Sebastian kept his eyes trained forward as he rode, pretending as if he hadn’t heard his friend speak. It was early, and Hyde Park was not yet teeming with the scores of horsemen and parade of the fashionable that would inevitably clutter it. Dawn rides had long been their habit—the perfect cover for relaying sensitive information that was best not entrusted to paper.
Impossible? No. Improbable? Yes.
But as it happened, Sebastian wasn’t inclined to give a damn. For the first time in his life, he felt… at peace. He’d dedicated his life to the League, but he had finally reached his limit. He would not send an innocent woman to gaol. He would not misuse her after she had given so freely of her body, mind, and heart. By God, he would not treat her as a pawn for another moment more.
Because she wasn’t a pawn.
She was Daisy, and she was strong against all odds, and her laughter was infectious, and she had changed him in a way he’d never imagined possible. She had opened a door into a life he might have, and God help him, he intended to walk through that door. With her at his side. He intended to take that life and make it theirs.
“Sebastian,” Griffin said again, and this time his tone was grim.
Grim because he could read Sebastian better than anyone else could. But Sebastian didn’t want to hear any of his friend’s sermons. He didn’t need any further reminders and warnings concerning Daisy. His mind drowned in them. The only thing keeping him afloat in this vast ocean of self-loathing and confusion threatening to consume him was the same person Griffin warned him away from.
Daisy.
And that was why he wanted her as his true wife, for the rest of their lives. She was everything he wanted, and nothing he’d ever imagined he’d needed. He’d realized that he couldn’t get her out of his life until he got her out of his blood, out of his head, and out of his bed. But he couldn’t do that. Wouldn’t do that.
She was his, full stop.
“Sod off,” he said conversationally.
He didn’t want to hear what Griffin had to say. Not a word.
“You took her to the opera,” his friend countered. “A book shop, the museum, hell, Sebastian, you’re courting the chit. Have you lost your goddamn mind?”
He continued to ignore Griffin, urging his mount into a faster pace. Eyes and ears everywhere, he thought bitterly. Apparently, Carlisle’s little birds had been following him about with more dedication these days. Was Griffin one of those birds? The thought was akin to a knife to the gut. He was like a brother to Sebastian. The brother he’d never had.
Griffin’s gelding matched his mare pace for pace. “You’re bedding her,” he called out, “and it’s turning you into a fool. Do yourself a favor and find someone else to fuck.”
That was bloody well the wrong thing to say to him. The wrong fucking thing to say to him.
Sebastian reined in his horse and dismounted, forcing his sometime friend to do the same. They squared off like a pair of prize fighters, staring each other down. Rage coursed through him, tightening his jaw until his teeth gnashed together. Sebastian broke the uneasy silence first.
“Never speak of her that way again,” he warned in a voice that vibrated with barely suppressed fury. He had never before wanted to smash his fist into Griffin’s nose the way he did now, so much that his knuckles ached with it.
“You want to hit me, Bast?” Griffin sneered. “Over a set of skirts you haven’t even been bedding for the span of a month? Go ahead, you prick. Choose a treasonous tart over our brotherhood. Hit me. See what happens.”
A set of skirts.That was the phrase that did it. Or perhaps it wastreasonous tart. Sebastian would never know for certain. All he did know was that in the next breath, his fist collided with Griffin’s jaw.
His friend’s head snapped back, and he stumbled before regaining his footing. “Jesus, Sebastian. What the bloody hell?”
He stared back at Griffin as pain seared his knuckles, and as a reddish-purple bruise blossomed on his friend’s jaw. “Fuck. I didn’t intend to strike you, Griff. I’m sorry. It’s merely that she’s… ”
He allowed his words to trail off for fear of where they’d been headed.She’s the woman I love.Had he really been about to say such a ludicrous thing? Of course not. There was a vast difference between desiring a woman as his companion and having her in his bed andlovingher. He’d only been married to her for the span of a fortnight, Chrissakes.
“She’s colluding with the Fenians,” Griffin finished for him. “Tell me you don’t think she’s innocent, Bast.”
“Her father is colluding with the Fenians,” he corrected coldly. “Her father who beat her savagely from the time she was a wee, defenseless girl of four. Her father who she never wants to see again. Vanreid is the enemy we seek to bring to heel, not Daisy.”
Griffin’s expression remained hard as stone, unreadable. “I suppose we’ll find out the truth of that soon enough.”
There was something his friend hadn’t said, and he knew it. “Meaning?”
“It’s time, Bast.” Griffin rubbed his bruised jaw. “Carlisle wants you to proceed with approaching Vanreid about a dowry. He expected you to do it sooner than this, and he isn’t pleased. You’re to invite him to your home. We need to pin the firearms to him. We’ve word from our American agents that an attack is imminent. They’ve commissioned a bloody submarine, Bast. It’s built and seaworthy, and they have every intention of using it to bombard one of our vessels. This is war.”
Sebastian’s blood went cold. He knew what was expected of him, but he’d been hoping like hell that there would be another way. That Carlisle would change his battle plans and leave Sebastian with a more palatable option.
The thought of having Vanreid present in his home made his skin crawl. The son-of-a-bitch ought to be disemboweled for what he’d done to Daisy, and that was a bloody, nasty business. Sebastian had seen the aftermath of just such a killing, and though it haunted him to this day, even an end as ghastly as that would be too merciful for Vanreid.
