Rely upon both your skill and gut instinct in the field.
Article XIII: The Brethren of the Lords
Had another investigator received the answers Nathaniel had from a suspect’s kin, and then been witness to the ruthless admission made about the death of the murder victim, it would have no doubt sealed the young man’s fate. But he had devoted more than twenty years of his life learning the nuances of suspects and those guilty of charges and knew—
Andrew Barrett, Viscount Waters had not killed his father.
Nor had Nathaniel’s determination been made out of a wanting to see Waters innocent to spare Victoria from further suffering.
Victoria wetted her lips. “You… know?”
“I do,” he confirmed, unfurling to his full height. He’d all the confirmation to suit his own opinions, not enough to yet exonerate the lad. And he should be filled with a palpable relief for it. To send Victoria’s son to the gallows or banish him to a penal colony would have brought an altogether new suffering for him… and her.
Yet, there was a gaping, jagged hole ripped through his heart, left by the revelation her son had made a short while ago. Viscount Waters had deserved to die the precise, demoralizing, ruthless end he’d met for every hurt he’d inflicted.
Victoria touched his right shoulder. It urged his thoughts away from the torturous path the young Waters had set them on and over to the mission he’d undertaken.
“Your son feels guilty,” he finally said. “He wears it in his indifference and hatred. A man who has committed murder is careful with his statements and how he paints previous exchanges with the victim.” They certainly didn’t speak with glee and relish of the victim’s demise. “Your son is not a killer.” A man who’d defended his mother at five, and again of late, was not the self-centered, mercenary lord Society portrayed him as.
“Thank you, Nathaniel,” she whispered, pressing her shaking palm against her mouth. “Everyone believes… no one has trusted me when I argue he is innocent.”
“I know.” He firmed his jaw. “But that does not mean my opinion will suffice.” The lords of London might judge a man as vile while he lived, but there was a code followed and expected to be followed… and the murder of one, may as well have been the murder of all.
A pall fell.
“What now?” she ventured.
How many women would be so collected? So in command, given all she’d suffered and the scandal that had shaken her family. His appreciation for her swelled all the more. “Now, we find who was responsible for your hus…” Nay. Not her husband. He could not bring himself to finish that thought. “For the late viscount’s murder.” They would locate and bring to justice the true criminal. It was the only way to clear Andrew Barrett, the current Viscount Waters, of any wrongdoing. Nathaniel gathered his leather folder and flipped it open. Suddenly, Victoria’s shock-laden question reached him.
“We?”
He paused. “I trust you would know as well as anyone the enemies your husband might have.” Not breaking stride, he crossed the room, and hurriedly turned the lock. Feeling Victoria’s gaze on him, he looked back.
“What are you doing?”
“We are beginning our investigation.” Filled with a renewed purpose, Nathaniel dropped his hands on his hips and did a turn about the office. “I take it this was your,” I cannot continually call that reprobate her husband. I cannot think of him in that way. It will shred my sanity… “This was the late viscount’s office.”
Victoria nodded.
Nathaniel took up position behind the broad desk. Sinking onto the edge of the leather chair, he opened the drawer, and proceeded to sift through the contents. Brimming with parchment, the sloppy space was better suited to a negligent young student away to Cambridge for the first time. Pens. Papers. He shoved the drawer shut and shifted his attention to the row down the side of the desk. Reaching inside the bottom one first, he stretched his hand far back and searched around.
Victoria sank to the floor beside him; the floral-fragrant scent permeating his senses, momentarily distracting him. “What are you searching for?” She puzzled her eyebrow.
“A hint of who the viscount kept company with and who he was indebted to.”
Rising, Victoria hurried to the other side, pulled out the center drawer, and withdrew a black leather ledger. “This contains all accountings on his finances,” she explained. “I’ve already provided this to the Bow Street Runners and constables. They removed them to record copies, they claimed, and then returned when their notes had been completed.” Copies which currently resided inside Nathaniel’s file and he’d committed to memory.
