Taming of the Beast (Scandalous Affairs #2) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,99

“I believe you’ve provided everything I require at this time. I thank you for your time, Mr. Oswyn.”

He inclined his head.

As Faye came to her feet, Tynan joined her. Together, they started for the front door with Mr. Oswyn following along at a slower pace. His breathing grew raspy with each step, a testament to the struggle his injury had left him with.

The moment she reached the entryway, she made to draw her hood up and then stopped. “Why would they not have said anything already?” At the confused glint in his rheumy eyes, she clarified. “The viscount. The Duchess of Somerset. If they are aware of the crimes committed by Lady Diana’s family, why should they say nothing?”

He shrugged. “Does it matter?”

The question gave her pause.

According to everything she’d maintained with Tynan up to this point, the indisputable answer of that should be no, it didn’t. What mattered was that the world didn’t know and that Faye would be the one to share those sins with the world, regardless of the reason they were kept secret.

“The thing of it is,” he said, the cadence of his speech growing more rapid and the tone growing harsher. “They look after one another, the peerage does. The minute Black’s family found their roots tied to the fancy sort, they forgot where they came from. Their other brother, Niall, married Diana, and their hands all became tied. For them, preserving their secrets came first above everything, including those who looked after them when they were nothing more than street trash.”

Once more, he spoke of himself. She realized that was why he’d speak, because he felt betrayed, and as such, he thought nothing of revealing the crime Ryker Black and his family had suppressed over the years.

“Thank you,” Faye said, and Tynan drew the door open.

A blast of biting winter wind howled through the entry, and Faye immediately rubbed at her arms to ward off the chill.

She and Tynan made the walk back to her family’s carriage.

After giving the address of their next stop, she accepted Tynan’s hand up and entered the carriage.

Chapter 23

Tynan and Faye didn’t speak the whole length of the trip to the Duchess of Somerset’s Mayfair townhouse.

Through the long ride, she kept her focus trained on the slight crack in the curtains as she assessed the passing scenery.

The reflection of the windowpanes, however, put her face on display. Faye Poplar was quite simply unlike anyone he’d ever known. In fact, he’d never known a person could be like her.

A person committed to righting wrongs and calling for a just world.

Just a week ago, when she’d been a stranger to him, he would have mocked her for her naïveté in believing there truly was anything just or fair or good.

There was might but no right.

And yet, in the time he’d spent with her, debating her and listening to her and learning about her mind and how it worked, he’d come to admire her.

For not only caring that there were those injustices, but for her desire to correct them.

Even as she couldn’t.

Even as she wouldn’t.

She’d been the only person who’d attempted to try, at least of all the many people of all stations that Tynan knew. Why, even Lord Lothian, who gave to the less fortunate and pulled the poor and pathetic like Tynan out of the gutter to give them new lives, had not attempted to enact the sweeping, universal changes needed to make life better.

At last, the carriage rolled to a slow stop, rocking back and forth slightly.

He peeled the edge of the curtain back and looked out.

They’d arrived.

Faye made no move to exit the conveyance. She just continued to sit there in all her contemplative silence.

Tynan was the first to break the silence. “You got what you wanted and needed from Oswyn.”

“Yes,” she murmured.

“I thought you should be happier, Faye.”

At last, she pulled her gaze from the Duchess of Somerset’s soaring, white marble townhouse. “What if there are reasons the duchess has remained silent?”

He pulled his gloves off and beat them together slowly. “I thought it didn’t matter,” he said, careful to strip inflection from his tone. “He gave you the information you sought. He specifically revealed the details about Lady Diana’s mother and father, and even more, a ring of ladies involved. The world will devour that.”

“Yes,” she said softly. Faye glanced down at her tightly clenched hands.

Leaning forward, he caught her balled fists in his palms, and they unfurled under his touch like a bloom under the