The Love List (16 page)

“
You
don’t have him?” Hatch asked with gasp.

The sound of frustration that came from Aldmere sounded almost like a growl.  “I don’t play games, Hatch.  I’m deadly serious.”

Hatch visibly gathered herself.  Bristling, she waved a hand.  “What shall you do, your Grace, talk me to death?  Read me a speech until my ears bleed?”  She laughed.  “I’ve heard of you, you know.  You might have been known once for your fancy persuasions in Parliament, but words won’t do you a bit of good in these streets.”

  Brynne didn’t know how the bawd dared.  Aldmere stood braced just ahead of her, a veritable wall of menace and male aggression.  Her breath came a little more ragged as he drew his broad shoulders back. 

“That’s why you’ll never be anything but a back street bully, Hatch,” he said with hard-edged condescension.  “Only a fool would deny the power of words.  Words linked your name with Truitt’s, and led me straight here. 
Unsaid
words just had you clear all of your people from this room, leaving you alone with us.” 

Something changed as the duke spoke.  She looked closely.  It wasn’t that he stood taller or broader, but he definitely loomed larger, occupied more of the room, and all without a single movement. 

“What will I do to you?” he asked, and Brynne suddenly understood that it was his voice, the rippling power in his words that wrought the real change in the room. 

“Indeed, I do have words and a great many resources besides.  I am the
Duke
of
Aldmere
.  I could squash you flatter than a bug.  In an hour’s time, I could own this house, this street, this block.  I could have you and your crowd of thick-witted miscreants shoved cheek by jowl into a prison hulk.”  He spoke with clarity and absolute conviction, and she and Hatch were helpless to see anything but the bleak, hopeless picture he painted with such passion.  “Easier than drawing a breath, I could wipe even the memory of your name from these streets, until your own mother would deny ever hearing of you.”

Hatch had paled.  She stared a moment, unfocused. 

Amazingly, Brynne felt a twinge of sympathy for the other woman.  Unwisely, she felt a stab of violent, clear longing for the duke. 

“Now, you get the
word
to your bullies out there and you bring me my brother right now, damn you,” the duke ordered, his tone now harsh with fury.  “You hand over Truitt or I will start to make good on those promises, one by one.”

For a moment, Hatch only stared as her chest heaved like a bellows.  “You really don’t have him,” she gasped.  “But I don’t . . . we didn’t. . . Wait!  If not from Letty and not from the young lordling  . . .” Panic flared.  “How did you know? 
Who the hell told you
?”

Aldmere took the last, menacing step closer.  “Enough games, I said—”

Brynne wrapped her fingers around the bulge of his arm.  “She doesn’t have him,” she said low.  “Look at her.”

He stared.  Hatch’s wild eyes must have convinced him and though it wasn’t visible, she knew the duke must be suffering a similar wave of conflicted emotion.  “Then we’re done here,” he stated baldly.  He pivoted on his heel.

“Wait!”  Hatch snarled.  “You don’t dance in here, threatening me and blurting dangerous information so casually.  And you don’t leave yet, not until you tell me what rotten blighter is talking out of turn.”

Aldmere’s gaze fell on Brynne first as he paused to look over his shoulder.  “Tell me what you know of Truitt.  He’s been gone for two days.”

“Not a thing,” she said, tossing a hand in exasperation.  “I’ve had men looking for him for at least that long.”

Aldmere shrugged and started moving toward the door again.

“One word from me,” Hatch threatened, “and the entire house will be upon you.”

“Call your lackeys, then,” the duke answered, reaching for the door.  “And I’ll inform them just how hard Marstoke is about to come down upon you all.”

With a last, long look, Brynne turned to follow him.

“You’re a satisfied pair, aren’t you?”  Hatch had begun to sound desperate now.  “Do you think you’ve made a wise move, Brynne Wilmott?  Only a fool would choose to be a duke’s doxy over wife to a marquess.  Go, then!” she shouted.  “There’s a new day ahead, and a new order.”  She let loose a laugh that spilled over with hate.  “I’d have no wish to be in your shoes, in any case.  Not even your high and mighty lover will be able to protect you from what’s coming.”

Aldmere held the door for her.

“You’ve made an enemy of me now, girl,” Hatch cried.  “And you’ll live to regret it!”

Brynne paused.  “None of us is your enemy, Hatch,” she said sadly.  “And neither is Marstoke your friend.”

