Page 55 of Duke of Iron
And as she breathed in the scent of tulips and earth, she made a vow, “Tomorrow will be better. I will be better. For both of us.”
The baby slept on, oblivious.
Logan took the reins from the groom with enough force to make the lad wince. The horse tossed its head but did not rear; it knew the Duke of Irondale well enough to sense when it was time to behave.
He swung into the saddle and, with a squeeze of his knees, shot out of the mews behind Irondale House. He did not look back, though he was acutely aware of every window that might be watching him leave.
The city was bright and brittle that morning, the sun burning off the mist and exposing every crack in the world. Logan rode at a punishing pace, the sound of hooves on cobbles drowning out everything else, but even that could not silence the echo of May’s stare as she’d swept past him in the nursery, the child cradled to her chest as though it were a shield.
He should not have confronted her like that. He should not have entered the nursery at all.
But she did not have to glare at me as though I had thrown the child into the Thames.
He pressed his heels into the horse, as if the beast could run fast enough to outride the memory.
The truth was, Irondale House had never felt so small. May’s quiet rebellion was everywhere—the arrangement of the breakfast table, the impossible profusion of flowers, the way the servants now paused at the top of the stairs to make room for her, as if she were a queen and he a visiting dignitary. EvenRydal, the smallest, loudest usurper of all, had a claim on the place.
He should have purchased a larger townhouse. He would, the moment Parliament adjourned.
But that was a problem for the future. Today, he had to move, or he would go mad.
He had just reached the north edge of the square, where the trees thinned and the air sharpened, when a voice called, “Outrunning your responsibilities, or just the law, Blackmore?”
Calenham was riding a bay gelding at an angle that suggested he’d been waiting in ambush.
“Neither,” Logan called back. “I am outrunning you.”
Calenham caught up, falling into pace with Logan’s mount. “That’s a lie. I’ve been on your trail since breakfast, and I can assure you, you are easier to catch than a cold in the lower galleries.”
“Is there a reason you’re following me?” Logan asked, not bothering to slow down.
“I have news. And you are impossible to pin down inside your own house. Besides, this is more fun.” Calenham grinned. “You look like hell, by the way. Sleep poorly?”
“I sleep very well,” Logan lied.
“Then your wife must not,” Calenham said. “She passed me in the park this morning, looking like she’d just stared down Wellington and lived to tell about it.”
Logan bit back a response and focused on the road. “What news, then?”
“You remember the runner I hired to look into the… situation?” Calenham asked, his tone dropping.
“I recall.”
“Well, he’s found something. More precisely, someone. And I thought you’d want to see for yourself.”
Logan slowed the horse. “Who?”
“The man who left the infant at your door.”
He barely kept the horse from rearing. “Where is he?”
“Bow Street. He reached out through an anonymous note. Said he was paid to deliver a package—his word, not mine—and that he’d only speak to you.”
Logan did not pause to wonder why. He wheeled the horse and set off in the direction of Bow Street, Calenham, keeping pacewith the unflappable good cheer of a man who lived for drama and duels.
They cut through a quarter of the city in record time, drawing more than a few angry shouts from vendors and cabbies alike. At Bow Street, they dismounted and left the horses with an idling stableboy, then strode past the constables into the dim, cluttered back room where a runner with a battered top hat waited.
He nodded to Calenham, then turned his narrow eyes on Logan. “Your Grace. The man’s in the next room. Says he won’t talk until he sees you.”
