Page 16 of Heartbreaker

“This,” she said, the words measured and careful, as she set the file to her lap, laying one gloved hand, clad in magnificent lace as dark as midnight, atop it, “is your brother’s file.”

Clayborn shot forward. “And in it?”

Pink lips curved beneath her veil. “Everything.”

What did she know?

Had she opened the box? This quickly? No. She’d barely had enough time to change disguises—it was impossible to imagine that she’d found the trick to the puzzle box. That she’d understood what was inside.

And yet, even without his stolen property, the idea that such a dossier would exist—something that might haunt Jack for the rest of his years—and that such a thing would be in the hands of Adelaide Frampton and whomever else she worked with—was... unnerving, to say the least. What was in it? About Jack? Abouthim? And who would commission such a dossier?

The answer was clear: the Marquess of Havistock. His own father’s once friend, then sworn enemy. The man who would stoop to anything to destroy Clayborn, including, apparently, ruining his brother’s chances with the woman he loved.

The man who’d hired Alfie Trumbull to steal his puzzle box, now in Adelaide Frampton’s hands.

Not for long.

She opened the folder. “John, your younger brother by ten years.”

Dammit. Jack was foolish but he wasn’t evil, and he would bear the heirs to the line. He didn’t deserve whatever this was—especially if it was a message designedto silence Clayborn himself. In the Marquess’s hands, it would be used to silence Clayborn in Parliament. To stop his work to end child labor. To keep Havistock’s coffers filled with gold made on the backs of those who could not stand for themselves.

Let them come for him. But she would not ruin Jack. Not if Clayborn had anything to say about it.

He ran a thumb along the edge of his index finger, the only movement he allowed himself, as he resisted the urge to move closer. To crane his neck. He ignored the scattershot of his pounding heart.What did she know?

“I’m sure you meant to refer to him as Lord Carrington.”

Her lips flattened at the cool correction. “Is his nose as straight as yours?”

What?

Before he could ask, she continued, casually, “Hard to believe it would be, considering the company he keeps.”

“I knew it!” Lady Havistock interjected. “A scoundrel!”

As though the woman weren’t married to something far worse.

Clayborn did not have to speak the thought, as Adelaide was there first. “It’s not as though most men in Mayfair don’t deserve the descriptor, but yes. It seems this Carrington man—”

“LordCarrington,” he corrected, leveling Adelaide with all the cool disdain he could muster. Did she know what she played at? What a weapon her dossier might be?

She couldn’t. He’d watched her with the aristocracy for the last year. For longer. He’d witnessed the loathing in her eyes when she watched them from the edges of ballrooms. He’d once watched her pick Havistock’s pocket. She couldn’t possibly be in league with the man.

What then?

She stayed quiet for a moment, and he found himself perversely pleased that he’d unsettled her. “Lord Carrington,” she began again, “like so many toffs beforehim, is quite skilled at amassing enormous amounts of debt in extremely short amounts of time.”

Had she forgotten that she was standing in a home owned by a toff? That there was another toff in the room? And not just any toff. Aduke.

Clayborn bit back an instinctive noise of disgust. He was not the kind of man who lorded his title over others. He certainly never used it to impress. He’d spent his whole life attempting to live up to the damn thing. To deserve it. But this woman had tied him in knots with her black gown and her straight spine and that flame red hair that even now he wished to release and that pretty blue folder that threatened him with all the secrets she might know.

Secrets she already had in her possession, because he’d kissed her instead of taking his box and walking away.That kiss.

It had been a mistake. Obviously. The Duke of Clayborn did not make a habit of kissing women on cargo barges. Certainly not women like this, threatening his future in a dozen different ways.

“What kind of debt?” the marchioness asked, not at all offended by Miss Frampton’s clear disdain for the aristocracy.

“The ordinary kind.” The list came calm and relentless and unsurprising—all things Clayborn knew about his brother. “He’s a habitual gambler, having lost thousands of pounds to several casinos around London.” She looked to Clayborn. “Lucky for him, he retains access to them because the duke is known to clear Lord Carrington’s debts at regular intervals.”

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