A Lady's Code of Misconduct (Rules for the Reckless #5)(3)

Jane, as usual, took the window seat in the corner. Her late mother would have scolded her for sitting so far apart from the others, and for ignoring their conversation in favor of a patch of canvas she was stitching without design or care. Her parents had expected her to listen carefully, to think deeply, and to offer her opinions with poised confidence.

But her aunt and uncle, who had become her guardians after her parents’ death, took a different view. In company, they expected Jane to hold her tongue and look shy. She was the golden goose, after all, whose inheritance funded this household. Treasures were not paraded brazenly before those who might covet them. Eligible gentlemen, in particular, were not invited to Marylebigh—save Crispin Burke, of course, but he did not signify. For all his breeding, he was no gentleman.

Jane did not mind the window seat. It made an ideal spot from which to eavesdrop on her uncle. He was arguing with Mr. Burke, in a rare show of discord. It seemed like a gift from the heavens, really, for this was the last chance Jane would have to witness such quarrels. By tomorrow, she intended to be in London, free at last.

But her escape had to be secret. She was biding her time this evening, giving nobody cause to notice her.

“The French aren’t building their battle fleet for show,” Uncle Philip said hotly. Mr. Burke had been needling him about his support for the prime minister, who wanted to spend a fortune to reinforce Britain’s coastal defenses. “Besides, it’s a damned embarrassment, the state of our naval bases. A child could penetrate them.”

“Goodness,” said Mr. Burke. He was a tall, dark man, unjustly attractive, who spoke and moved and shredded men’s ideas with a languid, careless confidence that was probably inherited—his father was a viscount, his maternal grandfather a duke. “A child could do it?” He cast a dubious glance toward Archie, her uncle’s heir, who was picking his nails with a distracted smirk. “Not any child, surely.”

Her uncle scowled. “You were with me on this,” he said. “I will have your support in committee.”

Burke adjusted his posture, a lazy roll of his shoulders as he retrieved his port. “You’ll have it. But not because I lie awake at night riven with dread over a French invasion. Half a million pounds are earmarked for the improvements, and your friend the inventor will win the bid. Very well.” He lifted his glass. “To profit—your personal deity.”

Jane inwardly snorted. Had her uncle prayed to profit, then Jane herself would have been treated as a goddess, not kept in the corner and ignored.

Her uncle was flushing. “Marlowe is your friend as well, I believe.”

“No.” Burke drank. “My friends at present are a small and select company: those who can help with the penal bill.”

Uncle Philip twisted his mouth. “Marlowe has offered to help fund that campaign, too. He owns half the newspaper editors in the north—”

“I do not want him involved.”

“So the party is to finance the whole of it? That’s a pretty idea—”

Burke’s glass slammed down, and the entire room froze. Jane was suddenly aware of how much taller he was than her uncle—or, for that matter, any other man in the room. Archibald had yet to look up from his nails, but Lord Elborough shrank into himself and pretended to be invisible.

“Listen well,” Burke said in a cold, clear voice. “The party will pay whatever it takes. The party will do what I say. As will the men we’ve purchased from the opposition. They are bought and sold; the deal is done. That bill will be carried.”

Bought and sold! Burke spoke of men like cattle at the market. He was not only ruthless, but amoral to boot.

Her uncle’s jaw worked, chewing over his next words for a long, red-faced moment. “It will carry,” he said roughly. “But by God, Burke, it will take a decade to see the profits from that bill that will come in a year from the defense works.”

“Happy news, then: you’ll have no worries for your retirement.”

“I was never worried,” her uncle retorted.

A curious smile curved Burke’s full lips. “No, of course not,” he said smoothly—and then his cold, dark glance flicked to Jane’s, startling her so badly that she flinched.

For the briefest moment, he, too, looked startled. Then his eyes narrowed, shrewd and probing.

She looked quickly back to her needlepoint, cursing herself for having been caught listening. That was not her role. Her conspicuous inattention, her obvious disinterest, were what made the others so loose lipped around her.

From the corner of her eye, she saw Archibald stand. He looked around, scrubbing his head like a man risen dazedly from a nap, then went bounding from the room.

Satisfaction purled through her. He was going for the embroidery. She knew it.

“At any rate,” Burke went on, “the profits are all yours. The penal bill will bring down the government. That is my only concern.”

The Earl of Elborough spoke at last, his voice timid. “But if Palmerston steps down, then what becomes of his plan for the defense works?”

Her uncle snorted. “Didn’t you know? Burke here means to step in as prime minister. He will see it through.”

God save the country, Jane thought. Such ruthlessness, wedded to such power—she shuddered to imagine it.

“And he will remember his friends,” her uncle added in a low, ominous voice. “Assuming one makes that list.”