When a Rogue Meets His Match - Elizabeth Hoyt Page 0,151

suggested that he keep his mistress at a better address. Currently she lives in a hovel near the Dials. It’s a dangerous area. One never knows what may happen to an unsuspecting woman who travels alone at night to meet her paramour.”

“You blackmailed him and threatened his mistress?”

“I did nothing of the sort. I merely offered him some good advice. Free of charge, I might add.”

“How could you possibly know he had a mistress?”

“Because I generally don’t visit this churchyard during daylight hours. Neither does she.” He paused. “The rector did tell me, however, that the late baron called him to his house right before he died and offered him fifty pounds to take whatever measures were necessary to make sure that his family’s graves in the churchyard were not disturbed. Someone, it seemed, had disturbed the grave of the younger Westerleigh brother just before the old baron’s death.”

“Resurrection men?” Ashland glanced at the Darling brothers.

“No, grave robbers, more likely. Corpses need to be fresh for the medical folk.”

The duke made a face. “Perhaps the money is truly gone.”

“Tsk. Nothing is truly gone, Ashland. One just needs to know where to look. I think your wife might agree with me. She found you, after all.”

“King—”

“Go, Ashland. Go be a good husband and a good duke and do all the good things that I never have and never will.”

“I could take the matter to the courts—”

“And risk exposing your secrets as well as mine? Not a chance, Ashland. I am not that selfish. I will handle this.”

“Don’t do anything rash. Please.”

“Do not worry,” King said. “When I do decide what it is I will do, it will most certainly not be rash.”

Chapter 11

King found Adeline sitting in the wide chair behind his desk, considering the depiction of Judith beheading Holofernes. That she had beaten him back to Helmsdale did not surprise him. He had stayed in that churchyard in front of Evan’s grave long after Ashland had departed. Long after it had become clear that Baron Marstowe was not going to appear.

“There are locks on my doors,” King said for the second time.

“Not good ones,” Adeline replied again without turning around. She was dressed in her black trousers and coat, her rapier sheathed at her side, her curved knife held absently in her hands. “Who painted this?”

“Caravaggio.” A faint draft swirled through the study as he shut the door behind him. “I had the version Rubens painted but I sold it. I much prefer this one.”

Adeline ran her fingers along the smooth surface of her knife. The light from a half dozen sconces that had been lit against the encroaching darkness danced off the steel. “Tell me, is Judith a good person?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Judith.” Adeline gestured at the painting with the tip of her knife. “Is she a good person?”

“I don’t understand your question.”

“Look at her. She is assassinating a general without remorse. She has his hair wrapped in her fist, his head wrenched back, and her blade deep across his throat. She displays neither revulsion nor fear, satisfaction nor pleasure. She merely looks…”

“Stoic.”

“I was going to suggest determined. But then I suppose all assassins should be both stoic and determined.”

“Judith wasn’t an assassin.”

“She was that day.”

The desk creaked as King settled his weight on the corner. “She didn’t have a choice.”

“No?”

“Bethulia would have been destroyed, her people slaughtered. She saved those she loved.”

“So she was a good person. A good person who was forced to do an awful thing to make sure she and those she cared for survived.”

King opened his mouth and abruptly closed it again. “I know what you’re doing.”

Adeline’s head tipped back, and she gazed at the painting for a long time in silence. “I envy Judith,” she said eventually.

“Why?”

She jabbed her knife in the direction of the painting. “She’s not alone.” She laughed softly, though there was no humor in it. “Her maid is there to help her kill Holofernes.”

“Her maid only conceals and carries the severed head in her basket.”

“A task Judith could have easily done,” Adeline replied. “The maid is not just carrying a head, she’s carrying some of Judith’s burden.” She was still gazing at the painting, a note of sadness creeping into her words. “Her maid already knew what it would cost Judith to kill a man, and this was the only way she could lessen that burden. She didn’t want Judith to be alone in her task.”

King pushed himself off the desk and came to stand near Adeline, wishing he