Page 19 of Heartbreaker

“But in this, you are not telling the whole truth, are you?”

How did she know?

“I’ve heard enough,” the marchioness interrupted, standing to her full nonexistent height. “I don’t particularly care about the rogue’s whereabouts. He shall never come near my Helene again. In fact, I shall happily share this information far and wide. The young ladies of thetonmust know the truth. It would be one thing if he were a duke and she were made duchess by the match. But asecondson? One who spends his evenings fighting like a dog?” She turned to Clayborn. “I can barely think of it and you allow this... thisstainupon your name?”

Clayborn bit his tongue, resisting the urge to point out the irony that a woman married to the Marquess of Havistock would consider debt and illegal fighting a stain while turning a blind eye to her husband’s disgusting, avaricious, myriad crimes.

“My brother loves your daughter, Lady Havistock. And she loves him, as well.”

“Love!” The marchioness spat the word. “That man sold my Helene a false bill of goods, Clayborn. There’s no question about it. She’s a girl with a head on her shoulders, and she wouldnevermarry your ne’er-do-well brother knowing any of this. Not now, notever!”

The vow grew louder and louder until Lady Havistock’s final words echoed throughout the room, pinging off mahogany and gilt, beneath the disdainful gaze of the Havistock ancestors. She stood and swooped to the door of the room, yanking it open to shout a demand through the house. “Someone fetch Helene. Immediately.”

Clayborn sighed. There was no waythiswould end well.

Leave it to these women to ruin his day. “I assure you,Lady Havistock, whatever has happened between my brother and your daughter, she has been an active, willing participant.”

It was the wrong thing to say. “I do not care for that insinuation. Were I a man, I would call you out.” She turned to her Matchbreaker. “I hope you do not mind staying a bit longer, madam. I should like Helene to hear about this from you, directly.”

Clayborn’s hands fisted together behind his back. “There is a problem with that plan, my lady.”

Adelaide Frampton looked to him, and he found himself once more willing to do any number of things to see her eyes. To know her thoughts.

The marchioness’s eyes narrowed. “What problem?”

A knock sounded at the door, and the servant who had shown Clayborn into the room stepped quietly inside, a folded piece of parchment in his gloved hand. “Ma’am,” he said softly, dipping his head in deference.

“What is it?” The marchioness had clearly had enough.

The servant’s throat worked, but he did not speak.

Clayborn’s pulse pounded in his ears.

“What is that?” the marchioness said, her words high and tight once more. As though she already knew what it was.

She was saved from reading it, however, as Adelaide Frampton stood from her chair and said what they all knew to be the truth. “I would wager it is a note from your daughter, apprising you of her plans.”

The marchioness turned shocked eyes on her Matchbreaker. “What plans?”

She did know everything.

“Duke?” Miss Frampton asked, standing, the sound of her silken skirts falling into place like gunshot in the shocked silence that punctuated her words.

For a moment, he was distracted by those skirts. By her tall, lithe form—a form he knew intimately from not three hours earlier, when it had been pressed tightagainst his chest. By the soft scent of her—thyme and fresh rain and secrets—forevermore the scent he would associate with trouble.

“Where is my daughter?!” It took all he had not to wince at the marchioness’s shriek.

How did she know?

Adelaide replied, as though he’d asked the question aloud, “Have you not yet realized, Your Grace? I know everything.”

The sheer arrogance of the words should not have intrigued him. Should not have tempted him. His brother was on the run with an unmarried lady in tow, and Clayborn would have to tidy up the mess as soon as possible.

He did not have time to notice this woman who had upended his day, and likely more than that. With a sigh, he reached into his pocket and extracted his watch before answering the marchioness. “If all is well, she is on her way to Nottingham.”

Something shifted in Adelaide’s posture. Softened. Released. Like relief.

She hadn’t known; but now she did.

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