Page 10 of Only Earl in the World (Taming of the Dukes)

“A message was delivered for Lady Briar.” Minthe’s face showed distress before it was smoothed away.

“What message?”

“Here,” Minthe said, handing him the note that was written on plain parchment in blocky handwriting. “It wasn’t sealed,” she added hurriedly.

Jasper read aloud, “I know your secret. I have my eyes on you, little dove.”

His breath stalled as he frowned, fingers balling into a fist at the subtle menace in the note, his body reacting as it always did whenever it came to Briar’s safety. He didn’t like that someone was watching her…and clearly wanted her to know it.

He glanced at Minthe. “Are you certain this was for Lady Briar? There’s no name on this. Did the messenger say who gave it to him?”

Minthe exhaled with a small nod. “The boy who delivered it said her name clearly.” She pinched her lips between her teeth, her expression betraying her tension and anger. “When I asked who it was from, he said a rich gent in a plain coach gave it to him.”

“A rich gent? For it to be delivered here ?” Jasper asked, brows crashing. “And not her address in Mayfair. That seems odd, no?”

“Yes,” Minthe said. “It feels targeted.”

Jasper cursed. “That it does. I don’t like it. ”

“Do you think it’s someone who wants to expose what she does at Lethe?

” Minthe asked with a narrowed stare. “It can’t be good for her reputation, mingling with the likes of us.

And of course, being a partner in this.” She waved an arm about the room.

“It’s not really the done thing for a lady of her station, is it? ”

Jasper tilted his head, a frisson of worry coursing through him since Vesper had alluded to something similar barely an hour before. But besides that, how had Minthe guessed that he was in a silent partnership with Briar? No one knew of their agreement. “What do you mean?”

“I do the books, my lord. I can see who garnishes my wages, and I know you two have some business understanding. All I’m saying is that a lady of her rank, the daughter of an earl, isn’t someone who should spend her time at a gentleman’s social club.

” Her mouth pursed. “Word is flying around that Lethe is a safe haven for women like me, which is good, but you know how gossip is and how quickly anything good can turn to poison.”

“Poison?” he echoed.

She shrugged. “The sanctimonious gossip rags are printing letters from concerned citizens that the club is nothing but a luxurious bawdy house, and if Lady Briar is associated with us, that could be used against her to tarnish her reputation.”

Jasper was no stranger to being the center of attention with the newspapers—they always wanted something to write about, after all, and his many undertakings, including his investment in Lethe, had always been titillating fodder to them.

Running a bawdy house was the least of his worries.

The implications for Briar, however, could be…

dire, if word got out about her involvement.

A ruined reputation for a lady meant that her prospects for a good match would vanish.

She would be shunned from polite society.

People only needed the barest amount of conjecture to form an opinion that could very easily become misguided gospel.

Jasper had seen it happen on many an occasion when an unscrupulous man’s word was taken over a woman’s and outright falsehoods became fact.

Simply by default of one’s sex. It was egregious and yet a repulsive reality in their world, one that needed to be changed. But change was slow.

Jasper studied the message again, wondering whether it had been written by a man or a woman. Not that it mattered—the malicious intent was the same. What did the writer of the note hope to accomplish? Was it a threat? Would there be more? He crumpled the note in his fist.

“Did you show this to Lady Briar?” he murmured.

Minthe shook her head. “She’s not here, or I would have, but I also wanted you to be aware of the possible danger.” Her sharp eyes narrowed on him. “Do you intend on keeping it from her?”

Jasper hesitated. His protective instincts roared for him to do exactly that, but his brain insisted that she would not take kindly to his interference or hiding it from her.

He wanted to safeguard her, but there was also a healthy respect for the fact that she was a grown adult with a perfectly functioning brain of her own.

Minthe cleared her throat at his protracted silence, a look of censure flashing across her face. “Please tell me I wasn’t wrong in coming to you, my lord. Lady Briar should know. I only came here first because I was not certain that she would be here today, and this seemed urgent.”

“No, you’re right,” he said quickly to dispel her worry. “Of course, I agree that she should know. While I wish to keep her from harm, she can make her own choices, regardless of whether I like them or not.”

