Dancing With A Devil (4 page)

Again, he had the prickling notion that asking her to be his friend may not have been wise, but it was done. He prided himself on his ability to control his emotions and he never turned his back on a friend. As her friend, it was his duty to make sure her brother was keeping a sharp eye on her. And if he learned she was not being properly chaperoned now that she was home, he would warn her away from Thortonberry himself, as any good friend would do. “I have to keep Thortonberry away from her,” he muttered.

Sutherland leaned forward. “I’m not so sure. Thortonberry may not have decided if he wants to court her yet or not. Perhaps when he makes the decision he will give up the demireps, as he should. Besides, how do you plan to tell her brother you think he is doing a poor job of supervising his sister? How well do you know Cringlewood?”

“
Not well, but I plan to be extremely tactful.”

Dinnisfree leaned forward. “I suggest you start now,” he whispered.

“
Good evening, Davenport,” Cringlewood slurred as he pulled out a chair and plopped into it. “I assume you need a fourth for a card game.” Cringlewood swayed in his chair before steadying himself. “I can only play one more hand. Shouldn’t play that, but I need my luck to turn.”

Trent shuffled the cards, assuming the banker responsibilities. “Well, hopefully this is your lucky hand. Do you have chips?”

“
He does not,” a deep voice grumbled behind Trent.

Nash Wolverton stared down at Cringlewood. A fierce frown marked the club owner’s rugged face, and his dark hair hung over his eyes. He shoved it back as if only now remembering it. “Need I remind you, Cringlewood, that your account here is frozen until you pay down your debt?”

“
Come now, Wolfie, if you’ll advance me a bit more blunt I vow I’ll take these gentlemen and pay you back.” Cringlewood’s words ran together, making Trent want to grab the man by his lapels and shake him for his foxed state. How the devil was this fool to keep his sister safe?

“
Do not call me Wolfie.” Wolverton’s clenched jaw and his steely tone left no room for doubt that the man was close to throttling Cringlewood. And if one still doubted, Wolverton’s hands clenched by his side were an excellent indicator of his irritation. Trent could not blame him for wanting to throw Cringlewood out, but he needed Audrey’s brother to remain here long enough to reveal where Audrey was tonight. Cringlewood’s chair squeaked loudly as it teetered backward. Sliding his booted foot behind the chair leg, Trent slowly tilted the man back toward the ground.

“
Give him a rouleau,” Trent said. “I’ll be responsible for paying you back.”

Wolverton nodded. He raised his hand and within seconds, his moneyman appeared, suit and glasses askew and silver hair sleeked back. He looked past his hawk nose and over the rim of his spectacles at Wolverton. “Sir?”

“
Give him twenty guineas,” Wolverton said and motioned to Cringlewood. “Lord Davenport has taken on responsibility for Cringlewood’s losses.”

“
For this roleau only,” Trent clarified.

Wolverton flashed him a grin. The man’s gleaming teeth reminded Trent of a wolf.
Fitting
.

“
Of course, Davenport.” Wolverton leaned down, a long a haul considering his great height, and clasped Cringlewood by the shoulder. “After this hand, call it a night.”

Cringlewood shoved Wolverton’s hand away. “I intend to. I’m simply killing time waiting on Thortonberry. I’ve better places to be than this.”

“
Good. You should go there.” Wolverton departed without a backward glance. His assistant gave a perfunctory bow and scampered after him.

Trent dealt the cards before asking, “What event are you attending tonight, Cringlewood? Anything exciting?”

Audrey’s brother picked up his cards, glanced at them and then looked up. “Nothing you’d be interested in. I don’t wish to go, but my father insists I help keep a watchful eye on my sister.” Cringlewood opened and closed his eyes, as if he was having trouble focusing. “Did you know I had a sister?”

Trent did not look at his friends. Dinnisfree coughed and Sutherland shifted in his chair. What should he say? Audrey’s family had no idea she had never been betrothed to a private investigator named Roger Wentworth. Audrey and Whitney had concocted the tale so Audrey would not have to leave London and go back to the country with her father. Whitney had posed as the investigator and duped Audrey’s father. Trent cleared his throat. “I met her when she was betrothed to Mr. Wentworth, as he is a personal friend of the Duke of Primwitty’s, an old school chum of mine.”

