Chapter Six
Anna had waited for him to rebuke her sharp tongue. She should be using her limited repertoire of charm to stay in his good graces for the sake of Will, but Jackson Cole had always had the ability to scratch her paper-thin veneer of civility with the slightest of annoyances.
Like now, as he smirked down at her, handsome and teasing and turning her insides hot and aching.
“Devising the best way to see me bloody and unconscious, Miss Greene?” he asked.
She raised her chin. “Hardly sporting for me since the look of utter defeat on your face is half the reason to wage the war.”
“Did I call you a ‘general’ before? Forgive me. I meant ‘the Devil’s right hand.’”
They’d never get anywhere this way. She narrowed her eyes. “Mrs. Dove-Lyon snared us both.” A peace offering, of a sort.
He paused at that. A heartbeat of hesitation, as if that sharp mind of his were working through a problem to find the solution wasn’t so simple. “But only one of us is taking the effort to enjoy the trap.” He held the door wide for her to enter the library.
Anna eyed the dark room beyond, the heat in her belly growing warmer. To be behind closed doors with him. In the dark. Where dangerous things liked to stir and reshape. Already, there were cracks in her guard, tiny fissures growing larger with every quip, every sensual tilt to his lips.
She stepped back. “Perhaps our discussion should wait until after we’ve both had time to rest.” And after she’d had time to regain her balance.
Jackson’s gaze was on her face, that same infuriating challenge in his eyes. “You can’t mean to turn tail now, General?”
Ego won out.
She huffed and marched into the dark room, where she waited for him to light a lamp.
A single light that cast too small a glow, leaving only his sharp features and what appeared to be a large desk illuminated.
She glanced into the shadows. “No chairs?”
No other furniture of any kind beyond what appeared to be floor-to-ceiling bookcases heavy with tomes.
“I don’t come in here to read,” he said.
“What else does one do in a library?”
A fleeting expression swept across his face too quickly to discern. He cleared his throat. “I meant, I do not find myself with the necessary time to indulge in such pursuits.”
“I thought a gentleman’s ennui was the product of constant leisure time.”
His brows rose. “Where did you hear that?”
“My brother hired tutors to see to my education.”
“Another woman taught you about gentlemen?”
She frowned. “Where would the authority lie in that? Aside from my lessons in ladylike endeavors, all my tutors were male. As such, I made sure to ask all manner of questions.”
He groaned and covered his eyes with his hand. “I bet you did. I hesitate to point out that a woman should perhaps not know so much about a man’s leisure time.”
“Given your uncomfortable state, one could argue the exact opposite. A gentleman’s vices are of import to a woman once they are married, are they not?”
He cleared his throat again. “I am not a man given to dissatisfaction or vices. So, there is little for you to concern yourself with on that account.”
“What of mistresses?” she forced out, embarrassment burning the back of her neck. “Is that considered a vice, or is that more of a hobby?”
“Neither!” His cheeks went the color of primrose or holly berry; it was hard to tell in the poor light. “I find the practice of keeping a mistress distasteful. And I will thank you not to bring up the subject again.”
“You wished for us to continue speaking,” she pointed out, something in her gut easing at the idea that he did not keep other women.
“If you would be so kind as to forgo the more alarming of your questions, it’s about time you told me why you were caught in Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s trap to begin with.”
The tension was back, though there was no delicious heat to go with it this time. There’d be no more putting off the inevitable. No more hiding.
Anna raised her chin and held his gaze. “My brother is missing.”
At his quickly indrawn breath, she pressed on. In for a penny . . . “And I have every reason to suspect Mrs. Dove-Lyon is responsible for his disappearance.”
He should have known Anna’s presence at the Lyon’s Den had had to do with William. Missing.
Jackson mentally cursed. How hadn’t he known? What was the point of paying his contact for inside information on the Runners if he learned the facts from a third party?
He knew the answer, of course; Bow Street was as crooked as the Thames. One of the reasons he made a point to peek at any ongoing investigations when the files crossed desks. Still . . .
“How wasn’t a missing viscount reported in every paper from here to Scotland?”
Anna blinked. An innocent gesture and one bespeaking honesty. “I don’t know. The runner I spoke to said a public announcement would only muddy the investigation.”
