by Lynn Kerstan
Mira took her position on the low dais, feeling as conspicuous as if she’d just emerged from her bath, smiling and nodding when strangers made their curtsies and bows to the hostess. There were harlequins and shepherdesses, satyrs and soldiers, monarchs and demons, pharaohs and faeries and monks. “Who are you meant to be?” she asked Beata during a rare interval of quiet.
Two dark brows lifted in surprise. “Why, I am myself, of course. Who else could I possibly wish to be?”
Laughing, somewhat relieved that Beata was laughing with her, Mira saw a slender gentleman with light brown hair and an unassuming smile approach the fountain. He was of average height, in his forties, she would guess, and wore correct evening garb instead of a costume. She had seen him before, always surrounded by the political set, but they had never been introduced.
“Lord Gretton,” said Beata, allowing him to kiss her ring-studded fingers. “At long last you and your commercial associates emerge from your lair.”
“From the meeting room you most graciously provided us,” he amended with gentle reproach. “Our business could not be postponed.”
“But of course it could. Nonetheless, I shall do you the honor of presenting Miss Miranda Holcombe, who has never been known to express an interest in business or politics.”
“I am interested,” Mira said, “but so ignorant I dare not express an opinion.”
“If only my fellows in the government would hold silent when they had nothing of use to say, Miss Holcombe. But no doubt, they would make the same observation regarding me.” After favoring her with a smile, he turned again to Beata. “Do you know where Lady Gretton has got off to?”
“She is in the gaming room, I believe.”
“Just so.” Sadness darkened his eyes. “Perhaps she will favor me with a dance. Ladies, your servant.” With a bow, he moved away.
Mira wished she could go with him. Go anywhere but where she was, appended to Beata like a corsage, while the Duke of Tallant prowled every room but this one. He was not, she felt sure, a dancing man.
“A powerful man,” Beata was saying, presumably about the one who had just departed. “But a trifle dull. Ah. There.” She gestured with her fan. “By the door. He has stopped to speak with Lady Drendle and her mother. The most beautiful man in all of England.”
There was no mistaking the gentleman she meant. Tall, slender, elegant in formal evening dress, he had hair the color of flax and the sort of classic profile generally sculpted from marble. Always conscious of hands, she immediately saw that he was wearing well-fitted black leather gloves. “Is he in mourning?”
“No. Why do you . . . ah. The gloves. Alas, he suffered an injury while in India and his right hand was—how do I say this delicately?—crushed. A great sadness. But heaven, I think, could not allow so perfect a creature to remain without flaw. Or perhaps it was the devil sought to unravel him. When lesser creatures gaze on him, they either wish to be better than they are, or they wish to destroy the image of what they can never be.”
Mira released an imperceptible sigh. Beata was at her most theatrical tonight, which was saying a great deal. And she was annoyed with herself as well, because her own gaze kept returning to the light-haired gentleman by the door. She liked the attentiveness with which he favored the two ladies, who were old enough to be his mother and grandmother. Unlike so many others in the room, he did not keep glancing around as if looking for someone more important to keep company with.
“You will hear much good of this gentleman,” Beata said, a touch of melancholy in her voice. “And all of it is quite true. You will also hear gossip about the two of us, for we were, for a considerable time, lovers. But as must all relationships based in passion and regard but absent of love, our liaison was drawing to a close before he went out to India. Indeed, I believe he may have chosen that way to put an end to it before there could be regrets. There are none, I assure you. Indeed, with no brothers or close male relations in the line of inheritance, it is past time he took a wife and set about producing sons.”
Oh, dear.
Mira was scrambling for an excuse to take her leave when the blond gentleman bowed to the ladies he’d been speaking with and started toward the fountain. To where she stood like a sacrificial lamb, because there was no question in her mind about Beata’s intentions.
“Quid times?” her father used to ask her. Still asked her, from time to time. What do you fear? Some days, she had to confess, nearly everything. Of late, Michael Keynes, for reasons she dared not explore. And now this splendid man drawing close to her, his gaze on his former lover as it should be, his attention—she knew it, she knew it—on her.
“Caro mio,” said Beata when he arrived. “You have kept us all waiting. Now the audience requires a gesture, so I shall lean forward and permit you to kiss my cheek.”
Mira saw amusement and resignation in his jade-green eyes as he obliged. From a distance he had been striking, but close up, he was—she had to admit it—breathtaking. The music played on, people continued dancing and talking and strolling around the ballroom, but all gazes were focused on the little scene taking place inches from where she waited to play her own unscripted part.
None of this matters, she reminded herself. Not this man, nor anything else that stands in the way of what I have to do. She felt ice closing in around her. Welcomed it. By the time he turned to her, she could face him without the slightest dismay.
“Derek,” said Beata, deliberately caressing his Christian name, “I wish to present to you Miss Miranda Holcombe.”
It sounded as if Beata were serving her up on a silver platter. Mira produced an impersonal smile.
