Tamed by her Duke (Seductive Mysteries #4)

Chapter 24

CHAPTER 24

C aleb did not have a good feeling.

Or, well, he supposed that was not precisely the case.

He had a strong sense, after all, that they would learn something this evening. He might have dismissed it as optimistic, if anyone had ever accused him of having such a trait.

Something in the air felt like it did in the eve before battle, however, something in his body priming him for action before his mind could identify the threat.

He thought they would learn something, and that was good. But he feared that what they would learn would hurt his wife.

And even thinking about that filled Caleb with a burning, heady rage.

“This one,” Grace said quietly, tugging on his arm and drawing his attention. “But it will be locked. He always keeps it locked.”

Caleb shot her a quick smile. It was so nice to have the answers handy.

“That’ll nae be a problem, lass,” he said. “I’ve the key.”

He produced it from his pocket and dangled it briefly in front of her face. She gaped at him and damn if that wasn’t satisfying.

“How?” she demanded.

He shrugged. “Your brother obviously hates your father. Turns out, he knows which servants hate your father, too.”

Somehow, she looked even more incredulous. “You told my brother what we’re doing.”

“Well, I might not have told him that ye were coming with me. Didn’t think he’d approve.”

As a matter of fact, Oackley’s precise words had been, “I don’t care if you leave my father shackled in a pillory in the middle of Covent Garden, but if you get my sister in any trouble at all, I will destroy you.”

Caleb wasn’t overly concerned, as he intended to destroy anyone who intended Grace harm long before it reached her, anyway.

“Men,” Grace harrumphed. She did not, however, seem upset that he’d managed to ensure that they’d be able to snoop all they wanted.

Graham’s office was neatly organized, though stacks of paper and thick, leather-bound ledgers sat here and there with an oh so casual placement that Caleb assumed was to emphasize how very busy and important the man was.

Christ, but Graham was a peacock. He hid it reasonably well, but the man was as vain as any dandy—he just let it out in different ways.

“Where do we start?” Grace murmured.

Caleb reached into his pocket again and produced another, smaller key.

“He’ll keep the most important things locked up, now, won’t he?” he asked.

Grace looked at the small object in his hand and shook her head ruefully.

“If this isn’t an object lesson in why you should treat your servants kindly, I don’t know what is,” she said, half to herself.

They only dared light a single candle—something that Caleb had also stowed away in his pockets. A plaid was useful for hiding a multitude of things that the tight tailoring of current English fashions would never conceal. He didn’t know if Graham was the kind of man who noticed the level that his candles had been burned, or how much oil was left in a lantern, but somehow Caleb suspected that he was. Graham seemed like the kind of person who would be on perpetual lookout for any hint that his iron-fisted control wasn’t being respected as he believed it ought to be.

Caleb lit the short candle with a match—also from his pockets—and wedged it into a candlestick that already sat on the desk, reminding himself to replace the original candle before they left.

Caleb noted everything before he touched it—the placement of the papers in the drawer, where each pen sat—and reminded Grace to keep the pages in order before he slid half the pile over to her.

They read, side by side, for several minutes.

Graham, Caleb learned in that time, was double-dealing with several of his fellow Parliamentarians. He’d promised Lord Ogleby, for example, that he absolutely would not parlay with the Earl of Minster, and in the next letter swore to Minster that he’d naught to do with Ogleby.

He was, moreover, not faithful to his wife—though Caleb hadn’t really expected otherwise. He did arch an eyebrow at the highly explicit nature of the letters between Graham and a young actress currently making quite the name for herself on the London stage.

As he hastily put those letters aside, he was pleased to see that Grace was squinting at a column of figures, not looking at what Caleb was doing. Nobody needed to think of their father like that .

It was the documents nearly at the bottom of the pile, however, that made Caleb pause, made him struggle not to react.

“Grace,” he said slowly. “I need ye to go find yer brother, leannan .”

She jerked hard enough, startled from her task, that she nearly touched the paper in her hand to the flickering flame. She set it hastily down in her pile before reaching for the document he held.

Caleb shifted subtly away from her, watched as her hand froze in midair.

“Caleb,” she said, and there was already a tremor in your voice. “What did you find?”

This was not the time or place and so Caleb hoped that just this once, she would listen.

“ Leannan ,” he said, voice hard and serious. “Ye need to find yer brother right now and tell him to do as I bid him.”

She held his gaze for a long moment, a flurry of emotions dancing through her expressive eyes—worry, irritation, and bone-deep fear. It was this last one why he needed her gone.

It was his job to protect her. He would do whatever it took to protect her, even if she grew angry with him for it.

