Page 35 of The Duke's Mysterious Lover
After a long moment, Fawkes sighed and turned back to his cousin. Kit watched him study Thorne’s expression, then sigh and flop back in his chair. “Ye trust him, fine, I trust him. Continue.”
Thorne turned to lean across the desk, scooping up a pile of correspondence, but Kit had seen the relief in his expression at his cousin’s profession of trust.
“So Blackrose’s brother had an agent,” Bull announced, head tipped back, watching a smoke ring drift away. “At least, that’s what we tell him, with the code. The bastard will assume the agent kens everything of their dealings, and will want to stop the man.”
“A trap,” Fawkes growled.
Kit realized she was playing the same four notes over and over again at the same moment Thorne realized it too.
He was frowning when he glanced across the room at her. “Kit, what are ye doing?”
Well, never let it be said she shirked the truth. “Eavesdropping, Your Grace!”
Thorne’s lips twitched at her cheerfulness as the other two twisted to look at her. “And? Do ye have any insight or suggestions?”
The same four notes played again. “No sir. I’m still trying to figure out what the hell is going on.”
Thorne’s laugh caught them all by surprise, judging from the way Fawkes’s brows rose.
“Is there any chance I could convince yeno’to eavesdrop, Kit?” Thorne asked, grinning as he tapped the stack of envelopes against the desktop beside his hip.
She smiled right back at him, still picking out those same four notes. “No sir. I suspect you’ll have to tell me to—what is it you chaps say? Fook right off.”
This time Bull was the one to laugh, as Thorne’s grin grew.
Fawkes, however, turned in his chair to glare. “Kit?”
“Yes sir?”
“Fook right off.”
Still grinning, Kit made a show of packing away her violin. She didn’t know what Thorne and his friends—hisfamily?—were talking about, but also knew it was none of her business. She’d been hired to make Thorne’s life easier, to take care of him, not understand what exactly it was that caused him stress.
But if this was the business he’d been speaking of that evening he’d had too much to drink and allowed her to guide him to release…well, then thiswasdangerous. Traps, and agents, and codes. While she was curious, she’d leave him to what he understood…and hope that one day, he’d let her in.
You’re his valet, not his confidante.
Well, he’d confided in her before.
That was about his personal life, not…not whatever this is.
She wasn’t smiling by the time she finished tidying her space, setting the violin case beside the music stand and snapping to attention beside it.
All three of the men were watching her. Waiting. Fawkes was still scowling, Bull was looking incredibly thoughtful, and Thorne… There was something in his expression she didn’t want to study too hard.
It wasn’t exactly tenderness. Yearning, perhaps?
She swallowed, then murmured, “Your Grace.” Her bow was a little stiff.
“Thank ye, Kit,” he said quietly. “Why no’ rest this afternoon? We have a late evening.”
As if she’d be able torestwith a chest full of roiling emotions. But she bowed again, as if shewasmerely a footman, and he merely her employer.
And not the man she could afford to fall in love with.
Chapter 7
“What theshitewas that about, Thorne?”
