Chapter Eight

L ucien leapt down from his carriage as soon as the wheels stopped and bounded up the front steps of Brixton House, across the marble portico, and past his butler McGregor who raced to open the door.

“Send Dalton to bed,” he ordered as he handed off his hat, gloves, and coat, then stormed off toward the stairs. “I’ll undress myself.”

The last thing he wanted was to have his valet underfoot tonight. He was in no mood to be patient nor kind.

No, what he should have done was find another fight in one of the Wapping warehouses and let himself be beaten senseless. But he’d gone there so frequently lately he was afraid the crowd would start confusing him for Gentleman Jackson. Or think him mad.

“Perhaps I am,” he muttered to himself as he took the stairs three at a time, burning off what little frustrated energy he could.

Only madness could explain what he’d done with that troublesome gel on the terrace. Christ. Didn’t she know she was supposed to be afraid of him? She shouldn’t be pliant and soft with skin so delicious that he couldn’t decide if she were sweet or tangy on his tongue, but only that he knew he wanted to taste more. A hell of a lot more. If the Petersons hadn’t chosen that moment to step out onto the terrace and forced her to slap him, he would have embarrassed them both by showing her exactly how much because even those small touches and kisses had him nearly tenting his trousers.

That was the worst of it. Not that he found an unschooled miss particularly alluring, not that he’d caressed the same woman who wanted to destroy him—

It was that instead of proving himself to be the ruthless rakehell society thought he was, he’d behaved like some green lad who couldn’t control his cock.

What on God’s earth was it about Jessamyn St Clair that irritated him so much yet had him practically panting over her? Frustration. That was all. Had to be. The damnable gel frustrated him with her relentless attacks on his character, yet didn’t know enough to stop when she should. It certainly wasn’t because he found her attractive. Impossible. She was nothing like the women he favored.

Yet whatever the reason he’d momentarily lost his mind tonight, he could never touch her like that again.

“I can control my cock, God damn it,” he muttered as he threw open the door of the sitting room off his bedroom and stomped inside.

“Glad to hear it.”

He halted mid-step. Slowly, he turned his gaze to the man sitting in the chair in the corner of the dark room.

Seamus Douglass, Duke of Malvern, returned his stare.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Lucien demanded of his old friend and one of the men who had joined him to fight as mercenaries on the Continent with the Prussians, until Shay had come to his senses and taken a legitimate commission in the British army.

“I came to see you.”

“I meant in London.” Not an unexpected question, given that Shay now never left his Yorkshire estate. For any reason.

“I came to see you,” he repeated pointedly.

Oh, this could not be good.

Lucien crossed to the fireplace and snatched up the iron poker. Although he didn’t want the warmth of a fire—only something to do with his hands that still ached from the softness of Jess’s skin—he knew better than to stir the coals into a blaze or to light any of the lamps or candles in the room. Shay would want to remain in the shadows, and Lucien wouldn’t do anything to make his old friend uncomfortable. After all, while Lucien pretended to be a man shrouded in blackness, Shay had become a true creature of the darkness.

“Devlin said you were in London,” Lucien spoke into the fire as he poked at the banked coals.

“I arrived a few days ago.”

“Staying at Malvern House?”

“At the Prince of Wales Inn in Cheapside. I don’t want anyone else to know I’m here.”

Surprised, Lucien stopped stabbing the coals and looked over his shoulder. “Not even the Earl of Granville?”

“ Especially not the Earl of Granville.” Shay leaned forward in the chair, elbows on knees and his face still hidden by the shadows. “Sophie can’t know I’m here.”

“All right.” An easy promise to keep considering that Lucien traveled nowhere near the social circle where the lovely Lady Sophie Winter and her father belonged, and Lucien certainly didn’t need to ask why Shay wanted it that way. After all, Lady Sophie and Shay—and Shay’s late brother—had all shared a past. Some men claimed they would die for love, others that they would give everything they possessed for it, and still others that they would kill for it. Shay had somehow managed to do all three, yet Lady Sophie still wasn’t his. “But unless you came in through the window, McGregor let you into the house, and he knows you.”

Lucien had hired McGregor as his butler because the man had once been a sergeant in the army, serving first in Spain and then in France after the Allies chased Bonaparte north from the Peninsula. When the wars ended, McGregor needed a position, and Lucien needed servants he could trust with his life. Even after the accident that scarred Shay’s face, the old soldier would surely have recognized the Duke of Malvern if the man arrived on the doorstep and asked to wait for Lucien.

“He also knows how to keep a secret,” Shay replied. “Which is why you hired him.”

“True enough,” Lucien muttered and turned back to stab at the coals again. “Not that I’m not happy to see you…”

He was thrilled, in fact. He’d been worried about Shay during the past few years. His old friend had holed himself up in his house and seldom came out. True, the house was a palatial country estate that could have given Blenheim Palace a run for its money in terms of grandeur. But Shay had given up coming to London for any reason—Hell, he’d given up leaving the estate for any reason, becoming little more than a hermit.

Lucien leveled a hard gaze on him over his shoulder. “But why are you here? It isn’t just to see me. You haven’t been to London in over five years, and you didn’t send word ahead. We both know the Royal Mail works just as well in Yorkshire as it does here.”

“I had no choice. Something happened.” He pushed himself out of the chair and came forward toward the fireplace, but even then, Lucien noted that he kept the right side of his face toward the shadows. “That is, something is going to happen unless I stop it.”

“What would that be?” Lucien could sense the agitation radiating from Shay.

“Do you still have contacts in Seven Dials and St Giles—those men connected to your father’s old businesses?” Shay asked.

