David woke from the dream with a familiar sense of aching loss. In the dream, he was back in the tower room where he and Prue had spent their first night together, and once again, he saw her walk away.
Relief crashed in as he surfaced fully from sleep and remembered she was beside him: behind him, rather, touching him at two points. A foot on his calf and a hand on his back? He turned carefully in the dark and felt along her arm until he found her back. She was sprawled on her front across her side of the bed, naked as she had been when they finally fell asleep last night.
He should leave her alone. She needed to rest to recover. But he could not resist running his hand gently from the curve of her shoulder down to her waist and around a shapely buttock. She was really here. After months of waking to her absence, he had her beside him again.
How could she have become so necessary to him in just one night? Three now, he reminded himself, smiling. If he could wake up next to her all the days of his life, he would…
Shocked at his own thought, he rolled onto his back, and lay staring at nothing in the dark.
All the days of his life?
There had been no promises between them. No talk of the future, no discussion of the past, even. Why had she turned away from him on the island? Something to do with the secrets filling the untold parts of her story? Or was it his own story that had come between them? He was afraid to ask, lest he lose her again. But did he really have her if she did not trust him enough to tell him the truth?
Three nights. It had only been three nights. Just two nights since Newgate violated her bright spirit. She needed time to get to know him, to learn he would never let her down, never ask more of her than she wanted to give. He forced his body to relax, one tight muscle at a time. He would say nothing, ask nothing. Just love her.
It must be love, surely, this unfamiliar emotion that teeter-tottered him from heaven to hell and back again at a hint of her discomfort, a fleeting glimpse of a smile?
His hand was still on her back, and as he brushed his palm against the curve of her shoulder, he felt her stir and reach out to return the caress.
“David.” A sleepy whisper in the dark.
“It is still early, Prue. No need to wake.”
She pulled herself in from her starfish pose and wriggled towards him until she was in his arms, pressed skin to skin. “I am awake. And…” as one hand slipped between them to confirm his quick response, “so, it appears are you. Good morning, Mr. Wakefield.”
With the hand not wrapped around his shaft, she pulled his head closer and pressed her lips to his. Yes. This. This would be enough for now, but one day, they would have more. He was known for his patience, had built a reputation for never giving up and always closing his cases.
“Good morning, Miss Virtue,” he said, beginning to move his own hands, rejoicing in the way she shifted to accommodate him. He had begun the most important pursuit of his life. With a lifetime of waking up next to Prue as reward, he would not, he could not lose.
Sometime later, they went down to breakfast together.
“No sign of Lord Jonathan this morning, Mrs. Allen?” David was asking, just as the front door knocker sounded, heralding the arrival of that gentleman.
He breezed into the room.
“Good morning, you two. Sorry I’m late. Mrs. Allen, my best beloved, are those mushrooms?” He lifted the lid of the dish she was carrying, then leaned over it to give her a smacking kiss on the cheek. “They are mushrooms! And I smell sausages and bacon… ah, Mrs. Allen, if I could fit you in my apartment, I would steal you away.”
“Get along with you, sir, do,” the housekeeper told him, grinning broadly.
“Leave my poor housekeeper alone and take a seat, you incorrigible infant,” David growled. “To what do we owe the pleasure? The parsimonious state of your own larder?”
“That’s about it, really,” Gren admitted, cheerfully. “My man doesn’t cook, and I can just about manage to toast cheese, but certainly not a feast such as this.” He was loading the plate Mrs. Allen brought him with a huge quantity of food.
“I shall make you some more toast, my lord,” the housekeeper said, then shot David a quick glance. “If that is acceptable, Mr. Wakefield.”
“By all means, let us defend Lord Jonathan from starvation for an hour or so,” David told her.
“I do eat a great deal,” Gren agreed. “But I can make myself worth the investment in kippers, David. I’m really here to report. I thought you would wish to know as soon as possible. Oh, and to find out the plans for today. I am at your disposal.”
“What do I need to know urgently, Gren?” David had suggested the boy keep note of any rumours about any of Selby’s group, but Gren had been booked for one of his mother’s entertainments last night, and David had not expected results from such a milieu.
Prue poured Gren coffee and passed it to him. “Who was gossiping last night, Gren?”
“Who wasn’t? That’s all they ever do, really. It was a political event, mostly. All sorts of people who His Grace wishes to influence have come up to town for Parliament. Mama considers me useful for amusing the younger set, while she and His Grace charm their parents.”
Gren gestured with the cup in one hand and a forkful of sausage in the other. “But it was very modest, for Mama. A supper, of course, and card tables, and some musicians to provide background noise, as much as you could hear them over all the noise.”
David took a deep breath, but Gren rushed on before being commanded to get to the point. “But that is all background. What you want to know is that Selby has a wife.”
Prue’s sudden stillness caught David’s eye. She had paled, and she leant forward a little, but her voice remained calm as she asked, “A wife, Gren? Is he hiding her? Who said so?”
“An old school friend from his part of Kent. He said it isn’t widely known, even there, but his land touches Selby’s in one corner, and he has met the lady and her children several times when dealing with Selby’s land steward.”
“Then why does he present himself as unmarried?” David mused. “And why are the other ladies of his household in town without her?”
“Your friend,” Prue asked, her voice suddenly colourless. “Did he mention this lady’s name?”
Gren shook his head. “He just called her Lady Selby. But that would explain why Selby doesn’t marry to repair his fortunes, do you not think? If he already has a wife?”
“Did he say how long the lady has lived there?” Prue insisted.
