"No one told you to marry his niece," Warren said. "If you had the opportunity, would you do it again?"
Simon looked at him and slowly turned away. "Marianne is everything to me. I'd walk through fire before I gave her up." And Wardington would see to Simon's torment if he ever thought to bring Marianne harm. Morgan thought the duke might do the same if Morgan ever wronged Philomena as well. The affection he'd had for the girl had been plain.
But after three years and three children, Simon and Marianne were close as well and Marianne, like Warren and Lucas' wives, had proven to be an asset to the men on more than one occasion.
Warren had actually married his wife Sopherina twice, once while he'd been using a false name during an assignment that they thought had ended in Sopherina's death and again when it became clear that Sopherina was very much alive.
Morgan said, “I’ll look into Philomena’s father tomorrow.”
“You may ask her questions, but you’ll remain in bed.” Simon gave him a direct look before it melted into a smile. “Besides, you’ve done well today. If not for you, we might all still be looking for Silas Christoph.”
“Ralph was the one who went after him.”
“But you saw him from the street,” Warren said. “We had all been looking in the wrong direction.” The man had been sitting right under the group’s nose, living in a well-to-do area with a well-to-do woman as her gardener. Who knew that a criminal like Silas Christoph was also gifted with rose beds? He’d left the post that the O.S.S. had given him not to once again take sides with Creed but to start his life anew and while the men thought that act commendable, at the moment, Silas was too useful to let go.
“Something must have frightened him to make him run,” Warren said.
“You think he knows something?” Lucas moved to the door. “We should question him.”
“Tomorrow.” Simon looked over at Morgan again. “I’m sure you’ll want to attend, but at the moment, you need your rest.”
Morgan wanted to fight but found that he was tired, his eyes and body already feeling heavy, ready to crawl under the sheets and not rise until the sun did. So, he decided not to fight it and simply be glad that Simon would allow him to be at the meeting. He inclined his head and said, “First thing tomorrow.”
Simon and Lucas said their goodbyes before leaving, but Warren waited by the door.
“How was your trip?” Warren asked.
Morgan sighed. His trip to ‘France’ had been discussed at length during dinner, since not even the O.S.S. was to know where Wardington sent Morgan, but if Morgan were to confide any part of it with anyone, it would be with Warren. “It shed some light on a few things.”
“Oh?” Warren lifted a brow and waited for details. He wouldn’t ask for them, however, and he wouldn’t push. Between the group, they all had secrets and could lie just as good as the next, but Morgan didn’t want to lie. He wanted to talk to someone who would understand, and that person was Warren.
“My mother is a monster.”
Warren crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “Is she any worse than mine?”
A fair question that, for while the world knew one of Lady Chasewood’s grander scandals, they did not know the worst of it. Only Warren did and before Morgan left for America, Warren had shared that terrible secret with him. He’d also confessed that his sister Nora suspected something amiss but didn’t know what, and Warren debated with telling the world every day, if not his own family. At the moment, he simply used the secret to blackmail his mother into doing as he wished.
“Yes,” Morgan said after further thought. “My mother is worse. She has innocent blood on her hands.” It was what Hiram had confessed to Morgan, the reason Hiram would not return to London with Lila.
Warren straightened. “I’m sorry.”
“If I could find evidence against my mother as you have, I would gladly turn her in.”
Warren sighed and put his hands in his pockets. “If my mother’s secret wouldn’t destroy my family, I would tell them, but it would make no difference that Ambrose’s father is actually Lord Chasewood. He could never inherit, since my mother was married to my father’s brother at the time.” Ambrose would never know his father was the earl, though it was ironic that Ambrose had been the man’s heir before Cole and Warren had come along nonetheless. “It’s better to simply leave it alone,” Warren said. “Ambrose already hates our mother. It wouldn’t do him any good to know the truth.”
After saying goodbye, he left as the others had, and Morgan adjusted himself in bed and allowed his mind to wander.
When the thought of his mother brought anger, he reached for something good to settle him, and his mind easily found Philomena’s smile. In his blood, he knew she had the power to make everything right. All he had to do was convince her of it. Doing so from bed would be hard… but Morgan had faced harder challenges before.
* * *
11
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
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“You followed the rules. You did nothing wrong.”…
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Philomena stepped into the carriage and sighed when she saw the stranger sitting across from her. He was a man she knew well and not at all. He was an older gentleman who wore fine suits, but not even silk could hide the fact that he was not from the West End. His accent made that clear. His hair was dark and swept back carelessly and his eyes a true blue.
They stared at her in a way that made her feel as though he didn't really see her, as though he were looking at other things happening behind her and had lived a life full of one tragedy after another. She recognized that look because she often had it on her own face, though she never stared as he did. When she was only in her thoughts, she kept in mind not to keep her gaze fixed on any one person. It was rude.
This man, whose name she didn't know, seemed to never have been taught that lesson. A black handkerchief rested in his open hand and without having to say a word, she took the material and tied it around her eyes.
The carriage pulled away from her house, and she settled in for the journey.
The first time Creed had sent this man to retrieve her, she'd been full of anxiety at the thought of being blind while in the company of a man, but when the second and third trip passed without harm, she'd settled and learned to enjoy the ride.
She even found herself enjoying the dark. It allowed her to be in her thoughts without having to discuss them and currently, as they had been for the last few months of her life, they were on Morgan. But before yesterday, she'd had very little to think about concerning him. That was no longer the case.