Cade slid his key into the lock on the front door of Rafe’s town house. He winced. The click echoed in the hallway and the rattle of the door sounded like a bloody racket in the stillness of the night. It was long past midnight and the place was dark and quiet. No doubt he’d wake the entire household.
He hadn’t got far today. He’d been certain Moreau would have more information about what the French knew about the Black Fox. Absolutely nothing. He also hadn’t been successful in locating the man who had sucker punched him. After leaving Moreau at the tavern, he’d gone to a few of his favorite haunts, keeping an eye out for the chap. The lad who’d followed him to the Bear’s Paw today certainly wasn’t the man who’d jumped him at the theater, but no doubt the boy worked for him.
Cade wasn’t any closer to finding out who had been after him, or why. He cursed himself for the hundredth time for hitting the scoundrel so hard he’d passed out. Blast it. He should have dragged the man into an alley and tried to revive him.
Cade stole across the darkened foyer. His hand was on the balustrade when a sultry female voice drifted toward him.
“Late night, no?”
Danielle. He smiled in the darkness before turning to face her. “Waiting up for me, eh?”
She strolled out of the shadows beneath the stairs. “I was helping myself to a nightcap.”
He arched a brow. “Tsk. Tsk. Tsk. What would my brother say if he knew you were tipping back his port?”
She gave him a challenging stare. “Are you going to tell him?”
“Not if you share.”
She was wearing the same white gown he’d seen her in yesterday but her hair was loose in a chignon, a few dark tendrils brushing her creamy shoulders. “What about the Madeira you promised me?”
“Funny you should mention it. I stashed it in the library. Care to join me?”
Her answer was to give him her arm. He put her hand on his sleeve and escorted her down the corridor and around the corner to the library. He opened the door quietly, pulled her through, and shut it. He led her over to the settee and saw her settled. Then he left to light a candle that sat on a nearby table. Next, he strolled over to a far bookshelf where he rummaged behind some books before producing the bottle of wine.
“You weren’t jesting when you said you stashed it.”
He grinned at her. “Couldn’t risk some efficient maid finding it and putting it back in the kitchens. Mary, perhaps?”
From the sideboard he pulled out two wineglasses. Popping the cork off the bottle, he poured the dark red liquid before coming back to join Danielle on the settee. He handed her a glass.
She took a sip. “This is quite good.”
“Better than the port?” he asked.
“I don’t know. You came in before I had any of the port.”
“If I didn’t know any better, I’d wonder if you had been waiting up for me.”
She laughed. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Cavendish.”
He tipped his head to the side. “Half of my day would be in ruins if I stopped flattering myself.”
“Why do I not doubt that?” She leaned back, took a long drink, and sighed.
“Long day?” he asked.
“Not any longer than any of the others,” she said in voice that sounded weary.
“Why are you wearing those clothes?”
Cade glanced down at himself. He was wearing the same coarse woollen breeches, cheap burgundy waistcoat, and scuffed boots he’d had on all day. The clothes Monsieur Duhaime could afford. “What do you mean?” Better to play dumb than to explain himself.
“I don’t know. You seem a bit … underdressed for a Mayfair drawing room.”
He held up his glass to the firelight. “I prefer to find my amusements in parts of town outside of Mayfair.”
Danielle raised her glass, too. “I can drink to that.” She took a sip. “What do you think your brother would say if he found us here?”
Cade pushed out his long legs and leaned his head back against the settee next to hers. She didn’t admonish him for it. Progress. “Ah, no doubt there would be scolding and reprimands. Perhaps a lecture. Don’t worry. It would all be on my head, not yours.”
“And Lady Daphne?” Danielle asked.
He groaned. “She’d no doubt be embarrassed by her incorrigible brother-in-law’s outlandish behavior.”
“Incorrigible? Outlandish? Is that what you are?”
“You haven’t learned that about me yet?”
“Oh, I knew. I just didn’t realize that’s how you would describe yourself.”
He was impressed with her honesty. “I’ve never put much stock in pretending to be something I’m not.”
“Such as?”
“Such as an honorable gentleman.”
“You’re not honorable?”
“I suppose I have some honor but it’s not the kind that gets you a viscountcy. Called a paragon.”
“Like your brother?”
“Exactly like my brother.” He took another long sip.
Danielle turned to face him, propping her elbow against the back of the settee. Her other hand swirled the wine in her glass. “Why are you and your brother so different?”
Cade laid his head back against the settee and squeezed his eyes shut. “Ah, that is the question worth a hundred-thousand pounds.”
“So much?”
He opened his eyes again and turned his head to face her. “Yes. That and more. No one knows, my dear girl, but everyone asks.”
