by Zoë Archer
He was too weary and tense to provide an explanation. Instead, he strode across the study and plucked the coin from his father-in-law’s hand.
A falling sensation as the vision pulled him in. It was dark, and oppressively close. On every side was solid rock. Veins of glinting ore threaded through the rock, and by the light of flickering lanterns he recognized the ore: iron. A mining tunnel. Grimy-faced men wielded picks, the sound a relentless chip-chip-chip as they hacked the ore from its prison. No sense of day or night in the tunnel, or any time at all passing, for there was always iron, and more iron to be pried free from the earth.
Someone shouted as a tremor passed through the thick stone walls. The tremor grew. It turned into a hard buckling, rock sifting down in larger and larger chunks. Men yelled, shoving each other in their haste to flee. But most could not escape. The walls collapsed. The ability to breathe vanished. The lanterns went out, and everything became darkness and sound and choking airlessness and the grind of rock upon the fragile bodies of men.
“Leo?”
A touch upon his arm, and he snapped back into the room. No crushing rock. No darkness and the screams of those trapped. Only his study in Bloomsbury, with its paneled walls and indifferent furniture.
Anne gazed up at him with concern, her hand upon his forearm. Her father also stared at him, anxious.
Leo dragged air into his lungs and pushed back the suffocating remnants of the vision. It lingered, though, in black tendrils wrapped through his mind and body.
He offered a smile to Anne. “Only tired.”
“You have your coin,” said Wansford, “for whatever reason. Now will you invest in that iron mine on my behalf?”
Leo opened his mouth to tell the baron that he would not sink money into a venture that would suffer a catastrophic collapse. “The weather continues to be damp,” he said instead.
Wansford gave him a puzzled frown. “Usually it is, this time of year. But what of the mine?”
Again, Leo tried to speak, to warn the baron against the mining venture. “Will you stay for breakfast?”
“I’ve taken mine already.” Wansford scowled. “See here, Bailey, you must say at once whether you will serve as my intermediary. You agreed to it already, and I shall look unkindly on it should you renege now.”
“Perhaps we ought to get some rest,” suggested Anne, “and we can resume this conversation at another time.”
“It must be today,” her father said. “For it is the last day the venture will accept investors.”
Leo heard their voices as if from a great distance. Words formed in his mind, words he intended to say, and yet as much as he fought, he could not get them into his mouth and spoken aloud. It felt like a vise, crushing him, and his vision swam.
He must tell Wansford to avoid the investment, but for some reason, he could not speak. The room tilted as he staggered to his desk. Anne’s concerned voice floated around him, yet he grabbed a sheet of foolscap and a quill. A dip of the nib in ink, and he readied his hand to write his warning.
The sharpened nib touched the paper. He moved his hand, willing the words to move from his thoughts to his pen.
ABCDEFG. There are ships at anchor in Portsmouth. O, what a jolly lad is he.
Spattering ink like black blood, the quill fell from his fingers. He stared at his hand as though it belonged to someone else. Powerless in his own body.
Anne appeared at his side, a pleat of worry between her brows. She looked at the sheet of foolscap, the nonsense he had scribbled there, and her face paled. “I should summon the physician.” She ran her hands over his torso. “Perhaps you suffered an injury last night. You need to be attended.”
“I’m fine.” But he wasn’t. The Devil had given him a gift, a gift that he had always exploited to his own benefit. It had never failed him, not once. And indeed, it worked perfectly this morning. Save for one critical element: he couldn’t warn Wansford about the mining disaster.
He had never needed to caution anyone before. Never knew this one fatal flaw in his gift. Now he did.
As he stared at his wide-eyed wife and her father, coldness seeped through him. If this vital failing existed in what he once thought infallible, what other damned defects existed in his agreement with the Devil? Of a certain, they must be there. Any investor knew that one flaw led to another, and another. Until what had once appeared to be a perfect opportunity became merely the presage to disaster.
She did not want him to go out. Something clearly was not right with her husband. Not illness, precisely, but a profound sense of wrong, as if he found himself inhabiting another man’s life. Surely it was on account of their exhaustion. Yet he would not remain at home.
“I have to get to the Exchange.” Standing by the glass in their bedchamber, he shrugged into a coat of dark blue wool. His hair was still wet from his bath, yet he had not shaved, and he looked as dangerous as a primed pistol, ready to fire.
“Then I will come with you.” She plucked at the ribbons fastening her wrapper. A few minutes was all she required to change from her dishabille into something suitable for the outdoors.
His hand stayed hers. “I need you to stay here.”
“Because it is scandalous if a lady goes to Exchange Alley?”
He scowled. “Don’t give a damn about scandal. I only want you safe.”
“The safest place for me is with you.”
Yet he shook his head. “Not after last night. Not with London verging on chaos.” He stepped back, and she felt the strained brittleness of the connection between them. “You’re safer at home, behind these walls. Munslow is here, and a dozen footmen. No one will be able to hurt you.”
His concern touched her, though a little, venomous voice whispered, Is it the rioters he fears, or Lord Whitney?
She had no answer. She could not explain what had transpired in the study with her father, the strange humor that had gripped Leo. He had spoken of inanities, written nonsense—alarming in and of themselves. But most frightening was the look on his face, the confusion and angry powerlessness. So utterly unlike him.
Something was happening, something strange and terrible, and yet nowhere could she find meaning.
Leo brushed a kiss across her mouth, and she saw it again, fleeting, in the gunmetal of his eyes: doubt. A doubt that unnerved him deeply.
