Chapter Seventeen

C hris traced the soft skin just above the line of Phoebe's garters, feeling the tremor in her legs as she fought to regain her breath. It sawed in and out of her lungs in an odd, fractured rhythm, her breasts swelling above the tight neckline of her gown with each inhale. Her skin was flushed and misty-damp, tiny tendrils of blond hair sticking to the side of her neck, her forehead, her cheeks. He had a crick in his neck from the dubious support of the arm of the bench. The ruined muscles of his knee had tightened once more to painful tension. And still he couldn't bestir himself to move, even when most of her weight had settled upon his chest, with only the minor relief of the support of the knees she'd bent beneath her. He'd let her call him Kit. He'd never let anyone but Em call him that, and that only because it was a habit she'd acquired in childhood, since her lisp had precluded a proper pronunciation of Chris. No one else had ever tried—no one else ever would have dared . But if anyone was entitled, he supposed it would be Phoebe. Her breath whistled shrilly through her teeth, her fingers releasing their tight clench from the arm of the bench on either side of his head. "That was—that was—" Chris found himself intensely interested in how a proper lady would describe such a thing. Magnificent? Earthshattering? Delicious? "I have to return Hieronymus to the garden," she concluded. Her palms settled against his chest and she all but vaulted off of him. The air sailed from his lungs at the pressure. " Oof ," he wheezed on reflex. "Phoebe—" She stumbled a few steps, and before her skirts had managed to drift down to her ankles, he'd caught a glimpse of her knees trembling like a newborn foal's. She looked rumpled and disheveled, like she'd just come from an illicit tryst, half the buttons down her back undone, perfect curls utterly ruined by the rake of his fingers and a good number of pins wrenched from the locks they had been meant to contain. It was going to take ages for her lady's maid to press the wrinkles out of her gown, longer still to retrieve all of the pins that had come loose or become buried beneath her disordered hair. Chris grappled for his cane, rising to his feet. On unsteady feet, Phoebe tottered back toward the boxes of orange trees, searching for the one in which she had set Hieronymus. She couldn't just— Just leave . Like nothing of import had transpired between them. Like he hadn't just had his head between her soft thighs. Like he couldn't still taste her on his tongue. Like his cock wasn't a single stroke away from spending in his goddamned trousers. He caught her hand before she could reach for the turtle. "Come to bed with me," he said. There was nothing unsavory in it. They were married. A union sanctioned by God and country. "No, thank you," she said primly, as if he had offered a cup of tea, and gently tugged her wrist from his hold, turning her back on him. "I've fulfilled my end of our bargain." Piqued, Chris reached out and snagged a pin that dangled precariously from a loose curl and tucked it in the pocket of his trousers. He'd told her she didn't have to sleep with him, and it hadn't been a lie—but she wanted to. He knew she did. He said, "Are you still angry I went out?" "Of course." Her breath puffed between her lips, and she directed her attention to Hieronymus, who was basking in the heat of the orangery, his head tilted toward the ceiling, as she settled her hands on her hips. "You didn't think I'd forgotten?" No, but he'd hoped she'd forgiven. "I've survived worse," he said. "You oughtn't concern yourself—" She threw up her hands in a little gesture of aggravation, as if he'd missed the point entirely. Which he supposed he might have done. "Of course I am going to concern myself!" she said, and the strident note in her voice had his brows lifting toward his hairline in surprise. "You are my husband!" The word sent a little shock shimmering along his nerves, prickling the hair at the nape of his neck. His fingers tingled, and his toes. His cock throbbed. God help him if she glanced down; it would be undeniable. She'd never said the word before. Not to him, at least. It was true, of course, but it had been only a word, only a title, signifying only that they were bound in the eyes of the law. Now, he thought, maybe they were bound by something more than that. Something more raw and visceral. Something that could not be defined by anything so simple as wedding vows. "Got to have a wedding night to be a proper husband," he said. And then, when she slanted him a killing glance beneath her thick lashes, he added, "What? That's the law. I didn't make it." " That was not part of our arrangement," she said. "It could be." He eased closer, careful of the tiny patches of water that decorated the floor, produced by the humidity. "I'm open to renegotiation." Her lips pinched into a haughty moue, her chin tilting upward stubbornly. "What have you got to negotiate with?" she asked. The question gave him pause. He had—well, he had money, of course, but she had no need of it. There were no secrets in her past by which she might be extorted of which he was aware, and even if she had them, how would he manage it? He had married her for her station and reputation, which it would hardly behoove him to besmirch. He was well enough accustomed to bringing men to their knees, to pressing his thumb upon particular pressure points until they had yielded exactly what he