She was too experienced to show her shock, but she couldn’t keep it from chilling her veins. “Or you can let me go through with the auction and use the time to find the proof to force the magistrate to order his arrest.” The thought of Danbury’s hands on her made her stomach clench until she couldn’t breathe, but she’d learned to tuck her preferences out of the way for the greater good.
Gabriel’s hand cupped her cheek. “You may have been forced to use your body on behalf of your country, but I refuse to let you do the same for me. You’re to be my wife. I won’t share you with another. Not ever.”
Madeline’s throat burned. No one had ever hesitated to use her for his own ends. “I won’t go through with it, only make him think I am going to.”
“It’s still too dangerous. We have to assume from his threats he plans to kill you after the auction.”
“I’m used to risk.”
“But I’m not used to risking you.”
She blinked away the annoying tears in her eyes. “What will you do?”
“I’ll shoot him.”
“So you can hang for killing a peer?” Her voice rose more than she would have liked.
Gabriel cupped her face. “That scares you more than facing a murderer who wants you dead?”
Yes. She’d faced murderers before. She’d never faced losing the man she loved.
The rage in Gabriel’s eyes dimmed as he stared into hers. “I’ll try to have him arrested before I attempt anything else.”
He wasn’t promising not to kill Danbury. She couldn’t ignore the omission. “But if you cannot?”
“I will do what needs to be done.” He loosened the pins in her hair and sifted it through his fingers. “I tortured myself for years for not listening to Susan when she wanted to tell me about her suitor. Now I find I introduced her to the bastard.” The muscles along his jaw bunched. “He’s killed at least four people already. I know my duty.”
The trouble was, she understood. Her mind recognized his determination even if her heart did not.
But Gabriel had spent most of his life seeking justice. To kill a man in cold blood—even if it was a man he hated, a man who deserved to die—wouldn’t be something he could hide. He’d turn himself in and walk without protest to the gallows.
She’d kill Danbury herself before she’d let that happen.
But it wouldn’t come to that. She wouldn’t let it. “He won’t have a chance to kill anyone else.” She couldn’t offer comfort, but she could give Gabriel something better. A plan to catch the monster. Slowly, her thoughts fell into place.
The thoughts coursed through her, stirring uncertainty in her chest. She’d been so sure she needed to give up the characteristics she’d developed as a spy. But what if they weren’t the hindrance she thought? What if her life as a spy wasn’t something she had to reject but rather something she could build upon?
She stared at his resolute face and then placed a kiss on the hand that still pressed possessively on her cheek.
Gabriel would never approve of the plan.
She was tempted not to tell him. To let him discover her plan only after it was in motion. After all, a spy didn’t reveal her intentions to anyone, let alone the person most likely to derail them.
She was no longer a spy.
But how brave was the woman without that façade?
The question resonated deep within her. Could she trust him to believe in her?
She was about to find out. “I have a plan.”
M
adeline lounged on the polished oak counter at Naughton’s, her crossed legs exposing a fair amount of silk-clad calf.
With slow deliberation, she inched up her skirts to her knees. “My hem rises with the bids.”
The crowd howled encouragement to where Danbury, Lenton, and Wethersly hunched next to the betting book. The ledger rested untouched for several minutes until the cheers of the crowd got the better of Wethersly. He snatched the ledger and increased his bid. That set off a flurry of movement as the other two fought over the right to outdo him.
While everyone’s attention focused on the bidders, she scanned the room again, using her carefully selected vantage point to see over everyone’s heads to the entrance.
Gabriel still wasn’t here.
Madeline turned her attention back to the men overflowing the gaming hell. Sensible black coats rubbed against puce and lemon as men shouldered their way forward for a better view. Only Naughton’s burly footmen kept the crowd from sending her tumbling back over the edge of her wooden perch.
Madeline tugged on her skirts again, this time to keeping her fingers from tensing and betraying her nerves. She’d only ever run one mission with Gabriel, so why did she so keenly feel the lack of him now?
She glanced at the gold pocket watch that had been donated by one of the men standing near to her. Five minutes remained on the auction.
She could wait no longer to put her plan into action.
