Was the Duchess of Raven right? She had been for a while, but he’d been denying it.
“Devilles and Howarth,” Plunge said. There was no mocking smile on his face this time. His expression made him look like a different man.
“I think we need to talk, don’t you?” Gabe said.
Mary kept her eyes forward but not on him. She was focusing on Gabe.
“I suppose it is inevitable,” Plunge said. He then shot Mary a look. “Well, speak, woman?”
Zach watched her glare at the peacock in the scarlet, then at everyone with Deville blood.
“You will not stop me being part of this,” she snapped. “I told him that”—she waved a hand at Zach—“and I’m telling all of you now.”
She looked like an angry pixie. Small, deadly, and irresistible. Zach was in so much trouble.
“I think that sums things up nicely,” Plunge said, reaching over to place his hand on hers, which were gripping her reins tight.
The lash of jealousy at the intimate act stung Zach, but he kept his expression blank.
“How is it you are here at such an hour, alone?” Zach demanded of her.
“That is none of your business.”
He opened his mouth to challenge that statement, but Plunge cut him off.
“My house is closest. Come. We will talk there. We will go first, and you follow. Go around the rear of my town house, and we will hope that as the hour is early, not many will see us.”
He and Mary then rode off, and Zach watched as Plunge leaned toward her and placed a hand on her shoulder. Zach didn’t want any man but him touching her.
“Mary thinks we will stop her from being part of Alexius,” Gabe said, his eyes on the parting couple.
“Because it’s dangerous, and she shouldn’t be doing it,” Zach added.
“Yes, well, perhaps hold that thought in your head until after we’ve discussed the entire situation with them,” Forrest said.
“I’ve never heard Plunge use that voice before. It’s unsettling,” Michael said. “He even looks different without that foolish expression on his face.”
“Am I still sleeping and this is a dream?” Nathan asked around a yawn.
Zach leaned over and pinched him. “How about now?”
“Ouch!”
“Let’s go,” Gabe said.
They kept their distance from Mary and Plunge on the short ride to the Montgomery town house. Her back was rigid, shoulders straight and Zach took the time to gain control of the conflicting emotions now charging through him.
“Is he still Plunge or Viscount Montgomery?” Nathan asked.
“For now, he is Plunge,” Gabe said.
They entered the property from the rear before dismounting outside the elegant white town house. “This is going to be interesting, as I have no idea what or how it will all play out,” Gabe said.
“I don’t know anyone who has been here before,” Michael said, looking up at the building before them.
Zach watched two footmen run down the garden and take their horses.
“Well then,” Forrest said. “We should go inside.”
