The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,4

can forgive a lot, and I do mean a lot, when the chit is so flipping beautiful, she makes your eyes sting.”

Sebastian grunted, unconvinced. Simon was at an age where women were a fresh obsession, and what he discerned, he’d learned from lightskirts and pickpockets, experiences they’d tried over the past nine years to help him forget. The boy didn’t yet realize there were gorgeous women everywhere. “Her father was in trade, wasn’t he? Tobacco?”

“The ultimate insult. Trade.” Humphrey gave a dismissive toss of the dice and rolled a tight ten. “The man was rich as Croesus on nothing but being a fancy farmer. The girl followed her brother here a year or so ago. The rest of the family is deceased, I think. Story is, there was a scandal. A dandy who wouldn’t ante up with a marriage proposal when they were caught in a real terrible two.” Humphrey scratched his chin with the pointed corner of the dice. “Virginia, maybe? No, no, it was South Carolina. I always get the southern states mixed up. Society won’t touch her. Common as a halfpenny. You know how the ton loves the ordinary ones who can buy them ten times over during the length of a good sneeze.”

Sebastian looked to Julian, who sketched without comment. But the viscount’s mind was working in double-time, Sebastian knew.

Julian flipped to a new page in his folio. “Describe what’s in the room with her.”

Finn halted by the desk and dropped himself atop it, long legs hanging over the side. “Books. But it’s not a room.” He pulled his bottom lip between his teeth, eyes famous for their startling shade of blue dimming as his lids lowered. “It is, but it isn’t. Smaller. A closet. It’s like she’s touching the walls on all sides.” Finn laid a broad hand on his belly, his attention drifting into the middle distance. “I think she’s researching the occult. Maybe researching us. I feel like she has a copy of the chronology. Farfetched, am I right?”

“Not possible. It’s under lock and key in Oxfordshire.” Julian lifted his head, his stroke across the page going wide. “If we had an item of hers, I’d touch it and see what visions come to me.” He tapped the pencil on his pad. “Why would she be researching the occult? I’ve heard this woman helps with burglaries and such. A fact-finder. If anyone is investigating us, possibly our children, I want to know why. And I want to know now.”

Finn blinked, seemingly startled to find he’d taken a mental stroll away from them. “I don’t know why. I’m a mindreader, Jules, not God.”

Sebastian glanced to his clenched fist, his perspective sharpening until it felt like he was gazing down the barrel of his Baker infantry rifle. This story didn’t add up. The chronology was a one-hundred-year-old volume containing much about their world and the people in it. Julian’s primary goal in life, aside from protecting his family and the League’s members, was to complete it. “Remember that curious woman who showed up at your estate, Jules? Wearing spectacles and an atrocious bonnet covering most of her face? She’d had a minor carriage accident, a snapped lead, and your groom helped repair it. What was it…three months ago? Didn’t Humphrey find her near the room the chronology is in? Wandering down the hallway? Something’s always perplexed me about that episode.”

Julian dusted his cheek with his hand, leaving a charcoal streak across it. “She was only in the back parlor, the entire house, for less than an hour. Who could copy a thousand-page tome in that time?”

Humphrey flicked his wrist, giving the dice another roll. “Harmless snoop. Figured she wanted to know more about the secret life of a viscount, friend of the infamous Desolate Duke maybe. Reporting for one of those gossip rags. She giggled and danced around when I found her, saying as much.” He dragged the dice back into his cupped fist. “Anyway, this was no stunner burning Simon’s eyeballs up. She was a homely chit. Tiny. Mousy. And English. Maybe even a shade cockney. Nothing American, lovely, or compelling about her.”

“Homely?” Julian puzzled over the word, his fingers tightening around the pencil. “Was she homely?”

Humphrey tilted his head in deliberation. “Wasn’t she? I remember ugly, but maybe it was the hat.”

Julian flipped to a blank sheet and hastily began to sketch. After a moment, he rocked forward on the settee, slapping his drawing to the table. Sebastian stepped closer, Finn moving in