Damn Liggett for mentioning Joanna! The bastard had no business talking about her. Certainly not at that moment, not when Merritt needed to focus on the riots, when he needed to figure out who was behind them and why—
When he was standing next to Veronica, wanting her more than he’d wanted any woman in his life. Including Joanna.
His shoulders slumped with recrimination. That was why he’d attacked Liggett, why he’d wanted to murder the bastard right there in front of Carlton House. For the first time since Joanna died, he hadn’t been thinking of her.
He’d been thinking of another woman.
He dropped his arm to his side, the tip of the sword pinging softly against the stone floor, and scoured his free hand over his face. Veronica…Christ. He’d managed to dodge all her questions about Joanna and put her into a carriage to send her away, then came straight here. He’d taken time only to shrug out of his jacket and roll up his shirtsleeves before he’d picked up a sword to physically beat down his guilt and confusion.
But the look on her face! She’d wanted answers he simply wasn’t willing to give.
What was he supposed to tell her? My fiancée is dead because I wasn’t able to protect her.
He sucked in a mouthful of air and lunged at the dummy again. She put her faith in me, but I failed to be the man she needed, a man who would keep her safe.
He hacked the blade against the leather now in wide, sweeping swings of his arm as if the sword were an ax. And if you put your trust in me, the same might just happen to you.
Too dull now to cut into the leather, the blade simply bounced off the dummy. Merritt let out a furious growl and pounded at it with the sword’s pommel, striking again and again. Each jarring blow shot an agonizing jolt of pain straight up his arm and into his chest.
“I think it’s dead,” a deep voice called out from behind him.
Merritt wheeled around to find Marcus Braddock, Duke of Hampton, standing in the doorway to the training room. Behind him stood Brandon Pearce, Earl of Sandhurst. Both men still wore their evening finery, most likely coming straight here from Carlton House. And neither man was someone Merritt wanted to see at that moment.
Marcus came forward and frowned at the destruction Merritt had unleashed upon the dummy. He twisted around his fingers a strip of leather that had been hacked from the covering.
“I’ll replace it,” Merritt told him.
“And who replaces you?” Marcus asked quietly. He released the leather casing and gestured toward the sword. “Seems you’re bent on self-destruction these days.”
The accusation irritated like hell. “You’re wrong.”
“I’m not. You’re out every night prowling the streets and rookeries where even the night guard refuses to go because it’s too dangerous.”
“I’m capable of taking care of myself.” More than capable. For God’s sake, hadn’t he dedicated nearly every waking moment of the last five years to fighting so he would never be caught off guard again? To prove it, he turned toward a second sawdust dummy a few feet away and stabbed it with his sword.
“You put yourself needlessly at risk night after night, neglecting your friends and family, ignoring your work—”
“Not ignoring it.” In anger, he flayed the dummy. The dull blade snagged and ripped the leather casing instead of cleanly slicing, but he didn’t care. Nor could he stop the punishing pain and fatigue that flooded through him with each slash and stab. “I did my job tonight.” Another jab into the dummy, this one coming so hard that the blade bent as he stepped forward to thrust it into the leather and sawdust. He panted out between harsh breaths, “Malmesbury’s mistress—it was her carriage that collected Smathers.” He attacked the dummy from all sides now, taking long running charges at it, only to fade back to attack again. He crouched low in his stance, and his thighs burned. “That was my charge for the evening, and I succeeded.”
“And publicly attacking a decorated general without provocation on the regent’s front doorstep?” Pearce called out from the doorway. “Was that part of your charge, too?”
“No. That just felt damn good.” In a spinning strike that dropped him onto the balls of his feet, he swung the sword in a complete circle and struck the dummy from the side. “The bastard deserved to be punched. You both would have done the same.”
“No, we wouldn’t have.” Marcus crossed his arms in a commanding stance that had shaken fear through his enlisted men. “So what set you off like that?”
Merritt gritted his teeth and lunged. He stabbed the tip of the sword firmly into the leather, only to retreat three steps and lunge again. His frustration powered a fierce slash to the dummy’s legs. “That’s none of your business.”
From the corner of his eye, Merritt saw Marcus stiffen, his demeanor growing impossibly more imperial. Good. Merritt loved the man like a brother and trusted him with his life, but this time, Marcus had overstepped.
“You attacked Liggett and then left without one word of explanation to any of us, including your father,” Marcus reminded him. “Is that none of our business, too?”
“I’d finished all that needed to be done there and sent word to Clayton at Whitehall.” The burning ache in his muscles and lack of breath in his lungs nearly overwhelmed him. Still, he fought on. He needed to purge every last piece of fire from inside him. “No reason to stay any longer.”
Merritt swung his sword—
“No reason to stay with Miss Chase any longer, you mean,” Pearce called out.
His sword missed its mark. It sailed through the air with a blow so strong that it propelled him forward after it. He stumbled to find his balance and remain on his feet.
Panting both for breath and to keep down his anger, he turned to face his best friend. “Exactly. Her part of the investigation is over.” He swiped his arm across his face to wipe away the stinging sweat that fell into his eyes. “I don’t need her any longer.”
