“Because we don’t have enough of the goods in question,” Marchebanks snapped. “And I’ve already collected payment from both buyers! Don’t lose your nerve on me now, Somers… or I’ll find someone else to take your place!”
“If you could find someone else, you would have already,” Elsworth shot back. “It’s become quite clear to me, Marchebanks, that you’ve burned more bridges than you’ve built!”
A movement above him caught Val’s eye. He glanced up to see a number of men moving into position from the rafters. One of them nearly slipped, catching himself in the nick of time before disappearing once more into the shadows. Still, the noise was distracting enough. As he looked on, a shower of dust drifted from those same rafters to settle on the floor near him. Cursing under his breath, he drew back, hoping no one had spotted him or the telltale signs that the warehouse was playing host to more than treasonous plots and the normal sort of dockside vermin.
From across the way, hidden in his own bower of crates and boxes, he saw Highcliff draw a weapon from the pocket of his coat. A sense of foreboding had settled over Val. It wasn’t the first dangerous situation they’d found themselves in, and while he wanted it to be the last, he was hoping more for retirement than for a permanent sort of end.
“What’s that?” Marchebanks said. “What have you done, Somers?”
“I’ve done nothing,” Elsworth denied. “It’s likely a damned rat. They’re the size of small dogs in here.”
“It had better not be that blasted cousin of yours. If he’s followed you again… well, we wouldn’t even have to question it if you’d managed to distract him with widowhood as we’d demanded,” the woman beside them snapped.
“You think I don’t know what you’re about? I figured out who she is… who she is to both of you. And while I was in Mr. Littleton’s office, after your minions had already been there,” Elsworth snapped at her, “I found the truth of it. She’s a bloody heiress!”
“That paltry sum your grandmother settled on her through my goodwill hardly signifies,” the woman said.
“Paltry? Is that why you had the man killed?” Elsworth challenged.
“I had him killed,” Marchebanks said, “because he knew more about our endeavors than was good for any of us! Now, there’s the matter of the money you owe us, Elsworth. If you expect to profit from this endeavor, you’re going to need to find some way to earn your keep as you clearly won’t be getting the family fortune.”
Val relaxed perceptibly. Whether Elsworth knew of his presence or not, his cousin had offered enough distraction to keep either Marchebanks or his vicious lover from investigating the disturbance.
“Well, my prospects have changed,” Elsworth said. “And I find that I’ve developed a distaste for your business practices. You’ll simply have to find someone else to buy in. I no longer want any part of it.”
“You came here without the money?” the woman demanded.
“There’s no money for me to give you,” Elsworth told her. “You’ll have to pay the captain on your own.”
Val cursed again. The fool would get himself killed. Another glance at Highcliff and the other man’s grim expression confirmed it. If Elsworth didn’t stop talking, they’d put a pistol ball in his brain or a knife in his ribs as sure as the world.
“You forget yourself, Somers,” the woman said, her tone deceptively dulcet. “You do not make the decisions here. I do. If you can’t pay for your part, as promised, then we’ve no reason to keep you around. Especially as your loyalty has now come into question.”
They were out of time. Val rose from his crouch, pistol drawn, and moved toward the trio. “Stop. He’s an idiot, but he’s still family. I won’t let you shoot him.”
The woman laughed. “And how do you mean to stop me? You’re one man, with one pistol, Viscount Seaburn. We have you outnumbered.”
At that moment, Highcliff rose from his own hiding place, a pistol in each hand. “I think you should count again, Lady Marchebanks.”
“What is the meaning of this?” she demanded with a sneer.
“Did you get what you needed?” Elsworth asked. But the question wasn’t directed at Val. It was directed to Highcliff.
“I did, Somers. Thank you for all your efforts on our behalf. I thank you, and the Crown thanks you, as well.”
