“Who is she? I know you haven’t availed yourself of Chloe or Cecilia since your return.”

His thralls. Their eyes met and Leo saw the triumph in his father’s. “You’re having me watched?”

“They are my thralls, after all.” The duke shrugged.

“Nice to know.” Leo stood, giving the chessboard a barely concealed look of disgust. Chloe was not the sort to break his faith; the duke terrified her. Cecilia, however, would know where her dues were owed.

“Who is she?” Caine demanded again, moving with the kind of viperish grace that made Leo’s breath catch just a little.

Caine blocked the path to the door. Leo met the duke’s gaze. “You wouldn’t approve.”

“You might be surprised. She’s clearly not thrall material or you’d not be restraining yourself. You always had a soft heart. I might be able to help with the marriage negotiations—”

“It’s called respect, not weakness. And the negotiations are entirely between myself and the lady in question,” Leo shot back, though it burned on the tip of his tongue that he was leading his father to believe him engaged in pursuit of a consort.

A laughable matter. Mina would never agree to such an alliance, and he was hardly certain where his own intentions lay.

He wanted her. Caine would never understand that. A political alliance was all that mattered to the duke, not a personal one. How many times had the duke told him that giving a woman his heart would only weaken him?

“I’ll find out,” the duke warned.

“No, you won’t.” Only Mina knew of his desires. “Not until the matter is decided.”

He pushed past, surprised when Caine let him.

This was the only tool in his arsenal. He didn’t have to stay. Didn’t have to crawl after Caine’s scraps of praise the way he once had, and Caine knew it too.

The duke followed him to the door, hovering on the threshold, as though he were afraid to cross it and enter the world of the living. “Are you going to see Madeline before you leave?”

“Of course I am,” Leo replied, glancing back over his shoulder. “She’s the main reason I still visit.”

It could have been his imagination, but the duke seemed to flinch.

“Tell her I’m sorry,” the duke called.

“Tell her yourself,” Leo threw over his shoulder, taking the stairs two at a time. “I’m not your errand boy.”

Not anymore, anyway.

* * *

Sunlight dappled the sitting room when Leo returned to Waverly Place, the home he shared with Cecilia and Chloe, his two thralls.

Only one of them would be home at this time of day. Cecilia would be out shopping, spending her allowance on small gems and silk gowns, or perhaps taking tea with her friends. Chloe preferred to read and also preferred her own company.

Her face lit up in a smile when he entered the room. However, her blond curls gleamed so brightly in the dying sunlight that he almost winced. He did not share Caine’s aversion to sunlight, but he still preferred the dark of night.

“What are you doing out of bed at this time of the evening?” Chloe demanded, placing her book aside with a playful smile. “Have you even been to bed today?”

He shook his head. “Duty calls.”

Chloe grimaced. “The duke.”

Chloe’s thrall contract had been signed between her father and the duke, leaving her with few other options in life. She’d been all of seventeen when Caine had passed over her leash to Leo—seventeen, somewhat frightened, and entirely unsuited for service as a thrall.

Leo shared his bed with Cecilia on occasion, though not his confidences. Chloe, however, had become a friend over the years, once it became clear that he would demand nothing of her that she did not wish to give. Her throat was unmarred by the fine silvery scars Cecilia flaunted, because she preferred to offer him the veins in her wrist for her fortnightly blood-lettings.

Leo took a breath, mulling over the thoughts that had been plaguing him since he’d left Caine House. “Chloe, I’m going to let you go.”

There was no surprise in her green eyes, only a flare of nervousness. “To Caine?”

A relief to get the words out—and for her to take them so calmly. Cecilia would not accept his decision so easily. “No. If you wish, I shall arrange several meetings for you with prospective protectors.” Passing a thrall contract on to another was not unheard of in the Echelon, though rare. Few wanted what had been marked by another man. “Or I would be willing to settle you with an annual stipend. You could live independently if you chose.”

“An annual stipend,” she said breathlessly, and he knew there would be no meetings to arrange on her behalf.

“A generous one. It is my hope that our friendship shall continue.”

A sideways glance. “I should like that. However, that is entirely dependent on your wife’s say in this.”

He arched a brow. “I didn’t say I was contemplating—”

“You didn’t have to,” Chloe said. “I would not be surprised to guess the name of the fortunate young woman you’re interested in, either.” A faint smile touched her lips. “The duchess does not seem the type to share.”

Duchess…? He stared at her. “How did you—?”

“It’s written all over your face when you see her, though I doubt that anyone else has noticed. I know you too well, my lord. You get this look in your eye, like Cecilia when she sees a plate of Cook’s lemon tarts.”

Clever, observant Chloe. She was the one Caine should have cultivated if he wanted a spy, though her loyalty would have made such a task difficult. “I’m not entirely certain what my interest holds in regard to the duchess, or whether any more shall come of this.”

“I think you know. You would not do this if you weren’t certain in some part of you.”

Truth. He wanted Mina. Wanted to pursue her, to mark her as his, to claim her. Anything else would be a hard-won battle, but he didn’t instantly deny the words. If she was his wife, then she would never belong to anyone else. That pleased the darker, hungrier side of his craving and stroked the darkness within that he’d fought so hard to contain over the years.

He’d been born a gentleman, but the hunger inside him was most definitely not.

“Besides, I think your doubt is misplaced.”