Go into every and any meeting clear-headed and logical.
Article VII: The Brethren of the Lords
The following afternoon, Nathaniel guided his mount through the bustling streets of London with his assistant keeping pace beside him.
After Nathaniel’s captivity, closed spaces such as carriages had the potential to send him into a panic, thrusting him back to his time with Fox and Hunter. Over time, in a bid to wrestle back control from those ghosts, he’d forced himself to journey by way of those miserable conveyances and, most times, he was a master over those demons.
Since his meeting with Victoria, however, the memories of those darkest days had been made fresh all over again. He knew better than to go into any appointments or investigations anything less than clear-headed. His work always provided him with a sanctuary of sorts; offering a distraction from the agonizing memories and wishing that weighted enough that a man could drown under their hold.
Today, there was little calm and even less focus. There was no diversion in his upcoming meeting with the Marchioness of Rutland. There was just the cold emptiness of bringing unintended hurt to the only woman who’d ever mattered to him.
I have no interest in hearing what you have to say about the very brief and regretful time we knew one another…
The sting of that profession was as fresh now as when she’d whispered it on her way out of his office. And even as he’d sought to tell himself she merely lashed out because he’d hurt her, because he’d meant something to her, there had been nothing but disdain when she’d looked upon him.
Not two evenings prior. Two evenings ago, when you sneaked inside her residence, there had been neither shock nor hatred in her expressive eyes. There had been confusion and the momentary flash of joy.
He scoffed. You merely saw what you wished to in that instance. For when she’d stormed his office, there could be no mistaking the vitriol emanating from her person. He clenched his reins, tight.
Nathaniel guided his horse, Tory, down Chesterfield Hill, onward to the Marquess of Rutland’s townhouse. For there could be no disputing that Victoria had looked upon him with a palpable hatred pouring from her slender person.
His gut clenched. She had been the one whose memory alone had sustained him. She’d kept him from surrendering to the blissful surcease that only death could bring. And even with all the years that had come to pass, even finding she’d married in his absence and lived a life without him in it, he loved her. He always would. Yet, they’d been two souls whose lives had never been meant to connect. Not fully, and not in all the ways he’d once dreamed of.
That realization robbed him of breath all over again, leaving him the staggered man who’d found out the woman he’d loved had wed another.
There is the Brethren—there would always be the Brethren—and there were years of mistrust and spitefulness with Victoria that could never be overcome. Fueled by the practicality of that reminder, Nathaniel dismounted. He’d an assignment to oversee and a case to resolve. Those facts alone were the only ones that had mattered to him since he’d joined the ranks of the Brethren. They were the only ones that could ever matter. Five years past forty, with two brothers who were more strangers than anything, the Brethren had become the only family he had.
Bennett jumped down, recalling him to the moment.
Nathaniel spoke as the other man hurried to take the reins. “You’ve copied the questions—?”
“It is done, my lord.”
“For the Duchess of Huntly?”
“And the lady’s spouse,” the dutiful servant offered. He’d always anticipated five steps ahead to what Nathaniel would ask. Pride filled him for the man Bennett’s son had proven to be. Was this that sentiment fathers such as Markham and Bennett knew? A pang of longing struck. “The forms are filed away within their folder,” Bennett was saying, practical matters of business chasing away an older man’s lamentations. “You’ve everything you require for the appointment.”
The appointment. How casually Bennett spoke of it: a conversation they’d had countless times about lords and ladies and men of the gentry and working class who’d earned the attention of the Brethren. Not a single time, however, had he ever thought of those individuals as anything more than a means to an end in the information gathering process. Had Macleod or anyone else undertaken this investigation, Victoria and her family would exist as mere strangers. She is so much more. She owned every corner of his heart. And she despises me…
“My lord?” Bennett prodded.
Reaching inside the pack attached to his saddle, Nathaniel rescued the Barrett file. “I expect this will not take more than an hour.” He’d taken part in enough of these meetings to know the general time spent interviewing a witness.
His folder and notebook held in one arm, Nathaniel strode the remaining length of the pavement to the marquess’ front door. He rapped once. While he waited, he surveyed the surrounding townhouses and smartly dressed passersby.
A pair of dandies widely skirted the steps, casting nervous glances up at the marquess’ residence. The information he’d gathered on the marquess painted him as a ruthless, callous, cold-hearted scoundrel, feared by Society. Nathaniel managed his first real grin, that wry expression straining the muscles long unaccustomed to smiling. What would those fops and fancy lords think of the ruthless cutthroats Nathaniel had battled in the past two decades he’d served the Brethren? He’d encountered an evil Polite Society only read of in their gothic novels, but couldn’t imagine the dark depths of a man’s soul. To them, scoundrels such as Lord Rutland would cause them to quake in fear.
