The Suffragette Scandal (Brothers Sinister #4)(78)

“I hardly need instruction on that point.” Edward shook his head.

“Come by sometime and we’ll talk about what we can do about it.” The man held out his hand. “I’m Clermont, by the way.”

Clermont. It had been years since he’d memorized his peerage, but he knew that name. He didn’t remember the title from his dimly remembered lessons as a child; he remembered the man because Free had mentioned him just yesterday. This was her brother’s brother.

After Free realized how he’d misled her? This man would be his enemy.

Edward frowned. “You’re not on this committee.”

The other man shrugged one shoulder. “When my wife tells me that there’s been an interesting pair of witnesses sworn in for a routine hearing, I try to make it my duty to sit in. Now, shall I send a note around for dinner someday?” His hand was still outstretched.

Edward looked regretfully at the other man’s hand. “I won’t take you up on that until I’m sure you mean it.”

“I mean it.”

“Now, yes,” Edward said. “In a day? Your Grace, what you just witnessed is not the worst mess I’ve made in the last twenty-four hours.”

Clermont raised an eyebrow. “Ah. You’ve been busy.”

“Yes. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go retrieve my wife from gaol.”

His Grace lifted his other eyebrow, but all he said to this was, “You’ll find that substantially easier now, I’ll warrant.”

As if rescuing women from prison cells were a part of a duke’s regular affairs. And hell, if Clermont had any acquaintance with Free at all, it probably was.

Chapter Twenty

IT TOOK EDWARD THIRTY-THREE MINUTES to convince the sergeant on duty of his identity. In the end, the man sent a runner to the House of Lords to ascertain the truth. When the boy came back, breathless and wild-eyed, Sergeant Crispin became substantially more helpful.

“A rough business,” Crispin said. “Rough indeed. I—uh—know your brother.”

“Oh, do you?” Edward asked in a low voice. His brother had worked out an arrangement with Crispin with regards to Free, and God help the man if he’d done anything to her in the hour and fifteen minutes he’d had her in his custody.

“We’d an arrangement.” The sergeant licked his lips. “I don’t suppose you’re here to, ah, agree to the same thing?”

“I don’t know.” Edward said blandly. “What sort of arrangement did you have?”

The man blanched. “Um. Nothing, really. Why are you here, my lord?”

My lord. People were already calling him my lord, and it would only get worse from here.

If he had to take the reins, he might as well get all he could from the part. Edward stood straighter. “Your arrangement with my brother is of little importance to me. Carry on with that as you will.”

The man looked faintly relieved.

“I’m only interested in a prisoner who is being held here.”

“Ah?” The sergeant looked about. “In these front cells?”

“No.” He’d glanced through them when he came in.

“Are you sure he’s here, then? We’ve only a handful of cells in the back, and those won’t be of much interest to you.”

“Well, show me them, if you would.” Edward did his best to look bored. “I’ll judge whether they’re of interest; you needn’t decide for me.” God, that was exactly the sort of self-indulgent tripe that a lord spouted—as if he were the center of the universe.

But the man didn’t punch him in the face for his condescension. Instead, he ducked his head. “Of course, my lord. I only wish to be of assistance. But there’s nobody back there but the suffragettes.”

“Nonetheless.”

The man neither sighed nor rolled his eyes at this. Edward was conducted through a maze of desks, down a back hall, into a back room containing a handful of holding pens filled with women in black gowns. Edward scanned them quickly, his eyes coming to rest on the very one he was looking for. She sat on a bench talking to another woman. She glanced up as he came in, but then looked away.

It took him a moment to realize that she didn’t recognize him. Since he’d left her at the station, he’d cut his hair close. He’d shaved. He’d donned a fine wool coat and a gentleman’s top hat, and he carried a gold-topped walking stick. If she’d heard him talking to the sergeant, she’d have heard his sleekest, poshest accent.

He wasn’t anyone she knew any longer.

“What was it you said you had back here?” he asked the sergeant.

“Just some suffragettes,” the sergeant replied. “Nobody important or dangerous. They were making a racket earlier, and we’re having them cool their heels until their men can come get them. You understand how it is.”

“I thought that’s what you said.” Edward felt a smile tweak his lips. “That’s why I didn’t understand you at first. You’re mispronouncing the word.”

“What word? Suffragettes?” The sergeant frowned. “It’s my accent, my lord—a thousand pardons, I know it’s low, and I do try to talk proper, but—”

“It’s not your accent.”