Never Marry a Viscount (Scandal at the House of Russell 3)

Bryony had learned to lie in the last few months, Maddy thought. “Of course,” Bryony said, her eyes wide. “Anything you say.”

“Have you convinced her? Or have you buggered it up again?”

Rufus flinched beneath his mother’s harsh tones. “She’s ready whenever I am,” he said. “She believed everything I told her.”

His mother’s smiles were never warm, but there was a trace of approval in this one. “Good boy. And we’re fully prepared to deal with Alexander. I found the gun in his desk drawer, and I’ve loaded it for you. It will be easy enough to sneak up on him. He’d never suspect you.”

“He won’t be happy if you’re here,” Rufus said doubtfully.

“He won’t even be thinking about me once he hears that she’s fallen. He’ll be distraught, and you could even suggest she committed suicide. As long as you do your job it will all go swimmingly. Just make certain she falls into the garden, not onto the street. That would cause too much of an uproar, and we’re going to have to live all this down once you inherit the title.”

“You forget I have experience in tossing Alexander’s females off a roof,” Rufus said with an attempt at dignity.

“Ah, yes, poor Jessamine.”

“She didn’t love him,” he said. “She was always flirting with other men, even with me. She deserved her fate.”

“And so does that little trollop who conveniently happens to be one of the Russell girls. I would be quite cross with you if I weren’t pleased with how all this came together. Clearly it was meant to be. I have every expectation that the same opportunities will arise once more with the two others. And if you find you’re tired of killing, there’s always the chance we don’t need to worry about them, but I believe in being thorough. It is only when you deviate from my plans that things go wrong, my boy. If you’d done what I told you, they would have died when you burned down their town house, and it would have been over with when you killed Lady Kilmartyn. But you miscalculated and they escaped. Very sloppy.”

“Yes, Mama. I promise I’ll finish it. I haven’t grown tired of it.”

“You will redeem yourself, I have little doubt, and then you will come into your own. You’re much more suited to the viscountcy—Alexander would rather strip off his clothes and dabble in the water like a child. This way it all works out as I had planned. First we took Renwick back, along with enough money to support it, and everyone assumed it was Russell who’d stolen it. That will be followed by Alexander’s disgrace and death, and no one will even remember the trouble in the house of Russell.”

“It doesn’t do to underestimate him, Mama,” Rufus felt compelled to say.

“He is no match for me,” she said simply. “Neither was his father.”

“My father as well,” Rufus said.

“You aren’t still fussing about that, are you? Once you succeed in killing your own father, you find that you’re quite able to do anything at all,” she said simply. “He was so weak I could have taken care of it, but I wanted you to have the experience. It made you stronger.”

“Yes, Mama.”

“If you can kill your father then you should have no trouble at all killing your brother.”

“No, Mama.” The thought suddenly came to him—her equation worked out quite simply. He should have no trouble killing his mother either. The thought brought an unexpected cheer to his heart.

“You should take care of it, my darling boy. You should do it now. We can’t be sure when Alexander will return, and it needs to be done.”

“Yes, Mama.” He rose obediently, but to his surprise his mother rose as well. “You’re coming with us?”

“Not onto the roof, of course,” she said. “But I wish to observe and make certain there are no mistakes this time. I should have a good enough view from the servants’ quarters.”

“Yes, Mama. And I plan to make certain she lands on the stone wall, so that she dies quickly. It’s four flights down—I have no doubt that it will be sufficient.”

Mrs. Griffiths sighed. “It is too bad we can’t use the street, but we can’t risk the attention. Someone might look up and see you. She might scream when she falls. I don’t suppose you could break her neck before you toss her.”

Rufus shuddered. He’d done that once, at her behest, and he’d hated the cracking noise. “I’ll do my best.”

Mrs. Griffiths smiled at her son fondly. “That’s all I could ever want, darling boy.”

Alexander was ready to punch someone, anyone. Applying for the special license had been simple enough; finding a cleric or magistrate was an entirely different matter. He’d been across town and back at least six times, tracing down one possibility after another, and it was well past teatime before he found someone willing to take care of it. He simply had to convince or drag Sophie to the magistrate’s office at the Old Bailey to have it done, and he could imagine her reaction. Sanctifying a marriage among thieves and murderers was hardly a good way to start a marriage, but then, the two of them were hardly an ordinary couple. The magistrate had been so delighted to oversee an act of joy rather than his usual duties of sending men to prison, hanging, or the hell of transportation to Australia that he’d agreed, though he insisted he couldn’t do it before tomorrow morning.

Alexander had little doubt he could convince Sophie. He was still in a haze from the night they’d spent together, the sheer joy in her as she discovered her sensuality, explored his body, and let her own be taken and pleasured until she was a helpless bit of femininity, beyond movement or speech, curled in his arms trustingly, holding him tightly even in her sleep.

She might even love him. At the very least, he was utterly sure he could get her to love him, and the pleasure they took in one another was a good start. She would say yes; he was sure of it. He’d done everything he could to show her how much he wanted her, needed her.

Of course, his inner devil pointed out, you didn’t say the words. Women liked words, and he hadn’t given them. It had been too long since he’d felt this way—if, in fact, he ever had. He’d been infatuated with Jessamine, but that had been a boy’s fascination.