He turned a choke into a cough, and she smiled innocently up at him as the next streetlamp caught her full in the face.
‘You little minx,’ he said, when he finally caught his breath. ‘You should know better.’
Since Gabe had first warned her and Nicky that Moreau had been recalled to France, she’d been expecting him to show up in England. He wasn’t one to leave unfinished business. She’d had her French maid, Christine, ask discreetly among the émigrés. Moreau, as he’d called himself in England, had destroyed more lives than the English could even guess at. The families of those people had long memories. ‘I have a contact who will give us the name of someone who has seen him.’
‘Us.’
He made a sound of scorn, the kind one’s elders made when one said something stupid. Apparently her kiss—she resisted the urge to touch her lips where the heat of his mouth on hers still lingered—hadn’t convinced him he was dealing with a woman grown. If he knew, if any of them knew what she’d done...
She should never have allowed Nicky to bring her out, as they called it here in London. They all thought her so sweet and innocent. How could she reveal the truth when Nicky had given up her own dreams to protect her little sister? Nicky had married the brutal Count Vilandry to keep Minette safe and she had thrown that sacrifice away. So now she faced the prospect of refusing any and all perfectly acceptable offers of marriage. And there would be offers. She wasn’t an antidote, as Gabe called ladies lacking in charms, and the dowry Gabe had so generously bestowed on her made her a very eligible parti.
But that was mostly her problem. Worse was the weapon she had given Moreau. He could, whenever he wished, destroy her and Gabe and Nicky with the gift she had given him. He would have no hesitation to use it against them. It did not bear thinking about. ‘I won’t get in your way. I would help identify him and ask him one question. Nothing more.’
‘No.’
Men. They never listened. ‘As you please.’ She folded her hands in her lap in a parody of innocence.
Freddy shot her an exasperated glance mingled with something she could not quite read. ‘If there was any possibility at all of you being able to accomplish the matter alone, you would not have come to me for help.’
The man had a brain. Gabe had said he’d been brilliant at university. Too clever by half, she’d always thought, when she’d tried to cheat him at cards. And he knew it, which was worse. ‘It needs money to get my informant to give up what they know.’
He pulled the carriage into the alley behind the mews in Grosvenor Square. Relief shot through her. Until that moment she’d half expected he would give her away to Gabe. At least he wasn’t going to give her up tonight. Perhaps she was making some headway.
‘You want money.’ He sounded aggrieved, as if she should have wanted something different. ‘Who is this contact you speak of?’
‘Why would I tell you when you won’t help me?’ Her maid, an émigrée, had been given only a titbit of information. ‘Please, Freddy.’
‘You picked the wrong man for your games. Tomorrow I will have the truth. Or I will reveal the whole to Gabe.’
He tied off the horses’ reins, jumped clear and helped her down. He gazed at the garden gate she’d left ajar. ‘Bolt that behind you.’
She stepped inside and then turned to look up at him, put her hand on his arm and felt him tense. ‘I don’t care how much you and Gabe badger me, I will tell you nothing unless you involve me in the plan for Moreau’s capture. It is of the utmost importance.’ It was the most she dared say and she was surprised she was trusting him this much. Except that he had never made her feel unsafe. Irritated, yes. Annoyed, yes. But never in any danger.
He put his hand on the brick wall and loomed over her. ‘Why?’
‘I told you. I was his victim. I need to know he can never harm me or Nicky again, even if it means killing him.’ She held her breath.
His eyes widened. ‘You will not approach him.’
‘Not if you agree to my involvement.’
A frustrated growl issued from his throat.
‘Don’t call in the morning,’ she said. ‘I will know more tomorrow night. Meet me at Gosport’s ball and we can talk again.’ She whisked inside and shut and bolted the gate behind her.
A fist slammed against the wood.
‘Hush,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll wake someone.’
She fled down the garden path in case he should decide to break his way in, but as she slid through the French doors into the breakfast room she heard the sound of his carriage moving off.
Everything depended on the slim chance she’d told him enough to stop him from exposing her visit to Gabe in the morning.
Nicky’s future depended on it.
She touched a finger to her lips, remembering their kiss. How quickly she had responded, how good it had felt. The intensity, almost as if he, too, had felt something deeper between them than passing lust.
Ridiculous. It was his attempt to scare her, that was all. There had never been any doubt in her mind that he disliked her. Probably because she was French. His whole purpose in life was to defeat her countrymen.
* * *
‘Now, don’t you look as fine as fivepence? Bang up to the knocker, you might say.’
Freddy met Barker’s gaze in the mirror and grinned. ‘Sartorial elegance are the words you are seeking.’
Barker liked to pretend he came from the stews rather than a respectable merchant family. ‘Unlikely.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘Pity you can’t do something about your expression. You look like a man walking up the steps to the nubbin’ cheat.’
The gallows would be preferable to what he had planned for tonight. ‘Are you sure no one has seen him?’
‘Nary a peep, but we’ll find him, given time.’
Freddy cursed. With Minette on the rampage, he didn’t have time. Neither did he want to play foolish games with manipulating little baggages like Minette Rideau. He should have gone to see Gabe this morning, but that would have finished any hope he’d have of getting her to talk. He’d recognised the signs. He certainly didn’t want her going off half-cocked and ruining any chance they had of finding Moreau before he did any damage. She was as stubborn as she was beautiful. He closed his eyes briefly as the recollection of their kiss flooded his mind. The feel of her soft body pressed against his own. His blood heated. Damn it all, that was the last thing he needed.
He gave one more twitch to his neckcloth and turned from the mirror.
Barker held up his coat, fingering the cloth. ‘As fine a bit of yardage as I’ve ever seen. Weston, did you say?’
‘Yes.’ He slid his arms into the sleeves, and Barker eased the coat over his shoulders.
It was like slipping into a disguise. The persona of aristocrat, rather than that of owner of a hell-cum-brothel. It was the latter part that stuck in the craw of the ton. A gentleman might not mind enjoying its offerings but they didn’t want their wives near the owner of a bawdy house. Not that a truly ambitious mama would care if she thought she had a chance at the title.
The main reason he never went to balls and such.
Hopefully, the Gosports wouldn’t throw their uninvited guest out on his ear. While the ducal title trumped a mere baron any day of the week, likely his host wouldn’t be pleased at such a disgraceful duke darkening his doors.
Freddy grinned at the alliteration. It would make a good title for one of the romances the ladies like to read.
‘Is the carriage