Page 23

TWELVE

Briar

“You don’t have to do that,” I said with a wry smile.

Peregrine grinned as he pulled on a black greatcoat, the collar sharp against his jawline which could already cut steel. “I know. But I want to.”

I rolled my eyes extravagantly, so he could see just how ridiculous he was being.

“I am not being ridiculous!”

“Of course,” I said with a laugh, leaning back into the sofa. “Not ridiculous at all.”

It had been a ridiculous suggestion, but in all honesty, I kind of liked it. There was something about this warm new routine Peregrine and I had slipped into in our home.

My home. My townhouse, I suppose. But we had ignored Society, ignored all hint of scandal, and found that our happiness was far greater than anything we could have expected.

He’d been here almost two months now, and it was starting to get difficult to remember what it had been like before he had moved in. Become a part of my life.

“I said I would get the book which it arrived, and I will,” Peregrine said, pulling on his shoes.

“And yet you didn’t,” I pointed out with a laugh, pulling a shawl around my shoulders as I sat in the drawing room. “And it’s cold out there now, autumn has really arrived!”

“And I am the one who ordered the book,” Peregrine said with a wry grin. “I guess I can’t complain—I will go to the bookshop!”

I shook my head ruefully. “You do know I have people for that, don’t you?”

In fact, I was finding I was using my servants less and less. I didn’t really need them, now I had Peregrine. Not that he was that helpful. His memory was shocking, and I had a sneaking suspicion the man had never learned to tie a knot. I suppose dukes never had to learn such a thing.

But there was a sweet sort of eagerness in Peregrine I simply couldn’t quash. He wanted to do things for me.

I knew it was in part because I’d done so much for him—at least on paper. When we’d talked about it earlier today, I had pointed out just how much he’d done for me.

“I’ve done nothing for you,” Peregrine had said flatly. “You’re perfect, just the way you are.”

“And that’s true,” I said with a laugh, cheeks burning with the lie. “But you’ve helped me with so much—my advisors actually listened to my last proposal!”

“They should have been listening to you for yours, its criminal how that trust is set up,” muttered Peregrine, grabbing a scarf to wend around his neck against the cold autumn afternoon air. “I’ll be gone twenty minutes, maybe less.”

“You’ll be gone at least an hour because you won’t be able to help stopping in the bookshop and selecting half a dozen volumes to set against my account,” I pointed out, snuggling under the shawl, a warmth spreading through my chest that had nothing to do with the soft fabric.

Peregrine’s cheeky smile, on the other hand? “You’re right. I’ll see you in three days once I conquer the history section.”

I threw a cushion at him, which missed. “Don’t be too long.”

I hadn’t intended there to be any remonstrance in my words, but suddenly Peregrine halted. Then he was striding across the drawing room, leaning over the back of the sofa, and giving me a searing kiss.

Resisting the urge to cling to him, I accepted the passion he evidently could no longer contain, and breathed happily as he straightened up.

“The book I ordered, and just a quick look in the history section,” Peregrine said seriously. “Then I’ll be back.”

I smiled wistfully as my gaze trailed him to the door, which opened then shut. He was gone.

Sighing heavily, my smile did not waver.

Peregrine, the Duke of Markham.

It was strange to think that the first time he’d left my townhouse, he’d done so with my belongings in his pockets. What he thought he was going to do with them, I didn’t know. I hardly liked to think about it.

That Markham was about as far from the Peregrine I now knew as was possible to be. He was loving, and kind, with a strong desire to do good. To be good.

What was it he had called himself before? A duke who risks it all.

Well, perhaps he had been. Everyone had a past, I guess. Everyone had made mistakes when they were younger, when they didn’t know any better. Everyone did things they wished they hadn’t.

Peregrine was one of those few people who had actually done something about it.

The door opened—surely he had not returned that quickly.

My butler gave a brief smile. “The afternoon post, my lady.”

“Ah. Thank you,” I said brightly.

My servant did not quite meet my eye as I took the three letters from the silver platter he was holding. None of my servants approved of Peregrine living here, of course they did not—but they would not betray me nor sell the gossip to the scandal sheets. Not if they wished to retain their employ.

My butler bowed and left the room, leaving me with the afternoon’s correspondence. I looked down, half expecting to see a note from Peregrine, telling me he’d got trapped in the archaeology section and to send a rescue party.

Who would have thought: Peregrine, a huge fan of history?

