“I do believe that hurt.” He turned to face her again, a confused look on his face. “Do I know your butler? I have the oddest feeling we’ve met before.”
“Do you remember the Smittens?”
“They lived in the village, and there were about ten of them from memory… good lord. Is that Norman? The young skinny boy we played with?”
“The very one, but no longer skinny,” Iris said.
“Good lord,” Theo said again.
Iris had arrived in London to find a household of her husband’s staff. It had taken her a day to realize that some of them would need to go. They were rude and spoke to both Henry and her dismissively. She fired them on the spot. She’d then, with her aunt’s help, contacted an agency to replace them.
Norman came for the position of footman, but he’d told her he wanted to be a butler. Iris had employed him and been extremely happy about that fact when her former brother-in-law tried to enter the town house a few days after she’d arrived in London, even though she said she was not receiving visitors. Norman had stood in the doorway unmoving until he’d left.
“Yet another who has changed,” Monty said softly. Iris did not answer, as it was the truth. All three of the childhood friends who had once run wild in the local village were vastly different adults.
“Come this way, my lord.” Iris started up the stairs. She knew he was looking at the decor inside her husband’s town house.
“I’d expect this in my house, not yours, my lady.”
“It is my husband’s town house. Therefore, it is decorated to his tastes, not mine. Did you never come here?”
“Once, to a ball,” he said. “Your husband and I were never friends and, in fact, disliked each other very much.”
“I didn’t like him either.” The words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.
CHAPTERELEVEN
Seeing those words on that paper Iris handed him had shocked him into letting his Lord Plunge persona slip yet again. It was only now that he could fight his way through the rage to the calm and return to the part he played.
“Why do you play the fool when I don’t believe you are?”
How was it Iris was suspicious when he’d only spent a few hours in her company since she arrived in London? Other than the Devilles, no one had questioned who he was. No one had seen through him. He’d played this part for years, but she’d noticed something was off in a day.
Looking around him, Monty thought the interior of this house pretentious. He had been in here once to attend a ball. He remembered that Lady Mary Sutherland had been the stand-in hostess for the evening, as Iris had not been able to attend. There was never any doubt in Monty’s mind that Sutherland and Challoner were lovers at the time.
He’d not once questioned why his old friend did not appear in London because Iris brought up memories of his childhood that he’d also locked away in the dark recesses of his head.
His mother playing the piano and he and Iris singing.No!Going back there caused pain and could achieve nothing.
Looking at the rigid back in front of him, Monty guessed he was not the only one with secrets. She’d just told him she didn’t like her husband. Just how bad had her life been?
Monty told himself he didn’t care. She was not his concern. They’d been childhood friends; he owed her little, just as she owed him nothing.
They entered a room that was decorated to show whoever set foot inside that the owner was wealthy.
Monty refocused on the reason he was here. How was Challoner involved in all this? You didn’t have a letter in your possession stating,another step toward revenge for our leader has been achieved with the death of Lord Montgomery, and not have played a hand in his death.
Could Iris be involved? But if she was, why would she hand him that note?
They sat in a heavy silence with thoughts churning and so much unspoken between them. It was broken by Norman’s appearance bearing a tea tray.
The man was nothing like he remembered, except for the red hair and bright blue eyes. Once he’d been a tall, skinny, stick of a boy, and Monty’s friend.
“Hello, Norman.” He had to say something, but the words felt odd on his tongue. He rose after the man had lowered the tray to the table before Iris. “It is good to see you again.”
“Hello, Lord Montgomery.” Norman bowed.
He looked like a wrestler. Huge hands and feet. Theo rather liked the idea of this man being in Iris’s household. The boy he’d been was kind and compassionate. He would always protect her if protection was required.
