Page 19 of The Duke and Lady Scandal (Princes of London #1)

By the afternoon of her first day of confinement at home, Allie had started a book and put it down, finished off a knitting project, and, with Lottie’s help, rearranged much of her wardrobe for no reason other than to keep herself distracted.

But once she sat down to take a cup of tea at midday, all she could think about was Ben.

When he’d deposited her at her doorstep the previous night, there’d been a wildness in his eyes that had nothing to do with desire for her. Indeed, he seemed eager to part from her for the first time since they’d met.

He’d looked like a desperate man, and she’d wanted nothing more than to soothe him. And yet she’d known it wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted that wild, desperate drive to fill him up so that he could catch the man who’d robbed her shop and attempted to steal the Crown Jewels.

She also understood that he thought he could keep her safe if he stayed away, and if she stayed locked inside her house. Yet it was only the first day of her forced isolation, and she was finding it impossible to settle.

During the week, she was at Princes. That’s how it had been for years. That was a part of her life that gave her satisfaction and a sense of purpose. And though she’d sent a note to Mr. Gibson, letting him know that she’d decided to close the shop for the rest of the week, she knew him too well to believe he’d stay away.

Though they couldn’t open the shop without an undamaged and trustworthy safe to store valuables in, he was forever working on half a dozen repair or restoration projects, and she knew he’d find plenty to do without the interruption of customers.

She wanted to be there too.

Though, if she kept to her calendar, she wouldn’t be there this afternoon anyway. She’d planned to take the afternoon off to spend a few hours with Jo, who had an idea for a holiday charity event that would combine their book club and bicycle members and any guests they wished to invite.

Jo insisted she’d need Allie’s organizational skills to pull it off.

Allie had Lottie take a message to the Wellingdon household first thing to let Jo know she was to remain at home, but she’d yet to receive a reply.

Allie found Lottie standing in the foyer, staring out the long rectangular window glass near the front door. She turned when she heard Allie’s approach and smiled.

“Any word from Lady Josephine?”

“Afraid not, miss. Just collected the post if you wish to see that.”

Lottie picked up a small pile from the hall table and handed it to Allie.

“I’m meant to be at Jo’s in three quarters of an hour.”

Allie tapped her fingers against the little pile of letters. “Is the constable out there?”

“There’s two of them. One’s in the square across the way. The other walks by now and then. Perhaps he’s watching the back of the house.”

This was nonsense. Ben was worried for her safety. She understood that, but being confined to her house when she had a business to see to? It was maddening.

Allie strode to the front door, squinting at the greenery in the square across the way. “He’s the one on the bench?”

“Sometimes he sits on the bench. Sometimes he strolls around the square.”

Lottie lingered behind her. “Will you be going to Lady Josephine’s, miss?”

“What if she’s on her way here?”

“Wouldn’t she have let you know?”

Ben would be furious if she disregarded what he’d asked of her when it hadn’t even been a single full day of confinement yet.

Confinement. Memories rushed in. Being confined to bed because her fever was high, and she was too exhausted to be anywhere else. Confined to her room so that she didn’t get Eve or Dom sick. And staying behind while they all went off on grand adventures—that felt like a kind of confinement too.

So it was no wonder this single day of staying at home when she wished to be elsewhere, doing things, being useful, was such an enormous struggle.

But there was a man watching out front and one monitoring the back garden. Unless she wanted to abscond like a criminal breaking out of prison, she’d have to be candid about her plans.

“Why couldn’t he come with me to Jo’s?”

Allie shot a look over her shoulder at Lottie.

Lottie shrugged. “Can’t imagine why he couldn’t. We could have the carriage brought around.”

The Prince family carriage was rarely put to use. It was old and too ostentatious, but it was roomy and the perfect vehicle to carry Allie and one of her watchful constables to Jo’s.

“I’ll go up and change.”

Allie felt lighter the moment she’d decided, at least as long as she could keep herself from considering Ben’s reaction if he got word of her escape.

“Would you speak to the constable, Lottie?”

“Of course, miss.”

Her eyes brightened. She was always pleased to be part of one of Allie’s impulsive ventures.

Allie rushed upstairs to dress before she could talk herself out of her plan.

Fifteen minutes later, she’d changed into a gown fit for visiting Lord Wellingdon’s household and decided not to fuss with her hair. As far as she knew, this luncheon was only to include the two of them and a good deal of dreaming of plans.

