Chapter 5

5

Julian drank at his usual spot at Whites. The club’s public rooms were subdued this afternoon, most members not yet recovered from last night’s entertainments. Newspaper pages rustled. Teacups rattled. Julian savoured the respite from Stafford House.

When he boarded his ship to Italy, he was going to get raving drunk to forget Caroline again.

A movement in his periphery tore him from memories. He nodded in greeting as Mattias Wentworth made his way towards him.

“Duke,” Wentworth said, taking the seat across from him. “You’re looking rather worse for wear today. Trouble at home?”

Wentworth wore politeness with deceptive ease, like a bespoke jacket concealing weapons underneath.

“As I’ve made clear, I don’t discuss personal business with the Home Office.” Best to get this over promptly so he could return to brooding. Julian reached into his pocket and flicked the folded foolscap onto the table.

“I appreciate your speed,” Wentworth said, pocketing the missive.

Julian leaned back and sipped his drink. “I doubt I would have been so quick if the duchess hadn’t contributed her insight.”

The other man gave him a stern look. “I believe I ordered discretion.”

Julian stared at him. “I may not know the exact nature of your true profession, but I’m not an underling, nor someone you can give orders. My wife is just as skilled at code-breaking as me. She has a better mind for certain patterns.”

A muscle jerked in Wentworth’s jaw as he handed Julian a new coded letter. “I need this one quicker than the last.”

Julian let nothing show on his face as he studied the symbols. Snatches of conversation from nearby drifted over to him, fragments of gossip from men talking about their mistresses, political projects, and investments. Julian ignored them.

After a few minutes, he blinked. “A polyalphabetic Vigenère tableau, maybe,” he murmured. “More complex than your last. Have you annoyed someone?”

Mattias’s smile was wry. “I’m always annoying someone.”

“Mm.” Julian considered the code again. “I couldn’t help but notice that your last was in Russian, but the boastful notes you gave me were in German and Italian. This individual has used such an interesting collection of languages to taunt you after taking responsibility for the steamboat sinking. The Earl of Stradbroke was on it, I recall. Didn’t the thing disappear into the Atlantic? Three hundred souls lost, I believe.”

The other man’s expression became shuttered, dark eyes turning to ice. “If you’re about to ask a question, I suggest you rethink it.”

“I’m relieved to hear we have progressed from ordering to suggesting,” Julian said. “But I’ll ask it, anyway. Who are these letters from?”

The other man hesitated, reluctance weighing down his words. “We don’t know his name. Six months ago, the letters started arriving, and our code-breakers could never solve them in time to prevent two tragedies—the steamboat, and a building collapse that killed fifty, including Lord Baresford. Whoever this man is, he enjoys being chased and outsmarting us. So I need you to work quickly. That letter was sent a fortnight ago, and if the pattern holds, we have a catastrophe about to happen. Yes?”

“I’ll need to ask my wife to assist, then.”

Mattias gave him a sharp look. “You’ll both be discreet, or I’ll ruin you.”

Easy words to intimidate a lesser man.

“Don’t make me regret helping you, Wentworth,” Julian said, very softly.

A charged beat of silence followed between them. Wentworth broke it first, expression unreadable as he stood. “Don’t make me regret asking.”

Julian watched him go before letting out a long breath, his mind turning to the task at hand. Asking Caroline for help meant putting them in even closer proximity – forcing them together more than they already were.

He didn’t know how long he remained at the club, deep in thought, but as he rose to depart, his attention fell on the group of young gentlemen clustered around the betting book. They looked his way and made some hushed comments, laughing.

Julian passed them by – but then he noticed the bet that had made the idiots go silent.

Lord Rivers bets Lord Alington one thousand pounds that a duke and duchess understood between them shall divorce on or before this day six months.

Lord Rivers makes the same bet with Mr Payne.

“A foolish wager to make,” he said to Lord Rivers, very softly, “when a man doesn’t have one thousand pounds to lose. Good day to you, gentlemen.”

*

Julian had been hunched over the coded letter until his shoulders knotted and his neck ached. When the old grandfather clock tolled midnight, he finally admitted defeat. For now.

With a quiet groan, he tucked his work away and turned to the sideboard, pouring two fingers of amber liquid into a crystal tumbler. The whiskey burned going down.

He’d just poured another glass when the front door groaned open, followed by the tap of brisk footsteps – the familiar, no-nonsense cadence that could only belong to Caroline.