His smile dipped. He had come to understand there were different levels of evil where men were concerned. It was a matter of fact and, yet, it was also a matter that affected Victoria’s daughter. The darkest scoundrel in London was the man Victoria’s eldest child had been bound to. Heavily in debt, had the late viscount forced the girl into a match with the powerful peer? Such a fate was, of course, expected for most ladies in Polite Society. So why did the idea of Victoria’s daughter being sold to the highest bidder strike an odd ache inside?
You’re getting soft in your old age, you fool. All this melancholy about a woman he didn’t even know because of a lady he had known for a brief time in his youth, who’d not waited for him.
Adjusting the documents in his arms, Nathaniel lifted the gold knocker and gave it another impatient thump.
The door was instantly opened, revealing a wizened butler with heavy wrinkles and anger in his rheumy eyes.
Nathaniel brandished a card. “I’m here to speak with Her Ladyship, the Marchioness of Rutland.”
Collecting the article, the old servant stared at it for a long while. He pursed his mouth in distaste and, for a moment, Nathaniel believed the man intended to turn him out on his arse. But then, smoothing his features, he motioned him forward. “Her Ladyship is expecting you.”
A footman came forward. Doffing his black hat, Nathaniel turned it over to the servant. Another young man, clad in a matching crimson livery, came to relieve Nathaniel of his papers. Shrugging out of his cloak, he instead relinquished the garment to the servant’s care. With the exception of Bennett, he entrusted his files to no one.
“If you’ll follow me,” the butler urged in aged tones.
As he fell into step behind the servant, Nathaniel used the opportunity to study the wrinkled butler. One could tell much about a household and how a residence was run by the manner of servants on one’s staff. Loose-lipped ones were a sign of disloyal souls only interested in the coin they might earn. Households with primarily young, pretty maids often bespoke a handsy employer and an angry mistress.
The man ambling at a painfully slow pace also revealed much about the marquess and marchioness. When most servants this man’s age were enjoying a life of retirement, he remained on. It spoke to his loyalty… for Lord Rutland. It also hinted at a man deserving of that devotion.
“Here we are, my lord,” he murmured, bringing them to a stop outside a heavy, oak door.
The details he’d gathered on the marquess’ household had served their purpose; grounding him and clearing his head for the upcoming meeting.
The butler opened the door and announced him. “The Earl of Exeter to see Her Ladyship.”
Nathaniel stalked forward with purposeful steps and then stopped abruptly. “My…”
Only, it was not the Marchioness of Rutland who greeted him. The air lodged in his chest. Victoria.
From where she stood at the heavily-draped window, she whipped about.
Despite his resolve to focus solely on the case and disregard their shared past, Nathaniel drank in the sight of her like a man thirsty for drink with a taste of his first drop. When he’d not been fighting back thoughts of Victoria Barrett and what could have been, he’d embraced the memories of her. Kept them close and—
She narrowed her eyes, swiftly killing his fanciful musings. “My lord,” she said tightly.
How did we come to be here?
The butler backed away and Nathaniel ventured forward. He set the small stack in his arms down on a nearby table.
Victoria followed his every movement with a world wariness in her gaze. He mourned the loss of the bright-eyed young lady who’d only had innocence in her smile and heart. He came to a stop behind the high-back white sofa, allowing her distance. It was a strategy employed with skittish men and women under questioning, and I’m using it now. On this woman whose life had mattered to him more than his own.
Nathaniel came slowly around, giving her time to retreat. “It is not my intention to hurt you.” It never was. He’d have taken twenty years of Fox and Hunter’s abuse if it would have spared her even a hint of suffering.
Her throat worked as he stopped a hand’s breadth away. He expected her retreat. Instead, she stood breathtakingly strong in her resolve. “If I ever mattered to you, then let this rest,” she spoke, her words hushed. “Do not subject my family to this.”
Nathaniel worked his gaze over her heart-shaped face and that faint, beloved dusting of freckles upon her nose. “You know I cannot simply set aside my responsibilities.”
She yanked her head back so quickly, several auburn curls popped free of her neat chignon. Fire burned in her eyes. “That damned organization always meant more to you than,” me, “anything or anyone.”
That’s what she thought. What other reason did I give her? He’d let her believe him dead and then reemerged only to investigate her son. He gathered those loose tresses between his fingers. Like satin. The shimmery locks recalling him to all those moments these very curls had formed a curtain around him as she’d lain draped over his naked chest. Her breath caught loudly as he tucked the curls back behind her ears. “Not everyone,” he murmured. “You mattered more than you ever knew.” He’d survived because of her. He only wished that his promise to come back for her and her faith in him had been enough.