wanted. He had no such leverage against his wife. Hell . "What do you want?" he asked. "I want not to be widowed prematurely!" There was a wealth of annoyance in her voice, and the fine arches of her brows descended into a sharp glare. "Whatever it is you have done to put yourself in such danger, you must undo it." "Why, Phoebe," he said, faintly amused. "Have you come for care for me?" For just a moment, that dour expression lifted, shock sliding across her face, chased away swiftly by the flushed heat of mortification. "Please," she sniffed, and shoved past him to walk to the other side of the planter box. "It's only that I should be obliged to mourn you for a year. Black does not suit me, and I abhor crepe and bombazine." Chris smothered a laugh in his palm. "After half a year, you'd be allowed lavender I should think. You'd look lovely in lavender." Phoebe produced a glare so scathing he was surprised he'd not expired where he stood. "All right," he said, holding up one hand in a gesture of surrender. "What else, then?" The glare softened, muted to confusion instead of vexation. She peered at him through the shiny leaves of the orange tree. "What else?" "Have you got any other conditions I ought to know of? I'd hate to shutter the most nefarious of my business interests with the intention of seeking your favor only to find it dangled forever beyond my reach." She blinked, her brows drawing together. "You will cease whatever…er, unethical conduct in which you might be presently engaged?" Well, not all of it. Sometimes there were men that just needed killing—or maiming. "I'll cease that which can be traced back to me," he said. "Extortion and blackmail don't pay so well as they once did." "They why do you do it?" "Nowadays?" He grinned. "For fun. It's quite an enjoyable thing, to have a lord in one's pocket. Most especially one who resents being there. A balm to my baseborn soul." And there was every chance he might wrangle a few more favors out of those whom he'd released from that bondage. "You do realize that blackmailing those with whom you would socialize isn't the wisest of decisions?" "In retrospect, it does seem rather short-sighted." Once, extortion had been his bread and butter, and the funds he'd made from it had financed many other ventures which had, in recent years, become significantly more lucrative. Largely he'd kept it up only for the amusement to be had, in watching some lofty personage struggling to mind his tongue, knowing only too well what a wreck could be made of his life if he did not. But unsavory stolen letters could be returned, evidence disposed of—and if he did not precisely make friends with such a gesture, he might very well lose himself a few true enemies. At the very least, it might assist in narrowing down who might be trying to kill him this time around. "What else?" he asked. "Well," she hedged, trailing her fingers along the edge of a leaf, "There is the matter of your mistress." "Never say you're jealous of Charity ." "I'm not jealous!" She punctuated this with a stern frown of offense. "Say rather I have too much self-respect to offer something I am not given in return." Fascinating. "Which is?" "Fidelity." Chris jammed his hands into his pockets. "You're asking me," he said, "to throw over Charity, whom I've known for years. For you." He could have told her they'd parted company just this afternoon, but he suspected she would find the timing a little too convenient to believe it. "I am not asking you to do anything," she said. "Your choices are your own." "But it's a condition," he said. "I thought you liked her." "I do." she said lightly, bending to retrieve Hieronymus at last, wrapping her fingers about his shell as he wriggled his little turtle legs in consternation at being removed from his stomping grounds. "In fact, I'm hosting her for tea on Friday. I shall not complain if you also retain her friendship. And naturally, I shall I expect you—should you choose to release her—to be generous in the doing of it. But you cannot share her bed and mine." "Whyever not?" "Because I don't like sharing." Her little nose nipped upwards in a supercilious tilt. "I've got six sisters, you know. And when one has got six sisters, one does grow weary of nothing ever being exclusively one's own. There are always borrowed gowns, filched reticules, and gloves and shawls that invariably go missing and somehow are never returned." "You didn't mind before." In fact she had been relieved, if he recalled correctly. Pleased that there would be no wifely duties expected of her, that he had another woman to see to such needs. "But that was before—" She pursed her lips together, her color ratcheting higher still. Chris snickered into the cup of his palm. Before, he thought, she had decided she wanted him after all. Before she learned that she could have the one—pleasure—without risking the other— children . "Never mind," she said in a huff. "Do as you will." "I always do." She was determined to be in a snit about it, and there was nothing for it but to let her. But as she stalked from the room in a high dudgeon, ostensibly to return Hieronymus to his pond, the way she'd shoved past him earlier nagged at his mind. It hadn't been strictly necessary; she could just as easily have given him a wide berth. But she had chosen to shove her shoulder against his, which meant— He slapped at his coat pockets. Came up empty. Son of a bitch! His mouthy little wife had stolen his freshly-purchased pocket watch.