“He did not mention it, no, but some time, I should think, since he mentioned riding over at harvest time, which I took to mean more than one harvest. What does it mean, David, do you think?”
“It raises more questions than answers,” David said, “but that is often the way. We dig up the questions and answer them, one by one, until we find the answer that makes sense of it all. Why is Selby hiding a marriage?” He shook his head, keeping one eye on Prue, who was sitting back, her thoughts veiled behind lowered lashes.
Gren accepted several slices of toast from the housekeeper. “Thank you, Mrs. Allen.”
She bobbed a curtsey and left the room again, with a stack of empty serving dishes.
After spreading some orange conserve on a slice, Gren took up his tale. “That isn’t all. I remembered what you said, Prue, about listening to the dowagers, because they hear everything and I figured the old men would be the same. So at supper, I took a chair near some of them.” He named several. “All lower-ranked peers or superannuated officers. I thought they were less likely to be involved in the political scheming going on throughout the house.”
David nodded. “Good thinking.”
“Most of it was not to the purpose, but I will have to keep the strategy in mind for the future. It is quite scary what they notice and deduce! Were you aware that Aldridge…” Gren glanced at Prue, and hastily said, “Never mind. They said two things pertinent for us, I think. One is that Selby is bedding Lord Carrington’s wife, and the old men are predicting trouble, because apparently Lord Carrington decides who his baroness will take as a lover. Which is rather disturbing, do you not think? Thank goodness I found that out before I… Anyway, he was making up to her at Death’s masquerade the night Madame Dupont died. Selby, I mean.”
Prue asked, “Not the Carrington masquerade?”
“Yes,” Gren confirmed. “Lady Carrington was the hostess, though it was Death’s purse that paid for it. Lord Carrington spent the night at his club. By arrangement with Death, the old men reckon.”
Death was the nickname of the Duke of Richport. He was not yet thirty, but had acquired a reputation for debauchery well beyond his years. Given his rank and his wealth, all would be forgiven him if he ever ventured into Polite Society, especially if he were seeking a bride. He quite openly declared that if he were bound for hell, he expected more entertaining surroundings than the ballrooms and parlours of the beau monde, and warmer devils than the ladies of the ton. And he had no intention of living hell here on earth in places like Almack’s.
“Lily had an invitation, both she and Little Joy,” Prue told the men. “They argued about whether to go—Lily said the place would be full of dilettantes and house-girls.” Dilettantes. Ladies who whored for pleasure, not profit, and house-girls would be women who plied their trade within a brothel.
“Little Joy went, according to her watcher,” David commented. “In fact, most of our suspects were there. Talbot, Selby, Annesley, Barnstable, Tiverton.”
Prue was not surprised. It was a big event, with most of the rakehells of London in attendance, and a number of its racier ladies.
“Aldridge, too,” Gren commented. “I had an invitation, but I was busy…”
Keeping Prue company in Newgate. “Thank you for giving up your evening for me, Gren,” she said, and the young man blushed.
“Not at all, Prue. I could not have gone, in any case. My friend Michael expected me at his betrothal ball. I went there from Newgate.”
“You made yourself late for me, and I do not forget it,” Prue insisted.
Gren changed the subject. “The other gossip was about Tiverton. He has blotted his copybook with his regiment: tupped his sergeant’s wife, turned up drunk on duty, paid another officer to take parade with his men. They were arguing about the best way to deal with it. Court martial or a transfer to a battle regiment seem to be the front-running options.”
Gren shrugged. “He is courting the Colonel’s daughter, so it will come down to whether the man has the sense to have him shot, or prefers to make him front up as a groom.”
Gren had somehow managed to inhale his enormous breakfast while doing most of the talking. He was now wiping the last of the toast through the mushroom sauce left on the plate. “Terrible manners, Prue, I know. I hope you will forgive me,” he said, “but I quite regard you as a sister, you know, so I do not stand on ceremony with you.”
“Rogue,” she replied, with a somewhat wan smile, and without heat. “Were you my brother, I would box your ears. Well, David, more questions without answers?”
“I knew Selby was bedding the baroness,” David told her, “but not that the baron ordered her liaisons. And as for Tiverton, I wonder how that will affect the other four and their blackmail scheme?”
“If they are indeed the blackmailers,” Prue cautioned.
“I have little doubt they are. Gren, could you listen for rumours around the clubs and boxing salons and other places your kind frequent?”
“Yes, I can do that. When and where do you want me to report back?”
“Join us for dinner tonight, Gren,” Prue suggested. “I am seeing Lady Georgiana this afternoon. We can compare notes.”
David nodded. That would work. For himself, he had a few informers to catch up with, but first, he wished… he needed to ask Prue what about Selby’s marriage was so troubling.
After Gren left, he had no need to put his question.
Prue took his hand and began to tow him from the room. “David, come through to the study, so Mrs. Allen can clear. I have something I need to tell you.”
He came willingly, and locked the door behind them.
“David, I recognised Lord Selby when he visited Miss Diamond the other night. Except I did not know him as Simon Stocke, but as Samuel Stocke, cousin to the Earl of Selby and husband to my sister.”
“Your sister is the Countess of Selby?” But that was not what Prue had just said. David frowned, puzzled, and she returned the identical expression.
“No, David. My sister thinks she is Mrs. Stocke. And she does not live in Kent, but in Bedfordshire, with her three children. And another thing. When Lord Selby told his friend I looked like his wife’s sister, his friend laughed and said ‘Which wife?’ David, my poor sister!”