The Wicked Widow Meets Her Match A Regency Rogues Novel (32 page)

Langdon nodded in apparent deference to her intelligence, though the woman’s chillingly mad line of reasoning was horrific. “You would do that for me? And all you require in return is safe passage?”

He watched closely, and at last saw the Queen’s grip about Grace’s waist ease. “And the funds to live in a manner befitting a queen, of course,” she replied, her chin dropping at a flirtatious angle as she appeared to sense victory.

Niles tapped just below Langdon’s shoulder blade.

Langdon flung himself low and forward, reaching for Grace.

The distinctive soft hiss of displaced air from Niles’s stiletto sounded in Langdon’s ear and he looked up just as the blade pierced the Queen’s forearm and pinned her to the cabin wall.

Langdon caught Grace’s legs at the thigh and snatched her from the Queen, rolling with her wrapped in his arms, away from the danger and across the cabin floor.

The Queen let out an otherworldly scream of rage. She reached up and pulled the knife from her arm and the wall, spinning toward the open porthole. “You will regret ever having crossed me,” she lashed out, a stream of red blood spreading over her arm and splashing her skirt. She leapt up and out through the porthole, only the bottom half of her visible. Langdon shoved to his feet and lunged for her, grasping at her skirt as she disappeared.

The fabric tore, leaving nothing but a scrap of
embroidered muslin in his hand. Langdon stuck his head out the porthole and peered into the dark water, watching as the woman’s head suddenly bobbed up.

Torchlight flashed, illuminating a small boat as it pulled alongside the
Resurrection
. A man hauled the Queen out of the water and shoved her into a sitting position aboard the skiff.

“The King?” the man yelled to Langdon, his voice unmistakable.

“You have what you came for,” Langdon answered Carmichael. “It is done.”

Henry Prescott, Viscount Carmichael, sat in his office at the Young Corinthians Club. Everything in the room was familiar and dear to him. The desk, made of sturdy, strong mahogany, had been his superior’s, and his superior’s superior before that. The well-worn Persian carpet beneath his feet was one he’d crawled upon as an infant. The candelabras that perched upon the serviceable fireplace hearth once graced the mantel of his family’s Warwickshire property. Even the ink pot held precious memories, being the very one his father had employed to write a fairy tale for his son.

No one else knew what the contents of the room meant to Carmichael. And he’d designed it that way. Even the many conversations with his fellow agents that had taken place within the four walls were catalogued within his heart, his Corinthians the only family he had left.

Henry looked across his desk at Lady Serendipity Hatch. She’d once been familiar to him as well. Never as dear as those memories that cradled him within his Corinthian office. No, never dear. But fond? Yes, he would use such a term.

Not now. Henry had come in contact with Serendipity over the years since their awkward moment in the garden. Seeing each other on occasion was practically unavoidable, both being members of the ton. At least he had never thought to stay out of her path, their past hardly warranting such behavior.

Clearly, she had felt differently.

“You are surprised?” she said, breaking the uncomfortable silence that had stretched between them since two agents had brought her into his office.

“I am,” he confirmed, her glittering, fixated stare more unnerving than any Henry had faced before.

She batted her eyelashes, flirting as if they were young lovers conversing at a ball. “I must confess, I am as well. I never would have guessed you were the sort who would relish a job.”

“Is that so?” Henry asked. He began to slowly twist his signet ring around his finger, the act bringing him a measure of calm. “And why is that?”

Lady Serendipity smiled with condescension. “Our kind was not meant to work, Henry. It upsets the natural balance of things.”

“And you?” he asked, carefully measuring his tone. “One would argue you’ve worked harder than all of my men put together. What of that?”

She lowered her gaze to his desk and picked up a crystal figurine that had once belonged to his mother. “You know the answer to that question, Henry.”

“But I would prefer to hear it from you, Lady Serendipity,” he countered, dreading what she might reveal.

She settled back into the leather chair, her chin held defiantly high while a faint flush colored her cheeks. “I had no other choice. When you decided against asking my father for my hand in marriage, I refused to entertain any other offers. I felt certain you would come to your senses eventually, and so I waited. Before I realized it, time passed too quickly, I was too old to marry and my cousin had inherited the whole of Papa’s fortune. I was forced to consider alternative sources of income, which is when I conceived the plan to create the Kingsmen.”

The woman was delusional, that much Henry could confirm without a second opinion. The very idea of marrying her had not entered his mind until the night she’d waylaid him on the terrace at the Filburns’ ball. He’d felt badly about hurting her and spent a significant amount of time considering whether there was any truth to her claim that he’d given her ample reason to believe he cared for her.

His conclusion? He had not. There was only one girl for him and she’d agreed to marry another. And that girl was not Serendipity Hatch.

“Did you mourn Lady Cecelia Afton?”

Her question shocked Henry, but he remained calm, a skill he’d honed over years of Corinthian service. “I did, as every last member of the ton did as well.”

“Not every last member, no,” she replied, holding the figurine up in order to examine it more closely. “As you know by now, I am the person who ordered
her death. And do you know why? Oddly enough, it had absolutely nothing to do with the Young Corinthians. That connection was simply an added bonus. No, I killed her for love. Your love.”

Henry felt bile rise in his throat, but he continued to stare at Serendipity, even as his vision began to blur. “I do not understand.”