Pearce scoffed. “That’s a damn lie if ever I heard one.”
Merritt attacked. He charged across the room and forced Pearce back against the wall. He held him pressed there at sword point, the tip positioned beneath his chin.
“You bastard! You, of all people, have no right to say anything.” The cold rage inside him worked to replace the anguish that had compelled him here in the first place. “I told you about Joanna’s death in confidence, and you broke my trust.”
“You told me because it was two days before Waterloo, you were foxed off your arse, and we all thought we were going to die in a hail of French cannon. And I told Clayton because I was worried about you.” Pearce irritably batted the sword away with his arm. “I still am.”
“We both are,” Marcus interjected.
Wanting them to leave him alone, Merritt insisted, “I’m fine.”
“Another damn lie,” Pearce muttered.
This time when Merritt pointed the sword at his throat, Pearce grabbed it from his hand and threw it away. It landed with a tooth-jarring clatter against the stone floor.
“This has to stop,” Marcus ordered. “Whatever it is that’s driving you to take these risks, to behave so unlike yourself, it has to stop. Now. You’re worrying Clayton, Pearce, me, our wives—” Marcus blew out a harsh breath. “For God’s sake…you’re worrying your father.”
Merritt turned away to snatch up the discarded sword and to hide the guilt on his face. “My father isn’t worried about me.”
“More than you realize.”
He crossed to the small table pushed up against the stone wall and grabbed a fresh towel from the stack. He rubbed it over his face. “I’ve given him no reason.”
“He knows about your nighttime patrols.”
Merritt froze, the towel resting against his damp nape. His father knew?
“He approached us about it at the party when he’d heard what you’d done to Liggett.
He admitted that your focus has slipped during the past few months, that he worries about how you go out into the city at night, that you seem constantly distracted.”
“But he doesn’t know why,” Pearce interjected.
“He thinks it’s because of the war,” Marcus continued. “Because you’re having trouble adjusting to life back in London as a barrister after five years of being a soldier.” He paused soberly. “But it has nothing to do with that, does it?”
Merritt shrugged and dropped the towel to the floor. “I think five years of sleeping in the mud and rain, eating spoiled food, and fearing for your life at every turn could make a man—”
“It’s because of Joanna.”
He wheeled toward Pearce. His jaw clenched so hard that his teeth ached. “Do not mention her.”
But Pearce wasn’t cowed in the least and simply crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall, as if settling in for the rest of the night. “It’s because she was killed in a riot, and now you’re doing everything you can to stop anyone else from being hurt in one.”
They had no idea about the darkness that drove him, about what really happened the night she died. But if they wanted to believe that was why he wanted to stop the riots, he’d gladly let them.
“Yes,” he lied and set the ruined practice sword onto the table with a thud. “You’ve figured it out.” He leaned back against the table, assuming the same crossed-arms stance as Pearce. “So now there’s nothing more for you to worry about, and we can end this conversation.”
“No, you’re wrong,” Marcus said thoughtfully, not to Merritt but to Pearce. “It’s not about his late fiancée. At least not completely.” He paused, his eyes narrowing as he studied Merritt. “It’s about Miss Chase.”
Merritt’s pulse spiked. They were meddling too close for comfort now. “Miss Chase is no longer my concern,” he drawled to deflect their prying.
“And that’s the problem, isn’t it?” Marcus leveled a hard gaze on him. “Because you very much want her to be.”
“An escaped convict with a King’s Counsel?” Merritt scoffed, yet the truth cut deep. “I’m a barrister, not a fool. If my behavior is worrying my father now, how happy do you think that news would make him?”
“How happy would it make you?” Pearce countered quietly.
“Miserable.” That was the God’s honest truth. If he couldn’t protect a woman as predictable and conventional as Joanna, how on earth would he ever be able to protect someone like Veronica?
“Good. Because that would be a marked improvement.” Marcus came forward and picked up the sword, then frowned at the ruined weapon. “Because where you are right now is self-destructive and dangerous, as if you’re set on getting yourself killed and won’t give up trying until you’ve succeeded.”
Merritt let out a laugh. “I’m not being—”
Without warning, Marcus lunged, bringing the flat side of the blade against Merritt’s chest and holding him in place against the table. Marcus pushed the blade hard into his waistcoat with both hands.
Merritt froze, knowing not to fight back against the former general.
“You’re no good to anyone like his,” Marcus bit out, his gaze as piercing as a shard of ice. “Not to your father, not to the Home Office, certainly not to the men of the Armory or to me. And not to Joanna’s memory.”
With a hard push, he released the blade and stepped back, leaving Merritt to catch the sword as it fell.
“You’re not only placing our mission against Scepter in jeopardy,” Marcus warned, “but your own life as well. So put the past behind you and move on before it destroys you and all you care about.”
“I am moving on,” Merritt shot back, the anger inside him flaring once more. This time at himself. “For God’s sake! What do you think I’m doing with the riots?”
