Wicked Intentions (Maiden Lane #1)(75)
Author: Elizabeth Hoyt

So she had and her life had crumbled apart.

She’d returned from the dingy room John had rented to find Benjamin—grave, handsome Benjamin—breathing his last. His chest had been crushed by the wheels of a huge brewer’s cart. He hadn’t even regained consciousness before dying. Temperance didn’t remember much after that. Her family had taken care of Benjamin’s funeral, had cared for and comforted her. Weeks later, she found out that John had left his rented rooms without ever saying good-bye to her.

She hadn’t cared.

Ever since, she’d worked to hide her sin—and the temptation of lust. Had she in the process become a hypocrite? She’d wanted the comfort of Caire’s arms, but she was so wrapped up in her own demons that she hadn’t even thought about his feelings.

Caire was right. She’d used him. The thought made her squirm, made her want to lash out—blame Winter for his collapse, blame John for seducing her so long ago, blame Silence for her foolish bravery, blame Caire for his advances—blame, in fact, anyone but herself. She hated the knowledge that she was so base. He was right. She’d used him for sexual pleasure and hadn’t even the courage to acknowledge the fact to herself.

And somehow in the process of using him, she’d so hurt him that he believed she thought sex with him was degrading.

It was a temptation to make excuses for herself. But she fought down all her prevarication, her lies and evasions. She swore to herself two things: one, that she would save the home. And two, she would find a way somehow to heal the hurt she’d caused Lazarus. She’d find a way to open herself to him, even at the risk of hurting herself, because she owed him that. Because if she didn’t, she would never be able to get him back. Could she admit how she felt to him? She was no longer sure. The mere thought of expressing aloud her feelings made sweat start at the small of her back.

But there was something she knew she could do.

Standing, Temperance knocked hard against the carriage roof. “Stop! Stop, please! I wish to go to a different address. I wish to visit Mr. St. John.”

LAZARUS HAD NEVER thought of himself as lovable. Therefore it should come as no shock at all that Temperance did not, in fact, love him. No, not a shock… but it would have been nice had she had some small feeling for him.

Lazarus pondered his own sickening craving as he guided his black gelding through the London morning throng the day after he’d walked out on Temperance. It appeared that his own nascent emotions had provoked a new desire as well: the urge to be loved. How banal. And yet, banal or not, he could not change the way his heart felt.

A corner of his mouth quirked up humorlessly. It seemed he must be like other men after all.

The black shied and Lazarus looked up. The address he sought this morning was not so very far from his own town house. The square he now guided the horse into was new, the houses genteel and so elegant they must’ve cost a fortune to rent. Lazarus swung down from the gelding and gave the reins to a waiting boy, along with a shilling for his troubles. He mounted the pristine white steps and knocked.

Five minutes later, Lazarus was shown into a study both luxurious and comfortable. The chairs were wide enough for a man’s girth and covered in a deep red leather. The books were in enough disarray to suggest actual use, and the massive desk, taking up an entire corner of the room, shone with polish.

Lazarus strolled the room while he waited for his host. When the door at last opened, he had a copy of Cicero’s speeches in his hands.

The man who entered wore a full-bottomed white wig. The outer corners of his eyes, his lips, and his jowls all sagged downward as if pulled by an invisible string, giving his countenance the agreeable look of a hunting dog.

He glanced at Lazarus, raised a bushy gray eyebrow at the book in his hands, and said, “May I help you, sir?”

“I hope so.” Lazarus closed and set aside the book. “Am I addressing Lord Hadley?”

“You are indeed, sir.” Hadley gave an abbreviated bow and, sweeping aside the skirts of his coat, sat heavily in one of the leather chairs.

Lazarus inclined his head before sitting across from his host. “I am Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire.”

Hadley arched an eyebrow, waiting.

“I was hoping you could help me,” Lazarus said. “We have—or rather had—a mutual acquaintance: Marie Hume.”

Hadley’s expression didn’t change.

Lazarus cocked his head. “A blond lady specializing in certain forms of entertainment.”

“What forms?”

“The rope and hood.”

“Ah.” Hadley didn’t seem at all embarrassed by the outré turn of conversation. “I know the gel. Called herself Marie Pett when she was with me. I was under the impression she had died.”

Lazarus nodded. “She was murdered in a house in St. Giles almost three months ago.”

“A pity,” Hadley said, “but I don’t see how it matters to me.”

Lazarus inclined his head. “I wish to find the murderer.”

Hadley showed the first sign of emotion since Caire had arrived: curiosity. He took a small enameled box from a pocket, tapped out a pinch of snuff, inhaled, and sneezed. He blew his nose and shook his head as he put away his handkerchief. “Why?”

Lazarus raised his eyebrows. “Why what?”

“Why d’you want to find this gel’s murderer?”

“She was my mistress.”

“And?” Hadley fingered the snuffbox still in his hand. “You know about her specialty, so I assume you used her for the same purpose as I. A pity, as I said, that she’s dead, but there are other women to fulfill our particular needs. Why bother seeking her killer?”

Lazarus blinked. No one had ever asked him the question phrased in such a way. “I… spent time with her. With Marie.”

“You loved her?”

“No, I never loved Marie. But she was a person. If I do not find her killer, seek retribution for her death, then no one held her in regard. Then…”

Then what?

But Hadley finished his sentence for him. “And if no one holds Marie in regard, then perhaps no one holds you in regard? No one holds us in regard. We are merely solitary creatures enacting our bizarre form of human contact without anyone caring about us at all.”

Lazarus stared at the other man, a bit stunned.

Hadley’s mouth curved, creating a whole array of sagging wrinkles in his cheeks. “I’ve had a bit more time to think it out than you.”