Undressed with the Marquess (Lost Lords of London #3) - Christi Caldwell Page 0,66
of your fate, I’m the one more entitled to surprise.” Avery’s sharp gaze worked over Dare’s office.
In a brave display of boldness, the servant lingered for a moment, glowering at the visitor now doing a circle around Dare’s office. “Is there anything else you require, my lord?”
“No, Spencer. That will be all.”
Spencer sniffed twice. “As you wish, my lord,” he said before reluctantly drawing the panel shut.
The moment Dare and his former partner found themselves alone, Dare took up a place behind his desk.
Avery nudged his chin to where the butler last stood. “Friendly fellow.”
“He means well,” Dare said, for some reason unwilling to let Avery have that low opinion about the servant. “He’s unused to meeting . . .”
“People like us?” Avery supplied with a wry grin.
“People like us,” Dare agreed.
His partner looped his thumbs in the waistband of his breeches and glanced around. He whistled. “Though I will say, we don’t seem to be the same people. Not anymore.”
Dare followed his stare, then frowned. “You’re wrong.”
“Am I?” the other man asked distractedly as he picked up a white bust of a young lady.
“None of this changes who I am or what I do.”
“Doesn’t it?” Avery asked, curiosity in those two words. Words that were so very familiar, given Lionel’s assumptions about Dare’s role in the Rookeries.
“It doesn’t,” Dare repeated, this time with a greater insistence.
Avery redirected his focus to the bauble in his hand, weighing it in his gloveless palm. “Marble?”
Marble? It took a moment to register what Avery was asking. “I . . .” Dare didn’t know. “Believe so,” he said noncommittally, refusing to acknowledge that he’d not already taken a full inventory of the household.
Wordlessly, Avery returned the piece to the side table and resumed his silent assessment of Dare’s new belongings. Items Dare should already know the value of. He should have inventoried the pieces and sold them off, as had been the initial plan and intent. He’d see to that. Soon. Eventually. As soon as he sorted through . . . his marriage and the duke’s terms . . .
As his partner took a methodical turn about the room, Dare returned to his seat and the ledgers he’d been studying before Avery’s arrival—or trying to, in vain.
He’d been wholly distracted . . . by her. His wife.
Avery had made his way over to Dare’s desk.
“You seem distracted.”
Dare grunted. The other man had always seen too much. He shifted on his seat. “It is . . . a lot.” The change in circumstances. The new life. The reunion with his wife. And he was drowning under the enormity of it all.
His former mentor–turned-partner grinned wryly. “That it is,” he said, wholly misunderstanding precisely what Dare had been saying. “Nice place.”
But then they weren’t people who dealt in emotion, or anything beyond the physical things to be stolen and sold.
Grabbing the curved back of the wing chair, Avery pulled it out and availed himself of a seat. “I never thought to see you here.”
“That makes two of us,” Dare said under his breath.
Avery shook his head. “I mean, after Newgate.” Avery’s lips twisted in the closest rendering of a genuine smile Dare had ever remembered from the man. “You always did have the Devil’s own luck.”
“Luck,” he echoed. “Is that what one calls this?”
A frown chased away Avery’s grin. “Don’t be an arse, Grey. What do you think any one of us in the Rookeries would call this?” He glanced about the room once more, forcing Dare to follow his gaze. “You don’t go whining and crying because you found yourself not only spared the noose but also moved up to the West End.”
And it wasn’t the first time that day he’d been properly chastised . . . and shamed. He looked past Avery’s shoulder to the marble bust the man had previously handled. For . . . Dare had bemoaned his state. He hadn’t given thought to what he’d gained, but had rather been solely focused on what he’d lost. “You’re right.”
Avery chuckled. “I always am.”
“What brings you here?” he asked, getting to the heart of it. He and Avery were partners, not friends; as such, he didn’t believe for one moment this was a social call.
“Been looking into what happened with you. Asking questions . . . about our contacts.”
All Dare’s senses went on alert, and he straightened in his chair. “And?”
“And the woman who gave us the information about the earl you got caught stealing from?” He shook his head. “She’s gone.”