Chapter Four #2
The madam led them down a dim hallway and rapped on the door at the end. “Patrice, you’ve got special visitors.”
A long-lashed man, clothed in a half-buttoned shirt and form-fitting trousers, answered the door. His eyes traversed the length of Ian’s body, and then widened when he took in Diana, standing behind him.
Ian had known for years that Jared had shared his bed with men and women alike. Both he and his brother had gone to great lengths to keep it secret, to protect the reputation of the family, and Holt even threatening the wretch was distasteful.
“I swear I know nothing,” Patrice whispered. “If I did, I’d tell you.”
“Give me a name.” Ian kept his voice low. “And then I won’t have to worry it was you.”
“If I could, I would! Jared was half out of his head the moment he walked in the door. And even if he hadn’t been, we don’t do a lot of talking here!”
“Of course you don’t.” Diana popped up between them. She extended her hand to offer Patrice a shilling, which he nabbed quickly.
“If you remember anything else, Patrice, you’ll contact Mr. Holt, won’t you?”
An amorous moan sounded from the next room, and a fever broke out across Ian’s forehead. His control was in grievous jeopardy of fraying if they stayed one moment longer. He wrapped his fingers around Diana’s elbow and urged her down the hallway, into the parlor, where the madam waited for them.
Before he could herd her downstairs, the proprietress placed a hand on Diana’s arm.
“Hold one minute, pet,” she drawled.
“We’re pressed for time,” Ian clipped.
“Indeed, you’re a busy man.” The madam leaned a protective arm around Diana. “Don’t let us keep you wiv our talk of female matters.”
The woman must have thought him deranged if she expected he would let Diana out of his sight in a bordello bordering St. Giles.
When he didn’t retreat, Diana murmured, “Go on. You can watch me from the doorway. I’ll be along in two shakes.”
The situation was too contrived not to be suspect.
He stomped his protest down the steps, walking sideways to keep Diana in view.
And the thousands of pounds in gems she wore cradled at her throat.
Her tête-à-tête with the madam was thankfully brief, and Ian found himself able to breathe more easily when they finally darted out into the fading light of the afternoon. The wind gusted and dampness clung to the air as he directed Diana to the carriage. “It’s going to rain. We must leave.”
“Aren’t you going to ask me what she said?”
“You can tell me in the coach.”
“I’m not ready to go,” she said softly.
Her placid dissent infuriated him. He resented her ability to maintain such control, while his emotions were, uncharacteristically, running rampant.
Through gritted teeth, he asked, “Why did the proprietress want to speak with you alone?”
“Careful, Ian. Your envy is showing.”
“No, only my misanthropy.”
“You should have that looked at.” Her lips curled into a half-smile.
He refused to indulge her by returning it.
“The proprietress believes Jared made a stop before the brothel last night,” she conceded.
“How forthcoming of her to tell you. Let’s discuss this development in the coach.”
“Patrice said Jared asked for his lady. Not a lady. Someone he visited regularly.”
Jared’s current mistress was the latest in a long line of his brother’s companions, dating back far longer than his engagement to Diana. Ian had met none of Jared’s paramours, but he directed one of his men to monitor things, to ensure Jared didn’t mistreat them.
He didn’t regret keeping Jared’s affair from Diana. He suspected she’d known and turned a blind eye to it, as many women of her position in society did.
“The proprietress told you exactly where to find this woman,” Ian surmised. “She’s protective of the girls who work for her, so she wouldn’t tell me.”
“There you go. Doesn’t that feel gratifying to have worked it out yourself?”
Diana’s smile had never struck Ian as something dangerous before.
It did now. “What convinced her to tell you?”
“I promised no harm would come to the woman.”
Ian scoffed. “How much did you pay her?”
“Half a crown.”
Which she’d lifted from his coin purse.
“Fortunately, the good Polly Wren lives a short walk away,” Diana said. “Off Shelton Street.”
“Shelton Street is in the heart of St. Giles, surrounded by rookeries.”
“Oh, so you’ve been there?”
“No,” he said, a little too forcefully, to cover his annoyance that she was coercing so much out of him.
“We must consider that Jared’s…lady could have drugged him.”
Ian shook his head. His brother’s mistress was a probable suspect, and until he ruled her out, he wanted Diana nowhere near her. “Paying a visit to St. Giles is the height of foolishness.”
“Neither of us is helpless, Ian.” She raised her chin in a modest display of defiance. She’d venture into the cutthroat neighborhood, with or without him.
It left him feeling hollow, and a little awed at what she was willing to risk.
“Why are you pursuing this?” he rasped.
“You’re satisfied by what we found at the brothel?”
Most women in her station would be terrified to say the word brothel out loud to anyone. Never mind visit one to investigate the drugging of her fiancé. Now, she wanted to venture into the dodgiest corner of London, to confront her intended’s lover.
He almost laughed at her fearlessness.
“We don’t know what we don’t know,” he insisted.
“Which is why we can’t chase down shadows.
It’s unsafe—and I’m talking about care to your person.
Not your reputation, which becomes more and more precarious the longer we stay at this.
To continue on is not only asinine; it’s an enormous waste of time. ”
“But we are certain that someone hurt Jared. Until we know what rendered him in that state, we won’t know what will wake him from it. Or if he’ll ever wake.”
Ian hadn’t seriously entertained the idea that Jared wouldn’t recover. He was surprised at the twinge of guilt that surfaced when he thought he might not.
His relationship with his brother had been as strained as a tightrope from the moment they’d met. Little had changed over the last twenty-five years, but that didn’t mean Ian wished his brother dead.
He hoped to hell Diana didn’t either. Wanting Jared to depart the earth would imply she had deeper feelings for his brother than he’d dared to consider.
“No matter what happens to Jared, this series of events leaves too much unanswered,” Diana continued. “There are things that are forgivable and other things that are indefensible.”
She met Ian’s eyes. “If you were me, you’d want to know.”
Christ, she knew exactly where to aim her arrows.
Ian’s mother had concealed his existence from his father for the earliest part of his life. As an adult, he understood her reasons had been noble and justified; at the time, she wasn’t free to marry. But as a boy, learning he had a father and a brother had changed everything.
Diana knew this better than anyone else in his life.
And he knew, better than anyone else in her life, the havoc she could wreak when she discovered a justifiable motivation.
“Tell me honestly,” he said. “What will you do when we find out the truth of what happened?”
Her eyes drifted toward the darkening sky above them before returning to him. “I honestly don’t know.”
Over the years, he’d learned to detect lies by the tenor of a person’s voice, the small facial tics, evasive eyes, and rigid, distancing postures. None of them were present as Diana confessed her uncertainty.
The very fact she did made him want to believe her.
With a sigh, he reached into the carriage and retrieved an umbrella from beneath the bench. “This is not wise.”