“Push me at your peril, Trent,” Carlisle warned, his tone soft yet somehow as harsh as a whip. “Forget whatever spell she’s cast upon you with her wiles. We have far more important tasks at hand. More bombs will be fashioned and lit in the streets. They’ve already blown apart a building and killed a child. Innocent lives will be taken unless we act, goddamn it.”
Yes, damn it all to hell. Sebastian took a breath, his superior’s stern admonition recalling the stakes to him. Dynamite. Death and destruction. So many lives were in danger. How many more innocents would shed their blood and lives at the hands of these monsters unless they were stopped? He had sworn to defend his country, and regardless of the way he felt for Daisy, he had to stay true to his oath.
“Liverpool,” Sebastian muttered, flexing his hands. He would not beat Carlisle senseless. Not today. Another day, perhaps. For now, there remained a different sort of war to fight.
“Yes.” Carlisle’s eyes blazed with something akin to madness. “I need you in Liverpool. I need you clearheaded and alert. You’ve always been one of the best, Trent, and we can’t afford to lose you now.”
He would go, though the notion left him cold and hollow. Curious feeling, that. For the entirety of his years serving in the League, only one other mission had given him pause. And that one had been marrying Daisy Vanreid.
“You’ll not lose me,” he said hoarsely. “I’ll uphold my duty to the end. I’ll travel to Hades if the League but asks, and you know it.”
Carlisle gave him a fleeting smile. “Not Hades just yet, Trent. But you must leave at once.”
At once. The words echoed through him, unwanted as ice going down his spine. “I’m to leave now?”
He thought of Daisy, curled on her side, naked beneath the bedclothes, warm and sweet-smelling. She loved him. He loved her. And now, he would have to leave her as if she meant less than nothing to him.
Carlisle nodded. “I trust it won’t be a problem. You cannot tell Miss Vanreid where you’re going or for how long you’ll be gone. She isn’t to be trusted. You will send her a note advising her that a matter on one of your estates requires your intervention.”
He wanted to argue that Daisy was no longer Miss Vanreid. He was proud to give her his name, to blanket her in the protection of his family. She was Daisy Trent now, and she belonged with him, at his side. But how could he even claim her when he was about to abandon her, to leave her with a note and nothing more?
The notion left him cold. His mouth went dry. He didn’t want to do this. Not today, not ever. No part of him wanted to leave Daisy behind. But he was torn as ever between his duty and the woman he’d inexplicably come to love.
What were more lies in a steadily growing sea of them?
“A matter on one of my estates?”
“Cholera,” Carlisle bit out. “Tell her she must remain in London for her own safety. Everything you need will be waiting for you at the rendezvous point in Cheapside. When you arrive in Liverpool, send me a telegram telling me the weather is fair. I’ll join you there as soon as I’m able.”
Sebastian nodded. This was a role he had played before, and perhaps all too well. Being a spy was in his blood. He could do anything he must. Would do anything he must. Being nearly burned alive hadn’t been enough. Why stop now? Indeed, why stop when there were others, far more vulnerable than he, to be protected? Daisy included. Perhaps this would be the way he could finally prove to Carlisle that she had nothing at all to do with the Fenians or their plots.
“I’ll do as you ask,” he said finally, though he still refused to be the first to take a step in retreat. Sebastian Fairmont, Duke of Trent, did not fall back from a challenge, and neither did he step away from his oaths and his duty. Sworn to protect, at all costs. He had known that the day may come when he would have to sacrifice his own happiness for the greater good.
This was that day.
And suddenly, the day was grim, and nothing was as it had seemed.
Carlisle, as it happened, was a man who knew when to switch tactics. He would’ve made a bloody brilliant general. He sidestepped Sebastian and stalked back to the sideboard, hands clasped behind his back as if he hadn’t a care in the world. “Good man, Trent,” he called over his shoulder.
Sebastian still itched to hit him. He needed to leave the chamber before he did something foolish, like charge his superior and feed him his irritatingly even teeth. “Your Grace,” he said instead, keeping his voice carefully modulated with a blend of respect and formality. Not even Carlisle could fault him. “I will take my leave.”
“Do, Trent.” The duke called dismissively over his shoulder. “Get whatever you require, and hie yourself to Liverpool at once.”
Grinding his teeth against a further, most unwise retort, Sebastian spun on his heel and strode to the door of Carlisle’s study. Putting space between himself and the duke was essential. Too much longer in the heartless bastard’s presence would nullify the remaining shreds of honor and dignity to which he currently clung.
His hand hovered over the filigree knob when Carlisle’s voice stopped him.
“Oh, and Trent? Do yourself a favor when you reach Liverpool. Find a whore and fuck her raw. You can thank me later.”
There went the last thread of his sanity, clipped like a scissors attacking a fine embroidery thread.Snip.He was about to come undone. To explode as surely as the dynamite they chased. But no. He would not. Carlisle loved to goad. To push a man to the edge of reason and then boot him off the ledge.
Sebastian wouldn’t fall into his trap. He forced out a breath, controlled himself. “Go to hell, Carlisle,” he threw back with a calm he little felt.
Growling another feral curse, he tore open the door like the savage roaring to life within and slammed it behind him. Still, the small show of violence wasn’t enough. He would have to leave Daisy behind today. And Jesus Christ, something within him wasn’t sure if he could.
He rode away with an aggression that matched the roiling fury inside. Duty called. He had an allegiance to his country and his queen, and that far outweighed the selfish whims of the human heart.
Nothing mattered but this mission. Not what he wanted, not the indelible connection he felt to the woman he’d married, and certainly not his own needs. He had broken the cardinal rule of the spy and had allowed himself to forget he’d been playing a role, that the pleasure of his days with a pawn had been manufactured and temporary.
