Page 32 of The Duke is Wicked
Julian rubbed his thumb over a charcoal stroke on his sketchpad. “Did you keep the letters? I can try and decipher the visions I’ll receive when I touch them. I’ll have Piper there in case I get pulled in and can’t get out.”
Delaney frowned, unaware that Julian, when he went to another realm, occasionally had trouble returning. “I’ve endeavored to interpret them, gain a clue about who’s sending them.” She flashed Sebastian an I-haven’t-told-you-everything glance. “Cracking ciphers and creating them is my…specialty.”
Sebastian suppressed another violent urge to destroy his violin. “So that’s what you’re doing for Scotland Yard.”
She hummed a vague reply that was no reply at all, her gaze dropping to her scuffed riding boots.
Julian grinned, which he rarely did, and laid aside his pad and pencil. “Finn, remember the peculiar code in those letters we received, maybe a year ago?”
A pensive look settled on Finn’s face. “I couldn’t do anything with them. They’re in German. I’m fluent, but not breakingcodefluent.”
Delaney coughed and took a quiet sip of tea. “Not a problem.”
Sebastian laughed, giving the violin strings a blunt caress.Christ. Of course, it wasn’t.
“We could consider your assistance payback for your scheme to sell our secrets to protect yours.” Julian steepled his hands and rested his chin atop them. The viscount had taken an assemblage of supernatural outcasts and created a convivial community. His estate, Harbingdon, didn’t house a soul, not so much as a lowly scullery maid, who wasn’t either gifted or a family member of someone who was, which made for interesting visits to his home. He’d expanded the League into a mystical network Sebastian was helping expand, one country, one gifted pariah, at a time. Sebastian respected him in a way he’d never respected anyone. “One question for you, Miss Temple, to cut through the bunkum, as my darling Piper is fond of saying. A delightful phrase native to your homeland, I believe.”
Don’t look to me to save you,Sebastian immediately thought,not unless you want them to know what’s happening between us.
But she did. Looked right at him and silently begged him to defend her. The flush on her cheeks, the shadows darkening her beautiful eyes, the slim fingers he wanted tangled in his hair or wrapped around his cock lying in a nervous twist in her lap. The entire package, delivering more disquiet than Sebastian could withstand and not step in. “Jules…”
Julian’s gaze met his, his lips flattened to hold back advice. Or a smile.
And Sebastian realized he’d answered a question the viscount had yet to pose.
“I only planned to ask about a notation in the chronology. The day my son, Lucien, was born, I started a section on the inheritance of gifts as we’re all”—even you someday, duke,his look said—“keenly invested in this topic. I started it the week, maybe two at most, before you sneaked onto my estate. Your spurious carriage accident, Miss Temple. If you have that page in your mind, then those ten minutes you spent with the chronology were very informative indeed. Informative in a way that means you know much more about us than we want anyone to. Unless they’re an associate. Afriend. Someone we’d be willing to remove from a desperate situation because they’re one of us.”
Before Sebastian could tell her no,stop, which would’ve been a strategical error on his part before a room of extremely intuitive people, she exhaled softly and closed her eyes. Pressing her hand to her brow, she whispered, “Victoria. I can’t get in. My attic door is locked.”
Finn rushed from the room to escort his wife out of reach.
Sebastian’s fingertips sizzled as the sound of Victoria dashing up the stairwell echoed through the dungeon. Clutching his violin, he reviewed Bach’s Concerto in D Minor, forcing mental images of Delaneyaside. Finn was seconds away from being able to read his mind—and what Sebastian was thinking, no one needed to know.
The group held their breath in strained anticipation, then released a collective sigh when Delaney opened her eyes. Only her brother looked exhausted, hearing a story he’d heard many times before.
Julian swiped at a streak of blue paint on his wrist. “You have the page?”
“575. Your notation, top left corner.” Her chin lifted, and she speared them with a chilling glance that likely terrified the others but only served to arouse Sebastian utterly. She was fearless, this girl. And powerful, though she’d yet to grasp her power. Aside from everything else, she presented such an alluring challenge—when he’d been sleepwalking for years. “You misspelled inheritance, by the by. Or perhaps it was an ink splatter.”
Humphrey’s groan bounced off the stone walls.
“We have a lot of work to do, Miss Temple,” the viscount murmured, grabbing his pencil and pad and moving to the door. “To find the person pursuing you, pursuing us. And while we’re solving that problem, let’s determine how you can be of benefit to the League.” He held out his hand. “I’ll take your blackmailer’s notes with me, if you don’t mind.”
Delaney swallowed tightly. “Naturally, my lord. Straight away. Consider me the League’s newest ally. And my twin,” she added with a nod to Case, who promptly saluted, the cheeky bastard.
Julian laughed, surprising them all. “Spiritedandreckless. As you know, my personal favorite. I married one just like her.” He halted at the dungeon’s entrance, an intentional, final study of the room. “Keep her close, Your Grace. And by close, I mean, not out of your sight. Not until this is over.”
Excellent,Sebastian reasoned as a spiral of dread and anticipation gripped him.Just bloody wonderful.
She frowned, as unhappy as he was with Julian’s edict.
Staring across the short distance, in their favorite room in his castle, he and Delaney waged a silent war.
Chapter 10
Men, Delaney fumed and kicked at the dandelions littering the field surrounding the duke’s stable. Arrogant, intolerable, domineering beasts. She glared over her shoulder at her escorts, two thugs whose broad shoulders were nearly bursting from their lavender and gold attire. She’d forgotten the English term for their costumes, and theywerecostumes because the men were no more footman than she was a princess. She’d seen a pistol lodged in the pocket of one, a knife strapped to the waist of the other. Skilled with horses as well as weaponry, she hoped, and popped her riding crop against her thigh.
Halting outside the stables, the facts she’d read about its sixteenth-century construction tumbled through her mind. Like the rest of Sebastian’s estate, the riding facilities were stunning, if worn. The main building built of timber and stone, the window frames painted as deep a red as the fires he started, a winding flagstone path leading into the darkened interior.