Val glanced at Highcliff. But if the man was putting on, he was doing so for everyone present and not just him. Had Elsworth been working for him all along? No, he most assuredly hadn’t. But Highcliff was offering them all an out. By claiming Elsworth was one of his agents, undercover, then the lot of them could save face.
Highcliff sauntered toward them, at ease with the weapons he brandished and dressed far more functionally than was typical of him. Wearing black from head to toe, he looked more brigand that dandy.
“Highcliff? What is the meaning of this?” Margaret Hazleton demanded. “I’ll not be waylaid by some popinjay!”
Highcliff arched one eyebrow. “It would be the first time in your life, Madam, that you declined to be laid by any man as far as I know.”
A few other men drifted forward from the shadows then, runners from the looks of them. Highcliff gestured toward Lord Marchebanks and his aunt-by-marriage. “Take the two of them into custody.”
“And that fellow, my lord?” one of the runners asked, gesturing toward Elsworth.
“Mr. Somers fell in with this pair under false pretenses, but once he learned of their schemes, he brought it straight to the attention of the Crown,” Highcliff lied. “As his assistance in this matter has been beyond valuable, I will hardly hold him accountable for his naivete.”
“Aye, my lord,” the runner said and began hauling Marchebanks toward a waiting carriage.
Lady Marchebanks was having none of it, however. Rather than dropping her weapon, she lifted it higher and trained it directly on Elsworth. “You did this!”
“Drop it,” Val said. “I don’t want to shoot a woman, but I will.”
She drew back the hammer, but before she could pull the trigger, another shot rang out. Lady Marchebanks let out a shout as she dropped to the ground, clutching her arm.
Turning in the direction the shot had come from, Val saw Elizabeth Burkhart standing at the open doorway of the building, a still-smoking pistol in her hand. Lilly stood beside her.
“I felt no such compunction to offer her mercy based on something as arbitrary as her sex,” Miss Burkhart said.
“You!” Lady Marchebanks said. “You were supposed to have died years ago!”
“I did, for all intents and purposes,” Elizabeth stated. “I left my daughter on the doorstep of a man I detested and I faked my own death to get away from you and your nephew—the man who has been your lover since long before your poor, stupid husband ever shuffled off the mortal coil.”
Elsworth, weak-kneed after having faced what surely must have seemed certain death, sank to his knees. Highcliff approached him and squatted down. Val, still standing near enough to hear what was being said, listened intently.
“You’ve been given a second chance, puppy,” Highcliff said. “My advice to you would be to lay low until this business is settled. And the moment it’s done, you will be on the first ship bound for Jamaica and whatever property your grandmother bestows upon you to run. Whether you succeed or fail then will be entirely upon your own head.”
Feeling that Highcliff had it in hand, Val closed the distance between himself and Lilly. “What the devil are you doing here?” he demanded.
“We came to stop you from letting Elsworth sink the family’s name,” Lilly admitted. “I should have known Highcliff would have it in hand.”
“I had it in hand,” he insisted.
“No,” Lilly replied sharply. “You didn’t. You were determined to be noble and let him meet his fate! But did you ever stop to think what that would do to us? To any children we might have? Do you really want to have sons that grow up knowing their name, their blood, is shared with a trai
tor?”
“They’re connected to us either way… whether by my blood or yours,” Val pointed out reasonably.
“No one knows who I am, Val. No one knows who my mother is or was.”
“I’m perfectly content to be Anna Hartnett for the rest of my days,” Elizabeth offered. “After all, the whole world thinks Elizabeth Burkhart died more than twenty years ago. There’s no point in disabusing them of that notion.”
“This is not the place to sort it out,” he said. “We need to get you both home and we’ll figure it out there.”
He turned back to Highcliff who waved him on. Satisfied that the matter was in hand, he headed off with the two women. It was difficult to determine whether he was more proud of his wife or more angry at her in that moment. Regardless, she’d put herself in a terribly dangerous situation and that would not be ignored.
