Chapter 12

CHAPTER 12

E sme felt nervous. It wasn’t a sensation she often allowed herself to have. A lack of confidence, at least outwardly, could be dangerous in the world of boxing, even deadly on the streets. But at that moment she couldn’t stop pacing up and down Finn’s fine parlor carpet, clenching and unclenching her hands before her as she waited for his arrival.

It had been a day since she sent her note. He’d responded immediately, even though he’d asked her to come the following afternoon. There had been something disappointing about that. That he hadn’t arranged to meet her the same day, same hour, same moment, she’d sent her letter.

But then again, they weren’t courting. They weren’t falling in love. They were in an awkward dance of passion and long-kept secrets. Nothing more.

And now she was here. In his house. His estate . Of course he would call her here for their meeting. His domain. It made sense—it was private—but returning to this place was another reminder that she was stuck between worlds. She hadn’t felt that way for a long time, not since she first ran away and had to learn to survive from Ripley and Jane.

The door to the parlor opened behind her and Esme turned to find Finn standing at the entryway, staring at her. He blinked as his gaze moved up and down her frame, then he entered the room and closed the door behind himself.

“You are lovely,” he said softly.

She glanced down at herself. “Thank you. It’s my…it’s my best dress.”

She felt foolish now that she’d said that. The gown was serviceable, yes, but there was nothing fancy or unique about it. The fabric was a cheaper silk and she had sewn the seams back together a few times.

“It doesn’t fit here,” she continued. “But then neither do I and?—”

He crossed the room to her in a few long steps and silenced her by cupping her cheeks in his warm palms and dropping his mouth to hers. The kiss was gentle, yet somehow still powerful and her spinning thoughts settled.

“You are lovely ,” he repeated when he pulled away at last. He motioned to the sideboard. “Tea?”

She bent her head and muttered, “Whisky.”

When he laughed, she was surprised. She hadn’t thought she’d said that loud enough to be heard, but it seemed he was paying attention. “I have that, too, though it’s a bit early for me.”

She shook her head. “Tea is fine. Two sugars, no milk.”

He paused and looked at her over his shoulder. “Like your father used to take it.”

“Yes.” She nodded and marveled at the swell of pain that simple statement caused. But it was a good ache, somehow. Finn understood her father’s loss. He knew him. And it helped to talk to him.

As he poured the tea, she worried a loose thread along the back of one of the chairs. “Did you…did you attend his funeral?”

He came to her with a cup, which she took and then sat when he motioned her to do so. He fetched his own tea, then sat in the chair beside her own.

“Yes,” he answered at last. “I did.”

She stared at the teacup for a moment. “I wasn’t allowed. My cousin said I was overwrought.”

His lips pursed and she saw the anger tighten his jaw. Anger on her behalf. Such an odd thing, for she hadn’t expected to find a protector in a man like this. “Even if the man isn’t a murderer, he’s certainly a cruel arse. Who else had more reason to be overwrought? You two were so close.”

“We were,” she said with a faint smile. “He was unlike anyone I ever knew. A man with power, but also principles. A dreamer caught in the body of a marquess.”

“A true gentleman,” Finn added.

Their eyes met and for the first time it wasn’t desire that hung between them, nor tension from the secrets she kept and he now knew. It was understanding. It was shared emotion. It was comfort.

“He was,” she agreed.

He settled back in his chair and sipped his tea. “Chilton was the only man I knew who could discuss politics and the habits of bees, sometimes in the same breath. Always with the same passion.”

She couldn’t help but laugh and it felt so good. Her thoughts of her father were so often about his loss, about the circumstances, that she sometimes forgot the little joys of him. “Oh Lord, the bees! His hives were wonderful, I loved watching him put on all his layers and go out to tend them.” Her smile faltered. “I-I made sure they went to a good home.”

“They aren’t still on the family estate?” Finn asked, his eyebrows lifting in surprise.

She shrugged. “Francis wanted to burn them. It was only the suggestion that they were worth something to sell that made him reconsider. I had to save them. Save something of him .”

“Bastard,” Finn said, and his brow lowered with even more anger.

She sighed. This was as good a segue as any to the topic she had truly come to discuss with him. She set her tea aside and leaned forward. “Do you…do you truly think you might be able to unmask Francis if it was what I said I wanted?”

He drew a long breath. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s in his best interest to continue to cover it up if he did do something criminal. But that doesn’t mean he won’t slip. He had none of your father’s keen intellect nor his discretion, if I recall him correctly.”

“No. He had none of my father’s good qualities,” she said with bitterness in her tone.

“You do,” Finn said gently.

She cleared her throat. That observation felt too intimate. “Er, what would you do? How would you go about such an investigation, if you still wished to do it?”

He tilted his head. “I offered, Esme, and the offer still stands. I would need a reason to bump into him. I believe he maintains your father’s membership at White’s. I’ve always preferred Fitzhugh’s, but I have my own membership regardless. I could find him there and strike up a conversation without it seeming too odd.”

She worried her lip. She’d wanted this and she still did, but the idea of Finn walking up to her cousin, a man she believed capable of murder, was frightening. She felt defensive of him. “What would you ask him?” she pressed.