But it wasn’t from Peregrine. It was, however, from a member of the Gambling Dukes.

I straightened up and slit open the letter. Why precisely Delilah, the Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick, or Lilah as Peregrine called her, had thought to write to me, I didn’t know.

Perhaps Georgiana had suggested it to her. Evidently she had something important to tell me.

I started to read. With every sentence, my stomach fell further into my chest.

Dear Lady Briar,

I hope you do not mind the imposition of me writing you like this. I know it’s a little untoward, but after seeing you and my brother-in-law at Queen’s Head, I asked one of my servants to look into my friend’s activities.

I have just received the report. I wanted you to be the first to know.

Though I am sure my friend has kept this from you, he was involved in petty theft for years within our club, the Gambling Dukes.

His betrayal has, as you can imagine, come at a great cost. Not just financial, or reputational—we’ll be launching our next big wager soon, and I am sure you know, of all people, how important it is to keep a clean reputation during that time.

No, it was personal.

Our friend—and the husband of my own late sister—has completely destroyed any trust we could have felt for him. He probably hasn’t mentioned this either, but to think that he’s potentially cost us everything: it doesn’t bear thinking about.

And so when I discovered through my informants that my friend has inveigled himself not only into your confidences but your very home, I wanted to send you a warning.

Do not trust Peregrine, the Duke of Markham.

He’s out for whatever he can get. No one matters to him like he does to himself. Whatever he has promised you, whatever he has said, you cannot believe him. He’s not to be trusted.

I just hope you haven’t given him access to your money.

Run, Lady Briar. Though it pains me to write such disparaging things about my own friend, I would be committing a far greater crime by letting him get away with it for a second time. He’s using you, I guarantee it. He’s using you, Lady Briar.

It’s time to cut and run. Throw him out of your home, rescind all his privileges and accesses, and get away from him.

I hope you will take this letter in the spirit in which it is intended.

I remain yours sincerely,

Delilah Rotherwick

I stared.

The words did not make sense. No matter how many times I tried to read them, they swam about my mind, untethered to any sort of reality.

No, she had to be wrong. Peregrine wouldn’t use me—he loved me.

True, so we hadn’t said it, not properly. But it was obvious. Implied, felt, known every day that we were together ever since we finally gave into the temptation of each other at the property we viewed weeks ago.

He cared about me. Peregrine wasn’t using me.

I swallowed, my mouth dry, slipping the letters onto the sofa beside me.

This was ridiculous. Peregrine had been completely honest about his past—arguably too honest. He’d never hidden who he was, and he had changed. He had!

“Like I could get my hands on two thousand! No, I was thinking you should take the two thousand and put it straight into Queen’s Head. Now.”

A prickle of something that could have been doubt curled around my heart. There was no harm, I suppose, in checking my accounts. They were my accounts, after all. I could check them any time I wanted.

I swallowed, rising to my feet and stepping along the corridor to my study, on the other side of the library, and tried to ignore the frantic thumping of my heart. I stepped inside, pulled out the ledger which chronicled my expenses, and?—

And there it was.

My heart could not sink. It broke.

AUTHORISED: Peregrine, Duke of Markham----￡1990

She’d been right. Lilah—the Dowager Duchess of Rotherwick. She’d been right.

Peregrine hadn’t loved me. He probably didn’t even like me, he was just using me. That night at Ferncombe’s, I’d thought he didn’t know who I was, but he admitted the very next day that he had.

“I knew who you were the minute you stepped into Ferncombe’s. Lady Briar Weatherford, the heiress.”

Of course he had, I thought dully as I leaned back into the armchair and tried to take deep, calming breaths.

Peregrine, the Duke of Markham was exactly what he’d seemed at the start. A lying, conniving, thief.

And I’d been foolish enough to fall in love with him.

The front door opened.

Markham

The parcel was heavy in my arm and it swung about as I turned to close the front door. “Briar, I'm back! And I only bought two books!”

Quiet. No answer.

Had she retired for an afternoon slumber? It was far too early for Briar to go to bed—I hadn’t been gone that long. Had I?

I glanced at my pocket watch, then remembered I’d pawned it the day before Briar had let me move into her townhouse. Well, I was pretty sure I hadn’t been that long.

“Briar?” I called out, slipping off my shoes by the door and striding down the hallway and into the drawing room. “Are you quite well?”

She wasn’t there.