Page 20

Chapter Twenty

“ S urely, you do not mean to remain cloistered in that dreadful old townhouse all Season, Evelyn?” Her mother’s voice was lined with sweet lavender and reproach, her perfectly arched brow lifting like a well-aimed dart.

Evelyn speared a boiled potato with all the delicacy of a knife to the ribs.

“Dreadful old townhouse or not, Mama, it has character, and we cannot wait for the renovations to be brought to an end,” Evelyn smiled. “The upholsterers were simply scandalized by the dust. And you know how I detest sneezing in mixed company.”

“Since when do you care for mixed company?” her father asked dryly.

She offered him a radiant smile. “Since I married a man who finds them even more intolerable than I do.”

Robert lifted his glass in ironic toast. “Your wine is excellent, My Lord.”

Her father grunted but was pleased with the comment. “As it should be, Your Grace. I do not serve vinegar to my guests.”

“Oh, you do. Just not in a bottle,” Evelyn murmured into her drink.

Robert choked into his. If she had heard it, her mother would gasp.

But Evelyn didn’t wish to accentuate the polite savagery of familial interaction but rather to dress it in silks and etiquette.

After all, she had promised him . She promised she would help him find the truth.

And Brimwood House, namely its immaculate study, its secret drawers, its heavy oak desk under which she’d once hidden with a stolen tart, might hold the key to it all.

She glanced at Robert then, catching the line of his jaw, the unreadable depth of his eyes. He looked as he always did: like a man who’d walked through fire and refused to be burned. She wondered if he felt the tremble in the air the way she did.

“Evelyn, darling,” her mother said with the piercing sweetness of a stiletto made of spun sugar, “I spoke with Matilda yesterday.”

And there it was. The shift. The sudden stillness in the marrow.

Evelyn stiffened. Her fingers curled against the damask napkin in her lap. “How nice.”

Lady Brimwood’s lips thinned. “You still haven’t spoken with her.”

Evelyn’s wine turned sour on her tongue. “No, I haven’t.”

“She is still your sister.”

“She is many things,” Evelyn said matter-of-factly.

Lady Brimwood’s gaze flickered to Robert, who had returned to the careful dissection of his roast duck as though family betrayal were merely a culinary matter. Evelyn knew he was listening. He always was.

“She is unhappy, Evelyn,” her mother said quietly. “You might consider the possibility that she regrets?—”

“I regret this conversation,” Evelyn cut in, dabbing at the corner of her mouth. “And I have no wish to sully the pudding course with talk of Matilda.”

“She gets that from your side,” her father muttered.

Her mother sniffed. “She gets her temper from you and her recklessness from me, but she gets her charm from somewhere entirely unknown.”

Evelyn offered a bright smile, all teeth and no mercy. “That must be why everyone’s so afraid of me.”

“No,” said Robert calmly, still not looking up. “It’s because you tell the truth.”

The room fell quiet. Evelyn turned her head toward him, startled, though she schooled her expression before anyone else could notice.

Only her husband ever dared to toss her those brutal little gems, truths wrapped in darkness, like uncut stones, and she treasured them more than any jewel the ton could offer.

“Well,” she said airily, and rose from her chair with a rustle of skirts, “since we’ve all had our fill of duck and drama, I believe I’ll retire.”

“Already?” her mother asked, reaching out as if she might grasp Evelyn with nothing but a glance.

“I’ve a headache.” Evelyn leaned in to kiss her mother’s cheek and whispered low, “We’ll talk about Matilda another time. I promise.”

Her mother’s hand tightened, but she let her go.

Robert stood as well, formal and silent, a dark shadow cast by candlelight and grief.

He nodded once to her parents then followed Evelyn from the dining room without a word.

The corridor beyond was cold, quiet, and lined with ancestral faces who looked far too judgmental for people who’d been dead two centuries.

“You’ll want us to sneak into the study tonight, I expect,” Evelyn said softly, leading him through the hallway with the confidence of someone who had once raced these corridors barefoot at midnight.

Robert’s voice was low and iron-edged. “If we wait too long, he might move anything of worth.”

“He’s careful,” she said. “He is my father but always believed himself untouchable regarding any wrongdoing.”

“He was untouchable,” Robert murmured. “Until you married me.”

Evelyn paused at the foot of the staircase, turned to look up at him. “Regretting it already, Your Grace?”

He took the final step down and looked at her fully. “Not yet.”

Then he offered her his arm. It seemed mocking and too formal, but still warm beneath the fabric. She took it, and together, they walked up the stairs like the dutiful daughter and her solemn husband.

Only the shadows knew their secret. Only the darkness knew what they planned.

The clock in the east corridor struck one.

A low, deliberate chime echoed through Brimwood House like a whisper with teeth.

Robert was standing outside Evelyn’s door, one hand resting against the cool wood, the other closed into a fist at his side.

He did not knock immediately. Instead, he listened, as still as a hunter.

There were no footsteps, no creaking boards. Only the hush of sleeping wealth.

Then, two gentle taps and the door opened without a sound.

Evelyn stood there in her night robe made of pale blue silk which fell down her body like water. Her hair was loosed from its elaborate braids, tumbling down her back in thick chestnut waves. She looked up at him, her eyes bright with mischief and the thrill of conspiracy. She was barefoot.

“Your Grace,” she whispered, the corner of her mouth twitching.

Robert arched a brow. “You’re enjoying this far too much.”

“I thought you liked that about me.”

