My Dangerous Duke (34 page)

In addition to being the Link, or leader, of their three-man team, Max was something of a financial wizard, who was excellent at tracking the Prometheans’ mischief through their bank transactions. He had also helped to fill the Order’s coffers for future operations for many years to come through his shrewd investments.

Rohan also nodded to the other member of their team, Jordan Lennox, the Earl of Falconridge. “Jord.”

Another highly accomplished agent, Jordan was their code expert, a quiet, clean-cut man of understated elegance and cool capability. He looked up from the newspaper advertisements that he was perusing for any disguised messages, a daily discipline.

“Have a nice visit with your ghosts?”

Rohan answered with a wry smile and a rude gesture in the Italian style. Jordan laughed under his breath and turned the page of the
Times.

Virgil snorted at their exchange, but his gruff demeanor fooled no one. He loved them as if they were his own sons.

At present, the head of the Order in London was leaning by the window, slicing off pieces of an apple with a penknife and eating them off the blade. The tough old Highland warrior had wild reddish hair shot through with gray.

He had handpicked and recruited them as lads out of the ranks of the aristocracy, had directed their training at the Order’s ancient castle in Scotland, and had coordinated their various missions ever since.

Rohan nodded to him. “Sir.”

“Did you secure the smugglers’ ring?” Virgil asked with his usual taciturnity as he flicked a piece of apple to the dogs.

“Of course. All’s well.” Rohan nodded, setting his hands loosely on his waist. “The Coast Guard’s satisfied. I handed over the fools who carried out the shipwreck. The rest have seen the light. They won’t be doing that again.”

“Good. Those smugglers are no use to us dead,” the Highlander said gruffly.

Rohan nodded, dropping his gaze, besieged by the first wave of guilt at his staunch decision to say nothing about a certain “gift” the smugglers’ chief had given him in Cornwall. “So, what did I miss?”

He quickly learned that there was little news.

He had been gone less than a month, and during that time, the Promethean assassin, Dresden Bloodwell, had not surfaced again. Jordan had been assigned to watch for him in Society, then to go after him when he reappeared.

“No sign of him yet,” Jordan reported.

Max, meanwhile, had been keeping an eye on Albert Carew, the new Duke of Holyfield, whom they suspected of possible involvement with the Prometheans, ever since Carew’s elder brother had died under highly suspicious circumstances, leaving second-born Albert with the dukedom.

Of course, Albert had had a solid alibi, and nobody wanted to question the word of the former dandy who had suddenly become one of the richest men in the House of Lords.

“Now that Carew has been elevated into such a high place,” Max explained, “he’s been toadying to the Regent even more than usual. He seems to be slowly insinuating himself into the Carlton House set. One cannot be surprised the Council would try to get someone else in close to Prinny again after we killed their last spy. Believe me, I am keeping Carew under close scrutiny.”

Rohan looked askance at him. “I trust he is staying away from your wife these days?”

“Damned right he is,” Max snorted, for Carew had courted the golden-haired Daphne before Max had made the choosy belle his own—and Lord, she’d made him work for it.

In light of his own new acquaintance with Kate, Rohan suddenly did not find Max’s romantic agonies several months ago quite so droll as he had at the time.

But he chased Kate fiercely out of his mind once again, determined that they should detect no change in his demeanor. And she
had
changed him. He knew it down to the core of his barbaric soul. She made him … what was that foreign word—? Oh, yes.

Happy.

“What about Drake?” he asked, ignoring the pleasurable memory of her sighs when he had taken her from behind last night. “Any more sightings of him or of James Falkirk?”

“Neither.” Virgil lowered his head with a brooding air.

Rohan leaned his elbow on the back of an empty wing chair nearby. “Well, then, what about that other team that you’ve been waiting for?”

“Beauchamp’s team,” Jordan reminded him.

“Right. Are they back from the Continent yet?”

“Beau and his men are on their way,” Virgil answered. “They should be here any day now. In the meantime, they sent me some interesting news. They managed to track down Tavistock.”