Madeline slid off the counter and glided toward Lenton. She rolled her shoulders, drawing his attention to her barely contained bosom, then dragged her finger down the valley between her breasts. Lenton’s lips slackened and his eyes took on that slightly protruding look.
Yet rather than approaching him, she wandered toward Wethersly, letting her backside brush across his thigh. Breath wheezed out of the older gentleman, and if she hadn’t known his reputation, she would have feared he was suffering an apoplexy.
“Sweet heavens, I cannot wait to get out of this dress.” Tugging on the fabric of her bodice, she provided both gentlemen an unobstructed view down her dress.
Lenton nearly knocked the ink to the floor in his haste to grab the book. The crowd shouted encouragement. Wethersly puffed in outrage and reached for the book at the same time as Danbury.
Madeline flounced directly into Danbury’s path, blocking him. “Do say you are about to bid again.” She placed her hand on his cheek. Her first three fingers aligned with the scars on his cheek, the pale marks suddenly infinitely more ominous than they’d been the week before.
She trapped the fear lacing through her veins and twisted it into anger. Yet she kept both emotions from her face as Danbury’s hands slid down her arms and lifted her from his path. “Of course I’ll bid. I planned to win all along.”
As Danbury moved past her, she felt the humming awareness of Gabriel’s eyes on her. Silly, when a hundred men fixated on her like starving dogs, but the sensation tingled down her spine.
He was here.
In response to her beseeching smile, one of the footmen placed her back onto the counter. She searched the crowd until she found Gabriel. He stood by the main entrance, speaking with a dark-haired Runner.
After the other man hurried outside, Gabriel strode to her side and pulled the watch from her fingers. His hand slid over hers in a gentle contact that was far too brief.
“Where were you?” Madeline asked.
“There was something I had to take care of.” He turned to the crowd. “Five seconds remain.”
“There’s—” Madeline stopped. It hardly mattered if he ended the auction ten seconds early.
She started the count. “Five . . . four . . .”
Lenton tried to wrest the book from Danbury, but Danbury blocked him with his forearm.
Danbury grinned. “Trust me. It’s for your own good.”
Wethersly stood back, the wrinkles on his face rearranged into angry slashes, but he didn’t try to fight the book from the younger, larger man.
The crowd joined in on cue. “Three . . . two . . . one!” They surged forward, straining to see the unassuming black leather book.
Gabriel held out his hand and Danbury passed him the book. After a quick jotted note at the bottom, Gabriel tore the page free and held it high. “Earl of Danbury wins.”
The gathered men erupted into cheers, pounding congratulatory fists on Danbury’s back and onto the bar. The wooden planks under Madeline vibrated with the celebration. Wethersly stomped away, his lips clearly forming a few choice blasphemies. Lenton, on the other hand, blindly accepted a tankard of half-finished ale and gulped it without pause.
Danbury’s arm snaked around Madeline’s waist, the weight of his embrace tight and controlling. “Well, gentlemen, I’ll take this creature off your hands.”
The crowd shouted its approval, peppering it with ribald suggestions for deflowering her.
“You’re free, too, Huntford,” Danbury said.
Gabriel folded the page with crisp lines, then tucked it in his waistcoat. The muscle at his jaw twitched, but when he looked up, his gaze was empty. “Actually, I’m required to see to the matter of payment first.”
Madeline had to raise her voice to be heard. “Shall we go somewhere a little more private?” She tipped her head toward the door leading outside.
Thirty minutes later, Gabriel and Danbury stood around a desk in her study.
Danbury wrote his bank draft with a flourish. Gabriel examined it, then nodded. “I will see this delivered to your bank, Madeline. Good day.” With a bow, and without a glance back, he left. His step echoed through the front hall and down the front stair.
Danbury pulled aside the curtain and watched him leave, then with a slow smile he turned to her, his eyes gleaming with anticipation.
T
he lighter notes of Madeline’s laugher floated over the deeper murmur of Danbury’s voice.
Maddox’s heavy hand on his shoulder was the only thing that kept Gabriel from charging back into the study.
“Fine, but let’s share a drink before we depart,” Madeline was saying.
The heavy wooden door muffled Danbury’s reply.
