“Did you ever hear your father be cruel to your mother?” Archie asked, his heart pounding.
Reggie nodded, moved his castle queenside.
“And…” Archie swallowed as he slid his knight into place, “would you ever speak to a judge about it? Check.”
Reggie nodded and moved the king out of danger. “I would. I need to protect her.”
Archie lifted his queen, placed her down again, into the center of the fray. “Checkmate.”
Reggie blinked several times, examining the board as though Archie had made an error. Then he smiled, a slow, creeping thing that made his cheeks bloom. He extended his arm over the board and was in the middle of shaking Archie’s hand when Marigold entered the room again.
Soft curls of hair haloed around her temples and her cheeks were flushed. “You’re still here?” she asked, but there was no condemnation in the question.
“Mr. Grant beat me,” Reggie said as he stood and started out of the room.
“You did?” She gave him an incredulous look.
“He did,” Reggie called from the threshold. “Should I bathe as well?”
“Yes,” Marigold said over her shoulder without looking away from Archie. “You b-beat him?” she asked as soon as Reggie was out of earshot.
He gave his best cocky smirk. “You needn’t sound so dubious. I’m a good chess player.”
Her gaze narrowed. “You’re p-proud of b-beating a child?”
“Marigold, he’s not a child. He’s a young man and perfectly capable of playing a competitive game of chess. Do you always let him win?”
She hesitated. “I d-don’t want to cause him additional strain.”
“But you’re not giving him a chance to show you what he can do.”
Marigold exhaled on a huff. “It’s my responsibility t-to keep him safe.”
Archie stepped closer, until he could see the shadows left by her lashes on her cheeks. He wanted to smooth the hair from her brow before blanketing it in kisses. “He can’t grow if he’s kept in a cage.”
Her breath caught and her lips flattened. “You wanted to see me? About the letters?”
Right. The case. Always the damnable case. “Yes, I have the letters in my office.”
She gave a brisk nod. “I’ll come by tonight after the children are asleep. Would that b-be alright?”
Marigold in his office after dark? His pulse ratcheted up to another level, until he wondered if he might levitate out the window of the St. Helen’s Square townhouse. “Yes, that would—yes, of course.”
She bit her bottom lip and he almost expired on the spot. “Until t-tonight, then.”
What might happen tonight? Every instinct he had screamed for him to take advantage of the privacy and kiss her, caress her, bring her pleasure like she deserved, make her scream his name so loudly all of York came running—
But he’d just spent the afternoon with her children, and the specter of losing them felt so much darker, so much heavier, that he couldn’t take the risk. Not without her initiating it.
He swallowed hard and forced a smile. “Until tonight.”
Chapter 25
Marigoldsatbackonher haunches and surveyed the rough timeline they’d built across the office floor. She’d tied ribbons from her petticoat together and laid them out from one end of the room to the other, while Archie had hand-written dates on slips of paper, ranging from two years ago—the date of Agnes’ first correspondence with the marquess—to the most recent one six months prior.
“Do you have my letter from the middle of December in 1901?” she asked.
Papers shuffled behind her. “December sixteenth?” Archie said as he handed it over her shoulder. “Is this the one?”
