Bev thrashed like a wild beast, all but foaming at the mouth. “You bastard! You think you’ll get away with this?”
“Now, now, Bev.” Hugo thoughtfully stroked his chin. “What was it you said about not allowing one’s emotions to get the better of one?”
Bev snarled and launched himself at Hugo. His burst of energy startled his captors, and he broke free and grabbed Hugo’s coat lapels, slamming him up against the wall as if he could put him through it. “You’ll be bloody sorry!” Spittle flew from his mouth. “You’ll not get away with double crossing me. I’ve got a long reach and I’ll—”
Hugo smashed his head into the bridge of Bev’s nose and heard a sickening crunch as Bev crumpled, blood spurting from his nose.
Two huge men grabbed him beneath the arms and yanked him to his feet and then hauled him like a sack of potatoes, the iron heels of his hobnail boots scratching grooves in the glossy wood floor.
“Enjoy your trip, Bev,” Hugo called after him, adjusting his crushed cravat and coat with hands that shook.
He turned to the duke. “Can somebody tell me what the hell is going on?” he demanded, not giving a damn that the man across from him might one day be his sovereign.
“Come here, Hugo.”
Hugo stopped in the same place he’d stood only a few moments earlier.
“You and your wife have not only rendered immeasurable aid to your country, but I am personally in your debt.”
“My wife?”
The duke didn’t appear to hear him. “If you ever need anything, you may take this to my house in Kew.” He extracted a folded and sealed piece of parchment from his breast pocket.
Hugo took the document and stared blankly at it, his brain beginning to understand—if not comprehend—that Martha was somehow behind this.
“Thank you, your royal highness.” He swallowed, hesitated, and then looked the duke squarely in the face. “Er, I’m afraid that I, personally, can’t provide your royal highness with the usual, er, services tonight. However, we do have a new—”
“I would rather go without.”
Hugo felt oddly flattered by the other man’s words.
The duke’s lips flexed into a faint smile. “By the by, congratulations on your marriage.” He cocked his head. “I must admit I was surprised.”
“No more than I was, sir.”
“Your wife is an admirable young woman who appears to love you a great deal.” His expression turned almost wistful. “You are a fortunate man.”
“Yes,” Hugo said. “I am the most fortunate of men.” Or at least he had been, before he destroyed it all.
The duke laid a hand on Hugo’s shoulder. “My advice to you is to treat her like a queen.”
Hugo bowed again and then watched as the duke limped toward the door. He waited until the other man was gone before collapsing into the chair he’d just vacated.
“Bloody hell,” he muttered, his entire body shaking as the tension he’d been suppressing all day—hell, all week—surged through him.
He glanced at the huge bed just across the room and briefly considered crawling beneath the covers and sleeping for a week.
But no, he needed to find his wife and get to the bottom of this.
And he needed to tell her something; something that was long overdue.
Chapter 36
Hugo saw the faint glow in the sidelight next to the front door and leapt out of the hackney cab before it even rolled to a stop. He flung the fare at the driver, ignoring the man’s outraged squawk when coins struck the side of the old coach instead of his outstretched hand.
Hugo had come from the house on Berkeley Square with his heart in his throat. If Martha wasn’t here, he had no idea where he’d find her.
He ran up the steps, slipping on the smooth stone and almost pitching himself through the glass beside the door. He pounded on the heavy wood, grabbed the handle, and shoved.
Miraculously, the door swung open and he stumbled into the small but elegant foyer, which held two people and one very excited dog leaping straight up into the air like a bouncing ball, over and over and over.
But Hugo only had eyes for one thing. He reached for Martha, but she beat him to it.
“Hugo!” she yelled as she slammed into his chest hard enough to knock the air from his lungs.
Hugo squeezed her tighter than the metal rings around a barrel, burying his nose in her hair and inhaling the sweet scent of his wife. “Oh God, darling—I’m so sorry for those terrible things I said. I didn’t mean—”
“I know—I know, Hugo,” she murmured, kissing and squeezing and petting him.
He held her at arm’s length so he could look at her precious face. “You know? But how?”
Tears streamed from her magnificent blue eyes but she was smiling. “You were only trying to protect me. You wanted me to go so that Bev didn’t—”
Fergus gave an earsplitting howl and bolted toward the corridor that led to the kitchen.
“Fergus!” Cailean shouted, sprinting after the little dog.
“What the devil is that all about?” Hugo asked Martha.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you just get here?” he asked Martha.
“Only a minute before you.”
“Where did you come from?”
“We were staying in a house that Mr. Gibson arranged for the three of us. He said it wasn’t safe to come back here until they’d arrested Bev Davies.”
Hugo frowned. “Where is Albert?”
“He got here before us. We needed to go and get Fergus from Lady Selwood’s—the stablemaster was keeping him for us. Maybe that is what Fergus heard in the kitchen, Albert?”
Bev’s words from Solange’s slammed into him: I’ve got a long reach, you’ll be sorry.
“Christ!” Hugo yanked open the front door. The hackney was still at the curb, the driver crouched in the street looking for the coins he’d thrown. Hugo shoved Martha toward the carriage. “Go wait in the cab, Martha. Tell the driver to leave if I’m not back in five minutes.”
“But Hugo—”
“I’m going to see what Fergus ran after.”
“It is probably just Albert.”
Hugo thought about Fergus’s spinetingling howl. “I want to
