Scandal - COMPLETED

Chapter Twenty-Two

"Is the Duke home, Sherman?" I asked the butler.

Sherman stood aside from the door as I entered, his gaze sliding from me to the man at my back. "Yes, Your Grace. He's in his study."

I could only imagine how this looked, me leaving with my brother and arriving home, much earlier than expected, with this strange friend of John's. From Sherman's expression, he distrusted the spy nearly as much as I did. Sherman always was a good judge of character.

I patted the elderly man on the shoulder in reassurance as I passed, then led McNaught toward the main staircase. I was forced to lift my skirts as we ascended, and the sound of my heeled shoes striking the marble rang through the entryway. McNaught followed close behind me. I knew, because every now and then the sound of shifting fabric gave him away. His footfalls were so quiet I had to strain my ears to pick them out over my own. It made my skin crawl to have him at my back.

I held my spine straight and my head high as we moved down the hallway. My gaze remained fixed on the path in front of me, regardless of the fact that McNaught had pulled even and now strode along at my side. I could see his long legs in my periphery, smell a hint of lemon with every inhale, but I'd be damned if I let this man know how much he affected me. The way that he both repulsed and attracted, as though he were a magnet in which the positive and negative fields had gone haywire, was beyond disturbing.

I nearly sighed in relief when we reached John's study. My relief vanished when McNaught stepped between me and the door, blocking my entry. He dropped his head, as though to whisper in my ear, and I stepped back, out of his reach.

A curled lock of his hair had fallen forward to shade his eyes. He stared out at me from behind it like a wolf sighting a deer. When he spoke, his voice was pitched low so it wouldn't carry through the door to John, and it came out sounding far too intimate. "We don't have to be enemies, Katherine."

"Would you have us be friends instead?"

In answer, he nodded.

I laughed. It wasn't a nice sound. "Never."

His expression darkened. "You may one day change your mind."

"I doubt it," I said. Then, at the door, "John!"

McNaught stepped smoothly aside just before my husband opened the door, donning an innocent expression only a fool would fall for.

John was no fool. He took one look at the spy's face and then stepped between us, ushering me in. "You're quite lucky," he tossed over his shoulder.

"What makes you say that?" McNaught asked.

"Henry isn't here," John answered.

Too bad. I would relish the sight of Henry following through on John's earlier threat. But more than that, Henry made things easier for me. Not just around John, but in a grander way that only now, in his absence, could I truly appreciate. He put me at ease. Made me feel safe. Protected. The opposite of the way the spy, and sometimes even my husband made me feel.

I took a seat on the couch and eyed the men I now kept company with. The last time I sat here, I'd been in Henry's lap, his fingers plying my sex, John across from us, nearly driven mad as he was forced to play voyeur. In any other circumstance, I might have been distracted by my memories of what we'd shared, but not tonight. I was too angry. With whoever had sent me the note, and the spy for more reasons than I could list. I didn't entirely trust myself to remain civil right now. I may have softened slightly toward my husband, but I hadn't forgiven him, and the addition of McNaught did nothing to make me feel better. The letter I'd just received and the resulting hour of terror I'd endured were the final nails on the coffin containing my mood.