CHAPTER 26
Killer Unmasked
Connor glanced over from the depths of savage fury and saw Maggie standing there, her hair disheveled, her gown torn at the knee. By the light of the moon, her face was pale, her eyes wide as she stared at him holding his enemy’s knife to the man’s throat, knuckles dripping with blood.
The thought swept in as though from a great distance as he stood there, his chest heaving: What the hell is she doing here?
Then the look on her face snared his attention.
The horror. The shock. The fear.
Fear of him. That was what jarred him. Aye, the woman he loved was gazing at him as though she had just realized that the real killer here wasn’t the man on the ground.
And no wonder, that. Connor had completely dominated his foe, just as he had been trained to do. The sharp, bitter taste of the threats he had uttered moments ago lingered on his tongue. Threats he may or may not have carried out; it just depended.
But Maggie must’ve heard them, and now she saw him standing astride his sprawled enemy, blade in hand, in position, if need be, to cut his throat.
He had made it his business to ensure that Flynn’s son believed that he’d better start talking if he wanted to live. Whether the dragoon had been convinced of Connor’s willingness to murder him there in the street, that remained to be seen.
But Maggie believed it.
So said the terrified look on her face.
Seeing himself through her eyes like that took Connor completely off guard, and in his fleeting hesitation, the dragoon grabbed the nearby rifle off the ground, lurched to one knee, and swung it like a club, smashing Connor in the side, where his wound from the duel was still healing.
Connor bellowed and staggered a step to the left, knocked off balance by the force of the unblocked blow, and the momentarily blinding burst of pain to feel his side split open again.
He heard Maggie cry out in alarm while the dragoon scrambled to his feet, already stumbling to a run.
“Get back here!” Connor tried to yell, but could not quite catch his breath as the man spun past him—not toward Maggie, thank God, but across the street.
Beaten half to a pulp, the blackguard ran for his life, and Connor took a few winded steps after him. Unfortunately, the fresh reinjury slowed him down.
Chasing the pain out of his mind by willpower, he snatched the rifle’s ramrod off the ground by his feet. He had removed it immediately upon capturing his enemy and tossed it aside so the man could not reload. Connor gripped the ramrod now and started after him. By God, he would skewer the bastard with it.
But then Maggie cried, “Connor, don’t!”
Again, she made him waver. He whipped a glance over his shoulder, fearing she might be in danger, that another enemy might’ve appeared, but she was just standing there as before, and by the time he looked forward again with the iron rod in his grasp and his side throbbing, Flynn’s son had reached his horse.
Damn it! Why had she interrupted?
The dragoon jumped into the saddle.
“You won’t escape me!” Connor thundered, running toward him. “I know where to find you, you son of a bitch!”
“And I know where to find her!” Flynn’s son yelled back from beneath the great tree overhanging the park fence. In the next instant, a dark horse charged out of the shadows across the street, and Connor’s would-be assassin galloped off into the night.
Connor remained standing in the middle of Park Lane, staring after his enemy until the man had disappeared.
With a curse under his breath, he tossed the ramrod down in disgust. It clattered onto the cobblestones, then he threw his head back and let out a garbled shout of frustration at the sky.
“You there! What is going on down there?” a prim female suddenly called down from some window above. “I’m warning you, I’ve sent my footman for the constable!”
“Perfect,” Connor muttered. He turned around, still panting with rage and extreme irritation. Holding his side, already hot and sticky with seeping blood, he glanced up at the opulent townhouse and saw a worried head peering out from between the curtains of an upper window. “Go back to bed! The show’s over!”
The woman’s head disappeared.
As he trudged back toward the pavement, Maggie rushed out onto the street toward him.
“Are you all right?” She reached for him, trying to see his side and gauge how badly he was hurt, but he pushed her helping hand away.
“What are you doing here?” he demanded.
Her head jerked upward at his curt tone. “What?”
“I told you to stay back. Did you not hear me?” Connor asked crisply.
Her lips parted, but no words came out.
He shook his head, exasperated. But, doing his best to let the matter go, he stepped past her. “Come on. We need to get out of here. The last thing we need right now is a chat with the constable.”
