Chapter 12 #2
But they remained in the shadows, behind crumbling columns and fractured arches, standing among the ghosts of the past.
Saint-Clair would be the last to show himself. He was dead to anyone who had once known him by that name.
Not to Dominic. Nor to Montfort or Stanton.
This monthly meeting proved two things. The bond had not been severed. The oath was as strong as the day they made it. Eight years, and still the ton clung to the scandal like carrion birds to bone.
Seconds stretched.
Then he saw it—the glint of a coin in the darkness. Montfort moved without breath or footfall. Pale hair caught what little light remained. His expression was composed, almost scholarly, if one ignored the cold calculation in his eyes.
“You could divest a nun of her drawers and she’d be none the wiser,” Stanton said as he entered the chapel. The Devil of Fleet Street never minced words. His greatcoat hung open, inky hair falling across his brow, eyes sharp and appraising as a barrister sizing up a liar.
Montfort chuckled softly. “As a man devoted to facts, you should know they wear none. Did you not study liturgy?”
Dominic emerged from the shadows. “We were spared the refinements of Oxford, forced to make do with experience.”
“Oxford teaches more than refinements. How to creep past a snoring brute. How to refuse certain invitations after midnight.”
“How a tragedy can unite men as brothers,” came Saint-Clair’s voice from the dark. “Toss your coins on the ground, gentlemen. After all, what’s a pact without a little pomp and ceremony?”
Dominic cast his coin first. He had nothing to prove to these men.
Stanton flicked his with careless precision.
Montfort’s barely sounded as it landed near his boots.
Saint-Clair stepped into view, the gentleman they had hanged in all but name, composure polished to a dangerous sheen. He flipped his coin through his fingers as he had the day they were forged. “Veritas Vincit,” he said in his usual mocking tone. “Truth conquers. If only it could be relied upon.”
They all stared at their bronze discs. The wolf stamped into the metal was Saint-Clair’s idea, a reminder a man must be savage when protecting his own.
Daphne Harland slipped into his thoughts.
Irving was no different from the predators they’d once faced. And Dominic would not hesitate to bare his teeth.
“Business first,” Saint-Clair said.
These meetings always began with a report.
Stanton retrieved his coin and slid it into his waistcoat pocket. He raked a hand through hair as dark as Miss Harland’s. Dominic doubted it smelled of roses.
“There was a sighting of you on Hounslow Heath in last week’s Satirist. Lady Askew claimed you held up her coach and stole her diamond and demantoid garnet pendant.”
And Hounslow Heath had since become a fashionable haunt for ladies with restless imaginations.
Saint-Clair’s mocking snort echoed through the ruins. “The Satirist likes to rake the dirt for truth. I may be an Englishman, but my blood once guarded the gates of Normandy for Viking jarls.”
Dominic picked up his coin, rubbing his thumb over the motto that haunted his dreams. “I read the article. I found the lady’s dissolute brother at a demimonde party.”
While Miss Harland undressed for bed, he had dulled his thoughts the only way he knew how—dragging the sot into the hall and shaking a confession from his scrawny frame.
“Lady Askew lost a small fortune at cribbage and was afraid to tell her husband. I sent a note to Montfort.”
Saint-Clair arched a brow. “You, at a demimonde party? I’m almost tempted to check you’re not wearing a mask.”
“I’ll explain when we discuss personal affairs.” He would trust these men with his life. They’d be astonished to learn he’d agreed to watch the stars and drink chocolate.
Montfort must have used sleight of hand to take his coin. One moment it lay between them, the next it had vanished.
“I did what I do best. Entered Lady Askew’s house while they were at Vauxhall. Found the receipt of sale from a pawnbroker in Covent Garden, tucked inside her stocking drawer.”
Saint-Clair smiled as he faced Stanton. “You published a rebuttal along with the broker’s statement and informed the authorities?”
Stanton nodded. “Lord Askew published an apology. Bastian Saint-Clair remains a myth.”
“And so we ride on, culling liars.”
They fell silent, the lies that bound them never far from their thoughts.
“How is Adrienne?” Dominic asked.
The faint amusement in Saint-Clair’s eyes died at the mention of his sister. “Still afraid to sleep, even after all these years.”