Nonetheless, he reached for the book. Their fingers brushed and an electric charge singed him. He accepted the ledger with trembling hands. The thrill of her touch ran through him with the same power it had in their youths. Laying the book open upon the desk, he removed his spectacles from his pocket and popped them on the bridge of his nose. He skimmed the first page. Wetting his finger, he turned the next, and the next—his skin pricked at the feel of her eyes on him.
He paused, mid-turn, staring questioningly back. Victoria wore a wistful smile on her timelessly beautiful face; that faint dimple in her cheek, lending her a youthfulness, all these years later. “What is it?” he asked guardedly.
She trailed her index finger along the wire metal rim that tucked around his ears. “I used to imagine us together, older, our children grown, with their own families. We’d be one of those couples who avoided ton events and sat in the countryside, reading.” Her smile quivered. “In those imaginings, you wore reading spectacles.”
The mark of his age reared itself. He was no longer a young spy of twenty. “I am old,” he concurred, mourning all the time he’d lost with this woman and the fleetingness of youth. “I’m—”
“Five and forty,” she murmured, gently stroking his cheek. “I know how old you are, Nathaniel Archer. You are no older than me.”
“Two years,” he pointed out. Nearly three.
A husky laugh spilled past her crimson lips. “I’ve round hips, wrinkles at my eyes, and you, who are more fit than when you were at twenty, would speak to me of age?”
“You are beautiful,” he whispered. Relinquishing Waters’ documents, Nathaniel cupped her face. “You are even more beautiful now—” He spoke over her sound of protest. “Even more,” he repeated, “than when you were a fiery girl.”
She sank her teeth into her lower lip. “There are times when I still feel as young as I was when we first met. Then I look in the mirror or confront what my life has been these past years and realize I’m not a girl. I’m just any other woman who has suffered through a loveless marriage with a rotted husband.” Her voice cracked. “But who dreamed of love lost.”
“Does it have to be?”
They both started. It was unclear in that instant who was most staggered by the urgency in that question.
“What?” she whispered.
His heart skittered inside his chest. What had he said? What was he proposing? After a lifetime of service to the Brethren, he’d received the coveted role of leader of that organization. He had men and women who relied upon him. And I want Victoria. “Does love have to be lost?” he asked, his voice more steady and clear. “Our love,” he clarified.
She clenched and unclenched the bodice of her gown. “I don’t… I didn’t…” Then she took a hasty step back, tilting her head to look at him. Victoria straightened her shoulders. “What about the Brethren?”
That was what she’d ask. She’d not even answer his original question: the most important one he’d put to her. She would focus on the organization that had always been between them. It had severed his connection to her and cemented his role within the Brethren. But then, why should she not? She had her right and her reasons to be wary of his involvement with the agency.
At the lengthy silence, Victoria gave her head a sad, little shake and made to move.
“I could put it behind me?” he called out, instantly staying her.
Where had that come from? The Brethren was what had kept him sane when he’d lost her. It had given him purpose when the ghosts of Fox and Hunter had haunted him. Could he exist without it? Having given up on the dream of Victoria, he’d not allowed himself to think of a possibility of anything with her. If Victoria were in his life he would not need the Brethren as he had all these years.
Victoria’s lips parted. But then, she cocked her head at a slight, sad little angle. “It was a question.”
He shook his head. “No.” Nathaniel grimaced. Is it a wonder she’d construed it as such? “I was not asking—”
Victoria pressed her fingertips to his lips, staving off the lie he’d give her. “Do not insult me by thinking I didn’t hear the question there, Nathaniel,” she said, sadness glimmered within her eyes. Clearing her throat, she made a show of digging around the late viscount’s desk drawers.
Panic swelled in his chest.
A need to make her understand, built within him. “After my capture.” She stopped her distracted efforts. “The only thing that kept me sane was my work. My rashness nearly saw me dead. It cost me—” Emotion wadded in his throat. “You. It cost me you.” Pain bled from her eyes. “I was eventually named Delegator—the one who handed out missions—and I devoted my life to ensuring the safety of every young man and woman that came to the Brethren. I swore that no one would lose everything as I did.”