His sweet fucking torture was home.

Julian tracked her path as she strode down the hall and slowed outside the open study door. Silk skirts whispered, and then she stepped into the firelight.

He froze, the tumbler halfway to his lips. Good God. The thing she wore could barely be called a dress. It was an artful arrangement of pink silk doing its damnedest to preserve modesty and failing on every account.

It was suddenly vitally necessary that Julian finish his drink. Now.

“You’re still awake,” Caroline said, her voice curling through the room like smoke and sin.

A voice designed to bring men to their knees. Designed to drive him mad.

Julian lowered his glass slowly, as if disarming a weapon. “As are you. I expected you hours ago. Did you attend a birthday celebration” – his gaze dipped over her attire – “or a Roman bacchanalia? You look as though you’re dressed for a night of debauchery. Not that I object.”

That earned him a smile. “Are you ogling your wife, Hastings? I’m shocked.”

“Perish the thought. I’m merely taking note of how you put that scandalous silk to shame.”

“I suppose most gentlemen find bare shoulders absolutely riveting.”

“Among other things, I’m sure.” His gaze drifted over the tops of her breasts.

Her gaze turned mocking. “Do go on. I’m finding your ogling most educational.”

Julian glanced away and reached for the bottle again because he was a gluttonous bastard when it came to her – always had been. Even when she sliced at his heart, he wanted to bare his throat for more.

“Does it count as ogling when a man stares at his own wife’s dress?” he asked. “Most gentlemen present likely spent the evening contemplating what you’re wearing beneath it.”

Or what he might do to divest you of it.

Her smile sharpened. “Should they come knocking, I’ve no doubt you’ll unleash that infamous glare and turn them to stone.”

“Why turn them to stone when I can watch in amusement as they piss themselves in terror?”

“Careful,” she said in amusement. “Your protective streak is showing.”

“It’s the whiskey. Lowers my defences. Did you enjoy yourself this evening?”

Julian watched as Caroline claimed a seat by the fire. Watched the way shadows danced over her bare skin. “Reasonably. Though my cousin remains an unmitigated idiot.”

A wry huff escaped Julian. “Doesn’t half of London compose sonnets to Montgomery’s charm?”

“Oh, Monty plays the charming rake to perfection,” she said. “But he’s desperately in love with his new wife and is already finding creative ways to muck it all to hell and back. Truly, most gentlemen are tragically lacking in emotional intelligence.”

“We do blunder about until fate deigns to boot us up the arse a time or two.”

Or three, or four, or…

Her smile faded. “Speaking from personal experience?”

A harsh breath escaped him. She could always strip him raw. “With you?” He sighed. “Always, sweetheart.”

Their gazes caught and held, a familiar tension charging the air.

Then she cleared her throat and subjected him to the same scrutiny she employed when attacking her canvases. “You look dreadful, by the way. Don’t tell me you forgot to sleep again.”

He schooled his features to impassivity. “I’ve been occupied.”

“Mm-hmm. Let me guess – mysterious papers have been holding you hostage all day. More cryptography, or something equally dire?”

“You know I lead a thrilling life,” he said dryly. “Cryptography and confidential diplomacy until dawn, policy reform over breakfast. By midday, I’ve sorted out a rebellion or two.”

“And how many languages has your thrilling life equipped you with by now?”

His mouth quirked up. “Ten. Would you like a drink?”

Surprise flashed in her features, there and gone. “Yes. Thank you,” she said.

Julian strode to the sidebar and poured two fingers of whiskey. When he turned back to offer her the glass, he was all too aware of their fingers brushing as she took it from him.

Caroline sipped her drink. “I’m swiftly reconsidering everything I know regarding your travels. Tell me, were the Alpine vistas more or less intriguing than the notorious Third Section? That coded letter I saw earlier looked quite official.”

Damn. Too sharp by half. “Ridiculous notion. Dukes make poor spies.” He lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “We simply allow our expertise to be discreetly used from time to time by Her Majesty’s operatives.”

“Ah. And how often does your sense of patriotic duty compel you into cryptographic service?”

He turned his glass between idle fingers. “Often enough to develop something of a reputation for code-breaking.”

Now he had her undivided attention. “And what are you working on now? Still International Morse?”

For a moment, he saw a glimpse of the old Caroline. The woman who once looked at him with such affection and desire. Before grief carved out softer emotions, leaving them both hollowed out.