Her throat worked. “There is no need for your lies now.”
“I never lied to you, Victoria.”
A half-sob, half-laugh spilled from her lips.
“I didn’t,” he defended, her ill-opinion cutting like a knife. She’d been the only person—his own family included—to whom he’d revealed his work with the Brethren. “I understand why you believe I was untruthful to you, but everything between us…” He cupped her cheek and she leaned into his touch, kindling hope.
Her impossibly long, crimson-kissed eyelashes fluttered. His heart swelled at that softening. “Everything was real, Victoria Cadence.” Nathaniel stroked his thumb over her lower lip, aching to again familiarize himself with that flesh. “Every stolen meeting, every pledge I made you, every word of love were the only real things in my life,” he whispered, when his career with the Brethren had made his existence one of lies. “I would have you know that.”
He belatedly registered the sound of approaching footsteps. Instantly releasing her, Nathaniel stepped back.
The Marquess of Rutland looked between them and Nathaniel swiftly smoothed his features. “My wife will be along shortly,” the marquess said in low, graveled tones. There were no false shows of social niceties; no offer of tea, or a seat, or even a casual discourse about the unfashionably warm weather they’d been enjoying. This was an exchange as he preferred it.
Avoiding his gaze, Victoria slipped out from behind him. She took up a place beside her son-in-law.
A moment later, the marchioness entered. “Is he…” Her words trailed off, as her gaze collided with Nathaniel’s.
And he stood frozen, immobile, incapable of so much as a proper introduction. When he’d taken over the investigation and drafted his inquiry for the Barrett children, he’d not allowed himself the thought of what it would be like to come face to face with them. This woman, with her thick auburn hair and flawless white skin, may as well have been a portrait of Victoria upon their first meeting in that alcove. His heart tugged. Had he remained, had they wed, Lady Phoebe Deering was near an age to a child that would have been born to them. Agony wadded in his throat. I wanted that life with you, Victoria. I wanted to be the man to give you babes and build a life with you…
“Hello,” she said quietly.
Forcing back those melancholic sentiments, Nathaniel dropped a bow. “My lady,” he said, his voice hoarsened. “It is a pl…” He grimaced, at that misstep.
Her cheeks blazing red, Victoria moved in a rustle of skirts. She placed herself between Nathaniel and the marchioness, like a tigress protecting her cub. This is the manner of mother I always knew she would be. He’d just never imagined that he would be the person from whom she’d be protecting her children. His heart spasmed.
Nathaniel forced his gaze away from Victoria and over to her daughter. “Thank you for allowing me time to speak with you, my lady.”
“Did she have a choice?” Victoria snapped.
Her daughter went slack-jawed and she took her mother gently by the arm. “Mother,” she said gently.
A silent look passed between mother and daughter, an intimate exchange where words were unnecessary. Even with his experience, Nathaniel was incapable of deciphering the language therein.
Victoria gave a slight, imperceptible nod and reluctantly took a step away from her daughter.
Assessing the cheerful space, Nathaniel motioned to the chairs. “If you’ll excuse us while we speak,” he said for Victoria and her son-in-law. Reaching inside his jacket, he placed his spectacles on and then gathered his folder. “I expect this should not take more than an hour of your time, my lady.” He registered the tension that fell like a thick, London fog across the room.
Victoria and her son-in-law spoke in unison. “I’m not leaving.”
Of course they didn’t have any intention of doing so. Polite Society feared the marquess but Nathaniel flicked his attention dismissively over the sinister lord. Instead, he fixed on the five-foot five-inch figure of wounded volatile energy at his side. Even with her diminutive size, he honed in on Victoria as the more dangerous of that pair. Carefully weighing his words, he spoke directly to her. “Certain procedures must be followed during questioning—”
“I don’t give a damn about your procedures, Nathaniel. I am not leaving!” Victoria’s explosion sucked the energy from the room as with that intimate use of his name, a familiarity between them was cemented… and her astute-eyed son-in-law and daughter, who missed nothing, saw that connection.
“Mother,” the marchioness tried again, taking her arm.
“I am not leaving, Phoebe.” She held firm this time. “Any questions Lord Exeter intends to ask, he can put to you before Edmund and me.”
Her daughter made to speak, but Nathaniel held up a hand. “It is fine,” he said quietly. “They can remain.” It was an allowance he’d never made to any interviewee before and one he only granted because of his connection to the spirited widow. Unnerved by his lack of self-control, he made a show of gathering the Barrett folder, which contained his questions.