“You weren’t the only one who lost, Nathaniel.” Victoria tapped her palm to her chest. “I did, too. And I’m still losing to your Brethren.”
I’m losing her. Offer her everything she deserves. “Victoria—”
“This isn’t the time.” Letting her hand fall, Victoria set to work stacking the papers into a neat pile, toying with the corners. “We were only speaking of hypotheticals, anyway. We have the case to focus on. My son.”
And it was that moment when he knew she was gone to him—all over again. Nathaniel dragged a hand through his hair. “Victoria—”
She quelled him with a look.
He sighed, more coward than he’d ever credited, because he welcomed the distraction from his riotous thoughts. “Aside from the ledgers, has anything been moved, discarded, or replaced?”
“Everything is precisely as he left it.” She touched her eyes around the room, lingering briefly upon the sideboard. “Though the sideboard is slightly less stocked in the two months since Andrew was named viscount.” Her mouth pulled in a grimace.
Drunkard. The bloody whoreson bastard. Nathaniel stalked over to the concave, two-door sideboard cabinet and inspected the surface space. Ultimately, what mattered most to a man was how and where he oftentimes buried his secrets. He dropped to a knee and felt around the sides of the piece.
Victoria drifted over. “What are you searching for?”
He paused briefly in his efforts. “I’m looking for any compartments that might be used to conceal information.” Lying prone on his stomach, he attempted to angle his head to view under the darkened space. But the five-inch gap made it impossible to see anything. Damning his eyes that had lost their sharpness, he squinted. “Most gentlemen with vices have specific places where they hide valuable documents or personal artifacts,” he said under his breath, feeling all along the perimeter of the mahogany piece. Those hidden stashes invariably proved incriminating pieces of evidence that had been used to convict many, many criminals.
“Wouldn’t it make far more sense to hide it within the cabinet drawers?” Curiosity piqued in her voice as she opened one of those items in question and inspected inside.
“It would be too obvious to do so,” he explained. He felt along the scalloped edges of the legs.
She closed the drawer, ending her quick search. “You’re wasting your time. My husband wasn’t clever enough to hide anything,” she muttered. Nonetheless, she lowered herself to the floor, positioning her body parallel to his. She was so close their foreheads brushed.
Nathaniel paused in his search and lifted his eyes to meet hers.
“We are both part of this now,” she said. The defensive edge there hinted at a woman braced for a challenge.
What a fool her husband had been. He’d had as his wife a clever, fearless woman to call partner, in every sense, and he’d thrown away that gift. Just as I’d done before… and again here, in this very room.
Victoria stopped, her arm partially concealed under the sideboard. “What is it?” she whispered.
“There is no other woman like you.” There never had been and there never would be.
A curl flopped over her eye and she blew it back. “I trust with the women you’ve no doubt worked alongside who kept the Crown safe that you’d be far less impressed by a widowed lady past her fortieth year, crawling around on her belly.” Despite the drollness to her tone, contained within was something else—insecurity and more… jealousy.
Victoria made to reach under the cabinet, but he placed a hand on hers, staying it. She stared questioningly back. “When I said there was no one but you, Victoria,” he said solemnly. “I meant there was never anyone after you. In any way.” He paused, letting that settle in her mind. Willing her to understand that he’d not given himself to another after he’d returned to find her married.
Her breath caught loudly.
His neck went hot. That flush climbed all the way to his cheeks.
“Oh, Nathaniel,” she whispered.
Feeling exposed, he nudged his chin at the cabinet. “Victoria,” he said again when she resumed her digging. She stopped, yet again, staring at him questioningly. “You gave birth to three loyal and loving children. You endured hell that no woman ought. Yet, through that, still your daughters retained an innocence and belief in love. Do not,” he said with firm insistence, “for one instant, diminish what you yourself have accomplished in life.”
