Deeply In You by Sharon Page Page B

nights from now, and ye needn’t worry about reading the story in the newssheets, Yer Grace. But of course, I know ye will honor your word. Since ye’re such a gentleman.” Chuckling, the man turned and walked away.
    Helena stared at his back, covered by the swaying cape. Firelight reflected on the sinuous slither of it. She would not have turned her back on the furious duke.
    Indeed, Greybrooke lifted his fist. Then he drove it, with a growl of rage, into the top of a delicate table. The inlaid wood surface broke with an ear-shattering crash. That must have been painful for Greybrooke, but he didn’t even wince. He smoothed down his hair, straightened his cravat, then left the room.
    But she now knew Greybrooke was being blackmailed.

5
    “D oes this mean the duke is being blackmailed because he was a traitor?”
    The carriage rumbled off and she faced Whitehall, who sat opposite. This time she had met him without Will and told him what she’d overheard.
    Her heart hammered madly as she waited for his opinion.
    “Or he is being blackmailed over the secrets that led him to be a traitor.” Whitehall leaned forward, a tall beaver hat covering his dark head, but the shadows made his face look even more skull-like. His black eyes burned into hers. “Did you get into his home? Did you find diaries or letters?”
    “N-not yet.” Greybrooke had been nothing but a gentleman when he’d returned to the hazard table. He had ended their night, had taken her back to the mews behind the Winterhaven house, had not even pressed a kiss upon her. He’d apologized for being distracted and had promised her a more dazzling evening tonight. After all, she knew tomorrow night he was supposed to meet a blackmailer. “But I convinced him last night to bring me to his house tonight.”
    She shivered with nerves, but also with anticipation, remembering how she’d convinced him. She had asked for one kiss. To see what it was like, to see if she was ready to give him more. One kiss to be given to her in his home.
    Greybrooke had agreed on one condition: He was allowed to choose where he kissed her.
    When she thought about kissing him, she felt a hot, intense thrill. Then her sensible voice berated her for being heady with desire for a man who was being blackmailed and could be a traitor. At the very least he was . . . danger personified.
    “Do not waste this opportunity,” Whitehall said coldly. “You must find out the reason behind the blackmail. You must try to learn the secrets he is hiding. It could help us get at the truth and prove his guilt.”
    But it would have to be something personal. Something perhaps dangerous. “Do we need to actually know what his secrets are? Isn’t it enough if we can find out he did commit treason?”
    “Miss Winsome.” Whitehall’s grip tightened on his walking stick as if he were restraining his temper. “You find out the ton ’s secrets so you can publish them in Lady X’s scandal column. Why do you balk at this now, when it is for the good of your country?”
    “He did a—a kind thing for me. It was one thing to expose his crime if he is guilty. But it’s quite another thing to hunt for private secrets that are none of my business.”
    Whitehall glared at her. “Are we finished then, Miss Winsome? You no longer want to continue serving your country and you are willing to let your family be destroyed by your brother’s debt?”
    She took a deep breath. “I cannot do this anymore. I don’t want to spy on the duke and his family. I have another way to pay my family’s debts.”
    Whitehall’s hand snaked out. He grasped her wrist, squeezing tight. “How, Miss Winsome?”
    “Please, Mr. Whitehall. This hurts—”
    He began to bend her hand back.
    She gasped, the pain excruciating. “If I’m going to have to become the duke’s mistress, I can use the jewels he will give me to pay the debts.”
    Whitehall lessened the pressure on her wrist slightly. “You are not walking away from