How easy it had been for her to hold the inevitable at a distance, to pretend the devil would never come calling, asking for his due. But by the harsh morning light when she had dressed in the gown of the day before and ridden in secret with him back to Whitley House, slipping back to her chamber through an old corridor the servants did not typically use, her shame and guilt had threatened to consume her. She had known then something must be done.
She could not bear to remain in Crispin’s life and in his bed, to love him as she did, and continue deceiving him. And so, she had managed to disrobe and hide her beautiful gown, replacing it with a serviceable brown muslin, and headed to the kitchens where she knew she could find a spare corner to craft a dessert and put her mind at work finding a solution.
Jacinda had attacked the problem in much the same way she approached ciphers: with careful deliberation, application of logic, knowledge of possible outcomes and likelihoods. No matter how many ways she looked at her situation, and no matter how much she had loved basking in the quiet happiness of Lady Constance, Lady Honora, and Crispin at dinner, there was only one answer.
Only one way for her to put an end to it all.
With a deep, steadying breath, she lifted the latch, careful to avoid detection. The hour had not yet grown so late that she was confident other servants were not yet about, but she had no notion of when Crispin would return from his sudden departure for his club, and she could not afford to wait.
His disappearance had made the decision much easier. For while she had hardly expected him to follow at her heels like an adoring puppy, neither had she anticipated his indifference. Or just how much it would cost her to sit at the table as his servant once more, unable to call him by name or touch or kiss him. Once more the secret that he kept, the woman he would take to mistress but never to wife.
And despite herself, despite knowing she was not being truthful or even fair to him, the ache in her chest would not dissipate. They had always been doomed, and neither her love for him nor his lust for her could alter that.
She entered his study, closed the door at her back, and found her way to his desk in the darkness by heart. Once there, she lit a candle, beginning the thankless task of riffling through the private correspondence of the man she loved. Her hasty inspection yielded nothing new: innocent correspondence with the steward of his country seat, yet another fond letter from the dowager Marchioness of Searle, a note of gratitude from a foundling hospital.
At last, she reached the locked drawer. Her heart beat a rapid staccato as she withdrew a pin from her hair and set to work attempting to unlock it. She had never before picked a lock, but she understood the way the mechanism worked, and it did not take long for her to feel the lock give way.
The drawer slid open. She knew a fresh wave of shame for invading his space so thoroughly. Her fingers hovered over a small collection of leather-bound volumes, knowing instinctively she had reached the point from which there would be no return.
But she had no choice. If she unburdened herself to Crispin, he would loathe her for her deception, she would return to Kilross empty-handed, and she and Father would be cast into penury. If she did as the earl bid her, she at least had a chance of keeping a roof over her head. She had no widow’s portion from James, and the one man she had depended upon had somehow squandered everything. Her sole hope was that this search, like all the others, would yield no fruit and she could return to Kilross with an honest heart and report Crispin was not in possession of any enemy ciphers.
She extracted the first volume from the drawer, thumbing through it. She recognized his neat scrawl, dates and places, and knew it must be a journal he had kept during his time at war. Naturally, he would wish to keep the content private. How horrible it was of her to intrude upon his innermost thoughts.
A folded paper fluttered to the thick carpet.
Frowning, Jacinda retrieved it, unfolded it, and her heart sank to her slippers. Written in clear script was a collection of letters that formed no coherent words or meaning.No.It wasn’t possible the man she had come to know so well could have been lying to her. She refused to believe it.
Frantic, she sifted through the rest of the pages of the journal, finding another loose page. It too contained a cipher. Sick, Jacinda removed each volume from the drawer, sifting through it. All told, she found seven enciphered letters. Hands shaking, she tucked them all into the secret pocket she’d sewn into her gown.
She returned the journals to their drawer, locked it once more with her hairpin, and snuffed the candle. The leaden weight of dread hung on her chest as she carried her ignominious loot back to her apartments. She had candles aplenty, and nothing and no one would stop her from discovering the contents of the ciphers this very night.
For either she had just betrayed the man she loved, or he had been deceiving her all along.
*
Despite the inordinateamount of time and funds he had spent within its walls, the last place Crispin wanted to be that evening was The Duke’s Bastard. But when he had received Duncan’s urgent summons as Con and Nora prepared to retire for the evening, he had known he must go. Much as he would like to ignore the troubling papers he had found stowed in his desk drawer, he could not.
And so, it was that he found himself ensconced in Duncan’s office once more, this time with a whisky in hand because his friend had insisted upon it. The news his friend had for him could not possibly be good. Duncan settled into his Persephone and Hades chair, his unnerving blue gaze unreadable.
“I can bear the suspense no longer,” he drawled as if he had not a care. When in truth, he had every bloody care. He did not like hardness of Duncan’s expression, as if it had been hewn of granite. “I assume you have had word from your little birds. Tell me, what have you discovered?”
Duncan was solemn. “I am afraid it is not good, Cris.”
Crispin’s blood chilled. Dread sank its fangs into his gut, and the tension spread throughout his body like poison. His hand tightened upon his glass, but he did not raise a drop of the poison to his lips regardless of how tempting it was. “Tell me.”
A muscle in Duncan’s jaw ticked. “It has been brought to my attention a lord who serves the Foreign Office was deep in his cups this evening. He was crowing about his impending glory to anyone who would listen at the hazard table, claiming he had evidence that would prove there had been a plot against the Marquess of Searle. That he was going to be a bloody hero.”
The words defied Crispin’s expectations so severely for a moment, they rattled about in the air and his dumbstruck mind could not ingest them. Could not make sense of them. Taken apart, they made sense. Foreign Office. Plot. The Marquess of Searle.
He could not have been more shocked had Duncan withdrawn a bayonet and proposed to run him through. “A plot against Searle? What in the bloody hell? I was there the day in the farmhouse when theguerilleroturned on us.”
“That is not all,” Duncan said quietly. “Following his decimation at the hazard tables, he turned his attention to one of my ladies. She sought me out after their encounter because he mentioned your name.”
“In what fashion?” he demanded, his grip upon the glass so tight he feared it would shatter into a thousand angry shards.
Duncan tossed back a long swallow of his own whisky, grimacing and exhaling before continuing. “He told her you were responsible for the plot against Searle. That you led him to his death because you were colluding with the French.”
Silence descended. Words floated through his mind, but he could not make sense of them. They made no cursed sense when strung together.
