The Scandalous Duke Takes a Bride (27 page)

He captured her hands and pulled her down to sit across his lap. “We could have called the bobbies. They’d have at least put him somewhere secure for the evening. I can’t have you living here, fearing for your life, having to check every sound that’s out of order.”

“Believe it or not, I can take care of myself, Hayden.”

“I never thought you couldn’t.” His hands brushed over her back, catching on the beaded buttons of her gown. “And I would rather Miller’s death was on my hands than yours, Jess. Why didn’t you tell me you purchased up his chits?”

“I needed leverage in the event that he tried to expose any of my other secrets.” She closed her eyes and snuggled closer to Hayden. The comfort she took in his presence was astounding.

Worried. Defenseless. Agitated. Angry. Those were par for the course for her life with Fallon. But Fallon was no more. He couldn’t hurt her and he certainly couldn’t lay another finger on her for the rest of her life. She wrapped her arms tighter around Hayden’s waist, not ready to give up the sensation of perfect peace she felt in his embrace.

As soon as she let go would he barrage her with more questions about Miller, about marriage, about her future? She just wanted to tune it all out and think only of herself for a moment.

“I’ll always be worried about your welfare, Jess. I swear I lay awake at night wondering what trouble you’ve found yourself in when you’re not with me and how I can dig you out. That’s my constant state of mind where you’re concerned.”

She pulled away from their hug and met his steady gaze. “I haven’t caused any lasting trouble for years. So your worry is for naught.”

“Had Fallon not been the man he was, you’d have continued to swindle away his false fortune in gambling hells and God knows where else. You caused quite the stir in the first few years as the Countess of Fallon. Do you blame me for worrying?”

“How many years ago was it that I last stepped into a gaming hell?” She smiled, finding amusement in his worry.

“Not long enough.”

“Dare I remind you?”

“Not right now. I’m just glad I found Miller tonight before you did.”

She was, too, but didn’t say so. What would have happened had she happened upon Miller first? He could have treated her like he’d witnessed her husband treating her far too many times to count. He might have raised a hand against her. He could have hurt her and done far worse a crime than he’d already committed.

Her fingers curled tighter around Hayden’s arms. None of it deserved thought. She had to put it behind her. What she should be worried about was that she’d placed a death sentence on Miller’s head. It wouldn’t be long before his seedy
friends
caught up with him.

Hayden’s hand never stopped stroking the length of her back. The soothing sensation put her in a trance-like state.

She pulled away from him even though it was the last thing she wanted to do. The night had been trying and her emotions were all over the place. She had tears so close to falling that even her voice wavered as she tried to say something.

“Jess.”

When he reached for her she shook her head, evading his touch. One comforting embrace was all it would take to have those tears let loose.

She shook her head and put her hand between them to stall his forward momentum. The press of him against her nearly melted her back into his arms, but she resisted the temptation.

“Will you help me find what Miller was looking for? There has to be something here. Letters, a journal, some indication he was sharing personal information with someone outside of this household. It would have to be small enough that I overlooked it.” She bit her lip as she glanced around the room looking for anything that might not belong. “This is probably the only time in my life I’ll ever admit to wanting to know my husband better. But there you have it.”

Hayden walked over to a candelabrum and lit the wicks with a match from the box atop the fireplace. “Do you recall him keeping a book close at hand?”

“No. I avoided him at all costs. I can honestly say I know little about Fallon other than the fact that he hated me with a conviction so pure I screamed inside whenever he was near. Surely a form of self-preservation for the punishments he doled out.”

Hayden handed her a candle, caressing her arm as he did so. “Jess…”

She held up her free hand to stall his commentary. “Don’t say anything. I’m out of sorts tonight from all that has happened. I just want to find what Miller was looking for and destroy it if it’s something he was going to hand over to the highest bidder for gossip fodder.”

When Hayden carried on to search the small desk near the window she asked herself where she would hide something of value. Her journals, while plentiful, were full of drivel for the most part but encapsulated the odd thought on her feelings, her situation, her most personal of theories about the life she lived.

Those she kept in plain view. They were safer there, when others thought you had nothing to hide.

In plain view.

She stood up tall, turned slowly to look around the room.

It made sense.

There was a built-in shelf that housed a number of books. She walked toward it, pulling down titles that seemed typical Fallon reading, and tossed them aside. Book upon book hit the floor. All the titles were for learning matters. Agriculture, mathematics, economics, there were even a few books written in Greek. She shook her head at that. As a good Eton student he’d learned the languages men learn, as though he’d ever have use for them. Her search grew more frantic as she hit the third shelf, not finding anything out of the ordinary.

Hayden was by her side, assisting in her hunt as she threw more and more books to the floor. Though he didn’t know what she was looking for, he caught what she tossed aside and gave it a second look-through.

“There was nothing in the desk, not even a blank sheet of paper,” he informed her, looking at the titles before them, reading each inscription with the tip of his finger as though he’d find something out of place where she hadn’t. Or perhaps he had trouble focusing on what was written without his reading glasses.

“This room was cleaned of personal effects right after his death. I didn’t sack Miller for two days. Any number of things could have been removed. But if there was something important, or damning against me, Miller should have had ample time to collect it before he was forced from the house.”

Nothing was ever out of place with her husband. He had a method that was too careful to find idiosyncrasies.

“There has to be something here, Hayden. I know it with every fiber of my being.” She pulled the last book from the lower shelf and looked at the mess she’d created around them. The books lay open and bent at odd angles, a macabre scene if you were the type to preserve books as though all were precious.

