Page 90 of An Unexpected Earl

The smile of admiration that curled on his lips twisted her insides, and she swallowed, hard, to keep from casting up her accounts. He was a monster.

Apparently so was Frederick.

“Your brother has spine, I have to say,” he muttered to himself. “If his scheming wasn’t solely directed at his own gain, he might have been a valuable asset to acquire within our ranks.”

“You mean Scepter?” she challenged, fighting to keep the quavering from her voice. As if a veil of fog had been lifted, she saw how all the pieces fit together now…her marriage, the trust, Scepter.

His expression darkened to a chilling hardness. He returned her gaze for a long moment, then he began to drum his fingers against his thigh where he rested his hand. She could feel the tension radiating from him with every rotation of the carriage wheels beneath them.

“My brother has caused problems for me by having yours arrested,” he told her quietly. “That wasn’t at all part of my plan. I honestly did want to arrive in time to stop it.”

He tugged at his neckcloth, untying the disheveled knot that he’d put there himself before he arrived home. Or by the woman he’d been with…the woman whose presence had convinced her to step inside the carriage with him. Fresh fear licked at the base of her spine. Not his cousin. A lure.

She glanced out the window. The carriage was headed in the wrong direction for Westminster, traveling east instead.

“Howard’s useless to me now,” he muttered, almost to himself, letting the neckcloth dangle undone around his neck. “But there’s someone else of value whom I can use to put those last three men into place.”

She held her terrified breath. “Who?”

“Lord Sandhurst. I’m certain he can be convinced to push through the trust in the next few days before Parliament’s session ends.”

“He won’t.” Of that, she was certain. She doubted Frederick and everything he’d told her, doubted her father and all of Papa’s concern for her—but she wouldneverdoubt Pearce again.

“Oh, I think he will.” Varnham rubbed the tight muscles at his nape. When he pulled his hand away, he slipped off the unwanted neckcloth. “After all, I have a way to make certain of it.”

“What is that?”

“You.” He lunged for her.

Twenty-four

Pearce strode into the Armory, not caring that the iron door rattled so loudly in his wake that it jarred bones all the way to Cheapside.

Merritt glanced up from the billiards table, remaining bent over the table as he lined up his shot. For once, he and Clayton Elliott were battling it out over billiards instead of with swords. Which could only mean one thing—

Marcus Braddock was here.Thank God.

“General!” Pearce’s shout echoed off the stone walls of the old building and caught Merritt and Clayton’s attention. Enough that the two men interrupted their game, waiting for an explanation.

“What is it?” Marcus stepped out of the training room, unwinding a long piece of cloth from his left hand. He wore only a pair of breeches and the cloth that protected his knuckles from cuts and bruises when he pounded them into the bags he used to keep his fighting edge. The sheen of sweat that glistened across his bare chest, shoulders, and arms gave testimony to how hard he’d been training. And how much of a threat he believed Scepter to be.

Pearce grimaced. “I have news to report.”

Clayton and Merritt exchanged troubled glances. They’d parted from him that morning just as dawn was breaking over the city and just after he’d gladly left the Hellfire club, when he’d shared with them what he’d learned, including a detailed description of the other three trustees. True to his word, Howard had introduced him to them, right after dinner and right before a dozen new nuns had descended into the underworld. After that, the meeting deteriorated into little more than an orgy. Feast of Venus, indeed.

Pearce had barely gotten two hours’ sleep when he was roused from bed by McTavish, with a note from Amelia delivered by her maid.

“Frederick Howard’s been arrested,” he informed all three men, instantly claiming their complete attention.

While they all stared at him silently, absorbing that information, he helped himself to a glass of cognac from the sideboard. One he desperately needed.

“I spent all morning trying to get him released. Nothing worked. He’s still in the New Prison.” Pearce splashed out the golden liquid, then put the stopper back into the crystal bottle with a small clink. “Sir Charles Varnham is determined not only to strip Howard of his seat in Parliament but also to see him either put into prison permanently or transported. I argued with him for two hours.”

He’d lingered so long with the man only because Amelia’s note said she was going to Westminster to confront him, and he wanted to be there when she arrived. But she never came. When he’d gone to the town house after her, Drummond informed him that she hadn’t yet returned. Most likely because she’d gone to the Inns of Court, desperate to hire a lawyer to defend a brother who didn’t deserve it.

Pearce tossed back a large swallow and welcomed the burn down his throat. “Varnham refuses to rescind the charges.”

Marcus said nothing as he shrugged into the shirt he’d left lying over the back of one of the leather sofas. If Howard had been anyone else, Pearce knew, the general might have offered to speak to Varnham himself and leverage his newfound ducal influence, if only for Amelia’s sake. But not when Howard’s connection to Scepter was still unknown.