“The Prometheans’ banking fellow, right?” Rohan clarified. “That thieving blackguard in the Stock Exchange?”

“Exactly,” Max replied as he continued polishing the barrel of his pistol. “Sir Richard Tavistock was the one who scooped up millions for the Prometheans when they caused the market crash right after Waterloo.”

“So, what did they find out?”

“Tavistock’s dead,” Virgil clipped out. “They tracked him as far as the Loire Valley, where some villagers led them to a shallow grave. Tavistock was in it. He had been garroted.”

“It wasn’t me,” Rohan said in an offhand jest.

Max sent him a sardonic look.

Then Rohan frowned. “Isn’t the Loire Valley the same place Carew’s elder brother was murdered?”

“Indeed, it was. Right in Malcolm’s back garden.”

They all glanced at Virgil, for Malcolm Banks was not only the head of the Prometheans’ elite High Council; he also happened to be Virgil’s younger brother.

The brawny Scotsman lowered his gaze, bristling as always at the mention of the traitor.

Jordan spoke up to explain. “We believe Malcolm called a meeting of the Council at his chateau in France after Waterloo. According to Beauchamp, Tavistock did not make it out of that meeting alive.”

“Curious,” Rohan answered quietly, furrowing his brow. “After he had done so well for them, sweeping so many millions into their coffers?”

Jordan shrugged. “Maybe he’d served his purpose, or maybe they wanted to cover their tracks. Either way, they got rid of him. Whatever the reason, it does raise the interesting prospect that a power struggle has begun inside the Council. Malcolm likely feels his position as the head of the Prometheans is in jeopardy.”

“Which would make sense—considering he has presided over their greatest defeat,” Max interjected.

“If you ask me, Malcolm would’ve had Tavistock murdered to prove a point, that he won’t tolerate dissension in the ranks,” Virgil opined.

“Hm.” Rohan considered all this for a moment. “Any idea who would want to overthrow him?”

The other three exchanged grim glances.

Rohan realized why. “You think it’s James Falkirk?” he asked swiftly.

“The two never got along, according to our sources,” Max replied. “And Falkirk is extremely influential in their circles.”

They all fell silent, brooding on the matter.

Folding his arms across his chest, Rohan drummed his fingers on his arm in thought for a moment.

This new information presented a very specific, possible motive for why James Falkirk could be trying to get to the Alchemist’s Tomb.

If, indeed, Falkirk was the one conspiring to challenge Malcolm to become the head of the Prometheans, he could use the legendary occult scrolls from Valerian’s tomb to win followers away from Malcolm to himself.

Staring at the floor, Rohan realized that if he could somehow get to the scrolls first, perhaps Falkirk would be willing to trade them for Drake.

All he had to do was make sure that Gerald Fox did not fall into Promethean hands in the meantime. His mind whirled, but none of the theories taking shape in his mind could be confirmed until he confronted O’Banyon.

Suddenly, he was extremely anxious to get to Shadwell and survey the ground around this rat-catcher’s shop.
Best get on with it.
“So, I really haven’t missed anything, then,” he concluded.

“Actually, no,” Jordan said with a shrug. “Damned frustrating.”

“I, for one, do not mind the quiet.” Max rammed the pieces of his pistol back together.

“Nothing interesting in here today, either.” Jordan closed his newspaper and cast it aside.

“I should go,” Rohan murmured, turning toward the door.

Max was studying him now with a peculiar intensity. “Are you all right?” he asked abruptly.

Rohan glanced over his shoulder in surprise. “What?”

“You seem—odd.”

“Odd?” he echoed, praying he did not look too suspicious. He hated deceiving them, but he shook his head and kept his face a mask. “No, I’m fine.”

“Just asking,” Max answered with a shrug. “You’re invited to supper tonight, by the way. Jordan’s coming. Virgil refuses, as always, but you are welcome.”

“Thanks, but I have some errands that came up in my absence,” Rohan said.

“Join us after, then? We’re all going out to a soiree afterwards to watch for Dresden Bloodwell and Carew.”

“Can’t, sorry. Unless you need my help?”

