Behind the Marquess's Mask (The Lords of Whitehall Book 1) (6 page)

“I received a letter from Lord Grenville this morning,” Saint Brides answered, unaffected. “As you can imagine, he does not wish his wife or daughter to suffer needlessly. The girl cannot be spirited away if we have other means.”

“Christ!” Grey exclaimed harshly. “You don’t have other means—”

“Your name was also mentioned,” Saint Brides interjected.

Grey felt his hand aching to flex, but he forced it to stay lax. “By Grenville?”

Saint Brides nodded.

“What did he say?” Grey waited for the inevitable set down.

“He’s seen your work and fought side by side with you in the war. He believes you capable,” Saint Brides said, his green eyes assessing everything from under a knit brow.

Grey hid his surprise with a grimace.

“Personally, I do not trust you, Ainsley,” Saint Brides said. “You are unpredictable. I would have Pembridge on it if he hadn’t burst into my office, spouting some nonsense about retiring to the country or France or what-have-you. Infuriating, inconvenient rubbish.” Saint Brides stepped forward with narrowed eyes and added, “If you lose your temper and bugger this up at the cost of that girl’s life, I swear I shall send you to India and leave you there until you die of malaria.”

Grey gave Saint Brides a wary look. “Noted. Is Grenville coming back to England?”

“He cannot,” Saint Brides replied, immediately recovering himself. “We won’t risk losing all we have worked for by removing him from France now.”

Thank God for small mercies.

Grey rubbed his eyes, dark spots blurring his vision when he released them to scowl at Matthews. “And my part?” he asked reluctantly.

He really had no choice in the matter. Between Saint Brides, Matthews, and Grenville, Grey would have to take on all of the Ministry of Defense if he refused.

“I can’t tell you how vital it is that no harm comes to Lady Kathryn,” Saint Brides explained.

Grey decided not to mention he had already failed to protect her twice. Though, if he had known what he was up against, he might have acted a bit differently.

“Grenville is an important member of Parliament, as you know,” Saint Brides was saying, “and this department relies on his influence.”

Matthews spoke up from behind the desk. “It’s sensitive. She doesn’t remember anything, so we have to give her complete protection without her suspecting a thing.”

She doesn’t remember anything.
The words echoed in his mind and twisted in his gut. It was all because he hadn’t followed her into that bleeding alley—all because he had failed Grenville. Even so…

Grey shook his head. “You must be out of your mind. To do that, I would have to be practically courting the girl!”

“Yes,” Saint Brides returned grimly, “we know.”

Grey’s scowl darkened as realization dawned. “Oh, no. Oh, hell no!”

“Ainsley,” Saint Brides said soberly, “if you don’t, the girl may not live to see a fortnight now that all of London knows she is alive and well.”

Grey’s eyes narrowed. “That should have been avoided.”

Saint Brides scowled at Matthews. “If someone had noticed the bloody dossier was missing and had a mind to inform me about it, this whole fiasco would have been avoided.” He turned back to Grey. “But you are right. In our defense, we thought the threat eliminated weeks ago. As it happens, we caught the wrong man. It was only recently we realized our mistake.”

“Your mistakes are not my responsibility,” Grey said, rising from his chair.

“No, they are not,” Saint Brides agreed. “Nevertheless, if it were left to me, Grenville’s only child would be dead because I haven’t any other men who can stick close enough to her. I shall take the blame for not having more gentlemen operatives at my disposal. However, if you withdraw your assistance, you are just as guilty as I.”

Grey forced a smile edged with self-disgust. “I am already guilty of countless deaths, Saint Brides. I am an assassin.”

“And a servant of England, one we must utilize.”

“I am also a rake, remember?” Grey reminded him bitterly. “We have spent years building up my name so none would question an alibi of spending a week God knows where with I don’t remember whom. If I begin to direct my attentions toward a lady such as Grenville’s daughter, it will either be my reputation destroyed or hers.”

“Whitehall has controlled gossip in London for as long as I can remember,” Matthews argued defensively. “Keeping back speculation should be simple as long as you behave yourself.”

Grey turned to face Matthews coolly. “There is nothing you can do to stop the vipers, Matthews. Don’t be a fool by making promises you cannot keep.” Then he turned back to Saint Brides. “You either will lose my reputation and, thereby, most of my usefulness, or you will lose Grenville, because I sure as hell will not marry the chit if society decides I am beyond redemption.”

“You would be dishonorable?” Saint Brides asked.

