“I do wish I could be so dismissive of rules, Miss Montgomery,” his aunt said.
“Have you ever wondered if some rules were not meant to be broken, Lady Beaufort?” Miss Montgomery asked then.
“No,” answered Aunt Hortense resolutely. “They exist for good reason. My poor sister, Felicity, learned that lesson in a most difficult fashion.”
Oh, Christ.Not the tale of Great Aunt Felicity again. It was one of Aunt Hortense’s most beloved sermons.
Lucien cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Aunt, but I must insist. Miss Montgomery and I have some matters requiring our attention. The Duke of Winchelsea is depending upon us.”
“Winchelsea?” Aunt Hortense’s brows rose.
For some godforsaken reason, his aunt was in awe of the duke. On the sole occasion upon which Lucien had entertained him at Lark House, Aunt Hortense had mooned over him like a young girl eyeing her first suitor. Her admiration for Winchelsea had irked him at the time, but he was not above using it in his favor now.
“Yes,” he said smoothly. “Winchelsea himself decreed Miss Montgomery stay here at Lark House, and he has nothing but complete admiration for Miss Montgomery, as have I.”
Perhaps the last bit was a lie. His feelings for his unwanted partner were confusing and jumbled at best. But Aunt Hortense need not know that.
“Well.” Aunt Hortense rose from her seat with a dignified air. “I suppose I cannot help but to defer to Winchelsea. He is one of the finest statesmen of our age, after all.”
“Thank you, Aunt. I bid you good evening.”
Lucien wondered, not without a hint of bitterness, what Aunt Hortense consideredhimto be. But he stood all the same with a feeling of relief, and Miss Montgomery did as well. As his aunt took her reluctant leave, Lucien arranged for coffee and port to be brought round for them. Coffee for Miss Montgomery, port for himself. He would not get her soused this evening. Nor would she fall for his ruse a second time. She was far too intelligent for that.
When the servants had been dismissed, and the two of them were alone at last, Lucien sipped his port and stared at the vivacious conundrum that was H.E. Montgomery.
“That was a falsehood,” she told him.
He quirked a brow. “Pardon?”
Her lips twitched, and he noted, not for the first time, how finely formed they were. How pink. How soft-looking.
“You told your poor aunt you admire me,” she elaborated, an edge of admonishment in her voice.
“I do admire you,” he countered, even though he had just entertained a similar thought himself. But as he said the words aloud, he realized they did indeed possess some truth. “I cannot think of another woman who would have convinced the Home Office to bestow upon her the depth of trust and respect that has been shown to you.”
Her eyes searched his, her countenance unsmiling. “Your aunt believes I am attempting to entrap you in marriage.”
“My aunt lives and dies by the winds of propriety,” he said. “She forgets I have no desire to play a role in polite society; not now, not ever. Scandal does not concern me. Rooting out those who would terrorize innocents, however, does.”
She took a sip of her coffee, and he noted she had added neither sugar nor cream to it, instead, leaving it unadulterated.
“You have every right to be concerned,” she said. “The information I obtained in New York City suggests a new wave of attacks is being planned. They are eager to rally in the wake of the capture and death of some of the key figures of the Fenian movement.”
He nodded, turning his mind easily to the task at hand. They needed to unravel the plans of these would-be marauders before they could even begin. He thought of what she had revealed to him in their investigations.
“You are certain Praed Street and Charing Cross were referenced as potential targets for an explosive device to be planted?” he asked.
“I am utterly certain, Arden,” she reassured him.
The information she had brought to him may indeed be true. Could possibly even be vital to the investigations the Special League would pursue moving forward. However, the Special League had recently arrested an entire ring of Fenians who had been plotting to lay bombs on the railways. He had to be certain her information was not old, and that the suspects in question had not already been removed from the streets before they could inflict damage. Lucien was not in the business of tilting at windmills.
“Who did you hear reference the locations, and when did you overhear it?” he asked next.
She took another delicate sip of her coffee before answering him, and his eyes tracked the movement of her creamy throat as she swallowed. “The Emerald Club is run by a man named Drummond McKenna. He has a handful of trusted associates he often confers with, and I overheard them speaking about Praed Street and Charing Cross in the week before I left my post and boarded the steamer for England. There was great displeasure among the ranks, following arrests made here in the last few months. I understand several of the suspects have turned Queen’s evidence.”
Blast.That was decidedly not what Lucien wished to hear, for it meant another round of plotting was likely underway. “Some of them have,” he confirmed, “which in turn led to more arrests.”
“McKenna was relieved he had never connected himself to the conspirators in a documented fashion,” Miss Montgomery offered. “I was able to surreptitiously read some of his correspondence. He feels confident his name is unknown to police here in England.”