“Mira, this is Derek Leighton, Lord Varden, known as the Ar—”
“As Varden,” he interrupted smoothly. “You must pardon Signora Neri. She enjoys embarrassing me, and I don’t mind it, but you needn’t be made to guess how you ought to respond. I shall change the subject by complimenting you on your costume.”
“It suits her, does it not?” Beata said, staking her claim to the providing of it. “She is, of course, a Vestal Vir—”
“The Oracle of Delphi,” Mira said quickly.
“Oh, excellent,” said Varden, smiling. “And have you a prophesy for me, Lady Oracle?”
“Certainly not. To learn your fate you must come as a pilgrim to the temple, bearing an offering.”
“I will gladly do so, when you tell me what form my offering should take. But for now, may I request the honor of a dance?”
“Yes, yes, do run along,” said Beata, satisfaction in her voice.
Varden offered his arm, his left arm, and Mira could think of no excuse to shy away from him. “I appreciate the rescue,” she said as he led her from the dais, “but I’m afraid I do not dance.”
“Or will not?” he asked with a smile.
“To be precise, I cannot. This is my first venture into Society, and I lack the accomplishments of a proper young lady.”
“Do pardon me, Miss Holcombe. I seem to have left my manners in India. I have three sisters, and I am used to teasing them. They pay me no mind, of course.”
Sisters ought to have reassured her, but she had seen the look in his eyes. It was not the look a man would give to a sister. Nor, she realized, was it the hungry gaze burning in Michael Keynes’s eyes. And truly, she must stop wringing herself dry with fear of every man who paid her a little attention. When she failed to respond, they would soon enough move on to a more receptive female. It seemed unfair, though, that Lord Varden should be escorting the likes of her through crowded parlors and salons while women who longed to be in her place enviously watched them pass by.
“I don’t at all object to being teased,” she said when they were in a place quiet enough for her voice to be heard. “My father teases me all the time. But he does it in Latin.”
“I am silenc
ed, then. Well, unless you are amused by fragments of Caesar’s Gallic Wars and a legal tenet or two, which is all I remember from my long-ago classes. Shall we leave these overheated rooms, Miss Holcombe, and stroll in a quieter section of the villa? Beata is especially proud of her Limonaia.”
Not there! Michael Keynes had nearly kissed her there. But she couldn’t very well say that, so she permitted him to make the turn into a passageway lined with French windows. Beyond, in the Maze Courtyard, colored lanterns swayed in the cold air. She was mentally riffling through excuses to leave him when they made another turn, this one into a dim passage, where a familiar vibration tingled at her ears.
Dear God.
“We should go back,” she said urgently.
But it was too late. A little way down, a dark shadow detached itself from the wall and advanced toward them.
Chapter 15
Lord Varden let go of Mira’s arm and moved in front of her. A protective gesture, she thought with annoyance, typical of his class and entirely unnecessary. By nature and intent, she was far more deadly than he. But good intentions must be indulged, so she took a position beside him, poised to spring between the men if they came to blows.
It seemed inevitable that they would. The air crackled with their hostility. She held her arms in the position she had practiced, the one that would put her dagger swiftly into her hand.
They were standing in a dim space between wall sconces where the light created silhouettes and painted edges. Of Michael Keynes she could see only the outline of his body, a bronze glow on his jaw and cheekbones, and those preternatural, wolfish eyes. And then his even white teeth, when he flashed a wolfish smile. He was pure animal tonight, confronting the model of a civilized man.
“Well?” he said. “Shall I expect a constable at my door? Shackles on my wrists? A noose around my neck?”
“Most likely, and in that order. But this is neither the time nor place to air our differences. There is a lady present.”
Keynes acknowledged her with a nod. “Miss Holcombe and I are acquainted. She already knows me for a rotter. But you will do well, madam, to take yourself off. The wild creatures are in the woods tonight.”
“I’m fine where I am,” she said. “You mustn’t fight.”
“We won’t. We already tried that, to no effect. I am here, believe it or not, armed only with sweet reason.”
“And your knives.”
A moment later, she could not have said how, a knife appeared in each of his large, ungloved hands. He flipped them so that he was holding the blades and held them out for her to take. “You never fail to disarm me, Miss Holcombe.”
After a hesitation she took the sleek handles, felt the warmth of his body on them. Wished it were Beast Keynes standing there, weaponless, at her mercy. She took a step back, the knives held at her sides, and waited for the men to get on with it.
“What is it you want?” Varden said, impatience rough in his formerly gentle voice.
“To know your intentions. What charges will be brought against me, and when?”
“How can I say? I have only just made my preliminary report to the Consortium. Or should I assume you eavesdropped on our meeting?”
“I considered it. Figured it would be less trouble to ask you directly.”
“But why do you require to ask? You know what you did.”
Keynes laughed. “And that’s the point, isn’t it? I know, while you keep stumbling around nosing for evidence and not recognizing a bloody thing you find.” Mira saw Varden go stiff, as if a blow had struck home. “Do you deny that your mercenaries preyed on English commerce?”
