Chapter 10 #3
“Caillen went upstairs to check on the children.” Simon paused, then said, “I need you to get them out of here today.”
Williamson met his gaze. “That’s not possible.”
“What do you mean it’s not possible? You’re in charge of the War Office. You can do anything you want to do.” Williamson’s choice of words suddenly struck a chord of truth. “You don’t want to move them,” he accused.
“I do not.”
Simon’s blood turned cold. He felt the violence he had learned at the hand of the French come to life.
He stalked the man. It didn’t matter that he limped, that he was shorter, that his strength had not yet returned.
He was out for vengeance in Caillen’s name and the children’s names.
No one would minimize their worth because of their circumstances of birth.
Not even the bloody Minister of War. He didn’t stop until they were toe to toe.
“Because they’re bastards? Because they’re beneath your purview?
Who is the actual bloody bastard, Williamson? You or them?”
Williamson eyed him with that famous expression of icy disdain he held for anyone other than the royal family.
The man would kill his own brother if he had to choose between him and their Regent.
At one time, Astley admired the singularity of the man’s commitment to his mission.
Now, he despised what it meant for his son, the woman he loved and her family.
A faint tick on Williamson’s cheek was the only hint that he was the least bit irritated with him. Good.
“I risked my life for your mission,” Simon accused.
“You risked your life to find the man who killed her father.”
“It was one and same.”
“Perhaps, but you exposed her in a manner that does not allow me to move her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Someone created the etching for The Whispers of the Ton, and that paper exposed her identity.”
Simon paused and thought about the article he’d only scanned. “It doesn’t name her.”
“The paper didn’t have to. Her sisters have been coming and going from this house as if it’s their own.”
It was true, and Simon had been oblivious. His leg began to cramp. He turned and paced the room, attempting to get the tight ball of tension in his calf to relax.
“The servants have seen enough to ruin her completely. Who do you think is leaking the information to that blasted scandal sheet?” Williamson asked.
“I don’t know! Just remove them all! Put a damned agent on every one of her sisters and make sure nothing happens to them!”
“I don’t have enough agents as it is, let alone to watch the comings and goings of five debutants and a duchess. I’ve been struggling to keep an agent on your residence twenty-four hours a day since that fire, and I just don’t have any more to spare.”
“Take your agents off my house and put them on Harding House. Then you can escort Caillen and the children there.”
“I can’t get Ross involved. At least if Lady Bredlebane and her brood are here, they will have an agent inside as well as one outside. And Ross doesn’t need to be involved.”
“Bloody hell.”
“You can’t get rid of her that easily, Astley. No matter how much you rant.”
Simon’s eyes narrowed. “Go to hell.”
“I’ve been there.”
“So have I.”
“Then we have something in common. Which means if we want to keep Lady Bredlebane and the children safe, they must stay here with you.”
“What about that gossip rag?”
“The cat is out of the bag, so we must live with it. You must live with it. The lady and her children will stay.”
“Thank you, Sir Williamson.” Caillen’s delicate voice made both men turn to the doorway, where she stood, her posture stubbornly straight.
Simon knew that pose. There would be no arguing with her.
“I will take your advice to stay here, since I agree that my place is here—for now. Thank goodness one of you is displaying a modicum of common sense.” She glided across the room with Charlotte perched on her arm and stopped in front of the bird’s roost at the window.
Charlotte climbed onto the perch and turned to face the room as if she were cozying up in the balcony seats of the latest theatre performance.
Caillen patted the bird on the head and sat down near the tea table with her back to the windows as a servant brought in the tea cart.
Caillen shook out her skirts and looked up.
“Will you both take a seat so that we may get down to the business of discussing my father’s death? ”
She’d changed into a mint green gown that brought out the catlike color of her eyes.
The sheer sleeves and the white ribbon tied firmly under her breasts added to her femininity and made her all the more pleasing to the eye.
A white fichu was stuck in the neckline of her gown in the same fashion a servant might wear, but the texture was that of smooth silk and brought forth a desire to tear it from her neck to use it in a much more pleasurable fashion.
She could not have looked more beautiful—unless she were naked.
Damn her for being everything he wanted, and everything he could not have. ?