This was insanity. Hadn’t he learned his lesson with Billingsgate? He shouldn’t have let her out of his sight.
“If you don’t let her do this, she’ll find some way to do it on her own,” Maddox said.
That was the reason Gabriel had agreed. He knew what she was capable of. But he had insisted on some modification of her plan. Despite her protests, he’d be there to protect her the entire time.
As Madeline’s voice whispered through to the adjoining parlor where Gabriel waited, his hand dropped to the doorknob.
“—in Paris?” Madeline was asking. Glass clinked as she poured drinks.
Gabriel’s hand tightened on the smooth brass.
“I haven’t been to Paris in a long time.” Danbury’s response was lazy and unconcerned.
“Really? I could have sworn I saw you there. At a ball.”
“Well, I hate to contradict a lady, but you’re mistaken.” The first note of suspicion entered his tone.
Gabriel gave Maddox a curt nod, and with serpentine grace, Madeline’s friend slipped from the room.
With a slow exhale, Gabriel forced the knots from his shoulders.
“I hear you saved young Evans from that fortune hunter that had latched her claws into him,” Madeline said.
Danbury’s voice regained its swagger. “We gentlemen need to look out for each other.”
“Women apparently do, too. Did you hear they found a girl strangled two weeks ago? And she was a decent girl, a teacher. They think the murderer might have other victims.”
“Not everyone is as decent as they appear,” Danbury said.
Gabriel twisted the knob silently and pressed it forward the merest fraction. Danbury had begun to realize he was being purposefully interrogated.
As they’d planned.
“Surely you heard about it,” Madeline said.
“No.”
“But you’ve been to all the places where the murdered women were found.”
“You
do
remember, you little liar.”
Madeline gasped in pain.
Gabriel exploded through the door, his pistol already in his hand. Danbury held a fistful of Madeline’s hair; her body was bent backward at a painful angle.
The gun was supposed to be used for effect, but it was loaded. Gabriel barely kept his finger from tightening on the trigger.
Danbury yanked Madeline against him and clamped his hand around her throat. “Ah, Huntford, I feared you’d be behind this.”
“Let her go,” Gabriel ordered.
“And allow you to blow out my brains? I don’t think so. Drop it.”
Gabriel hesitated. Madeline had told him he mustn’t appear to give in easily. Danbury had to believe he’d won. She could handle whatever Danbury decided to do to her.
Madeline’s face darkened under the constriction on her neck. Her chest convulsed as she tried to breathe, rapid spasms across her ribs and stomach.
Enough. Gabriel dropped the gun.
“Kick it under the desk.”
Danbury released Madeline. As she sucked in a rasping breath, he drew his own gun from his jacket and pointed it at her. “Sit, Huntford.”
When Gabriel hesitated, Danbury cocked the gun.
Gabriel sat.
“Get your rope.” Danbury thrust her forward. “Did you think I wouldn’t notice that you had one hidden under the table?”
Madeline walked with small, halting steps to the rope.
“Let her go. Your quarrel is with me, Danbury.”
Although Danbury’s attention wavered from Madeline, his gun did not. “Quarrel? I have no quarrel with you.”
“You killed my sister.”
Danbury shook his head wearily. “All I’ve done is protect my friends from trollops.”
“My sister was no trollop.”
“I thought well of her, too, until I chanced upon her in the park. She flirted like a shameless hussy. On our second outing, she panted while I put my hand in her bodice.”
Only the gun pointed at Madeline kept him in his chair. The perverted bastard. “You took advantage of her. Then you killed her for it?”
Danbury shifted slightly. “I never said I killed her. Only that she pretended to be a virgin when clearly she was not. It was a test and she failed.”
“You had no right to judge.”
“No right to judge a woman trying to dupe me?” Danbury sounded like a tutor who’d been given a particularly foolish student.
“You’re the liar.”
“No, Madeline and others like her are.” His eyes were wide and earnest as he waved his gun at Madeline. “Can’t you see that? She isn’t a virgin. None of them are, yet they try to trick you into believing it. And she’s worse than all the others. Flaunting it. She almost succeeded in bamming all of London. The brightest minds produced by Oxford and Cambridge, felled by a harlot.”