He winced as he bent down to pick up the weapons that he had removed from Flynn’s son. Perhaps they would bear some telltale sign of evidence. For now, they’d serve if any more threats should appear.
Then he picked up the dragoon’s knife and gave it by its handle to Maggie.
“Here. You carry this,” he said without meeting her gaze. She grimaced and held the thing like a dead rat. “Let’s go.”
She followed a few paces after him as he stalked back down Park Lane, toward the mouth of the alley, through which they had passed earlier.
“Connor?”
He remained coldly quiet.
“Say something.”
He stopped short and pivoted to face her. “Very well. When we are married, madam, if I give you an order, I expect you to obey it—without question. Particularly in matters of life and death. Damn it, Maggie, have you no concept of the chain of command?” he barked at her.
She jumped, then her mouth fell open.
He pivoted on his heel and continued marching forward. “Come. Let us hasten back to the party,” he said with a biting undertone of sarcasm.
She spluttered a little behind him, then hurried after him in her dancing slippers, skipping to keep up. “Chain of command? Well, pardon me, Major! I was not aware that becoming engaged to you meant I’d enlisted in the Army.”
He harrumphed.
“I was worried about you!” she exclaimed. “That’s the only reason I followed. I thought you might need me to send you reinforcements.”
“Did it look like I needed help?” He stopped and turned to her, intensely annoyed. “I told you, I neither want nor need a mother hen. Obviously, I had everything under control.”
“Oh really? And did you have yourself under control?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do not make excuses. You were clearly in the wrong.”
She huffed with indignation, but he didn’t care. There was a time for kisses and a time for laying down the law, and by God, he’d dealt with enough neophytes in his day to realize that the chit’s safety required that he nip this defiance in the bud.
That bastard had just threatened her. Given that the dragoon had already murdered up to three members of his family, Connor wasn’t taking any chances with his future wife.
Her survival until he finished this business might well depend on her following his orders to the letter. Why was that so difficult for her to understand?
She gave him a wounded pout, but he did not soften his expression. Letting her off the hook here could get her killed. On the contrary, this was essential training.
“I was only trying to help,” she said with a sulk.
“Oh really? And what were you going to do? Give him a frosty set-down? This isn’t a ballroom, Margaret. It isn’t even a duel governed by some pretty code of honor. Do you understand me? Good. End of conversation. Do not disobey me again.
“Now, hurry up. He might decide to come back, and I promise you, if the bastard does, you won’t like what you see. Your presence won’t stay my hand a second time.”
He pivoted around the corner, making sure she was right behind him.
Her silence as they walked through the dark alley onto the wider, illuminated street beyond told him that she was mulling his words.
Clearly, he had given her much to think about.
Alas, his declaration that the topic was now closed had been overly optimistic.
She kept glancing up at him as they walked up the elegant street, side by side. For his part, Connor was just glad to have passed through that tight, claustrophobic alley, for a place like that was a fine spot for an ambush.
“What?” he finally grumbled.
She was shaking her head. “I don’t believe it… You’re blaming me for this?”
“I had him! You distracted me. He got away. Ergo?”
Admittedly, some of his anger came from hurt male pride that she had seen him fail at such a vital task—even though she was the one who had caused him to blunder.
Still, the only person in all of London whose opinion he really cared about had just seen him at his most ferocious.
Gentle soul that she was, he did not expect the girl to take it well. Old, hardened defenses in him had already braced for some sort of rejection or another.
“So, I get no credit for courage or…or loyalty?” she demanded.
Connor just looked at her.
“Here’s a thought, Major. Why don’t you learn to follow my orders once in a while?”
He snorted.
“Well, look at you!” She gestured angrily at him. “Your hand’s bleeding, your eye’s swollen, your side’s ripped open again—all because you had to go charging off alone into the night like a lunatic! Why did you not just stay with me in the garden like I asked you?”
“What, cower behind a female?” he retorted with a scoff as they stopped to squabble in the street like an old married couple. “Hide behind your skirts? You’ve obviously mistaken me for Bryce, darling!”
