But Duncan would not appear, he knew. For all Diantha’s talk of the Highlander’s honor, if Duncan truly wanted him he would have taken advantage of his weakness at the abbey. Men of action did not wait upon the convenience of girls.
He rode until he reached the coast and the castle sitting upon its cliff high above the ocean, all sandstone and turrets and imposing medieval majesty. The porter swiftly ushered him into the central courtyard and bid him to His Grace’s withdrawing room to wait.
Wyn declined, handed over the filly into the groom’s hands, and without looking back rode from the place and put miles between him and the duke before nightfall. He could not fulfill his promise to a living woman if he held to his promise to the girl he had killed. Regret for his misdeed must finally be put aside. With her determination and compassion, Diantha had shown him this. She had turned his life upside down. But now that he was not to be hanged for killing royalty, he would do what he could with that life, beginning with his estate. The abbey was a lucrative property. It had only been his guilt that prevented him from living on its income. It deserved his attention, and he must prepare it for a new mistress.
During his absence Mrs. Polley had gone to the village and harangued the locals into thorough mutual dislike. But the meals she cooked compensated for alienating the people he’d known since childhood, and she managed the returning household staff with grumbling efficiency.
“I am grateful you remained, Mrs. Polley.”
“A grand gentleman shouldn’t be in the kitchen, now, sir.”
“You did not think I was so grand a fortnight ago.”
She scowled and waved him out of her realm. As he was packing his bag for the journey to London, two letters arrived.
Dear Mr. Yale,
I received your letter and read it with great interest, alongside the two other similar offers for my stepdaughter’s hand put before me in the past sennight. Unfortunately I can promise you nothing. Thrice before I attempted to engineer my daughters’ marital prospects, without the smallest degree of success; each of the three are now wed to men I did not choose. Fortunately I like these husbands well enough, and so will leave it to Diantha to determine her future marital bliss. In the end the Female Will shall always prevail anyway.
I wish you the best of luck. Do be aware that her brother, Sir Tracy Lucas, is her legal guardian and must be applied to for approval rather than I.
Sincerely &c.
Charles Carlyle, Baron
London
The other letter, penned on unadorned stationery, came from the unlikeliest of quarters: Lady Emily Vale. Within minutes Wyn saddled Galahad and set off on the road to London.
Chapter 24
“Ah. Beauty and wit in one small chamber. It’s good to be back in London.”
Standing before a filing cabinet, Lady Constance Read whirled about, her vibrant blue eyes wide.
“Wyn! You have returned.” She thrust out her hand and he bowed over it. Her smile that turned intelligent men to blithering idiots glowed.
“If I had known you would be the first lady I saw when I returned to town, I would have returned quicker.” He’d been disappointed in the first call he paid. At Savege’s house the butler informed him that Diantha was expected to be out for some hours yet. So he had come here to the Secret Office to find what he could.
Constance squeezed his hand and laughed. “You are a rogue, but you hide it well behind lovely flattery, as always.” Her gaze flickered up and down him. “You look remarkably good. Where have you been?”
He bowed. “I am honored, madam.”
“And . . . ?” She turned back to the filing cabinet. Daughter of a duke, Constance was received everywhere. She used this popularity in her work for the Falcon Club. “Where . . . ?”
“I went to see a man about a horse. But I suspect you know that already.”
“I am still jealous Colin assigned the task to you. Is Lady Priscilla as beautiful as they say?”
“More so. Our august secretaire would have sent you, I suspect, if he thought you enjoyed cards, brandy, and scantily clad working girls.”
“I see. But you retrieved her successfully, it seems, without too much distraction.” She threw him a glance of mild interest.
Wyn wasn’t fooled. Golden-haired, voluptuous, and an heiress, she was any man’s fantasy. But years ago he had learned that Constance Read’s reasons for joining the Falcon Club—and remaining in it after her cousin, Leam, quit—were none he wished to explore.
“Were you that jealous of me, Con?” He wandered to the desk in the modest whitewashed chamber. Sparely furnished, with a single portrait of the old king on the wall and one barred window, the Secret Office looked nothing out of the ordinary. But within filing drawers that lined the walls were stored every letter from every informant in the British Empire that had ever reached London successfully. Most of that correspondence had never been read. “Would you have liked the assignment yourself, or are you busy here with more interesting business?”
“Oh, this is nothing.” She shuffled through the file before her. “It was only that you were absent for so long. It should not have taken you over a month to retrieve a horse and deliver her to the duke.” Her gaze passed over the papers, but unfocused. “Really, Wyn—”
“Dear Constance, why don’t you put that down and ask me what you wish to ask me? Then we might move past it and speak of more pleasant matters.”
She pursed her full lips and peered at him closely. “You did not go directly from the house party to Yarmouth.”
“Do you know, you are especially beautiful when you are piqued. Would that I could pique you more often.”
“How do you imagine I learned of this most unusual detour of yours?”
He sat back against the desk. “I am as ignorant as the next man. Unless, of course, the next man is Colin Gray.” He crossed his arms. “What have you two been up to?”
She met his gaze for a long moment. Then she sat down in the office’s single chair and draped a hand airily over her brow. “I cannot tell you. If I did, then I would have to kill you and that would ruin my gown, bloodstains being what they are.”
He tsked. “It is far too lovely a gown for such abuse, s’truth.”
She dropped her hand, her face now devoid of play. “Wyn, I was concerned about you. I am still concerned. You have been so little in touch with us for too long, even when you are here in town. And even with Leam. Will you remain in London for a time?”
His friends imagined him hell-bent on self-destruction, and perhaps he had been when last he’d seen them. But no longer.
“Colin is about to dismiss me from the club, you know.”
“I don’t think so. When you did not return immediately he would not send anyone to find you. He said you would appear when you wished and that I should trust you. He has great faith in you.”
“He did not send anyone after me because he wishes to discover whether Lady Justice truly knows my identity.”
“You heard about that already?”
“I have been back in town at least three hours, my dear.”
She shrugged. “Believe what you will about Colin’s motives. But I know you will believe that this past fortnight since Leam came to town he has been in a perfect stew. I think it’s about you, but he won’t say.”
“The poet is all dramatic anguish when he wishes to impose his notions of rectitude upon another.”
Her laughter filled the little room with music. Then abruptly her amusement faded.
“Why were you gone so long, Wyn? Is Leam displeased with you for a particular reason?”
“If you wish to know your cousin’s feelings on the matter, I recommend you apply to him, my dear. Now, as much as I am delighted to again be in your company, I have a task to accomplish this afternoon and few hours in which to do so.”