Page 31 of The Duke is Wicked
Sebastian snorted and plucked a violin string, the instrument removed from its case to give his hands a constructive project that did not involve touching Delaney Temple.
Sighing, she cracked her teacup atop the side table. “I stepped into my attic at an auction in Charleston when I was fifteen. Then I made a comment about a piece, a painting, information I shouldn’t have known, couldn’t have. Case intervened, hustled me out of there. But it was too late. There was a man who heard the entire exchange. A reprobate who’d swooped in during Reconstruction and purchased most of the property around my family’s farm. Of course, he wanted that, too.”
Her brother gave a terse whistle and rose to his feet, pacing the chamber as the group observed the twins’ silent interplay. “That’s not all he wanted,” he murmured and yanked the iron loop on the far wall as he passed it.
If she’d shrugged the objectionable comment off, Sebastian might’ve believed the boy mistaken, but the glance Delaney slid his way was remorseful. And haunted.
Sebastian ran his thumb along a string, hoping his sudden fit of fury didn’t show on his face. “Like a fine wine, the story matures.”
“He didn’t touch me,” she said in a voice not quite strong enough to convince, the room contracting until every man sitting between the stone walls wished he were somewhere else.
Sebastian cursed beneath his breath. He wouldn’t have forced this little show if she’d told himthis.
“Del,” Case warned, an edge Sebastian had presumed he lacked seeping into his voice.
“Truthfully, well…” Circling her teacup on the table, she flashed Sebastian an anxious glance. He didn’t know if it made him feel good or not to knowhewas the one she feared sharing this particular detail of her story with. “He did touch me. He tried. It wasn’t prolonged. I got angry after he tore my nightgown, then I pushed him down the staircase.” Her words came out in tight, emotional bursts.
Nightgown. Sebastian blew a breath through his teeth, the violin trembling in his hand.
Julian looked up from his sketch, his face impassive. Which meant he was listening to within an inch of his life. “I’m speculating that he didn’t survive the fall.”
She shook her head, fists going into a tangled knot in her lap and her gaze following.
“And your brother took responsibility?”
She came halfway out of her chair, finally taking flight. “Oh, oh,no. No one knows he’s dead except—”
“Your extortionist,” Finn said in awe, figuring out the mystery.
Sebastian plucked a string hard enough to snap it. Finn needed to get out more if he found this disaster engrossing.
“Where’s the body?” This from Humphrey, who’d gone to stretching his shoulders with pops and snaps that Sebastian could see were making Delaney uneasy. She’d grown up around men, definitely what he’d call a tomboy, but still…
She shrugged, her gaze tumbling like a dandelion around the dungeon. “We had acres of property. Over three hundred.”
“That, my friends, is that.” Humphrey clapped his hands, then dusted them on his trousers. “Straightforward burial. Have shovel, will dig. Couldn’t have solved it better myself. The man got what was coming.”
“See,” she hissed and turned to glare at Sebastian. “It was a solid plan!”
“See?” Sebastian strummed a long B flat that echoed off the walls. “You botched the internment, Temple. Remember those notes you’re getting, threatening to expose your captivating secret if you don’t tell this fiend everything you know about us?”
Case released the iron loop with a thump. “We didn’t mess up. I’ve been hunting since I was in short pants. No one’s ever finding that bastard’s body. And no one knows, not even the servants. He sneaked into our house at midnight, broke into her bedroom, and he was five feet under by three. It’s this”—he looped his hand in a drunken circle, a gesture Sebastian had seen Delaney make numerous times—“knack Del has for memorization, this magical world she’s found herself in, that you’re all in, where the threat is coming from. It has to be.”
Sebastian gingerly placed his violin in his lap when he felt like smashing it against the wall. “Have you left out more of the story, Temple?”
She growled and scooted to the lip of her chair, her eyes going a dark, smoky gray. His body reacted purely on instinct, and he forced himself to look away or risk exposinghissecret. That this discourteous, intelligent, gorgeous woman was a fever in his blood, beneath his skin, a powerful wave just waiting to take him under.
“Why do we always have to meet down here, Fireball?” Humphrey asked, a shiver rocking his immense frame. “Murky and dank, a chill that sinks into your bones. But it does look torch-proof.”
“I like it,” Sebastian and Delaney muttered at the same time.
But the look they threw at each other after saying it was vicious.
Her brother stepped in, sensing the rising tension. “Think about it. I’ve had time to do that since arriving in Oxfordshire and being surrounded by such, well,unusualpeople.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “The notes starting appearing in South Carolina. Maybe a month after we did the deed. Then they moved with Delaney to England, one even delivered while she was sailing over. We retained almost no staff in London because we figured it was someone we employed. No one in, no one out. But still, the notes keep arriving. Until she met you, Your Grace, then they stopped. Or maybe Victoria blocked them. Isn’t that her specialty? For some reason, the only way this person could deliver a message was to go through that charming fella you met in Seven Dials.” He shrugged, confident as only the young can be. “Who else could know what happened and be able to travel like this but someone who comes and goes like one of Ebenezer Scrooge’s ghosts?”
“Bitch on a biscuit.” Humphrey dropped his head to his hands.
“Simon,” Finn whispered as more of the puzzle fell into place. “I can’t read a ghost’s mind, but he sees them. If there’s a new one around, he’ll know.”