Chapter Thirty-Two
Nicholas took the stairs like a man walking on clouds. He had meant what he said to Bea. He needed to hear what Fletcher had to say, but the truth was his mind was only half on the man waiting below.
The other half was still in his bed.
He could feel her in the warm indentation on the mattress, in the faint scent of her on his skin, in the memory of the scrape of her nails along his shoulders. Every step he took away from that room felt simultaneously like sacrilege and triumph.
She was in his house.
She was in his bed.
She was, in every important sense, his.
He smiled to himself as he tugged on the ends of his waistcoat and started down the curving staircase, his boots silent on the runner.
Marriage.
He rolled the word around in his head like a fine brandy on his tongue.
He had always expected marriage to be a transaction. An alliance. A line on some invisible tally sheet his father and Winston kept in their pockets. House A joins House B to strengthen Position C.
Useful. Predictable. Necessary.
And while he’d wanted Bea for years, he had never, until now, really allowed himself to imagine that it might also be…this.
Madness, certainly. Daily chaos, perhaps. But also something bright and crackling and alive. Like standing in the middle of a summer storm with his arms outstretched, daring the lightning to find him.
Beatrix Winslow.
Beatrix Archer, Lady Vanover.
The thought made his chest feel too full.
Of course, if word got out about Bea’s arrival at his town house today, both his father and Winston wouldn’t like it. But let them sputter and preen. Let them mutter about propriety. Nicholas would gladly endure a dozen lectures if it meant waking up every morning with Bea in his arms.
He could see it already—her in his breakfast room, hair loosely pinned, eyes flashing over the morning papers as she eviscerated every poorly argued editorial; her in his carriage, arguing with him all the way to a dinner party; her at his side in the gallery at Parliament, lips twitching around remarks she’d never before been allowed to say aloud.
He’d happily defend her against God and country for the rest of his life…not that she needed defending. The woman was fully capable of handling herself and anyone who dared cross her path, and as the Marchioness of Vanover she’d be much more powerful. That should please her.
Then there was the little matter of what they were like in bed together.
His lips curved into a smile. He’d never imagined anything like it. Pleasure, yes. But the combustion that had been their making love. He hadn’t dared to hope it would be that good.
He reached the bottom of the stairs, the smile still tugging at his mouth. The door to his study stood open; beyond it, the figure of a man waited near the hearth, hat in hand.
Nicholas drew in a steadying breath, schooling his expression into something less like besotted satisfaction and more like professional courtesy.
No one needed to know he had just ruined the Duke of Winston’s daughter.
Well.
Not yet. And then, only if it was necessary for her father to see reason and ensure the marriage took place. After the duke’s thinly veiled threats last night, their afternoon together was a bit of insurance for Nicholas.
As for what she’d been struggling to tell him since she arrived…
he suspected he already knew what it was.
And he’d had good reason to attempt to delay her words.
He’d hoped for exactly what was happening right now…
a visit from Fletcher. Fletcher was about to reveal the identity of B.
Adroit, which made Bea’s confession unnecessary.
She didn’t have to torture herself with a betrayal.
He was about to learn the name from a source of his own.
Her extreme worry did, however, give him pause. For months, he’d been convinced that the cartoonist was a stranger. Now, he was fairly certain it was someone he knew. It was obviously someone Bea knew. A footman in Winston’s house, perhaps?
It was time to find out.
Nicholas stepped into the study.
“Lord Vanover,” Fletcher said, straightening. The Bow Street Runner was in his late thirties, wiry, with a sharp, clever face and eyes that missed very little. “My apologies for the unexpected visit, my lord.”
“Not to worry, Fletcher.” Nicholas glanced at the clock on the mantel: half past four. He’d spent most of the afternoon in bed with Bea. But even if her father was waiting to call him out, he couldn’t regret a moment of it.
“I have the information you requested,” the man supplied with a deferential bob of his head.
“Excellent.” Nicholas moved behind his desk, more to give his hands something to do than from any particular need to sit.
Fletcher reached into his coat pocket and withdrew a small, folded square of vellum, sealed with a dab of wax.
Nicholas’s heart gave one hard thump. He was about to discover the identity of the man who had been making his life a particular form of hell for over two years now.
