Page 64 of The Rogue's Last Scandal
Chapter 18
“Sit.” Shaldon pointed at the armchair matching his own.
Charley sat.
“Tell me everything.”
He did, starting with Gracie’s engagement ball at Kingsley House, omitting only the scandalous interlude in the library, which somehow he thought his father must suspect anyway.
Shaldon listened without interruption, his gaze taking a journey to some place Charley could not follow, and for long moments, there was silence.
“What of the Duquesa?”
“A lovely woman. I have a letter safeguarded for you. Shall I just go and get it?”
Father waved a hand. “He’ll be asking for funding or arms. No other intelligence?”
He leaned back in his chair. “There was a tale about Mother’s painting.”
Father’s eye twitched. “You’ve strayed beyond the scope of your mission.”
“The lady offered.”Is it true?He wanted to shout the question, but one must wait out the spymaster.
“And you trust her?”
Trust a woman willing to let the world see her cheat on her husband in order to spy for her father’s faction? “Perhaps if you told me more, I could judge better. But I do not think she is the key to any active plot against the English Crown.”
Shaldon grunted. “Yet we may not be finished there, for the letters alone.” He turned his full gaze on Charley. “Butyouare finished. The tasks were not too onerous, I hope.”
“Was it ever for you?”
“I found your mother’s feelings always made it so.” That steady gaze pinned him. “It was chivalrous of you to agree to this marriage. You do not have to marry her, you know. It’s enough that you’re threatening the act. Kingsley will be in a frenzy. He always was that sort.”
His heart clacked loudly in his ears. His father’s interference had driven his brothers into marriages that had turned out to be quite happy.
If they were present, they would parse Shaldon’s words looking for the interfering spymaster’s twist.
He should also, but he only detected…love. A father’s love.
Love.It was a strange word, and yet so common an emotion now in this household, with Bink and Bakeley so happy in their marriages.
He cared for Gracie. Could she ever love him?
He inhaled deeply. “I’m willing to help her, and not for the money. I don’t intend to settle into some grand estate here, and Gracie wishes to go home, back to Mexico. I’m willing to escort her there, and then I’d like to find a posting in the Americas somewhere. Her money will be hers. I can live well and good on my present income.”
“I see. And what of her, while you are posted?”
“She may go where she is happiest.”
“And what of your children?”
His heart picked up its pace. Blast it, but he wanted her. But there must not be children. He must see to it somehow.
“It’s not so easy to be separated from a wife you care for.”
His father had spied out his damnedfeelings—well, of course he had.
And wait—he’dcaredfor their mother? Mother hadn’t been the sentimental sort, nor was Father by any stretch. In fact, because of Shaldon’s long absences, there had been rumors about his own paternity. He could count on the fingers of one hand the times he’d seen his parents together.Whoreson.Kingsley’s use of the word had touched on old wounds.