*
They rode back to the house on Jermyn Street in silence. None of them uttered a word. By the time the carriage rolled to a halt, the tension inside it was palpable. As they disembarked and entered the house, Lilly let out a startled gasp as Elizabeth wrapped her in a fierce hug. Against her ear, her mother whispered, “Just let him shout. Men get all riled up over the idea that women need to be protected. None of them realize that we’re far more deadly and dastardly than they will ever be.”
With those parting words of wisdom, Elizabeth headed up the stairs and left them alone. But Val didn’t drag her up the stairs to their chamber. No, he grasped her elbow and propelled her down the hall toward the study. Once inside, he slammed the door and glowered at her.
“Everyone in this house will hear you shouting at me whether you do it down here or in our room,” Lilly pointed out logically.
His eyebrows shot upward and a second later, he was dragging his hand through his hair in obvious exasperation as he began to pace the room. “I’m certain they will. But I’m hoping that, in here, I’ll be able to at least resist the urge to turn you over my knee and spank your perfectly-formed derriere!”
“Is it?” she asked, settling down into one the arm chairs that flanked the desk.
“Is what?” he snapped.
“Is my derriere perfectly-formed?”
He whirled on her then. “Do not try to distract me with flirtation and with—do you realize just how much danger you walked into tonight?”
“The same amount of danger that you did when you slipped from our bed and scuttled out of this house like a thief in the night,” she replied.
“It was afternoon,” he reasoned.
“But you did sneak. You skulked. You lied. You tempted me into your bed and when I was sleeping afterward, you slipped out knowing full well that I would have protested you putting yourself in such a situation!”
“I didn’t sneak,” he said. “I was discrete and chose not to disturb you as I was leaving.”
“And that is the definition of sneaking!” She was on her feet again by this point, shouting at him and pointing her finger as if every single lesson in deportment and etiquette from Effie Darrow had been forgotten. She’d transformed into a shrill fishwife.
“It’s different!” Val insisted.
“Why? Because you’re a man? Men can die, too, can’t they? Pistol balls end lives regardless of one’s sex!” she all but snarled at him.
“No! Not because I’m a man but because I love you, damn it! I love you and I don’t want to see you hurt!”
“And I love you and don’t want to see you hurt!” she shouted back at him.
The room fell completely silent then except for the sound of harsh breathing. Both of them stood there, hands on hips, facing off like bare-knuckle boxers at a brawl with the admission of their feelings hanging in the air between them.
Finally, Val met her gaze and some of the heat had fled from his. “Do you?”
“Do I what?” she snapped, not quite willing to let go of the heat yet.
“Do you love me?”
Perhaps it was the uncertainty in his tone, or perhaps it was the overwhelming realization of what they’d just admitted to one another, but she dropped her arms to her sides and offered in a mildly grudging tone, “Maybe. Perhaps just a little.” When he grinned in response, she added, “And did you mean it?”
“Mean what?” he parried.
“Did you mean it when you said you loved me?” she demanded, enunciating each word through clenched teeth.
“Maybe. Perhaps just a little.”
With her own words thrown back in her face, the heat of the argument fled and she sank once more onto the chair. “I couldn’t let you be noble to the point of your own ruin. I never intended to put myself in danger, but if there was a way to get Elsworth out of it without seeing him tried for treason, I had to at least make the attempt.”
“To spare our future children shame?” he asked, dropping into the chair next to hers.
“Yes… and you, and your grandmother. Even in the short time that I’ve been with her, I can see that she has grown weaker. I don’t know that she could have borne it really, regardless of what she says,” Lilly admitted.
Val steepled his fingers in front of him. “Likely not. But I don’t think Elsworth got off as lucky as anyone would imagine. He’s not a man cut out for the tropics. Running a sugar plantation in Jamaica will likely be the death of him.”
“Or the making,” Lilly insisted. “It’s hard to know what a person is capable of until they are forced to find out.”
“And you, Lilly? What are you capable of?” he asked.
“Whatever I put my mind to,” she said.
