Saint-Clair laughed. “It’s worse than we thought. Lying to one’s friends is bad enough. Lying to oneself is a mortal sin.”
“Do you need anything from us?” Montfort asked. “You have more resources than the devil has souls. Still, we have our uses.”
Montfort was right. Dominic’s ledger of favours was thicker than a cathedral Bible. All it proved was men could be bought. Most men. Not these ones.
“If Harland was incapable of siring a child, then I want proof. Who was his physician? Can he be trusted?”
Someone had fathered his mother’s unborn child.
If it wasn’t Harland, who the hell was it?
“I can gather that information,” Stanton said. “I have my sources. I doubt the report still exists, but I can dig deep enough to draw marrow from bone.”
Dominic grinned. “Have you thought of working for the Crown?”
“Who says I don’t?” Stanton replied.
“For Lucifer’s sake, don’t tell them you meet with a suspected criminal.” Saint-Clair rubbed his wrist like he could feel rope burn. “I’ll not be hauled out of here like a friar at the Dissolution.”
“After eight years of celibacy, that’s a tightly drawn distinction,” Montfort said.
“A fugitive becomes accustomed to his own company.”
Despite Saint-Clair’s amused tone, Dominic recognised the sound of a man resigned to solitude. Yet he would not be alone tonight. He’d be watching his angel drink chocolate while she coaxed his secrets free. He would not dwell on what might come after.
Keen to be on the road to Kingston, he said, “I need a list of every property Irving owns in London. Warehouses. Townhouses. Leases under other names.”
“I can find a crumb in a haystack,” Montfort said, accepting the task. “You suspect this missing clerk may have been abducted?”
“If Edward Brown signed that document, he’s either a fool or a prisoner.” No man about to enforce a marriage contract would allow a witness to roam London unguarded. If Irving meant to secure a bride, he’d secure the witness first.
Just the thought of her with that old fool fired his blood. The notion of her with any man had his hands curling at his sides, violence whispering through his veins.
Saint-Clair was right. He had lied. There was nothing temporary about his craving for Miss Harland.
He told himself it would pass, but the signs were there. He hadn’t slept. He’d spent an hour watching her cottage from an upstairs window. He could smell her, taste her, sense her before she stepped into a room.
Instinct urged caution.
The only woman he’d ever loved had been taken from him. Why did he feel Miss Harland would leave him too?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Daphne wasn’t sure he would keep their bargain.
When it came to Dominic Hawke, doubt was her constant companion. Oh, she never doubted how he made her feel. Like she was the only woman in the room. Like she was some rare bloom whose scent could undo a man.
But desire was not devotion. And Dominic Hawke gave nothing freely. Perhaps it wasn’t her he craved, but the satisfaction of taking what once belonged to his enemy.
With her father dead, was she the retribution?
Should she play the game, pull out Mrs Flavell’s red wrapper and act the coquette? Should she use Mr Hawke to secure her place for the month?
But she was not her father, nor her aunt. Not mean. Not manipulative. Not so obsessed with maintaining a facade that she’d sell her own kin.
Yet that wasn’t what made her face the truth.
She wanted him.