At last she nodded.

“Yes, right,” she said. “I’ll find him. I’ll tell him.”

Caleb’s sigh of air was heavy with relief.

“Thank you, leannan .”

She looked startled and he realized he’d likely never thanked her before. But now was not the time for that, either. He saw her banish her surprise, saw how she squared her shoulders as if preparing for battle.

His warrior. The girl who survived, who came back stronger. She’d done it when she was alone, and she’d damn well do it now that she had him at her back, ready to fight for her, protect her.

He’d kill for her, if it came to that.

He followed her as she crossed to the door, pressing a quick kiss to her knuckles before she departed.

And when her footsteps faded into the dark hallway, he did not close the door behind her.

Instead, he crossed back to the desk, stole a cigar that he’d noted out of the drawer, and used the candle flame to light it. Then, puffing until the tobacco caught, he lit a lantern, turned it up to its fullest blaze. He leaned back in the chair, draped in a casual posture intensely at odds with the churning rage inside him.

And then he waited.

It didn’t take long; the cigar was fragrant, and the air quickly grew redolent with smoke. The light spilled into the hallway. And the Duke of Graham was not the kind of man who relaxed his guard, not even when his home was full of hundreds of London’s wealthiest residents. A servant would notice, would report to their master. And then he would come.

“What in the hell?” The duke’s irate voice reached him just before the man’s shadow crossed in front of the open doorway. Caleb watched as his eyes registered the figure in the room. “Montgomery? Damn it, man, there’s a smoking room?—”

The duke took another step into the room. His words cut off as he took in the whole picture, his eyes darting around and cataloguing details. Caleb’s pose. The still open drawer. The papers spilled out onto the desktop.

“You went through my things ?” he demanded, drawing himself up, preparing to wield his outrage. “How dare?—”

“No.” Caleb’s word was a brick wall. He inclined his chin at the chair across from the desk. “Ye’ll sit and ye’ll give me answers, or else I will force ye to do so, do ye understand me?”

Graham’s face split into a sneer. “I do not know where you get the audacity to come in here and make demands after breaking in and stealing from me .”

Caleb’s body thrummed with barely contained rage as he ground out his cigar right on the hard wood of the table, purposefully ignoring the ashtray sitting only inches away that was clearly designated for this very use.

The duke’s strangled sound of anger was cut off when Caleb rounded the desk, grabbed his father-in-law by the cravat, and punched him hard across the jaw.

The duke’s head snapped to the side and his weight sagged in Caleb’s hold. For a moment, Caleb worried that he’d knocked the man unconscious—that would be inconvenient, if not a little satisfying—but when he dropped the duke into the chair, he saw that the man’s eyes were open, even if his head was lolling a little.

Caleb leaned back against the edge of the desk, faintly recalling when he’d used this same pose to try to intimidate his new wife.

Well, he thought with a bitter smile. This was going to go very differently.

“I will repeat myself in case I knocked what little sense ye have right out of your head,” he said. “I am going to ask ye questions and ye are going to answer them.”

There were dozens of questions that Caleb wanted to pose, truly, but he knew his time was limited. So he went with the most important one.

“Why did ye do it, then?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the duke insisted, cradling his bruised jaw in one hand, trying to push himself to his feet with the other.

Caleb hit him again, this time on the other side of the face. The older man collapsed back into the chair like a marionette with cut strings.

Caleb’s right hook wasn’t quite as strong as his left hook, so the duke recovered a bit more quickly.

“I don’t have to stand for this,” he snarled. “I’m calling for hel?—”

This time, Caleb socked him in the gut, putting an end to that.

While Graham gasped for air, Caleb grabbed him by the neck again and slammed him against the wall. It was laughably easy; Graham had that fashionable, slender build, but he was notably lacking in physical strength.

Caleb leaned in close, crowding the man.

“This is the last time I’m going to ask ye,” he said, a violent smile spreading across his face. “I daenae really need answers, ye ken. Ye’ve left proof enough in your papers over there. So if I happen to kill ye?” He shrugged. “I’ll recover.”

True alarm flickered in Graham’s eyes at last, but the rat still tried to argue.

“Grace will never forgive you,” he croaked.

Caleb laughed humorlessly. “Won’t she?” he asked. “I rather think she would—and that’s even before I tell her everything.” He cocked a fist and watched as Graham’s eyes, moving slightly sluggishly, tracked the movement.

Caleb paused until he felt the threat was sufficiently clear.

“I’ll give ye one last chance, then,” he said. “Tell me: why did ye have yer daughter abducted?”