What would Argyll say if he found out the favor Craven did him this night?
A dry smile formed on her lips.
No, she knew.
“Amicus meus, inimicus inimici mei.” The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Her driver grew impatient. “Miss?”
“Yes.”
Drawing her hood higher into place, she plotted a path inside that would not bring the Kearsley household down on her.
The driver drew the door open and handed Daria down.
She froze with one foot inside the carriage and the other on the smooth limestone pavement.
She’d been wrong.
The Duke of Craven hadn’t interfered and sent Daria back to her family’s household as any gentleman would.
Against his knowing, he’d delivered her to his enemy, and Daria’s future husband.
Chapter 5
While he went over security details with his brother-in-law, Severin ‘Cadogan’, the Earl of Kilburn, Argyll surveyed the ordinary scene outside the newly installed pair of Georgian sash windows.
Prior to his role as head security at Forbidden Pleasures, Cadogan had been an assassin within the Home Office. The ruthless gentleman’s work and attention to detail now served Argyll’s pleasure. Had bringing the ruthless guard in as a new partner and owner driven out Latimer? Yes.
Did Argyll have regrets?
Absolutely not.
He regretted nothing. That held true for his recent business decision, as it did for every other aspect of life.
With the current war waging between Forbidden Pleasures, Lucifer’s Lair—operated by the Duke of Craven—the Hell and Sin Club, and The Devil’s Den, Argyll relished the army he’d single-handedly built.
Mac Diggory, former owner of The Devil’s Den and lord of the underworld, had controlled the streets of London for decades—until his death some five or so years ago. But only the good died young—if at all. Rotters with souls as black as the Diggorys and Argylls of the world couldn’t be vanquished. They lived as the immortal damned.
“Have we had any further sightings?” Argyll asked, scanning the quiet Mayfair streets.
“None.” The six-paneled glass reflected Cadogan seated at the foot of Argyll’s desk, taking notes. Next to him, taking it all in, sat DuMond, Argyll’s sole friend and loyal partner. “All the witnesses questioned: the lords and ladies at ForbiddenPleasures at the time of the incident, as well as club patrons and the passersby to the fire. No one saw anything.”
The fire.
That event could have taken down everything Argyll cared about and toiled to build.
The incident being a brick tied to a burning cloth thrown clean through the front windows. Fortunately, Argyll had received just enough warning from Malric Mauley, a former guard at The Devil’s Den, who’d come to collect a woman new to Argyll’s staff. That’d allowed Argyll’s staff time to prepare for outside threats.
“No one saw anything?” Argyll loosened his cravat. “Or no one intends to speak about what they saw?”
“I suspect the latter.”
Yes, on account that speaking out against Diggory would see them with a dirk in their backs. When it came to murdering, raping, and kidnapping, Diggory didn’t discriminate between highborn and baseborn.
“There is a rumor circulating,” DuMond said, “that someone has assumed Diggory’s identity to coalesce power.”
Cadogan put an end to that wishful thinking on the world’s part. “Unlikely.”