“You could have been killed!” she shouted.
“I know my craft!” Connor roared back.
Maggie’s posture stiffened. She folded her arms across her chest, and her chin came up a notch.
“Do not bellow at me, sir.” She looked away, nose in the air. “Humph. If I wanted to spend the rest of my life with a bully, I might as well stay at Delia’s.”
Connor froze, scrutinizing her by the light of a nearby streetlamp. Did she just threaten to call off the match?
But he refused to let his horror at this possibility show on his face, keeping his expression cool. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
She lifted a dainty finger and poked him in the chest. “Never do that to me again! That is what it means, Major.”
He swallowed with relief as he held her imperious stare.
“I want your word that you won’t go running off on me again like some…some sort of Celtic berserker on the loose, w-with his face painted blue!”
Connor clenched his jaw, relieved that she was not ending it here and now after what she had just witnessed. He was not sure he would have blamed her.
He really wished she had not seen that side of him.
Nevertheless, even though he knew he was pushing his luck, he refused to lie to her. “Sorry. I can’t promise that. Berserkers only quit once the battle’s won.”
“Or when they are dead,” Maggie replied crisply.
He gave her a stern look, then walked on.
“Bullheaded man,” she said, following him up the street, around the corner, and back into the mews behind Aunt Lucinda’s house. “So, that’s it, then? You’re completely unwilling to compromise? Because that is not how marriage works—you give the orders and I obey?”
“Frankly, when it comes to situations like this, yes, darling. That’s exactly how it works.”
“Oh, indeed?” She sounded nigh strangled with indignation now, but the lady maintained her prim façade. “Well then, Your Grace. Perhaps I need more time to consider your offer more carefully!”
With that, she whooshed ahead of him back in through the garden gate, while he grimaced behind her in the darkness.
Unfortunately for Maggie, her grand ultimatum lost much of its punch when they returned to the garden only to find that over a dozen guests had poured out to see what was the matter.
The panicked looks the moonlight revealed on their faces confirmed they’d heard the gunshot.
Connor tamped down a smug flicker of satisfaction over all these witnesses who’d come rushing out only to find the two of them alone in the dark out here together.
How scandalous.
“Sorry, love,” he murmured, sending her a wicked half-smile as he pulled the garden gate shut behind him. “Looks like there won’t be any backing out now. Just think of your reputation.”
She shot him a withering glare just as Major Carvel came striding out through the trellised walkway.
“What happened? We heard gunfire!” he said.
“Aye, you did,” Connor said as Maggie and he reached the fountain. “Bit of unpleasantness out here, I’m afraid.”
“Were you hit?” Carvel asked.
“No, no. I’m fine.”
His fellow soldier looked at her. “And Lady Margaret?”
“I’m all right,” she answered with a nod.
Connor held up his hands in a calming gesture to the arriving throng of shocked guests, both men and a few women. “Don’t worry, ladies and gentlemen, we are both unharmed. It was just a footpad of some sort.”
“He shot at you?” Netherford asked, hurrying after Carvel, his brother-in-law.
“Aye. I gave chase—old instincts, don’t you know,” Connor said. “We traded a few punches, then he ran off. I let him go. After all, no harm done. Don’t worry, he’s gone. Everything’s fine now.”
“Good God!” someone murmured.
There was no point in mentioning the blood seeping from his wound. He would simply rebandage it, and perhaps a servant could run home and fetch him a fresh shirt and coat.
Only for a split second did he consider canceling the rest of the soirée, but given the battered condition in which he’d left his enemy, he felt reasonably sure the danger had passed. There was no need to make a fuss.
People trying to kill him was nothing new, after all. Aunt Lucinda had gone to a lot of trouble for his sake; everyone seemed to be having a good time—until just now, anyway—and the soirée was only scheduled to last another couple of hours.
Plenty of time for him to mentally hammer out a plan of action for dealing with Flynn and his son for once and for all.
Connor knew that, first and foremost, he wanted his womenfolk out of harm’s way. And then, the moment that Maggie and his aunts were removed from the equation, stowed someplace safe, by God, he would return and rain down bloody fire and brimstone on his enemies.