“I’m a mother, Nathaniel,” she said bluntly. “I’m no different from every other woman who has given birth and put her children first.”
He pressed his forehead to hers, willing her to see. “You were left with a babe in your belly.” By me. I left you to face that uncertain fate, alone. “And you built a life that was secure for you and your…” His throat closed. “Our daughter.” It was the first time he’d uttered those words aloud since she had revealed the truth of Phoebe’s existence.
Victoria shoved herself awkwardly up onto her elbows and sat up with her back to the sideboard. She drew her knees close. Dropping her chin atop them, she rubbed back and forth. With each slight movement, she was very much the contemplative woman who’d sat there, asking him about the places he’d been and the world he’d seen. Then she spoke, breaking the illusion of the splendor of innocence. “I married a monster. And even as I said I’ll forever be grateful for Justina and Andrew, the truth remains that I thrust Phoebe into a precarious fate by forcing an undeserving man upon her as father.”
His heart cracking, Nathaniel levered himself up and sat beside her; shoulder to shoulder, thigh to thigh. “You must hate me.” From the corner of his eye, he caught her swiftly yanking her gaze up. “You and Phoebe were both placed into that precarious state by me.” And me alone.
Victoria was already shaking her head. “I knew when you first revealed the truth of your existence the dangers… for both of us. I wasn’t a child, Nathaniel,” she insisted. “I was also aware of the risk that I might find myself with child.”
He turned his head to face her. “How is it you are so capable of forgiving me and painting me as a man of honor when you’re unable to do the same for yourself?”
Victoria started. She opened her mouth and closed it. She tried again.
He waggled his eyebrows.
“It is altogether different,” she mumbled, knocking her shoulder against his.
“We should both resolve to forgive ourselves.” For what good could come of dwelling on the years lost and self-recrimination? Neither would restore the missed time. Nathaniel stretched out his fingers.
Victoria eyed them a moment. Then she slid her palm into his, completing that pact.
He smiled. This was the first true, honest expression of joy he’d managed in all the years since he’d been taken captive. And there was something so wholly cathartic… so very freeing in it. Victoria’s lips turned up in a matching expression.
“We were looking for hidden compartments, then,” she murmured and, unlike before, this was not stilted dialogue but rather a companionable exchange. An easy one. Just as it had always been with her.
“Precisely.” He flipped onto his stomach, once again, and Victoria instantly matched his movements. Before he could resume his search, she rummaged around under the cabinet.
“As I said, Chester didn’t have a brain in his head. And he certainly didn’t have an arm small enough to fit—” She gasped, her eyes rounding like saucers.
“What is—?”
Victoria shook her head. Scrunching up her brow, she stretched her arm further under the base.
That faint click as her fingers connected with a latch, the sound of triumph. Yanking her arm out, she sat up with alacrity brandishing a single faded scrap of parchment. Her eyes sparkled with the thrill that accompanied every young man and woman’s first important discovery in an investigation. Then, she glanced down and that enthusiasm dimmed. “It is just a name,” she said dejectedly. “A woman,” she added, unsurprised and faint disgust there. “He had countless lovers and whores. Why would he keep this name hidden?” she asked, turning the scrap over to him.
There had been a reason for the viscount to go through the efforts to conceal it. Taking it, Nathaniel skimmed the page.
Ella Rosenberg
It was a lady’s name but it was also more.
“You recognize it, don’t you?”
His lips quirked in a droll grin. “If you’re able to tell that, then I’m hardly the skilled spy I was during my younger years.”
Coming up on her knees before him, she adjusted his spectacles, tucking the wire rims behind his ears in a loving gesture suited for a happy, old, wedded couple. “It is because I know you,” she said simply.
“It’s a gaming hell.” He respected her too much to not reveal all. “One of the wickedest ones. No polite gentleman goes there. Generally, it is a place where nefarious business meetings are conducted.” Nathaniel turned the page back around. “It also has a number contained within the letters.”
