Confessions of a Royal Bridegroom(12)

Griffin propped a shoulder against the marble mantelpiece as he recounted the strange events. While he talked, Phelps came in with the coffee, followed by Madeline. She poured for the men, then silently took the baby and retreated to a chaise in the corner while Griffin finished the tale with the note and the signet ring. When Dominic lifted an eyebrow, he fished the ring out of his pocket and handed it over.

Dominic turned the ring to catch the light from the fire. “Abbs Noli irritare lupus. Irritate not the wolf. That sounds fairly ominous,” he said drily. He peered more closely. “A family coat of arms and a royal one at that, I’d wager.”

“Italian, perhaps?” Griffin ventured.

“Yes, probably one of the minor Hapsburg branches, if I’m reading it correctly. But I can’t tell you more without doing some research. May I take it with me?”

When Griffin nodded, Dominic slipped it into an inside pocket of his coat. “And what about the mysterious note?”

Griffin handed that over, and Dominic spread the small missive open on his knee. After only one glance, his demeanor changed. He had been sitting comfortably in the wingback chair, with his long, booted legs stretched toward the grate, but now he snapped up straight. His entire body conveyed astonishment as he stared at the note.

“What’s wrong?” Griffin asked.

Dominic lifted his gaze, and Griffin could swear the pupils in the other man’s gaze had dilated with shock. His normally swarthy complexion had paled, too, making the green of his eyes stand out in startling relief.

“No one saw the face of the woman who sent this, not even the messenger boy?” Dominic asked in a hoarse voice.

Uneasiness prickled the back of Griffin’s neck. He’d seen Dominic angry, sardonic, worried, and frustrated, but he’d never seen him this unsettled before. He realized that every muscle in his own body had tensed in an instinctive reaction. “No. She was heavily veiled.”

“Christ,” Dominic snapped. “Could you find the boy again, if you had to?”

“Yes, and no. I told him to come to me if he ever saw the lady again. If you want, I can send Phelps out to see if he can find him.”

Dominic seemed not to hear, raising a hand to his jaw, as if to rub it, then putting it back on his knee, fist clenching. He seemed to be gazing past Griffin, as if staring into a very deep pit, one that sucked the light out of everything. Griffin wasn’t one to be easily unsettled, but the expression on Dominic’s face was doing a good job of it. He’d come to rely on Dominic in some vague way he’d never bothered to analyze, and seeing him so agitated was more disturbing than he cared to admit.

He snatched up Dominic’s cognac glass and strode to the sideboard. Madeline, peering with concern at Dominic, started to rise, but Griffin waved her back to her seat. He grabbed one of the Waterford decanters and splashed out a measure of cognac, then returned to thrust the glass into Dominic’s hand.

“Whatever it is, this should improve the situation,” Griffin said.

Dominic took the drink without comment and poured it down his throat, barely wincing. Then he took a slow, deep breath. His normally impassive demeanor seemed to spin up like a cocoon around him, cloaking his emotions and leaving the cool-eyed, implacable spymaster in its place.

But a faint echo of something like desolation lingered in his green gaze, and that told Griffin the situation with the baby was far more complicated than he’d originally hoped it would be.

He wanted to give this complication a very wide berth, if at all possible.

He sat in the opposite wing chair but kept a wary eye on Dominic. “Are you going to tell me, or shall I just guess?”