Relief crashed over her, so sudden and fierce that her eyes burned. “Your Grace, I don’t know how to … the debt was eight thousand pounds. I cannot possibly repay?—”
“I’m not asking you to.” He held up a hand, forestalling her protests. “Consider it an investment in resolving this situation cleanly. Bragg was a loose thread. Now he’s dealt with.”
Louise stared at him, this cold, controlled man who had just erased her most immediate terror as though it were merely an item on a ledger. “Why would you do this for us?”
Something shifted in his expression, there and gone before she could name it. “Because men like Bragg rely on their victims having no recourse. It costs me little to prove him wrong.”
She wanted to argue, to insist that eight thousand pounds was notlittle, that his generosity created a debt she could never repay. But the set of his jaw told her such protests would be unwelcome.
“Thank you.” The words felt inadequate, but she meant them with every fiber of her being.
He acknowledged this with a brief nod. “Now. Our next task is locating your brother. I have connections who can search more effectively than you could alone. I intend to make inquiries today.”
“What sort of inquiries?”
“I know a man at Bow Street. A Runner named Howlett. He owes me a favor, and he’s skilled at finding people who don’t wish to be found.”
Louise’s fingers found a loose thread on her sleeve. “George rarely confided in me about his business ventures. He left after dinner one evening and said he had business to attend to.” She tugged at the thread, then forced herself to stop. “He didn’t return.”
“Did he mention what kind of business? Or where?”
“No. But he seemed agitated that evening.”
The Duke’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “And you’ve heard nothing since? No message, no word through friends?”
“Nothing.” The admission stung. “I sent our butler to his usual haunts, his club, even some of the less reputable establishments he frequented. No one claimed to have seen him.”
“Or they were paid not to say,” he made a note in his ledger. “I’ll need a list of his associates. Anyone he might turn to for help or shelter.”
Louise almost laughed. “His friends abandoned us months ago when the money ran out. As for associates …” She thought of the increasingly rough men who’d come calling in recent weeks. “I doubt they’d help without payment.”
“Let me worry about payment.” He said with finality. “Names, Lady Louise. Anyone you can think of.”
She provided what names she knew, watching his precise handwriting fill the page. His hands were elegant despite their size, ink-stained at the fingertips. Working hands, not merely decorative ones.
“That’s all I know.” She felt useless, providing so little. “I’m sorry I can’t be more helpful.”
The duke set down his pen and looked at her directly. “You’ve helped plenty, my lady. You’ve been managing alone for far too long. I’ll handle this now.”
“He’s my brother. My responsibility.”
“He abandoned his responsibility to you.” The words carried quiet fury. “Now you’re under my protection, and that extends to cleaning up his messes.”
Louise straightened her spine. “We’re not your messes to clean up, Your Grace.”
“No.” He stood, moving to the window, his back to her. “But you’re here now, and I protect what’s mine.”
The possessiveness in his voice sent an unexpected shiver through her. “We’re not yours either.”
He turned back, something intense flickering in his eyes. “For now, Lady Louise, you are. Until your brother is found and this matter is resolved, you and your sister are under my protection. That makes you mine to keep safe.”
The words hung between them, carrying more weight than their surface meaning. Louise found herself unable to look away from his steady gaze. The fire crackled in the hearth, and she realized how the afternoon light caught the powerful line of his jaw, the way his broad shoulders filled the window frame. The study felt smaller than it had moments ago, the air thicker, warmer.
His eyes dropped to her mouth. Just for an instant. So brief that she might have imagined it.
She hadn’t imagined it.
Heat bloomed across her cheeks, spreading down her neck to places she refused to acknowledge. Her pulse beat a traitorous rhythm against her throat, and she watched his gaze track the movement there, too.