Cringlewood nodded. “Makes sense. I suppose you know she mucked that up, as she does everything.”

Trent pressed his lips together. He did not care for the man’s negative view of Audrey. As her brother, he should be one of her most stalwart supporters. “It’s my understanding that Lady Audrey caught Mr. Wentworth with another woman.”

Whitney and Audrey had contrived the explanation so Audrey’s father would not blame her for what he thought was a genuine broken engagement. Pity her father and brother seemed only to care about the fact that she had not ended up married, whether the man respected her or not.

Cringlewood took a card and frowned. “All men have mistresses. My sister has a false notion of what marriage should be about, which is precisely why my father is forcing me to attend the Allreds’ ball tonight. He is determined to see her married and out of the house before this season ends.”

A very odd feeling tightened Trent’s insides into hard knots. He did not need to hear anymore to know her father was uncaring and her brother was an addle pate. Convenience and arranged marriages were the norm, but usually the father arranging such things loved his daughter and did his best to ensure she would be in a good marriage. Trent laid his cards down in front of him faceup. “
Vingt-et-un
, gentlemen.”

“
Damnation!” Cringlewood cried and threw his cards on the table. “Would you be willing to let me pay you back next month?”

“
Let this be a gift between friends,” Trent replied. “I’m sure your mind was occupied with concern for your sister, as well it should be. Does she have any particular suitors currently that bother you?”

“
No. No,” Cringlewood replied, standing. “In fact, she is not aware of it yet, but Father has lined up several interested gentlemen for her to meet tonight.” Cringlewood looked away from Trent and across the room. “There’s Thortonberry now, gentlemen. I better take my leave before I’m too tardy for the ball and join my sister in Father’s bad graces.”

Trent raised an eyebrow at Cringlewood, though he wanted to stand, forcibly detain the man and demand answers. With a casualness he did not feel, he asked, “Is Thortonberry one of your sister’s suitors?”

Cringlewood chuckled. “Hell no. Thortonberry thinks of Audrey as a sister. He is our neighbor and they have known each other since we were all in leading strings. If I thought I could hoist Audrey off on Thortonberry I would, but as you can see”―Cringlewood waved toward the marquess who stood some twenty brown-lacquered wood tables away, locked in the embrace of the demirep he had been speaking with―“he has no interest in marriage. But he did generously offer to do me the favor of helping to keep an eye on my sister, so we really must go.”

Trent did not like the sound of that at all. He did not trust Thortonberry to keep nothing but his gaze on Audrey, even if her doltish brother did. His gut told him Thortonberry was not as he seemed, and intuition had saved him more times that he could remember when he was on assignment for Prinny in France. The only time it had ever failed him was with Gwyneth. He had never suspected she was anything other than the
simple Frenchwoman she had pretended to be, working in a bookstore with her brother.

His thoughts were interrupted by Thortonberry’s appearance. The marquess regarded everyone at the table with assessing green eyes before his gaze locked with Trent’s. “I seem to be running into you at all the hellfire clubs this week, Davenport. Have an itch you cannot get scratched properly?”

“
I could ask you the same,” Trent replied, making sure his sarcasm laced his tone, instead of the irritation strumming through him. Thortonberry’s caustic remark had touched a nerve.

Thortonberry’s gaze sharpened. “I’m perfectly satisfied, just voracious. And late.” He glanced at his pocket watch, then turned to Cringlewood. “I took the liberty of requesting the supper dance with your sister. I thought that way you would be free to do as you please at supper, and I can keep a watchful eye on her.”

“
That’s grand of you,” Cringlewood boomed. “Gentlemen, many thanks for tonight.”

As Cringlewood and Thortonberry disappeared into the crowd, Trent stood. “I’m going.”

“
Going where?” Dinnisfree asked.

“
To the Allred ball.”

“
Devil take it. I knew you were going to say that.”

