“Regardless, I amnotgoing to make the same mistake again,” Kincaid said fervently. Standing up from behind his desk, he crossed to the window. His townhouse was only four blocks from the river. On a clear day, if he stood in the attic and squinted just right, he could make out the towering mast of a massive sailing vessel as it edged its way towards London Bridge.
As a police officer, he’d spent more time at the harbor than anywhere else in the city. It was a crowded, rat-infested den of crime that stank to the high heavens of fish and rot. He couldn’t begin to count the number of bloated bodies he’d hauled out of the water. He’d loathed that part of the job the most. The senseless loss. The stomach-twisting violence. The mindless destruction of life and limb.
Kincaid had never imagined how mindlesslycruelpeople could be to each other before he became a peeler. Maybe that was why, three years into the madness and the muck, he’d found himself drawn to Lady Lavinia.
Lady Lavinia, with her enchanting laugh and sweet aura of innocence. She’d been a beacon of hope in the dismal abyss of endless depravity. A chance to breathe clean, fresh air after suffocating in the stench of moral decay.
If only he’d known how unscrupulous shereallywas. Instead, he had been blind to her spider’s web until it was too late. Until the harder he struggled, the more entangled he became. And when it was finally over, when the smoke had cleared and the damage had been done, he had vowed to himself he would never again risk his heart for a client.
Or a client’s wife.
Kincaid jumped, startled out of his thoughts when James nudged his leg.
“What doyouwant?” he asked sourly, still annoyed by the cat’s betrayal. If a man didn’t have the loyalty of his own pet, what did he have? An ungrateful mouth to feed, that’s what. “I know you liked Miss Thorncroft. I did, too.”
It was true, he realized with a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. Hehadliked Joanna. As far as first impressions went, the fearless, red-haired American had made an indelible one. Why else would he still be in his office going over their conversation hours after she’d left? Perhaps because even though she was gone, her scent still remained.
Violets. Joanna had smelled of rain and violets. Not the sort that grew in pretty, potted plants in shop windows, but the sort that sprawled across the Highlands in a wild tangle of purple petals and glossy, green leaves.
At his feet, James gave a plaintivemeow.
“I told you not to look at me like that,” Kincaid said gruffly, even as he scooped the cat up and gave him a scratch behind his ear. “This isn’t going to be like it was. I’ve gone down that road once, and have no intention of traveling that way again. Not that you’d know anything about it. You weren’t even born yet, you scrawny bastard.”
His ill-fated affair with Lavinia had ended well before some arse dropped two kittens on his doorstep. While most would have given the scrawny, flea-infested little buggers away (if not drowned them outright), Kincaid had always had a soft spot in his heart for the weak and the vulnerable. Besides, he’d desperately needed the company. And while James in particular had tested his patience over the years, he didn’t regret taking them in and giving them a home.
Today being the exception.
Both man and cat turned their attention to the door when a firm knock sounded on the other side of it. A quick glimpse at the longcase clock in the corner and Kincaid mumbled a curse. He’d allowed himself to become so distracted by Joanna that he had forgotten he was expecting a visitor.
“Come in,” he called out, his deep baritone carrying easily across the office. A second’s pause, and then the door swung inward to reveal a well-dressed gentleman with black hair just long enough to touch the collar of his jacket, intelligent, gray eyes, and the large, bulky build of a boxer.
Despite his size, Sterling Nottingham, Duke of Hanover, moved lightly on his feet as he walked into the office. A grin lit up his face when he saw Kincaid and the two men were quick to embrace, their hands slapping loudly on each other’s backs before they pulled apart.
“Kincaid. As I live and breathe. How long has it been?”
“Too long.” Kincaid had met Sterling—as he preferred to be called by his closest acquaintances—when he’d still been just a constable. The duke’s sister had been kidnapped by highwaymen and was being held for ransom. Sterling had immediately paid what they were asking, but when his sister wasn’t delivered as promised, he turned to Scotland Yard (as it was better known now) for help. Thankfully, the story had a happy ending, with Kincaid and Sterling striking up a friendship despite their differences in class and fortune.
They’d maintained contact over the years, occasionally exchanging a letter or meeting for a drink whenever their paths happened to cross. Sterling had even stuck by him when the rest of London turned their backs on him. But in all that time, Sterling had never reached out in a professional capacity, which was why Kincaid had been so surprised to receive a note from the duke requesting a private meeting.
“Have a seat,” he said, pointing at the same chair Joanna had sat in just a few hours ago. Leaning back against his desk, he thumbed through his journal to an empty page. “I hope this has nothing to do with Sarah again.”
“No, no.” Sterling shook his head as he settled his large body into the chair and stretched his legs out in front of him. His black leather Hessians were splattered with mud, indicating he’d walked rather than taken a carriage as would be expected of a duke. But then, Sterling had never fully come to terms with his title or the tragic event that led to him inheriting it.
The younger of two sons, he should have been the spare. But when his brother was killed in an illegal duel, Sterling became Duke of Hanover.
Most would have secretly celebrated such an accession.
Sterling had been devastated.
One night, when he was long into his cups, he’d confessed to Kincaid that the title felt like a bloody yoke around his neck. He’d never wanted to be burdened by all the responsibilities that came with such a lofty rank. But more than that, the title was a constant reminder that his brother should have been the duke. After all, Sterling was the one who had goaded him into the duel…never dreaming in his worst nightmares that Sebastian would actually go through with it. He carried the weight of that loss to this day, but was always quick to hide it behind an engaging grin or a quick jest.
Were Kincaid not so attuned to the nuanced expressions of those around him, he might have thought as others did: that the Duke of Hanover was nothing more than a renowned rake, womanizer, and ne’er-do-well. But he knew a thing or two about facades, which was how he was able to see so clearly past Sterling’s.
Sterling may have been a rake, and a womanizer, and all right, yes, a ne’er-do-well. But he was also a good man, and a good friend, and Kincaid would do whatever he could to help him.
“Sarah is fine,” Sterling continued. “Better than fine, actually. She is engaged to be married.”
“Please be sure to pass on my congratulations.”
