Page 49 of Seducing the Knave

There was a pause before she countered, “You would.”

His response was a quick laugh as he left the room, taking an inordinate amount of pleasure in imagining how his humor would spark her temper.

He went first to find Langworth.

As expected, the well-trained man was at his post in the entryway.

His first instruction for the man wasn’t entirely unusual.

“I need ye to have Mrs. Flynn gather a few frocks of a size to fit me new guest.”

Langworth nodded. “D’ye want Alpert to open a room for her?”

“No.”

“No?” Confusion flickered across the butler’s expressive features.

“No,” Max repeated, firmly. “The lady’s me personal guest. She can come and go as she pleases, but she must use me private stairs and isn’t to venture into the rest of the house. Got it?”

Langworth nodded again, but a scowl hovered over his heavy brow. “Aye.”

“Her protection and...insulation from our activities are yer highest priority, which means anything the lady needs will need to go through ye and no one else.”

“Aye, sir.”

“Yer wages will be increased accordingly.”

“Thank ye, sir,” Langworth responded with another nod. “I’ll see what Mrs. Flynn can spare.”

As Langworth started his new secondary role as lady’s maid, Max decided to head over to the recently raided warehouses. Though Carver’s report had been thorough, it was important to see for himself that all was recovered. It also got him away from the house and the temptation to interrupt the privacy Elle so revered. A temptation that was a helluva lot stronger than he wanted to admit.

As he stepped outside to hail a passing hack, he assured himself that Elle’s presence would not distract him from his responsibilities. Too many people relied on him for their protection and the security of their livelihoods. With Gill a renewed threat, Max’s vigilance could not waver.

The warehouse in Whitechapel had barely been scathed by the raid. The men who’d been arrested for storing stolen goods had been released as soon as the proper paperwork proving the legality of the merchandise was provided to the magistrate. The Wapping location, however, had a bit more struggle. That magistrate had suspected the documentation was forged and had insisted on an investigation. As expected, the investigation hit a swift dead end and the documentation had to be taken at face value.

Max talked with his man in Wapping at length about the problem with the magistrate, but the fail-safes they had in place had worked as intended and Max decided nothing drastic needed to be done as of yet. Since Gill had been the cause of the raids in the first place, he was the main culprit in the scenario and Max’s only target for retribution.

In the end, he managed to stay occupied for almost two hours. And as he rode back toward the house in St. Giles, thoughts of what awaited him in his bedroom only intruded every ten minutes or so, but there was no denying the steady rise of anticipation in his blood.

When he reentered his room, closing the double doors securely behind him, he noted first that the fire had died down significantly. The room was still warm enough, but the light barely extended past the sofa. Dinner had been cleared from the table and he assumed the frocks he’d requested for her had already been placed in his wardrobe.

The idea of having her clothing nestled alongside his caused a twinge of discomfort in his stomach, but he reminded himself that—by the lady’s own insistence—it was only a temporary arrangement.

Making his way confidently through the semi-darkness, he glanced at his bed, but even in the dim light, he could see she wasn’t in it.

He grinned. Not that he’d expected her to be.

Instead, he found her curled up on the sofa, sleeping peacefully. She was still dressed in the pale pink gown she’d worn since their meeting, but her hair had been released from its pins to fall over the armrest in thick, curling waves.

As he stood there, a familiar feeling quietly rose up inside him. It was the same thing he’d felt the very first moment he’d seen her sitting alone in that inn. Instantly recognizable because it was similar to something he’d experienced since he’d been a skinny orphan and first stepped in front of a smaller boy to shield him from the sting of the headmaster’s whip. It was what had motivated him to create safe houses for the women and children who roamed the streets in desperation for their next meal or a night out of the cold.

However, while what he experienced in regard to Elle was similar to those long-motivating instincts, it was also entirely different. Even his desire for her wasn’t like what he’d known with other women he’d taken to his bed. But exactly how it was different and why eluded him.

As he stared down at Elle, matching his breath to the gentle rhythm of her inhales and exhales, frustration clouded his thoughts.

With no answers forthcoming—or at least none that he wanted to entertain—Max turned to his bed and pulled off the rich velvet coverlet. After draping the blanket over her slumbering form, he returned to the deeper shadows beside his bed and stripped down before stretching out beneath the sheets. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to be lulled by Elle’s soft, rumbling purrs and soon fell asleep.

#

---