“Bloody fucking trousers,” he muttered to himself, before he followed in her triumphant wake.
Hazel stared downat the notes she had made in her journal the evening before, doing her utmost to remain impervious to the presence of the very large, very handsome, very proficient kisser seated behind the massive, elaborately detailed desk in his study. She was pacing the rug back and forth as she was wont to do when deep in the cobwebs of her own musings.
“There have been no sightings of Sean Flannery or Thomas Mulroney?” she called over her shoulder to Arden, progressing through the items on her list.
“Not one,” he confirmed.
“Blast,” she muttered to herself, continuing to pace to the opposite end of the cavernous chamber as she attended to the next item upon her list.
It had been several days since she and Arden had visited the damaged railways to examine the aftermath of the explosion. Broken glass had been everywhere. Carriages had been transformed into mangled wreckage, scattered like felled beasts in eerie silence. Pipes and telegraph wires inside the tunnels had been ruined by the blast, office windows shattered. Miraculously, no one had been killed, though many had suffered serious injuries. She still shuddered to think of the intensity of the damage left behind, to imagine how terrified the passengers must have been in the wake of the detonation, destruction all around them, everything plunged into darkness.
The Home Office’s Chief Inspector of Explosives had determined the cause of the blasts, and it had not been a gas leak. Rather, Fenian bombs. London was a city clenched in the grip of terror. Police had been stationed on the railways to stave off further attacks, and the pressure to find and arrest those responsible for colluding to plan and carry out the bombings was tremendous.
“Has there been word from the agent I was working with in New York?” she asked next, irritated anew that Eli was not being permitted to send her telegrams directly. The Home Office regulated all messages containing sensitive information, which meant she had been forced to beg for information Eli passed on from either the Duke of Winchelsea or Arden himself.
Arden had taken note of her repeated requests to contact Eli, and she did not miss the manner in which his nostrils flared and his shoulders stiffened whenever she mentioned him. Eli Fairchild had been her partner in New York City for the last several months, and she was as concerned for his safety as she was eager for any new information he could offer her.
“Are you referring to Fairweather?” Arden asked from the opposite end of the room.
She spun about to face him and looked up from her notes, frowning. “Eli’s surname is Fairchild, as you well know.”
“Hmm,” was all he said, his attention riveted upon the documents he had laid out atop the surface of his desk.
His lack of concern for Eli’s well-being nettled her as much as the manner in which he treated her as if she were another piece of furniture in his study did. “I wish to know whether or not he has been informed that Flannery and Mulroney recognized me. While I was in New York, Eli posed as my husband, and if word reached the Emerald Club that Eli’s wife turned up in London under suspicious circumstances, he could well be in danger.”
“Mr. Fairchild has been informed,” was all Arden said, his tone cool.
“I would like to contact him myself directly,” she said, though this was not the first time she had made such a request. Nor would it be the last if he denied her once more.
“Miss Montgomery, we have been over this matter already.” He sighed, still looking down at the surface of his desk, shuffling through a sheaf of missives. “The Home Office will contact your fellow Pinkerton in New York. He has been made aware of everything that has occurred here in London. You may rest assured of that.”
“Though you and Winchelsea have both denied my requests thus far, I have never been given a reason,” she prodded, marching across the empty span of carpet between herself and his imposing desk. Even the chairs opposite it were rigid and unforgiving, and she could not help but to wonder if Arden had chosen them intentionally for just that reason.
He looked up at her at last, his face devoid of all expression. But his green eyes were cold, his jaw rigid. “Is he your lover?”
She stopped pacing, so stunned by his abrupt question, she could do nothing except stand there and gape at him, wondering if she had heard him correctly. “I beg your pardon?”
“Fairchild,” he gritted. “Is he your lover?”
She almost blurted the truth, which was that Eli Fairchild was far more like a brother to her than a lover. But that would have been too easy. She did not like the manner in which Arden had so easily dismissed her after what had happened in his carriage on the way to Praed Street. Nor did she like his aloof mannerisms toward her, or the way he seemed to take every effort to avoid looking at her or speaking to her about anything aside from Special League matters.
“Would it matter to you if he was?” she asked, staring him down.
Let him be the first one to blink, the first to relent, she thought.
Only, this time, he did not. He inclined his head, stoic and regal as ever. “I asked you a question first, Miss Montgomery.”
“An impertinent one,” she countered smoothly. “My private life is none of your concern.”
“It is my concern when I have enjoyed intimacies with you,” he countered, rising from his chair at last.
She would wager it had eaten him alive to forego his gentlemanly training and remain seated while she paced. Indeed, she hoped it had. She was vexed with him. And frustrated. And fairly bursting with feelings and emotions she had not experienced in a very long time.
Hazel considered him solemnly. “Did youenjoythe intimacies you shared with me, Arden? I confess, I could not be certain.”
“You know I did.” He stalked toward her, his countenance darkening.
Damn him, he was handsome when he was angry. And when he was distracted. And tired. And happy. And even when he was solemn. Especially when he was in the midst of contemplating evidence, because he acquired the most endearing furrow between his brows. A furrow she longed to kiss.
