Conspiring with a Rogue (33 page)

Whitney chuckled. “Point made. Just give me what you have. My charms will have to do the rest. Oh, and can you lend me a carriage? And a driver, in case I need to depart quickly.”

“
Anything else?” Sally quipped. “My wedding ring, my maid perhaps?”

“
The blunt and the carriage should do quite nicely,” Whitney teased, her laughter dying as she walked out of the bedroom into the hall and came face-to-face with a very disheveled, very angry-appearing Audrey.

The tangled mass of Audrey’s black hair framed her face, making her narrow, bright eyes stand in sharp contrast against her pale skin. Her foot tapped an erratic rhythm against the hardwood, and her arms were crossed tightly over her chest. “Your cousin locked me in my room.”

“
Seems that’s not all he did to you.” Sally lifted a lock of Audrey’s unbound hair. “How’d you manage to escape?”

“
I’ve my ways.” Audrey ran her hands through her hair in a futile effort to tame it.

Whitney studied Audrey. The gapping bodice and smeared lip rouge said it all. As if Whitney didn’t have enough problems. She huffed out an irritated breath. “You like him,” she accused.

Audrey’s cheeks splotched with red. Whitney tensed.
One more complication to add to the mountain
. “Sin is not the settling-down type, Audrey.”

“
He’s the romp-in-the-stables type,” Sally added.

Audrey glared at them both. “I’m not a fool. I know what he is. But don’t you think he must care about me to lock me in my bedchamber?”

Whitney had heard many strange ways that women justified the brutish things some men did, but this had to be the strangest. “I would
not
jump to that conclusion.”

Audrey frowned at her. “He wants to keep me safe.”

“
Or he wants to keep you out of the way,” Sally added.

“
My sentiments exactly.” Whitney brushed past Audrey and headed for the stairs.

“
Where are you going?” Audrey called to her back.

“
To Madam Brouchard’s to rescue Lillian.”

At the landing to the first floor, Audrey caught up with her with Sally close on her heels. “I’m coming with you,” Audrey said.

“
Sin does not need you,” Whitney stated firmly.

“
He may.”

Whitney snorted as she nodded to the half-asleep butler to open the front door.

Audrey grabbed Whitney’s arm just as she stepped outside. “If you don’t take me with you, I’ll…” Audrey’s gaze skittered from Whitney to Sally.

“
She’ll tell everything she knows,” Sally supplied with a smug smile.

“
Once a traitor, always a traitor,” Whitney accused.

Sally shrugged. “Darling, you really cannot go alone. It’s not safe.”

“
It really isn’t.” Audrey linked arms with Whitney. “Let’s go,” she added with annoying cheerfulness.

“
This is not a game, Audrey,” Whitney warned as she settled into the carriage. “We are likely walking into danger.” Once seated, she gave Audrey a hard look, hopefully one that would send her fleeing the carriage.

Audrey glared back.

“
Are you willing to risk your life for Sin?” Whitney demanded. “A man who doesn’t even love you? A man you
just
met.”

Audrey stared at her for a long moment before her gaze dropped to the carriage floor. She simply nodded, and Whitney’s heart filled with understanding. Women were so foolish, and she counted herself Queen of Fools.
The things we do for love
. She reached across the carriage and grabbed Audrey’s hand. “Fine, but never say I didn’t warn you.”

Audrey’s gaze met hers. “Warn me about what?”

“
Love hurts.”

“
So true.” Sally pressed a purse toward Whitney. “Here’s enough money to buy Lillian’s freedom and the two of yours, should it come to that. I’m sure you won’t need it, though.”

“
I’m glad you have faith in me.”

Sally laughed. “Darling, I have faith in you, but I have more faith in love. When Drake sees you at Madam Brouchard’s, there’s no doubt in my mind he would die before leaving you to suffer there.”

Whitney nodded. She knew what Sally said was true, and knowing how much Drake loved her only served to prove her point—
love
bloody well hurt.

Drake leaned back in the leather chair and studied Madam Brouchard. She was a beautiful woman, though signs of the lifestyle she had chosen, or had been forced on her, showed―a hollowness of the face, the dark smudges only a lack of peaceful sleep could leave, and the dim, guarded eyes of a person who expected life to deliver pain. And it was the last that made him doubt she would tell them much. Still, he prodded. “So Miss Lloyd was here?”

Madam Brouchard sighed deeply as she fingered the enormous pile of coins he and Rutherford had given her for information. “I’ve said she was.”

“
You’ve said little else,” Rutherford snapped.

“
Easy, Rutherford,” Drake demanded, glancing at his friend. The man sat forward in his chair, his large hands clenched into fists on Madam Brouchard’s desk. It was unlike Rutherford to ever lose his calm, but the man had lost it repeatedly in the short time they had been here. Something, or better yet—a certain black-haired feminine someone—had gotten under Rutherford’s skin.

“
What would you have me say, my lord?” Madam Brouchard demanded, looking at Drake. “I’m not certain where they took the girl or who took her. They bought anonymity with a hefty purse of coins.” She shrugged. “Don’t think I’m proud of the arrangement.”

“
I don’t,” Drake answered as gently as he could, noting the faded material of her dress, the torn sleeve, the shabby furniture in the office. He’d grown up dirt poor, and he recognized desperation when he saw it. Hell, he lived with his own sort of desperation every day. Fear of becoming a beggar like his father ate at Drake. “Any details would be appreciated.”