“Without compromising her, I shall not feel honor bound to marry her. Society be hanged,” Grey said frankly.

Saint Brides scowled for a long moment at Grey, probably weighing his options and figuring percentages of the likeliest outcomes. Finally, he looked at Matthews.

“Do your damnedest with those gossip columns, Matthews. Get men on Fleet Street if you haven’t already. And have a few stories circulating by tomorrow noon that the Marquess of A has been seen sitting with Lady K without so much as brushing his leg against hers. The man was absolutely genteel.”

“How the hell did you—”

“Come now, Ainsley; I know everything,” Saint Brides said. “And Matthews, if anyone asks, Ainsley has no current mistress, and he was solely in France this past year on matters of state and some business regarding preparation for his immediate future.”

Grey stared blankly at Saint Brides. “You
have
gone mad.”

“It is merely precautionary, Ainsley. If push comes to shove, we need Grenville’s influence in Parliament more than we need your skills here.” Saint Brides’s brows knit. “I hope I needn’t mention we also hope for your continued support on that quarter.”

Grey ground his teeth. “No, you don’t. As it happens, we share similar political views typically, but my support cannot be bought. It never could.”

Saint Brides gave into a rare smile, lending him a surprisingly boyish charm fitting his age. “That’s nearly all I respect about you, Ainsley. I may not agree with your temper or questionable sense of honor, but hell if you don’t stand by what you believe in.”

Grey cocked a brow. “Indeed.”

G
rey was feeling much less
the privileged marquess the next morning and much more the strip of raw steak tenderized in the jaws of his best hounds. He had somehow managed to get the red out of his eyes and the stench of dead rodent from his mouth, but he had not been so successful with the pounding in his head or giant bruise on his side.

Grey had left Matthews and Saint Brides and headed straight for White’s after receiving his new assignment. After downing nearly a full decanter of whisky during a heated debate over the virtues of abstinence—Grey remained straight-faced whilst facetiously arguing society ought to embrace public orgies for the good of mankind and scientific study, and swearing he would introduce such a plan to Parliament on the first opportunity—he had staggered down to Jackson’s sporting club. If he had not left then, several patrons not keen on his sense of humor would have tossed him out. No doubt, they would have rearranged his face a bit first to be sure he remembered the lesson when he was sober.

At Jackson’s, Grey had sought a fight, which would be a bit fairer in his inebriated state. An utterly potted Grey against a professional bruiser ought to do the trick. He had somehow been able to convince someone he was sober, and when the punches had begun to fly, Grey had actually dodged a few. He had taken a lot more, landed a bit less, yet had still managed to win the bout, barely. He would have fought again had Nick not shown up and discerned Grey was barely able to stand, not merely because he had taken several severe blows, but because he was three sheets in the wind.

Grey had nearly been thrown from the ring and half-carried home whilst Nick had mercilessly berated him. When he had stepped through the door to his bedchamber, he had barely had his boots off before spreading out across his bed in an alcoholic coma. Seventeen hours later, he had woken up in a puddle of drool with one leg hanging off the side of his bed and an arm numbly hugging his pillow to death.

After three hours of scrubbing and grooming, Grey sat in his carriage, regretfully recounting the previous day. He had forced half a glass of whisky down his throat thirty minutes earlier to dull the pain, but the minty concoction his housekeeper had given him to mask the smell had made him immediately ill. He would rather have been achy than nauseous. Now he was both.

The carriage rumbled to a stop in front of Grenville House with Grey scowling at the carriage door in dread. Something still tore at him. Sure, Matthews had put Kathryn in harm’s way, but Grey was supposed to be protecting her, and he had failed. Now, because of his reputation, he might leave her ruined. Alive, but ruined.

Even if all went perfectly, one day soon, she would remember who she was. She would remember who he was. Then she would hate him even more than she already did, which he would happily suffer if it meant she were alive to hate him.

However, depending on how this worked out, he might not have to suffer for long. Grenville would take care of that.

When the carriage door was opened by the livery, he stepped out and stood on the sidewalk as the carriage was taken to the mews behind the house. The carriage was out of sight by the time Grey forced himself up the steps.

A moment later, Grey was sitting comfortably in a light blue drawing room with hot tea and what looked like lemon cakes, one of his favorites. If only he could stomach the thought of them sliding down his throat. The most he could manage was a few small sips of tea.

Not ten minutes passed whilst he sat there, glaring daggers at the lemon cakes on the tray in front of him. He did not want to be there. Still, when Kathryn walked through the doorway, Grey stood with a warm smile; one none would guess he could put on and take off at leisure.