They’d soon regret the day they’d ever heard the name of Amberley.
His first order of business, however, as soon as the guests were gone, would be to question Aunt Lucinda—finally—and make her tell him exactly what the hell all this was about.
Because, clearly, there was something even worse going on here than he’d previously guessed. He did not appreciate her leaving him to muddle his way through such treachery blind. She wasn’t going to like it, but it was time for the dragon lady to cough up the truth.
Maggie sent him an uneasy look while the men who’d crowded around scanned the shadows, as though half expecting another attack.
The ladies’ reaction was different, however. Their eyebrows had shot up and they began exchanging “hmm” looks as they realized the “footpad” had interrupted some sort of tryst between Maggie and him.
“So…the two of you were out here…together?” one gossip asked.
Maggie blanched, and Connor knew it was time to speak up, though he did not answer the question directly.
“Ahem. We have wonderful news, ladies and gentleman,” he declared without warning. “She said yes!”
Maggie gasped as he captured her right hand in his unbloodied left one, raised it to his lips, then smiled at everyone with his most dazzling show of self-assurance.
Then he made his bold announcement—whether she liked it or not.
“Lady Margaret Winthrop will soon become the Fourth Duchess of Amberley!”
Gasps abounded. Huzzahs and stunned congratulations followed, though the latter were a little more tentative, given how they’d startled everyone.
No one, he gathered, was more shocked than Maggie.
Her smile looked pasted in place, and in that swift heartbeat before the guests encircled them, she whispered, “You devil.”
Connor gave her a hard glance. No getting rid of me now, love.
He’d just saved her reputation, obviously.
Besides, she was daft if she thought he’d ever let her get away. He knew he had infuriated her with his abrupt announcement, but at least he’d made sure she no longer had the option of backing out of their match.
She was staring at him as though finally understanding just how ruthless he could be.
Connor looked away, unrepentant. An old proverb came to mind, All’s fair in love and war, along with He who hesitates is lost. What was there to dither about?
He wanted her, he needed her, and indeed, his survival instincts warned that the peaceful future he craved would be meaningless without her.
So he’d done what he had to do.
Shortly thereafter, they and all the guests who had come outside returned en masse to the party to break the news to Grandaunt Lucinda.
And her list of would-be brides.
* * *
Seth barely remembered the wild gallop through the dark streets that brought him back to his father’s house. It was fortunate that his horse knew the way, for, with his head reeling from Amberley’s thunderous punches, it was all he could do to stay on the animal’s back.
Blood coursed down his face from the cut above his eye. Several teeth had been knocked loose. Everything hurt, especially his pride.
He couldn’t even think straight. It took all his concentration simply to keep his feet braced in the stirrups and hold on to his gelding’s mane long enough to reach his father’s doorstep.
Since it was Friday night, he knew Father would not be at home. The old cutthroat would be making the rounds at his establishments, ensuring that everything was operating smoothly.
Knowing this was the only thing that gave Seth the courage to go inside. He could not have faced him otherwise.
As he ducked his head against his shoulder to wipe the blood out of his right eye, not letting go of his horse’s mane, it was hard to say which he was more frightened of: Amberley tracking him here and killing him, his father’s reaction to his failure tonight, or the law catching up to him and sending him to the gallows.
Seth did not intend to let any of these disasters befall him. He had not survived the goddamned war just to come home and swing from a noose in a futile effort to satisfy his father.
No, thank you. He was giving up. Amberley had won, and Seth just didn’t care anymore. He was getting the hell out of England.
As his horse clattered up to the house, he slithered off the side of the animal and landed with a wince, whispering his thanks to the beast for getting him home. He had no time to cool the horse, though, for he wasn’t staying long.
On legs that shook beneath him, he tied the blowing animal up as best he could with his latest broken finger. Moving slowly, indeed, weaving on his feet, he noticed he was seeing double when he turned to face the few stairs that led up to the back door.
In and out fast. He would quickly clean himself up, get his things, and flee. He made a mental note to take more money out of his father’s desk.
