Page 103 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
“By God, you were magnificent.” In fact, she had been quite believable. The reporters would be dashing off their copy as they ran to ink the presses, speculating on the name of the traitor she’d claimed to know. “I am glad you did not pull that dagger on them.”
She stiffened.
“Yes, I knew of the dagger. And that was an excellent bluff. Kingsley will be packing his bags and fleeing to his country estate until the smoke clears.”
Her stony silence made the air inside the coach hum. Her gaze stayed on the closed window shade, as if she could see through it.
When his father climbed in to join them, surprisingly nimble, and Kincaid followed, both men looked smug and satisfied.
Charley’s anger stirred.
“Perpetua will ride with Jane,” Shaldon said. “Will you tell us what you know, Graciela?”
He bristled. “Gracie was bluffing, father.”
Her gaze dropped to the silver lace reticule she was strangling. And she bit her lip. His heart clenched and froze, and began to heat.
She hadn’t been bluffing. She’d known something all along, something she hadn’t shared with him.
Farnsworth had set him on this path. Farnsworth had known something. Farnsworth had set him onto the Duquesa and somehow, at the same time, onto Gracie. He was as devious as father.
Charley wanted to laugh. He wanted to punch something—or someone, preferably the missing Farnsworth.
He unwound her fingers from the reticule and gripped them. “By God, Father,” he said. “You may not importune her for information. The war is over. It does not matter.”
Her chin dropped to her chest, tearing half of his heart with it. They had only just married, and he was losing her, and his father sat calmly looking on.
He forced his hands to relax, to not squeeze hers. None of this was her doing.
He knew now what his brothers had gone through. And what Father must have gone through ten years before.
He squeezed his eyes and tried to blot out his last memory of his mother, broken, bloated, and dead on the Yorkshire cliffs. Gracie was alive, and he must keep her that way.
“Father, it doesn’t matter what Gracie knows. Even if we find the man, it will not bring Mother back to life.”
Gracie jerked. She gasped, and as if her breath was pumping into his chest he felt her surprise.
“Charley is right,” Kincaid said with his usual aplomb. The tension inside the coach hadn’t touched him at all. “And we have other fish to snare. Carvelle has resurfaced. Off to Kent he is. There’s a boat off the coast we’ve been watching. We’ve recalled the revenue officer he had in his pocket. Sent in a new one to give him a little surprise.”
Carvelle’s absence from London eased his worry.
“So heisa smuggler?” Gracie asked.
“Built an empire on it,” Kincaid said. “But the war is over, and he’s had some losses recently. Calling in debts, he is.”
“Debts?” She glanced up at Charley, and then at the other two, and bit her lip. “So, as we thought, my dowry and I were supposed to pay off some debt of Kingsley’s.”
“Yes.”
“Something illegal,” she mused. “Something secret.”
“Perhaps,” Kincaid said, “Or perhaps just a bad investment, a ship taken by pirates or some such.”
Or perhaps a ship taken in the West Indies by a privateer?
While she looked away, holding her peace, he pondered the possibilities, and reminded himself, she had more secrets she had not shared, not even with him.
Graciela spottedLord Shaldon’s butler opening the house door before the carriage had even stopped. She had lifted the curtain a fraction while the men talked. Her brain was a terrible blur, her inner vision filled with strong men—dark-haired, red-haired, old and young, and one tawny-haired fellow whose chest bore the scar of a blade, whose hand even now engulfed one of her own and would not let go.
