A Lady's Code of Misconduct (Rules for the Reckless #5)(10)

She meant what she said. But she underestimated her uncle’s dependence on her wealth.

The feeling that flickered through him was so unfamiliar and ridiculous that it took a moment to register. He opened his mouth, then made himself close it. Her safety was not his concern.

“Anyway,” she went on, “you must think the whole thing laughable. I am cared for, am I not? Provided with every luxury my heart can desire, all the ink and paper and silk floss I could ask for. But you’ve never been powerless, Mr. Burke. Or discounted in every regard that makes one human. So you must trust me when I say that comfort can be a prison.”

He clenched his teeth. “Very moving,” he said, intending sarcasm, but his voice came out roughly. He cleared his throat and scowled out the window.

“I did not mean to move you,” she said. “I suspect it impossible, in fact. But I wonder. Would you really do anything to be prime minister?”

A curious wariness came over him—the same kind of edged alertness he felt when sparring with the opposition on the floor of the Commons. A presentiment of an oncoming trap, a rhetorical gambit that might skewer him.

The sensation irked him. She was surprisingly intelligent, but na?ve and overconfident to boot. “Are you concerned for your safety, Miss Mason? Be at ease. Nobody ever won the office for doing away with an annoying woman.”

“So you would murder someone, if it came to it?”

He turned to stare at her. “Do you think me such a pathetic politician that murder would be necessary?”

“That is not a denial.”

She was goading him in the hope of rousing his indignation. But she had no idea that he’d been provoked a thousand times with these sordid insinuations. He had been punished for crimes that he’d never imagined, much less committed. And he had borne it all from people who’d had cause to know him far better than she.

She wanted him to defend himself. Instead, he laughed.

He watched her shrink into herself. Now she imagined herself sitting across from a monster. Very well, let her believe so. She was also sitting across from the future prime minister, which meant that he’d given her a fine story to tell her grandchildren. History remembered the villains even better than the saints.

Besides, even if nobody ever looked at him differently than she was looking at him right now—so pale, so appalled—he wouldn’t give a damn. Power made a fine panacea for any number of old aches. It would be revenge and pleasure and comfort rolled up in one.

They were nearly to the gate. Crispin pounded on the roof to signal the coachman to halt. “We’ll go on foot from here,” he said. “There’s a tunnel that runs in through the woods. You will go straight to your rooms, and let them discover you there, sleeping. You never left tonight. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she muttered.

He helped her out of the carriage, into the damp, cold night. The wind had died, and the air was filled with the sound of dripping, the fragrance of green and growing things yet to be slain by winter. The water caught on the tall grasses reflected the light of the moon.

When they neared the door concealed in a bank of earth, he caught her wrist. She turned questioningly, and he saw the transformation she had undertaken during their brief walk. Her very posture had changed, her shoulders caving in, her head seeming to weigh more heavily on her long, slim neck. She was folding her true self away from sight.

But he had seen her clearly now. He would not forget what he had glimpsed.

She misunderstood his reason for halting. “I will listen for the name.”

“No,” he said. “Not that.” He silently cursed himself, then shook his head—no, this was not sentimental. She could be a valuable asset to him. Keeping her safe was his wisest, most self-serving course. “Your uncle will not let you go.”

She snorted. “I know that.”

“No, I don’t think you do. He is deeply in debt. He—”

“He just bought a new coach,” she said.

“With Marlowe’s money,” he snapped. “And if something goes awry with the proposed defense works, the inventor will abandon him, and your money will be his only hope. Until now, he has simply embezzled from you, Jane. But if you find a way to remove your wealth entirely . . .” He took a deep breath. Listen to him, prattling warnings like some love-struck suitor! “Miss Mason, you do realize that if you die, your estate passes to your closest living relative?”

Her expression did not change; it merely seemed to tighten, so shadows now appeared beneath her wide cheekbones. “Yes,” she said after a moment, her voice flat. “I am aware of that.”

What marvelous control she had! His respect did not even feel grudging. “So your best path,” he said, “is to agree to marry Archibald. Insist on a long engagement, with the condition that you be allowed a season in town. And once in London, find a better husband, and elope with him quickly.”

In the moonlight, her eyes were dark pools, opaque yet watchful. Her hand closed over his, small and startlingly soft.

“Careful,” she said softly. “You begin to sound like a true friend. That was not your intention.”

No. It had not been. He felt a stir of discomfort, too deep and unreachable to analyze, but strong enough to make him wish to push it away, or twist it into some more palatable emotion.