A sneer twisted the other woman’s features.   “Do you think I don’t know that?  Or that I’ve been stupid enough to keep only one fish on my line?”  Her expression turned crafty.  “You might reconsider your position, girl.  Change is on the horizon, of a magnitude you cannot imagine.  I’d consider giving you a chance to choose the right side.”

The bawd tilted her head.  “Do you think your high placed friends have done well by you?  Mine are higher.”  She said it loftily, with a lift of her chin.  “The highest in this land and others.”  She raked Brynne over with a hard look.  “All you need is a bit of sprucing up.  The right gown.  A bit of rouge.  Come over now, with me, and I swear, you’ll rise higher and fly farther than even Hestia Wright.”

Brynne felt only pity for the bawd as she shook her head.

“Watch your back, Hatch,” Aldmere warned.  “I don’t want to hear of you coming within ten feet of this girl again.”  He shot her a hard look.  “And stay the hell away from my brother.”

She gave an inelegant snort.  “The lordling hasn’t a prayer.  In fact, you’re all doomed now.  You just sealed all of your fates.”

Brynne jumped as a hand clamped down on her shoulder.  She wrenched around as Hatch’s bully gripped her harder and scowled a warning at the duke. 

“Let them go,” Hatch ordered wearily.  She waved a beckoning hand.  “The situation has changed.  We have other, more pressing things to do.  And they have far worse enemies than us to worry about.” 

Brynne feared the woman was right.  Mind whirling, she followed Aldmere out into the hall to the stairs. 

Nine

But the path of true love never did run smooth, did it?  My mother objected to so serious a suitor, and to one so poorly set up in the world.  She bade me end the affair.  But, reader, how could I? . . .

—from the Journals of the infamous Miss Hestia Wright

Aldmere strode through the cramped and twisting streets with purpose.  He kept an eye out, but there was no indication that anyone saw anything but what he wished—a man and his woman with business to attend to.  A couple with a destination, but no particular urgent need to reach it.

His mind raced, though, moving twice as fast as his feet.   He should be furious at their failure to retrieve Tru.  Or swamped in frustration.  Instead, fierce hope bubbled through his veins.  The emotion was as unfamiliar as it was unexpected, and it threatened to spill out of him in a torrent of plans, speculation, and tentative joy as he pulled Brynne Wilmott along in his wake.

He should take the girl straight back to Craven Street.  He had an idea to pursue.  He should just leave her and proceed with the search on his own.  His reluctance to do so hung strangely heavy in his chest.

Or perhaps not so strange.  Neither of them had accomplished their objectives, after all.  He let his eye linger on the curves delineated by that yellow dress and the loose, inky swirl of her coiffure, stealing light even from this dim atmosphere, and knew that none of that explained why he felt no urgency to be rid of her. 

She did something to him, this girl.  The flash of her ankle distracted him and he looked down at his own outlandish outfit.  Even before he’d donned the odd clothes, he hadn’t felt like himself.  All day he’d felt different, like he was playing a part.  The role of a man who could feel again, perhaps.  Not
The Duke
.  Not the institution that he’d deliberately allowed himself to become.

Beside him, Brynne Wilmott’s steps were faltering.  Her small hand, tucked in the crook of his elbow, gave a tug.  “Can we slow a bit?” she asked.  “It would seem we’ve emerged back into a more respectable neighborhood.”

He looked about and saw she was right.  “Of course.”  His eye fell on a busy coffee shop ahead.  “There.  We’ll sit for a moment and recalculate.”  He pulled her inside, ignoring the speculative looks caused by her attire, and took a table in a back corner.

“Thank you,” she breathed.  She stretched her feet out in front of her and wiggled her toes.  “I can feel every pebble through these slippers.”

Her eyes darted about, cataloguing the lay of the room and the people in it, in the way that she had.  Clearly she did not realize that more than an ankle, now a good length of her shapely calves were on display. 

And Aldmere’s breath was suddenly coming too fast.  His pulse pounded loud in his ears, and abruptly his temper surged dangerously close to the surface.  He glanced around and noticed more than one intent male gaze fastened on her. 

A harried server approached.  “Whatcher pleasure, today, sir?” 

“Two coffees, if you please.”  He paused.  His companion, he noticed, had tucked her feet back under the table, but was looking pale and tired.  “And what does the kitchen offer today?”