“Lady Kathryn, it’s a pleasure,” he said, bowing. It would be if she were anyone else or if she were ugly as sin and well behaved. Instead, she was lovely, a lovely pain in the arse.

“Lord Ainsley,” she replied, stepping into the room in a yellow gown and a matching ribbon wound in her loose chestnut curls. She sat cautiously in a chair on the other side of the tea table, as though he was a wild animal and she had to be on her guard lest he attack her. Everyone else would act the same way if they knew some of the things he had done.

He could kill a man fifty different ways with items in this room alone. Twenty of them came to mind without much thought or imagination.

“What a surprise to receive you here,” she said after she had settled. “We are delighted.”

“
We?
Is your mother in?” Grey asked hopefully. “Would she care to join us?” There was nothing like having a mother present to douse any inconvenient urges.

“She just stepped out,” Kathryn replied, gesturing to the window overlooking the Grenville’s well-manicured garden. “Would you like me to call her back?”

This should not be such a difficult decision. She was obviously in no condition to go traipsing around the garden, looking for her mother to chaperone, when a servant would do just as well. Still, he would feel better if half a dozen chaperones were present.

“No,” he said resignedly, eyeing the footman stationed at the door. “That wouldn’t do. I suppose your footman is chaperone enough.”

Kathryn raised her brows. “Of course, I understand your apprehension. I am grateful to you for taking such a risk as to come to my assistance at the Garson’s. I imagine it was quite a dilemma for you, what with trying to avoid all of those marriage-minded females. Why, I might have been trying to trap you with the old ravaged-in-a-garden-by-a-sodding-drunk trick.”

Grey’s smile slipped. “As a gentleman, I could hardly allow you to be ravaged in a garden if I could stop it, but you would do well to remember a gentleman may not always be so conveniently nearby, and if someone else had happened along, that reputation of yours wouldn’t be worth a sixpence.”

Kathryn’s face reddened. There was the cactus. Blast him, he had done it again.

“From what I understand about you, Lord Ainsley,” she said, “being a gentleman is more of a birthright than a behavior.”

Things were not progressing well. His pride screamed at him, but this was no way to gain her trust. The accusation was true enough, anyway.

“My reputation precedes me,” he mused.

“Quite.” She sat rigidly, glaring at him. “When you live the life of a libertine and boldly flaunt your dishonorable escapades, what do you expect?”

“I expect people to mind their own bloody business,” he returned.

“Common ground. How novel,” she said coolly.

His lips turned up in a small, crooked smile. “Isn’t it? Though, I am sure you meant I should mind mine and stop plaguing you.”

“Your interest in me isn’t half as comprehensible as everyone else’s interest in you,” she said.

“I disagree, but people are naturally biased when it comes to themselves,” he said. “Try as you might, you couldn’t possibly be objective.”

“It doesn’t want objectivity,” she said plainly, “only observation.”

“Therein lies your problem. For instance, if you based everything solely on observation, you would never know my dishonorable escapades were desperately contrived to steer gossip away from other poor girls caught in a bad situation who would otherwise be subjected to the vicious jaws of the ton,” he said.

Her brows knit. “Are they, indeed?”

“No, but that’s irrelevant,” he replied. “The point is that you didn’t
know,
just as you can’t see why you caught my interest.” He propped his elbow on the arm of the settee and rested his face in his palm, smiling. “I may find you inexplicably fascinating.”

Her lips twitched as she took a sip of her tea, the delicately painted cup bringing out the bright blue of her eyes. Siren eyes.

“Unlike me, you keep the masses riveted from what I understand,” she said.

“Ah, perhaps,” he said, straightening. He leaned forward to take his own teacup from the table. “But that is a subject best left to the gossipmongers.” Or to Matthews’s minions on Fleet Street, rather.

“So you
are
ashamed?”

“Ashamed? No.”

He felt her studying him. “All the things you have done and you don’t feel at all ashamed of any of them?”

“Am I to remember every one?” he asked, forcing himself to sip the tea. Then he set it back on the table, unable to stomach more.

“How can you not?”

What he remembered of those he had killed for Matthews were dates, descriptions, and circumstances. Precious few faces remained locked away in his mind. Before then, there were no faces. The war had been a blood bath swallowing up hundreds at a time. Remembering a single face was impossible.

“After the first twenty or so, they all begin to blur together,” Grey muttered. “Even the new seems old.”

“That sounds dreadfully tedious.”

