Far too warmly. Lucien cut his roast beef with more force than necessary. The sound of his cutlery on the china resonated through the room, sending two pairs of eyes in his direction. At last, that light-blue gaze was upon him.
He forced a smile to his lips, even as a memory of how responsive her mouth was beneath his struck him. He banished it and forced his attention back to their host. “We are very fortunate indeed, Winchelsea.”
Just as fortunate there was a large expanse of dinner table between himself and Miss Montgomery. Else he could not be trusted to avoid hauling her to him for another kiss. His need for her had not abated in the days of distance he had enforced. To his utter horror, he found it had only grown. He had been given a small drop, and he wanted the entire bloody ocean.
Before further conversation could occur, the butler reappeared, bearing a missive for Winchelsea. “Forgive the interruption, sir, but I was informed by the courier that it was urgent.”
“Thank you, Havilock. That will be all for now.” Winchelsea accepted the note and read hastily, his face turning ashen.
The domestic bowed and beat a hasty retreat, gesturing for the footmen presiding over the dinner to accompany him. The door had scarcely closed upon them when Winchelsea looked up from the missive. His countenance was one Lucien recognized well. It was the same expression he had seen on the faces of men witnessing death for the first time; that odd, yet distinct blend of shock, numbness, and fear.
Something terrible had occurred. There was no question of it. Every muscle in Lucien’s body tensed. Out of the periphery of his gaze, he noticed Miss Montgomery’s back stiffen, her shoulders squaring, as if she were preparing herself for a blow. It would seem she was no stranger to such grim scenes as this.
“There have been two explosions this evening,” Winchelsea announced. “They occurred just minutes apart.”
“Where?” Miss Montgomery demanded, rising from her chair, as if she intended to storm to the location and find answers that very instant.
“Praed Street and Charing Cross stations,” he elaborated grimly. “Dozens are feared injured, if not hundreds.”
Shock washed over Lucien, followed closely by rage. Innocent men, women, and children going about their daily lives and performing a task as commonplace as sitting upon a train. And they had been wounded.Damn it.
“It was the Fenians,” he said with certainty, swallowing down the bile rising in his throat. Would their bloodlust know no end? How could these few, dangerous zealots possibly believe they could win Irish Home Rule by the attempted slaughter of men and women going about the business of earning their daily bread?
“There can be no doubt,” Miss Montgomery added.
Winchelsea interrupted. “Speculation is abounding, of course. We cannot be certain as to the cause, until a full investigation occurs. We must take care and maintain objectivity, so that we are certain the conclusion we reach cannot be questioned. The explosions may have been caused by gas.”
“Were it but the one, I would concur,” Lucien said. “Two explosions in one evening, at two different stations, separated by such distance, cannot be the work of an accident.”
Miss Montgomery had been right. Her concerns and observations had been precise.
“It is just as I feared.” Miss Montgomery’s tone was resolute. “McKenna and the Emerald Club are responsible for this. I am certain. McKenna strikes like a snake, fast and deadly. I have witnessed him do it with business associates and club members who did not prove their loyalty sufficiently enough to appease him.”
The man sounded like a viper himself.
“I fear we must put an end to our dinner,” Winchelsea said, stating the obvious. “I need to meet the Scotland Yard director at the Praed Street station. As I understand it, there is much chaos and confusion.”
“Of course.” Lucien bowed. None of them had an appetite for food any longer, not after learning explosions had torn apart railway cars and injured innocent people. “Miss Montgomery and I will take our leave.”
“I arrived by hired hack,” she informed him coolly.
“But now, as my partner, and in this time of great tumult, you shall accompany me. Your safety requires it, would you not say so, Winchelsea?”
“Oh yes,” the duke acquiesced, sounding partly distracted, partly in shock. “Allow Arden to escort you this evening, madam, if you please. It shall do my heart good to know you are safe.”
Miss Montgomery’s expression turned obstinate, and he sensed an argument. He knew her well enough by now to know she did not believe she required a man’s protection. And he also knew she would not wish to be doing anything this evening other than investigating.
They were well-matched in that regard, for he too had every intention of digging for answers. The criminals responsible for these atrocities could still be within their reach, but time was essential.
“Of course she will allow me to escort her,” he answered on her behalf, quirking a brow at her and daring her to challenge him. “Will you not, Miss Montgomery?”
She stared at him, searching his gaze, her pause far longer than necessary. “Of course,” she relented at last, before turning her attention back to Winchelsea. “I would not dream of worrying you, Your Grace.”
The smile she had given Winchelsea made Lucien grit his teeth. But he circled the dinner table and offered her his arm just the same. And then he swallowed his damnable pride, met her gaze, and asked the one question he would have sworn he would never put to his unwanted American partner. “What do you propose we do next?”
Once more, Hazelfound herself sitting opposite the Duke of Arden in the confines of his handsome carriage. And once more, his long legs nearly brushed against her skirts. Once more, the carriage smelled of leather andhim. The stakes were different, far higher than ever, but her reaction to him was alarmingly the same.
She tried not to stare at the man, truly she did. In the softness of the lamps lighting his carriage, he was an alluring, shadowed mystery her eyes could not help but seek. At the Duke of Winchelsea’s dinner table earlier, he had been cold and aloof, his jaw rigid. And he was no less tense now, given the grim circumstances in which they found themselves.