“Do you know?” she asked, studying him with an intensity that made him uneasy.
He faced forward again, staring into the shadows beyond the candlelight. “Yes.”
“What’s the answer then?” came her soft voice.
He forced himself to relax his grip on his wineglass. It wouldn’t do to crack the thing in his fist. More blood. A mess to clean up. And he’d already got this far with the beautiful maid. Only why was she asking him about his brother of all bloody topics? “It’s … complicated.”
She took another sip. “Complicated things make the best stories.”
Cade scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Rafe and I … We didn’t grow up like this.” He flourished his hand in the air to indicate the room.
“A house like this, you mean?”
“A house like this. Mayfair. Servants. He didn’t inherit the title, you know.”
“Yes. Mary said something about it.”
“Rafe joined the Navy when he was young and worked his way up. He worked hard, honestly, and fought for every single thing he has. He’s earned every bit of it, viscountcy and all.”
“And you?” She nodded toward him.
“Me?” He smiled a humorless half-smile. “I’m just the good-for-nothing brother, leeching off my twin’s good fortune.”
Cade had the distinct impression she could see through him, that she could tell he wasn’t being honest with her. “Est-ce vrai?” she said so softly he almost didn’t hear her.
“Yes, it’s so.” He stood, cleared his throat, and took her glass. Then he moved back to the sideboard to refill both glasses.
“Is that where you were tonight? Out leeching off your brother’s good fortune?”
He hesitated, then turned to her with a grin. “Of course.”
“And what does your brother think of you?”
“Our relationship is strained to say the least.” Why had he just told her that? Why was he telling her any of this? He never discussed his business with anyone, not even his two closest friends. He made a point of it. Granted, no one ever asked but he never told, either.
“I always wished I had a sister,” Danielle said. “It sounds foolish, but I used to pretend I was twins when I was a girl.”
He wrinkled his brow. Pretended to be twins? She’d surprised him. Again. He found himself looking forward to the next words out of her mouth. That never happened with women he attempted to woo. “How did you do that?” he asked.
“In the looking glass,” she replied. “It was ridiculous but also quite amusing. I cannot tell you how often I wished it wasn’t just a game. I wanted a sister to play with, to talk to.” She sighed. “And to have a sister who is the exact same age, who looks like me? Why, I can only imagine how close we’d be. I can’t imagine how different my life might have been if I’d had someone else to rely on. Or someone else to worry about.”
Cade snorted. “You have no idea how wrong you are.”
“Wrong?” She shook her head.
Cade moved back over the settee to join her again. He handed her the refilled glass. “Careful what you wish for.”
She took another sip. “Why do you say that?”
He lowered himself to sit, closer this time. She smelled like lavender. He leaned toward her, his mouth only inches from hers. “Can’t we talk about something else? Like how perfectly gorgeous your mouth is.”
Her face looked flushed, but he suspected it was from the wine. He remembered she didn’t embarrass easily.
“Oh, no,” she replied, scooting away from him. “You’re not about to ply me with wine and try to kiss me.”
“I’m not?” He blinked, for that was exactly what he’d been planning.
“No.”
“Care to tell me why I’m not?” he asked, nonplussed. He was never nonplussed.
“Because that is far beneath your skill level.”
“It is?” More blinking. He needed to stop blinking like an idiot.
“A master like you can think of a much better way to seduce a woman than to hand her a glass of wine and sit too close on a settee.”
“I can?” He could?
“Do you doubt your own prowess?”
Cade scratched his head. In all of his years seducing women—he had lost count—he had never encountered one who had so subtly and completely turned the tables on him. Was he truly that obvious? It was time to change tactics. “Are you saying you don’t want to kiss me?”
Her tinkling laughter followed. “Don’t be petulant. It doesn’t suit you.”
Petulant? No one had ever called him petulant. “Very well, mademoiselle, why don’t you tell me what you’d like?”
“I’d like for you to answer my question.”
Question? Had she asked him a question? “Which was?”
“I told you I wanted a sister and you said, ‘Careful what you wish for.’ Then I asked why you said that.”
Oh, that. Cade frowned. She still wanted to talk about that? Very well. He studied the liquid in his glass. “The truth is … my brother doesn’t trust me.”
“Have you given him reasons not to?”
This woman had a penchant for asking probing questions. It was as if she knew the exact thing to say to poke a hole through his armor. Cade thought about what Tomlinson had said. “You wouldn’t happen to be the Black Fox, would you?” Cade knew Rafe suspected him. Had known it since the moment Rafe had seen the paper at the club the other day and turned his gaze on Cade with suspicion in his familiar blue eyes.
“Plenty of them,” he whispered.