“Does that include forgiving your mother, my grandmother, and even me?”
She smiled. “It does. I can’t say what things will be like for me and my mother going forward. We’re strangers, and yet I feel connected to her in a way that I cannot explain. And it feels good to know the truth, to know that she loved me more than she hated herself. I always thought her a coward, and now I have discovered she is anything but.”
Val reached for her hand, taking it in his and pulling her from her own chair until she sprawled inelegantly over his lap. His chair creaked rather ominously beneath their combined weight.
“I don’t think this chair was designed for two,” she pointed out.
“So long as we don’t wind up sprawled on the floor, it’ll be fine. I want to hold you for a while,” he admitted.
“Why? I’m not going anywhere,” she said with a grin of her own. “You told me you loved me and now you’re stuck with me forever.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” he said, kissing her softly. “And I’m not holding you to keep you from leaving. I’m holding you because I can… because it’s a way of showing you how precious you are to me.”
Lilly’s heart skipped a beat. “You could show me in other ways.”
He gave her a look of mock outrage. “In the library, Lady Seaburn? You’re positively outrageous!”
“Well, we do have a bedchamber upstairs,” she pointed out.
He maneuvered them slightly in the narrow confines of the chair, until her thighs parted over his and they were face to face. “I think I’d rather see how outrageous you can be in a library. It’ll be salacious.”
“It certainly would be and you do know how much I like that word,” Lilly said as she read the challenge in his gaze. “I did tell you once that I don’t like rules.”
“More than once. Now it’s time to do more than tell me.”
She reached for his cravat, pulling the simple knot free and sliding it from around his neck. “Be careful what you ask for, Viscount Seaburn. You just might get it!”
Epilogue
New Year’s Eve
It wasn’t an overly large party. It consisted primarily of family, lacking Elsworth, of course. He’d set sail for Jamaica only three weeks earlier. There had been no trial for Lord Marchebanks, nor for his aunt-by-marriage, Margaret Hazleton, Lady Marchebanks. She’d succumbed to a fever that had far more to do wi
th a hefty dose of laudanum than with any sort of illness. As for Lord Marchebanks, he’d suffered a worse fate. Too many men locked in prison were little more than down on their luck soldiers. A titled lord who’d chosen profit over the lives and limbs of his own countrymen had stood little chance locked behind bars with them.
“You’re awfully deep in thought.”
Val looked over to see that his wife had managed to sneak up on him. “You move like a cat.”
“Only to a very distracted mouse,” she replied with a laugh. “It’s a festive gathering, Valentine. Now is not the time to be thinking such serious things.”
“I was just wondering how Elsworth is faring aboard ship. He was never a very good sailor,” he explained.
“I know you’ll miss him. But I do not think he will miss you… not yet. You’ve cast a long shadow over him for too many years,” Lilly said softly. “When he’s had a chance to prove himself, to sink or swim on his own merits, perhaps things can be repaired between the two of you.”
“I shouldn’t care. He was very unkind to you.”
“He was a bully to me,” she answered. “Because he felt threatened by my presence and with very good reason. Our marriage was the hallmark of the end of all his expectations of a life of wealth and ease. Why would he not resent me? It would take a better man than most to swallow such a bitter pill.”
Val let his gaze travel over her, taking a moment in a room filled with people to appreciate the beauty, spirit, and intelligence of the woman his grandmother had essentially handpicked for him. “If I thought she wouldn’t throw it in my face for being a waste of money, I’d buy my grandmother the gaudiest diamond that Garrard’s has to offer.”
“Well, she would throw it back in your face… and why in heaven’s name would you do such a thing?”
He grinned. “To thank her for you. Of course, if I do, neither of us will live it down.”
Lilly cocked her head to one side. “Your grandmother may shun such extravagance, but I personally see nothing wrong with showing one’s appreciation for someone with jewelry.”
Barefoot in Hyde Park (The Hellion Club Book 2) Page 22