her gold and red gown, and a chuckle bubbled up from the spot where the liquor had settled. His father’s wishes for his marriage and his own had coincided, and that hadn’
t changed. He had no regrets—so far—about the wife he’d chosen.
But she wasn’t going to work for the British Secret Service. That he would not allow.
“So what is your plan, Father, Kincaid? Or shall I say, what are the parts of your plan you’re willing to share with me?”
“Don’t be angry with me, boy. You’re not unhappy with your wife.”
It was true. He wasn’t. “Nothing can be straightforward with you, can it, Father? First Bink, now me. And you almost got Paulette and Bink killed.”
“Because they didn’t trust me.”
“And who could?”
“The right spouse makes all the difference in your happiness. I’ve tried to lead you lads in the way that would be most effective.”
“Most effective?”
“Yes. My eldest is a warrior. I knew when he saw Paulette in danger, he’d protect her. And then there was the money settled on them, and the chance to stand for Parliament and right the wrongs he saw in society.”
“I see.”
And none of those applied to him. He was a steward of the family wealth, not a warrior. He was rich already. And he would, someday, take his place in the Lords when he inherited.
When his father died.
He studied the amber liquid. He had no wish to rush into the Lords.
“And me, Father?”
Shaldon made a rumbling noise in his throat, sending up a fit of coughing from his gut. Kincaid poured him some of the whisky and handed him the tumbler.
“Please. No swooning, Father. No pretending to die before we have this little talk.”
Kincaid chuckled, a rare enough occurrence that Bakeley knew the coughing was a ruse.
“I’m waiting.”
“You are so like her.”
“Like Sirena?”
Shaldon waved his hand. “Like your mother. Never would let me get away with anything. Even when I was on the Continent, her wagging finger followed me. No foolishness, Shaldon, she would say, and I’d see her in my mind’s eye.”
He snorted. “I fail to see—”
“I didn’t see it either. Didn’t see how well you managed in my absence after she was gone. I didn’t trust your judgment, and so you didn’t trust mine, did you? If I said go, you looked for all the ways to stay. If I said buy, you investigated selling. You became a contrarian, Bakeley.”
Heat rose in him, but he kept his manner cold. “Indeed.”
“And then I learned that Lady Jane had come to town with the late Earl of Glenmorrow’s daughter. I had visited that estate once.”
The hair on Bakeley’s neck prickled. He’d visited Glenmorrow also?
“She was far too young to remember me. She’s grown into a lovely woman, like her mother. Her father was an affable fellow then. Not yet broken.” He handed Kincaid his glass. “Get me another, Kincaid.”
When Kincaid returned, he quaffed the shot. “So Lady Sirena came to town. Hackwell’s Annabelle liked her well, as did Paulette.” He thumped the chair arm and stared at the fire. “And, of course, Jane. The family’s problems didn’t jade the girl, though they easily could have.”
His mind swirled and his head buzzed, but it was the only noise in the quiet room. Very well. He’d been manipulated by the crafty old Spy Lord. In the end, he’d been maneuvered into marrying the wife his father had arranged for him.
He went and got another drink. There was no rush to consummate a marriage so carefully managed.
“Bakeley.” His father’s voice sliced through him. “You wouldn’t have married her had you not wished to. This marriage was your decision, and your doing. I simply made sure you met the lady.”
And told me to stay away from her. And there was the matter of the assault at the docks.
“She could have been killed yesterday. Did you know about it?”
Shaldon nodded.
“Were you behind her assault?”
“Most emphatically no.”
He set the glass down untouched. His father was right, too much drink would dull his senses, already sapped by too little sleep. He’d gone after the forbidden fruit, and he was damn well going to partake of it. “I thank you for this little father-son discussion. I believe we’ll set off for home.”
“I should like very much for you to return to Shaldon House after your honeymoon. Your sister is not entirely content with playing the political hostess and this will be a very lively session, I do believe, with both of your brothers in the Commons.”
Bink certainly would vote for lifting the more onerous of the Six Acts, and Charley might be amenable to siding with their brother. He himself would not have a place in Parliament, not yet, but as the manager of a grand estate and network of commercial interests, he could still exert influence. It remained to be seen how Sirena’s role would play out.
And then of course, there was the man his father wanted to trap.
“Sirena as your hostess, Father?” He tried to picture her at the foot of the great dining table, and shook his head.
