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Their marriage was no longer a contract.

It was a love match.

Chapter

Eighteen

“Therefore in chariot fighting, when ten or more chariots have been taken, those should be rewarded who took the first. Our own flags should be substituted for those of the enemy, and the chariots mingled and used in conjunction with ours. The captured soldiers should be kindly treated and kept.”

Sun Tzu, L’Art de la Guerre (The Art of War)

AUGUST 2, 1821

Lord Aidan Abbott paced the library, the soles of his boots muffled by the thick Aubusson carpet as he gestured sharply, his voice clipped with frustration. “There is still a killer out there, Filminster. And if this man believes there is a letter connecting him to the crime, he might take it into his head that you or Lily know something. That means my sister is still in danger.”

“Or a woman.”

“What?”

“We do not know it was a man who committed the murder. It could have been a woman.”

“Why would a woman kill the baron?”

“Why would a man kill the baron?”

“Faugh! I have quite forgotten my point.”

“You were stating that Lily and I are still under threat, especially if the killer believes we might find this mysterious letter.”

Abbott exhaled harshly, running a hand through his tousled hair before stalking across the floor to collapse into a well-worn leather armchair near the hearth. The scent of beeswax and ink hung in the air, mingling with the faint metallic tang from a nearby tray of untouched tea that had long since cooled. Brendan remained standing, hands clasped behind his back. He understood the protective urgency in Lily’s older brother.

They sat in a charged silence for several moments, the heavy ticking of the longcase clock in the corner measuring time like a judicial metronome. Then came a disturbance from the hallway, shuffling footsteps and raised voices that immediately caught their attention.

“Lord Trafford, his lordship instructed me he was not to be disturbed. He is in a meeting!” Michaels’s voice, usually placid and dry as sandpaper, now carried the unmistakable strain of impending panic.

“Unhand me immediately, you … you serf!” came the indignant cry in reply, though there was a note of theatrical flourish that betrayed the speaker.

Brendan suppressed a sigh. “Lord Trafford!” Despite Michaels’s typical restraint, the final exclamation bordered on a shriek, a most undignified sound from Ridley House’s usually imperturbable butler.

Lord Julius Trafford, heir to a prosperous northern earldom and prone to bouts of insufferable boredom, had long made it his mission to cause gentle chaos wherever decorum threatened to reign too comfortably. Brendan feared this might be the day his friend finally sent Michaels into apoplexy.

“Just a jest, Michaels. You know what a rapscallion I am.”

There was an unintelligible murmur from the butler, no doubt clipped and scathing.

“You see? Admit it. I am your favorite.”

More mumbling ensued. A few seconds later, Michaels appeared, composed once more, as though his earlier outburst had been someone else’s entirely. “Lord Trafford to see you,” he announced coolly, executing a precise bow before retreating with upper servant efficiency.

Trafford came striding in as if entering a ballroom, his boots clicking confidently on the parquet flooring. He paused, sweeping the library with theatrical deliberation before his gaze landed on Abbott, whom he regarded with faint curiosity, then turned to Brendan.

“What is this I hear? A man was killed in your home yesterday? You did not think to summon me?”

Brendan was not certain whether Trafford’s indignation was genuine or feigned, so he swallowed the chuckle rising in his throat. “Summon you?”

Trafford had a penchant for seasonal reinvention, a personal antidote to what he termed “the soul-crushing sameness of the high society.” The previous year, he had penned abysmal verse while wrapped in black velvet à la Byron. This year, he had evidently embraced a flamboyant foppishness.

His polished buckled shoes gleamed beneath slim-fitting trousers, and his purple jacquard coat shimmered faintly in the lamplight. A gold-embroidered waistcoat completed the ensemble, startling against the contrast of his thick blond curls and the clipped, dark hair that framed the sides of his head in a fashionable undercut.