Dorian’s face blanched, as if his worst nightmare had suddenly been realized before his very eyes. “Evelina, there are some things I need to tell you before you… run away with this notion.”
“One of your many secrets,” Ellie guessed. “How many are there?”
“The most important ones?” he declared. “Five.”
“And how many of them are about me?” she asked.
He gave her a humorless smile. “All of them.”
CHAPTER 26
Back in Somerton Manor, Ellie watched Dorian’s carriage peel away from the drive again as if the hounds of hell were on its tail. During the drive home, he had not told any of the five secrets he’d mentioned before, and now all she could think about was what they were.
It was late afternoon when she was wandering through the rooms she knew, and having already engrossed herself in the books in the library for today, Ellie found herself veering towards Dorian’s study.
“It almost feels like I’m not supposed to be here…” she whispered to herself when she reached its large oak door.
With a gentle nudge, she found it unlocked, then stepped inside. The immediate scent of cigar, citrus, and musk—Dorian’s own—engulfed her, and the arousal thickened her throat when memories of last night, being overwhelmed by his powerfulness, fluttered to the forefront of her mind.
When her eyes opened again, they dropped to the mess on his desk, and she giggled quietly to herself. This man was a contradiction in himself. So orderly and strategic in his professional life, so messy and haphazard in his personal life.
In want of something to do before Dorian’s return, before they could discuss her unsolicited confession of love further, Ellie began to toil around the mess. She started by straightening up the law books, the international trade manuals, and oddly, an old children’s fable book:Aesop’s Fables.
On her last trip, her skirts brushed something poking out of a lower drawer. Pinching her brows, she crouched and pulled it out—amap. But not just any, as by the little glimpses Ellie had caught of her uncle and his work, it looked to be of the surrounding lands—and it looked rather fresh.
As she laid it out on the table to fold it, she noticed circles marked in certain places.
Leaning in, she saw they were marked as tenant lodges. In the stack of ledgers and books she had organized, she saw one marked Tenants and flipped it open.
“He proves himself to be orderly again,” she murmured, while matching the numbers on the map to ones in the ledgers.
Her hand slid to one, aMissus Thorpe, a widow with a grandchild at home. Finding another slip of paper, she wrote down the address and tucked it into her dress pocket.
As she folded the map and tugged another drawer open, something slid in the back of it. Curious, she leaned in and fished for whatever it was that had slipped behind, and found herself pulling out a small, gilt-edged portrait.
It had the hallmarks of a picture painted twenty years before, and it was of a young woman sitting on a chaise with a closed fan dangling from her hand. Sitting on a stool near her was a small boy, with closely cropped hair, but the resemblance between the two—mother and son—was uncanny.
“Is this Dorian?” she asked herself. “And his mother?”
The woman was as fair as Benedict had told her she would be, “Georgiana Yates Beaumont,” she recalled aloud. Curious enough, his father was nowhere to be seen, not in that portrait, nor in the ones scattered around the room.
Reverently, she put the portrait back into the drawer and left the room, drifting back to her own chambers. Hopefully, Dorian would come home and he would tell her what he meant by his secrets.
Dorian refrained from wrinkling his nose as he stepped intoThe Crown,the lackluster gaming hell Carrington owned. The place always had a seedy air to it, as if it were permanently seasoned with desperation and faux decadence.
Bypassing the main floor, he studiously ignored the heavily rouged blonde whore, clad in a gauzy shift as she sauntered past, her dimpled buttocks jiggling.
It was only last year when Carrington had seen his profits dip, he had incorporated whores to his rooms and prizefighters to his dungeons. Dorian passed by two drunks throwing dice and took the stairs to Carrington’s office.
The door was halfway open, and Dorian gave it half a knock before he strode into the room, not caring that Carrington had ill-given him permission to enter.
Fury flashed over Sterling’s face as he was pouring a glass of sherry, but it soon vanished. “Beaumont,” he said, turning. “I did not know you were coming.”
“Neither did I,” Dorian shrugged. “I do want you to know I am onto your game, however. Edgar paid you to have Rothwell attacked.”
Sterling tugged his waistcoat down and sat behind his desk. “I have no knowledge of what you mean.”
“Of course you don’t,” Dorian replied coldly. “Listen closely, Carrington, I will not tolerate your games anymore. After I find Edgar, my Judas of an uncle, you and I are done.
