Page 76 of Irresistible
“Is there a specific occasion for this dinner?” Dougal asked. He’d received the invitation just yesterday.
“Just that Wex and Cass are back from Gloucestershire and wanted to see people. I don’t know how many people will be there. Perhaps it will be just family.” Lucien shrugged.
“Since when does that include me?” Dougal asked with a laugh.
Lucien blinked at him. “You’re one of my closest friends. And you’re a good friend of Wexford’s. I’d say that makes you family, wouldn’t you?”
Dougal hadn’t really thought of that. He’d been so removed from his family in Scotland, despite still feeling close to them. He hadn’t considered that he had a sort of family here in London. It was surprisingly comforting.
It wouldn’t take long to reach the Wexfords’, and Dougal wanted to discuss the investigation before they arrived. “I was hoping you might have something to report by now.” He looked over at Lucien expectantly.
“I do, in fact. Just today, I was able to glean an interesting piece of information.”
“You could have led the conversation with that instead of the bloody scent of the air.”
Lucien chuckled. “I knew we’d get to it. It’s not much, particularly when I’ve been denied access to the reports, but it’s something. When I specifically asked for these two missions, they were recognized as Giraud’s last two.”
“How did you learn that?” Dougal doubted Lucien would say. He wouldn’t want to get anyone in trouble.
“From someone I trust.”
“Giraud was the courier I found with his throat cut. He was not the courier who gave me the nonsense missive.”
“He must have been somewhere in that chain,” Lucien said. “Is it possible he was behind the bad message?”
“You think he was killed because of that? Giraud was a Frenchman who changed allegiances and began working for the British before I started at the Foreign Office. If he was still working for France all that time, he hid it well. I’d been told he was closely watched for years.”
Lucien’s features remained pensive. “The French are crafty scoundrels. It could be that he bided his time or that he was exceptionally skilled at hiding his treachery.”
“You think he was discovered and assassinated? I would have been told about that.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. One never knows with Castlereagh.”
The foreign secretary, Lord Castlereagh, could be difficult. “It doesn’t make sense for them not to at least question me. I interacted with Giraud on several occasions.”
“I agree that doesn’t make sense. Regardless, that could explain both of your failed missions.”
“It was all Giraud.” Dougal frowned. It was a reasonable explanation, but it seemed odd. If it was a planned assassination, he supposed he just felt excluded from whatever had happened.
“Seems that way. I’ll still poke around, but this may be all we learn.”
“I’m considering asking Kent about it again.”
Lucien looked at him in surprise as they turned onto George Street. “You haven’t already?”
“He told me to let it go, that everyone had things go wrong from time to time.”
“That isn’t bad advice.”
No, it wasn’t. But Dougal was still bothered by it all. Or perhaps he was just looking for a reason to stay attached to the Foreign Office when he needed to leave it entirely and return to his father.
A coach stopped in front of the Wexfords’. The coachman jumped down to open the door for the occupants. Dougal nearly tripped upon seeing who stepped out.
Jess, her lovely brown hair elegantly styled with pearls and a small blue feather, straightened as she reached the pavement. Dougal fought to take a breath. He felt as though he hadn’t seen her in months, not days—and that the absence had been terrible.
Because it was. He didn’t realize until that moment how keenly he’d missed her, how desperate he was to breathe the same air as she did.
Dougal quickened his pace. Lucien worked to keep up with him. “Who’s that? Miss Goodfellow?”
