“Bit of a double standard, if you ask me.” Rohan did not allow his mask of casual indifference to waver, even for a moment. “You are a duchess,your grace, precisely because you have attachments. You married your duke. True love, or so they say.”
“And what is love, Rohan?” the Proprietor asked, his voice soft and silky.
“Weakness.” Rohan knew that. He had always known that. “A lever to pull. A trap just waiting to be sprung.” Romance was a trick of light. An illusion.
“The duke is in hospice,” Zella said, her own tone as even as Rohan’s. “With not much time left to live, I’m afraid, a fact I would have expected you to be well aware of, were you not… off your game, as it were.”
She wasn’t wrong about that.
“If you’re the duchess”—Brady drew Zella’s attention his way—“then you owe me.”
“I pay my debts,” Zella replied.
The Proprietor shot the duchess a censuring look. “You were told not to interfere.”
“And Rohan was told to bring you ten million pounds.” Zella executed the most graceful of shrugs. “It seems we’re both disappointments this morning. You have another choice, I imagine, for heir. A fail-safe of sorts, but you’d hate to use it.”
“I have done many things,” the Proprietor replied, “that I hated to do.” Seconds passed like years, each one a bit longer than the last, and then the man stood, reclaimed his cane, and handed Rohan the kitten. “Flip the switch,” he said, and then he turned to make his exit, the cane beating an audible rhythm on the floor with each step. “Prove that you still can, Rohan—if only to yourself.”
And just like that, the man who hadmadeRohan was gone.
Flip the switch.The kitten was warm and soft in Rohan’s arms, andwith warmth and softness came a low humming in the back of his mind, his mother’s song.Flip the switch.
“Calla spoke of you,” Zella told Brady. “She loved you in her own way—and Knox in all ways. That love was her undoing in the end.”
“What end?” Brady demanded. “You promised me information.”
“And I am giving you what was promised.”
Flip the switch, Rohan thought.
“Calla was tested,” Zella told Brady. “And Calla failed.”
Flip it now.
Chapter 55
GIGI
Gigi could not fault Helena Thorp’s hospitality. The room was spacious, the bed king-sized and very soft. Granted, Gigi had notintendedto become an overnight guest, but que será será. Sometimes when you walked up to the gates of a mansion and handed the guard a note that said,It’s called the Crucible, and I think deep down you want to tell me about it, reactions were had.
Fortunately, Gigi did not, as a general rule, mind being held semi-hostage. Besides, Knox had come with her this time, so it was really more like a slumber party. But try telling Knox that. He’d slept with his back against the bedroom door all night—ifhe’d slept at all.
Sitting up in bed, Gigi eyed her bodyguard/buddy. “I know you’re faking, Knox.” Gigi paused. “Either that, or you’re having sweet, sweet dreams about a certain lawyerly someone.”
No reply. Maybe he reallywasasleep. Gigi turned her attention to thinking about what she was going to say when the lady of the manor finally—hopefully—consented to a little chat.
“I can hear the wheels turning from here,” Knox said, eyes still closed.
Gigi crawled to the end of the bed and hopped off. “Iknewyou were faking.”
“Did not.”
Gigi grinned. “How much longer do you think we have before Toby Hawthorne storms the castle?”
Toby’s reaction to the wordcruciblehad been, in a word,intense.
“Toby’s not the one I’m concerned about,” Knox said. “Your boy’s the wild card.”