Page 55 of The Madame Catches Her Duke

“Nor does she swim,” Payton added.

“I think I would like to learn how to row—and swim, I’ve always enjoyed baths. Swimming cannot be much different.” She paused. They’d baited her into justifying her decision, something she shouldn’t have to do. “But that is beside the point. This new house will give the women I help a place to rest and heal from their pasts, and time to decide where to go from there. And it will also be somewhere you both can come when you need to be away from town.”

“I adore town life,” Payton argued.

“You enjoy the ready access to the gaming hells.”

“London is my home,” Garrett proclaimed, pushing his flooded plate away.

“Only because you’ve never known another”—Marce sighed—“and that is no one’s fault but mine.”

Marce glared across the table, her hard stare moving from Garrett to Payton and back again as their meal grew tepid before them. She hadn’t expected them to be so averse to her decision.

“Regardless, shortly, Craven House will no longer belong to me, and I’ve chosen a fitting location with adequate space for everyone. You can choose to come with me, or visit during the Christmastide season or whenever the time allows. That is your choice to make, but neither of you will instruct me on my course.”

Garrett had the good sense to at least appear remorseful for his outburst, but Payton continued to glare at her eldest sister.

She twisted her napkin in her lap, tamping down her irritation. It was not a surprise that Marce was taking her frustration out on them; however, the time when she allowed others to dictate her life had long passed. No one—be it Benton, Rowan, or her siblings—was her keeper.

“If there is anything of sentimental value here, I suggest you remove it promptly.” Marce pushed away from the table and stood, her fingers gripping the edge to steady herself. “I will bid you both good evening. I have much to tend to elsewhere in the house.”

As she walked from the room, her head held high, she prayed that her siblings would come around. She wasn’t prepared to do any of this alone. They’d always been a family—loyal to a fault. If there was any time she desperately needed their support, it was now.

Chapter 24

Rowan stormed into Tobias’s townhouse, tossed his coat to the waiting butler, and preceded the servant down the hall to the earl’s study—a room he’d taken over in the two days they’d been in town. The thrashing in his ears caused his entire balance to be thrown into a tailspin. It was bloody inconvenient not to reside in his own house, but word would travel to Hadlow quickly if anyone discovered that he was still in London and not on his way to Scotland as he’d told his mother.

“Damnation.” He slammed the door behind him on his way to the sideboard, stocked heavily with the finest spirits to be found in all of England.

He was chilled to the bone, his skin chaffed and windburned, and his fingers had yet to regain feeling and their proper rosy color.

A stiff drink would help with all of it, except for the confusion that persisted.

Nothing he’d witnessed the last two nights gave him any clarification as to what was what.

And he’d be damned if he hid another night in the bushes across the street from Craven House. There were bloody feral cats living in the shrubs, as evidenced by the putrid smell that clung to his floor-length overcoat. Their meows had nearly done him in, sending him fleeing to his carriage as soon as the sun set.

Two bloody nights—and nothing.

He emptied his glass and poured another before collapsing into the chair closest to the hearth. His body ached from crouching, his neck screamed in pain from where a sharp branch had poked him, and his eyes were dry from the infuriating wind that blew endlessly through the bushes.

How was it possible that he’d seen nothing he expected to see?

Men coming and going during the evening and nighttime hours would have been normal. Candles lit in every room, and the sounds of merriment escaping the house were expected. Drunken men departing Craven House in search of their own homes in the wee hours of the morning would have been par for the course.

Instead, he’d witnessed the mundane workings of any other London townhouse: a servant had left before first light both mornings for the market, several women dressed in unfamiliar servant’s uniforms departed not long after and returned around dinnertime, and the pair he’d seen on his last visit to Craven House, her siblings, had come that very evening at nearly the same time Rowan arrived for his night of observation. He hadn’t the time or the energy to sit all day and watch the house. He hadn’t set eyes on Marce since she cast him out two days prior.

He’d told himself he waited outside each night to check on her well-being, hoping to see her—or anything damning.

But…nothing.

Candles were lit in a few rooms on the second and third floors, but other than those, no room that faced the street was lit after dusk.

How in the bloody hell did a brothel operate without actually operating?

His stare strayed to the desk, a mound of paperwork that needed his attention leaning haphazardly. Any small gust would send the stack careening off the surface and onto the floor.

Focus had eluded Rowan, even during the daytime hours when he locked himself away in Tobias’s study or his guest chambers above, his body demanding sleep that never came as he lay awake and restless. And then he would rise and dress at sunset for another night outside Craven House. He hadn’t known if he would gain anything during his second night of watching the house that he hadn’t witnessed the night before.