“Come now, Henry, we are adults,” she replied, returning the figurine to the exact spot on the desk where she’d found it. “I knew you loved Cecelia. And when she accepted Afton’s proposal? Oh, I cried, knowing how much it must have upset you. I could have healed you, Henry. I waited for you to realize …” She paused, her gaze pinning him with sudden, startling clarity. “But you never did, you see. I knew that the only way we could be together was if Cecelia was gone. And so I had her killed. And I waited.”

Henry had never experienced an overwhelming need to harm a woman. Plenty of men, yes. Mostly criminals, though the occasional peer made himself a deserving candidate.

But now he felt a nearly uncontrollable rage to destroy.

Henry wanted to cut out Serendipity’s evil heart and throw it in the ocean, where it could not take root—could no longer do harm.

He wanted her to experience the same pain she’d inflicted upon Cecelia and Afton, Sophia, Dash, Nicholas, and Langdon. And every last victim of the Kingsmen.

Henry wanted his heart gone, too. He would not
have to wait long. Cecelia’s death had taken half of the organ. And the realization that he’d played a part in her murder would do away with the rest.

“You waited in vain, Lady Serendipity.” His words held no inflection, his voice ice cold.

They seemed to break the spell she’d fallen into, though. Serendipity looked at him now with clear, lucid eyes. “And why is that?”

“I never loved you, Lady Serendipity. Nor would I ever have come to. Before today, you were nothing more to me than an acquaintance I had unwittingly upset. And now?” Henry stopped. He folded his hands in his lap and adopted an air of absolute indifference. “Now you are a criminal—one who will hang for your many crimes. That is all you will ever be to me.”

“You lie,” she hissed, her agitation visible. “After everything I have done for you?”

“Everything you have done for yourself, Lady Hatch,” he corrected her, choosing to use her proper name. “You are a selfish, unstable, wholly deceitful woman. Why you would have ever believed I could love you, I do not know. But I will tell you one more thing: you can stop waiting.”

Lady Serendipity opened her mouth as if to scream. No sound emerged, only a choked intake of breath.

“Beals,” Henry called to one of the Corinthians who waited outside the door.

The agent appeared just as Lady Serendipity grabbed the crystal figurine, smashed it against the desk, and lifted the jagged, broken edges toward her throat. He knocked it out of her grasp and yanked
her upward, securing both of her hands behind her back.

“There was no simple path to release for your victims, Lady Hatch,” Carmichael told the woman, fighting to maintain his civility. “Nor will there be for you.”

Three weeks later
D
EVON
, E
NGLAND

“May I open my eyes now?” Grace asked, pretending to lift a corner of the scarf from her eyes.

“Absolutely not,” Langdon answered with mock horror. “You will ruin the surprise!”

Truth be told, Grace had never been one for surprises—though the dramatic turn her life had taken since meeting Langdon could be called the greatest surprise of all time. It had been three weeks since they’d captured the Queen. The Corinthians were in the process of dismantling the Kingsmen and Langdon had written letters to Dash, Sophia, and Nicholas telling them what had happened.

Grace had moved out of Aylworth House and into the accepting arms of a formidable trio of women known as the Furies. The sisters were three women with such significant ties to the ton that no one, not even Langdon’s polite if distant mother, could question the appropriateness of Langdon and Grace’s marriage.

And word had arrived from Marcus. In no more than three sentences, he’d told Grace of his impending
voyage to America where he would most surely find a wife to love and share his life with in time. He’d wished her all of life’s blessings and signed it,
Your trusted friend, Marcus
.

There were moments late at night when Grace would awaken in her bed and sit up, peering into the darkness in search of the landscape painting that had hung in her room at 3 Bedford Square. She had not found it yet, and was beginning to feel relatively confident she never would.

“I must confess, I am not normally fond of surprises,” Grace admitted to Langdon as the coach rolled to a slow stop. “Especially not after a rather long road trip.”

One day in a coach could make for an adventure. One week in a coach could drive a person mad. Mrs. Templeton had not even allowed Grace to know which coaching inns they were occupying, let alone where they might be going.

“Ah,” her friend sighed, then cleared her throat in an effort to mask the sound of … Of what, precisely?

“Are you pleased, Mrs. Templeton?” Grace asked, sitting up and leaning toward the woman who sat across from her. “Or disappointed? Because I would say pleased, but I cannot be sure.”

“You will know soon enough, my lady,” the dear woman answered mysteriously.

The sound of the coach door opening pricked Grace’s interest and she turned her head toward it as if staring blindly in the right direction would help her decipher her whereabouts.

Mrs. Templeton’s skirts rustled and the coach gently swayed, suggesting the woman had gotten out.

“Langdon?” Grace asked, turning her head to her left, where Langdon sat. Or had sat. She reached out and encountered his thigh. “Now may I take the blindfold off?”

She heard him chuckle.

Then she pinched him on either side of his knee, where she knew him to be terribly ticklish.

“All right,” he yelled, letting loose a charming and full-bodied laugh. “I promise you, it is almost time.”

The coach door shut once again and the wheels began to roll, gravel crunching beneath them.

“What have you done with Mrs. Templeton?” Grace asked, entirely confused by the woman’s departure.

The coach gently swung to the right as if taking a turn.

“You will see her soon.”