Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,63
trash. Even worried after me back there. Did ye see that?” he marveled aloud, wonder in his voice. “Spoke to me as if I were as fine as any fancy-born person.”
“Yes, she did seem rather comfortable speaking with us,” Tynan murmured. He was equal parts horrified and fascinated by the ease with which she conversed with him.
Finn nodded. “Aye, she did.”
When other ladies looked through children who didn’t serve some purpose for them, like Finn and Jack and John.
That was another peculiarity that set Faye apart from other ladies. Women of her station didn’t cavort with people of Tynan’s station and Finn’s. That was, unless they needed to. And not the kind of need Faye had. Rather, ladies of the peerage had come to him for help in securing the freedom of their equally powerful relatives. They’d never made any attempt to hide the fact that they despised having any dealings with a man like Tynan.
And then there was Faye. A rueful smile brought his lips quirking at the corners. Faye, who was willing to destroy her reputation and risk her very life so that she might expose her peers.
Finn’s expression darkened. “That is, I didn’t mind ’er until now.”
Because of her lack of loyalty. Because she’d doubted Tynan.
“She’d reasons to be mistrustful,” he pointed out.
Finn grunted.
Either way, Faye was gone, and it was time to put aside thoughts of the lady and focus on sorting out his future before his past caught up with him once more.
Chapter 15
“He had you attacked,” Daria said for the fifth time since she’d arrived that morn and Faye had filled her in on the details of what happened in the Rookeries. The young woman tapped a finger against her chin. “I do expect something like that should happen to me. The Kearsley curse, after all,” she added.
Yes, almost all of Polite Society was well familiar with the long history of accidents and early deaths and ill-fortune to surround the large family.
Daria ceased tapping that finger. “But… you?”
“Yes, well, there is the matter of my father’s role in attempting to murder a young boy and stealing his wealth,” she said quietly. All her muscles seized up. No matter how many times she’d the thought or spoken aloud about it to her siblings, the horror and shame of it never left her. “Those crimes now follow the Poplars.” Of which she was one. There had also come with those crimes a deserved strife and struggle.
You don’t know anything about these streets. You don’t know how the people live or what life is like…
She caught her lower lip as Tynan’s allegations came back to haunt her. “As I already shared, I don’t believe my attack was a coincidence,” she said softly.
Forcibly fighting back the same wave of hurt that had followed her since discovering Tynan’s betrayal, she resumed making notes in her book, adding questions for Mr. Oswyn for when she ultimately made her way back to his residence. Perhaps this time she’d go with a footman.
No, she couldn’t very well do that. The servants were first and foremost loyal to her brother, and even her mother. They’d reveal her whereabouts, and—
“I am confused,” Daria mused aloud, and Faye paused. “He had you attacked.”
“He…” It hadn’t been a true attack. Bragger had been sent there to instill a proper fear into her, as Tynan had called it.
Daria swung her short legs over the side of her chair until her feet touched the floor. “Why would he have you attacked and then rescue you?”
“He was just trying to scare me off so that I would give up on my plans.”
The young woman scrunched her mouth up. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“Oh, it makes perfect sense,” Faye said between gritted teeth, welcoming the safer, more comfortable sentiment of outrage and annoyance with Tynan Wylie… For which there wasn’t a more apt surname. Wily Mr. Wylie. “He’s proven himself wholly untrustworthy.” Time and time again. Well, she’d made a fool of herself for the last time with the ruthless former warden.
“Yes,” her friend went on. “That may be—”
“That is.”
Daria continued over that emphatic interruption, scrambling closer to Faye. “He didn’t have to provide you with that which you sought. I mean, you’ve already sprung him from Newgate. It is not as though you can go about forcing him to do anything he doesn’t want to.”
None of it made sense.
But then, when dealing with a man like Tynan Wylie, nothing did.