She slipped on her gloves as she descended the stairs and smiled when she saw Lottie waiting eagerly at the bottom.

“His name is Constable Collier and he’s quite amiable.”

She swallowed and frowned. “Though he does not think Inspector Drake will be pleased with this change.”

“It’s only a couple of hours, and I’ll be watched over, which is what’s most important to Be—Inspector Drake.”

Allie glanced out the front window and noted that the family carriage had already been brought around. “Besides, Inspector Drake needn’t know.”

“Of course he needn’t.”

Lottie handed Allie her hat and helped her into her overcoat. “See you in a bit, miss.”

“Back soon, Lottie.”

Constable Collier was already waiting near the carriage. He was blond and handsome and Allie understood why Lottie had been watching at the window.

He helped her inside, but they exchanged few pleasantries on the short ride over to Jo’s. The young man kept a watchful gaze outside the carriage windows, almost as if he expected them to be set upon and overtaken by highwaymen.

She wondered if she should be more frightened. Ben had only spoken of the threat he feared in the vaguest terms. Mayhem, he’d said. The criminal he sought was planning his next act of mayhem.

“Is the threat imminent, Constable?”

He looked at her as if stunned by her obliviousness. “If Inspector Drake says to keep watch, then I suspect it must be.”

Allie had the distinct feeling that Ben hadn’t told the young man much more than he’d told her, though she hoped he had. Certainly, Collier needed to know what he was looking for.

When they arrived at Wellingdon House, Allie and the constable parted ways. He stood and assessed the townhouse, looked both ways on the street where it sat, and then positioned himself in a landscaped area across the way.

“You came!”

Jo greeted Allie with all her usual enthusiasm. “Did you receive my reply? I’m afraid I got it off quite late.”

“I didn’t, but that’s all right. I’m here now, though I had to bring the constable.”

Allie hoped Lady Wellingdon wouldn’t notice or hear about the matter at all. It would only serve to reinforce her opinion of Allie.

“Where is he?”

Jo tipped her head to look behind Allie as if the constable might be hidden at her back.

“He’s positioned himself in the square.”

“I’m sorry, my dear. I know you value your independence.”

Jo hooked her arm around Allie’s. “Come with me to the drawing room. I’ve commandeered the space for our planning session, and it also affords us some privacy.”

Once they were inside the room, Jo closed the panel doors behind them.

“I do want to plan the charity dinner, but I also want to hear more about what’s caused Inspector Drake to demand you stay at home. Under guard.”

Jo took up her usual spot on the elegant settee and patted the space next to her.

Allie sat next to her friend and was shocked when she felt the sting of tears welling up.

The part she’d avoided thinking about all day was what weighed on her mind now. The fear. The question that had kept her up late until exhaustion had overtaken her.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again.”

Jo scooted a bit closer and offered Allie a pristine folded handkerchief from her pocket.

“I don’t understand, my dear. Inspector Drake?”

“The way we parted from each other last night. I’m not certain. But I know he will let this case consume him.”

“The theft at Princes.”

Jo reached out and clasped Allie’s hand. “When I saw that in your note, it broke my heart. I dare say you and Mr. Gibson are devastated.”

“It could have been worse. No one was harmed. But the whole thing was odd. Only a couple of gems taken from a safe full of them and bits of a torn letter found.”

“Torn letter?”

Jo jerked back as if it was the oddest thing she’d ever heard.

“It’s a clue, isn’t it?”

It had been nagging at the corner of her mind, but she’d been concerned about Grendel and putting the back room to rights, and Detective Constable Baker had collected them before she’d even had a look.

“Is it?”

“What else would it be?”

Allie shot up from the settee and began pacing. “Those pieces must mean something. Something significant.”

Allie pressed a hand to her mouth, trying to recall everything Ben had said. “Ben said a piece contained an initial that he believed indicated the thief’s name. Or his rank.”

Jo watched her, looking entirely befuddled.

“I’d like to see those pieces. The detective constable who came to take a report carried them away.”

“Well, Inspector Drake will see to that, surely.”

Jo tipped her head as if to catch Allie’s gaze. “You cannot solve the case for him, Allie.”

“But perhaps I could help.”

Jo scoffed but smiled at the same time. “You would make a fine detective, actually. A lady driven by her instincts. Curious. Organized.”

“Impulsive.”

Allie didn’t know if Jo was teasing her, but throwing out Dom’s most common criticism seemed apropos.

