Chapter 25
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
“What happened here?”
Laurence said nothing as Solomon ran his fingertips over the groove in his office floor, where three days earlier Ellen had slammed the fire poker into it. When several seconds ticked by and he still had not answered, Solomon looked up to him with an expectant look.
“You said you had news,” Laurence testily replied as he thrummed his impatient fingers against the top of his desk.
Solomon raised a challenging brow as he knelt over the splintered groove in the floor.
“I asked you a question,” he answered with authority.
“And I am obviously choosing to ignore that question,” Laurence retorted. “We have more important matters to attend to than the state of my floor, do we not?”
Solomon stood to his full height with a grace that belied his tall, solid form, and folded his arms across his chest.
“Alright then, let us talk about those scratches,” he countered, nodding toward Laurence. “The ones on your face and hands. They appear faded. I would wager they are two to three days old. What happened? Were you attacked by a feral cat?”
Laurence’s already bad mood darkened considerably.
Ellen had been feral. He had pushed her to become so.
And though he had intended to do so to teach her a lesson in self-preservation, the moment had ended up being one of the most depraved, wonderful, sexually charged moments in his entire life.
It was a moment that had been so twisted and wrong that even now, three days later, he could not bring himself to look in the mirror or approach Ellen.
The ones that try to appear so very good are often the ones with the most despicable tastes.
Benedict had said that at the ball, and after what transpired with Ellen, Laurence wondered if the man he loathed so much might have actually been right.
Laurence had always worn the mantle of protector with pride…
but what if he was wrong? What if there was something twisted and despicable that lived within him?
What if it was his wife, who had already gone through so much, bringing it out in him?
“Laurence!” Solomon snarled, bringing his fist down atop Laurence’s desk. “What happened here? What is going on in this house that you are not telling me?”
Laurence glared up at his lifelong friend, then stood up so fast he knocked over his desk chair.
“You will not speak this way to me in my own home; do you understand?” Laurence snapped with rage that was equal to his friend's. “I have everything in hand.”
“Do you?” Solomon asked, not missing a beat.
Laurence narrowed his gaze.
“Aside from what you thought you saw at the ball, what would make you think otherwise?” he demanded.
Solomon glowered right back.
“You think that is not enough?” he countered. “You held me back from pummeling Benedict when he spoke so flippantly about Annabel, yet the second you thought Benedict was going to touch Ellen, you were ready to break his wrist! You threatened to cut his hand off!”
“I promised her my protection!” Laurence roared.
“And she had it!” Solomon roared back, neither dominant man willing to back down. “You and I were both there! If he had tried to hurt her, we could have handled it. We could have gotten between them.”
“I was not going to allow him to lay a single finger on her after what he has done,” Laurence snarled back, stepping around his desk.
“You have not seen her, Solomon,” he went on as the two men stepped up to one another.
“You did not see how she would flinch at every loud noise when she first arrived. You do not hear her cries of protest through the walls at night, when she is having nightmares about what happened to her. Ellen is not like Annabel! She did not want to go to the auction! She was not just some spoiled, headstrong—”
Laurence’s head snapped back from the force of Solomon’s punch.
He ignored the pain blooming through his nose as he clenched his fists and cocked one back, but as his gaze found Solomon again, the urge to fight that had been building between them suddenly vanished.
Pain and sadness were etched into Solomon’s face as his chest heaved with deep breaths of rage and hurt.
He raised a trembling finger and shook his head as he bared his teeth.
“Do not dare,” Solomon panted, his deep voice wrought with raw pain. Do not dare even think that Annabel wanted what happened to her, or I swear to God, I will put you in the ground right now!”
Laurence slowly lowered his fist as he sagged backward to sit on his desk. He bowed his head and expelled a deep breath, sorrow and regret flooding through him.
“Of course I do not think that,” he rasped out. “Solomon, I am sorry. You are right. I am distracted.”
He rubbed at his face in frustration, and winced as fresh pain ebbed from his nose. It wasn’t broken. Wasn’t even bleeding, but Solomon had cocked him good.
“Corker of a right hook, by the way,” he muttered, wiggling his nose. “Did not even see it coming.”
He glanced up at Solomon, and was relieved that a ghost of a smile had lit across his friend’s lips.
“More proof of your distraction,” he countered matter of factly.
Laurence shot him a tired look, and Solomon’s stiff stature relaxed.
“I should not have cocked you,” Solomon said by way of an apology. “I just…I want this to be over, Laurence. I want the auction destroyed and I want…”
He paused with a heavy sigh.
“I want to try to move on with my life,” he continued, his deep voice trembling. “I cannot hold onto this sorrow…this rage… for much longer.”
“I know,” Laurence agreed, soul-weary and tortured. “Neither can I.”
He scraped his teeth over his bottom lip, doing his best to ignore the awful feeling rising within him.
“Madalene has told me that the Wellingtons are throwing a garden party in two weeks. Their daughter is a friend of hers, and my sister was able to sway their guest list. Benedict is now also invited. I shall speak to Ellen about being our bait again,” he explained.
Solomon gave a terse nod.
“That is all well and good, but I cannot simply do nothing for two weeks,” he countered.
“What do you suggest then?” Laurence replied.
“How would you feel about a bit of burglary?” Solomon cocked a brow as he crossed his arms.
Laurence’s eyes widened. “I assume you are about to explain?” he asked.
“While you have been doing…” Solomon paused to gesture toward the splintered mark upon the floor. “Whatever it is you have been doing these past few days, I have been visiting Scraper’s Tavern in the evenings.”
Laurence cocked his head in intrigue. Scraper’s Tavern was no illustrious public house or private club. In fact, it was the exact opposite. A little tavern known on Servant’s Alley for the working folks of Mayfair to get a drink in.
“What in the world have you been doing there?” he asked.
Solomon’s grin was mischievous.
“You would be surprised by how few people bother to look at your face when you swap out our pretty attire for common threads,” Solomon remarked.
“In doing so, I looked just like another servant, going in for a good ale after a long day of working for nobles. It is how I made friends with Blue Whitley.”
“And Blue Whitley is…?” Laurence asked.
“He is Benedict’s new valet,” Solomon explained. “A good, young boy who tries so hard to please his new master but sadly fails at every turn. He can get us into Benedict’s house, Laurence.”
Anticipation soared through Laurence’s veins.
“If we can find proof before the garden party—” he began.
“We could have him arrested in front of everyone,” Solomon finished for him. “Ruin his foul business and reputation all in one fell swoop—and finally be done with all of this.”