When the vampire had attacked and everything had turned into utter chaos. Adele's mother had been on the verge of ending the engagement right then and there, and if not for Malloryn's friendship with the queen, she may have.
Byrnes patted the hand of the tall, statuesque brunette sitting beside him. "One of Balfour's first attempts to kill your husband. Ingrid and I lured the vampire away, and then we blew up Tower Bridge. I can still hear Malloryn's lecture ringing in my ears."
"I thought your hair was black?"
Byrnes ran a hand through his silvery-blond locks. "Slight run-in with an insane enemy agent who wanted to transform me."
"Byrnes and Obsidian are evolved blue bloods," Malloryn told her. "We call them dhampir, and they're what occur when a blue blood enters the Fade and doesn't turn into a vampire."
The Fade was the final, irreversible end stage of the craving virus, when one usually devolved into a mindless, bloodthirsty vampire. Nobody had escaped that fate. "But how did—"
"Nearly twenty years ago, a Dr. Cremorne began performing illegal experiments upon blue bloods to see if he could halt the tide of the Fade. He managed to create an elixir that could transmute it instead," said the blonde woman at the end of the table in an excited tone usually reserved for university lecturers who'd been granted a captive audience. "It didn't reverse the Fade, but it created an evolved blue blood instead of a vampire. Dhampir are—"
"Thank you, Ava." Malloryn hastily cut her off, Adele noticed. "I'll explain it in more detail later, if you wish. Suffice it to say, dhampir are faster and stronger than blue bloods, and almost impossible to kill. Balfour has several of them working for him. We have two. And one last guest to introduce."
"We do?" This from the hard-eyed man he'd referred to as Jack, who wore a breathing apparatus slung around his throat.
Malloryn glanced toward the door as a woman entered, as if she'd been waiting for her cue. "Ah, Mrs. Herbert, how good of you to join us."
The woman was tall, brunette, and had the sort of face one would skip over in a crowd. "My pleasure, Your Grace."
Adele's eye did not skip over her.
Her mouth dropped open. "Clara?"
"Your Grace." Her maid tipped her head toward her regally.
It took a moment to sink in.
"My maid is one of your spies," she said to Malloryn through gritted teeth. "When were you going to tell me?"
One of his eyebrows arched. "It slipped my mind."
"How strange," Adele continued, "that my previous maid gave her notice almost three months ago, and despite having four potential maids apply for the job, only one of them showed up to interview. Her references were absolutely impeccable too."
"Of course they were," he replied with a straight face. "I forged them myself. It was shortly after I returned from Russia, and I realized you might be a target. I needed someone close to you who could protect you if need be."
"Let me guess? Our butler, Richards, spends his nights breaking into your enemies' homes?"
"Don't be ridiculous. Richards is eighty, if he's a day. He's merely the butler. But two of the upper footmen could kill a man with nothing more than a toothpick in at least six different ways."
"Only six?" Miss Townsend mused. "I could do it in at least twelve."
"Wait, wait, wait, wait." All four feet of Byrnes's chair hit the ground as he leaned forward and stared at Adele's maid. "Did he call you Mrs. Herbert? As in the Mrs. Herbert? Our Herbert's wife? The mysterious Mrs. H?"
The woman in the center of this entire furor blinked at him. "Aye, Byrnes. And I've heard all about you and your sense of... humor."
Byrnes shot Herbert a look.
"He's hilarious," the butler said, with an absolutely straight face. "And yes, this is my Clara."
His face softened as the spouses shared a look.
"Oh," said the hulking brute Malloryn had called Kincaid. "Our Herbert's in love."
"It appears to be contagious," Malloryn said distantly as he rifled through several sheets of paper.
"Well," Byrnes assured him, "you're the last man standing, so to speak. I wouldn't be worried at all if I were you."
Kincaid snickered, then blinked as his wife appeared to kick him under the table. The rest of the ladies looked murder at them, and an awkward undertone of silence filled the room.
"I'm not worried," Malloryn replied. "Love is a weakness I can ill afford at the moment."
It wasn't that the statement hurt; it was that he said it so coolly, in front of them all.
"Malloryn," Miss Townsend growled in faint rebuke.
"It's quite all right," Adele made herself say, wearing the thin smile that had seen her through several Seasons of vitriol she pretended she couldn't hear. "The duke and I have an understanding. And one would need a heart to be at risk of losing it."
"One should not throw stones when one lives in a glass house," Malloryn returned. "I was not named Ice Princess of the year, three years running."
"No, they tend to call you something else. It rhymes with that 'old trick.'"
It felt like the early days of their marriage, all over again.
"Is anyone else having any luck fading into the furniture right about now?" Byrnes asked in a loud whisper.
Kincaid winced.
And Adele found herself blushing furiously as she lowered her eyes. Old habits died hard. If she'd been called an ice princess behind her back, it was only because she'd had to be in order to protect herself.
What, then, was Malloryn's excuse?
"Fine. We'll discuss this later. In private. Is there any chance we can concentrate on the matter at hand?" Malloryn asked. "Tomorrow night, my wife is going undercover at Angel's Fall. Since you're all well known to Balfour's agents, I have no choice but to send her in alone with Clara. Meanwhile"—he stabbed a finger toward Charlie and Lark—"the pair of you are going to break into Sir George Hamilton's private study and discover just what he's up to. Gemma's going with you, just in case. Any questions?"
Byrnes raised his hand.
"Any questions that do not pertain to Clara and Herbert's marriage? Or mine?"
Byrnes slowly lowered it.