“No,” Dane said with a humorless laugh. “Their grandfather is a pure bastard who blackmailed Celia into an engagement with Stenfax and nearly murdered Rosalinde for interfering.”
“I should have killed that poxy fuck when I had the chance,” Gray muttered.
Stenfax laid a hand on his arm gently. “Easy now. If you had, we’d have two large problems instead of one. Let’s focus on Felicity. We’ll work out the details with Fitzgilbert once that’s done.”
Gray looked less than convinced, as did Dane, but Asher realized it was not the time to push the subject. “It’s clear Kirkford was blackmailing these men for some reason or another. But we haven’t seen funds removed from their accounts since the death of Elise’s husband. So it seems that so far there is no evidence the code in the book has been broken.”
“Are there any leads to follow that might help us find the book before those codesarebroken?” Stenfax pressed.
Dane clenched a fist on the desk. “I’ve got men working on it in London, trying to find Roger Beckford. The circle is starting to tighten, but we’re not there yet.”
“Damn it,” Asher muttered, stepping away from the group. “Every single day we fail, Felicity is in greater danger. Isn’t there some way to speed this up?”
Dane stared at him evenly. “Investigations take the time they take. We’re doing the best we can to narrow our focus. I’m hoping we’ll get there within a week.”
“And then what do we do?” Gray asked, flexing his hands in and out of fists at his sides.
Asher folded his arms. “Whatever it bloody takes to save her.”
That statement caused Dane, Gray and Stenfax to all jerk their gazes toward him, but before they could continue the conversation, the door to the billiard room opened and Elise stepped inside. She gave Asher a brief, odd look before she smiled at the group as a whole.
“You boys have been gone a long time.” She stepped up to Stenfax and lifted on her tiptoes to brush her lips over his.
Asher turned his head. Elise and Lucien’s childhood love had worked out in the end. His would not. He knew that. It didn’t make it sting less.
“Won’t you join us again?” Elise asked, smiling at the others.
“Of course,” Stenfax said, slipping her hand into the crook of his arm.
The couple led the way from the room. Gray and Dane walked before Asher, their heads close together, discussing the grandfather of their respective wives, he assumed. He was just as glad to be separate from them at present.
His mind spun too hard to be good company.
They entered the parlor and each gentleman found his wife. Lively conversation began, and as Asher entered the room behind them all, he found Felicity. She, too, stood outside the circle of her family, watching them.
Watching him.
And in that moment, he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in his entire life. Wanted her so much that he wasn’t certain he would be able to keep himself in control, in check. But he’d have to. Because there was no leaving here until he had helped her.
It was all he could do.
Chapter Seven
Asher shrugged a robe over his naked body and moved to the desk in his bedchamber. Spread across the surface were piles of papers and figures, a numerical representation of the danger Felicity was in. An equation of how to save her…if he could only solve it.
He fisted a hand on the table top and shook his head. He just couldn’t see the path. And it was infinitely frustrating.
There was a light knock on the door and he jerked his head up. It was after midnight now. Long ago, everyone else in the house had gone to their beds, including Felicity.
Felicity who had cast him one last long look before she left the parlor hours before. That look had hung in his mind ever since.
The knock came again and he pulled himself from his thoughts and tightened his robe as he moved to the door. “One moment,” he called out.
He turned the key and opened it. What he found nearly made him stagger back in surprise.
Felicity stood at his doorway. She looked as she had the first night he arrived here. Her hair was down around her shoulders and back in honey gold waves, she was in her dressing gown.
“Felicity,” he breathed, her name almost a prayer across his lips. Then he shook his head as some portion of reality returned to him. “What are you doing here? Are you well?”