Kathryn’s bored tone had his mouth pulling into a rueful half-smile. “It is sometimes.”

“Then why do it?”

“After all this time, I am not sure I even remember how to be respectable. Eventually, I shall get what I have coming to me, and that will be the end of it.” He forced a chuckle. “This is not appropriate conversation for young ladies.” Even if he were speaking of the same sins she was.

She brought the teacup to her lips. “What
is
appropriate?”

“Plenty.” Grey draped an arm over the back of the settee as he settled into the cushions, his mind filling with all of what was inappropriate. The fact that she was asking
him
what constituted appropriate conversation drove him mad. Only Kathryn would ask a notorious rake and assassin such a thing.

“Plenty of ordinary things, I suppose,” she said, strangely spiritless. “Safe. Constant. Dull.”

“Not always. Perhaps you would come out with me in my phaeton this afternoon,” Grey suggested, grasping at the first appropriate activity that came to mind. “Hyde Park would be the perfect venue to expand on the subject.”

He shifted in his seat. He couldn’t remember the last time he had taken an innocent woman tooling around Hyde Park, or any park, for that matter. He had never had to play this role before. If there were ever any seducing necessary, it had always been him sneaking in during the night to warm a widow’s bed in order to steal her secrets. He didn’t give a tinker’s damn what happened to the Machiavellian widows once he had gone.

This was altogether different, though. There were risks, consequences. However, the park would be a perfect place to put her on display and see who took the bait.

“I couldn’t be seen in a phaeton with a scandalous rake,” she contested.

He put on an innocent face. “Would you believe me if I said I would reform for you?”

“No,” she returned, causing him to grin. “It doesn’t allow for a chaperone. It only has two seats,” she reminded him as though he were simple, lifting up two fingers. “Weren’t you concerned about my evil plot to trap you into marriage just a moment ago?”

“There will be scores of others traipsing about the grounds,” he said with a shrug. “Chaperones aplenty.”

“I am afraid I must decline,” Kathryn returned firmly.

“Lady Kathryn, I have just purchased a brand new phaeton,” Grey explained patiently. “She’s the most beautiful thing you have ever seen. If you refused in favor of the old cabriole barouche, think what it would do to my pride. The rickety thing is nearly three years old.”

“Three years! You poor man,” she returned, wide eyed.

Grey’s brow furrowed. “You are mocking me.”

“I suppose you could
lend
us the phaeton,” Kathryn mused, “so my mother and I could go to Hyde Park.”

“The barouche, it is,” he muttered. He stared pensively at his tea, and then his face puckered. “Did you say
lend
? You grievously overestimate my gallantry if you think I would
lend
you my beautiful phaeton. I don’t even know if you can drive one.”

She pinned him with an intense, blue gaze. “If you were misidentified as being gallant, it’s your own fault. You rescued me with no expectation of reward in spite of the harrowing threat of marriage.”

“That means nothing.” A purposefully wicked smile played at his mouth, and he lowered his voice to a rumbling murmur. “I had you alone, all to myself to ravish. You were at my mercy.” Then he brightened. “But what am I saying? I am perfectly trustworthy. Shall we take the phaeton, then?”

“No, and you did nothing to me,” she asserted. “You could have done all manner of wickedness with me unable to call for help or fight you off.”

“Your father, remember?” he asked with raised brows. “Besides, I find things far more enjoyable when both parties have their strength.”

Doing his best to ignore the fetching blush spreading over her face and neck, he stood and moved around the tea table.

“Now I must be off. I have stayed far too long in the presence of a respectable lady. It’s likely to ruin my reputation. Until this afternoon,” he said as politely as any gentleman of the ton, kissed her knuckles, and froze.

Those small, soft hands had no gloves covering them, nothing to separate his devilish mouth from her perfect skin, and he had the idiotic urge to kiss each elegant finger, to put them in his mouth one by one. He could imagine himself doing it now.

Lilies. She smelled like lilies.

Her eyes were round with alarm. Was she afraid he might lick her hand again? She ought to be. It had never been this painful for him to keep his tongue behind his teeth before.

“Lord Ainsley?” she asked warily.

He straightened, forcing himself to let go. In seconds, his feet had taken him through the doorway, down the hall, through the vestibule, and out into the street to safety.

Something about her heated his blood and left him burning for her. He wanted her. If he could just put his finger on what it was about her, he might be able to find someone else with it and get her out of his system. Otherwise, it might take a bit more effort than usual to keep his prick from getting in the way of his mission.