Ruthless.
Calculating.
He began to fight with his wits instead of his fists. With his brain instead of his brawn. If a company showed any sign of weakness, he gave it no mercy. Pleas were ignored. Letters begging for more time on a loan were burned in the fireplace without ever being opened. He took what he wanted and he left piles of ash in his wake.
But in his callousness, in his complete disregard for his opponent’s feelings, he gradually stripped himself of his emotions. His morals. Even his humanity. There were days, weeks, months where he felt nothing.Lessthan nothing. And he came to prefer it that way. The world was better in black and white.
Until this morning, in the park, when a brazen redhead ran into him.
And all he saw was color.
Tilting his head back, he finished off his drink and then poured himself another. He rarely indulged in spirits before noon, but then this was a rare day. A day where the unconquerable, steel-in-his-veins Adam St. Clair found himself…rattled.
“Mr. Smith,” he snapped out, and in less than a minute his personal valet/solicitor/butler appeared in the doorway. Given his innate distrust of any other human being, Adam maintained a skeleton staff, all of whom he’d brought with him from Boston with the exception of an upstairs scullery maid who had come highly recommended. As a result, most of his servants held multiple positions. They were paid handsomely for their efforts, in addition to the mental and physical strain they endured as employees of a grueling employer that expected loyalty and demanded perfection.
Argus Smith had been with him the longest. The towering giant with a shiny head and flat black eyes was an orphan, a one-time brawler, and a thief. A man of few words, he was as equally capable of slitting a throat as he was of fetching a paper. He also owed his life to Adam; a debt that he had been stoically repaying for the last eight years. If not for it being forced upon him, he would not have accepted a salary or the room and board that accompanied his unique role.
“Yes, sir?” he grunted, clasping his ham-sized hands together in front him.
“Do you have the list?”
“Yes, sir.” Argus procured a neatly folded piece of paper from the inside pocket of the leather greatcoat he wore no matter the weather or if he was inside or out. Rain, sun, snow. A filthy pub or a pristine drawing room. Argus always wore his coat with the oversized collar pressed flush against his neck.
Adam accepted the paper, opened it up, and scanned the names written upon it in scratchy, nearly unintelligible handwriting. Dr. Evans had taught him to read and write, and in turn he’d taught Argus. Admittedly, he was never as patient a teacher as his mentor had been…and the proof, as they said, was in the pudding. Or in this case, in Argus’s barely legible scrawl.
Lady Priscilla Waterdown
LadyEbEdith Berkley
Miss HannahChumbarsChambers
Lady Amanda Turn
LudyLady Eloise Rosewood
Miss RebeccaStrait StrateStraight
Miss Samantha Upton
“That’s it?” he said, turning the paper over. “Seven?”
Argus grunted.
“And they’ll all be at the Edgemont Ball?”
Another grunt.
“Excellent. You can go, Mr. Smith.”
Argus shuffled out, leaving Adam to stare pensively at his bookshelf and the heavy tomes that filled it. He had an elaborate collection of antique British works dating back to when the Saxon King Edward the Martyr sat upon the throne. This was merely a quarter of it; the rest–including manuscripts so delicate they were kept under glass–remained in Boston. But he’d spent hours of his life pouring over every word, every sentence, every paragraph. Hungry to learn whatever he could of his ancestral land and the men who had ruled it.
Of his sire, Lord Denbigh, Argus knew nearly everything courtesy of reports generated for him by a team of hired investigators.
He knew that the earl had been married at the age of five and twenty to the esteemed daughter of a duke; a match that had been heralded as a great success for both parties involved. Lord Denbigh’s wife was rumored to have been a Great Beauty, although that hadn’t prevented him from curating a veritable field of mistresses. Together, he and Lady Denbigh had produced three children.
A boy, Lord Frederic, and two girls, Lady Beth and Lady Anne. Half-siblings to a bastard brother they had no idea existed.
He’d had the investigators search for other by-blows, but they’d come up empty-handed. To the best of Adam’s knowledge, he remained Lord Denbigh’s sole illegitimate offspring.
