The Emperor's Conspiracy by Michelle Diener Page A

Edward brought the news this afternoon. Unless Frethers is completely mad, he’ll not touch the boys now, without the father complicit.”
    Kit spun a full circle, deep in thought. “Then why’s there new watchers?” He was talking to himself, and Charlotte grabbed his shoulders to stop him.
    “What do you mean, new watchers?”
    “The boy’s gone. But there are men watching now. Mostly wounded ex-soldiers.”
    “The stepfather probably doesn’t know Lady Holliday’s husband is dead. Edward plans to tell him this evening.”
    Kit gave a nod. But there was something in his face. A panic, which sent a thin, cruel hand of fear groping for her heart.
    “What is it?”
    “It’s Luke.” He looked away. “He thought—” Kit scrubbedhis hands over his face. “He thought it was the nob, Lady Holliday’s brother, watching you. And wiv ’im following us the other night …” His words trailed off to nothing, sucked into the humid, damp hum of London on a high summer night.
    “What is Luke going to do?” She spoke each word as if they were ripped from her, as if she did not have the air.
    “I’m sorry.” When Kit turned back to her, his eyes were stark with fear. “He’s plannin’ to take care of ’im tonight.”

    G erald lived in a very carefully chosen house. Edward knew his stepfather had always been one to carefully weigh the odds, and Summer House was the perfect balance. Elegant and with a very good address, to make it eminently acceptable to polite society, but small and sophisticated, rather than large and domineering, with a much smaller price tag as a result.
    He’d made it easy enough for Edward to pay for this little jewel, tucked neatly between two larger town houses.
    Perhaps the only thing that had stuck in his stepfather’s craw was that Edward had bought the house in his own name. Gerald had been barely able to grit out his thanks when he worked out that the house was not his, free and clear.
    Edward liked the not-so-subtle reminder to his stepfather that if he was pushed too far, he could push back.
    Push the old man onto the streets, if he so chose.
    There was no way the bastard was getting a house out of him.
    Gerald’s greatest misstep was his treatment of Edward inhis youth. Perhaps his financial situation hadn’t been so dire in those days, and he hadn’t foreseen a time when he would need to rely on Edward for his upkeep. Or perhaps he thought he could cow Edward permanently with his treatment. Forever hold him under his thumb.
    Most likely, he simply couldn’t help himself. He was cruel and manipulative by nature.
    He was no doubt unable to understand how things had gone so wrong for him.
    Finally, reluctantly, Edward climbed the stairs and rang the bell, waited for the quick, efficient footsteps of Clavers, his stepfather’s butler.
    Clavers knew all too well who paid his salary, and welcomed Edward with what for him was an effusive greeting. “Good evening, my lord. His lordship is in the library. I will announce you at once.”
    Edward was forced to look around the hallway as he waited for Clavers to return. The paintings on the walls were familiar. Gerald had brought them with him into Edward’s family home when he’d married Edward’s mother. He’d been forced to cram them all into the room he’d taken for his study in those days.
    Edward recalled the times he’d stood, gazing at the dour-faced men and women, the children in stiff and silly poses—a host of Gerald’s disapproving dead relatives—while his stepfather had dressed him down or given him a beating.
    He turned away from them. They should not have the power to bring back the worst years of his life with such clarity.
    He faced the front entrance, and while he stared, cold and sick with himself, he saw an envelope pushed under the doorway. Heard the fumble of someone just outside, and then nothing.
    With a quick look in the direction of the library, he walked forward and picked the letter up, turning it