Lucien bit back a curse. Whatever Shay needed, it could not be good if he was asking about that.

“Yes.” Lucien said nothing more but crossed to the little side table by the window, picked up the bottle of port he kept there, and treated himself to a generous pour. This night was turning into a race to the bottom of a bottle.

“I need you to gather some information for me.”

“What kind of information?” Lucien poured a second glass and returned the stopper to the crystal decanter with a soft clink.

“Anything you can learn about a man named James Norton, a Whitehall official with an appointment in the Treasury.”

Lucien carried the second glass back to Shay and held it out. “Why?”

Shay finally turned to face him. For the first time that evening, Lucien could clearly see the thick, rough scars that marred the right side of his face. “He’s planning on marrying Sophie.”

“I see.” Lucien took a long swallow of port. “Afraid you won’t be invited to the wedding?”

“I might clash with the flowers.” He drew a finger slowly down his scarred cheek.

“No one cares about that,” Lucien said truthfully. “No one ever cared anything about that.” He gestured his glass toward the window. “Hell, the streets are full of soldiers who came back missing parts.” Arms, legs, jaws, feet, hands, ears, eyes… So many men, sadly, that no one gave them a second glance any more. Just as they wouldn’t have given one to Shay.

“But I didn’t earn this in the war,” he muttered and turned back toward the fire, once more hiding the right side of his face. “That’s always been the difference.”

Yes, Lucien supposed so.

“You’ll help me, then?”

Lucien would walk through fire for Shay. “I’ll see what I can find out.” He frowned into his glass. “But it might take me longer than usual.” He paused before admitting, “I’m having trouble with a woman.”

“Ah, yes. Your cock.” Shay did a poor job of hiding his grin as he lifted the glass to his lips and muttered against the rim, “Maybe not so well-controlled after all.”

“It doesn’t involve my cock,” Lucien grumbled. Not completely, at least. “Her name is Jessamyn St Claire. She’s an unsullied bluestocking out for revenge.”

Lucien leaned his arm across the fireplace mantel and stared down into the low flames as he explained everything to Shay. Well, not everything . He judiciously censored the events of tonight. Even with those gaps in his story, he knew Shay would understand his predicament and sympathize with him.

Instead, Shay laughed.

“This isn’t funny,” Lucien growled.

“Oh, yes, it is!” Shay continued to chuckle as he finished his port. “You’ve been playing the part of the rakehell for so long that fate was bound to strike you down sooner or later. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. The blasted baby isn’t mine.”

“Are you certain?”

“Absolutely.” He shoved himself away from the fireplace and began to pace. “I would never have been that careless, certainly not with an unmarried miss in Lord Hawthorne’s garden. The last thing I’d let myself be is trapped into marriage by getting a chit with child.” He grimaced. “I can never take a wife, you know that.”

There were parts of his life that not even a wife could be privy to. The last time he checked, the Church of England didn’t require a wife to keep a husband’s deepest secrets until death did they part. Although that was what it would be— death , because if anyone found out that Lucien had committed fraud in stealing his brother’s inheritance, his so-called duchess would most likely kill him with her own hands. No matter that Lucien had spent the past decade attempting to make it up to Phillip, the damage had been done. Phillip was no longer a Grenier and never would be.

“Then you need to put a stop to this immediately,” Shay warned. “In my experience, it isn’t the generals who win wars but the foot soldiers no one pays a second thought to.”

“She isn’t a general nor a foot soldier.” No, she was unlike any other woman he’d ever met. She wasn’t some unmarried miss who nearly fainted if he did so much as glance her way, nor was she a world-weary wife or widow. She was prickly, too smart for her own good, and stubborn as a mule. Yet she could also be soft and yielding. It was all of that taken together that made her the most interesting woman he’d met in years. If ever.

“What is she then?” Shay pressed.

Lucien raked his frustrated fingers through his hair. “A frustrating busybody who’s sticking her pert little nose in where it doesn’t belong. She’s in over her head and has no idea who she’s messing with.”

“Seems to me she knows exactly who.” He gestured pointedly at Lucien’s pacing. “And she seems to be succeeding.”

Lucien halted in his steps. “Only for the moment. I plan on winning this war.”

Shay mumbled, “How does that old saying go? ‘For the want of a nail, the shoe was lost…’ Be wary of the little things. They’ll snowball and cost you your dukedom if you’re not careful.”

“She won’t discover my secrets.” He would never let her, no matter how alluring she was proving to be. “I’ll find out all I can about James Norton for you.”

“Soon,” Shay stressed. “I need to know exactly what sort of man he is before they announce their engagement.”

“Soon,” Lucien promised.

Shay slapped Lucien on the back, then disappeared into the hall to find his own way out.

Blowing out a harsh breath, Lucien helped himself to another drink, this one even more generous than the last, and yanked at his choking cravat to peel it away from his neck. When he was certain Shay was gone from the house, he went to the stairwell and leaned over the wrought iron banister.

“McGregor!” he shouted through the house.

A few seconds later, the dedicated soldier-turned-butler appeared at the bottom of the steps. “Sir?”

“Go through the papers in my study,” Lucien ordered. “There’s a personal letter that arrived a few months ago from Miss Amanda St Claire. Find it and bring it to me.” He added, almost in afterthought. “And bring me that necklace I purchased for Madame Pierre.” The same one he’d bought to placate her for his role in sending Lucille north to her family.

He now had better plans for it.

“Yes, sir.”

He tapped his fist against the banister. “And tell Dalton that I have to make a social visit in the morning and want to be dressed to the nines.” He smiled slowly like a crocodile. “A very important social visit.”