Page 28 of The Proposition
“We.”
Mr. Ferrand raised a single brow in inquiry. Honora’s warning from that morning floated back to her—that people would whisper and talk, that Clemency might suffer irreparable harm by playing such games, but only reckless action would soothe a scorned heart.
“We will do those things. He will be powerless to stopusfrom ripping away everything,” Clemency corrected. He did not argue. Instead, he kissed her.
His hand slid deeper across her face, holding Clemency to him. Her breath became his, a pact and a secret and a want shared between them. She had not intended it to happen, and she suspected Audric had not even meant to do it. But how, then, were their lips pressed together? He tasted faintly of tobacco, and his lips were shockingly soft. Inviting. All of this was an invitation, a proposition, a covenant sealed with dangerously rising heat.
Audric broke first, moving her suddenly away. He frowned and shook his head.
“Forgive me—” he began, but Clemency offered him herhand, swiftly and surely, as a man might. This was a deal after all, their arrangement.
“But there will be no secrets between us, and you will tell me everything I want to know,” she demanded, also as a man might. “Everything. If that is your proposition, Mr. Ferrand, then I accept.”
9
Ordinarily, the emptiness of the Wimpole Street townhouse in London would not bother Audric. That he even noticed the oppressive quiet was strange. Bewildering, really. He enjoyed solitude, sought it whenever he was not seeking some irredeemable roustabout on the streets of Paris or Calais, but a restless unease gripped him within an hour of waking. Over a bracing cup of coffee, he watched the neighborhood wake up while a heap of croissants went untouched on the desk behind him. Only the staff awaited him at Kilby House, though Delphine and Ralston would join him in London soon, after taking a much gentler journey by carriage.
Audric had nearly killed his horse racing to London. Working off Miss Fry’s information, he could not allow Turner Boyle to slip the net, and he worried that the man, now pinned under a mountain of called-up debt, might grow desperate enough to flee England altogether. His poor horse had suffered, and Audric would not allow himself to consider it had anything to do with that kiss.
That damnable kiss.
When his mind wandered for even an instant, he thought of her. Clemency. She stoked such fire in him, odd and absurdly bossy but desirable, nonetheless. It was some remnantof childhood, he assured himself, a trick of the brain. His father had been so domineering and unbending, expecting absolute obedience from their mother. It was not unthinkable that he should find himself attracted to a woman that would make his father’s hair fall out in shock.
He did not hate his father, but under no circumstances did he want to become him.
That was all it was, that kiss. And that fire. Just a desperate attempt to distance himself from a fate he refused to entertain.
Boyle was the true matter at hand. Whether he sought to leave the country or call upon more friends for cash, it did not matter—it could not be allowed, not when Audric’s plan was otherwise unfolding flawlessly.
Nothing, it seemed, had changed on Wimpole Street since his last visit—the same fashionable couples held the same fashionable addresses, the same fashionable carriages clip-clopped down the same cobbles, and the same fashionable stores carried the same fashionable wares. Most of the townhouses were near identical—white brick lower entrance levels with arched doorways, a darker brick façade rising above, flower boxes in the windows providing a striking touch of color and cheer. But the familiarity of it did not provide much comfort—he missed his sister, and her laugh filling the halls of his home. Stranger still, he found he constantly missed Miss Fry’s company too.
She made things considerably more interesting, even if she also made them considerably more precarious.
There it was again. That kiss. Those enchanting eyes…No.
He drained his coffee and turned to contemplate the rollson his desk, his loneliness and his disquiet robbing him of all appetite. Mercifully, Lee Stanhope arrived, rescuing him from the somewhat pitiful fate of eating a hot croissant alone in an empty house.
“What have you found?” Audric asked, striding around to the front of his desk, dispensing with any formal or informal greetings. That was not the sort of relationship he had with Lee Stanhope. A former Bow Street Runner, Stanhope could find a white cat in a snowstorm or an honorable man on the floor of Parliament. Henry Fielding himself had been the man’s mentor, and Stanhope had been regarded as something of a prodigy. He had retired young, after a bullet wound shattered his knee and left him with a pronounced limp. Now he was in the business of secrets, the expensive kind, and Audric paid him handsomely for his services.
“He’s still knocking about Grosvenor Square, Lord knows how he’s affording it,” Stanhope said, nudging the door shut with his cane. He made his way across the plush red-and-gold carpet, a wrapped packet of papers tucked under his right arm.
“I payyouto know, not the Lord,” Audric muttered, leaning back against his desk and crossing his arms.
With a crooked smirk, Stanhope rubbed his chin. “He has nothing on my contacts.”
Short and wiry, Stanhope stood about a head shorter than Audric, but even maimed he was brutal in a fight. He kept company with boxers when he wasn’t cultivating secrets and digging for information. Small, quick eyes darted about the room under his shaggy brown hair, a dimpled chin lending him a roguish air. There was nothing stylish about Stanhope,yet he exuded easy sophistication, his credentials and his capability more impressive than any jeweled cuff links. He handed the package to Audric and then helped himself to a croissant, tearing into it like a man starved.
“Denning Ede,” Audric read, tearing open the packet and glancing over the top page. It was an old lease, presumably one for wherever Boyle was staying. “Denning Ede…Why do I know that name?”
“Because he never shuts his mouth. Loudest Tory in London,” Stanhope said around a mouthful of roll. “Rescued Lord Ardmore from a particularly nasty scandal with a duchess last year. That lad would’ve wound up disinherited or worse, but Ede makes a few visits behind a few closed doors and suddenly Ardmore has a career in Parliament again. Disgraceful horseshit, if you ask me, but not unimpressive. And anyway, he’s always kissing up to the Runners, so you didn’t hear any of that from me.”
Audric frowned, glaring down at the lease. “And do we think his lordship knows Boyle’s secrets or is he just another victim?”
“Remains to be seen,” Stanhope replied. He reached over and tapped the bundle of papers in Audric’s hands. “I have a friend at White’s that will bring it up discreetly. Ede won’t talk to me, but he might spill his guts to another lord.”
Audric flipped to the next page, where Stanhope had scribbled hasty shorthand notes. Legible, just barely. Stanhope started in on his second croissant while Audric digested accounts of Denning Ede and Boyle making public overtures toward a widow called Mrs. Chilvers. “This woman…How is she involved?”
“Could be Boyle’s next swindle. She does seem the type. Spinster, wealthy, pretty enough, not much family to speak of—were I a half-cocked crook looking for a credulous mark, she would be it.”
