For the next week, Adam stayed close to Suzanne. He didn’t care if the maids gave him quick glances as he prowled the corridor outside the duchess’s suite. Or if the footmen looked as if they wanted to ask questions when he assigned two of them to guard her door.
Every morning he checked on her without a single coherent reason for doing so. He didn’t even bother coming up with a pretense.
His greeting to the duchess was the same in case anyone was within earshot.
“Everything was calm last night, Your Grace. How are you feeling?”
She would answer in the same manner, her voice holding that tone he’d come to expect of the peerage: haughty, almost cold. However, she always had a twinkle in her eyes.
“I’m feeling well, Drummond. Thank you for asking.”
Each morning he would simply nod and leave, relieved.
Every afternoon he would bring her tea. Emily would join him in setting up the tray for the duchess, offering her a selection of tarts or biscuits Grace had made. Conscious of the maid’s presence, he would tell Suzanne what was happening in the house, including any repairs that were ongoing. He found himself discussing matters pertaining to the staff, none of which he’d ever communicated to her.
She, in turn, asked questions about Scotland. He found himself telling her stories of his childhood and she reciprocated, making him think that the two children they’d been weren’t that far apart in their dreams and wishes.
She even asked about Wals, which made Emily’s cheeks turn a bright red. Evidently the footman had made inroads there. Adam was torn between wanting to warn Emily that the young footman had no sense of decorum and wasn’t loyal to one female and simply allowing nature to take its course.
Suzanne was the one who cautioned her maid, surprising him again.
“Wals is a reprobate.” She glanced at Adam and said, “I’ve met him once. He was exceedingly charming. Too much so for my peace of mind.” Her attention turned to Emily again. “I do hope that you don’t allow your heart to be involved. If he isn’t yet, he’s well on his way to becoming a lecher, a despoiler of innocents. I’d be truly concerned if you were involved with him.”
Emily only curtsied, mumbled something in agreement, and left the room.
He and Suzanne looked at each other. Unspoken was the certainty that Emily had already been wooed by Wals.
In the evening, after Emily was dismissed for the night, he visited the duchess again. Their conversations were always more personal at that hour. He found himself anticipating their nightly talks, learning a great deal about Suzanne Hackney and her life as a wealthy man’s daughter.
It was an upbringing that, strangely enough, mirrored his in some ways. She didn’t have to worry about where her next meal was coming from, but with her father so often in India, she was essentially an orphan for most of the time. Without any siblings, Suzanne had learned to be comfortable with being alone, just as he had.
The drawback with that kind of attitude was that he didn’t make friends easily. Neither did she. When he came to see her on Wednesday afternoon, she was entertaining Mrs. Armbruster. The older woman was telling a tale that made Suzanne laugh. He’d left the room annoyed and it wasn’t difficult for him to figure out why.
He had made her smile, but he’d never made the duchess laugh. Mrs. Armbruster had. In addition, she’d stolen his time with Suzanne.
Thursday morning was the same familiar regimen, but by the afternoon Suzanne had been given permission to leave her bed for the sitting room. Sunday she was pronounced healthy enough to go anywhere in the house, which meant that it would have looked odd for him to call on her in her suite.
He’d spent a great many hours in the past week trying to figure out who the other operative was at Marsley House. The minute Suzanne had said something, he’d known that the second man had also been given the task of finding the duke’s journal. There was no other reason for him to be on the third floor of the library.
With the help of two footmen, Adam had checked the locks on all the windows. Three of them were found to be broken, with the entrance point being the laundry.
He added lookouts, stationing two stable boys at the rear, between the kitchen garden and the stables. Two footmen were added to the front, assigned to the gate area. Any of the men were to report to him if they saw something amiss. For a week nothing had happened which, paired with Suzanne’s recuperation, allowed him to concentrate on other matters: namely, confronting Roger Mount.
On Monday Adam decided it was time to pay a call on Roger. He wasn’t going to send advance notice of his arrival. If the other man was busy, then Roger would need to rearrange his schedule. If he was gone, Adam would wait for Roger to return. They were going to talk and this time the conversation was going to provide Adam the information he needed.
Traffic through London was congested as it always was. He tapped impatiently on the fabric below the window, grateful that it was only an overcast day and not raining.
He’d rarely allowed himself the luxury of rage, but he felt it now. He wanted to throttle Roger.
It was one thing to put a man in danger if he knew the odds and the risk. Suzanne didn’t deserve to be treated that way. She’d done nothing other than bow to her father’s pressure and marry the Duke of Marsley.
He wished he’d known her back then, but she probably would have had nothing to do with him. He hadn’t smoothed all his rough edges. Not that he lacked his share of them now. Put him in a fancy dinner party—and thankfully he’d only one experience with all those forks and knives and spoons—and he was out of his element. He’d much rather be given a sword and be in hand-to-hand combat with an enraged Sepoy.