Madam Brouchard stood and paced back and forth behind her desk, wringing her hands as she went. “They came as they always do. Two men, one redheaded, one black. Nondescript men, really. One tall, one short.”

“
That’s an extremely helpful description,” Rutherford said, his words heavy with sarcasm.

Madam Brouchard glared at him. “
Neither
possessed any characteristics that would turn a woman’s head twice or make the eye linger. Now if you’d like me to describe
you
, my lord….” Her eyebrows rose high as she smirked at Rutherford.

“
What would that prove? You’re staring at me.”

Madam Brouchard closed her eyes. “A golden-haired angel on first glance, but the haunted green eyes and scar down the right sculpted cheekbone tell me a devil with a past is hidden beneath the black silk trousers and form-fitting black waistcoat. Your cravat is tied in the Oriental style, except you do have a slight crease where there should be none.” She clicked her tongue.

Rutherford whistled. “Impressive.”

“
I’m not finished. Your gloves are a lovely shade of lavender. Leather, I presume?”

“
He’s not wearing gloves,” Drake interjected, though all the other details were correct and amazing in their exact recollection.

“
No,” Madam Brouchard said, “he’s not. There’s a glove poking out of his pocket.”

Both men looked at once at Rutherford’s pocket. Now
Drake
whistled.

Rutherford laughed and leaned back in his chair. “They are leather. You’re quite good, but you forgot my excellent physique.”

Madam Brouchard’s eyes flew open. “
That
I could describe liberally, so far as your clothes allow.”

Drake studied the madam for a long moment. Her lifted chin and squared shoulders told him she was a proud woman. She had an exceptional ability to recall details. Madam Brouchard was smart. Putting all this together, he reformed his opinion. He had a hunch that made him think he might be able to persuade her to help.

“
It’s a shame you didn’t feel compelled to assist Miss Lloyd,” Drake said, fanning the flame of guilt he suspected was currently eating away at the madam. He’d seen the small miniature of the young girl Madam Brouchard had tried discreetly to sweep into her desk drawer when they had entered her office. He knew she had a past.

She stopped moving and gave him a narrow-eyed look. “She’s beyond my help. A young woman kidnapped and left here. She might as well accept her new life, because her old one’s dead.”

Drake stood and looked down at Madam Brouchard. “Her father wants her back, no matter what.”

Madam Brouchard’s eyes widened before she quickly turned away, yet she could not hide how her back straightened like a poker stick. He’d touched a nerve. Perhaps she was even recalling her memories of how she had come to be here. “I never considered…” she whispered, her words trailing into nothingness.

Silence filled the room for a long moment, punctuated finally by her sharp intake of breath. She turned back toward them, her jaw set in steely determination. “Right, then,” she said, going to her desk and pulling out some cream paper. She sat and dipped her pen in her ink pot. “Tell me how to get a message to you.”

“
You misunderstand,” Drake said, watching the feather on the end of her quill dance back and forth with the trembling of her hand. “I don’t want you involved. If you happen to hear anything that might help us, then pass it on. Nothing more.”

She tilted her head, her pen suspended in the air. “Well, this is a surprise.”

“
What is?”

“
I thought chivalry was out of fashion.”

Drake’s breath seemed to leave his body. Whitney had once said the very same thing to him when he had offered to wring Mrs. Blighton’s neck for spreading the rumor that Whitney had killed her mother.

He had wanted to be chivalrous for her. He had wanted to be everything to her. He shifted as the mere thought of her brought a pulsing, impatient warmth to his loins and an ache to his heart. “I’m not chivalrous,” he snapped, pushed his chair out, tipped his hat and quit the room.

Halfway through the parlor Rutherford caught up with him. “What the devil was that about?”

“
Mind your own damn business,” Drake snapped. Anger pumped through his veins. Whitney’s power to hurt him had not diminished in the least. He needed to be alone. He needed to think, to plot, to plan how he would make her love him, how he would make her hurt as he was hurting. He strode through the crowd, though he could hear Rutherford calling for him to stop. The roar of seductive chatter, the overpowering scent of women and the pulsing of longing that filled the room closed in on him.

A hand gripped his arm. “Just a minute, Sutherland.”

Determined to shove Rutherford away, Drake swung around and stilled. He frowned, disbelieving what he saw across the room, but Johnnie-boy was hard to miss with his velvet purple coat and matching purple knee breeches. Incensed, Drake brushed past Rutherford. Why the hell was Whitney’s supposedly impotent love in a brothel?

Drake was debating what course to take when a man sidled up to Johnnie-boy. Certainly, a man’s presence in a brothel was not unusual, but the look of hunger that passed between the men took Drake by surprise. The quick brushing of hands between them and shared, secretive smile turned Drake’s insides to ice. He did not give a damn if Johnnie-boy had an affinity for the same sex. What he did give a damn about was Whitney and the fact that he was positive she had no idea her soon to be husband found men as pleasing, or possibly more pleasing, than women.

It was one thing for
Drake
to plan to hurt Whitney. She deserved it after what she had done to him, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to let another man hurt her.

Rutherford paused beside Drake, a choking sound coming from him. “If that man’s impotent, I’ll marry the next girl who wishes it of me.”

“
Careful what you say,” Drake said. “Lady Audrey may take you up on the opportunity.” What the hell should he do now? Before he could conjure any sort of logical answer to his question, a disturbance near the piano caught his attention. An overeager man, a less than eager woman. The man moved, allowing Drake a clear view of the pestered woman.