∞∞∞

"Thank you," Phoebe said, her brows knitting in confusion as Charity passed a small tin across the table. "But what it is?" "It's a tea, of a sort," Charity said. "A special blend of Queen Anne's lace, tansy, and pennyroyal. It will not, strictly speaking," she stressed, "delight the palate. However, one requires just one cup taken every day. A few lumps of sugar or honey and a bit of lemon, and it's perfectly tolerable. And should you require more…" Charity dug in her reticule and produced a little white card, embossed with neatly-printed lettering. "Here; the direction of the shop at which it may be purchased." "Oh," Phoebe said. And then, as understanding dawned: " Oh . You mean to say—" "Precisely. Though the particularities escape me," Charity said, "I'm given to understand that these herbs, when taken correctly, render the womb inhospitable to a man's seed. Of course there are other precautions that may be taken; a woman who does not desire children cannot be too careful." "Yes, I—I'm aware." Phoebe cleared her throat, certain she was blushing to the roots of her hair. "I'm glad to see you received your sapphires," she said, nodding to indicate the strand of large blue stones draped around Charity's neck. Charity beamed. "Yes, and I thank you for the loan of your bracelet. I'm positive it was instrumental in securing such large stones. Oh, and please don't worry—Chris can well afford the expense of them. You shan't have to economize a bit." Phoebe bit back a laugh. "I thought I would have to remind him to purchase them," she said. "He's not left the house at all recently—well, except for just once." Which she had reprimanded him for, though perhaps it had not been her place to do so. "Undoubtedly he sent Mr. Brooks for them," Charity said lightly, unbothered. "He always does. But the man has fine taste, so I can have no complaints." "Really?" Phoebe blinked. "But—" But he'd gone personally for the bracelet he'd purchased for her. And he'd been shot for his pains. "How can there be any meaning to a gift chosen so impersonally?" Charity gave a lovely trill of a laugh, and a dark curl rolled over her shoulder. "There is none," she said. "But I'd hate to have such beautiful sapphires tainted with sentimentality. I suppose I'll wear them until they cease to dazzle me, and then I shall sell them." "Sell them? Whatever for?" " Money , darling. And a great deal of it, mostly likely." Charity smiled over the rim of her tea cup. "I've put away a tidy sum for my future, but I should like to be something more than merely comfortable, you understand." A sapphire bracelet glinted upon her wrist, which Phoebe supposed she must also have gotten from Kit. Along with matched earbobs—Phoebe thought Kit had said he'd refused her those. "I should have bargained for a carriage," Charity said reflectively. "And a matched team to go along with it. Ah, pity. At least I've got the flat." Bargain? "Couldn't you just ask?" Phoebe said. "That is, he doesn't strike me as miserly." For a moment, Charity stared, her wide, dark eyes framed by thick lashes. "He didn't tell you?" she inquired, finally. "Tell me what?" "We've parted company, darling. That is— that sort of company." She gave a light laugh of amusement. "He is not particularly miserly, as you said. But neither is he likely to purchase a carriage for a woman who is no longer his mistress. But the sapphires"—she paused to roll her fingers over the large stones—"I suppose they'll buy me the carriage and the team besides." With quite a lot leftover, if the deep, rich hue and lack of any visible inclusions were anything to judge by. "He did not tell me," Phoebe said. "When was this?" "A few days past," Charity said. "He came to his office with Mr. Brooks. I suppose he must have decided to come up rather spur of the moment, since he'd sent not advance notice nor even brought his key." Something of Phoebe's disquiet must have shown upon her face, for Charity reached out to touch her hand. "It wasn't a surprise," she said. "The timing perhaps, but the end was always inevitable. I'll not be left out in the cold." Strangely, an odd flutter of laughter rose in Phoebe's throat. "Because you got the flat?" "Just so," Charity said, with a satisfied smile. "And now it is only mine. He's sent his key back to me already." Because he no longer owned it, and Charity was no longer his mistress. She hadn't been for some days, since— Phoebe swallowed back a shocked exhale. The absolute cad! He'd let her make an utter fool of herself, when he had already broken off his arrangement with Charity! "Of course, I shall always think