A Masquerade in the Moonlight - By Kasey Michaels Page 0,136

you climbing into her window in the middle of the night.”

“Perhaps, Paddy,” Thomas said, opening the door. “But I think you can trust your Tommie to change her mind.”

Laleham didn’t care for late-night assignations, but Ralph had been insistent they meet two hours after midnight. Ralph had been acting strangely these last days, nearly daring to contradict him on more than one occasion, so that the earl was thoroughly out of patience with him. Which partially explained his foul humor as his man drove him away from the ball he had been attending and through the still busy streets to Harewood’s lodgings.

The remainder of Laleham’s black mood was due to the steady aching in his jaw that, no matter how much better his physicians swore the cracked bone to be, still pained him like the devil. The pain kept his hatred for Thomas Donovan alive—so much so that he had begun to believe he could find a way to dispose of the man and deal only with his minion, Patrick Dooley.

But that had to wait. Everything had to wait until this business with Arthur and Perry and Stinky was straightened out. How could one of them, yet alone all three, be so monstrously inept, so perilously stupid?

And why now? One or two of them falling from grace could be looked upon as coincidence. But three? And so quickly, one directly after the other, within a space of days? That smacked of some sort of intrigue meant to bring them down. But only the five of them knew they were connected in any way other than simple friendship.

Yet all wasn’t lost. The groundwork for the deal with the Americans had been well laid, and Perry’s and Arthur’s liberally bribed—and decidedly more competent—assistants were still in place, so that neither of the two blockheads were needed anymore. Not really. Perry’s replacement at the War Ministry and Arthur’s at the Treasury would only continue on the way things had been set up for them by their predecessors, for originality—and brainpower—never had been requirements for government service. Assistants and secretaries had always run the offices, and always would. No one had any reason to believe this first shipment and those to follow, neatly delivered to Phillips and Delphia, would be anything but customary.

As for Stinky? Merely a minor adjustment was needed there. William knew he could always find another of Prinny’s fawning sycophants who needed his debts paid in exchange for whispering a word or two into His Royal Highness’s ear if one was needed. But not for long. Soon Prinny would only be a faint, forgettable blot on the pages of history—even without Stinky personally assisting the man into oblivion.

The only real problem lay with Donovan, who had yet to turn over the letter from Madison—that vital communication that would keep the earl safe from any sort of double dealing. If the replacements at the War Ministry and the Treasury were to be too efficient, and forward Perry’s and Arthur’s orders too expeditiously, Donovan would have everything his president wanted without having to turn over the paper.

And that, William Renfrew knew, just wouldn’t be sporting.

Laleham clenched his teeth before remembering the action inevitably set a sharp pain running from his jawbone straight into his ear.

He thought once more of Ralph. Perhaps Ralph had also considered the benefits to be derived by this strange elimination of the three bunglers, although he would then have most naturally supposed he, as the sole remaining contact inside the government, had doubled—nay, trebled —in worth.

Yes, that would be the way Ralph saw it—and it certainly would explain his new air of command. Hadn’t it also occurred to him that if Grouse could be bought without Perry’s knowledge, and Arthur’s man, Peeler, could be bought, then it merely followed that Ralph’s assistant had also been neatly purchased and sat in his pocket?

Did Ralph, did any of them, really believe that he, William Renfrew, would leave the chances for success of such important dealings resting solely with such unreliable men as themselves?

A simple, superstitious, easily led fool—that was his dear friend Ralph. It also would never occur to him that if three members of their little group could be done without, so could four. After all, why settle for half a loaf when it was possible to have it all? More for himself, more for his consort, more because more was better. Always better.

But he was worrying too much, like an old woman. The three had been destroyed by their