.
Morgan groaned as his valet helped him back into bed before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
"I like her," Simon said a second later.
"As do I," Warren said.
"But you can't marry her." Simon directed his gaze to Morgan as he began to pace the room, walking the distance from one side of the bed to the other. "Since discovering that Philomena was the woman your mother intended for you to marry, all of our efforts have been focused on discovering what role she plays in our destruction."
"Our destruction?" Morgan leaned back in his bed. His side throbbed with pain from simply walking from his room to the sitting room down the hall where everyone had just had dinner, but he would not take back the last hours for anything. Mena had met the men and their wives, and the evening had been one he'd enjoyed thoroughly. She'd sat beside him and more than once had assisted him to ensure he didn't tear his stitches. The few times their hands had brushed, color rose to her cheeks and her eyes fluttered before she murmured something to herself and jumped readily into a conversation with someone else at the table... as though their growing feelings could be ignored.
"Forget the O.S.S." Lucas sat in a chair in the shadows by the window. With only a few lamps to illuminate the room, it was hard to tell that his eyes were two different colors. One was blue while the other green. His blond hair took on a reddish tint in the dark. "We have to figure out how she'll destroy the kingdom."
Morgan would have chuckled if he'd not thought the same way just hours ago. When Mena first walked into his office, he'd been ready to attack. Now he knew that he'd find nothing but comfort in her arms.
"Not a person in London has a foul word to say about her." Simon paused by the bed and settled his blue eyes upon Morgan. "And even the spies in Hanover sent word back that she was found to be an innocent there as well. We thought to simply arrange something to ensure you two not wed and now that you're here, we can put something in motion."
Something in motion?
Morgan stilled. He could just imagine what plans Simon could think of. "I plan to marry her," he decided to say before his leader saw to create some circumstance that would injure Philomena physically or soil her reputation. "You're not to harm her."
Simon stared at him with wide eyes. "You can't be serious."
"I like her." Warren sat with his arms crossed by the empty fire, a small grin on his face. "And our wives like her as well, and you know they're perfect judges of character."
Simon grunted. "I don't know. They did marry us."
Morgan chuckled.
Lucas, who was married to Warren's only sister, pressed his lips together to fight back a laugh.
Warren's smile widened. "We should give her the benefit of the doubt."
"Absolutely not. She's Creed's ward," Simon said.
Warren leaned back in his chair. "And I'm Lady Chasewood's son. Surely, you don't think me anything like her.”
The very thought was offensive. Warren was an honest man, and his mother was far from an honest woman. She'd married an untitled man only to sleep with his titled brother, the Earl of Chasewood. Later, after her husband died, she married Lord Chasewood and gave birth to their heir Cole a month later. London had been in an uproar over the scandal, and she'd done very little good since then. She was downright villainous to Nora before Warren settled things between the two and Lucas rescued the girl.
"I'm nothing like my mother," Warren went on. "So, who's to say she's like a man she's only known for a few years?"
Those words were like a punch to Morgan's gut. How had Warren had so much faith in her when Morgan had none? He'd be the first to say that he was nothing like his mother as well, but he'd never thought to separate Philomena from the man who was her caretaker. To him, they'd been one in the same and the guilt from that first meeting would haunt him probably forever.
"Creed is obviously using her to get close to us," Simon countered. "That proves her guilt alone."
"Creed didn't arrange the match," Morgan said.
Simon looked at him. "Then who did?"
"Cupid," Morgan said with a smile.
"Cupid?" Simon glared. "If you think this is a game, Morgan, I'll have you know that there is nothing funny about the fact that..." He stilled and then cursed. "Wardington! I can't believe he would do this." He was pacing again.
Lucas stood, staring at Morgan. "Wardington did this to us?"
"He said we need to protect her," Morgan said. "And I have every intention of keeping her safe... as my wife."
"Safe from who?" Warren leaned toward him. "Do you think Creed would bring her harm? Do you think he's been harming her?"
"No." Morgan knew what a victim of such abuse looked like and how they responded to men or violence. "She's as innocent as she looks. She fainted when Ralph hit Silas. And if that wasn't enough, you should hear her come to Creed's defense. She truly thinks him the victim of hate and gossip. She believes nothing the rags say about him."
"That's because everything about Creed is in the rags." Lucas shook his head. "If we could find some true evidence again the man, it would go to the papers."
Morgan tried to recall if anything about Philomena had suggested she wasn't the lighthearted beautiful woman he knew. He remembered her torn expression when he'd been stabbed and some of what she'd said about her father. "She said she was there when her father died."
