Page 29 of How to Seduce a Viscount
‘You didn’t know?’ Wilkes gave an evil grin. ‘She’s Falcon.’
Luce felt as if a carpet had been pulled out from under him. His sharp mind reeled. Wren was Falcon? Stepan was alive? Wren had known all along and had not told him?
‘Luce, I can explain.’
He grabbed her arm. ‘You damn well will, but not here,’ he growled in a low voice. He would not give Wilkes the petty satisfaction of having caught him off guard. He got them to the sleigh and he managed the drive home. The silence between them was very different than the peaceful silence in which they’d arrived in town, expecting a night of fun and revelry. A night that was supposed to have involved stolen kisses and playful seduction in an alcove. All of that was gone now. His lover had betrayed him, trust and all, after having promised not to. Long before they got home, something inside him broke, his hope perhaps? Or was that his heart?
He’d been unaware until now how deeply his affections for Wren had run, of how much he’d given to her. He’d used the word love in his thoughts earlier but he’d not understood what that meant until now when it was shattered, part and parcel of what had broken in him. He knew intuitively this was why he’d never done it before—never given his heart, only his body.Thishurt. Belonging hurt. This was the price.
His despair was equalled only by the initial feelings of losing Stepan. It was as if the stars had faded from the sky and the joy from the world. He was dead inside again. The life he’d felt these last few weeks, put out.
But none of that could matter now. He could sort out his brokenness later,afterStepan was found. Time was of the essence. He would do what he always did when faced with an emotional crisis that threatened to overwhelm him. He would work. By the time he entered the library, aware of Wren trailing silently behind him, Luce Parkhurst, Lord Waring, lover of theexquisite Miss Audley, had been firmly replaced by the fourth Horseman.
Chapter Fifteen
The man who faced her in the library was not Luce Parkhurst, her lover. This was the fourth Horseman. Death. Moros. A man who prevented death where he could and took lives when he couldn’t in order to protect the greater good. He would have killed for her tonight, of that she was sure, just as he’d been prepared to kill for her the night she’d arrived. Gone was the man who’d laughed with her on the dance floor, traced the stars with her and who’d made wild love to her on his dining room table.
‘Luce, please let me explain. I tried to tell you tonight.’ It was perhaps not the best response, but Luce had flustered her more than fending off Wilkes, more than stabbing Paterson, more than interrogating a man at knife point. Those were all activities she was quite familiar with. She knew how to handle them, how to respond. She was out of her depth here. She had no idea how to respond to Luce. Lover and Horseman.
Work and pleasure had all been conflated on the drive back to Tillingbourne. He stared at her with eyes that said she was his work now, part of a job and nothing more. And her own heart, which had been so warm before, began to freeze. Perhaps for the best. The chill between them would protect her, give her the strength to argue for herself, but cold things were also brittlethings. To freeze meant also to risk fracture. Later. When all this was over, when she was anonymous, then she would allow herself the luxury of that. Until that time, Falcon must remain strong. Falcon never cracked.
‘Tonight? That’s your excuse? You tried to tell me tonight? Do you think telling me half an hour before the despicable Mr Wilkes announced it, would have made it any better? You should have told me when I asked you directly if there was anything else I needed to know.’
‘I did not believe youneededto know at that time.’ She met his gaze coolly, her own mask in place now. It was not Wren and Luce in the library any longer but Falcon and a Horseman. ‘Do not harangue me about unilateral decision making. It is an occupational requirement in our line of work. We make unilateral decisions all the time about when to make a move, who to save, who to trust, who needs to know what. You’ve done it, too.’
‘I didn’t need to know about my brother? How dare you make that decision for me.’
‘I didn’t make it. Your grandfather did.’ She took supreme satisfaction in deflecting the accusation. She felt guilty about many things. About hurting him and about withholding information from him, but at the same time she did not feel guilty about keeping her word to the earl and doing herjob. If she arbitrarily decided which orders to follow she’d have been dead long before this.
‘My grandfather?’ The revelation had stunned him for the moment. ‘Whyever not? If Stepan is out there, we should have gone after right away. I would have summoned Caine. He could have been here by now.’
