Page 53 of The Duke's Auctioned Virgin
“Both,” Edward replied.
George made a sound that was not quite a laugh. He set his glass down, tilted his head, and studied Edward with the thorough attention of a man examining a painting for forgeries.
It was a look Edward had seen a hundred times. In safe houses. In embassy drawing rooms. At card tables, where the stakes were not money but information.
George looked at everyone like that. As if they were hiding something he had the right to know.
Peter laughed. “That sounds about right. Remember Vienna? The card game at the ambassador’s residence? You sat down, and three men folded before you were dealt in.”
“They were wise men,” Edward said.
“They were terrified men,” George countered. He swirled his brandy. “Which begs the question of whether your bride chose you or simply ran out of alternatives.”
The words landed with precision.
George always knew where to place a blade. It was what made him exceptional at his work and exhausting as a companion.
Edward let the silence stretch out. Over twelve years of partnership, he had learned that responding to George’s provocations only encouraged them.
“She chose me,” he said, and left it there.
She had. Standing on a staircase in a green dress, she had looked at a room full of men and chosen him. Because he put bread on her plate and turned his back when she needed to breathe. Understanding was rarer than courage, beauty, or money.
George studied him. His flat eyes trailed over Edward’s face with the same careful attention he gave to a target. Reading. Cataloging. Filing away details for later use.
“So,” Peter spoke up, breaking the silence with the uncomfortable cheerfulness of a man who could feel the temperature dropping. “Tell us about her. What is she like?”
“Brave,” Edward answered. “Stubborn. She designed a maze in her garden and then got stuck in it during a storm. She plays riddles and cheats at relay races, and she has the servants of a dead man so loyal to her that they baked shortbread to celebrate the night he died.”
“You sound like a man in love,” George remarked.
“I sound like a man who knows what he has found.”
“And what have you found, exactly?” George leaned forward. The firelight caught the edge of his jaw. “A woman to warm your bed? A title to match your own? A pretty face to stand beside you at Court while you pretend to be something you are not?”
“Careful,” Edward warned. His voice did not change. It did not need to.
George held up both hands, the gesture of a man surrendering. Except that George never surrendered. He retreated. He regrouped. He came at you from a different angle. The raised hands were not a concession. They were a pivot.
“I mean no offense, old friend. I am merely concerned.” His voice softened. Warm now. Sympathetic. The voice he used when he wanted something. “You have spent twelve years in service. Twelve years of cellars and alleys and the kind of work that does not wash off. And now you want to play house with a woman who has no idea what you are.”
“She knows exactly what I am.”
“Does she? Does she know about Prague? About Lisbon? About the things we did in rooms like this one, in cities whose names she cannot pronounce?”
Edward’s jaw tightened.
Peter looked down at the floor.
“Those were missions,” Edward pointed out. “Not confessions.”
“They were all missions. But that is not the point.” George put his glass down. “The point is that you are not the kind of man who retires, Edward. You are a weapon. Weapons do not sit on shelves. They rust.”
“Then let me rust.”
The fire crackled in the grate. A log collapsed. Sparks rose and died. In the silence, Edward could hear the noise below them, the clink of glasses and the murmur of men who had never done anything more dangerous than lose money at cards.
He had protected those men. He had protected their families, their homes, and their comfortable, oblivious lives, and he had never once resented them for it.