"She was there? No one said as much." Simon moved to the empty hearth and leaned against the mantle. "We looked into her father's death when we discovered Creed owned the Housley Hotel, believing it to have gone to him in some foul involvement. His doctor said he had a bad heart. There was nothing anyone could do to save him. Creed had no hand in it."
"I don't know," Morgan sighed. "But maybe we should check again." If there was something there, it just might be the thing to ensure that Philomena was on their side and not Creed's. Until he could prove Creed guilty, she'd never believe otherwise, and Creed would remain between them.
"This is a mess," Simon said. "And I, for one, blame Wardington."
"No one told you to marry his niece," Warren said. "If you had the opportunity, would you do it again?"
Simon looked at him and slowly turned away. "Marianne is everything to me. I'd walk through fire before I gave her up." And Wardington would see to Simon's torment if he ever thought to bring Marianne harm. Morgan thought the duke might do the same if Morgan ever wronged Philomena as well. The affection he'd had for the girl had been plain.
But after three years and three children, Simon and Marianne were close as well and Marianne, like Warren and Lucas' wives, had proven to be an asset to the men on more than one occasion.
Warren had actually married his wife Sopherina twice, once while he'd been using a false name during an assignment that they thought had ended in Sopherina's death and again when it became clear that Sopherina was very much alive.
Morgan said, “I’ll look into Philomena’s father tomorrow.”
“You may ask her questions, but you’ll remain in bed.” Simon gave him a direct look before it melted into a smile. “Besides, you’ve done well today. If not for you, we might all still be looking for Silas Christoph.”
“Ralph was the one who went after him.”
“But you saw him from the street,” Warren said. “We had all been looking in the wrong direction.” The man had been sitting right under the group’s nose, living in a well-to-do area with a well-to-do woman as her gardener. Who knew that a criminal like Silas Christoph was also gifted with rose beds? He’d left the post that the O.S.S. had given him not to once again take sides with Creed but to start his life anew and while the men thought that act commendable, at the moment, Silas was too useful to let go.
“Something must have frightened him to make him run,” Warren said.
“You think he knows something?” Lucas moved to the door. “We should question him.”
“Tomorrow.” Simon looked over at Morgan again. “I’m sure you’ll want to attend, but at the moment, you need your rest.”
Morgan wanted to fight but found that he was tired, his eyes and body already feeling heavy, ready to crawl under the sheets and not rise until the sun did. So, he decided not to fight it and simply be glad that Simon would allow him to be at the meeting. He inclined his head and said, “First thing tomorrow.”
Simon and Lucas said their goodbyes before leaving, but Warren waited by the door.
“How was your trip?” Warren asked.
Morgan sighed. His trip to ‘France’ had been discussed at length during dinner, since not even the O.S.S. was to know where Wardington sent Morgan, but if Morgan were to confide any part of it with anyone, it would be with Warren. “It shed some light on a few things.”
“Oh?” Warren lifted a brow and waited for details. He wouldn’t ask for them, however, and he wouldn’t push. Between the group, they all had secrets and could lie just as good as the next, but Morgan didn’t want to lie. He wanted to talk to someone who would understand, and that person was Warren.
“My mother is a monster.”
Warren crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Is she any worse than mine?”
A fair question that, for while the world knew one of Lady Chasewood’s grander scandals, they did not know the worst of it. Only Warren did and before Morgan left for America, Warren had shared that terrible secret with him. He’d also confessed that his sister Nora suspected something amiss but didn’t know what, and Warren debated with telling the world every day, if not his own family. At the moment, he simply used the secret to blackmail his mother into doing as he wished.
“Yes,” Morgan said after further thought. “My mother is worse. She has innocent blood on her hands.” It was what Hiram had confessed to Morgan, the reason Hiram would not return to London with Lila.
Warren straightened. “I’m sorry.”
“If I could find evidence against my mother as you have, I would gladly turn her in.”
Warren sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “If my mother’s secret wouldn’t destroy my family, I would tell them, but it would make no difference that Ambrose’s father is actually Lord Chasewood. He could never inherit, since my mother was married to my father’s brother at the time.” Ambrose would never know his father was the earl, though it was ironic that Ambrose had been the man’s heir before Cole and Warren had come along nonetheless. “It’s better to simply leave it alone,” Warren said. “Ambrose already hates our mother. It wouldn’t do him any good to know the truth.”
After saying goodbye, he left as the others had, and Morgan adjusted himself in bed and allowed his mind to wander.
When the thought of his mother brought anger, he reached for something good to settle him, and his mind easily found Philomena’s smile. In his blood, he knew she had the power to make everything right. All he had to do was convince her of it. Doing so from bed would be hard… but Morgan had faced harder challenges before.