He didn’t answer.. couldn’t. Because yes was not a thing he was willing to say, not here, not now, not when the very air between them felt like the space before a storm, humming with something dangerous. Instead, he turned, and she followed, silent and swift as shadow.

The corridor stretched before them, long and dark and lined with the ghosts of Brimwood’s past. Moonlight filtered through tall windows, pooling on the marble floors like spilled silver.

When they reached the door to the study, he paused. He didn’t need to try the doorknob, but he did. Locked.

Of course, it was.

He glanced back at her.

Evelyn leaned against the wall, her arms folded beneath her breasts. “Now what?”

Robert stared at the lock again then stepped closer to her. She tilted her head, watching him like a cat might a very interesting mouse.

“You have something I need,” he murmured.

“I usually do,” she replied, but her breath hitched slightly when he reached up.

He didn’t ask. He simply slid a hand into her hair.

She stilled.

Gently, he found the simple pin tucked just behind her temple, hidden beneath a twist of hair. He tugged it free, slow and precise. A single strand slipped loose and curved across her cheek.

His fingers brushed her skin as he tucked it behind her ear. And there, just there… he felt it. That spark. That sharp awareness that flared to life only between them, igniting like flint and steel.

Her breath caught. His jaw tightened.

For one suspended second, he forgot about the lock. He forgot the room. The mission. The weight of his dead. He only saw her .

“I’ll return it,” he said quietly as his fingers lingered a fraction too long.

“You’d better,” she replied, but her voice was softer now. It almost sounded like a promise.

He stepped away, the pin still in hand and the air between them charged and fragile. Kneeling at the door, he studied the lock. It was a simple, older design. Brimwood had favored tradition over innovation.

Fool.

A few deft twists, a turn, the faintest click, and the tumblers yielded. The door creaked open. He stood and looked at her.

Evelyn’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “Show-off.”

Robert held the door for her, hiding his smirk. “Ladies first.”

She glided past him like moonlight incarnate, and he followed her into the lion’s den. The door shut behind them with a whisper of wood on wood, but even that soft sound seemed deafening in the stillness of the house.

Robert waited until the latch clicked into place before he turned.

The air in the Viscount’s study was heavier than the corridor, dense with dust and the faint, cloying scent of ink and old tobacco.

The room reeked of curated legacy: there were leather-bound books that had never been read, a globe no one had ever spun, and a great oak desk that seemed to guard its secrets with aristocratic disdain.

Evelyn stood in the middle of it, motionless now. Her eyes swept the space with the practiced efficiency of someone who had grown up here but had never truly belonged.

“Where would he hide anything important?” he asked in a low voice.

She pointed to the desk without hesitation. “He never let the staff clean inside it. Said they’d move things. Always locked the bottom drawer.”

“Not tonight,” Robert muttered.

He crossed the room in long strides and crouched beside the desk. The bottom drawer was exactly where she’d said. It was sturdy, inset, and fitted with a lock far more modern than the one on the study door. So, he withdrew the hairpin again.

Behind him, he heard the faint rustle of Evelyn moving.

Her bare feet were silent on the rug as the brush of her robe caught the edge of a chair.

The tension coiled between them remained taut, unbroken.

They were allies, yes, but something deeper thrummed beneath the shared danger, something that hadn’t dissipated since he’d touched her cheek.

The lock clicked open. Robert slid the drawer free, and a flood of letters spilled into view. His breath stilled.

There had to be dozens. Perhaps more. They lay there, stacked in precise bundles, tied with twine, each labeled by year in Brimwood’s meticulous hand. Every envelope bore seals, stamps, or crests. Some edges were frayed with age. Others, too crisp, appearing instead new and recent.

Evelyn was beside him now, kneeling. Her hair brushed his shoulder as she reached for one of the bundles marked 1816 .

“They’re organized,” she whispered, incredulous.

Robert lifted a packet marked 1817 . That was the year his family’s carriage had been ambushed. His fingers tightened around it.

“You think the answer’s in there?” she asked, and he could hear the trembling of her voice.

“I think if there’s any record of dealings with the wrong kind of men, it might be in these letters.”

They began to read. The silence was only broken by the occasional shuffle of parchment, the quiet exhale of breath, the faint shift of weight as they leaned toward the single candle Evelyn had insisted on lighting just one and shielded it from the window.

Robert’s eyes scanned correspondence filled with diplomatic pleasantries, financial notes, updates on shipments of tea, wool, tobacco…

There was nothing yet.

Evelyn cursed softly beside him, barely a breath, but sharp. “He was buying a ridiculous amount of sugar in 1815. Twice the normal price. From someone in York I’ve never heard of.”

Robert grunted. “You think it’s a cover?”

“I don’t know anything yet,” she admitted.

The pile beside them grew. Robert’s back ached, his fingers were smudged with ink from envelopes handled a hundred times, but he kept digging.

Then, he froze. His thumb brushed a crest, an unusual one. A wax seal, crimson red and too heavy. Too theatrical. He slid the letter from the stack.

October 1817. Addressed to Viscount Brimwood. Sent from a private residence in Sussex.

He broke the seal. Read. Then read it again.

He didn’t realize Evelyn had stopped reading until her fingers closed gently around his wrist.

“What is it?” she whispered.

Robert swallowed. “It’s vague. Careful. But… there’s talk of a shipment being intercepted. Retaliation. Something about ‘removing obstacles.’”

Evelyn’s brows drew together. “Your parents?”

“I… don’t know,” he whispered, his eyes fixated on the letter which he kept reading, although his trembling fingers did a weak job of aiding his eyes in discovering more.