Seth knew where Father kept the ready blunt, and was not above stealing it. Alas, he could kiss his huge inheritance goodbye, but he could still set himself up somewhere on the Continent, where officers on half pay could live in relative ease.
His hands were shaking as he reached for the door. When he opened it and went inside, he grimaced at the light from the sconces. It was too bright; black blotches appeared across his field of vision.
He shut the door quietly behind him, and almost didn’t have the nerve to glance into the mirror as he passed it in the foyer. He did not want to see the mangled mess that Amberley had made of his face this time.
Nevertheless, he caught a glimpse of himself out of the corner of his eye on his way to the staircase.
What he saw chilled him. He had been pounded into some sort of misshapen, blood-covered monster.
As self-hatred for his latest failure spurted through his veins, mingling with dread in a hellish concoction of inner turmoil and pain, Seth gripped the banister and steadied himself on it, then began to climb the stairs.
He had only gone three steps, however, when a terrifying sound reached him from above.
“Back so soon?”
He froze. Father’s voice.
When Seth looked up to the top of the staircase and saw his old man standing there, feet planted wide, bald head gleaming by the lamplight, he felt his stomach drop all the way down to his feet.
He gripped harder to the railing to keep from tumbling back down the stairs under the force of his sire’s withering gaze.
“You failed. Didn’t you?” Father’s tone was accusing, yet he did not sound surprised.
Before Seth could answer, two females came skipping out of the upstairs hallway, both scantily clad, one toying with a riding crop.
They were gorgeous creatures, the kind of girls his father reserved for the richest ton clients. They pranced over to hang on the rugged seventy-year-old, one on each still-strong shoulder.
Elias Flynn ignored them. They were merely merchandise, after all, but apparently, he hadn’t felt like waiting for Seth’s return by himself.
He shook his head at Seth. “You disgust me,” he finally said. “Go clean yourself up. I’ll handle matters henceforward.”
Flynn took the riding crop from the long-legged blonde on his right. He tapped the girls on their lovely hips with it, shepherding them back toward one of the rooms. “Go put your clothes on. I have an assignment for you.”
They obeyed instantly, of course. He was king around here.
“And as for you”—Flynn pointed at Seth with the riding crop—“I’m taking over. God, I should’ve known. If you want something done right, ye do it yourself.”
“Father,” Seth pleaded, “what did you want me to do? I took the shot. Someone was with him—she saw me! She pulled him out of the way.”
Flynn’s face turned incredulous. “A woman bested you?”
Seth lowered his head, hating that girl, that lady. God, he wanted to hurt her.
“That hardly speaks in your favor. Well, it’s obvious the duke caught up to you.” Disgusted, his father scoffed at the bloody pulp Amberley had made of Seth’s face. “I thought the Army taught you how to fight.”
Seth stood shaking on the stairs. He wasn’t sure how many more minutes he had in him to remain upright. But he could not bring himself to admit the worst of it yet to his father—that Amberley knew about him, as well.
The girls returned, elegant and tall, a pair of leggy sylphs. As they quickly buttoned up their tailored pelisses and perched expensive hats atop lovely heads adorned with shiny, coiffed hair, one could not distinguish them from proper ladies.
Seth thought wistfully of Saffie. Who was nothing like them, of course. Those two could probably converse with their clients in French.
Father was as rough with them as with any others, but the girls knew he was the god deciding their futures. Under his management, they, too, might marry lords, just like ol’ Lucky Lucy Bly, devil take her.
“You two get your arses over to Moonlight Square and watch the Duke of Amberley’s house for me. Now. You know the place?”
“Oh yes, yes, sir.” The pair exchanged sly smiles.
“You see anything, one of you report back to me, while the other stays in place and keeps watch. I want to know if anyone comes or goes. Find out whatever you can.”
“Yes, Mr. Flynn.” They sketched curtsies to him and flitted off down the side corridor to slip out the front door into the night.
“As for you.” Father turned and studied Seth with cold disgust. “Clean yourself up, for God’s sake. You do not have my permission to black out until you tell me exactly what happened.” He started to turn away, but could not seem to help himself. “You are a disgrace, you know that?”