“No, we’ve got it. You’re sure you’re all right?”

“Of course. Give Daphne my best.” Rohan took leave of his all-too-perceptive friends with an evasive nod.

Shrugging off his uneasy conscience, next, he rode to Shadwell, where he spent some time taking a discreet survey of the ground. He made a few strategic decisions about how to handle the night’s confrontation, then left to assemble the supplies he would need from a variety of sources.

He rented a room for the next few nights in a lodging house in Shadwell to serve as their temporary safe house, stocking it with weapons and ammunition, water and basic medical supplies. Eldred would be stationed here, and Kate and Peter Doyle could retreat there on his orders, if necessary. In the unlikely event that he fell, he’d tell Eldred and Parker to take them to Jordan. He did not want to bother Max now that their team leader was a married man.

Having made all his preparations, he went to the Bank of England to set up the account for Kate, as promised.

Finally, he returned home, eager to see her again. Her reaction to the ugly disguise she’d have to wear tonight was sure to be amusing, though, in truth, he doubted it was possible to make his green-eyed goddess look the least bit homely.

“Oh, Katherine?” he called in wry affection as he jogged up the stairs. “Where are you?”

After calling for her several more times, he finally received an absent-sounding answer coming from the direction of the music room: “In here.”

When he reached the music room, he leaned in the open doorway for a moment and smiled as he studied the alluring arrangement of his darling mistress reclining on the light green settee.

Dressed in a pink gown with striped satin skirts, Kate was idly thumbing through her mother’s book, open on her lap. She had loosed her soft brown hair; it flowed over her shoulders in crimped waves from her earlier chignon.

“There you are,” he greeted her with a glow of appreciation in his eyes. “And don’t you look as pretty as a picture.”

 

Kate slanted him a guarded look.

In his absence, she had done a lot of thinking. Similar to her reaction when Rohan had told her he was an assassin, the arrival of the ladies today had shocked but not surprised her. After all, from the first night she had been dragged to Kilburn Castle to serve as his bed warmer, Caleb Doyle had made it plain that His Grace saw females as objects of pleasure.

Thus, she could not say she had not known what she was getting into. But confronting the reality of it, meeting his past conquests face-to-face—Pauline, Lucinda, and the rest—had whipped her emotions up into a storm.

Her first reaction had been anger, waves of anger, to glimpse what a selfish, callous libertine he had been in his past exploits. Hopeless disappointment followed, that she had what it took to make him change.

Mostly, fear had ruled her, that this passion between them could only end in crushing hurt for her. With a sense of doom, she had brooded on her certainty that, sooner or later, she would end up just like them, another fool left in his wake. But she was an even greater fool, for she had made the fatal mistake of falling in love with him.

Fortunately, Rohan’s errands that afternoon kept him away long enough for her to get hold of her wild emotions.

His absence gave her time for her temper to cool and her courage to begin regrouping. Finally able to step back and consider in a calmer way how to respond, she was able to look more closely at what all these meaningless affairs actually
told
her about Rohan and his needs.

And it was at that moment that her whole view of the situation had changed. It was as if the scales had suddenly fallen from her eyes.
Of course.

The tempest of her initial fear and anger had given way to unexpected sorrow at the loneliness that had been revealed in him, grief to see at last how starved he was for love.

He had to be. How could he get close to anyone, with his profession? Even if he wanted to, how could he let them in?

No wonder all he knew was using women and being used in turn. Sad, sordid mockeries of love.

Kate was chastened by this insight, and she vowed to let him taste real love for once in his brave, gallant life.

Jealousy was a stupid reaction when she had already got farther with him emotionally than any of them ever would. Those other women from his past were no threat to her.

Nevertheless, her encounter with them brought up a troubling question: If she was going to take his money for making love with him, didn’t that make her an even worse harlot than those highborn Society hussies?

At some point or other, didn’t he deserve to deal with someone who would treat him as a real lady ought to? With grace and compassion for the needs he was too proud ever to give voice to? A real lady would never take advantage of a man where he was most vulnerable, and for Rohan, Kate now knew this was in the area of love.