“I am serious,”

Jo insisted. “Though I doubt Inspector Drake wants you involved in this at all, seeing as he’s insisted that you remain cloistered at home.”

Jo glanced down at the spot on the settee Allie had vacated. “Now, come and tell me why you think this means you’ll never see the man again.”

A knock sounded at the drawing room door, and Jo let out a little groan of frustration. “Olivia is having a fitting, but Mama promised I wasn’t needed,”

she whispered.

With a little sigh of resignation, she sat up straight and turned toward the panel doors. “Come in.”

Their butler, Mr. Best, opened the door. “Gentleman to see Miss Prince, my lady.”

Allie and Jo exchanged a wide-eyed glance.

“From Scotland Yard, my lady,”

Best added with his usual even-toned gravitas.

Jo bit her lower lip to stifle a smile. “Is he tall, dark, and wearing a thunderous expression, Best?”

“That is an accurate description, my lady.”

Allie didn’t know whether to hide behind the furniture or rush out the door to greet him. Her heart was thudding, and she couldn’t hold back a smile, despite knowing she was about to receive one of his signature glowers.

“Show him in,” Jo said.

Then he was there. Filling the door frame. He wasn’t wearing a glower. Exhaustion had darkened the skin beneath his eyes, and he definitely hadn’t shaved, but he still looked marvelous.

“Lady Josephine, may I speak to Miss Prince alone?”

Allie couldn’t take her eyes off Ben, but she felt Jo’s gaze on her, insistent and questioning.

“It’s all right, Jo.”

“Only a few minutes, Inspector, and you mustn’t be angry with her. She came to help me.”

“Thank you, Lady Josephine.”

He flicked one glance at Jo as she departed.

“I suspect,”

Allie told him, “that you are angry whether Jo wishes you to be or not.”

All the way on the carriage ride over, anger had simmered in his gut. He’d banged on the vehicle’s wall, urging the cabbie to go faster. He’d argued with her in his head. Stubborn. Willful. Exasperating woman.

But now that she was in front of him, now that he could take a few steps and touch her, he let go of all of it.

She looked lovely. This room was full of light and all of it seemed drawn to her. Sunlight gilded the slope of her cheek, reddened the loose strand of hair that curled beside her ear. And her eyes were the brightest violet-blue he’d ever seen.

“You’re silent,”

she said quietly. “Is that good or bad?”

Silence seemed best because what he needed to say and what he yearned to say were waging a war. A battle between his head and his heart. He was torn between a job he’d once thought meant everything to him, and a woman who had come along to prove him wrong.

Alexandra approached tentatively, but she drew close enough for him to catch her scent. A mix of flowers and beeswax and the coffee she was addicted to.

“Ben, I’d rather have you shout at me than this.”

“I’m not going to shout.”

Perhaps he’d learned something in this after all. “I shouted at someone I cared for once, someone who was willful, and it didn’t end well.”

“You mean George?”

“Yes.”

Those memories were always ready to fill his mind if he let them, but he’d gotten good at pushing them away.

“Seems your life is full of willful people.”

“It is, but I don’t mind. Willful people make things happen. I admire tenacity.”

“Am I tenacious?”

“How can you doubt it? You survived illnesses and being left on your own, and you turned that independence into a role that you seem to love.”

“What happened to George?”

Ben felt something in him shuttering, a door coming down hard to push that story back. He couldn’t get lost in the past any more than he could get lost in his feelings for her.

“Now isn’t the time, Alexandra.”

“Please, Ben. It haunts you, and I want to know why.”

She took a single step closer. Her tone had softened, and the pleading note in her voice pushed open the closed door in his mind.

In some strange way, he needed her to know. Maybe it would help her understand what he’d come to do.

“My brother was wayward. He grew up angry, resenting how our mother neglected us, that our father had abandoned us.”

She didn’t react to that.

“He joined a gang who spent their time at the docks, stealing, bullying, causing trouble.”

Ben swallowed. The argument they’d had rang in his ears as if it was echoing off the walls of the Wellingdons’ luxurious drawing room. “I confronted him about his behavior. Demanded that he break ties with the gang, that he amend his ways.”

Ben’s throat began to tighten, as if his body was trying to keep the rest in. Because the rest was the deepest pain he’d ever known. “He chose the gang. Refused to speak to me or Helen. And then he chose to steal from the gang.”

