The Virgin Who Ruined Lord Gray - Anna Bradley Page 0,63
he’d be pleased at it. You didn’t see his face this morning, my lady.”
“He’s angry, Sophia, and I daresay he feels betrayed. One can’t blame him, really, but he’s wrong, of course. You and Lord Gray still need each other, despite what he may think. I suggest you return to Great Marlborough Street tonight, my dear.”
“Tonight!” Sophia cried. “How will I manage that? It’s not as if I can simply stroll into his townhouse as I did yesterday. He’ll have me turned away at the door.”
Lady Clifford smiled. “My dear child, who said anything about the door?”
* * * *
“Well, Gray, here you are,” Lord Lyndon announced, pausing in the doorway to Tristan’s library. “I’ll have you know Tribble lied to me. Told me you weren’t home, the scoundrel.”
“That’s because I ordered him to lie to you.”
“That wasn’t very gentlemanly of you, but perhaps I should have gone away while I had the chance. What’s the trouble now, Gray? For a man with a glass of port in his hand and a roaring fire at his feet, you look grim enough.”
“What are you doing here, Lyndon? It’s late.” Foolish question, really. Lyndon was like a bloodhound when it came to sniffing out mischief. Whenever something was afoot, he always appeared sooner or later.
“Call it curiosity, if you like.” Lyndon strolled into the library, pausing at the sideboard to help himself to a glass of port. “So, I repeat, Gray. What’s the trouble now?”
“No trouble. I’m perfectly content.” So content, he’d been sitting alone in his library for hours, sipping port and sulking like a spoiled child.
“Content, eh? Well, I’m glad to hear it.” Lyndon dropped into the chair beside Tristan’s, rested his feet on the grate, and raised his glass to his lips.
Tristan knew Lyndon far too well to believe he’d leave it there. He waited for the next round of volleys, and Lyndon, who could never stay quiet for long, didn’t disappoint him. “This contentment of yours, Gray. May I ask if it’s the result of your visit to the Clifford School today?”
“More or less.” Rather less than more, however.
“Good, good. Then you discovered Jeremy Ives is, in fact, as dead as the Times claims he is, and that he was, in fact, guilty of Henry’s murder?”
Tristan blew out a breath. Lyndon had a charming way of getting straight to the heart of a matter. “Not exactly, no.”
Lyndon’s eyes widened in mock surprise. “No? Why, you can’t mean to say Miss Monmouth lied to you, can you? That she and that coven of witches at No. 26 Maddox Street didn’t stuff a convicted murderer into a coffin and smuggle him out of Newgate before dawn this morning?”
“Ives is no murderer. It would be a great deal easier if he were.” This business with Sharpe and Ives and Sophia Monmouth had more heads than a Gorgon, each of them writhing with dozens of hissing snakes, but Tristan knew beyond any doubt Jeremy Ives was innocent.
“Not a murderer, you say? Well, is he dead, or isn’t he?”
“He’s not that, either.”
Lyndon frowned. “Well, where the devil is he, then?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea. Miss Monmouth was less than forthcoming this morning.” At least, she’d been tight-lipped about Jeremy Ives. Otherwise, she’d had plenty to say, and none of it pleasant to hear.
Do you truly believe you know anything about guilt and innocence?
He had thought so, yes. God knows he’d seen enough of both to have an opinion on the matter, but Miss Monmouth had a talent for throwing his every thought into disarray. It was…disconcerting.
Laws were imperfect, and the execution of them even more so. Tristan had always thought so. Now he was taking his brother’s place in the House of Lords, he was in a position to do something about it. But questions of guilt and innocence, goodness and evil—they were concepts he’d always accepted without question as absolute. Thanks to Miss Monmouth, they’d now become a great deal trickier than they’d ever been before.
You saw Jeremy. Is the law working for him?
The trouble with Sophia Monmouth was, she wasn’t entirely wrong. He understood her frustration, yet he shuddered to think how dangerous London would be if everyone thought as she did.
“You know what I think, Gray?”
Tristan swallowed the rest of his port and abandoned his glass on the table. “No, but I suspect you’re going to tell me.”
“I think your little pixie has you turned inside out.”
Tristan wished with everything inside him his friend was mistaken, but there was no