When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,138
to the alluring air of mystery that surrounded her. It didn’t, however, conceal the fact that she was a threat to his privacy and, more alarmingly, his control.
He forced himself to look away from her.
Rotham had straightened and was regarding him with a bleary sort of wariness, as if he had just discovered a tiger amid a room of house cats. “King. What’re you doin’ here?”
“I do like to get out from time to time.” King waved at a passing footman and a glass of amber liquor appeared in front of him. “Hercules was a Roman hero, adapted from the Greek Heracles,” King continued from his earlier comment, tracing a lazy pattern on the green felt with his fingers. “But it was Heracles who fell to madness and killed a child.”
Marstowe hadn’t said a word yet, his eyes fixed firmly on the damaged card in his hand. King looked away before his animosity and revulsion became obvious.
The duke blinked at King and then shrugged. “Roman, Greek, no matter. What matters is it’s sculpted by Michelangelo hisself.” He looked back at Adeline and waved his glass at King. “Didn’ think he’d find such a thing. But I shoulda known better ’cause this man is famous fer findin’ the impossible—” He abruptly stopped. “That’s it.” He gave Marstowe another jab with his elbow. “He can find it.”
“What?” Marstowe didn’t look up, only asked for another card from the dealer.
“The money. Your money. He could find it for you.”
King took a small sip of his brandy and forced himself to remain still. The duke had made a comment about money when Adrestia had first sat down, but King hadn’t given it much credence. He was certainly paying attention now, because what the blundering duke was alluding to was a fair sight more than a missing pocketbook.
Marstowe glanced at his new card. “I don’ think—”
“Yer damn solicitors ’ave been looking fer an age,” the duke whispered in a voice that was far from a whisper. “King might be yer best chance.”
The baron looked unconvinced.
Adrestia had suddenly become absorbed in a loose thread on the shoulder of her gown.
“May I ask what it is you seem to have lost?” King asked Marstowe. He was careful to keep his expression blank.
“Money,” the duke told him.
Marstowe grimaced, the muscles in his neck flexing.
“I see,” King said, trying not to imagine snapping that neck. He adjusted his grip on his walking stick where it rested against his thigh. “Money from your personal coffers or money tied to the barony?”
The baron hesitated.
“Oh, fer God’s sake, i’s not like it’s a secret,” Rotham grumbled. “Least not fer much longer. An’ I can’t keep payin’.”
Marstowe stared into his empty cup.
“The barony,” Rotham told King impatiently.
“How much?” King inquired.
“All of it.” The duke sat back with a thump.
King stared at Marstowe. He knew that there was no land associated with the barony, only the expensive town house in London, but Marstowe’s great-grandfather and his grandfather had each made an obscene fortune from their very unfashionable obsession with trade. For that much money to have disappeared…
“Gambling debts?” he asked as evenly as possible. “Poor investments, malicious blackmail, diabolical mistresses, or failed ventures?”
The baron only glowered and reached for the brandy beside Adeline.
“No,” Rotham answered for him. “The damn estate lawyers think mebbe his brother gave everything t’ the church. I tol’ you, thieves, the lot o’ them,” he finished, banging the table with the flat of his hand.
“Indeed?” King pushed his glass back and forth across the felt with his fingers, watching the brandy splash gently against the sides. The loss of the entire Marstowe fortune should please him. Yet he didn’t feel pleased. There was no amount of money lost that could equal what King had lost. “An inopportune donation to the church can be verified.”
“How?” Marstowe finally found his voice.
“Leave that to me.” He glanced at the baron. It was hard to look at the man and not feel nauseous. “I’ll take twenty-five percent.”
“I beg your pardon?” Marstowe nearly pitched from his chair, gripping the edge of the table to regain his equilibrium.
“Twenty-five percent of whatever I find and recover,” King repeated. “That is my offer to you, Marstowe. It’s not negotiable.”
Rotham was looking wide-eyed between the baron and King.
“You’re a goddamn thief,” Marstowe hissed.
The duke went ashen. Even the dealer paused.
“Because you are newly returned to England and, it seems, under some duress, I will let that…comment slide for now. But I am a businessman, Marstowe.” King shrugged and crossed