“Nothing.”

She shook her head. “Nothing? Then what would be the purpose?"

He laughed. “I think it would be too obvious if I marched across a crowded club, grabbed him by the lapels and demanded he confess to murdering my friend.”

She let out a humorless chuckle. “Oh God, but that sounds wonderful, though. To do that? To humiliate him in front of his friends, to put the idea out there into the world where it would be whispered about and questioned?”

“I wish I could do that for you,” he said, and took her hand. He lifted it to his lips and brushed them to her knuckles gently, frowning at the light bruises there from her fight earlier in the week before he’d returned to London. Which she’d won, despite her distraction. “And perhaps one day I can. But for now I would need to put him at ease. Make him see me as a potential ally, not an enemy. Perhaps I’ll even invite him to my sister’s engagement party in a few days. It’s become quite the sought-after invitation in Society.”

Whenever he’d spoken of Marianne’s upcoming nuptials, Esme had sensed a tension there. A sadness. But now he seemed lighter. Like a weight had been lifted from him.

“The engagement to Ramsbury,” she said.

He nodded. “Yes.”

“He’s quite the catch.”

His face immediately fell. “Please tell me you didn’t ever have eyes for my friend.”

“Never!” she said, though her chest puffed at what was clearly his flash of jealousy at the idea. “I had eyes for no one in my days in Society. I never really fit in, even before I had to run for my life.”

“I’ve no idea how,” he said, and pushed a loose curl away from her cheek. “You ought to have been the center of all attention."

She swallowed once again at the focused intent of his stare. There was the longing. The want that called to her own. She reached up to trace his lips with her fingertips. “You know, I have no way to repay you for this, Finn. Save one.”

She let her fingers drag down from his lips, over his chin, across his neatly tied cravat and the center of his chest. He caught his breath as she inched lower, tracing his stomach and finally cupping his cock through his trousers. He was half-hard already and she went a little weak in the knees at the feel of him.

His pupils were dilated with desire, but to her surprise he caught her hand and lifted it to his lips again, kissing her palm this time. “Esme, if we do that again, it will be only for mutual pleasure. It’s not a repayment.”

She stared at him, this man who so flummoxed her with all he was. “Oh.”

“But if you’d like to stay here for a while, then we could discuss whatever happens when I go to White’s. Perhaps we could share supper while we do.”

She shook her head. “You’re going to go today?”

He smiled. “Yes. Right now. There’s no time like the present, and if I’m going to deliver an invitation for the engagement ball, it’s better to do it now than later.”

“And you’d have me stay here? Wouldn’t your servants talk? Judge?”

He shrugged as he stood and she followed him to her feet. “I doubt it. Even if they do, who gives a damn? Unless you’re uncomfortable.”

She was, in truth. She hated the stares of people who could see through her and there was no one who could judge more swiftly and likely accurately than a servant. But this was about her father. About justice. She would have to be brave.

“I’m fine.”

“Good,” he said. “You can make use of my library if you’d like. Or stroll the gardens. Play in the music room if you’re so inclined. I’ll be certain the staff knows you have free access to anyplace you’d like on the estate.”

Her head spun at the ease with which he behaved. As if this was nothing. As if it was all normal and fine when it certainly wasn’t. But she could find no argument against him when he was so confident in himself and his decisions. So she made none and simply nodded. He leaned down to press the briefest of kisses to her lips, then moved to the parlor door and rang the bell for his butler.

Leaving her standing in a parlor that she no longer belonged in, determined to wait for a man who could never be hers, who was off to uncover secrets that she’d sworn to keep to her grave.

And it was all very confusing.

W hen Finn had told Esme that he preferred Fitzhugh’s to White’s, he hadn’t been lying and it was all coming back to him why he avoided the place. He stood in the large entryway, soft sounds of voices drifting from various parlors and game rooms, and sighed. So many here were pretentious or terribly dandified, there to see and be seen.

He supposed he was little better today, though. He had prey, after all. One he could only hope was actually in attendance.

“May I do anything else for you, Lord Delacourt?” the attendant said as he took Finn’s hat and gloves.

“I am hoping to meet some friends today,” he said. “I wonder if Lord Ramsbury or Lord…Lord Chilton are in attendance.”

It was hard to say the second. He hadn’t thought about the fact he’d be forced to refer to Esme’s awful cousin as Lord Chilton. A name he associated with one so dear to him and to her.

“Lord Ramsbury is not here,” the attendant said. Finn wasn’t surprised. Normally Sebastian wouldn’t set a foot in White’s. He only asked so that his interest in Chilton wouldn’t be too obvious. “But Lord Chilton arrived an hour ago. I believe he is in the reading room.”

Finn inclined his head and made his way into the main rooms of the club. A few turns and he saw the reading room ahead of him, a place where gentlemen could read the newspapers from all over the world, as well as current books and political and scientific papers. He had a hard time believing Chilton would be interested in any of that, as he was no intellectual.