‘Which is precisely why he didn’t want you to know. Not yet.’ They’d divided the room in half, each pacing their own lengths like caged tigers. She stopped to face him. ‘Think for a moment.Gerlitz believes Stepan is there. Your grandfather believes it too. Gerlitz is sending a team to claim his revenge. They would be happy to entrap all the Horsemen in one fell swoop. What better way to do that than to use the rumour of Stepan as bait? Gerlitz wants the Horsemen to muster and ride to their brother’s aid. Why do you think Paterson encouraged Wilkes to tell you? Because Paterson wanted medical help? Highly plausible but not probable. The answers came too easily tonight and deep down you know that.’
She watched Luce’s gaze turn stormy. He’d not liked having that truth uttered out loud.
‘You have everything you need to go after your brother, just as Gerlitz intended.’
Luce’s eyes narrowed. ‘So they weren’t here for you, after all?’
‘No. They were here for me but they were also here to make sure their news was imparted.’ Would he guess the rest? The rest truly didn’t matter except to her and Falcon’s damnable pride.
‘Wilkes recognised you.’ Luce said as he sat—perhaps a sign that he was moving into a different facet of his offensive as he lay siege to the various levels of her betrayal. ‘He’d been looking for you. Wilkes and Gerlitz and whoever they’ve told know who you are. You’ve been made.’ Luce was quiet for a moment, another hidden reality revealing itself to his agile mind. ‘That’s why you’re retiring, why Grandfather wants—no—needsto keep you safe.’ His eyes were steely. ‘Yet another thing you’ve cleverly disguised from me. You said Grandfather was retiring you for sentimental reasons but in truth, he needs to protect the network.’ His gaze bored through her. ‘If you’re caught, you could expose a great many things. Capturing you would be quite the prize.’
‘Itisout of sentiment. That is not a lie!’ she snapped. How dare he insinuate that the earl did not hold her in affection, that this was merely a business decision; that she was being kickedout, exiled from the network she’d been trained to serve and given her life to. How dare he hit her where it would hurt the most.
But oh, shedidknow how he dared. He was hurting her because she’d hurt him. She’d withheld information from him not once but twice. The second time after she’d given her word and led him to believe that she could be trusted, that they were a team, that the rules of the game had been suspended for them for a short while.
‘How did it happen? You being made as Falcon? If you’re going to use my house as a hide-out, I think I need to know.’
‘I was followed to Cap Gris-Nez this past summer on my way home from Belgium.’ She gave Luce a few moments to place that journey on the timeline in his mind. It had been the trip on which she’d shadowed Celeste Sharpton, Cabot Roan’s ward and now Kieran Parkhurst’s wife.
‘I travelled a few days on Celeste’s tail. She never knew I was there but others did. It was a dangerous move. I travel alone for good reason. It’s easier to hide. I am a professional and she was most definitely a novice. Roan’s people knew her trajectory, knew she was headed to London to find the Horsemen. I kept her safe but at risk to myself it turned out. When Caine killed Roan in the autumn, I thought I was safe, that perhaps no one beyond Roan would have guessed. Then Gerlitz surfaced and began making noise in Roan’s wake. It became naïve to assume no one knew. That was when the earl made his plans for me. He decided winter would be the best time to disappear. Travel is difficult for many and the world is quiet. It wouldn’t be until spring before anyone thought to remark on my absence.’
She sighed and sank into the chair opposite him. ‘Are you happy now? I’ve marched my shame out for you. I slipped up once in an act of unasked for kindness and it has cost me everything. Even my identity, such as it is.’
Luce was silent for a long while. ‘For a moment, when you first told me Grandfather wasallowingyou to retire I was admittedly jealous. He would not countenance me leaving the game.’ Luce’s stare was dark and piercing. ‘I thought he must love you fiercely to arrange it all for you.’ Luce shook his head. ‘But I see now that it was a business decision and I understand it better. Just as I understand you better.’
‘You are being hateful.’ Wren scowled. ‘You want to hurt me by demeaning the one relationship I treasure.’