“Oh yes, Father.” Seth lowered his head. “You’ve made that very clear.”
“Good. And as for this Amberley, watch carefully and learn, son. You want to destroy someone? Let your old man show you how it’s done.”
* * *
Later that night, once he’d finally got rid of the guests, Connor closed himself up in the drawing room with Aunt Lucinda and told her what he’d learned about her past and what she needn’t bother hiding anymore.
Now he stared at her, waiting for her to fill in the blanks.
She had already tried a few verbal dodges, but this time, he refused to relent, and when she read it in his face that he was not letting her go without answers, she gave up the game, though she was still entirely defensive.
“Is it my fault I was born in poverty and did what I had to do to survive?” she exclaimed, her fleshy face trembling as she gripped the head of her cane. “What was I to do? I had no way of knowing Elias Flynn was so vicious until he had already trapped me in his web.”
“Extortion is a crime. As a victim, you could’ve gone to Bow Street.”
“Oh, don’t be naïve!” she retorted with a scowl. “Flynn has incriminating information about half of London, including Bow Street. How do you think he gets away with so much? Besides, I’d agreed to it, and Charles could afford it.”
“Did your husband know about Flynn’s monthly fees?”
“Of course not. There was no need to tell him. Why make a fuss? I simply took it from the pin money he gave me every month. He was very generous with his gold to me. But fifty years was long enough to pay any blackmailer, I daresay.”
“And to keep a secret from your husband?” Connor said, raising an eyebrow.
“For God’s sake, man, don’t delude yourself! Your granduncle was a devil. You think he married me for love? Don’t make me laugh. He did it to impress his friends and horrify his parents. And he succeeded in that. But don’t worry; he regretted it in due time. Just like his father said he would. Especially when we discovered I could not have children.”
Connor shook off his astonishment at her blunt response, trying to stick to the topic at hand. “So, after Uncle Charles died, you told Flynn you would no longer pay?”
“Yes. It seemed reasonable to me, but that’s Flynn for you. He’s quite mad. How was I to know he’d send his stupid son to go push Rupert off a cliff? Rupert,” she added with a snort, shaking her head as she gazed at the fireplace. “Self-righteous prig. Though not as bad as that dreadful wife of his. Caroline. Ugh, pair of Pharisees. You’d think that precious God of his would’ve protected him from Seth if he was as holy as he pretended to be.”
Connor looked at her in amazement. She seemed to have no remorse whatsoever that her own decision had got her brother-in-law killed. “What about Cousin Richard? Did he deserve to die, too?”
She rolled her eyes. “That ponce.”
“My God, I’ve never seen anyone so hardhearted.”
She cackled. “Wait until you meet Elias.”
Connor frowned at her, then pushed away from the mantel where he had been leaning and paced. “What can you tell me about him?”
“Other than he doesn’t have a soul?” She sneaked a quick swig from a little silver flask, wiped her lips, and continued. “Elias Flynn is one of the most well-established criminal chiefs in London—and the most ruthless. He has dozens of men at his disposal. Spies everywhere. And all the dirt he has on the fellows in the Home Office makes him quite immune to prosecution.”
“Does he have any weaknesses I can exploit?”
She lowered her head, as though searching her thoughts, then finally said, “No. Not anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
She glanced about impatiently. “From what I understand, he had a certain soft spot for his younger son. That died.”
“Do you know anything about this lad’s death?”
“No. Nothing,” she said.
“What of the elder one, then?”
“Seth. Captain Seth Darrow. The sons took their mother’s surname.”
“Is that even legal?”
She heaved a sigh. “How many times must I tell you? Flynn can get away with anything. He is a…a force of nature!”
“I see. So, this Seth fellow. Tell me more about him.”
She shook her head, lowering her gaze. “Flynn forced me to use my influence to get him into the dragoons. ’Twas easy. Considering I used to bed the young officers who are now the old generals.”
“Oh God,” Connor said under his breath, wincing at this revelation. For a moment, he wondered if that could be why he’d been given such great leeway in the Army and selected for just the sorts of assignments he liked.
