that.”
Christ. Pearce tossed back nearly half the whiskey, but it did nothing to wash the acid from his tongue.
Clayton asked, “Howard made you a formal offer?”
“He suggested that we meet to discuss the possibility.”
“Then I think you should, to see what you can discover.”
Scepter and turnpikes? Pearce bit back a laugh. They were chasing down the wrong path.
Instead of returning to his chair, he began to pace. His agitation didn’t bloom because this would prove to be a grand waste of time, just as all the other leads on Scepter had during the past few months. No, it was because of the Howards themselves. No matter that the old man was dead now, or that Amelia had clearly claimed the life in society she’d been destined for. The thought of becoming close with them again rattled him to his core, especially if Amelia planned to be involved with the trust.
Was that why she was at the masquerade tonight, to assist her brother in working to convince him to partner with them? Did Howard also want to make Varnham a trustee?
No. He’d seen the way she’d reacted when her brother approached him. She’d been startled, enough to flee into the path of that phaeton.
So why the devil had she been there?
“What do you have to lose?” Merritt collapsed into Pearce’s vacated chair. “If Howard’s working for Scepter, then we’ll use him to gain more information on the organization’s leaders. If he’s just an MP peddling his influence, then you’ll be the proud father of a new stretch of turnpike and all the benefits it brings.”
“Wonderful,” Pearce drawled sardonically. “Just the heir I need.”
Clayton shot him a hard look, one that had made subordinate officers and infantrymen quake in their boots during the wars. The same look that now brought quickly into line the men who worked beneath him at the Home Office. “Howard’s the link we’ve been hunting for,” he said with absolute certainty. “He might not have had a direct hand in the murders, but I’d bet a box of the finest American cigars that Fribourg & Treyer sells that he’s working for Scepter.”
Dread seeped through Pearce. He didn’t give a damn about turnpikes and land development. But if Howard was involved with Scepter, then Amelia was in danger, and he would still do anything he could to protect her.
He drawled out his agreement. “It seems I’ll be calling on Howard in the morning, then.”
And on his sister.
He set down his glass, picked up his coat, and left.
For once, nighttime London was quiet as he made his way from Mayfair to Wapping in the hackney he’d hired, having sent his own town coach home. How he preferred to spend restless nights like this wasn’t the business of his coachman, and his own personal safety wasn’t a concern. After all, God help the footpad who attempted to rob him when he was in a mood like this.
Sweet Jesus…Amelia Howard. Apparently a lot more had transpired in the past twelve years than he’d been aware of to bring a sweet girl like her to an event like Torrington’s.
But then, hadn’t everything changed for him as well?
That night of her sixteenth birthday had broken his heart. He’d loved her, it had been that simple. She was kind, brilliant, and lovely, inside and out. His best friend. How could he deny himself the chance to finally be that close to her? But they were discovered, and all hell had broken loose.
As he’d left her father’s house, bloodied and bruised after their private conversation in the man’s study, Peace hadn’t even been able to take a last look over his shoulder at all he was about to lose. Because she would have been there, he knew, standing at her upstairs window, watching him go.
Yet leaving had been for the best—for both of them. He’d hated the reason, but because of that night, he’d been given an officer’s commission in the army and a new life that allowed him to put his energy and restlessness to purpose and gave him the chance to prove his worth.
He’d always known that Amelia belonged with someone else. Someone better. An aristocrat who could give her the life of status and luxury that she deserved. The one she would never have had with him. It had always been only a matter of time anyway until he left Birmingham for a better job and she found her way into society and marriage. Attempting to have any other future but the one