“Lilias is not my mystery to solve. She is Owen’s.” Carrington looked as if he wanted to protest so Nash played the only card he could to ensure the man did not interfere. “I want my life debt, and I want it in the form of you not telling your wife what it is you think you know about how I feel. I feel nothing.” That was the second time he’d claimed those exact three words in his life. When he’d written them to Lilias, he had meant he felt empty when she was not near him. He meant the same thing now.
“Ye—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” Nash said, wagging his finger at his friend. “No questions. No arguments. Only compliance. That is the heart of a life debt, yes?”
Carrington’s eyes drew to slits. “Aye. Damn it. My wife will likely sleep in another bedchamber for at least a sennight when I refuse to speak of tonight.”
Nash rose. He had to get away from his friend before Carrington tried to change Nash’s mind. “I’m certain you’ll work it out.” He pushed his chair back and paused, considering the problem of Lilias and the missions. “SLAR?” he asked, pitching his voice low. “You said it was a secret society?”
Carrington nodded.
Nash could not stand by and do nothing, say nothing, while Lilias went on dangerous missions. “Do you think Owen knows about the society?”
Carrington shook his head. “I know he does not. Only husbands are supposed to know, and I just broke my vow telling ye.”
“You have to tell him,” Nash bit out.
“Sorry, my friend. I’m doubting myself now that I told ye. Ye I trust to keep this secret. I do not know Owen well enough to say he will do the same, and Guin would kill me.”
Nash nodded. He’d have to tell Owen tonight, but think of a way not to implicate Carrington. The thought of any harm coming to Lilias chilled Nash.
Guinevere scrambled to her knees when the door to her and Asher’s bedchamber opened and Asher strode in. “Well?” she said excitedly. “Did you find him?”
“Aye.” Asher sat on the bed, and Guinevere scooted up behind her husband and slipped her arms around his waist. “Did you tell him of Lilias’s dangerous missions but not tell him how we always have Merckle following out of sight but close behind?” Guinevere did not like keeping it a secret that, upon learning about the society, her husband had insisted on employing a man to guard all the women from a distance, and she’d had to concede after Asher had made such a convincing and descriptive argument of what could happen to the women in places like the rookery. It was then that she’d realized how naive they’d all been.
“I told him, as ye verra prettily requested, and I omitted the part about Merckle as we agreed,” Asher said, his response disappointingly short.
“How did he react?” she asked, nearly bursting to know. Their plan—hers and Asher’s—had been to discover how Greybourne felt about Lilias, and if he cared for her, which Guinevere was now convinced he did, she would tell Lilias. Guinevere was certain Lilias was wedding Owen due to pressure from her mother, though Lilias had not said as much. She had not said much of anything, actually, which was not like Lilias at all. Just as Asher’s lack of response was unlike him. “Darling, did you hear me?”
One of Asher’s boots dropped to the floor, followed a moment later by the other. “I heard ye.”
Guinevere frowned at her husband’s broad back. “Do you think he might start following her?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“What do you mean?” she demanded, becoming a trifle irritated. When Asher did not answer her, she scooted around him, into his lap, and threaded her arms around his neck. “You are acting very oddly.”
A strained look came to her husband’s face. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
She kissed him on the lips to show him she loved him, even with his evasiveness. “Does Greybourne care for Lilias or not?”
“I couldn’t say.”
“Asher!” Guinevere said, her irritation spiking. “Whatever are you about?”
Her husband let out a long sigh. “A life debt. I’m about a life debt, which Greybourne has called in this verra night.”
“And that means?”
“It means that whatever was said between me and Greybourne tonight will stay between the two of us.”
Guinevere scoffed. “Darling, that’s all you had to say.” She giggled when her husband looked astonished.
“Ye’re not vexed with me?”
“Of course not, darling. By Greybourne demanding this life debt from you—you really must explain that—it tells me everything I need to know without you saying a word. Greybourne would not have demanded such a thing if he did not care for Lilias and wanted to ensure you said nothing to me so I’d say nothing to her!”
Asher’s response was to seal his mouth over hers for a long, drugging kiss. When they broke apart, he said, “Ye are the most brilliant person I have ever known. One of the most devious, as well,” he added, kissing her again.