He’d told himself it was about political strategy. About understanding his adversary. About anticipating attacks and parrying them before they landed. About setting the record straight.
But now he had to admit to himself that he wanted to know because he simply couldn’t bear not knowing. Because he hated that someone had been moving pieces on the board behind his back.
A thought he rarely let himself consider flashed through his brain. Was it someone he trusted?
He reached for the vellum, his hand suddenly not as steady as he liked.
“Before I open this,” he said lightly, “assure me I haven’t agreed to pay you a small fortune to be told B. Adroit is, in fact, a figment of my imagination.”
Fletcher gave a curt shake of the head. “I assure you, my lord. B. Adroit is quite real.”
Nicholas broke the seal with his thumb and looked down at the vellum.
One name. Three words.
Three incomprehensible words.
Lady Beatrix Winslow.
For a heartbeat, his brain refused to process the letters.
He blinked, then read them again.
Beatrix.
No.
That was impossible.
He stared at the vellum, waiting for the letters to rearrange themselves into something sensible. His most formidable opponents in Parliament. Some obscure pamphleteer. Hargrave, even. Winston’s footman. Anyone but—
His brows snapped together. “Is this meant to be a jest?” His voice simmered.
Fletcher actually blinked—once, sharply—as if the very idea had knocked his well-ordered thoughts askew. “A jest, my lord?”
Nicholas lifted his gaze, the smile gone from his mouth, the warmth gone from his chest, leaving something cold and sharp in its place.
“You’ve given me the name of the Duke of Winston’s daughter,” he said. “The same Lady Beatrix whom I am currently courting. The same Lady Beatrix whose father would have your head on a spike if this were some mistake. So, I will ask you again. Is this supposed to be amusing?”
Fletcher swallowed, then shook his head. “No, my lord. No jest.”
Nicholas’s jaw clenched. “Explain.”
Fletcher shifted his weight, the faintest hint of discomfort crossing his features. “I followed the trail as we discussed, my lord. Talked to the printers’ lads. Most had no idea of the person behind the sketches, but one—” He smiled faintly. “One boy likes to talk when he’s had a bit of gin.”
Nicholas said nothing. His pulse pounded in his ears.
“He said the servant was careful,” Fletcher continued. “Always used the slot. Always kept their face in shadow. But came regular as clockwork.”
Fletcher continued, “Appeared to be a lady’s maid. As I told you before, I followed her home. To a ducal household in London. But I had to be certain of the artist’s identity.”
“You’re certain it wasn’t a footman?” Nicholas prodded.
“After I followed the maid the first time,” Fletcher said simply. “I kept watch.” He met Nicholas’s gaze. “And I saw the same woman. Saw her with my own eyes. Turns out she wasn’t a maid at all, but a lady. Tall, blond hair, eyes the color of the sea on a cloudy day, and—”
“Enough!” Nicholas’s fingers tightened around the vellum. A sick feeling began to coil in his stomach.
But Fletcher didn’t stop. “I have served Bow Street ten years. I do not bring a name to a gentleman of your position unless I’m certain of it, my lord.”
A strange roaring filled Nicholas’s head. His mind flashed back—unbidden—to Bea in his drawing room earlier, standing by the hearth with her hands clenched, saying, There are things about me you don’t know. To her muttered, I came here to tell you the truth. I meant to.
He had kissed her instead.
He felt suddenly, violently tired.
Nicholas folded the vellum slowly, his jaw tight enough to ache.
Bea.
A laugh rose in his throat and died there. Of course. Of course it was her. The sharpness of the lines, the way the humor cut clean, the occasional surprising kindness tucked amid the scathing accusations—it was all her.
She’d been skewering him with her drawings while he’d been searching for a man. Merely assuming she might be feeding information to the real culprit. No wonder she’d been so anxious.
He’d been a fool.
She’d even named herself…B. And Adroit was obvious enough. A cunning nod to her cleverness.
And yet.
He had been paying a man to discover the truth while she had been gathering the shredded pieces of her courage to offer it herself.
Now the truth sat in his hand, written in another man’s ink.
“Thank you, Mr. Fletcher,” he said, voice clipped.
Fletcher relaxed as if a tension had eased. “You’re satisfied then, my lord?”
Satisfied.
The word tasted like ash.