“Trying to save Joanna,” Pearce answered quietly.
His words pierced Merritt’s chest as easily as a saber. For a moment, he could do nothing more than remember to breathe.
“And you’ll never be able to.” Pearce pushed himself away from the wall and came slowly toward him. “No matter how many riots you stop, how many rioters you arrest and put behind bars, how many innocents you save—she’s gone, and you can never bring her back. You’re not grieving anymore, but you haven’t yet let go of her either. You haven’t let yourself move on, and you’ll never be happy until you do.”
And how the hell do I do that? Merritt’s anger at himself turned into fury at how helpless he felt, how out of control in his own skin. He knew why guilt and anguish ate at his gut every waking moment, why it gave no quarter against the nightmares that plagued him.
Except when he was with Veronica.
When he was with her, he didn’t think about Joanna or the man who killed her. He didn’t remember the guilt that had rained down upon her parents when he’d told them she was dead or his grief at the future that had been stolen from him. What he felt was…alive. For the first time in five years.
Damn the world that it was Veronica! A woman who lived among the worst of London’s underworld and represented everything he’d sworn to fight against. A woman who was the complete opposite of Joanna, in every way.
And damn himself that he couldn’t stop wanting her. And not just in his bed but also in his life.
“You’re no good to anyone like this,” Marcus repeated quietly. “Come to terms with it, Merritt. And quickly. Before other people are hurt—including you.”
That was the problem. Because no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t find a way to end it.
As Marcus turned away to leave the training room, the outer doors of the Armory screeched their familiar grating of metal upon metal. Clayton Elliott strode inside.
“You’ll never guess what I learned tonight,” he announced as he crossed the octagonal room to the side table that held the Armory’s collection of liquor. “I just returned from the Horse Guards. Thought maybe Nate Reed or one of the other men might have information—”
He sensed the thick tension pulsing between the three men and stopped. His hand froze in midreach for a bottle of whiskey.
Clayton quirked a brow. “Am I interrupting something?”
“Not at all.” Marcus joined him at the side table to pour himself his own glass and nodded toward the ruined sword in Merritt’s hand. “Merritt was in the process of destroying the training dummies.”
“I see,” Clayton muttered as Merritt laid the sword aside on a chair, then began to roll down his sleeves to cover the bruises on his forearms that he’d given himself tonight. But wisely, Clayton knew not to question further. “It’s good you’re all in fighting condition, then.” He finished pouring his drink and took a healthy swallow before explaining, “I found out some interesting information about General Liggett.”
Merritt ignored the troubled looks Marcus and Pearce sent him. “What’s that?”
“Liggett volunteered to put down the riots.”
“That’s not surprising.” Marcus frowned. “He’s ambitious.”
“But he’s not a fortune teller,” Clayton corrected. “His letter to Whitehall offering his regiment’s services to deal with the mob arrived the morning after the first riot.”
Pearce amended with a shrug, “He’s very ambitious.”
“And over a hundred miles away in Lincolnshire when he sent the letter.” Clayton lingered at the side table to top off his glass. “The Royal Mail’s good, but not good enough to stop time.”
A cold chill raced through Merritt. He murmured, “He knew about the riots before they happened.”
“Because he’s been in communication with the men behind them,” Marcus added.
“Through Malmesbury’s mistress?” Shaking his head, Merritt tugged at his waistcoat and sleeves to bring them back into place. “I have no idea how she’s involved, bu
t it’s not because of Malmesbury. The man’s incapable of staging riots from his country seat in Yorkshire, nor would he care unless the mob somehow improved pheasant hunting. So what connection does the mistress have to Liggett?”
“I think we should pay her a call and find out,” Clayton decided. “First thing in the morning.”
Pulling in a fortifying breath, Merritt slid his gaze around the circle at the men he considered to be his brothers, these men whom he trusted with his life. They needed his help and wanted to help him in turn. For that, he would always appreciate them.
But he couldn’t bear remaining here a moment longer. He’d go out of his skin if he did. The walls were closing in upon him, and he couldn’t sit still. He needed to patrol, burn off energy, clear his head—now.
“Then I’ll be back at dawn.” Merritt snatched up the jacket he’d tossed over the back of the sofa and walked away, out of the Armory and into the night.
Seventeen
The tiger opened the carriage door and stepped back.
Veronica paused in the doorway, her eyes raised to the hulking warehouse which stood bleak and cold in the darkness. The Court of Miracles. The closest thing she had to a home.
And the last place she wanted to be.
But she’d already had the driver spend the last hour driving in circles around west London as if patrolling from the back of the carriage instead of on foot and still in her ball gown. She’d told herself that she needed a glimpse of the city to see what was happening tonight. But there was no riot, not even a stirring of one, and no reason she could fathom why there wasn’t. The sky was crystal clear, the moon bright—the perfect night for destruction. She’d puzzled long enough on her drive that every quarter of an hour or so the driver would call down to ask if she was ready to head to her destination, and always, she asked him to continue driving on instead so she could view more of the city.
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