“I don’t want to hate you.” And she might if he tried to rein her in.
“I don’t want to hate you either,” he said. And he might, she realized, if she continued to refuse what he offered.
There was no more to say as the carriage rattled on toward her home. And though they continued to hold hands, there was a coolness between them. She didn’t grip him as tight, and there was pain in his eyes when he looked at her. Neither said a word, but with so much already said between them, the silence continued to throb with their disagreement.
Until the carriage stopped. Until he escorted her back to her home, and her bodyguards took up their positions in her house. But he didn’t cross the threshold, much to her shock.
“Aren’t you coming inside?” she asked.
“I need to arrange things for later. The guards will see no one harms you.”
“What things? What arrangement?”
He smiled at her. “My brother.” And with that, he bowed deeply and left.
She watched him go, her gaze staying on him as he refused the use of her carriage and instead hailed a hackney. And as he stepped inside the vehicle, she wondered if she already saw the end. After the best night of her life, were they already over? She didn’t doubt that he would continue to protect her. Until Geoffrey was handled one way or another, he and his men would remain close. But she didn’t want them. She wanted Lucas with her, and that was another thing entirely.
She just wasn’t sure she wanted to pay his price.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lucas extended hisfoot, trying to ease the ache out of his leg. He was sitting half crouched in the shadows of one of the filthiest gaming hells in London. Nathan was at a table toward the center of the room. He drank while grumbling to anyone nearby that his brother had done him wrong. He kept grumbling that he intended to win a fortune ten times what Lucas had stolen from him, see if he didn’t.
The good news was that Nathan was a good gambler. He had indeed won in steady increments over three days of determined play. Better yet, his brother was a large man, and though he acted half-drunk, Lucas judged him to be only one-quarter inebriated.
Any minute now, someone would invite Nathan to a high stakes game. Any moment now, Geoffrey would make his move to trap Nathan.
It had to be soon because Lucas was going crazy waiting.
Nothing had changed since the disastrous day with his mother. He had not spoken more to Diana, though he knew through her guards what she did every minute of the day. And he certainly hadn’t visited her at night. If he did, he wouldn’t be able to keep from touching her. Besides, nighttime was when he watched over his brother, who sat as bait. And of all the people he most wanted to protect, his brother ranked second, right behind Diana. Nathan knew the truth of his illegitimate heritage and still toiled night and day for his family’s fortunes and now risked his life for Lucas and Diana.
The truth humbled Lucas. And he swore—as he had every hour of the last three days—that he would somehow make it up to Nathan.
Lucas moved his leg again, trying to ease off the cramp from sitting in the same place for so long. And just as he was focused on his own aches, something happened at the tables. A rat-faced man sidled up to Nathan, bringing an extra drink as he smiled with good cheer and a willing ear. Predictably, Nathan upped his griping while the weaselly man nodded and concurred. It went on for a good twenty minutes before Nathan pushed up from the table, swaying as he found his feet.
This was it. Finally, someone was taking the bait to fleece Nathan. But was Geoffrey behind the invite or someone else?
Lucas leaned forward in the shadows, trying to see the smaller man more closely. Three days before, he’d bet Ruben it would be James Murray, a low life bastard who perpetually caused trouble at whatever pub or gaming hell he managed to ferret his way into. But when Lucas finally got a look at the smaller man, he cursed under his breath. It was Sid Gardner, a seemingly innocuous man, and Ruben’s pick as the one to lure Nathan away. Damn it. Now he owed Ruben twenty quid. And more relevant, Sid Gardner was rumored to be deadly with a knife. Lucas knew he kept at least one stiletto hidden on his person.
Too late now. Nathan and Sid were heading for the door. Lucas slipped out of his corner, his back screaming as blood rushed into his lower extremities. With a nod to the owner of the hell, he slipped out the back and heard Nathan’s bellowing laugh from the front. His brother was brilliant in the way he kept his voice loud enough for Lucas to follow. Lucas made it to the front just as Nathan stepped into a hackney with Sid. A second after the carriage door closed, a boy leaped upon the back. He flashed Lucas a grin as the hackney moved forward.
The kid was Ruben’s second cousin twice removed and was quick as a wink.
On the opposite side of the street, Ruben’s own carriage waited for Lucas. Forget flashy vehicles. Ruben’s carriage looked like any other hackney except that the horses were fresh and the wheels well oiled. Lucas nodded at the coachman as he jumped up beside the man. It would look unusual for him to be up here, even wrapped in a dark blanket and hunched over, but it was the best way for him to keep an eye on his brother. A moment later, they were moving as they followed the hackney to whatever hole Geoffrey was hiding in. Or so he hoped.
It was a long, anxious ride to their destination. Lucas spent the interminable minutes envisioning his brother getting his throat slit inside the hackney. There was nothing he could do to help if that happened, and he would never forgive himself if it did. He kept his eyes trained on the boy still hanging on the back. He’d react if something was going on inside, but the kid just perched there with admirable balance.
This was madness, he thought. Geoffrey would be ten times an idiot to remain in London. He was probably halfway across the continent by now. Or worse, planning some attack on Diana. Except the blackguard knew that Diana was well protected, and Lucas’s men watched every day for poison. It wasn’t possible to get at her, so the arrogant man would strike at Lucas through Nathan. That had to be the way. It would get Geoffrey enough money to lay low for months and find a way through Lucas’s protection. The problem was that Diana wouldn’t last through months of protection. She was already chaffing at the constant supervision. So Lucas had to get Geoffrey now, and he would.
If he had guessed right. If Geoffrey really was that stupidly arrogant. If…if…if…
Finally, the hackney stopped near the docks in front of several squalid buildings, well away from any type of light. The boy jumped off and scrambled to the side to watch where Sid and Nathan would go. Lucas’s carriage kept going around the corner. As soon as they were out of sight, he grabbed the bottle he’d left beneath the bench, then jumped off without the vehicle stopping. The carriage would continue around until the coachman found a place to stop and wait.
Meanwhile, Lucas made it to the spot where the boy crouched in the shadows.
“Evening, guv,” the boy whispered.
“Evening…Billy?” he whispered back.