Sutherland stood, a grin stretching his face. “I’m going there as well. Whitney is expecting me. Are you coming, Dinnisfree?”

Dinnisfree shrugged into his overcoat and shook his head. “Even if I did not have somewhere else pressing to be, I would not willingly go to a ball crammed full of supposedly perfectly proper lords and ladies. I cannot think of anything phonier or less enjoyable.”

Sutherland shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

“
You know I will.”

“
I’ll see you there, Davenport,” Sutherland said before taking his leave.

Trent shrugged into his own coat before speaking. “Why do you always do that?”

“
Do what?” Dinnisfree asked.

“
Keep everyone at arm’s length.”

“
Because I have to, just as you once did. I cannot afford to trust anyone, but tell me, lately I find myself curious if that feeling has ended for you since retiring.”

The question made Trent uncomfortable. “Are you considering retiring?”

“
Never. And do not try to avoid what I asked. Do you trust as you once did?”

Trent knew what Dinnisfree meant. His life would never be the same as before he was a spy. He rubbed his chin for a moment, the already burgeoning whiskers prickling his fingers. He had been trained extensively―just like Dinnisfree―to trust no one but his fellow spies, yet he had slipped with Gwyneth. She had broken down his walls one by one and gained his confidence. He’d been too in love to recognize what was happening and too late he had realized that Gwyneth was a French spy on a mission to secure the secret correspondence it was his job to transport between Prinny and the men who guarded Napoleon.

“
No. I don’t trust as I once did.” And he never would, but that had more to do with what Gwyneth had done to him than anything else. She had shown him just how wrong he could be about a woman, and it was a lesson he would never forget.

Dinnisfree nodded. “I did not think so. You have that same haunted look in your eyes as you did the day I rescued you from Bagne de Toulon. Which begs the question of why you are going to the Allred ball to help Lady Audrey if she will never be anything to you.”

“
She is something to me,” he said, surprising himself with the verbal admission. “She is a friend, and I don’t bloody well know why, but I’m compelled to watch over her. Speaking of which, I need to be departing.” They strolled through the crowded room side by side, retrieved their hats from the coatroom and walked down the brick steps of the club and into the dark night made glowing thanks to the lit street lamps. “Will I see you at Gritton’s tomorrow?” Trent asked as his coachman slowly pulled his carriage up to the curb.

Dinnisfree shook his head. “No boxing for me tomorrow. I’ll be headed to France.”

Trent stilled and checked the streets for anyone who might overhear them, a habit that would likely never fade. “Is this a job or are you running away to wrestle your demons?” Not an unusual occurrence for Dinnisfree. Sometimes Trent envied the man’s lack of family ties that enabled him simply to go as he pleased, but then he would see his mother, brother or cousins and his envy for Dinnisfree would be replaced by pity.

Dinnisfree compressed his lips into a thin line. “I keep my demons in a steel box and I threw the key away long ago, my friend. They can’t get out and I can’t get in.”

Trent grunted. It was typical of Dinnisfree to refuse to talk about his past, or even acknowledge he had one. With a wave, the duke disappeared into his carriage and Trent stood on the cobblestone streets without moving until it pulled away. He closed his eyes and breathed in the crisp scent of soil and grass that accompanied the aftermath of a sunny day ending.

An ache he recognized as loneliness seeped into his bones as a pleasant breeze blew around him. Slowly, he opened his eyes and stared up at the sky. The moon and stars overhead reminded him of many long summer nights when he had been a lad. He would sneak out of his room to go and fetch his cousin Whitney when she was visiting, and they would swim in the creek at night, oblivious to the dangers or the pain of life. He yanked his greatcoat tighter and climbed into his own carriage before tapping on the side and telling his driver where to go.

As the carriage prattled down the street and past St. James Square, he reconsidered if he could ever trust a woman enough again to open his heart and soul. His carriage rounded the corner and the canal became visible in the distance. With the stone wall rising to one side of the canal and the trees lining the banks, it reminded him of the small sliver of the Oise he had just been able to make out from a crack in his cell wall in Bagne de Toulon.