“A fine oyster stew, sir, and good, brown bread to go with it.”

Brynne Wilmott’s eyes lit up at the mention of food.  “Two,” he said with a nod for the serving girl.  The servant whisked back to the kitchen and Miss Wilmott pressed her lips together in worry.  “I’m sorry we didn’t learn more from Hatch,” she began.

He clamped down hard on both his abrupt irritation and his still-bubbling excitement.  “Sorry?” he demanded as the serving girl returned to toss their food down on the table.  “Don’t you see what this means?”

“We have to find a new place to start?” she asked morosely as she broke off a bit of bread.

“No—in fact, it’s almost exactly the opposite.”  He gripped the table in an effort to rein in his wayward emotion.  Thank God that evil bitch had not got her hands on Tru.  He’d looked in Hatch’s flat, empty eyes and known she’d be capable of anything.  “Hatch doesn’t have him, yet Tru’s missing for several days?  And he’s taken his copy of the List with him.  I think there is a reason.  I think he’s gone to ground.  He’s hiding.”

The notion did not brighten her any.  In fact, her expression grew more serious as she put down her spoon and reached across to cover his hand with hers.  The air, redolent with the rich smell of coffee, pressed in on him.  Her hand was cold against his, and that shouldn’t remind him of the heat of that damned kiss they’d shared.  Yet it did.  And his thumping heart reminded him of his incredible reaction to it.  He brushed it off.  It had been just a kiss, for God’s sake.  A very public, contrived one, at that.  It didn’t mean a damned thing.

“What if Marstoke has him?”  She asked the question gently, like she was treading on glass.

She was.  Her words shut down the rising spike of his passion and replaced it with incredulous irritation.  “And leave his lackey spinning her wheels, searching for him?” he demanded.  He grimaced as soon as the words had left him.  “I know, I know,” he groaned.  “Of course he would.” 

He paused to consider.  “But for two days Tru has been gone.  That’s time for word to have trickled down.  And though I don’t doubt Hatch is an accomplished liar, in this case I believed her.  That was real panic flaring up and out of her.”

“Yes,” she answered with grim satisfaction.  “We did work her into a state, did we not?”

Aldmere chuckled.  “Bloodthirsty, Miss Wilmott?  You surprise me.”

“It wouldn’t surprise you, had you seen the pain and misery that I have, all traced back to Hatch.  I quite enjoyed seeing that bully running scared for once.”  She heaved a sigh and pulled her soup bowl close.  “So if your brother is hiding, where is he?  And why?”

“Where?  I have several possibilities in mind.”  He frowned.  “I might narrow them, if I speak to Gorman and discover what Tru took with him.  As to why . . .”  He pursed his lips.  “I don’t know.  But I feel as if we’ve been running a race.  I need a moment to think and to breathe . . . ” 

He lost his train of thought for a moment, watching her watch him so intently.  They had been racing through this eventful day, and now that his mind had been relieved of the worst of its burdens, it had become overly concerned with the rise and fall of
her
breath.  With the gentle motion of her sweetly tempting curves.  With the lowering of her shoulders and the lightening of her face as the incredible stress of the bizarre day receded before the chance to rest and a bite to eat.  Behind them lay danger, ahead uncertainty.  Around them, soberly clad men quaffed coffee and discussed business and politics and their waiting wives.  And she sat in the midst of it, a daisy, as she’d said.  Strong and resilient, standing upright despite the trampling steps of danger and violence, a bit of bright and natural beauty in a dark world.

And he was a crack-brained fool.

“Perhaps we should view it as a puzzle, not a race,” she suggested.  “It helps me sometimes, when I am presented with a problem, to break it down into pieces.  Sometimes you can put them together again in a new way to find the answer.”

“A good idea,” he said, falsely hearty.  He tore his gaze away from her to scan the room, looking for anyone still paying them undue attention.  But the place was a buzz of activity, everyone embroiled in their own business. 

“So.  What are the pieces we’ve uncovered so far?” she asked.  “We know Marstoke is behind the publication of the List.  But no one else does, save Hatch.”

He called himself sternly to order and entered into the spirit of the discussion.  “And Hatch doesn’t want anyone else knowing, either.  She sent her own people out before she allowed Tru and Marstoke to be mentioned in the same breath.”