Chapter Nineteen #2
Dagger strode over and clapped their wayward brother on the back. “Where the devil have you been?”
“Digging for information.”
Reaper whispered. “Is that literal or figurative, frère?”
Serpent pinched the bridge of his nose.
“Did you find anything?” Drake asked.
Serpent nodded. “Caught a man named Percival. Think he’s an earl or something. He was skulking around town. Thought he might be one of our uncle’s spies.”
Christ, how many earls were there circling about?
“He’s not then?” Reaper questioned.
Serpent shook his head. “He’s looking for his fiancée. Evangeline Graves.”
Drake went on alert. “Graves, you say?” The name struck like a fist to his sternum. The bane of his bloody existence at the moment.
Serpent gave a curt nod.
Maxen’s eyes darkened. “Any connection to the man trying to kill you?”
“Could be,” Drake muttered darkly. “His last name is Graves, too.”
“Could also be a coincidence,” Deveraux pointed out.
“Might be,” Drake agreed, yet not convinced. “But I don’t believe in coincidence this glaring.”
“Neither do I,” Maxen growled. “Unfortunately, Calliope didn’t have any insight about these people either.”
That was to be expected. His brother’s wife, also the daughter of an earl, had been confined to her home and ran away before her debut. She probably hadn’t heard of any of these names. Just how many variables were still going to be added to this nightmare?
“Where’s the man now?” Drake asked, cracking his knuckles. “Did he escape you?”
Serpent sneered. “Am I a pup? He’s on the beach in a crate.”
Well hell. And his brothers raised their brows at his dungeons. They were a touch bigger than a crate.
“Thought it about time to report,” Serpent added.
“You should damn well report every day,” Drake snapped.
Serpent shrugged. “Lost track of time.”
Lost track of time, his arse. The sun rose and the sun set. Time. Track. Drake gave up arguing with this brother. Serpent would do what Serpent did.
“What about your woman?” Maxen asked Drake.
His spine snapped to attention. His woman. The words sounded so damn right his damn body hardened in ways he didn’t want it to harden here and now. “She’s not my woman,” Drake denied.
“She’s your responsibility, she’s your woman,” Maxen remarked, unperturbed. “Don’t even think of evading such responsibility.”
Bloody hell.
He wasn’t planning on evading anything.
Reaper chuckled. “So that’s the way of thinking that got your leg shackled, frère. Good to know.”
Dagger gave a short, humorless laugh. “He shackled himself quite willingly.”
Serpent strode to the bar and took a seat, rubbing his eyes. “Seems I missed a lot.”
“You have no idea,” Deveraux muttered.
His responsibility. His woman. There was something primal about that. Something that felt damn good.
“You shouldn’t have let her leave,” Maxen added. “She might be in danger, even if simply by association.”
Drake’s jaw tightened. As if he had not replayed that moment a dozen times already, each iteration ending the same way, with her back straight, her eyes guarded, and his own pride standing in the way of sense. “She chose to go. I was advised to let her.”
“Is that so?”
He shot his brother a look meant to end the inquiry, but Maxen merely folded his arms, patient in the infuriating way of a man who knew when to wait.
Reaper leaned back on his stool. “For what it’s worth, women rarely choose when they’re given only one path.”
Dagger grimaced. “God’s blood, will you lot stop poking him? He’s already halfway to putting his fist through something.”
“What’s done is done. I don’t think she’ll return to be confined here.”
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have treated her so coldly after she spent the night in your chambers,” Deveraux pointed out.
Drake glared at the man, his foot already moving toward this brother for whom he wanted nothing more than to wring his neck. “What the devil do you know?”
Reaper was between them at once, palm braced against Drake’s shoulder.
Deveraux shrugged. “I know the walls are thin.”
Drake cursed, gaze cutting over his brothers who all seemed to refuse to meet his eyes. Very well, then. Was it any damn wonder Maxen moved out? “Breathe a word of this to—”
“Your little bird, frère? Oh, we know better than to poke the best fighter in London.”
Deveraux snorted. “Well, some of us, at least.”
“Enough,” Maxen said. “What’s your plan here, Drake? She might be in danger. She might not. It’s best to be safe with these things.”
Drake nodded. “I’ll go collect her.” He didn’t know how to bloody convince her, but he wouldn’t return without her no matter what. The moment the decision was made, something inside him rightened itself.
The door to the tavern opened and Pip, one of the boys that collected information for him from time to time, burst in, heading straight for Drake, handing him a letter. “For you.”
Drake furrowed his brows. No emblem crested the wax seal. “From whom?”
“I can’t say,” Pip faltered.
Maxen grabbed the boy by the back of the collar while Drake cracked the seal and unfolded the note.
What the devil was this? “When shall we ‘eight’ meet again?” he read out loud. “In thunder, lightning, or in rain? Signed, S.”
The whole tap room froze.
Drake stared at the note. Read it again. Felt the full implication of it arrive in stages, each one worse than the last.
Saint broke the silence first. “Sirius.”
Quite right. His uncle.
Dagger scowled, snatching the note from Drake. “What the deuce does this even mean?”
“Macbeth,” Deveraux pointed out. “It means when you cross paths again, he expects it to be chaotic. Violent.”
Maxen lifted Pip by the scruff and snarled. “Who sent it, boy?”
“Miss Sharpe,” the boy blurted immediately. “Miss Violet Sharpe from the Bloom Room.”
“Well, cock on a duck.”
Drake bolted for the door.