He swallowed against bile at the memories. “They killed him. Threw him in the Thames.”

Allie said nothing but reached for him. She gripped his hand, then his arm, and then she fitted herself against him, wrapping her arms around him. The sweetness of her warmth, the soothing stroke of her hand down his back, nearly brought him to his knees.

Moments later, he realized he’d embraced her too, pulling her in so tightly that he could feel her heartbeat against his own chest.

He forced himself to loosen his hold. “I didn’t come to talk about George,”

he rasped against her hair.

“So why have you come?”

Allie tilted her head up to search his eyes.

“The second constable I assigned to guard your home sent word that you’d departed.”

He was grateful she’d at least had the sense to take Collier with her.

At those words, she stepped out of his embrace, though she kept a hand on his arm.

“I will not stay in that house and be idle, Ben.”

The words burst out in a fierce, unwavering tone, but then she swallowed hard.

“You’ve never stayed put anytime I’ve asked you to, so this wasn’t a complete surprise.”

He felt a smile tugging at his lips but fought it back.

What he’d come to do required resolve. He could not be distracted by her loveliness, or even how he adored that she forever disregarded his dictates.

He had to put this to an end. Not because of bloody Haverstock and his manipulation, but because it was best for her. If she knew what he’d seen, the things he’d done . . .

She seemed to sense his resolve hardening, and pulled away from him entirely, crossing her arms and pacing along the contours of the Wellingdons’ expensive rug.

“Let us compromise, Ben. I must be able to take care of matters at the shop. To visit my friend. Constable Collier came with me, as I’m sure you saw. Is that not protection enough?”

“That seems a fair compromise.”

Midstep, she paused and spun to face him. “It is?”

“Yes. I know it’s not reasonable to keep you from your work or your friends.”

He shook his head, recalling the fear and anger that had overtaken him last night. If he’d been able to lay hands on M, he would have destroyed the man.

“Thank you.”

She rushed toward him again, slid her arms around his middle, and he wrapped one arm around her.

God, how easy it would be to lose himself in her sweetness. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not until M was found and imprisoned. Not ever if he truly wished the best for her.

“Alexandra,”

he managed to get out, his voice raw and rough.

She’d laid her head against his chest, and he could feel something in him rending apart.

He didn’t press a kiss to her hair as he wished to. Didn’t pull her closer or wrap her fully in his embrace.

And when she registered the stiffness with which he held her, she looked up.

“You haven’t come to shout at me,”

she said on a hoarse whisper. “You’ve come to end this.”

“You deserve better, Alexandra.”

Those were the words he’d repeated to himself on the cab ride. He murmured them under his breath, singed them into his brain. His damned heart could go on bleeding, but his head knew this was right.

She did deserve better than what he could offer.

Alexandra pushed his arm away and stepped past him. This time, she didn’t pace. She walked toward the veranda door and looked out on the garden.

One glance back at him and she pushed the French doors open, heading out onto the sunlit stones.

She didn’t stop there. He knew exactly where she was going.

When he followed her and found her behind the wall of the hedgerow, she wasn’t pacing this time. She stood waiting for him, and she looked just as bewitching in the garden when it was drenched in sunlight as she had under the glow of the moon.

“Tell me here, where you kissed me, that you feel nothing for me,”

she demanded.

“I feel a great deal for you.”

He swallowed against the next words, knowing he shouldn’t let them loose. “You have my heart, such as it is.”

She unclasped her crossed arms and reached for him.

He couldn’t stop himself any more than he could stop his next breath. And as soon as he was in her arms, all his logic and resolve fled. He kissed her cheek, nipped at the edge of her ear. Only when he felt a pin hit his hand did he realize he’d slid his fingers into her hair.

Alexandra arched into him, lifted onto her toes, and seamed her body with his. He happily took her weight, and then her kiss, and the taste of her drew him under.

She gave him everything he craved, her warmth, her passion, her wonderful willful heart, and God, how he wished he could give her everything in return.

He turned so that her back was against the hedge, and she immediately hiked one knee up toward his hip.

“I imagined this the night you kissed me,”

she said as he trailed kisses down her neck.

“Me too, love,”

he told her before licking at the base of her throat. “Me too.”

Her skirt was as complicated as a puzzle box, layers and flounces, and then petticoats with layers too. But as soon as his fingertips met hot bare flesh at the top of her stockings, it was all worth it. He wanted to drop to his knees and taste her. He wanted to rip past her drawers and dip his fingers into her heat.

