We would suit in some ways, said a wicked inner voice.
One she promptly stifled, along with all unwanted reminders of just how lovely it had felt to have his mouth between her thighs. The pleasure had been beyond the realm of her fanciful imaginings. But that was the way of it with rakes, she reckoned. They were masters of seduction.
She must not forget that the Duke of Ridgely was also arrogant and overbearing. He was the man who had stolen her books and barred her from the library. Who had sold Greycote Abbey. Who had called herinfantin such mocking tones, his perfect mouth always twisting in a half smile as if she were a joke only he found amusing.
To the devil with him. He could take his proposal of marriage and stuff it in his ear as far as she was concerned.
“Give yourself some time to contemplate the matter,” Lady Deering advised. “I’d wager you will change your mind.”
“Never,” she vowed firmly.
No, she would not marry the Duke of Ridgely. Nor would her opinion alter. Her decision had been made.
CHAPTER13
“Come.” With a rude sneer and nod of his head that no well-trained servant would ever make, Archer Tierney’s butler turned on his heel and stalked away.
Apparently, Trevor was meant to follow the fellow.
He stepped into his old friend’s new town house for the first time, seeing the door closed at his back. No one offered to take his hat and gloves, but then, this was hardly a social call. Trevor had made the journey from Hunt House in an unmarked carriage with an armed guard accompanying his coachman. After two failed attempts on his life, he wasn’t interested in taking further chances.
If the bastard wanting him dead tried again, he’d have the fight of his bloody life next time. Bad enough Trevor had to be kept from sleep by the dreams which continued to claw at him, until he woke sweating in the night, half-convinced a new assassin had come to deliver him to his bloody end.
He traveled over the marble entry and up a set of carpeted stairs, trailing the large, scarred guard. The house was elegantly appointed, with a noted dearth of wall hangings. Not an ancestral bust or portrait to be found. Also not surprising, a reminder that Archer Tierney hadn’t inherited his wealth. He’d earned it.
“In ’ere,” the butler growled, opening the door to what Trevor presumed was Tierney’s study.
Trevor crossed the threshold, finding Tierney and Logan Sutton already within, seated at a pair of armchairs by the hearth. Tierney held a smoking cheroot in his long fingers, looking menacing as ever. They stood in deference at his arrival.
“Thank you, Lucky,” Tierney told his scowling butler. “That will be all for now.”
The servant—inaptly named, judging from his unfortunate countenance—tugged at his forelock and quit the chamber, leaving Trevor, Tierney, and Sutton alone. They were old friends from disparate heritages. Sutton had been born to the rookeries. Tierney was the bastard son of an aristocrat. Trevor had been the third son, a wayward devil-may-care no one had given a damn about. They had worked together as spies, ferreting out the secrets of traitors and revolutionaries, catching dangerous men on behalf of Whitehall.
Until Trevor had unexpectedly inherited after his father’s and brothers’ untimely deaths. First his brothers, one after the other, and then his father. And suddenly, Trevor had been an unlikely duke with the weight of the world upon his shoulders. Estates and people who depended upon him. A mother who resented him. Now a ward. Soon—God—a wife. He had stepped back from the Guild after becoming duke because he’d had far too many familial obligations suddenly calling him. They’d only mounted since then.
He found himself suddenly missing the days when they had worked together. How simpler life had been. Dangerous, and yet in the danger there had been a deep and abiding camaraderie. A greater sense of purpose that had been strangely absent from his life. Or, at least, it had been until Virtue had arrived in London.
“Still alive, I see,” Tierney observed, unsmiling. “My men are taking their duties seriously, yes?”
Thank Christ Tierney still possessed so many connections with cutthroats. He was the eyes and ears of London’s underbelly. And Trevor was damned glad to have the guards Tierney had sent him watching over Hunt House. If Tierney trusted them, he had no doubt they were loyal and fierce.
“Quite seriously,” he said. “Thank you for that.”
“It is the least I can do for an old friend,” Tierney said magnanimously. “Besides, I trust you’ll pay handsomely for the effort.”
Tierney’s days as a moneylender were showing. But no matter. The ducal coffers had coin aplenty.
Trevor inclined his head. “Naturally.”
“Good man.” Tierney grinned then. “I’ve made some inquiries on your behalf, and I believe I may have news for you concerning the chap who broke his neck on your stairs.”
“Word from Bow Street?” he asked.
“We’re a step ahead of them as usual,” Tierney said.
“A young actor has recently gone missing,” Sutton added. “His brother reports that he hasn’t been seen for nearly a week, and that he has failed to appear at the theater for the drama in which he was a player.”
The news was most unexpected.