Jessica walked around the room. Looking in every nook and cranny, even sliding her hands beneath the mattress to see if something was tucked away out of sight. If Miller hadn’t found it when he’d abetted her husband’s cruelness for more than twenty years how did she expect to find it? Perhaps if there was something written about her he kept it in another room.

“Here, hold this a moment.” She pressed the candlestick in Hayden’s hand.

Fingers pressed to her temples, she closed her eyes and thought for a moment about exactly what she should be looking for. Her mind kept coming back to letters or a journal. What else could her husband possibly have that would be damning against her? Now she wasn’t so sure that her father hadn’t written to the earl at some point to confess all.

Fallon spent a great deal of time in his study. But he also used the small sitting room on the main level whenever his friends called at the house. She picked up her skirts as she charged out of the room, descending the stairs at a dangerous speed, nearly flying off the bottom landing before reeling around and dashing down the long corridor to the room at the back of the house.

There was a small desk in her husband’s favorite parlor that he often sat at. He never sat on the settee across from his guests; he felt less important if he treated someone as an equal.

Hayden tore into the room seconds after her, the flame on the candle swaying as he came to a sudden halt. “What is it?” he asked, urgency coloring his voice, as she stood in the middle of the semi-dark room looking around her—trying to recall a moment in time so long ago. There was something here. Something in plain view that had always been here.

She raised one finger to shush her friend before he could ask any questions. The information she sought was on the tip of her memory.

“I recalled a time when I came in here when Fallon was entertaining Lady Montant.” Jessica perched herself on the edge of the cushioned chair behind the desk. “He sat right here.”

“Was he doing something out of the ordinary?”

“Not precisely. They hushed their conversation the moment I entered the room.” She closed her eyes and thought back to that day. What vital piece of information was she missing? What had she forgotten?

Then she knew. Laugher tainted with bitterness bubbled out of her. How had she been so blind? So stupid?

It was Lady Montant all this time.

And in plain view all these years. Lady Montant had been the very source of Jessica’s misery when she’d first moved to London.

“Miller didn’t know what he was looking for; he only knew that there had to be letters.”

She pulled the drawers open on the desk. There was nothing out of the ordinary, ink and nibs for pens, paper. She slipped her fingers toward the back to see if anything was hidden.

“How is that possible? The only person aside from Fallon that knew your true parentage was your father. And he’s been dead for a long time.”

She shook her head, still amazed that she hadn’t put two and two together.

“It’s not impossible. Fallon was always so close to Lady Montant. It comes back to his connection with the Malverns. Their friendship goes back a great many years before I ever stepped into the picture.”

“What information do you think Lady Montant was privy to?”

“I think she knew everything about my past all along. There is no doubt in my mind that there were letters that revealed my secrets to the Mayfair Chronicler. Notes that my husband would have provided directly as he slowly built a reputation against me. He wasn’t going to go to the grave softly. In fact, Fallon wouldn’t have taken chances with me living life as I saw fit once he was gone. He’d have wanted to ensure that I would be shunned. That everyone would ostracize me. It all makes perfect sense now.”

Her finger found a hidden lip at the back of the drawer. She tried to pull it forward, but the drawer was jammed half-shut with a piece of wood on the side.

“I should have put two and two together.” She tapped her lip in thought. “I don’t believe there was intimacy between them. But there was always an exchange of letters. I remember a few occasions when I happened upon them in this room and Lady Montant had folded letters tied together in neat little stacks.”

She wiggled the drawer, but it didn’t pull any farther out.

Hayden stepped behind her, set the candle on the table, and grasped the knob on the drawer tight before yanking it hard, snapping the wood holding it place. The back end of the drawer fell into her lap, laden with folded papers.

Her breath caught in her lungs as she ran her hand over the dried lavender tucked beneath the twine tying the stack of letters together.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Hayden said.

It amazed her that Miller hadn’t known what he was looking for. One would think that her husband’s right-hand man would know every intimate detail, including the fact that Fallon took tea with Lady Montant every other week on Tuesday afternoons to discuss matters that remained a mystery to Jessica. Or perhaps Miller knew what he was looking for but hadn’t known where to find it.

It was obvious to her now that the Malvern parties were just one of the places her husband could gather information with Lady Montant about the
ton’s
deviants. But to what end?

“What do you suppose is written in them?” she asked as she leaned against the back of the chair and tilted her head up to look at Hayden.

He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.

“There is only one way to find out.”

There were six stacks. She placed them on top of the desk and tossed the drawer to the floor. Pulling the twine free on one set of letters, she opened the first envelope. It was addressed on the outside to her husband; the date on the top right corner was “December the seventh, eighteen hundred and forty.”

Darling,
Of all days, why did you choose my birthday to bring that whore of yours to the Capris’? The sight of her sets my teeth on edge, for I know we’ll have little time to talk alone with her nearby. I had news to give you yesterday, but since you neglected my company I’ll have to explain my newest conquest within these pages. The bloody deviant Hallsburg has finally been won over. You said I couldn’t do it, for he hadn’t the disposition or inclination to look to the fairer sex. I won’t tell you how I won his affections; you’d be disgusted, and then I’d also have to relive the depravity I’ve stooped to for the information we so sought.
Jessica couldn’t read much further than that, for she knew what would be contained in the lengthy letter she held in her hands. She handed the letter to Hayden; he could read it if he wished, but she didn’t think he’d care for the gossip contained within, either. It appeared Lady Montant was sleeping with the enemy, or with many of them—anyone who could give her information. Did that mean Jessica’s husband had done the same? She covered her mouth with a shaky hand. She thought she might be sick.