To Trust a Rogue (The Heart of a Duke #8)(87)

The old servant eyed the card a moment and then accepted it in his gnarled, white-gloved fingers. He peered down at the name and seal emblazoned upon that card. “His Lordship is not—”

Marcus stuck his foot in the doorway and willed the other man to see with the ferocity of his stare that he was not leaving. “I would see Lord Rutland immediately.”

The servant hesitated a long while, and with a sigh, he moved aside and motioned him forward.

Lest the man change his mind, Marcus strode into the soaring foyer, dimly registering a lavish opulence to the home of one of the darkest, most feared, reviled, and scandalous lords in the realm. He’d not known what he’d expected; crimson fabrics and shocking murals, perhaps. But certainly not the innocent cherubs dancing in clouds of pastel overhead.

“I cannot promise His Lordship will receive you.” The older man’s reluctant tones spoke volumes.

Marcus gave a tight nod and waited as the servant shuffled off. By the devil and all his spawn, Rutland would see him. He’d take apart each goddamn room until the evil bastard granted him an audience and gave Marcus the only gift he needed.

As the moments ticked by, he yanked out his watchfob and consulted the timepiece. With a growl of annoyance, he stuffed it back into his pocket.

“His Lordship will see you.”

Marcus spun about and found the servant studying him. With a gruff murmur of thanks, he fell into step behind the ancient servant. The man moved with slow, shuffling footsteps. With the marquess’ notoriously ruthless reputation, Marcus puzzled that he would keep a man who was anything but quick in his employ still. The inanity of that musing kept him from focusing on the thirst for Atbrooke’s blood.

“Here we are,” the servant said with a slight wheeze. He pulled out a crisp white kerchief and dusted his brow. The man opened the door. “The Viscount Wessex to see you, my lord.”

Marcus did a sweep of the room and his gaze landed on the marquess. Seated behind a broad, immaculate, mahogany desk, the man with his head bent over a ledger evinced power. “You may go,” he said, not taking his gaze from his task.

The servant sketched a bow and then took his leave, closing Marcus in with the most dreaded lord in Society.

Marcus stood there, the forgotten visitor, as the marquess scribbled away at the page before him. He fisted his hands into tight balls at the grating scratch of the pen meeting paper. Periodically the marquess would pause, dip his pen into a crystal inkwell, and then resume that frantic pace of jotting notes upon a page. How coolly arrogant the man was. How unaffected, and how he hated this man, more stranger, than anything for that freedom from caring when Marcus’ world was in tumult.

A growl rattled in his chest, and the marquess froze mid-movement, scratched something else upon the page, and then tossed his pen down. Then with an aggravating meticulousness, Lord Rutland folded the page and affixed his seal. The message of his movements clear…he was in control and Marcus’ presence here was merely being tolerated.

“Rutland,” he bit out.

Lord Rutland leaned back in his chair. “Wessex.” The hard, noble features set into an impenetrable mask gave no indication as to what the widely reputed scoundrel was thinking, feeling, or whether he was even capable of emotion. He spread his arms wide, inviting Marcus to sit. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your visit?”

With jerky movements, Marcus marched over and yanked out the leather winged-back chair at the foot of the desk. He settled into the seat. “I am here to request your assistance,” he said without preamble. Neither of them were friends and they were barely acquaintances. As such, there was no need for false pleasantries or niceties.

Rutland lowered his brow, but otherwise gave no indication that he’d so much as heard Marcus’ reluctant bid for help.

Marcus layered his arms on the sides of his chair and leaned forward. The leather groaned in protest. “You have a book.” Members of the ton, both polite and impolite lords and ladies all knew of the famed book. Purported to document the weaknesses and debts owed by the most notorious reprobates and letches, such a catalogue had once earned Marcus’ disgust and disdain. Now he needed words penned within those pages. Needed the book to be as real as it was rumored to be. “You have a book,” Marcus went on when Lord Rutland said nothing. “And I am in need of the name of one of the gentlemen who is surely on the pages.” He’d wager his very life ten times on Sunday that Atbrooke owed countless debts to the very man before Marcus now.

Rutland shuttered his gaze and then shoved to his feet. With a nonchalance that made Marcus grit his teeth, the marquess made his way to the well-stocked sideboard. He paused and looked at the crystal decanters, lingering over his decision, and then selected a bottle of brandy. He turned, bottle in hand, and hefted it in Marcus’ direction. “Brandy?”

“No,” he said tersely. The man was utterly mad. Marcus gripped the arms of his chair hard. But then, he was desperate enough that he’d appeal to the mercy of a madman stranger.

The clink of crystal touching crystal filled the quiet as did the stream of liquid as the marquess poured his snifter full. With the same casualness that had driven him to that sideboard, the marquess strolled back to his desk, and reclaimed his seat. He took a sip. All the while, he studied Marcus over the rim of his glass with an indecipherable stare.

“You were saying?”