But he entered the room and did, indeed, find the marquess sitting by a large window, a paper in his hands, though he didn’t seem to be reading it. Finn’s heart began to pound and he took a few long breaths to calm himself before he looked around the room. There were two other gentlemen in the quiet area and he forced himself to acknowledge one with a wave and cross to say a brief good afternoon to the other.

Once that was done, his eagerness hopefully masked, he turned toward Chilton. The marquess was watching him now and he rose as Finn made his way to him.

“Good afternoon, Delacourt,” he said, extending a hand.

Finn wished he didn’t have to take it, but he did, shaking it firmly. “Chilton.” It tasted as bitter as it felt to say it. “I feel I haven’t seen you in an age.”

Finn took in his foe in the moment they shook hands. He was a dandy through and through, wearing the highest collar Finn had ever seen, hair teased and twisted into a ridiculous pompadour. It was all fashion, no function, as Chilton’s face twisted with discomfort when he tried to retake his seat in his stiff jacket.

In truth, the man didn’t look capable of hurting a fly, let alone committing or orchestrating a murder. Could Esme be wrong about him? Not about his selfishness, but about the danger he posed?

“Will you join me?” Chilton asked.

“Certainly,” Finn replied, and took the place across from him.

There was an intricately carved and painted snuff box before the marquess and he motioned to it. “Will you have some?”

“I’ve never taken to the habit, I’m afraid.”

“Hmm.” Chilton looked him up and down with a sneer. “I see.” He opened the box, took a large portion and stuffed it up his nose with a great gasp of air. When he had shut it, he leaned back and said, “I don’t normally see you at White’s.”

Finn shrugged. “Not often, I fear. You know how it is. One has memberships at White’s and Boodles and Fitzhugh’s and Ripley’s…I can never find the time to fit them all in.”

“A gentleman’s work is never done,” Chilton purred. “I swear, since taking over the title, I’ve never had more to do.”

“Yes, the management of estates and tenants and?—”

Chilton wrinkled his nose. “God, no! I don’t give a damn about that. I have managers for such things and if they cannot resolve an issue, why should I? My tenants and servants should be happy they have a position at all.”

Finn’s stomach turned. He knew far too many men like this in Society. Ones who didn’t take their duties seriously. He might play, but by God, he refused to let those below him suffer because of it.

But he nodded. “I suppose when you inherited, your uncle had a great many good people in place to take care of things for you.”

“My uncle,” Chilton said with a short sigh and a more focused look for Finn. “If I recall, you and he were great friends.”

“Yes. I’m sorry for your loss. He was the best of men.”

“ Was ,” Chilton said, and Finn thought he emphasized the word. But had he? Was he just chasing ghosts now, trying to find some hint of proof so that he wouldn’t have to tell Esme he saw nothing to back up her claims?

Was he so focused on that now, despite their short acquaintance?

“You must be busy, yourself, with the upcoming wedding of your sister,” Chilton said.

Finn blinked and forced himself back to the conversation at hand. The marquess was leaving him an opening for exactly what he’d intended to do. “Ah, yes. There is much to do,” he said.

“What a coup for Lady Marianne. To land such a fine prospect after so long on the wall. I think most of Society must have given up on her, as well as you. Good that you didn’t have to waste resources trying to force a union through financial and other means.”

Finn felt every muscle in his body tense at that statement. It wasn’t that others hadn’t implied as much, that somehow his sister had lost her worth after years as a spinster. That she had become a burden on him. But few were willing to put it in such harsh terms.

He arched a brow. “She is a most beloved sister, my lord. I would have been pleased to support her in any way she lived her life, just as I support her in the wonderful future she will have with Ramsbury. It is a love match, it seems, and I am over the moon for her.”

Chilton looked as though he didn’t understand that concept. He shrugged. “It’s certainly all the talk of Town.”

“Yes,” Finn said. “The engagement ball is in just a few days, at my home here in London. The invitation is impossible to acquire, what with all the interest.”

Chilton’s lips thinned. “I suppose Ramsbury is making most of the invitation decisions. Never liked me much.”

Finn almost smiled. His friend had always had impeccable taste. “I don’t know about that. Either way, if you’d like to attend, I could arrange it. As you said, your uncle and I were once close, I see no reason why the Chilton name shouldn’t continue to be linked to mine.”

There was a light that entered Chilton’s eyes that immediately let Finn know that he had won his prize. How could this grasping man refuse, after all. A sought-after invitation? A way to get over on Ramsbury by showing up at his party? A continued relationship between two powerful titles?

It was everything a man like this could want.

“That would be very kind, yes,” Chilton said.

“Excellent. I’ll arrange it the moment I return home.” He made a show of pulling his pocket watch from his jacket and frowned. “Speaking of which, I have something to attend to. I’m glad I stopped by here today and we were able to speak. I see great things in the future, Chilton.”

They both rose and Chilton extended a hand again. They shook for the second time, a cold chill rolling up Finn’s arm with the touch. When he left the room, he rubbed his palm against his thigh, wishing he could erase the memory as much as he could erase the touch.

And yet he had discovered nothing yet that said the man was anything but a grasping dandy, concerned with appearances and wealth. No worse than dozens of others in his position. And he had no idea how Esme would react when he told her that upon his return to the estate.