Chapter 9
Nine
The stench of the London rookeries clung stubbornly to the thick morning fog, but inside the cavernous warehouse on Whitechapel’s edge, the air held the clean bite of sawdust, new timber, and fresh mortar.
Leander Ashby, the Duke of Lionston, stood near the entrance, surveying the progress with a critical eye as a team of carpenters hammered away at the far wall.
The Lion Watch—his men, his creation—was finally taking shape. The renovations would take months, perhaps longer, but for now the heart of the building had been completed: his office. A refuge carved out of chaos.
He strode toward it, boots echoing over uneven floors.
As soon as he closed the heavy door behind him, the outside noise dimmed.
Mahogany bookshelves lined the walls, gleaming despite the gloom.
A deep leather settee sat beneath the shuttered window, and the large desk—solid oak, polished to a mirror sheen—anchored the room like a command post. A man could think in here.
A man could plan. Leander had just begun removing his gloves when the door opened without ceremony.
Dashiell Blackwell the Earl of Ravenwood—Dash to the very few who earned the right—entered with his usual lazy confidence, though the sharpness in his golden hazel eyes betrayed purpose.
“Your den of righteous mischief is coming along,” Dash remarked, shutting the door behind him.
“The new recruits are assembled and will begin preliminary drills this afternoon. Prepare yourself—Viscount Slothington will be arriving within the hour. He assured me he will have a report regarding that issue you asked him to investigate.”
“Consider myself warned.” Leander snorted. “Hell’s teeth. Slothington is going to be punctual?” He shook his head in wonderment. “That alone is cause for suspicion. It must be one hell of a report he has to give me.”
Dash smirked. “Indeed. If he arrives sober, I shall assume the world is ending.” He slid into a chair near Leander’s desk. “I admit to some curiosity regarding this task you sent him on.”
“It is an important one, I assure you.” Leander sank into the chair behind his desk, steepling his fingers. “I need to know what Slothy discovered. There is more at play here than I have told you.” His expression darkened. “I uncovered something… troubling.”
Dash met his gaze with one brow lifting in invitation.
“It concerns Sabrina—and her brother, Lord Whitley,” Leander continued.
“Whitley is entangled with a Frenchwoman. élise. It’s much more than a reckless lord keeping questionable company.
This woman appears entirely too interested in his political connections.
I cannot say it with any certainty, but she had a look to her. One we both are well familiar with.”
Dash’s gaze sharpened. “And Whitmore—their father—sits at the center of the War Office.”
“Precisely.” Leander leaned forward, voice low and taut.
“A woman with élise’s beauty and cleverness does not attach herself to a rising lord for affection alone.
She is playing Whitley, and he is too besotted to notice.
” It pained him to witness it and it was even worse considering his feelings for Sabrina.
It was a disaster in the making. “Sabrina confirmed that her brother is being blackmailed.”
Dash exhaled a slow breath. “Which means the Lion Watch may have stepped into something we are not fully set up to handle… If she seeks information—”
“We must learn what that Frenchwoman is after,” Leander finished. “And before she acquires it or before Whitmore realizes his son has been compromised. The earl will not be pleased with that bit of information.”
A knock sounded—sharp, too loud for a refined gentleman but just right for a man with no sense of subtlety. Leander already knew who was at his door without him even entering, as did Dash.
Dash grinned. “Ah. Slothington.”
Leander called, “Enter.”
The door swung open and Viscount Slothington strode in—tall, broad-shouldered, and wearing an expression that suggested he had either uncovered a secret or started a fire. It really could be either one, and it would be entertaining to discover exactly what the viscount had uncovered.
“Lionston. Ravenwood.” Slothington said as he dropped into the nearest chair without invitation. “I’ve information on Whitley. And you’re not going to like it.”
Leander exchanged a dark glance with Dash.
“Speak,” he commanded.
Slothington leaned forward, voice dropping. “Whitley has been visiting élise nightly. And last evening—someone else followed him there.”
Leander’s blood chilled. “Who?”
Slothington met his gaze squarely. “An agent I recognize from the French embassy.”
The warehouse seemed to still around them, as if the very walls understood the weight of those words. Leander rose slowly from his chair, purpose hardening within him like iron. “So,” he said, voice low. “The game has truly begun.”
