Page 22 of Dangerous Games of a Broken Lady
He and Adelaide had always enjoyed an unusual companionship. Others thought it peculiar. Miss Green had certainly been vocal about her opinion. However, he saw nothing strange in it at all. They locked horns from time to time, but what companions did not? They teased and amused one another, and spoke with a refreshing freedom. Adelaide was his dear friend and he hoped she would always be so. He had not meant it when he’d said he would have to make a choice between a friend and a romance. At least, he did not think he meant it. Now, he felt as though he were somehow losing her—a prospect more upsetting than he knew how to put into words, now that it was a potential actuality.
Please believe that I intended to do more,he thought, as if she could somehow hear him.I would have attempted to fix your suffering, had I only asked what ailed you. I have grown so accustomed to our taunting that I forgot how to be sympathetic. I forgot how to act when you were in genuine pain.
He supposed her distress had something to do with the lack of announcement in the previous day’s newspaper. It had not been there this morning, either. As much as he disliked Reuben Fletcher, he knew how invested in the match Adelaide was. He would rather have seen the announcement and simmered in silence than have her weep.
“You devil,” he muttered aloud, swiping his cane at a stray daisy that poked through the masonry ahead.
“Now, that is not a particularly kind thing to say, is it?” a voice shivered through the air like ice.
Jasper whirled around. “Who goes there?”
“You do not recognize my voice, yet you call me devil?”
He narrowed his eyes, attempting to peer into the unseen shadows that lined the embankment. “Duke?”
“If only.” The voice chuckled as a figure emerged from behind a nearby cluster of trees. Jasper frowned to try and make out the face, but the gentleman wore a top hat. It cast a darkness across his features. “What is the matter, Lord Gillett? Do you not recognize me?”
A tremor bristled up his spine. “Lord Rowntree?”
“And here I was, believing I had not made a keen enough impression upon you.” He flashed a cold grin. “You see, I have been waiting, Lord Gillett.”
“Waiting for what?”
“Ordinarily, I am a patient man, but the task I have set you is somewhat time sensitive. I informed your… employer of its sensitivity over a week ago now,” he went on, every word making Jasper want to run for cover. “And yet, days pass, and I hear no word from him. We did not even begin to discuss the fundamentals before we were interrupted at the Assembly Rooms.”
Jasper cleared his throat. “Had you asked to hear from him?”
“Of course,” Lord Rowntree snapped. “How else am I supposed to get this enterprise underway?”
“If it is the Earl of Leeds that you wish to converse with, why have you accosted me?” Jasper wondered boldly. “Presumably, you have followed me on my walk here. I believe I deserve to know your reasoning.”
Lord Rowntree laughed icily. “As I say, I am a patient man. However, I have certain expectations,” he explained. “The Earl agreed to my terms and yet he offers me naught but silence. Such a transgression cannot be ignored.”
“Perhaps, he has changed his mind?”
“He has already taken half the fee, Lord Gillet. Hecannotchange his mind. He requires that money, does he not? He seemed rather desperate when he came to me. I might have asked why he needed it, but that is not in my nature—I do not like to pry into the minutiae of peoples’ troubles.”
“You would have to speak with him yourself. This is none of my concern.” Jasper made to walk away, but Lord Rowntree darted forwards to block his path. With painstaking slowness, he pulled back the corner of his long coat to reveal a set of glinting blades.
Jasper froze. His eyes glanced up and down the embankment, but there was no one else wandering the riverside. It was much too cold and the threat of rain hovered in the darkening clouds. He did not much care for the Bow Street Runners, but, in that moment, he wished they might suddenly appear.
“I am not finished speaking withyou,” Lord Rowntree warned.
“I can do nothing to help you and threatening me will do no good.” Jasper was grateful that his voice did not waver. He was a reasonable boxer, but he did not relish the idea of facing Lord Rowntree’s knives. The villain was infamous for a reason. Murder gave him little pause for thought.
Lord Rowntree flashed an alarming smile. “No, perhaps you are right. I doubt threateningyouwill be of any use at all,” he said coolly. “That pretty little thing at the Assembly Rooms, however… an acquaintance of yours, is she not?”
“I know her, yes.”
“Come now, you discredit your companionship by speaking in such detached terms,” he tutted in grim amusement. “She is the Earl’s daughter, correct?”
“You were there, Lord Rowntree. You know that she is.”
“And your family is rather close to the Colborne family, are they not?”
“You would not ask such a question if you did not already know the answer,” Jasper replied, trying to be as vague as possible. There was every chance that Lord Rowntree did not already know the ties that bound Jasper and Adelaide together.
“You care for her, do you not?”
