Page 13 of The Lawrence Browne Affair
“Justice?”
“That’s what they’d tell themselves, you understand.”
He certainly did not, but gathered that Turner did.Not a gentleman, Lawrence repeated to himself.Perhaps not a secretary either.“Even so, all but a handful of my servants quit over a month ago.”
“Two. You have two servants left. A cook and a maid, both thoroughly indolent. Sally Ferris and a girl named Janet.”
Sally Ferris. Lawrence’s mind reeled. Of all the people to willingly stay under this roof. Good God. He’d have thought she’d be the first to leave under any pretense. “You’d do best to follow the example of the others. Most of them grew up nearby and know more than you do about the madness in my family,” he managed to say.
“Precisely,” Turner said. “I intend to figure out what exactly they know and why they haven’t taken so much as a teaspoon.”
Lawrence twisted his hands out of Turner’s strong grip, placing them flat on the wall next to the secretary’s head. He took a step closer, caging the smaller man in.
“Do you not understand what I mean by danger?” Lawrence growled. “To hell with candlesticks and to hell with telegraphs. I’m talking about you and me. Do you not realize that I’m nearly twice your size?”
Turner made a noise at the back of his throat. His lips were slightly parted, his breathing fast. Was that fear? If so, good. It was about time.
They were so close. If Lawrence took another fraction of a step, his hardening prick would press into Turner’s belly, right against the brightly embroidered waistcoat that had started this trouble.
“I could murder you without breaking a sweat, if that’s what I wanted to do,” he said.
Ducking out from under Lawrence’s arm, Turner shot him a wry look that he couldn’t make heads or tails of. “But that’s not what you want to do to me, is it?” he asked, heading for the door. He threw a look over his shoulder, one side of his mouth curved into a sly grin. “Not even close.”
CHAPTERSIX
Astream of obscenities came from the table where Radnor assembled his machine.
“Another short circuit, my lord?”
“God damn it, yes, and you fucking know it.”
Radnor had added more disks to the pile and for some reason the result was a series of short circuits and a very surly earl.
“If I may say so, my lord, I seem to recall reading that another gentleman encountered this very problem.” Georgie had discovered that the earl hated any suggestion of deference or servility, so he heaped it on thick when he wanted to provoke a display of snarling profanity.
“I know that, damn you, but I can’t remember what he did about it.”
“Oh dear,” Georgie said, biting his lip. “If only you had a secretary who had organized all that information for you.”
“Out with it, you swiving bastard.”
Georgie tilted his chair back towards the shelves that lined the wall, effortlessly retrieving the volume he sought. “My lord,” he said, presenting it with a flourish.
“You’re showing off,” Radnor said, flipping through the pages.
“I’m afraid so.” Georgie felt that he was quite justified in his smugness. He had not only organized the study, but he had become sufficiently familiar with the earl’s work to offer assistance. This was no mean feat for a man whose only formal education had been sporadic at best, and he found that he wanted to be acknowledged for his work. That was new. Usually Georgie’s efforts were, of necessity, invisible. Now he wanted Radnor to know just how good Georgie was. He wanted Radnor to admire him.
Toadmirehim? That was absurd. Total nonsense. He wanted Radnor to do a good number of things to him, none of which involved admiration, unless it was Georgie admiring the earl’s bare torso.
But try as he might to feel otherwise, Georgie was proud of his work for Radnor. He felt as if he were a vital part of something important, something almost magical.
Something he was going to steal in order to wheedle his way back into a life of crime.
No. Something heneededto steal in order to keep a dangerous man away from the people he loved. Yesterday he received a letter from Jack, informing him that Sarah was safely at Oliver’s sister’s house and that Jack was looking into ways of bringing Brewster around. This was not terribly reassuring, because it meant that Brewster’s manhunt was in full effect.
It also meant that Georgie was still without a way to return to his life, to his brother and sister, unless he double-crossed the man who currently stood before him, brows furrowed, furiously paging through a scientific journal.
Georgie’s pigeonholes were in chaos.
