Page 6 of An Extraordinary Lord

She trailed her gaze slowly over the room around her. Richly decorated walnut-paneled walls, a massive stone and marble fireplace, pieces of heavy leather and wood furniture…this place would have made every gentlemen’s club on St James’s Street weep with envy, right down to the Aubusson rug and gas lighting. Except that the windowless brick walls rising around her in an octagonal central tower were at least ten feet thick, and no gentlemen’s club she’d ever heard of had twin portcullises guarding the entrance. And when the man from the street and his friend had stripped off her knives and sword, it wasn’t because they didn’t already have enough of their own apparently. Not when what looked like half the small arms of the Household Guards decorated the walls of the adjoining room.

Where on earth had they brought her?

“Well, I have to admit,” the dark-blond friend mused as he pulled up a chair in front of her and sat, “you’re not at all what I expected.”

She tilted her head slightly and returned his curious stare. “And what did you expect?”

“A cock.”

At that brusque interjection from across the room, she swung her narrowed gaze to the man who had arrested her. The same man who had sparred with her so brilliantly. He now guarded her, leaning against the wall with a steely expression on his face and his arms crossed over his chest.

“Imagine my surprise not to find one,” he drawled.

She quirked a brow. “A common complaint of yours, is it, Mrs. Fitzherbert?”

His jaw clenched even more tightly when the blond man was unable to quash his grin at the man’s expense.

But she found nothing at all amusing about her current situation. Dismissing the man she’d liked so much better when he’d simply been hacking at her with a sword, she turned her attention back to the one in front of her. “Who are you?”

“Major Clayton Elliott, Home Office Undersecretary.” He nodded toward Mrs. Fitzherbert. “And that’s Merritt Rivers.”

She sliced a sideways glance at him. “So your name really is Merritt.” Next, she supposed he’d be attempting to convince her that he truly was a peer of the realm. “How allegorical of your parents.”

“Veronica,” he volleyed back. “How Catholic of yours.”

She smiled tightly. He didn’t have a clue… “So now that we know who everyone is, you can release me, and we can all go home.”

“Not quite.” The undersecretary gestured at her. “We were expecting a man. Ronald Chase, escaped convict from Newgate.”

“Ah yes.Him.” She forced a curt laugh. “The fault of a court clerk who accidentally wrote down Ronald instead of Roni when he transcribed the trial record.” In that, at least, the record had been correct.Veronica Chasehadn’t done what the conviction was for.

“I don’t believe you.” Merritt Rivers shook his head. “Everyone in the courtroom could have seen that you were a woman.”

“Yes,ifthey were in the court, but the clerk who transcribed the record wasn’t,” she corrected. “Mistakes occur all the time in the court records—wrong dates, wrong directions, wrong names. Surely, you know that.” She dismissed him and turned back to the undersecretary to explain. “The trial lasted less than ten minutes, and I was in Newgate within the hour.” She shrugged. “By then, there was no point in the courts wasting time and ink to correct the record when no one cared one whit about me.”

“I’m certain they cared when you escaped,” the undersecretary drawled. “The prison guards described you as a man.”

“AndI’mcertain they didn’t want to admit that they’d been outsmarted by a woman.”

The man’s lips curled faintly.

“How do you know what was in the court records?” Merritt Rivers interrupted.

“I know people in high places.” When neither man replied to that, she corrected herself. “All right, I know how tobribepeople in high places.”

“A court clerk?” he drawled sarcastically. “Not exactly a high position.”

“The man who controls the word controls the world.” She lifted a knowing brow. “I didn’t go to university, yet even I know that.”

The two men exchanged another silent glance.

All kinds of private communication had been passing between the two since she’d arrived here…wherever here was. The mark of an old and close friendship. They’d placed her in this chair, then they’d huddled together at the side of the room for a long while, speaking in murmurs and whispers. But they couldn’t conceal their surprise whenever they’d glanced in her direction. Or their dismay.

“You were convicted of theft and the fencing of stolen goods,” the undersecretary stated.

“Among other things.” Things she’d never done but would let the world believe she had.

“The judge sentenced you to five years imprisonment.”