of him fondly," Charity said. "But I am enjoying my freedom presently. I've been quite lonely these last few months. His knee, you know—I imagine the stairs were a little much for him to manage. Ah, well." She gave an elegant shrug. "I've enough money saved that I can afford to be selective with my next patron, should I choose to take one. And if I do not…well, then, perhaps you could come visit me for tea." "I suppose I could," Phoebe said. And Kit could hardly object to it. After all, Charity wasn't his mistress any longer. "Yes. That would be lovely." "The flat is just above his office," Charity said. "Perhaps you could bring Chris, and he could show it to you. It's just in Cheapside; quite a fashionable part of town, really. There should be no danger to your reputation even if you were to come alone." She hesitated just briefly. "Although…" Phoebe canted her head. "Although?" "Well, it's probably nothing," Charity demurred. "A man came banging at the door just yesterday looking for him." "Your door?" "No, no—the office below," Charity said. "But he made such a dreadful racket that I had to poke my head out the window to see for myself. He was shouting fit to wake the dead. He said—well, he said some rather nasty things which I won't repeat," Charity said primly, patting at her rouged lips with the corner of a napkin. "At any rate, I gathered that he was sent by a man called Russell, who has some business with Chris." "What sort of business?" Phoebe inquired. "Haven't the faintest. But the man was rather insistent. I didn't care much for the look of him. Truth to tell, it's hardly the first time that someone has come pounding upon Chris' door. It's just that usually he's been there to—to take out the rubbish, so to speak." Probably a polite way of saying he'd been only too happy to take his fists to whomever had dared disturb him. "You should tell him," Phoebe said slowly. It might be nothing—or at least nothing unusual for him—but if there was even the slightest chance that it might be connected to the attempt made upon his life… Charity smothered a laugh behind the tips of her fingers, her eyes sparkling with merriment. "I shall do no such thing," she said. "You're his wife, darling. You may tell him."

∞∞∞

Chris had been buried in papers all afternoon; the sum of his various misdeeds laid out before him in the neat stacks that had been made of everything hidden away within his office. He wasn't sorry to see it go, exactly, but it did represent a sort of death, in a way. The death of the boy who had clawed his way out of the gutter, the young man who had eschewed every principle in the service of carving out a scrap of the world only for himself. What he'd not had the means to purchase for himself, he'd begged, borrowed, and stolen. Mostly stolen. But that time had passed. Em had been saying it for years, though he'd long since stopped listening. He didn't flatter himself that going to such lengths would make him respectable in one fell swoop—he'd enjoyed dangling the promise of ruin before the worst of his victims a little too much for that—but at least it would pacify Phoebe. And perhaps quiet the worst of the gossip that had surrounded him for years. "Mr. Dereham," Brooks said, separating one stack from the rest. "Return," Chris said. It was just a bundle of old love letters alluding to a passionate, if brief, affair. But the lady involved had a brother who was known as something of a hothead, and who would not have hesitated to call the man out. "And the same with these." He shoved another few stacks nearer to Brooks. Brooks gave a little sniff. Probably he was offended at having been called to sort through such sordid stuff. "How about Kettering?" "Return." An affair with an opera singer, and everyone knew the man's wife held the purse strings, owing to the terms of her marriage settlement. "Mrs. Balfour?" "Return." The woman had married her second husband some eight years ago, but Chris had discovered that her first husband had not been quite so deceased as she had claimed. Then again, her first husband had married again as well and was living quite happily with his current wife and their children in Wales. With the difficulties they would have encountered applying for a divorce, he supposed a little bigamy was forgivable. "Lord Garvey?" "Ah. That one goes to the Home Office," Chris said. "Don't know that they'll have enough evidence to prosecute," he added, "but there's enough bits and pieces there to suggest that Garvey advanced his inheritance." "Advanced his—you mean to say he killed his father?" Chris shrugged. "Hard to