Free The Reckless One by Connie Brockway

unfortunate tragedy and nothing more sinister. I can just as easily convince him otherwise.”
    For a full minute the two men studied each other in silence, Carr with bored indifference, Tunbridge quivering with outrage. Finally, Carr sighed. “Are you quite through, Tunbridge? Fine. A moment of instruction ’ere we proceed to your suit.”
    Tunbridge blinked, startled.
    “The trick to blackmailing, Tunbridge,” Carr lectured calmly, “is that one must be willing—and able—to carry out whatever threats one uses to pressure one’s victim into complying with one’s purposes.
    “Take, for instance, yourself. I know you’ll do your best for me because should I fail to return to London—and that very, very soon—you realize that I will have no choice but to console myself with my latest acquisition, that being Campion Castle. How long has it been in your family, Tunbridge? Two? Three hundred years?”
    Tunbridge’s quivering ceased. His face had fallen into the slack proportions that Carr was beginning to recognize as being as habitual as they were unfortunate.
    “Not only that,” Carr continued mildly, “but I ashamedly admit that I will then likely enjoy imagining your own situation in a deportation vessel, having finally been brought to justice for the business with that Cheapside whore so many years ago.”
    “But I was drunk!”
    “Ah!” Carr wagged his index finger playfully. “But I was not.”
    Tunbridge blanched further.
    “Now, I have been reasonable this time because finding another toadie with your particular connections so late in the game would prove tiresome. It can be done, of course, and should it prove necessary, will be. Bear that in mind, Tunbridge, the next time you feel the urge to try your hand at extortion.” Carr cocked his head. “Do we understand each other?”
    Mutely, Tunbridge nodded.
    “Good. Now, pray tell me, what is all this about Fia?”
    Like a puppet whose strings had been severed, Tunbridge’s shoulders slumped. His face betrayed his potent unhappiness. “She is a siren! I swear it. She drives me to distraction.”
    “Yes.” Carr nodded. “I hear she’s good at that sort of thing.”
    “She’s bewitched me, I tell you. She’s a succubus!” Tunbridge continued, his voice desperate. “ ’Tis the only way to account for this obsession she has roused in me.”
    “Now, wouldn’t that be a lovely rumor to start on the eve of her presentation?” Carr muttered irritably. He might have to deal with Tunbridge after all if he continued this sort of gibberish. A “siren” was fascinating; a “succubus” was disturbing.
    Tunbridge held out one hand in supplication. “I must have her. I must.”
    “Don’t be ridiculous.”
    “But why not?” Tunbridge asked pitiably. He looked utterly bewildered and in pain. Carr silently applauded Fia’s skill. “I am rich. I am well connected. Whyever not?”
    “Because I
already
control you,” Carr explained. “Marrying Fia to you would be redundant. No. Fia will marry someone who does not bow beneath any of the other influences I can bring to bear.” His smile relayed a certain pride. “Because Fia is the ultimate inducement.”
    “But … but
I want her!”
Tunbridge complained, having abandoned all attempts at manly forbearance.
    Carr clapped him companionably on the shoulder. “Come, man. Grow a spine. Besides, Fia would use you up and spit you out within a fortnight. Begads! The chit is but sixteen! Why, she’s just using her milk teeth on you. Imagine what she will be at twenty. Thir—”
    The faint sound of a Highland pipe drifted out of the fog, cutting Carr’s words short. He lifted his head sharply. “Did you hear that?”
    “Hear what?” Tunbridge asked indifferently. “What would you say should Fia declare she wished to marry me?”
    “She doesn’t.” Carr squinted into the soft shimmer of the twilight-kissed fog. A dark figure moved therein.
    He was certain of it. A dark
masculine
figure clad