He didn’t want to lose that fragile connection.

Standing, Julian went to his desk, unlocked the top drawer, and pulled out the encrypted letter he’d been labouring over for the past eight hours. He held it out to her like a white flag of surrender.

Or a plea for parley.

“This came to me just this afternoon.”

Caroline set her glass aside and took the letter, scanning the sheet of unfamiliar symbols. “Not International Morse, then. What language do you suspect?”

“Possibly Russian.” He paused. “Do you know Russian?”

“I took a tutor,” she said quietly. “After I heard you’d been to Moscow. Brushed up on my Cyrillic and vocabulary.”

Something possessive and heated unfurled in his chest. She’d kept track of his travels after he fucked everything all to hell.

“When you said you were learning languages to find common ground…” He rolled the whiskey between his hands, amber liquid catching the light. “I didn’t think you meant it.”

I thought you’d said it to hurt me.

She cleared her throat. “Well, I did.” Caroline scrutinised the cypher now. “Polyalphabetic Vigenère tableau, possibly.”

A smile touched Julian’s lips. “There’s that spark. The only time I’ve seen your eyes light up like that is with cryptography and—”

“Painting,” she said. “I know.”

A long breath left his lungs. “When I pleasured you,” he corrected quietly.

Her tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip in a nervous gesture he instantly recognised. “It might be double- or triple-encoded,” she said.

“Or encoded backwards. With null cyphers embedded.” He met her eyes. “Would you like to work on it with me?”

A beautiful smile played on her lips. “If you think I’d be of help. I’m afraid most of my prior expertise in cyphers remains your filthy notes.”

Bright and painful memories flashed of all the notes he’d written her during their marriage. Daily letters of increasingly complex codes detailing every lurid fantasy in the most vulgar terms – papers he’d known she would solve in the middle of ballrooms, at dinner with guests. And then she would pull him to secret alcoves where he would shove up her skirts and fuck her against a wall.

He leaned back. “Well, I did show off by composing those notes with advanced cryptography. I had to impress you somehow.”

Her teeth flashed in a grin. “Then I’ll help. But I require at least a few hours first. I may present a pretty picture, but I’m about three cups deep in champagne on top of the whiskey.” She hesitated, then seemed to firm her resolve. “Will you come to bed?”

In answer, Julian extended his hand. Caroline twined their fingers together and didn’t let go, even as they crossed the threshold from formality into intimacy.

Once within their rooms, she presented the row of buttons down the back of her dress. “Well?” Caroline said, glancing at Julian over one shoulder. “Going to stand there or offer your assistance?”

Reverently, Julian stepped close and rested one palm between her shoulder blades as he began working the tiny buttons free, parting silk inch by devastating inch.

His breathing turned ragged, and arousal pounded a merciless beat in his blood. Still, he devoted himself to his delicate task, following each pearl button down… down… until he reached the dip of her waist and the top of her bustle. The material slithered down over her body to pool at their feet. Easing apart the laces of her corset revealed her thin chemise, and as he slid that last gossamer barrier off her shoulders, he traced the ridges of her spine with his thumb.

He wanted to press her down into the bed. To fill her with every dark, wordless thing inside him.

But he refused to be careless. Refused to be anything less than gentle. Caroline deserved better from the man who had failed her so catastrophically years before.

When she finally turned to face him, Julian’s breath arrested in his lungs. She stood luminous in the soft firelight, all sculpted curves and smooth skin. Utterly, heart-stoppingly beautiful.

“Now that’s ogling, Hastings,” she murmured.

He gave a huff that was almost a laugh. “I do appreciate beauty where I find it.”

She said nothing as she pulled a white nightdress on. He watched the play of firelight over her body’s silhouette as she crossed the room and slid beneath the sheets.

Julian stripped out of his shirt and trousers and joined her, all too aware of her soft warmth. The floral scent of her skin teased his senses. He pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes, praying for strength or, failing that, cold indifference. No man, saint or sinner, could resist this temptation lying so close.

“Julian?” she whispered into the darkness.

“Hmm?”

“Will you attend Lady Fairfax’s garden party with me in two days?”

He exhaled at the tentativeness there, as if she feared he’d refuse. “It would be my pleasure.”

Then he felt her hand squeeze his. “Thank you. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Linnie,” he managed past the ache in his throat.

When Julian finally slept, he dreamed of her.