Yes. Mena agreed, tracing the cut underneath his shirt. She could feel the small rise underneath the linen. She flattened her hand and felt the strong beat of his heart. He’d saved forty children from a fate probably worse than death. She always complained about her lack of freedom but couldn’t dream of living as those small children had. Morgan was a living, breathing hero. Not a monster. “How terrible was it?”
He captured her hand and placed a kiss on her gloved fingers. “Nothing too terrible.”
He was lying, once again hiding his pain for her benefit.
She moved closer. “She almost killed you, didn’t she?”
He smiled. “She struck just above my heart.”
“You’re a very lucky man.”
His eyes moved over her face before he rested her hand against his mouth and said, “I’m starting to agree.”
* * *
10
CHAPTER
TEN
.
.
.
* * *
“ We’ve work to do.” …
* * *
.
Morgan groaned as his valet helped him back into bed before leaving the room and closing the door behind him.
"I like her," Simon said a second later.
"As do I," Warren said.
"But you can't marry her." Simon directed his gaze to Morgan as he began to pace the room, walking the distance from one side of the bed to the other. "Since discovering that Philomena was the woman your mother intended for you to marry, all of our efforts have been focused on discovering what role she plays in our destruction."
"Our destruction?" Morgan leaned back in his bed. His side throbbed with pain from simply walking from his room to the sitting room down the hall where everyone had just had dinner, but he would not take back the last hours for anything. Mena had met the men and their wives, and the evening had been one he'd enjoyed thoroughly. She'd sat beside him and more than once had assisted him to ensure he didn't tear his stitches. The few times their hands had brushed, color rose to her cheeks and her eyes fluttered before she murmured something to herself and jumped readily into a conversation with someone else at the table... as though their growing feelings could be ignored.
"Forget the O.S.S." Lucas sat in a chair in the shadows by the window. With only a few lamps to illuminate the room, it was hard to tell that his eyes were two different colors. One was blue while the other green. His blond hair took on a reddish tint in the dark. "We have to figure out how she'll destroy the kingdom."
Morgan would have chuckled if he'd not thought the same way just hours ago. When Mena first walked into his office, he'd been ready to attack. Now he knew that he'd find nothing but comfort in her arms.
"Not a person in London has a foul word to say about her." Simon paused by the bed and settled his blue eyes upon Morgan. "And even the spies in Hanover sent word back that she was found to be an innocent there as well. We thought to simply arrange something to ensure you two not wed and now that you're here, we can put something in motion."
Something in motion?
Morgan stilled. He could just imagine what plans Simon could think of. "I plan to marry her," he decided to say before his leader saw to create some circumstance that would injure Philomena physically or soil her reputation. "You're not to harm her."
Simon stared at him with wide eyes. "You can't be serious."
"I like her." Warren sat with his arms crossed by the empty fire, a small grin on his face. "And our wives like her as well, and you know they're perfect judges of character."
Simon grunted. "I don't know. They did marry us."
Morgan chuckled.
Lucas, who was married to Warren's only sister, pressed his lips together to fight back a laugh.
Warren's smile widened. "We should give her the benefit of the doubt."
"Absolutely not. She's Creed's ward," Simon said.
Warren leaned back in his chair. "And I'm Lady Chasewood's son. Surely, you don't think me anything like her.”
The very thought was offensive. Warren was an honest man, and his mother was far from an honest woman. She'd married an untitled man only to sleep with his titled brother, the Earl of Chasewood. Later, after her husband died, she married Lord Chasewood and gave birth to their heir Cole a month later. London had been in an uproar over the scandal, and she'd done very little good since then. She was downright villainous to Nora before Warren settled things between the two and Lucas rescued the girl.
"I'm nothing like my mother," Warren went on. "So, who's to say she's like a man she's only known for a few years?"
Those words were like a punch to Morgan's gut. How had Warren had so much faith in her when Morgan had none? He'd be the first to say that he was nothing like his mother as well, but he'd never thought to separate Philomena from the man who was her caretaker. To him, they'd been one in the same and the guilt from that first meeting would haunt him probably forever.
"Creed is obviously using her to get close to us," Simon countered. "That proves her guilt alone."
"Creed didn't arrange the match," Morgan said.
Simon looked at him. "Then who did?"
"Cupid," Morgan said with a smile.
"Cupid?" Simon glared. "If you think this is a game, Morgan, I'll have you know that there is nothing funny about the fact that..." He stilled and then cursed. "Wardington! I can't believe he would do this." He was pacing again.
Lucas stood, staring at Morgan. "Wardington did this to us?"
"He said we need to protect her," Morgan said. "And I have every intention of keeping her safe... as my wife."
"Safe from who?" Warren leaned toward him. "Do you think Creed would bring her harm? Do you think he's been harming her?"
"No." Morgan knew what a victim of such abuse looked like and how they responded to men or violence. "She's as innocent as she looks. She fainted when Ralph hit Silas. And if that wasn't enough, you should hear her come to Creed's defense. She truly thinks him the victim of hate and gossip. She believes nothing the rags say about him."
"That's because everything about Creed is in the rags." Lucas shook his head. "If we could find some true evidence again the man, it would go to the papers."
Morgan tried to recall if anything about Philomena had suggested she wasn't the lighthearted beautiful woman he knew. He remembered her torn expression when he'd been stabbed and some of what she'd said about her father. "She said she was there when her father died."
"She was there? No one said as much." Simon moved to the empty hearth and leaned against the mantle. "We looked into her father's death when we discovered Creed owned the Housley Hotel, believing it to have gone to him in some foul involvement. His doctor said he had a bad heart. There was nothing anyone could do to save him. Creed had no hand in it."
"I don't know," Morgan sighed. "But maybe we should check again." If there was something there, it just might be the thing to ensure that Philomena was on their side and not Creed's. Until he could prove Creed guilty, she'd never believe otherwise, and Creed would remain between them.
"This is a mess," Simon said. "And I, for one, blame Wardington."