“Please, won’t you sit,” the young woman murmured, making the first overture of pleasantries as she claimed a spot on the white upholstered sofa. Victoria swept past him, yanking her skirts out of the way to avoid brushing him and joined her daughter. The marchioness gave her mother a faintly chiding look. “Would you care for tea, my lord?” she offered when he’d taken the seat opposite her.
“No refreshments are necessary.” From the corner of his eye, he detected the marquess sliding into position across the room; his slow, measured steps, a faint limp… and a threat of death in his eyes.
For the ruthless blackguard written of in the gossip pages, one would have to be lackwit to fail and note the gentleman’s devotion to his wife. He loved Victoria’s daughter. That much was clear in the glint frosting his merciless eyes. He’d the same steely grit to end any who would hurt her that Nathaniel himself had always carried for Victoria.
Only the younger man hadn’t floundered his opportunities at love and life the way Nathaniel had.
“As I said,” Nathaniel went on, opening his folder. “This should not take—”
“You have forty-five minutes,” the marquess spoke in lethal tones. “And not a moment more.”
He paused mid-speak and assessed the man who’d set himself up as adversary. The key to supremacy over one’s opponent was to establish dominance of wit, before all else. From that, control of the exchange was born. He inclined his head, lingering his gaze on the marquess’ right leg. A nobleman without any history in the military invariably only earned those wounds one way. “An old injury, I take it?” he asked conversationally.
Lord Rutland jerked erect.
“A duel over a lady?” he ventured with icy cool precision.
A dull flush marred Lord Rutland’s cheeks.
“Get on with your questions,” the marquess growled, a muscle ticking an incessant rhythm in the corner of his eye.
Returning to the matter that brought him here, he redirected his attention to the marchioness and the widow beside her. He set down questions already long memorized on the top of the folio. “I was wondering if you could tell me of your relationship with your father?” he began gently, in the calming voice used to ferret out the secrets of the unsuspecting.
Victoria slid her fingers into her daughter’s and gave them a slight, supportive squeeze. But then he made the mistake of looking away from his subject and over to her. Grief so potent and palpable poured from her delicate frame, it robbed him of breath. She stared unblinkingly down at the marchioness’ hand.
“I didn’t have one,” Lady Rutland said quietly, her statement devoid of emotion. She spoke as someone who’d come to peace with the existence she’d lived. “None that I can speak of. I was one and twenty before he first really noted my existence.”
Nathaniel hesitated, his pencil at the top of the page. He glanced over the wire rims of his spectacles.
The young woman went on almost conversationally. “My father had little use for me outside of the match I might make to save him from financial ruin.”
He scratched a note inside his book and looked up. “Did you resent him for being absent from your life?” he asked. It was a question that could have easily been directed to either Barrett woman.
The marchioness distractedly plucked at the fabric of her gown. “As a child, I did,” she readily confessed. “As a girl, I wanted to know why he could not love me more, why he could not be like some of the fathers I’d seen in the park while with my mother who would be picking flowers with their daughters or fishing. Or simply being together.”
What had begun as a line of questioning meant to probe Andrew Barrett’s connection to a murder, shifted. For the first time since Macleod had turned over the file, Nathaniel viewed it not as a way of garnering facts for a case… but rather a glimpse into Victoria’s life after all these years. God help him. He’d never considered himself a coward… until now. Now, he struggled to bring forth the inquiry that would reveal just what life had been like for Victoria and her children.
He concentrated on breathing. Focus on the damned facts. Focus on the details that will lead you to answers about Waters’ innocence or guilt… who Victoria had been and how she’d lived with her children in your absence is none of your affair. You lost all right to her…
Except…
This woman had painted a tableau of Victoria as a young mother, not soon after he’d left her life for good, and how they’d spent their days. Nathaniel discreetly rubbed at the sharp ache in his chest… to no avail. “And as a young woman?” he forced himself to resume his line of questioning.
The marchioness quirked her lips in a wry smile. “As a young woman, I was grateful that I’d been invisible to him. I came to appreciate that he was vile, hurtful, and cruel…” She paused, and glanced to her mother. “…to all.
Nathaniel’s fingers curled reflexively around his pencil and, this time, he forced his grip open to keep from snapping the thin wood. Had the late viscount physically laid hands upon her and her children? His heart knocked hard against his ribcage as that question screamed around his mind. In a bid to regain control, he frantically dashed a series of random, unrelated details upon his page.
“Is that all?” Rutland called over in a menacing whisper that would have sent a younger man into fits of terror.
Ignoring that impatient demand, Nathaniel directed another question at Lady Rutland. “What of the Duchess of Huntly? Did your father have a similar relationship with your sister?”
