With shaking fingers, Rosie folded the letter and slid it back into the envelope.
She had to get to Balleter. It rankled to lose at the final hurdle to the blackmailer, but in this moment, reading the completely spurious threats against Bull, she knew she’d do anything to protect the man she loved.
It was only a painting. He was her man.
Rosie glanced at her father, obliviously muttering to himself as he read his correspondence.
“Cockwomble…maddening chrimping dankbotherers…”
The letter had been quite specific; she couldn’t tell DaorBull.
But she was honest enough to admit that she was terrified of running off to Balleter alone. It was what the blackmailer had demanded, but this was the bastard who’d chanced a daring daylight robbery, who’d pointed a gun at her and Bull. She’d thought him dead, but…
Rosie swallowed.
But he was very much alive.
If she arrived in Balleter with the portrait and delivered it as demanded, she’d be able to save Bull’s reputation and his business. But there was no reason Bull shouldn’t know about it after the fact…
She had to fetch the portrait.
And write a letter of her own.
Lady Georgia was an intriguing research partner. Not nearly as intriguing—or, honestly, as useful—as her daughter, but good company, nonetheless. Bull had trouble focusing on a mass of tiny text in the books, so she did quite a lot of the skimming, then turned things over to him to study the details.
By early afternoon, long after they’d finished the luncheon a Bruno—who refused to answer any questions—had delivered, Bull had a working theory. It seemed that Georgia’s mother Amelia was born a Smith…the same as her mother, Rosemary. As Georgia pointed out,Smithwas common enough that it was possible Rosemary had been born a Smith, then married a man named Smith.
Or perhaps a Smyth. Or a Smythe.
Or, Bull had countered, Rosemary had borne Amelia out of wedlock. Perhaps because she’d been the mistress of Allie’s great-grandfather? A scandalous past, to be sure, but it didn’t explain why she’d warranted so many portraits painted of her.
Bull was rolling a pencil across his knuckles as he left the library to head to his room for a nap before dinner. Despite Demon’s constant threats to boot him fromEndymion, Georgia had invited him to a quiet family meal tonight, and Bull found himself nervous as hell.
He’d known Demon and Georgia for most of his life, but tonight…tonight, he desperately wanted to impress them. To convince them he wasa good man, good enough for their daughter.
But despite the nerves in his stomach as he thought of a future which felt so out of reach, he was distracted by the tidbit of information he’d picked up from the last genealogy book Georgia had found; Rosemary’s sister Elizabeth, who Georgia remembered as Betsy, had married a few years before Amelia’s birth…to the Earl of Mistree.
Lady Mistree, his Eliza…she was his Rose’s great-great-aunt. Bull’s lips curled in amusement. And he’d so nonchalantly introduced Eliza to her own grand-niece as ‘Robert Hoyle,’ art scholar and possessor of ridiculous mustaches.
The next time he visited with her, he’d have to tell Eliza the truth; she’d be amused as well.
“There ye are, ye dissembling wank-muppet!”
The roar from Demon had Bull jerking and dropping into a defensive crouch, hand reaching for the secret knife in his boot as the other man came barreling down the corridor. But Demon pulled up short, and Bull slowly straightened when he saw the frantic fear in the older man’s eyes.
Eyes which looked so much like Rose’s…
“What is it?” Bull demanded, panic warring with his training. “What’s wrong?”
“Where is she?” Demon’s hands darted forward to grab Bull’s lapels. “Where thefookis my daughter?”
Panic was beginning to seep into his chest, pushing out the earlier nerves. “Rose?” he rasped, dropping the pencil so he could wrap his fingers around Demon’s wrists. “What d’ye mean, where is she? She’s gone? Gone where? Or ye just cannae find her?”
“She’sgone!” her father bellowed in Bull’s face, shaking him and seemingly unable to answer a single question in his distress. “Angus saddled a horse for her, she headed toward the train station with that briefcase of yers!”
Oh, fooking hell.
Bull’s eyes had gone wide. “She’s gone. She’s gone? Did she—why would she go?”
