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.”