Or, perhaps if he were to die shortly after all, it would be best to spare her the latter.
His hands did not shake, no longer after so many months of unsteadiness. But they were cold. He could not have finally come to this place in life only to now have life snatched from him.
“He daena wish me ta kill ye,” Duncan rumbled. “Anly ta give ye a message.”
“Ah.” Wyn pulled in an indiscernible breath. “That is good news. What is the message?”
Duncan’s look grew sober. “He wants ye ta call on him.”
“To meet with him personally, I presume.”
The Highlander nodded.
“And if I do not choose to oblige His Grace?”
Duncan’s face was grim. “He’ll have the girl.”
Now all went icy save his burning gut. He did not need to ask which girl or how the duke would have her. At the mill Duncan had guessed that Diantha meant something more to him than a job, and Wyn had long ago seen how the Duke of Yarmouth treated young females.
He stood breathless, paralyzed. “Goddamn you, Eads, you son of a bitch.”
Duncan shook his head. “A told him A woudna hurt her.”
“You shouldn’t have told him anything at all about her. She isn’t part of this.” It could not come to this.
“He refused me the gold he’d promised. He demanded ta know the reason A didna haul yer Welsh arse to Yarmouth a month ago.”
“Then he’s hired someone else to threaten her.” His mind sped. “You’ve come here now not because he sent you, but to warn me of that. The least you could do, damn you. Who?”
“He’s put a man in Savege’s household.”
“A servant. A sweep, perhaps, or a tradesman’s delivery boy if necessary.” Wyn would do the same if he wished to gain access to a lord’s house. “Easy enough to ferret out if he’s new to the staff.”
Duncan shook his head. “He’s determined. Yale, the man hates ye.”
“Then why doesn’t he simply have me killed? Why insist on seeing me?” Wyn gathered air into his compressed lungs. He turned and started toward the stables where he’d left Galahad. But he paused and looked over his shoulder. A halo of light surrounded Duncan’s massive frame.
“Duncan, the next time we meet, it had better be in hell, and you’d better run when you see me.”
Wyn went to Brooks’s. Viscount Gray could be found at the gentleman’s club most nights. Unmarried, with a wide circle of political friends and acquaintances, Colin cultivated his appearance as a gentleman of leisure, all the while watching, studying, and strategizing his next Falcon Club project.
It was yet early, and men lounged about the general chamber enjoying conversation, cards, dinner, and drink. The scent of tobacco smoke twined with cologne in the air, but to Wyn the brandy smelled stronger.
The viscount was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he was among the crush at the Beaufetheringstone ball. But even Gray could not truly help him. She must not remain in this danger. Going to Yarmouth, offering himself up to the duke, seemed only a partial solution. He could not trust that, suspecting her importance to him, the duke would not harm her even so. Wyn had displeased plenty of men in his years as an agent of the crown. But only one man had he ever threatened with murder.
He turned toward the exit. Tracy Lucas stood there, his companions from the ball at his back.
“Mr. Yale.”
“Sir Tracy. A pleasure.” Wyn bowed, impatience prickling. But this was the one man in London he could not dismiss swiftly. “Gentlemen.” He nodded to the others.
“I’d like a private word with you, sir.” Lucas gestured him aside.
“Of course.” He hadn’t time for this. But desperation ran in his veins, and insane thoughts that if Lucas were a reasonable sort he might enlist his aid, tell him to sneak Diantha out of the house under cover of night, to take her into the countryside. The duke would not expect it. It might buy him time to find a more lasting solution to the danger in which he had put her, a solution that did not require him to travel to Yarmouth and hasten the end of his life.
Lucas went only a few paces before speaking. “I understand you’ve been out of town.”
“Yes. At my estate until today.”
“Then perhaps you don’t know this, but Carlyle told me you’ve offered for my sister, and by the way you were looking at her tonight I think you’d better know: she isn’t—well, there isn’t any other way to say it—she isn’t looking for a fellow like you.”
Wyn went perfectly still. The scent of a newly uncorked bottle of wine on an adjacent table, the sound of its splash into glasses, were so familiar.
“Sir, I must ask you to explain yourself, if you will.”
“And see there.” The scowl on her brother’s face deepened. “That’s precisely why I’ve got to have my say. If you sincerely wanted her, what I just said should have you throwing down your gauntlet. But you didn’t even blink. You’re an awfully cool character, Yale, like that night of Blackwood’s wedding when you left my sister crying on the terrace at Savege Park.”
At Savege Park?
Lucas nodded, confidence suffusing his features. “I saw how you had her alone out there in the dark, with her face all blotched and wet. She wasn’t even sixteen, for God’s sake. Lucky you stopped teasing her when you did. I nearly went out there and corked you, but I’d a lady I couldn’t leave in the middle of the set. But my sister’s eyes were red all night after that, you scoundrel.”
Finally Wyn found his tongue. “Lucas—”
“I won’t spare words, sir, no matter how you’re welcome in Savege’s house. I don’t trust you. Haven’t since that night. And I saw how she looked tonight when the two of you were talking, like she wanted to blubber again. Then I lost the pair of you only to find her running in from Lady B’s garden looking as agitated as I’ve ever seen her. Damn you, Yale, it ain’t right to treat a lady like that.”
“You mistake matters, sir.”
Lucas puffed out his chest. “I don’t think I do, and I won’t have you teasing her again. She’s had a hard time of it, what with my—our mother—” He stuttered to a halt. “Thing is, she needs my consent to wed, and I won’t give her to you.”
“Do her wishes have no relevance?”
“She’s an impetuous girl. But she’s a good sort who’d do anything for someone she likes. Loyal as a hound, don’t you know.” His words came thickly now; he cared for her greatly, Wyn could see. “She deserves a better fellow than one who’d press his attentions on an awkward, unattractive girl those years ago. Now that she’s looking better I still won’t have it.”
Apparently Lucas had not seen the boys on the terrace the night of that ball. But it didn’t matter. Now she was in far greater danger than anything that had come before, and this time he was in fact the cause of it.
“I see,” he said, his thoughts sliding together with a peculiarly cool clarity, a solution tugging at him, aligning the pieces. “She has a mind of her own. But no doubt you already know that.”
“Don’t I! She’s headstrong and reckless and she’s never been any different. But that don’t mean she’s got to settle for a fellow like you.”
“Lucas.” Wyn lowered his voice. “Your sister has one wish, and you, I believe, are the only man able to fulfill it.”
Sir Tracy’s bright blue eyes widened. “What are you—”
“You know where Lady Carlyle is now. Do you not?”
Lucas gaped, then spluttered. “Well I don’t rightly—”
“I believe you do. I have reason to believe that your mother is in London for a short while and that she sent word to you recently requesting financial assistance in a business venture.” In the Secret Office that afternoon he’d read dozens upon dozens of letters before he’d come across the note at the end of one informant’s report, identifying the baroness as one of several persons seeking investors to fund a ring of high-end prostitution. The informant had noted that the baroness seemed to be an avid opium smoker, allied to her partner—a City man—to feed her addiction but otherwise living modestly, and of little concern to government now. It was suspected that she and her partner intended to return their business to France. “Have you seen her?”