Minthe’s exhale was loud. “That’s what I thought. Thank you for not disappointing me by being yet another man who thinks he knows what is best, especially for a woman.”

“Never,” he said, scrubbing a hand over his jaw. He offered up a small smile. “Besides, she’d skewer me, wouldn’t she?”

“Without any doubt.”

As if their discussion had summoned her, Briar burst through the door of his office, a tempest in brilliant buttercup-yellow, and Jasper caught his breath.

Even in the wake of such a disquieting message, she was like a beam of sunlight in the darkness, and everything inside of him brightened as though he’d been stuck in the dark for an eternity, starved from the sight of her.

No, no, no.

Jasper clenched his jaw. Now was clearly not the time to be quixotic, but he also did not want to pick apart the sense of ease unraveling in his chest. Safe, he always needed her to be safe.

Regrettably and to his everlasting frustration, she was someone who usually cared more about others’ safety than her own.

That lack of self-preservation was the only reason that he’d hesitated with Minthe before.

“I beg your pardon,” Briar said, that emerald gaze sliding uncertainly between them. “Am I interrupting something?”

“No, my lady, I was just leaving. ”

Shooting him a meaningful look, Minthe took her leave with a passing squeeze of Briar’s arm.

It was incongruous to think that a high-born peeress would be bosom friends with a former courtesan, considering most of the ton’s views on women of Minthe’s station and profession, but Briar had never looked down on any of them.

She let their character speak for them instead of their circumstances.

Jasper had asked her why once, and she had glared at him as though he were in the wrong for even asking, stating that anyone could fall prey to misfortune, and if a person had to survive by any means necessary, then who were they to judge them?

Nobility of birth did not guarantee nobility of spirit, she’d stated, and her impassioned conviction had always stuck with him.

It was one of the many things he admired about Briar: her ability to see past a person’s exterior.

It was also one of the things that could lead her into trouble.

Not everyone was as kind or had altruistic motives.

Case in point—the person who clearly had ill intentions by sending her the message still crumpled in his fist. Before he could stupidly change his mind, he smoothed the parchment out and handed it to her.

“What is this?” she asked, taking it.

“Minthe said it came for you earlier. It wasn’t in an envelope. She brought it to me because she wasn’t sure that you would be here today.”

Briar scanned the two lines with a tiny frown appearing between her brows. “This was delivered here for me ?”

Jasper nodded. “Can you think of who it might be from? Or why anyone would send a message like that?”

“No, but it certainly seems untoward, if slightly disturbing,” Briar said, pacing the carpet and peering at him. “No one I know calls me little dove . How peculiar. Are you certain this was meant for me and not someone else?

He shook his head. “Minthe confirmed the messenger said your name.”

“Could he have been mistaken?” she pressed.

“He could have, I suppose, but we don’t have any other Lady Briars who come and go as they please from this establishment.”

“So, it would be smart to assume that someone has been watching me.” She chewed her lip and dropped the piece of parchment on the desk. “And they want me to know that they have been.”

Jaw clenched, he nodded. “I would presume so, yes.”

To his utter horror, her lower lip started to wobble.

Briar …who never displayed any kind of weakness whatsoever.

He blinked, but her expression of anguish didn’t disappear, the mask of cheer she’d worn vanishing completely.

Something was wrong , and he’d been so taken in by her presence that he hadn’t noticed the faint smudges beneath her eyes or their unusually dimmed depths.

“This is bad, Jasper. I can feel it.”

He jolted as the tenor of his given name crossed her lips.

She only ever called him that here, where they dispensed with formality.

But it was the break in her voice that gave him pause coupled with the sudden tightness of her shoulders.

He’d known her long enough to realize that she was teetering on the edge of control, hanging on by a thread.

This wasn’t like her. She was always full of positive banter with a lively personality and rarely let anyone see her crumble. Not even Vesper and her friends .

Not like this.

He rose and walked over to her, gathering her taut frame into his arms. She stiffened further, hiding her face against his shirtfront.

“W…what are you doing?” she mumbled, though she made no attempt to pull away.

He tightened his arms. “Hugging you.”