“What do you propose we do?” Dash asked.
Slothy grinned. “I thought you would never ask.” He crossed one long leg over the other and met each of their gazes. “One of us has to seduce the lovely élise to discover the wench’s secrets.”
Leander rolled his eyes. “Let me guess you volunteer for this distasteful task.”
He let out a deep sigh. “Well of course…” He laid a hand over his chest. “Someone has to do the dirty work and I am more than willing.”
Dash shook his head. “I just bet you are.”
Leander pinched the bridge of his nose, the beginnings of a headache pulsing behind his eyes. “Slothy, I would sooner trust a fox in a henhouse than trust you within ten paces of a woman whose loyalty is already in question.”
Slothington gasped—dramatically, as always. “I am wounded. Mortally. My reputation maligned in my very presence.”
Dash snorted. “Your reputation was in tatters long before this conversation.”
Leander ignored their antics and paced to the edge of the sparsely lit warehouse. Dust motes drifted through a sliver of afternoon light cutting across the floorboards. Outside, the bells of St. Aldwyn’s tolled the hour, each strike tightening the knot forming in his stomach.
A French agent following Whitley to élise’s door…
It meant only one thing: the secrets Whitley carried—national, political, deadly—had finally drawn blood-scent.
Leander turned back to his friends.
“No one is seducing élise.”
Slothington groaned loudly. “You are determined to rid my life of joy.”
“She is not some tavern maid to charm into spilling her employer’s secrets,” Leander continued coldly. “If she is involved with the French embassy, then she is far more dangerous than any of us assumed.”
Dash’s expression darkened. “So, what is the plan?”
Leander exhaled slowly. “We watch. We wait. And we intercept any message or visitor that leaves her rooms. For now, élise is the only thread connecting Whitley to foreign agents—and I intend to tug that thread until the entire scheme unravels.”
Slothington sighed, slumping back in his chair. “You always choose the dull route.”
Leander arched a brow. “Staying alive is rarely dull.”
Dash crossed his arms. “Do you believe Whitley is a traitor?”
A beat of silence stretched. He did not believe anything of the kind. If he was a traitor, it was an unwitting one. That might not save him in the end though. It might very well ruin the man.
“I believe,” Leander said at last, “that Whitley is a dupe and élise is the one we need to be concerned with.”
Slothington perked up. “Then we question her.”
“Not yet,” Leander warned. “We don’t want to overplay our hand. We need more information.”
Slothy threw up his hands. “So, we do nothing?”
“We prepare,” Leander corrected. “Tonight, we follow Whitley. And if élise receives another visitor…” His jaw tightened. “We intercept him. Alive, preferably.”
Dash nodded, determination settling over his features. “Agreed.”
Slothington sighed mournfully. “Very well. But when this is over, I reserve the right to seduce someone. It need not be élise.”
Leander cast him a dry look. “Your sacrifice is duly noted.”
As his friends chuckled, the hollow unease in Leander’s chest only deepened.
This was no longer a matter of social scandal or diplomatic whispers. It was the beginning of something far more dangerous.
And Leander—Duke of Lionston, sworn protector of crown and country—felt the first stirrings of a storm he knew would not break easily.
“Prepare yourselves,” he murmured. “If all goes well we will know what our next steps will be tonight.” He prayed he was right because it was more than his life he was concerned about.
He had to protect Sabrina, and when this was all done he fully intended to court her.
He was done pushing her away. It was time to claim the woman who had always held his heart.
Sabrina should have turned back.
She knew it the moment her half-boot crunched against the loose cobblestone outside the narrow row house—knew it in that sickening, sinking way one knows they have made a grave mistake.
But she had followed Basil this far, and stubborn pride would not allow her to retreat.
Not when she feared what her brother had fallen into with his actions.
The lantern light from the street curved just enough for her to see the door swing open.
She had followed him to the doorstep of the woman he had been speaking to at the ball.
élise stood framed in the threshold, dark hair tumbling in unrestrained waves down her back.
Sabrina’s eyes widened. The woman wore nothing more than a thin dressing gown, loosely tied and slipping from one shoulder, exposing far more than Sabrina had ever imagined a lady—or whatever élise might properly be called—would display so boldly at her doorway.
Heat flooded Sabrina’s face and she jerked her gaze away at once. Good heavens.