Could that wild girl from Glenmorrow’s stable play that role? Would she be willing? Should he give her the choice? Certainly, the small stable behind Shaldon House would be a forceful lure for his horse-mad bride.
“You will, I hope, give us a few days for our honeymoon before Sirena must begin fêting politicians and luring radicals.”
Shaldon eyed him shrewdly and said nothing.
His hair rose. He must be on his toes. And he must get his new bride to their bed, before his father set another plan in motion. “We’ll decide on our arrangements after the honeymoon.”
As for Donegal...
“How do you plan to lure your man out of wherever he is hiding?”
“We’ve not decided,” Kincaid said. “We shall, however, include you in our planning. You must know that. You must tell your lady. I fear she is a determined sort.”
Shaldon cleared his throat.
“No,” Kincaid said. “He must know. The O’Brian boys—”
“Who?” Even as he said it he remembered—the Smith brothers.
Shaldon eyed Kincaid, who lifted a shoulder and spoke. “The two men with her at the docks. Yes, they worked for me upon occasion. Didn’t know your father was involved. They knew her from her home, yes, they did. Yet when we asked them, they agreed to help. Had a poaching charge against them, they did, yet they seemed good sorts.”
A memory of her on the docks arose.
“And the group that attacked her? Were they with Donegal?”
“We don’t know,” Shaldon said. “The docks are filled with riffraff.”
“Find a female operative, one of your women with yellow hair, to play Sirena’s role.”
Shaldon pursed his lips. “We’ll consider it. It may not work, however. We believe Donegal may have seen her already, if not recently then in the past.”
“He’s been a decade away, maybe longer.”
“True. Or possibly true.” His father rose and walked toward him. “Now, take your bride home, son. Kincaid will put a guard around your townhouse.” Shaldon took his hand and shook it heartily. “She’s a worthy wife. No harm shall touch her.”
Kincaid gripped his hand also and then helped the old lord out.
In the years since his return, Shaldon had been turning the world topsy-turvy. And he’d managed to combine matchmaking with his spying business.
All well and good, the sooner they got through the Donegal matter, the sooner Shaldon would move on to Charley.
Donegal. Sirena had surely recognized that name. Neither she nor the O’Brians had shared the name of the man they were seeking. His new wife had kept that secret. He’d have to be on his toes with her also.
He’d have to convince her to share all her secrets, and the only way he knew how to do that was to seduce her until she was witless.
The moment the door of the coach clicked shut, Sirena was pulled onto Bakeley’s lap. His big hand pressed her head to his broad shoulder, and then...nothing.
“Who’s with us?” she asked.
“We are being guarded.”
“By whom?”
He loosed a hand from her back and waved it. “Kincaid. His men.”
“Are we in danger then? And from whom?” She tried to sit up but he clasped her as though she were a piece of Chinese porcelain. “And what about Donegal?”
“Was it Donegal you went to look for yesterday?”
She tried hard not to freeze. Holding her this tightly, he would notice. Yet a little shiver still went through her.
“Please do not lie, my love.”
His love. And if she believed that there was a tree with a leprechaun she could sell him. Still he was right that she should not out and out lie. Close to the truth was always better. In this case, she might as well say it all.
“That was the name the boys gave me.”
“Did you know the O’Brians also worked for Shaldon?”
She went even colder, deep into her core, and all of her fingers and toes numbed. Walter and Josh worked for Shaldon?
And then a hot pounding started inside her head. Bakeley was lying, tripping her up. Conspiring with his Awful Lordship to trap her.
She’d tied her cart to this horse for the rest of her life. What had she done? Oh, dear God, what had she done?
He noticed her fear, of course he did, because that paddle hand stroked her back like he was settling a horse, and the motion inflamed her more. She struggled. He tightened his embrace.
“Let me off.”
He’d trapped her arms at her sides, and was setting his lips to her face. She turned her head to move out of his way, bucked. Squirmed. All to no avail.
Rage built within her. There was no one to help, no housekeeper to lace his brandy with laudanum, no butler ready to bash him.
She opened her mouth to let out a scream. He planted his lips there.
“Get off,” she tried to say, but it came out garbled, and tasted like spirits, and his lips in spite of it all were gentle.
The Viscount's Seduction: A Regency Romance (Sons of the Spy Lord Book 2) Page 12