Presholm snatched it, his eyes darting around the room with frantic energy before he shoved the letter into his breast pocket, right over his heart.
“That wasn’t a simple business transaction,” Ambrose said, his voice a dangerous growl.
“Blackmail, I’d guess,” Morgan confirmed, his smirk almost gone. “And by the look of that stationery, Presholm isn’t the victim. He’s the one buying the silence of someone else. Or perhaps, buying the means to ruin them. Curious.”
Ambrose watched as Presholm stood abruptly, adjusting his coat with a sharp, arrogant tug. He walked past their table, nodding curtly to Ambrose as he felt the heat rise in his collar.
What in the devil is he up to now?
Ambrose didn’t return the nod. He watched Presholm retreating until the heavy oak doors of the club thudded shut, leaving a trail of oily self-importance in the air. The resolve that had been flickering in his chest all evening suddenly caught fire.
“I’m leaving,” Ambrose announced, slamming his glass onto the table with enough force to make the ice rattle.
“Right behind you,” Morgan said, standing quickly. “I find the air in here has become rather stagnant.”
They stepped out into the biting chill of the London night, the gaslights casting long, distorted shadows on the cobblestones. Ambrose’s carriage was called forward, the horses’ breath blooming in white plumes against the dark.
Once inside the velvet interior, the door clicked shut, sealing them into a silence that was broken only by the rhythmic strike of hooves and the creak of cool leather.
Ambrose sat staring out the window, his jaw set so tight it ached. He rubbed it absently, stroking his beard.
“You’re thinking about the violet stationery,” Morgan said, sprawled on the opposite bench, his usual levity replaced by a sharp, observant stillness.
“I am thinking about the hypocrisy of it all,” Ambrose ground out, his voice low and vibrating with a suppressed rage. “Lady Presholm spends her afternoons lecturing thetonon social order. And yet, there Lord Presholm is, in the corners of White’s, trading in the gutter.”
Morgan leaned forward, his face obscured by the passing shadows of the streetlamps. “That fixer deals in ruin. If Presholm has his hands on a lady’s correspondence, he isn’t just protecting his own skin; he’s holding a knife to someone’s throat. The question is, whose?”
Ambrose turned away from the window, his eyes dark. “He looks down on her, Morgan. He looks at Imogen like she were a piece of the most delicate chocolate cake. It makes my blood boil to think she is at the mercy of people like that. That I am supposed to care what they whisper in their drawing rooms while they do this in the dark. I cannot help but worry for her… as a member of my household.”
“Then don’t,” Morgan said simply. “Start acting like the man who owns the house, not the man who is afraid of the neighbors.”
Ambrose looked at his friend, the fire from earlier settling into a cold, hard determination. “He’s up to something, Morgan. And ifit touches her, if a single word of his filth reaches that nursery, I will not just ignore him. I will destroy him.”
Morgan nodded slowly, a grim smile touching his lips. “There he is. I was wondering when the Duke of Welton would finally show up.”
As the carriage turned onto Grosvenor Square, Ambrose didn’t look at the grand facades of the other houses. He looked up at the darkened windows of the nursery wing, a silent vow taking root in his heart. He was done playing by the rules of a world that was rotted at the core.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The political dinner was a welcome prison, a necessary exile to ensure a respectable distance from his tempting governess, as his resolve threatened to thin. Ambrose knew Imogen was perfectly safe within the quiet walls of his home, yet he walked a razor’s edge each day. His presence in the same house had begun to feel like a personal. In truth, it was not her safety that concerned him, but his own crumbling resolve.
He was aware of his recent recklessness; his retreats to White’s had become far too frequent. Even the most loyal servants would soon begin to whisper if his habits did not mend. He had an image to maintain and his wards to consider, yet every empty political platitude tonight only made him crave the one woman he could not have.
Ambrose sat in the rear of his carriage, his head resting against the cold glass as the wheels rattled over the uneven cobbles of St. James as he went home. The soup had been bland, and the conversation even more tasteless. Lord Cavendish had spent twohours droning on about the unrest in the northern counties, his jowls quivering with every predicted riot.
Ambrose had performed his role with practiced grace, leaning forward at the precise moment of a rhetorical flourish, murmuring words likeindeedandindubitablyinto his crystal goblet when the silence demanded a verbal sacrifice.
But his mind was a traitor.
While the men around him debated the Corn Laws and the specter of revolution, Ambrose was staring at the ghost of a morning room door. Behind his eyelids, he didn’t see the candlelight reflecting off the silver service. Instead, he saw the sharp, elegant line of Imogen’s jaw as she had turned her head away from him earlier that morning.
He saw the way she had looked, not at him, but through him, as if he were nothing more than a trick of the light. Her face had been a mask of ivory, resolute and terrifyingly still. Even as he had stood in the hall, clutching the brass handle like a lifeline, she had remained a portrait of studied indifference.
It maddened him.
“Well, what say you about the possibility, Your Grace?” Lord Cavendish asked as they enjoyed brandies in the drawing room and cigars were passed around.
The possibility of what?Ambrose thought to himself, aggravated that he couldn’t follow a simple conversation.