Someone in Bow Street has a brain. He blew out his breath. More small miracles. “Let’s keep it that way.” With Anna, there had to be more. “I’m surprised Mrs. Dove-Lyon agreed to see you,” he said. It had taken him six months to get the woman’s private invitation.
“About that . . .” Anna shifted from one foot to the other. “I may have been caught breaking into the woman’s private office.”
Bloody hell.
“You were—” Jackson shook his head. “You might have led with that.” Breaking and entering, a crime. And if he hadn’t lost at cards, some other lucky bastard would be in his place.
Jackson frowned. Being forced to marry an exceptional woman was doable—and elating, maddening, trouble—but she had other relatives. At least one particular woman of the Greene family found a ducal title the Devil’s curse instead of a blessing. “What of your uncle?”
Anna froze. “He is not to be informed of our marriage or William’s disappearance.”
He knew that tone. Familial strain. Worse? A bloody pain. Good thing Anna was of age and did not require her former guardian’s consent.
He sighed and focused on the problem at hand.
He’d send Roberts a missive before the end of the hour. There wasn’t a man alive more thorough. William Greene would be found by week’s end, in time for the wedding . . . Best he not dwell on how that chat would go.
Brothers had a tendency to grow minotaur-ish where innocent sisters were concerned.
Choosing the words to pen in his note to his man, Jackson’s other half continued to think of the circumstances of his and Anna’s reunion.
There had to have been more to it. If there was no fee .
. . Mrs. Dove-Lyon didn’t force a woman’s hand for something as inane as trespassing.
Despite his wish to vilify the widow, she did have some moral lines.
Was Anna meant to distract him? That would mean Mrs. Dove-Lyon had uncovered his investigation, surmised his connection with Anna, and manipulated them both, all from behind a rather extravagant kneehole desk.
Jackson’s jaw clenched. If the whole production had been by the woman’s design, breaking the engagement would be a nightmare.
“I’m surprised the threat of Scotland Yard was enough to talk you into wrapping the noose around your neck,” he said.
“It isn’t.”
He waited.
That stubborn chin dipped when she sighed. “Apparently, William had amassed a debt that put the Prince Regent’s spending into a most agreeable light by comparison.”
Well, hell.
Jackson only knew William as a constant mention in Anna’s stories when they had been young, but he’d never have taken the younger brother who’d dominated every heroic role in her tales as a profligate risktaker.
The thought that William would put himself—and Anna—in such a position had Jackson’s temper rising.
“I could—”
“If you offer to pay my family’s debts, I will do more than cork you, Duke.”
He had been thinking that, but . . . No.
He knew better than to use money to persuade a woman like Mrs. Dove-Lyon to bend.
More likely to have the switch retaliate with a sting across the cheeks.
Because, if money and favors weren’t part of the widow’s scheme, the feather of matchmaking the Duke of Grandfellow was an adornment she could proudly display in her cap.
“Why did you not reach out to me when your brother went missing?” Jackson asked. “I could have helped.”
“How was I to know if you would even read a letter should I send one?”
“I could have helped,” he reiterated.
“But would you have?”
Her questions took him aback. “Of course I would. Do you think so little of me?”
“I make it a point to not think of you at all.” The venom was back in her voice. “And what were you doing at the Lyon’s Den, Duke? Donating to charity?”
He picked at the sudden stiffness of his collar. “There was a matter of a wager that didn’t go my way.”
She threw her head back and laughed. “Perfect. The great Duke of Grandfellow matched to a locksmith’s daughter after a run of bad luck at the card tables.” Her curtsey was shallow and smug. “I am honored to be a symbol of your rubbish fortunes.”
There was a pinching pain between his eyes, like a nail driven directly through the bone. “Should anyone say such a thing within my earshot, I will string them up by their toes and flay them alive.”
“They’d string you up as well,” she threatened.
He didn’t hesitate. “It would be worth it.”
She frowned, her gaze losing some of its edge. “Tell me, is the Bow Street payroll now under the authority of Grandfellow for you to make such grand threats without shame? A title better than gold.”
Jackson opened his mouth . . . and hesitated.
What could he say? As an agent under Home Secretary Sidmouth’s authority, I have connections in every corner of England.
Hell, as a duke he had enough power from the upper echelon to crush most trouble with nothing but a short missive.
But it was exactly his connection that made staying out of society’s view paramount.