“Is it yours?” she asked.
A reasonable question, considering the home they had spent the previous evening in had been. “It is the home of a friend. Someone we can trust.”
At least, he hoped it was. He and Ludlow had been acquaintances more than friends during their League days, and Ludlow had resigned his commission recently, one more casualty to marrying a woman and finding love. But there was no guarantee he and Violet would find a welcome here. It was, however, his last, best resort. But he did not dare reveal any of that to the woman at his side.
Up the steps they went, hands still clasped.
He knocked on the door soundly.
The butler on the other side of the portal was stern, steel-haired, and frowning as Griffin was convinced all butlers were trained from birth to wear as their natural, resting expression.
“The Duke of Strathmore, I presume?” he asked, his countenance unperturbed.
What the devil?
He had not given advance warning for this leg of the journey.
“None other,” he forced himself to say. “But I do not believe I am expected.”
“You are indeed expected by Mr. Ludlow and the Duke of Carlisle, Your Grace.” The butler stepped back, allowing Griffin and Violet in his wake to enter. “If you and the lady would follow me?”
Bringing Violet’s hand to the crook of his elbow, he nodded. He did not know how Carlisle and Ludlow, soon to be Lord Stanwyck, a peerage created for services rendered to the Crown, expected him or awaited his arrival. When he had sent word ahead to his connections with Violet’s aid, he had not thought of delivering a message to his former leader.
Now, it seemed very much like something he ought to have done.
In silence, Griffin and Violet followed the butler to a brightly colored salon overlooking the gardens of Harlton Hall. The butler ushered them within, then closed the door, leaving them in complete privacy. Ludlow and Carlisle, both behemoths of men and half brothers, rose upon their entrance, offering bows to Violet.
“Strathmore,” Carlisle greeted him. “What brings you here?”
“Arden,” he said succinctly, “and the small matter of my imminent incarceration.”
“It took you the better part of an hour to make it down the drive in that ramshackle cart,” Ludlow added. “Was that a donkey pulling you, or an old mule?”
He gritted his teeth. “A horse. A very old and decrepit and nearly lame one. Were the two of you watching my painful progress?”
“Aye,” Ludlow confirmed without a hint of compunction. “We haven’t much to occupy us these days since we have both resigned from the League. Watching you struggle to guide an old mule up the drive was most entertaining.”
“Horse,” he corrected grimly.
“Precisely what he said,” Carlisle chimed in, grinning.
Bloody hell, he was already regretting his choice. Far from the most feared men in the League, cutthroat agents with histories that would make hardened soldiers blush, Carlisle and Ludlow both seemed appallingly happy and domesticated and…content.
“But you have a lady accompanying you. Very remiss of me.” Carlisle could be debonair when he chose to, and at that moment, he turned the force of his rare charm upon Violet, and damn if it didn’t make every one of Griffin’s possessive hackles stand on end. “Good evening, my lady. I am the Duke of Carlisle, at your service.”
“This is Lady Violet West,” he said pointedly. “Sister to the Duke of Arden.”
“Damnation,” Ludlow breathed.
“Arden’s sister?” Carlisle barked, his grin fading.
“Precisely what I said,” Griffin shot back at the pair. “My betrothed, to be specific.”
“Betrothed.” Both brothers repeated the word simultaneously.
“Yes.”
“You brought Arden’s sister here to us?” Ludlow asked.