Dominic often lay awake reliving that night. The dawn appointment that marked them all as outcasts. They had been witnesses. Still allowed to walk as free men. Saint-Clair had not been so fortunate.
“Anything else to report?” Saint-Clair said, though he was rarely hopeful these days. “No gossip? No rumours? Or will the truth forever elude us?”
“Mallory’s brother is considering a return to England,” Dominic said. Debauchery loosened tongues as easily as it loosened morals. “There’s still talk you stole into the house at night and abducted their sister. That you keep her prisoner in a stairless tower.”
“Vienna Mallory.” Saint-Clair scoffed. “I’d wager she eloped with a pirate, threw him overboard, and now captains the deadliest ship on the high seas.”
“The Mallorys never forgave you for surviving,” Montfort said.
“They got justice. I’m a man in invisible chains.”
The bronze wolf lay between them, amid dust and fallen mortar. A reminder that none of them had walked away unscathed.
Saint-Clair took his coin and turned it once across his knuckles before catching it. “Adrienne is restless and longs to return to town. I cannot allow that. She resents it.” He slipped the coin into his pocket. “Enough about me. Stanton?”
“The Sentinel continues to print facts, not fiction. Work remains my only indulgence.”
Dominic cleared his throat. “That’s no longer true for me.”
They looked at him like he’d stepped from the ruined cloisters in a burial shroud. Their expressions did not soften once he’d explained his predicament.
“Harland may not be the villain?” Saint-Clair gave a curious hum. “Interesting. There’s hope for me yet.”
“You’ve moved Miss Harland into your home?” Stanton spoke like he wished he could print it in the morning Sentinel.
“Into a cottage on the estate.” One he visited more than he should. One he did not leave easily. “A temporary arrangement. Until I’m convinced she’s safe.”
The word temporary rang thin.
Saint-Clair laughed. “It’s worse than we thought. Lying to one’s friends is bad enough. Lying to oneself is a mortal sin.”
“Do you need anything from us?” Montfort asked. “You have more resources than the devil has souls. Still, we have our uses.”
Montfort was right. Dominic’s ledger of favours was thicker than a cathedral Bible. All it proved was men could be bought. Most men. Not these ones.
“If Harland was incapable of siring a child, then I want proof. Who was his physician? Can he be trusted?”
Someone had fathered his mother’s unborn child.
If it wasn’t Harland, who the hell was it?
“I can gather that information,” Stanton said. “I have my sources. I doubt the report still exists, but I can dig deep enough to draw marrow from bone.”
Dominic grinned. “Have you thought of working for the Crown?”
“Who says I don’t?” Stanton replied.
“For Lucifer’s sake, don’t tell them you meet with a suspected criminal.” Saint-Clair rubbed his wrist like he could feel rope burn. “I’ll not be hauled out of here like a friar at the Dissolution.”
“After eight years of celibacy, that’s a tightly drawn distinction,” Montfort said.
“A fugitive becomes accustomed to his own company.”
Despite Saint-Clair’s amused tone, Dominic recognised the sound of a man resigned to solitude. Yet he would not be alone tonight. He’d be watching his angel drink chocolate while she coaxed his secrets free. He would not dwell on what might come after.
Keen to be on the road to Kingston, he said, “I need a list of every property Irving owns in London. Warehouses. Townhouses. Leases under other names.”
“I can find a crumb in a haystack,” Montfort said, accepting the task. “You suspect this missing clerk may have been abducted?”
“If Edward Brown signed that document, he’s either a fool or a prisoner.” No man about to enforce a marriage contract would allow a witness to roam London unguarded. If Irving meant to secure a bride, he’d secure the witness first.
Just the thought of her with that old fool fired his blood. The notion of her with any man had his hands curling at his sides, violence whispering through his veins.
Saint-Clair was right. He had lied. There was nothing temporary about his craving for Miss Harland.
He told himself it would pass, but the signs were there. He hadn’t slept. He’d spent an hour watching her cottage from an upstairs window. He could smell her, taste her, sense her before she stepped into a room.
Instinct urged caution.
The only woman he’d ever loved had been taken from him. Why did he feel Miss Harland would leave him too?