Page 24 of The Duke of Deceit

“Do you still have contacts in Seven Dials and St Giles—those men connected to your father’s old businesses?” Shay asked.

Lucien bit back a curse. Whatever Shay needed, it could not be good if he was asking about that.

“Yes.” Lucien said nothing more but crossed to the little side table by the window, picked up the bottle of port he kept there, and treated himself to a generous pour. This night was turning into a race to the bottom of a bottle.

“I need you to gather some information for me.”

“What kind of information?” Lucien poured a second glass and returned the stopper to the crystal decanter with a soft clink.

“Anything you can learn about a man named James Norton, a Whitehall official with an appointment in the Treasury.”

Lucien carried the second glass back to Shay and held it out. “Why?”

Shay finally turned to face him. For the first time that evening, Lucien could clearly see the thick, rough scars that marred the right side of his face. “He’s planning on marrying Sophie.”

“I see.” Lucien took a long swallow of port. “Afraid you won’t be invited to the wedding?”

“I might clash with the flowers.” He drew a finger slowly down his scarred cheek.

“No one cares about that,” Lucien said truthfully. “No one ever cared anything about that.” He gestured his glass toward the window. “Hell, the streets are full of soldiers who came back missing parts.” Arms, legs, jaws, feet, hands, ears, eyes… So many men, sadly, that no one gave them a second glance any more. Just as they wouldn’t have given one to Shay.

“But I didn’t earn this in the war,” he muttered and turned back toward the fire, once more hiding the right side of his face. “That’s always been the difference.”

Yes, Lucien supposed so.

“You’ll help me, then?”

Lucien would walk through fire for Shay. “I’ll see what I can find out.” He frowned into his glass. “But it might take me longer than usual.” He paused before admitting, “I’m having trouble with a woman.”

“Ah, yes. Your cock.” Shay did a poor job of hiding his grin as he lifted the glass to his lips and muttered against the rim, “Maybe not so well-controlled after all.”

“It doesn’t involve my cock,” Lucien grumbled. Not completely, at least. “Her name is Jessamyn St Claire. She’s an unsullied bluestocking out for revenge.”

Lucien leaned his arm across the fireplace mantel and stared down into the low flames as he explained everything to Shay. Well, noteverything. He judiciously censored the events of tonight. Even with those gaps in his story, he knew Shay would understand his predicament and sympathize with him.

Instead, Shay laughed.

“This isn’t funny,” Lucien growled.

“Oh, yes, it is!” Shay continued to chuckle as he finished his port. “You’ve been playing the part of the rakehell for so long that fate was bound to strike you down sooner or later. What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing. The blasted baby isn’t mine.”

“Are you certain?”

“Absolutely.” He shoved himself away from the fireplace and began to pace. “I would never have been that careless, certainly not with an unmarried miss in Lord Hawthorne’s garden. The last thing I’d let myself be is trapped into marriage by getting a chit with child.” He grimaced. “I can never take a wife, you know that.”

There were parts of his life that not even a wife could be privy to. The last time he checked, the Church of England didn’t require a wife to keep a husband’s deepest secrets untildeath did they part. Although that was what it would be—death, because if anyone found out that Lucien had committed fraud in stealing his brother’s inheritance, his so-called duchess would most likely kill him with her own hands. No matter that Lucien had spent the past decade attempting to make it up to Phillip, the damage had been done. Phillip was no longer a Grenier and never would be.

“Then you need to put a stop to this immediately,” Shay warned. “In my experience, it isn’t the generals who win wars but the foot soldiers no one pays a second thought to.”

“She isn’t a general nor a foot soldier.” No, she was unlike any other woman he’d ever met. She wasn’t some unmarried miss who nearly fainted if he did so much as glance her way, nor was she a world-weary wife or widow. She was prickly, too smart for her own good, and stubborn as a mule. Yet she could also be soft and yielding. It was all of that taken together that made her the most interesting woman he’d met in years. If ever.

“What is she then?” Shay pressed.

Lucien raked his frustrated fingers through his hair. “A frustrating busybody who’s sticking her pert little nose in where it doesn’t belong. She’s in over her head and has no idea who she’s messing with.”

“Seems to me she knows exactly who.” He gestured pointedly at Lucien’s pacing. “And she seems to be succeeding.”