Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

“ Y ou have got to stop pouting,” Ezra drawled in his usual bored tone. “It makes you look ugly.”

Ambrose drew his eyes up from his tumbler still full of whiskey, his eyebrow arching upward as he looked at his friend.

“I am not pouting, and I never look ugly,” he replied dryly, then turned his head slightly to look at the woman on his lap. “Am I ugly?” he asked the pretty blonde in red.

“You could never be ugly, my lord,” the woman purred, smiling sensually at him.

He threw a smug look at Ezra as the blonde leaned in to kiss his neck, but nearly faltered when her lips actually touched his skin. Ambrose enjoyed his time with the working women he permitted in his hell, and he enjoyed them often. Tonight, though, he could not focus, and the usual stir of desire he felt between his legs when a woman kissed his neck seemed to shrink away this time. Politely, he pushed her back from his neck, offered an excuse of a private meeting, and then sent her away.

Ezra clocked this immediately, much to Ambrose’s chagrin, and whispered something to the redhead on his lap. The beautiful young lady in green velvet gave him a sultry smile and then lowered her lips to his ear to whisper something back. Ambrose rolled his eyes as the woman then laughed aloud, stood up, and waited for Ezra to slap her backside before she departed.

“Something is bothering you,” Ezra pushed, smirking at Ambrose once they were alone. “I’m the only meeting you have tonight, and we have finished.”

“You are reading too much into this, as usual,” Ambrose countered, then knocked back his drink. “Your powers of perception are not always accurate, Ezra.”

Ezra grinned quietly as he leaned back into his chair, swirling the whiskey in his glass as he studied the golden duke—the polar opposite of Ezra himself in looks. Ambrose knew then that his friend would not let up, and he had to say something or prove his point.

“I’m perhaps growing weary of this venture,” Ambrose confessed begrudgingly. “The money that is poured into this place used to fill me with joy, but now I see the destruction it causes all too well. Some men gambled everything away until their families had nothing, or drank themselves into a stupor at the bar to forget the monumental mistake that had just been committed.”

He lifted his head to look around the main gambling room, where gentlemen by the dozens were gambling their money either at the tables or on the lovely ladies of the night. It was not that he ran a brothel—the working women were all their own and had come to him with a deal. Their leader, Trina, had promised a boost in profit by allowing her and the other girls to come in between certain hours on the weekends.

The deal had been so successful that the paramours returned with a new one a week later. In exchange for ten percent of their earnings, they would fall under Ambrose and Colter’s protection. To him, it seemed like an easy way to make money, but to the working women, he’d provided a safer street for them to conduct their business on. In fact, it was the only part of his business he had not grown weary of.

“It is not your place to be a moral compass for these men,” Ezra stated in a bored fashion. “You put too much on yourself. Your business—and the little side one you allow me to run through, I might add—is successful because it is exclusive. You are not trying to draw people in! We have to turn people away! You are not trying to trick anybody. Your tables are clean and fair.”

“We are still ruining lives,” Ambrose retorted, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“And what are you going to do if you do decide to shut it down?” Ezra asked, leaning forward with elbows on the table. “How are you going to keep buying everything your little sister ever wants or needs then? You and I both know, even with your family wealth, that Helena could burn through that in a month if she was left to her own.”

“Maybe we should finish this conversation in the new boxing ring I just installed,” Ambrose gritted out, glaring at his friend.

Ezra knew better than to bring Helena’s name into anything, especially when referring to the gambling hell. The pent-up frustration Ambrose had been grappling with since the garden party pulsed in his veins, begging to be let out. His frustration at Barbara’s dismissal. His frustration at their kiss. A kiss that was his fault.

Ezra raised a lazy eyebrow, stood up, and opened his arms. “I am always up for a conversation in the ring, old boy,” he drawled amusingly.

Then, suddenly, his dark eyes became black as his smile and voice dropped.

“Perhaps if I bruise that pretty face of yours, you’ll stop acting like a woman and accept your responsibility as it is. You are not the only one who needs the profits from this arrangement, Ambrose.”

Ambrose rose to his feet, gritting his teeth, but a commotion came from the bar before either of them could make their way to the back. Sounds of smashing glasses and bottles rang through the air, stilling the live music and the general murmur of the crowd as people were being pushed this way and that.

“Bloody hell,” Ambrose murmured. “Colter!” he shouted, before walking toward the brawl. “We will talk later,” he said over his shoulder, throwing Ezra a glare.

“Damn right we will,” Ezra called back, then faded into the crowd.

Ambrose turned his focus toward the fight, and much to his relief, Colter had already captured the problem-maker. With the drunkard in hand, the others quickly calmed back down, and the peace returned when Ambrose arrived at the bar. The man dangling from Colter’s fist looked strangely familiar, but Ambrose knew for a fact that he was not a member.

“Bring him to my office,” Ambrose commanded, sliding his hands in his pockets.

Colter gave him a single nod, then began to drag the man toward the back. As usual, men parted like the Red Sea for Colter, some even bowing to him as he passed. He was not a man anyone in here wanted to cross.

Standing right there, Ambrose closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath through his nose, and pulled himself together. He let the dominant, arrogant Lord of the Hell persona rise within him and tucked all of the other aspects of his life away. Ezra and his words would have to wait. Barbara would have to wait.

“It is not every day someone is able to sneak into my establishment,” Ambrose stated as he entered the room.