“Certainly. At least, I deny the euphemism. English commerce and the business endeavors of the East India Consortium are not necessarily equivalent. We attacked only Consortium riverboats, most particularly the ones owned by my brother, and liberated the cargo. To be more exact, we destroyed it.”
“And stole the boats.”
“Well, yes. But my men required to be paid, so I had to steal something I was willing to sell. And unlike you, I decline to smuggle opium into China in exchange for tea. The Chinese are as entitled to their laws as we are to ours, and the opium trade is illegal there. Nonetheless, your Consortium exploits those who produce opium in India by paying a fraction of its market value, and then you bribe officials in China to let it across their borders.”
“England requires tea,” said Varden, a trifle uncertainly. “And the Chinese government will accept only silver bullion in payment. We cannot funnel all our hard currency into the Orient, so we must seek other means to develop trade. Would you bankrupt your own country?”
“Given the alternative, enslaving the people of a distant country to opium, I’d drink something other than tea. But you had no idea—did you?—what the Consortium was up to. And you’re too damned self-righteous to admit you got yourself tangled in a nest of vipers.”
“Mind your language,” Varden shot back. “You forget we are in company.”
The transparent eyes turned to Mira. “Have I shocked you, Miss Holcombe? I apologize. But be warned. Graviora manent.”
It’s about to get worse.
He was reminding her, in a way only she would recognize, that what she saw of him at any time was not all there was to see. He conversed, sometimes, with her father in Latin, but she never liked to think of him as educated. It contradicted all the wildness in him.
He seemed to be her opposite, the dark twin of her soul, his rough exterior concealing a spirit unlike the one he showed to the world. He was a trickster, like she had become, except in reverse. His darkness shielded what she expected was a great light, while her angelic appearance hid the malevolence of a killer.
All of this she understood in a flash of insight that she would deny if she found herself thinking of him again. She must not engage with this man. With either of these men.
They were speaking again. She forced herself to pay attention.
“. . . slander some of the finest gentlemen in the country,” Varden said.
“Some of the greediest, at any rate. They keep themselves ignorant, deliberately so, while their investments pay off beyond reasonable expectation. It’s no surprise they dispatched you, the most ignorant of them all, to investigate why the windfall profits were drying up. You would—and did—presume the innocence of your confederates and the guilt of anyone who opposed you. But this debate grows tedious, and you should be dancing with your lady. What charges, and when?”
“Are you in so great a hurry to come to trial? I should think you would be arranging to leave the country.”
“But I just got here. Why does everyone keep advising me to take a runner?” He gave a grim chuckle. “I’ll tell you what I told my brother. I’ll go when I’ve finished what I came here to do. In the meantime, Archangel, think on this. You have fallen in with bad company. Cut loose while you can, or they will drag you down more surely than a lead weight hung around your neck.”
And then he was gone, his long stride taking him along the passageway and to a turn that carried him from her sight. She realized that her hands were fisted around the silver handles of his knives.
“Well,” said Varden with a wry smile, “I expect that demolishes any chance I had of making a good impression on you.”
“Not at all,” she said, her thoughts on the man who had just left. “But I think it would be difficult now to continue our stroll. Perhaps some later time.”
“Tomorrow afternoon?” His eagerness exasperated her. “A drive in Hyde Park?”
“It sounds lovely, but my father’s physician is coming up from Tunbridge Wells to examine him. I can make no other plans for the day.”
“The next afternoon, then, at two o’clock?” By silent agreement, they had begun to walk in the direction of the salons. “It will be a treat for me, afte
r six months on ship, to enjoy a London park and the company of an English lady. But you look wary, Miss Holcombe. I promise, we shall simply share a pleasant drive in my curricle and the most trivial of conversations.”
“Very well, sir. I shall look forward to it.” Lies, she had noticed, no longer felt rough in her throat. “Might I ask one question? Was the Duke of Tallant present at your meeting?”
“No. I understand he is not in London. Are you acquainted with him?”
“I simply wondered if Mr. Keynes was likely to encounter his brother this evening.” Another lie, smooth as cream. Only her disappointment was jagged, but she didn’t think it showed. “Lord Varden, you must excuse me now. I can scarcely return to the party carrying these knives.”
Not waiting for a reply, she slipped into the courtyard and wound through the maze to a door at the opposite end. From there she made her way through a deserted wing of the villa and out into the cold night. The sky was never clear in London. She looked up at a fuzzy half moon and stars blurred with the haze of smoke from thousands of coal fires. The damp winter grass brushed against her sandaled feet.
It was only a short distance to her cottage, and well before she let herself through the door, the air had begun to hum.
Michael Keynes. She had rather expected him.
He was not waiting inside the cottage, although it wouldn’t have surprised her to find him there. She paused, tuning to his location, no longer questioning how it happened she could track him with a fair degree of accuracy. She sometimes wondered about the range of her perception, about how close he had to be before she could detect him. But it didn’t matter. So far as she could tell, the power—if such it was—had little discernible value. She merely became aware of his presence before she saw him.