“Oliver, are you worried about my reputation? That’s sweet. Stupid, yes. But sweet.”
He flushed. “No. That’s not it. I’m not sure he’s, um.” He cleared his throat. “Law-abiding. You know, he blackmailed Mark Andrews.”
Was she supposed to feel sorry for the man who’d done his best to ruin her paper? Who had stolen and lied and betrayed her brother’s trust? Oliver really had been in Parliament too long. “And Andrews gave in? Pfft. Weakling.”
When Edward had tried to blackmail her, she’d not so much as budged.
Oliver shook his head, sighing. “I can see you’re not much swayed.”
“I know he’s a scoundrel,” Free said. “He told me so himself. And you know me. If I was the sort to fall in with the first scoundrel who presented himself, I’d never have made it so far.”
“Well, there is that.” Her brother looked faintly relieved.
He shouldn’t have. She’d just called to mind Edward’s first blackmail attempt with great fondness. She could see herself with Mr. Clark at some point in the future—an old married couple sitting on a porch in summer, holding hands and reminiscing over past times.
Do you remember the time you blackmailed me?
Yes, dear. You blackmailed me right back. It was the sweetest thing. I knew then that we were meant for each other.
She wasn’t thinking about how dreadful he was any longer. She’d been thinking that her first investigations would have been so much easier with Edward to forge her references.
“I’m tired,” Free told her brother. “Thank you for everything. I’d never have been able to rid myself of Delacey without you.” She leaned up and kissed his cheek. “You’re my favorite brother.”
“I’m your only brother,” he said in dark amusement.
“You see?” Free spread her arms. “I can’t count on any of the others to even exist when I need them.”
“Go to sleep, silly.” But Oliver was smiling as he extinguished the lamp and left.
Free’s mind didn’t calm when she put her head on the pillow. Instead, it raced ahead—to the last rendezvous she had planned for the evening. One that she had not-so-coincidentally neglected to mention to her brother, on the theory that what brothers didn’t know couldn’t keep them awake at night.
The noises of the household died away. The servants’ footsteps retreated belowstairs, then their voices ceased altogether. When the house had been quiet ten minutes, Free slipped on a robe and slippers and tiptoed out, down the wide stairs, back through the pantry, out the servants’ door. The moon lit the mews in silver. She looked around, waiting…
“Free.”
When had he begun to call her that? She turned to the sound of his voice.
“Frederica,” he repeated, in that low, dark voice.
Edward came out of the shadows of the stables, and she put her arms around herself. She hadn’t precisely lied to her brother a half-hour past. Edward wasn’t the first scoundrel she’d met, just the best one. Amazing, how the world around her seemed to alter simply because he was present. She might have said his voice was like velvet, that the air was warm and welcoming. But his voice was far more like gravel with that hint of abrasion to it. The night was cooling off, and while a breath of warm air carried the sweet scent of newly cut grass in the square, it warred with the more mundane odor of the stables.
She looked up as Edward drew near, but could see only shadows on his face. “I take it you served Delacey successfully?” he asked.
Rodents will never rule the world. Even invoking that man gave her a shiver. She might never rule the world, but she could still gnaw a mighty hole in his plaster. “I did.”
“How does it feel to vanquish your enemy?” he asked.
How odd it was, this doubled view of the world. Everyone had seen Delacey’s papers. The account in her newspaper, speeding off the press as they spoke, would not be the only one. All of London would know that Delacey had arranged for the copies to be made, had burned down her house.
Yes, she might be vermin, but there were a lot of mice gnawing in concert, and together they might take him down.
She didn’t answer. Instead, she turned to him. “How does it feel to have your revenge?”
Because he had it now. This was all he had wanted: to foil Delacey’s plans and humiliate him. He’d no reason to stay around, now that was finished.
So why did everything still feel so unsettled?
He took a step toward her. “Strange you should say that.” His voice was whisper-soft. His hand stole up to brush her cheek. “I don’t know. Over the last days, I’ve scarcely thought of revenge at all.”
His fingers scarcely grazed her skin, but even that light touch sent a cascade of electricity through her.
“I should like to know something,” she said. “I need to know why you started our conversation all those weeks ago by blackmailing me.”
There was a pause. He pulled away from her, straightening so that he was a great, dark tower of height. “I should think that was obvious. I wanted you to do something; I had the means to make you do it. So—”
“But you didn’t have to. You said it yourself—you could have charmed me. You could have written yourself any sort of reference. But you’ve never tried to win my trust. Not once. Instead, from the very beginning, you told me repeatedly that you were a scoundrel and I shouldn’t trust you. Why did you do that?”
She couldn’t hear him breathe. She listened, straining, through the sound of crickets. But his silhouette remained utterly still.
“I suppose I did,” he said softly. “How curious. I hadn’t precisely realized.”
Now Free couldn’t breathe, waiting to hear his response.
“That first time we met on the bank of the Thames.” He spoke slowly, as if he were choosing his words with precision. “You bowled me over. I remember watching you leave, feeling as if I was in need of an exclamation point. But I didn’t have room for anything except full stops.” He shrugged. “You have to set boundaries before you get in the thick of things, because once you’re caught up in the act, you lose your head. You need to decide when to walk away: from cards, from a confidence game.” He glanced over at her. “From you. Maybe that’s what I was doing. Making sure that I would walk away before I lost my head. I had to make sure you would never trust me, because otherwise…”