Victoria squinted. With a quizzical brow, she did a search of the page.
“The two l’s have been underlined,” he clarified.
She gasped. “It was a meeting time.”
He firmed his mouth. “Precisely.” It did not, however, contain any other identifiers of when the meeting in question was to have been conducted. “Given he was set to conduct this meeting, there were certainly others to have come before it.”
And it was the whores, dealers, and guards in there who’d have an idea of who those meetings had been conducted between. Folding the page, Nathaniel stuffed it inside his jacket.
“I want to go with you.”
Bloody hell. He dusted a hand over his forehead.
Victoria tenderly removed his spectacles and folded them closed. “I am going with you,” she amended, tucking the pair inside his jacket. She patted it. “I need to do this. I need to see the world that my husband belonged to. That… my son still does. I want to be there when you discover whatever it is you discover.” There was a faint plea there that begged him to understand. “I’ve had so little control in every aspect of my life.”
Nathaniel waged an internal war with himself. He wanted her nowhere near his world. Particularly not that seedy end of London where men were gutted and thrown into the Thames with none the wiser.
“You always sought to protect me,” she said softly.
It was why he’d never married her. It was why he didn’t want her to join him now. But she deserved to make this choice and own it. And he would be at her side. “This evening,” he murmured.
Surprise and skepticism stirred in her eyes. “You would… take me?”
He dropped his brow to hers. “Victoria Cadence, you would go regardless.”
They shared a tender smile. But then as quick as it had come, hers faded.
“For the whole of my marriage, I fought for any amount of control I could,” she said softly, her gaze distant. “And aside from caring for my children, he allowed me no say in anything; our family’s failing finances, business decisions. Nothing.”
His gut clenched with equal parts pain and hatred for the miserable marriage she’d endured. And for all the years he’d spent resenting her for not waiting, now he had answers as to why. She’d deserved so much more. “I am so sorry, Victoria,” he said hoarsely. For everything: lost time, for having failed to marry her when he’d gone. For all of it.
She made a sound of protest, moving closer. “Don’t you do that,” she chided. “Don’t you pity me or take responsibility for decisions we both made.” Gathering his hands, she squeezed them. “You are allowing me the opportunity to help absolve my son of wrongdoing and I’d only focus on that gift.”
That gift. When most women sought baubles and fripperies, Victoria had never given a jot for any of the material. God, how he loved her.
Some of the pressure eased from his chest. “You’ll need men’s garments: breeches… and fabric to bind yourself.” He made the mistake of dropping his gaze to her large breasts, straining the fabric of her modest décolletage. Lust bolted through him. “And your hair.” Auburn tresses he ached to have spread out upon his pillow. “You’ll need to plait your hair.” She touched those gleaming strands. He swallowed hard with his hungering to run his hands through them. Nathaniel forced himself to continue. “Tuck it up under a cap.”
Victoria nodded excitedly. “When will we go?”
It was a bloody sad day, indeed, when he stood here lusting after her and she’d nothing more than anticipation for their investigation. Disgusted, he gave his head a clearing shake. “A hired hack will be two townhouses down.” It was no hired hack but rather an unmarked conveyance used by members of the organization when conducting official business. “I’ll be waiting.” Gathering his folders, Nathaniel started for the door, his mind refocused on the evening’s visit to Ella Rosenberg’s.
“Nathaniel,” Victoria called out when he’d grabbed the handle.
He looked back.
“Thank you,” she said, touching a hand to her chest.
Any other proper lady, widowed as she’d been, and the subject of Society’s scorn, would have wilted long ago. How strong she was. How strong she’d always been. His heart filled all over again with love for her.
Nathaniel managed a slight nod. He hesitated. “Victoria,” he called into the quiet. “Your husband… the viscount, he deserved murdering.” And had someone not seen to it before and he had discovered the fate she’d suffered all these years, he would have gladly done the service for the bastard.
With that, he left.