What the hell had Roger been thinking? What would make him pit two operatives against each other? It wasn’t as if Adam hadn’t proven his worth to the Crown. He’d received commendations on more than one assignment.
Whoever had been installed at Marsley House had made a tactical error. The man should not have endangered Suzanne. Roger had been an idiot not to make that perfectly clear. He had to pull Adam’s shadow out of Marsley House. Today.
When the carriage finally reached the War Office, Adam told the driver that he wouldn’t be long. He bounded up the steps two at a time and made his way to Roger’s office.
He’d forgotten Oliver’s aversion to loud noises, and the man reacted to the slamming of the outer door by jumping nearly a foot. Adam waved Oliver back into his chair.
“Is he here?”
“He is, but he can’t be disturbed.”
He strode across the room, surprised when Oliver sprang up from his chair, rounded the desk, and put out an arm. As if that would stop him.
In India, Oliver had been pale and sweating almost continually. It wasn’t just the heat and the humidity that had affected him. Oliver had spent the majority of his time in India genuinely frightened.
The man looked the same now.
“Step away,” Adam told him. “I don’t care how busy he is. I’m going to see him now.”
“He has someone with him, Drummond. You can’t interrupt. It’s a very important meeting.”
“Then he’s just going to have to reschedule it,” he said. He didn’t care if the Queen was in Roger’s office.
Oliver was no match for him and he pushed the secretary out of the way and opened the door, only to stand there speechless.
Edward Hackney sat in the comfortable chair in front of Roger’s desk, his feet up on a needlepoint stool, a cup of tea in his right hand, the saucer in his left. Roger’s pose was as indolent, slumped back in his chair, an affable smile on his face.
Thoughts cascaded into Adam’s mind like a fusillade of bullets. This was a meeting of men who knew each other well. Roger had never mentioned that he was acquainted with Suzanne’s father. What the hell was Hackney doing at the War Office? Did he know of Adam’s assignment? If he didn’t, the man wouldn’t lose any time informing his daughter of the fact that he’d seen Adam here, a thought that was reinforced by Hackney’s expression as he turned.
The two of them exchanged a look.
Roger stood, his smile fading into a frown. “What are you doing here?”
He had too many questions and absolutely no answers, so Adam didn’t even try to respond. Instead, he turned on his heel and left Roger’s office, intent on getting back to Marsley House at all possible speed.
Suzanne was reading in the Grecian Parlor, a restful place due to its colors of beige and tan and the fact that it was away from most of the activities midday. None of the maids came here after eleven and the footmen weren’t stationed in this corridor until after dark. Consequently, few people interrupted her unless she rang.
“Suzanne.”
She was startled to hear Adam call her name. She looked up to find him framed in the doorway. He wasn’t wearing his usual majordomo attire. Instead, he was dressed only in a white shirt and black trousers beneath a long topcoat. In his hands he held her cloak.
“Will you come with me?” he said.
“Will I come with you?”
He nodded. “Will you come with me?”
What a silly conversation they were having, but Adam evidently didn’t feel that way. There was a look in his eyes, the same expression that had been there when he was talking about India. Serious and somber, with another emotion she couldn’t decipher.
“Where?” she asked.
“Somewhere safe,” he said. “Where we can talk.”
She should have countered that Marsley House was safe. That there were hundreds of rooms they could occupy that would be private enough, but something in his voice or in his eyes kept her silent.
“Yes,” she said, surprising herself.
She stood, placed her book on the sofa cushion beside her, and approached him.
Instead of offering his arm, he grabbed her hand. He walked quickly down the corridor of the north wing, and turned left and then right to a rear door that was not often used.
“Adam? Is something wrong?”
“Yes,” he said. “But I can’t talk about it until we’re away from here.”
She stopped and when he would have pulled her to him, she shook her head.
“Is it my father?” she asked. “Has he been hurt? Has there been another accident?”
He put his arm around her shoulders, drew her close, and looked down into her face. “Your father is fine, Suzanne. I promise you that. There is something wrong, but give me a few minutes and I will explain everything.”
There were dozens and dozens of servants around Marsley House, but they only encountered one maid. She glanced at their joined hands and then away, trying to hide her smile but being unable to do so successfully.
Suzanne realized she was probably going to be the subject of gossip in the servants’ quarters. Why wasn’t she more concerned?
She would think about that later.
Perhaps she was wrong to trust Adam. She, who had lost trust in nearly everything. Yet for some reason she did. Perhaps it was because they’d each known anguish. Adam knew how she felt, what she’d gone through, and he was possibly the only person she’d met who did. They’d each experienced the worst of what life could deliver. Or maybe she trusted him because he’d always sought to protect her.
She squeezed his hand and nodded, assent in a gesture.
He helped her with her cloak, and together they left Marsley House.