All this time, he thought sardonically, could it have been not so much due to his own prowess or his fine military heritage, but because the old goats knew who his grandaunt was?
Was it possible the brass still got giddy over Lucky Lucy Bly, the way Gable’s father had? Connor rather wanted to bang his head against the wall at that thought.
“Please tell me you never knew Wellington.”
She chortled. “Oh, please, he’s half my age.”
Thank God.
Putting Her Grace’s scandalous past aside, Connor weighed what she’d told him with a chill down his spine. He was glad to have some answers, at last, but this information merely steeled his resolve to remove the ladies from Town as quickly as possible—both of his aunts as well as Maggie. Only males in his family had been harmed so far, but if it came down to it, he would not put it past Flynn and his son to hurt the ladies.
Especially after the way they’d made their fortune.
Connor studied his aunt with lingering suspicion. Because, for the life of him, something here still didn’t seem to add up. “So, Elias Flynn has done all this to our family—sent his soldier son to kill Uncle Rupert and Cousin Richard—simply because you stopped paying his extortion fees after your husband died? Because that certainly seems excessive.”
She shrugged. “That’s how he is,” she replied, then pursed her lips. “He had to make an example of me. He blackmails all the girls he marries off to rich men. He can’t have them all refusing to pay like I did. He had to crucify me.”
Connor considered this for a long moment in silence, still unsatisfied.
“Aunt Lucinda?” he prompted gently as he sauntered closer. “What are you not telling me?”
“I’ve told you everything!” She looked offended, but it was hard to tell if she was being genuine.
“But to kill two innocent men over a bit of money—”
“Killing means little to him, while money means a great deal.”
“Then why didn’t you warn Rupert and his son of the danger they were in?”
She faltered. “I really didn’t think he’d go that far. But, apparently, arrangements like mine are too lucrative a source of income for him to let his married girls begin balking about the payments after he’d set them up in life. That is why, as I said, he had to make an example of me, since they all know I’m the strongest. He had to show the others what would happen if they tried it.” Then he saw her bulldog jowls tremble. “He thinks he can break me, but he can’t. I won’t let him.”
Just for a moment, Connor thought he caught a glimpse of the fiery beauty she’d once been. But the strangest thought occurred to him; he got the feeling that maybe it wasn’t Lucy Bly’s looks that had made her stand out, but her indomitable spirit.
The very trait that made her so damned impossible now.
“I see,” he said at last. “So all this is just business, then? Begging your pardon, aunt, but I’m still having trouble believin’ that.”
“Oh, very well!” she said with a huff. “If you must know, Elias and I were…involved.”
Connor’s eyebrows shot up.
Aunt Lucinda nearly smiled, staring into the fireplace. “He said I was the only one who ever got under his skin.”
To go to such lengths for a bit of money did not quite ring true to Connor’s ears, but if Flynn’s love had turned to hate for Lucinda somewhere along the way, at least that made sense.
“Ah well,” she said, staring into the unlit fireplace. “Whatever it was that Elias thought he felt for me, all I know is that he did not object when I got the offer from the young marquess, who soon became the First Duke of Amberley.”
She looked cynically at Connor. “He sold me to the highest bidder: your granduncle. And from that moment on, Elias Flynn was dead to me. Oh, I paid his fees faithfully, of course. I did the favors he insisted on, regarding his sons’ places in Society. But I sure as blazes never let the blackguard touch me again.”
Connor gazed at her.
“The fool actually thought I would keep him for a lover once I became a duchess.” A bitter laugh escaped her. “Instead, I told him after the wedding that I wanted nothing more to do with him. Oh, he didn’t like that much, I assure you. He had the nerve to claim that I had used him. But what,” she whispered, “does that devil know about being used?”
“I am sorry, Aunt Lucinda. Truly. For everything you’ve been through.”
She looked up at him with a sea of unshed tears in her eyes. “Kill him if you can, Amberley Number Four. Put a bullet in his black heart, and Lucy Bly will dance a jig on his grave.”