Devil in My Arms by Samantha Kane Page B

still a problem, however. But he looked clean, his cinnamon hair gleaming in the candlelight, and he looked the part of the gentleman, too, in his subdued buckskins and brown coat and waistcoat. No padding was required for those shoulders. Hil knew because, just last week, Wiley had thoroughly trounced him at Gentleman Jackson’s boxing salon. He’d grown tall and strong on a steady diet and Hil’s good graces. With their similar coloring and Wiley’s new manners, they had been mistaken for brothers more than once in the last few months.
    “Stuff it,” Wiley said with a snort. “You brood like a priest at a funeral mass.”
    “When do you ever go to mass?”
    “Never, if I can help it.” Wiley sat down across from Hil and unapologetically sipped from his full tumbler.
    “Where have you been the last two days?” Hil asked suspiciously. “No one could find you.”
    “Never mind that,” he answered dismissively. “Tell old Wiley what’s got you so blue.”
    “Nothing.” Hil winced when he heard his own temperamental tone. “I am simply having trouble with the Goode case.”
    “Fellow who claims the tinker he saw was Napoleon?” Wiley asked.
    “No,” Hil sighed. “You know I did not agree to help him. He was quite mad.”
    Wiley nodded and winked. “Course not. Napoleon’s dead isn’t he?” He winked again. “Not as if they buried somebody else in his place and the old Frenchy’s living it up somewhere, now is it?”
    “Why are you winking? Do you have something in your eye? Certainly you don’t believe that rubbish.”
    “And why not?” Wiley asked defensively. “Seems to me like a man of his stature could find a devoted follower to take his place in the dirt so he could go free. Happens all the time, you know. Just look at Elizabeth Fairchild.”
    Hil shook his head. “I thought educating you would banish foolish notions. I was clearly wrong. And Eleanor did not pay someone to take her place in the dirt. Her despicable husband produced a strange body and claimed it was her while she was in hiding. From him. It is hardly the same.”
    “Eleanor, is it? Well, point taken,” Wiley conceded. “What other cases have we got?”
    “We? If I remember correctly, you have been among the missing for the last two days. I was ready to have them drag the Thames for your lifeless body.”
    “Aw,” Wiley said with a grin. “I knew you cared.”
    “I was hoping to get rid of all your finery. Your extensive wardrobe is taking over the apartments.”
    “You introduced me to the tailor,” Wiley said with a sad expression and a shake of his head. “Can’t cry foul now.”
    “Should I be expecting the authorities again? I told you that I will no longer vouch for you when they come asking about your more nefarious activities.”
    “I’m cutting back on nefarious activities,” Wiley announced. “Bad for a man’s health.”
    “So you were hiding from another jealous husband.”
    “Just so,” Wiley said with yet another wink and a tweak of his nose. “Now, the case.”
    “Young Mr. Goode says that his grandmother always claimed to have had a love affair with Tsar Alexander, and that she had a stack of love letters to prove it. She recently died, and upon her deathbed confessed that her son, his father, was Alexander’s son. He needs the letters to prove his birthright.”
    “Will it make him tsar?” Wiley asked with a calculated expression.
    “No,” Hil assured him firmly. “But I believe it will extract enough money from Alexander to pay the duns.”
    Wiley frowned. “Why would you take a case like that?”
    Hil shrugged. “Why not? I’d like to know if she actually had an affair with him. I like to know things like that. Secrets, Wiley. Secrets can save a man if he knows how to use them.”
    “Use them?” Wiley asked, leaning back and taking a drink.
    “Knowing when to keep them, when to tell them, when to bargain with them,” Hil said. He stared into the amber liquid in his