Lady Rutland shook her head. “I’d not tolerate someone speaking for me. As such, I’ll not speak for my sister.”
Admiration swirled in his breast for the proud and clever woman that Victoria’s daughter had become. From her spirit to the rich hue of her auburn tresses, Lady Rutland was very much Victoria’s child. He made to close his book, but hesitated, lingering his focus on the gold flecks in the marchioness’ eyes. His frown deepened. There was something so very familiar in that stare: a touch of steel and strength and—
“My lord?” Victoria urged.
“I am nearly done.” As he spoke, he carefully scrutinized Lady Rutland. Deliberately erasing the earlier gentleness in his voice, he spoke in clipped, perfunctory tones meant to unnerve. “What of your brother? What was his relationship with the late viscount?”
To the lady’s credit, she merely lifted one shoulder in a negligent shrug. “As a child, my mother kept me, Andrew, and Justina close. My father had as little use for a male child as he did for a female. That did not change when Andrew grew older.”
While the marchioness provided her accounting, Nathaniel’s mind tripped upon an old memory.
Burrowed against his side, Victoria tilted her head back to meet his gaze. “Do you suppose we shall have troublesome, intelligent, and daring boys like their father?”
“I want only daughters… brave, bold, and clever daughters like their mother…”
From the corner of his eye, he looked to Victoria. Why had she bound herself to such a man? Had she and Waters ever loved one another? Or had loneliness compelled her into Waters’ arms? That hated vision he’d not allowed himself… one he’d wrestled back countless times during his life, slipped in: Victoria spread wide, arms lifted, as she gave herself to another. Bile burned in his throat and he compelled her with his eyes to explain… needing to understand. Why? Why, did you wed him, Victoria?
She lifted her chin in silent mutiny, even as a flash of pain flickered in her eyes.
His heart cracked, broke, and bled all over again. And with his inability to set the past aside and focus solely on his investigation, he proved himself far less than the masterful agent he’d lauded himself to be.
Lady Rutland spoke, dragging his attention away. “Lord Exeter.” The marchioness ceased her distracted movements. “My father normalized shameful behaviors.” Ice crept into her voice, killing her earlier casualness and. As she spoke, she let him inside Victoria’s life after Nathaniel. Each word struck like one of Hunter’s lashes to his bare back. “His drinking and whoring and wagering crippled our family’s finances and brought struggle to each of us.”
The pencil snapped in Nathaniel’s fingers and he stared vacantly down at the notes he’d made on his sheet, unseeing. This is the man Victoria had wed. Unbidden, he looked over to her. A thousand and one questions sprung to his tongue, begging to be spoken.
She stared past him, to a point beyond his shoulder. He would have traded however remaining years he had on his life to take her in his arms and drive back the suffering he saw there.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly. For so much. For everything. Tossing the remaining half of the pencil in his fingers down on the tabletop, he withdrew another. “You were speaking of…” Victoria’s husband. “…your father and his vices.”
“We may have each resented my father for different reasons.” The marchioness lowered her voice. “Hated him even. But many people hated my father and, no doubt, wished him ill.” In short, there could be any number of enemies to have exacted revenge upon the reprobate. “I doubt there is a single soul who would mourn him.” A buzzing filled his ears, muffling each admission she made.
“No one will miss you or mourn you… no one cares… not even the agents you protect. So, give us the information we want. Give us their names…”
Nathaniel battled back the mocking taunts hurled at him by his captors. Do not let them in. Focus on the case. Focus on Victoria and her daughter and her accounting…
“Beyond that, there’s nothing more I can share about my father because, simply put, I didn’t know him.” Lady Rutland spoke with an air of finality; of one who’d said all she would about the painful life she and her family had known, and intended to say not a word more. But only one sought to inherit…
That reminder he would have given to any other person being interviewed. In this, with Victoria sitting silently on unable to meet his eyes, while her daughter and son-in-law stared on, Nathaniel couldn’t bring himself to state that reminder.
Removing his spectacles, Nathaniel tucked them back inside his jacket. “I believe that is all I require, at this time,” he said quietly, tucking the papers back in his folder. He gathered the broken pieces of pencil and stuffed them inside his jacket. “Thank you for taking time to speak with me,” he said, as he came to his feet.
Lady Rutland smiled sadly. “Dante wrote of there being seven deadly sins. And my father possessed them all. As such, any man or woman capable of that immorality can only have one fate awaiting them… as my father did.”
The floorboards groaned under the ungainly footfall of her husband and, without a trace of the hospitality or warmth demonstrated by his wife, he yanked the door open.
And with his records in hand, Nathaniel left, with information that threatened to shatter him, all over again.