“The bloody soldiers have seized everyone I know and everything I own. I got away from them at the harbor, but there were more waiting at Bev’s place. I ain’t got any money. I’m bloody trapped and will probably swing for this. So I figured I’d come here and kill your whore wife and—”
Hugo kicked him in the side and Cowan screamed.
“Now, now. Mind your manners, Cowan,” Hugo said, his foot twitching to kick him again. And keep on kicking until he was no longer a threat to anyone.
Cowan clutched his side and glared up at him, fury and hatred burning in his eye.
Hugo heard movement behind him and turned to find Martha, Cailean, and Fergus. “The Watch is on their way,” she said.
Hugo slipped his arm around her and smiled.
“You go ahead and smile, Buckingham,” Cowan shouted through his swollen mouth. “You’ll get nothing out of all this, you dumb bastard.”
Hugo kissed Martha’s cheek and then looked down at the raving man. He was tempted to tell him that he was wrong—that he got everything out of what happened tonight: Martha. But he decided that Cowan didn’t deserve to even hear Martha’s name.
Instead, he said, “Is that so?”
“Yeah, that’s so. There won’t be no Solange’s in a few months. Bev already sold the buildings—the money has changed hands and the new owner takes possession at the end of the year.” He laughed, and then gasped and grabbed his side.
As Hugo stared down at the bloody, hateful man at his feet he considered the news he’d just heard and what he felt about it.
It took him a moment to identify the emotion: it was relief.
Hugo handed Albert the club. “Keep an eye on him until the authorities come.” He then looked away from Cowan, turning his gaze to something infinitely more beautiful and worthy: his wife.
“Shall we go wait in that charming little sitting room, darling?”
“I’d like that, Hugo.”
He tightened his arm around her, and she melted against him.
“Don’t you understand? Solange’s is gone!” Cowan shouted after him. “Everything you ever worked for. If you want it back, you’ll have to spend every penny you have on lawyers and waste years of your life chasing it through the courts.”
Hugo smiled down at Martha. “I don’t care about Solange’s anymore,” he said, just loud enough for her ears. “And I can think of a much better way to spend the rest of my life.”
Chapter 37
Several hours later …
“Laura?”
Martha gave him an exasperated look. “Hugo, that’s the fourth time you’ve said that.”
“I know, I know,” he said. “But … Laura?”
Martha laughed. “Yes, it was Laura who came up with the plan.”
He kissed her nose and then his dark gaze lowered to her chest.
Martha looked down and saw the blanket had slipped and that one breast was exposed. She hastily covered herself.
“Oh, Martha.”
“Oh, Hugo.” She smiled at his petulant tone and pouty look. “Do you want to hear the rest of my story or look at my breasts?”
“Can’t I do both?”
“You didn’t seem to be able to do both half an hour ago when we came to bed.”
He smirked. “You’re probably right. So, it was Laura’s plan to approach our sovereign’s brother and tell him that he was about to be a victim of extortion. For sodomy.”
“Well, when you state it so baldly I suppose it does sound a bit, er, audacious.”
“Yes, just a bit. Especially when one considers who Laura is, what Laura is, and where Laura now works.”
Martha didn’t want to feel pity for the woman who’d been responsible for Hugo’s captivity, but Laura Maitland was a broken creature. While Martha couldn’t quite bring herself to forgive Laura, she respected her for doing her best to right the wrongs she’d done Hugo, even though she would never be able to restore everything she’d stolen.
“Laura was the first one to admit she would never be allowed anywhere near his royal highness,” Martha said.
“And so you decided to be the messenger.”
“We all decided I should go.”
He snorted. “I still can’t believe Daniel was part of this mad plan and kept it from me. I’m his employer.”
“It wasn’t so mad, since it worked,” she pointed out.
Hugo slid an arm around her bare shoulders and pulled her close. “I know it worked—and I’m grateful. But you could have died, sweetheart. Cowan was demented enough to kill you.”
“But I didn’t die. And the duke didn’t get extorted, and Mr. Davies wasn’t able to sell the guns to the radicals, and you no longer need to work for that dreadful criminal.”
“You’re right—yet again, darling.” He kissed her. “Now tell me about your meeting with the duke; that I need to hear”
“First I had to speak to a gentleman named Gibson.”
“Ah, yes, Gibson.”
Martha didn’t tell him that Mr. Gibson kept her locked in a windowless room for six hours while he questioned her. Over and over and over. Nor did she tell him that she’d never been so terrified in her entire life.
There was no reason for him to know any of that.
“Once Mr. Gibson ascertained that I wasn’t lying, the duke came to see me.” She’d waited almost twenty-four hours before the duke finally came. Martha suspected they’d kept her in that windowless room so that nobody would ever see the two of them together.
“He was very polite and asked only a few questions about everything that I’d already told Mr. Gibson, so I assumed he’d informed the duke thoroughly.” She hesitated, and then said, “He seemed far more interested in my relationship with you.”
Hugo gave a noncommittal hmmm.
Well, what else could he say? What was there to say? Her husband had been a royal duke’s lover. He had worked as a prostitute all his life; he’d had hundreds, if not thousands, of lovers—male and female.
And there wasn’t a thing Martha could do to change that.
She strove not to be judgmental or jealous or hateful, but unpleasant emotions roiled in her belly while she’d sat there looking at a
