The Secrets of a Scoundrel Read Online Free Page A

husband, the Earl, the truth is, thirty years ago, Mama took a braw Scotsman for a lover—an Order agent, who sired me. My natural father was your handler, Nick. Virgil Banks.”
    His jaw dropped.
    Virgil’s daughter? So that’s how she knew so much . . .
    “Now, for the last time, will you work with me or not?” she demanded in a hard tone—that suddenly made perfect sense.
    Good God! Speechless, Nick could only stare. Before his untimely death, Virgil Banks had been a legend of the Order. The taciturn Scot been like a father to all “his boys,” the highborn lads he had handpicked to be trained and turned into agents. The canny spymaster had taught them everything they knew. But . . .
    Virgil had a daughter?
    “He never told us!” he blurted out. “We were like sons to him. I mean, I thought he kept the secrets to the mission side of things. But—he never said a word!”
    Her lips twisted ruefully. “Would you? Think about it. If you had a daughter, would you introduce her to someone like you?”
    “Hell, no,” he said without a second’s hesitation.
    “Well?” She chuckled.
    He let out a short laugh, as well, just barely managing to shake off his astonishment. “Well, I’d do anything for the old man.” Including keeping his daughter from getting herself killed. “Of course you’ve got my help.”
    Clever as she was, he doubted the lady investigator had any real idea of the sort of people she was dealing with. Only the worst of the worst attended the Bacchus Bazaar.
    But if he had this one chance left to do something good, maybe even save his soul, he’d keep her safe. Keep her out of her own investigation as much as possible . . .
    Meanwhile, she held his gaze with a sweet, girlish blush filling her cheeks, relief easing into her blue eyes. “Oh, thank you! I was so hoping you’d say that. It’s a lot to take on by oneself.”
    “I know,” he answered softly.
    “I’ll go get the guard,” she said. “Let’s get you of there, shall we?”
    He nodded. When she turned away, Nick stared after her, still entirely astonished.
    Well, so much for bedding her, he thought wryly after a moment. He had enough problems without also being haunted from beyond the grave by her father’s angry ghost.
    What a shame.

 
    Chapter 2
    S he returned with Ross, who gave Nick a warning glower and told him to pack his things: He’d be leaving.
    Nick complied uneasily, still filled with a sense of unreality. Part of him feared this was all a cruel hoax soon to be reversed, but he took out the single box he had arrived with and placed in it the few belongings he’d been allowed to keep, along with the various small comforts sent to him by his friends. He took the map of America down off the wall, folded it somberly, and put it in the box in which all of his possessions now fit.
    Then Ross unlocked his cell, not to grant him his usual one hour a week outside but to remand him into the custody of the lovely Lady Burke.
    With his wrists and his ankles shackled, Nick was first escorted upstairs for a final meeting with the graybeards. There was paperwork to fill out, a short but intense interrogation, dire warnings issued.
    This, he was advised, was his one chance to prove to them he could still be trusted. One chance to clear the slate. Good God, he thought while their lecture droned on, what did this woman want from him, really?
    It had to be a lot worse than anyone was admitting for them to let him go. Ah, well. If it was for Virgil, he was in.
    In any case, the last thing the graybeards did before he left was to return his signet ring to him. Feeling rather dazed, he stared at it for a second as if he had never seen his family’s coat of arms before: a black wolf on a scarlet ground.
    Despite the awkwardness of the shackles on this wrists, he managed to slip it onto his pinky finger, and thus became the baron again.
    Heir to an ancient, but quite bankrupt family.
    Not exactly cursed bloodlines, but