But when he felt her fingers fumbling with the buttons at the fly of his trousers, he reached down to stop her. Dipping his head, he pressed his forehead gently to hers.

“We can’t,”

he told her on a ragged exhale. “Not here. Not like this.”

“Don’t you dare tell me I deserve better.”

“But you do.”

With a little growl of frustration, she pivoted away from him. “Why do you get to decide that?”

“Because I know myself.”

He’d been someone else, or thought he could be, for a few idyllic days, but he couldn’t be that man and catch a criminal like M.

“You deserve better than a man who becomes so obsessed with his work that he doesn’t eat or sleep for days. One who, at those times, can’t be bothered with kindnesses or basic niceties to the people around him.”

She dipped her head, and he suspected she was debating between a dozen retorts whizzing through her clever mind.

“There are days when Helen and I don’t even speak to each other. Each of us is so wrapped up in our work. It would be hard for anyone to live with.”

“I become consumed with work too,”

she said with irritated vehemence. “My research. The shop. I don’t know what to do with myself when I’m not at Princes.”

She was a lady who yearned to be useful, to help, and he quite loved that about her.

“You deserve better. You always have. Better than being a child confined to bed with illnesses, subjected to the whims of a foolish doctor. Better than being left behind while your siblings went off on adventures without you.”

“I made it through all of that just fine.”

She squared her shoulders, edged up her chin. That defiance had helped her make it through those years, and he so admired her for it.

“Of course you did, because you’re strong. Willful. And you thrive on independence now. If you choose to let someone into your life, they should give themselves to you fully.”

“And you can’t? You won’t?”

Everything in him wanted to tell her he could. That he’d give anything, do anything, to have her, to love and champion and support her. Whatever the status of his rusted-over heart, it was hers.

He was the problem. He’d made himself singularly focused over the last decade. Taken the most challenging cases. Done whatever Haverstock asked of him.

“I do not believe the world is a hopeful place like you do. I wake from nightmares of what I’ve seen and done for this job. I become consumed with it. Lost in it.”

She stepped closer, laid a hand on his arm. A gentle, warm, grounding touch. “Then perhaps you need someone to pull you back. Someone to love you through that.”

“And if you came to resent the effort of pulling me back from the abyss? I would lose you.”

Ben was grateful she didn’t rush in with a rebuttal. He could see her imagining that sort of life, that sort of responsibility.

“Perhaps you could find a balance,”

she said quietly, though he could see in her eyes that she wasn’t certain he could.

“Cases like this turn me into something no one could live with—cold, hard, unfeeling. You saw it in me last night. Impatience and desperation to put things right.”

“I did, and it scared me a little.”

Bless her for being so thoroughly honest. He’d adored that from the moment he met her.

“I need to be that man now. Single-minded. Utterly focused. It will take nothing less to find this puppeteer.”

“And I am a distraction.”

“The greatest of my life. But there’s more.”

He reached into his pocket. “He’s been watching me.”

She took the two images, curious and eager, and he saw the moment her expression turned to one of horror.

“And me, apparently.”

“I believe the break-in at your shop is linked to these photographs. They were delivered to Haverstock this morning.”

“For what purpose?”

“To prove that I am unfit to continue on the case because of my connection with you.”

Alexandra pressed a hand to her throat. “I never meant for this to affect your career—”

“No, no, that’s not my concern.”

The shock of how much he’d changed in a little over a week struck him. “I want to solve this. Imprison him so that he can cause no more harm.”

“This man is more than a thief, isn’t he?”

Ben dipped his head. “He is. He’s responsible for one murder that I know of, but I will catch him.”

“Relentless.”

She looked into his eyes, her gaze full of tenderness, but searching too. “That’s what one of your men called you.”

Turning her head, she took in the neat rows of hedges and carefully tended flower beds of the Wellingdons’ garden. When she looked at him again, the resolve he saw made his chest ache.

But he’d wanted this. He’d come to end this, but he hated it all the same.

“I suppose this is goodbye, Inspector Drake.”

Ben reached for her hand, and she didn’t immediately yield to his touch. She was a woman of resolve, and he adored her strength.

“Be safe, Alexandra.”

He bent to place a kiss on the back of her hand. “Keep Collier with you until this is finished. Please.”

She said nothing. The odds of her heeding him weren’t high.

So all he could do was catch M. And he would if it took his last breath.