say." But he'd paid up, suggesting he had something worth concealing. "And you didn't go to the authorities?" "What for? There was nothing to suggest he'd done it before or might be inclined to do it again. And to all accounts, his father was a right bastard. Probably he did the world a favor." Though Chris was not above capitalizing upon it. Or at least, he hadn't been. "And these," he said, separating a few more stacks. "To the Home Office, all." "What did they do?" "You're better off not knowing," Chris said. "Suffice it to say, if they receive a visit from the Home Office, they'll have earned it." Brooks heaved a longsuffering sigh. "Statham?" he inquired. Statham. Chris' fingers clenched around the papers he held in his hand. Blast it, he'd known he'd heard the man's name before! "What did he do?" he asked. Brooks unfolded a letter, long-yellowed with age, scanning the lines contained therein. At last he folded it back up with a roll of his eyes. "It would appear he's illegitimate," he said blandly. Hell, half the damned Ton was probably illegitimate, given the number of affairs that Chris had learned of during his long tenure of collecting information. Statham wouldn't even be disinherited for it, given that his title suggested he'd been born within the bonds of matrimony. Didn't matter who his father truly was, so long as his mother had been married at the time of his birth. But it would still embarrass the man if it were brought to light, and it satisfied Chris' vengeful soul to know that whatever aspersions it pleased Statham to toss at him, they were just the same, the two of them. Bastards, even if Statham put on the pretensions of better. "I'll keep that one," he said. Just to have, for his own personal entertainment. Perhaps to rub Statham's nose in from time to time, should the man continue to prove himself worthy of it. "And here's—" Brooks paused, his fingers crumpling a sheet of paper on reflex as he read the name. "Lymington?" "Ah." Chris gave a dismissive wave of his hand. "Thought I'd let you decide what's to be done with that one. Whether it goes back, or…" He let his voice trail off suggestively. Lymington's crimes had not, as such, been actual crimes. The Home Office would be less than concerned in a man who'd made a habit of debauching innocent young women in his employ, nor would they be particularly interested in the man's peculiar sexual peccadilloes. But a butler whose sister had once been ill-used by the man might well be. "You have information on Lymington ?" Brooks asked, incredulous. "For all the good it's done me," Chris said, and he had, in fact, paid out a decent sum to acquire it without return on the investment. "He had a sizeable fortune once. But he's all but exhausted it in the pursuit of some unsavory activities—and in paying to keep them quiet. You won't get money from him," he warned. "He hasn't got it to spare. But you could publish the letters." "He'd be humiliated," Brooks said, with a note of ruthless satisfaction. "Worse than humiliated," Chris said. "He'd never be welcome in polite society again. A pariah in the truest sense of the word. Probably he'd have to flee the country." And to a man of Lymington's position, that would be worse even than extortion. "And you're giving this to me?" Brooks' brows pinched together, and a long swallow bobbed in his throat. "Why?" Ah, hell. That was gratitude there upon Brooks' face, Chris thought. Perhaps even a begrudging respect, for having the means for vengeance set into his hands. "Figure ye got more reason than I to ‘ave it," he said gruffly. "Ye wouldn't be the first person I offered a bit o' revenge when the opportunity arose. And ye been a decent butler, even wiv that stick up yer arse." Despite the tightness of his jaw, Brooks managed a laugh. "How the hell would you know? You've never had one before." But he didn't have to have prior experience to know that Brooks had done his job admirably, even if his manner had been something less than what would have been expected. Significantly less. Probably Brooks had been aggrieved to find himself employed by a man possessed of a reputation so far beyond the pale that good, upstanding people tended to cross the street rather than find themselves in his path. But his general antipathy had, at least, been honest. And that sort of honesty—and the loyalty he'd displayed despite it—couldn't be bought. Brooks tucked the packet of letters within his coat pocket. "I still think you're a damned fool," he said. "Don't pay ye fer yer friendship," Chris said. But damned if he didn't suspect he'd earned a sliver of it anyway.