The Duke is Wicked (League of Lords #3) - Tracy Sumner Page 0,46

definitely what he’d call a tomboy, but still…

She shrugged, her gaze tumbling like a dandelion around the dungeon. “We had acres of property. Over three hundred.”

“That, my friends, is that.” Humphrey clapped his hands, then dusted them on his trousers. “Straightforward burial. Have shovel, will dig. Couldn’t have solved it better myself. The man got what was coming.”

“See,” she hissed and turned to glare at Sebastian. “It was a solid plan!”

“See?” Sebastian strummed a long B flat that echoed off the walls. “You botched the internment, Temple. Remember those notes you’re getting, threatening to expose your captivating secret if you don’t tell this fiend everything you know about us?”

Case released the iron loop with a thump. “We didn’t mess up. I’ve been hunting since I was in short pants. No one’s ever finding that bastard’s body. And no one knows, not even the servants. He sneaked into our house at midnight, broke into her bedroom, and he was five feet under by three. It’s this”—he looped his hand in a drunken circle, a gesture Sebastian had seen Delaney make numerous times—“knack Del has for memorization, this magical world she’s found herself in, that you’re all in, where the threat is coming from. It has to be.”

Sebastian gingerly placed his violin in his lap when he felt like smashing it against the wall. “Have you left out more of the story, Temple?”

She growled and scooted to the lip of her chair, her eyes going a dark, smoky gray. His body reacted purely on instinct, and he forced himself to look away or risk exposing his secret. That this discourteous, intelligent, gorgeous woman was a fever in his blood, beneath his skin, a powerful wave just waiting to take him under.

“Why do we always have to meet down here, Fireball?” Humphrey asked, a shiver rocking his immense frame. “Murky and dank, a chill that sinks into your bones. But it does look torch-proof.”

“I like it,” Sebastian and Delaney muttered at the same time.

But the look they threw at each other after saying it was vicious.

Her brother stepped in, sensing the rising tension. “Think about it. I’ve had time to do that since arriving in Oxfordshire and being surrounded by such, well, unusual people.” He ticked off the points on his fingers. “The notes starting appearing in South Carolina. Maybe a month after we did the deed. Then they moved with Delaney to England, one even delivered while she was sailing over. We retained almost no staff in London because we figured it was someone we employed. No one in, no one out. But still, the notes keep arriving. Until she met you, Your Grace, then they stopped. Or maybe Victoria blocked them. Isn’t that her specialty? For some reason, the only way this person could deliver a message was to go through that charming fella you met in Seven Dials.” He shrugged, confident as only the young can be. “Who else could know what happened and be able to travel like this but someone who comes and goes like one of Ebenezer Scrooge’s ghosts?”

“Bitch on a biscuit.” Humphrey dropped his head to his hands.

“Simon,” Finn whispered as more of the puzzle fell into place. “I can’t read a ghost’s mind, but he sees them. If there’s a new one around, he’ll know.”

Julian rubbed his thumb over a charcoal stroke on his sketchpad. “Did you keep the letters? I can try and decipher the visions I’ll receive when I touch them. I’ll have Piper there in case I get pulled in and can’t get out.”

Delaney frowned, unaware that Julian, when he went to another realm, occasionally had trouble returning. “I’ve endeavored to interpret them, gain a clue about who’s sending them.” She flashed Sebastian an I-haven’t-told-you-everything glance. “Cracking ciphers and creating them is my…specialty.”

Sebastian suppressed another violent urge to destroy his violin. “So that’s what you’re doing for Scotland Yard.”

She hummed a vague reply that was no reply at all, her gaze dropping to her scuffed riding boots.

Julian grinned, which he rarely did, and laid aside his pad and pencil. “Finn, remember the peculiar code in those letters we received, maybe a year ago?”

A pensive look settled on Finn’s face. “I couldn’t do anything with them. They’re in German. I’m fluent, but not breaking code fluent.”

Delaney coughed and took a quiet sip of tea. “Not a problem.”

Sebastian laughed, giving the violin strings a blunt caress. Christ. Of course, it wasn’t.

“We could consider your assistance payback for your scheme to sell our secrets to