“I am satisfied that you have done the job I asked of you,” Nicholas said. “Payment as agreed.”
He opened the top drawer of his desk, withdrew a small, heavy purse, and set it atop the polished wood. Fletcher stepped forward eagerly.
“Take it,” Nicholas said shortly.
Fletcher did, the purse disappearing into his coat with practiced speed.
“One more thing.” Nicholas hoisted a second heavy purse from the drawer.
“Yes, my lord?”
“This name does not leave this house,” Nicholas said quietly, waving the vellum between two fingers. “Not to Winston. Not to Hargrave. Not to your superiors. Not to anyone.” He tossed the second purse at the man.
Fletcher caught it and nodded quickly. “Of course, my lord.” His mouth twitched. “I’ve no wish to cross the Duke of Winston. Or you, for that matter.”
“See that you don’t,” Nicholas said.
Fletcher bowed. “Good day to you, Lord Vanover.”
When the door closed behind the Runner, Nicholas remained seated for a long, motionless moment, the folded vellum a small, damning weight in his hand.
Bea.
A hundred images layered themselves in his mind: her in his bed a short while ago, golden hair spread over his pillow, eyes dark and trusting; her at Lord Chelmsford’s table, chin lifted, eyes blazing as she refused to be cowed by Hargrave; her in countless ballrooms, cool and aloof, refusing to dance with him.
Her ink, slicing through speeches, exposing hypocrisies, turning his allies and friends into grotesque caricatures, along with himself.
He had known, somewhere deep down where instinct lived, that she was formidable.
He had not realized how fully she was loaded and aimed at the world he inhabited.
He set the vellum down on the desk and smoothed a palm over it once.
Then he stood.
There would be time to think later. To interrogate his own reaction…to the lie, to the truth, to the fact that he had just taken to bed the very mind that had mercilessly dissected his public self.
Right now, there was only one thing that mattered.
She was upstairs. In his bed. Waiting.
And she would know he knew the truth.
He left the study without looking back. He took the stairs two at a time.
His body hummed with a fury he didn’t quite know where to direct. At her for lying. At himself for not seeing it sooner. At the world for constructing a system in which the only way a woman like Bea could wield a pen like that was from behind a mask.
He remembered her voice in the drawing room: I wanted you to know me. And later: I feel safe with you.
He reached the landing and turned down the corridor, heart pounding harder with every step.
He didn’t know precisely what he would say when he saw her, whether the first words out of his mouth would be, Why didn’t you tell me?
or How in God’s name did you think you could keep this from me?
or—fool that he was—How long have you been this brilliant?
He only knew he had to see her face.
He reached his bedchamber door. His hand closed on the handle, twisted. The door swung inward.
The bed was empty.
The sheets—still rumpled, still bearing the imprint of their time together—were cooling. The indentation where her body had lain was flattening slowly, inexorably, as if she had never been there at all.
Nicholas stood on the threshold, staring.
His gaze tracked around the room—the chair by the window, empty; the hearth, quiet; no flash of blond hair tucked in a corner; no telltale swirl of skirts.
“Bea?” he called, even though he knew there would be no answer.
He took a few steps into the room, as if she might materialize if he got closer.
On the floor by the bed lay a small ribbon, bright green, torn from her hair at some point. He bent and picked it up, fingers closing around the scrap of silk.
Gone.
She had dressed herself—somehow, quietly—and slipped out while he was downstairs talking to the man who had just sold him her secret.
Nicholas straightened slowly, the ribbon clutched in his fist.
For a moment he felt…nothing.
Then everything hit at once.
Anger. Not the clean, satisfying anger he sometimes felt in debate, but a muddled, painful sort that tangled with something like panic.
She’d walked through his house alone, and slipped past his servants, out into the street.
Without him. Without the cloak of his protection.
With no idea what waited for her at home, having been gone so long… alone.
And fully knowing he knew her secret now.
Hell. He raked a hand through his hair.
Of course she’d run. The second she was left alone with her thoughts, she would have seen what he had stubbornly refused to acknowledge while her skin was still warm under his hands.
She had been trying to tell him. She had almost told him.
He had kissed her instead.
He looked down at the ribbon in his hand.
Bea.
B. Adroit.
His future wife. His most dangerous enemy.
He had been an utter fool.