Colter still had the man by the scruff of his neck and was standing with him in the middle of the room.

“It is not every day a drunk constable stumbles into an illegal gambling hell, but here we are,” the man replied, slurring his words as he smiled drunkenly if not smugly at him.

Ambrose’s mask of composure stayed perfectly in place as he shifted his gaze to Colter.

Colter, despite his size, grew pale and wide-eyed as he looked down at the man in his grip, then up at Ambrose questioningly. Ambrose subtly nodded toward the door.

With a flick of his fingers, Colter dropped the man to his feet, and without a word, he left the room.

“How do I know you are a real constable?” Ambrose asked casually, tilting his head slightly to the side as he took in the swaying man.

He certainly did not look like a constable. In his fifties, graying, pot-bellied and bleary-eyed. The ruddiness in his cheeks and nose indicated that his current drunken state was more common than not.

“All you need to know is that I was paid by a very good friend of yours to look up information that might be very important to you, Your Grace. Information about deaths that are quite close to you and your friends.”

Ambrose stilled, his mind racing to put a name to the man’s face. Where had he been, and what had he been doing when he had seen him? Then, suddenly, he remembered. It had been brief, but Ambrose had seen the man leave Duncan’s study the day before Duncan made them investigate their last lead into their fathers’ deaths.

Duncan had survived the fire that claimed their fathers’ lives, but the investigation into who could have set that fire had truly been what had nearly killed him. Six months before he had met his wife, Alice, Duncan had been a wreck, obsessed with the theory that the fire was no accident. He would not eat. Would not sleep. Would only drink, investigate, and work. Since he had been fifteen.

His life was vastly different now, in part thanks to Ambrose, Ezra, and Morgan rallying around him. However, the most significant change to Duncan’s life was his wife, Alice. Though it had not been a love match at first, it was now clear to everyone that they were soulmates.

“What is your name? Why did you come here?” Ambrose asked. “Why not to my home or a more appropriate place?”

The man claiming to be a constable gave him a crooked smile, then walked over to the bar cart to help himself to a drink.

“All you need to know is that I have a very important piece of information for the Duke of Baxter, Your Grace. Information that might be important to you as well.” His smile broadened as he lifted his full glass to his mouth. “Seeing as it involves the death of your father just as it does his.”

“Tell me what you know,” Ambrose demanded.

“Won’t your friend want to be here for this?” the man asked, smiling triumphantly.

Ambrose clenched his fists, biting back the urge to wipe the smile off his face. “He is on his honeymoon,” he said flatly.

The man shrugged, sniffed, then poured himself another glass of Ambrose’s finest scotch. “He paid for the information, not you,” he replied, focused more on his glass than Ambrose. “Since he is not here, you shall have to pay your own fee.”

Ambrose drew a billfold from his inner jacket pocket and pulled out two fifty-pound notes. He slapped them down into the man’s hand with disgust, and when they locked eyes, he saw the pleasure the constable got from bringing men like him to such a low level. If it were any other matter, he would have Colter come in and beat him to a pulp, not even bothering to get his own hands dirty. But this man had important information, and Duncan would never forgive him if he’d ruined the search… despite them calling the search quits nearly a year ago.

“That’ll do,” the man said pleasantly, pocketing the bills. “The medical examiner’s original report was misfiled,” he began before Ambrose could ask him to. “No one seems to know why a secondary file was created, but it replaced the misfiled one. There is a rather startling difference between the two. The original report stated that five not four bodies were discovered in that warehouse.”

“What was the name listed?” Ambrose asked quickly, his pulse racing.

The man shook his head, looking remorseful for the first time. “John Doe,” he replied. “Never identified.”

Ambrose stood there for a moment, taking in the new information. The second report had matched the witness accounts from that day, that’s why it had never been questioned. Five bodies? Could one of them be the firebug that had taken their fathers’ lives?

“I’m not in the habit of sticking around after I deliver my information,” the man stated, suddenly sounding strikingly sober.

He placed his empty glass down on the cart and walked to the door. He paused just as he was about to open it, and then turned to Ambrose with a smirk.

“I take it that you won’t mind my coming back here with more information if our mutual friend is on his honeymoon. I would appreciate it if your brute handled me a little more kindly next time.”

“I assure you that the Duke and Duchess of Baxter will be back quite soon,” Ambrose replied, staring him down. “If you want to be handled kindly, you shall have to wait for him.”

The man sneered but said nothing as he opened the door and closed it behind him. Turning on his heel, Ambrose strode to his desk and began to ready his quill. Duncan and Alice would be on their journey from Milan to Venice right now. If he sent the letter on the four a.m. ship—the one that would leave in two hours—he might be able to get the message to his friend before he and his wife left for Greece.

“Saw your little friend leave,” Ezra announced as he let himself into Ambrose’s office. “Now that that’s settled, shall we have that ‘discussion’ we had planned?”

Ambrose scratched his signature on the page hurriedly, messily blotting the ink, then sealed it shut with his wax crest. “I shall have to pummel you later,” he retorted, rising with the finished letter. “For now, though, I am going to accept that you are right.”

Ezra’s dark eyebrows flew up in surprise as he followed Ambrose out of his office and into the hallway. “About what?” he asked.

“About worrying about other people’s moral standing,” Ambrose replied in a clipped tone. “It seems we have our own to worry about.”