Page 51 of The Devil in Her Bed
“That’s not an absolute,” she said obstinately. “I’ll not believe it until I see my father’s… seal for myself.” She was going to sayhandwriting, Charles Hargrave’s handwriting.
He stepped forward, looking as if he wanted to reach for her, but didn’t allow himself to do so. She was glad. She couldn’t take his kindness right now. Nor could she refuse it.
“Why are you being so stubborn about this?” His tone was gentle, though his words were not. “It’s an answer, Francesca, a direction. We’re one step closer to putting it to rest.”
Why was she being so stubborn? Because she’d just received the most incredible news followed by the most devastating in the space of five minutes. Because she couldn’t face telling this man—who used to be the boy she loved—her real identity if he thought her parents were culpable for their shared tragedy. Because she needed to know the truth. All of it. Because she wanted to understand who Declan had become before she trusted him with her most closely guarded secret.
And her own brand of fraud.
He deserved to know, didn’t he?
Her conscience pricked her as she looked into those eyes that had seemed ancient even when he’d been a boy. That once held a lifetime of pain in their young depths, but now only reflected the flames.
Anything beyond that was opaque.
Did he, though? Was her reason for telling him any better than her reason for keeping her deception? She’dcome so far and was so close to justice; what if her revelation was enough to ruin that? What if he was angry enough at her, at her entire family, that he exposed her legally? Publicly? Not only would she lose her title, which wasn’t of much consequence, but it would go to Luther Kenway.
The Earl of Devlin had said as much.
And since when did she take anyone but Cecil and Alexander at their word? Certainly, she’d been enamored with Declan Chandler as a girl, but what sort of man had he become?
A ghost. Like her. A spy.
A professional liar.
“Tonight at the ball… Cecelia called you Chandler.” Her eyes narrowed and her jaw tightened as she braced for her own uncomfortable truths. “Do they know who you are? Have they known all this time?” Because if they did, she’d kill Ramsay first.
“No one knows who I am, not really.” Another of his non-answers.
Francesca considered throwing something at him.
He must have correctly calculated her expression because he elaborated for once. “I wasn’t having you on when I told you I was a spy. It’s my official job. I work for the Secret Services and everything. I met Ramsay when your friend Cecelia ran afoul of the Crimson Council. I helped him save his beloved and imprison the Lord Chancellor before he could finish his plan to kill your friend and use her business to traffic young girls. I’m a hero really,” he flashed her a jaunty, arrogant smile. “Unsung, of course.”
“Is that why I could never find record of your name?”she asked. “I looked everywhere, just in case you’d survived. Or in case you had family somewhere. Or even a family plot in which to bury an empty casket, but it was as if Declan Chandler never existed.”
“I’m Chandler Alquist now,” he replied. “For the sake of my job.”
“Alquis.” She left off theton purpose. “Anyone.”
“Of course you know Latin,” he grumbled.
“I know Alexandra Atherton.” The brilliant duchess was the only reason she could passably speak the queen’s own English. Let alone the other languages she’d drudged through during her tenure at finishing school.
Francesca realized she and Chandler were facing each other, standing not five paces away, each with their arms crossed against the other, protecting themselves.
But from what?
“There’s so much to say… I don’t know where to start.” Chandler was the first to let his arms down, dropping them to his sides. It was the first time she’d seen him hesitant. Uncertain. She should say something kind. Put him at ease.
“I didn’t know you were alive, but you must have known I was,” she realized aloud. “Why didn’t you come to me?” Oh bollocks. That had sounded more plaintive and demanding than she’d meant it to.
But she burned for the answer.
His face smoothed to blank before he turned away and went to a hat rack standing sentinel next to the door. He shucked his evening jacket and waistcoat and flung them onto one of the many solicitous arms. “Theother night, I scuffled with a woman who’d broken into the safe house where the Lord Chancellor is being kept… you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”
That was him?
Oh, they’d get to that, but she wasn’t going to let him get away that easily. “You didn’t answer my question.”
