Stephanie Laurens - A Gentleman's Honor

As she walked beside him out of the Watch House, her hand tucked possessively in his arm, she absorbed the other side of him she’d just seen.

It wasn’t until the carriage moved off from the curb and she relaxed against the well-padded seat that the shock and panic hit her. Until then, she’d been thinking of her brothers, of Adriana, worrying about them; until then, she’d taken everything in, but hadn’t spared any real thought for herself.

She shivered and twitched her cloak closer, huddled into its warmth. If he hadn’t come…a chill washed through her veins.

He glanced at her, then his arm came around her; he hugged her to him, against his warmth.

“Are you truly all right?” He whispered the words against her temple.

Her teeth were threatening to chatter, so she nodded.

Even through their clothes, the solid warmth of him reached her; as the carriage rolled on, negotiating the swell of evening traffic along Piccadilly, her chill slowly faded. His strength, the decisive and effective way he’d dealt with the entire episode, the simple fact of his presence beside her, seeped into her mind, into her consciousness, and reassured.

Eventually, she drew breath, glanced at him. “Thank you. It was just…” She gestured.

“Shock.” He looked out at the passing facades. “We’ll be back in Waverton Street soon.”

Silence descended. A minute passed, then she broke it. “I didn’t stab Ruskin.” She studied his face as he looked at her, but in the dimness couldn’t read his expression. She drew a determined breath. “Do you believe me?”

“Yes.”

Tony gave the word, simple, straightforward, uninflected, and unadorned, its moment, let it sink into her mind. Then he looked down; taking her hand, he played with her fingers. “You heard me tell the Runner, and Tante Felicité and Lady Osbaldestone before that. Physically, you couldn’t have killed Ruskin. I—we—knew that from the day after his death.”

Her fingers twined with his. He could almost hear her mind working, hear the questions forming, sense her searching for the words.

“I. We. You told me you’d been asked to investigate, but until this evening, in the Watch House, I didn’t truly comprehend what that meant, that you were investigating at the behest of Whitehall.”

He felt her gaze trace his features. Waited for the next question, wondered how she’d phrase it.

“Who are you?”

When he didn’t immediately react, she drew breath, straightened within his arm. “You’re not just a nobleman the authorities—even less the gentlemen in Whitehall— just happened to ask to look into a matter because you stumbled over a body.” Turning her head, she studied him. “Are you?”

He let a moment pass, then met her gaze. “No. That isn’t how Whitehall operates.”

She didn’t respond, but simply waited.

He looked away, rapidly sorted through his impulses. He shouldn’t expect her to accept him as her husband without knowing who he was, all he truly was. Ingrained instincts urged continued and total secrecy, yet he recalled the trouble Jack Hendon had landed himself in when he’d failed to tell Kit the whole truth. He’d thought he was protecting her; instead, he’d hurt her, nearly driven her away…

He glanced at Alicia, then reached up and rapped on the roof. His coachman opened the trap. “Drive around the park.” The gates would be locked, but the streets around the perimeter wouldn’t be crowded at this time of night.

The trap fell shut; the carriage rolled on. The flare from a passing streetlamp briefly lit the carriage’s interior. He glanced at Alicia; she met his eyes, and raised a brow. The light faded; the shadows closed in.

Fittingly, perhaps.

He leaned back, resettling his arm so she could rest more comfortably, curving his palm about her shoulder both to steady her and keep her close. He tightened his other hand about hers, locking their fingers; in the dimness he needed the contact to help gauge her reactions.

Telling her all was a risk, but a risk he had to take.

“I told your brothers I was a major in the Guards, in a cavalry regiment.” Her fingers shifted; he squeezed them gently. “I was, but after the first few months, I didn’t serve in either the Guards or the cavalry.”

She’d turned her head and was watching his face, but he couldn’t make out her expression. He drew breath and went on, “There was this gentleman named Dalziel who has an office in Whitehall—” He continued, telling her what he’d never told anyone, not Felcité, not even his mother; quietly, steadily, he told her the truth of the past thirteen years of his life.

His voice remained cool, steady, his tone dispassionate, almost as if his dark and murky past was at a great distance. The carriage rolled on; she didn’t interrupt, didn’t exclaim or ask questions. Didn’t pass judgment, but he couldn’t tell if that was because she was shocked speechless or hadn’t yet taken in enough to believe and react.

He didn’t know how she would react. A surprising number of those whose lives and privileges he and his colleagues had risked their lives repeatedly to protect held that such services as those he’d performed, predicated first to last on deceit, fell outside the bounds of all decency and branded him forever less than a gentleman.

The knowledge that some who welcomed him into their homes would respond to the truth of his life, if they ever learned of it, in such a way had never bothered him. But how she reacted…

It was tempting, oh-so-tempting, to gloss over the dark facts, to paint the details of his life in brighter colors, to lighten them. To hide and disguise their true nature. He forced himself to resist, to speak nothing more than the unvarnished truth.

To his surprise, his chest felt tight, his throat not as clear as he liked. At one point, when recounting in bleak black-and-white terms the cold facts of his existence among the seedier elements in the northern French ports, he realized he’d tensed, that he was gripping her hand too tightly; he paused and forced himself to ease his hold.

She tightened hers. Shifted on the seat, then her other hand touched the back of his, and settled, warmly clasping. “It must have been dreadful.”

Quiet acceptance, quiet empathy.

Both flowed around him like liquid gold.

His fingers curled, gripping hers again; warmth blossomed in his chest. After a moment, he went on, “But that’s all in the past. Along with most others, I got out last year.” He glanced at her, sensed the contact when she met his gaze. “However…”

She tilted her head. “When Ruskin was stabbed, and you reported the body…?”

“Indeed. Dalziel reappeared in my life.” He grimaced.

“If I’d been in his place, I’d have done the same. Whatever the business Ruskin was involved in, it’s almost certainly treasonous.”

They’d circled the park; ahead, the flickering streetlamps played over the stately mansions of Mayfair. He reached up, and instructed the coachman to head for Waverton Street. Once they were within the fashionable, well-lighted streets, he looked at her and found her watching him, not judgmentally, not even curiously, but as if she could finally see him clearly—and what she saw was something of a relief.

Her gaze shifted past him, then her lips eased and she sat back. “So that’s why Whitehall—this Dalziel person— chose you for the investigation. Because you’ve proved beyond question to be true to the country’s cause.”

No one had ever described him like that, but…he inclined his head. “It’s important that whoever is pursuing the investigation is beyond question true, because with Ruskin being within the bureacracy, it’s likely whoever he was dealing with is in some way connected either with a relevant department, or the government.”