“I’ll return soon. And when I get back, we’ll begin your fighting education.” Then he was gone, his footsteps sounding in the hallway, down the stairs, and finally out the door.
The fire in the bedchamber sputtered, and died.
God, why could she not keep a fire lit? She grabbed a china figurine of a drowsing shepherd, and threw it into the fireplace with a frustrated cry.
A moment later, a footman appeared at the door, drawn by the sound of shattering porcelain. “Madam?”
“An accident. But don’t send a maid to clean it. Not yet.”
The footman bowed and retreated. Anne sank down to the carpet, exhausted, despairing. She felt herself in a cavern. All around her was darkness, and she had neither candle nor lantern to light her way. Her only option was to stumble forward, hoping she did not fall and suffer a fatal injury.
They had just finished dinner. The servants had cleared away the dishes, and the candles burned low as a distant clock struck the hour. It had been a meal marked by silence, the sounds limited to the clink of knives against china, wine poured in goblets. She had tried to speak, to draw Leo out, yet every thrown lure was met with distracted responses. A word or two was all he had managed, his gaze withdrawn and preoccupied.
Anne rose from the table. Leo did the same. They went up together. In the hallway, he guided her toward the parlor.
“I’m for bed.” Weariness oppressed her.
“You should have rested when I went out.”
“Rest was impossible.”
“The bedchamber door was closed, else I would’ve come in.”
She could only manage a shrug, unwilling to tell him
that she needed distance to make sense of the uncertainty twisting within her. Gazing up at his hard, handsome face now, gentled slightly with concern for her, she wondered how the plays she used to watch from the theater gallery could have been so very misguided. They ended when the two lovers pledged their devotion to each other, and with that, all obstacles fell away. As though love were the answer, demolishing every impediment.
What lies those sentimental dramas were. For her heart cracked and bled.
Leo frowned—he was an astute man. He had to feel it, too.
“Sir,” said an approaching footman. “Lord Wansford has returned. He would speak with you.”
“Bring him up to the parlor.” He turned to Anne. “I’ll see you in our chamber.”
“I’ll join you in the parlor.” She had not forgotten the strange scene from that morning.
His gaze turned opaque. Yet he offered her his arm, and together they went to await her father.
He came into the chamber, bearing the cold air of evening and an angry expression. “The deuce, Bailey?” Her father’s gaze shot to her, as if too late remembering he was not to use such language in the presence of a lady.
“Wansford.” Leo did not get up from where he was draped against a settee. Nor did he offer her father a glass of brandy.
“You said you would invest in that iron mine. And yet you did not.”
“No.”
Anne stared at her husband. He kept his gaze on the brandy in his glass, contemplating it. His face was a mask.
“Why the Devil not?” demanded her father.
She could not stop her small flinch at those words, and saw Leo’s mouth tighten, as well. Still staring at his drink, he seemed about to speak, but whatever he meant to say appeared to lodge in his throat. He took a drink, swallowing hard, then set the glass down on a low table.
“I made a better investment.”
“We agreed—”
“I said I would investigate the Gloucestershire mine. I did not consent to invest in it.”
Her father reddened. “The opportunity is lost.”
“If Leo did not make the investment,” Anne said, “he must have a good reason for doing so.” That was one reliable truth about her husband: in matters of business, he always acted in the best self-interest.
“You will still earn a profit, Wansford,” said Leo. “I made a counterinvestment in another iron mine.”
“Why not the Gloucestershire mine?”
“I don’t need to explain my decision.” Leo’s voice was sharp, his gaze likewise cutting. Her father recoiled at the tone. “But mark me, you will make a profit. That is a certainty.”
A look of confusion crossed her father’s face. He seemed uncertain how to respond. Leo continued to stare at him, his gaze unblinking and cold.
Ultimately, her father said, “I will respect your judgment.”
Leo’s mouth twisted. “How gratifying.”
“These past hours have been very taxing.” Anne rose up from her seat and urged her father toward the door. “It’s time for you to go.”
His head jerked like a puppet. “Yes. Yes, I should ... I ought to ...” But he did not know what he should or ought to do. He peered around her, and produced a smile for Leo. “My thanks.”
The response was merely a flick of Leo’s wrist. Though he continued to lounge on the settee, tension coiled through him, as though he were a hairbreadth away from tearing the chamber apart.
“Good night, Father.” Anne gave him a dutiful kiss on the cheek, catching a thread of his scent of reboiled tea and adulterated tobacco.
He muttered a farewell, then followed a footman down the corridor. As his footsteps retreated, Anne shut the door to the parlor, then pressed her back against it, facing her husband. He stared into empty air.
“That was kind of you to make a better investment.”
Once more, that bitter twist of his mouth. “Nothing kind about it. It was my capital.”
“Against his estate. If the venture had not succeeded, you nonetheless would have emerged the richer.”
“As I said, a more advantageous opportunity presented itself.”
She studied the long lines of his body, her gaze moving up to trace the clean delineation of his profile, the curve of his lower lip. A sweet agony to look upon him.
“I wish you would let me into your confidence.”
His gaze snapped up to hers. “You know everything.”
“Who can we be honest with,” she said quietly, “if not each other?”
He stared at his hands, the rows of healing wounds on his knuckles. “I’ve told you everything I can.”
Which was not an answer, and they both knew it.
Chapter 12
Leo waited until shadows swathed the house. He left Anne upstairs, deeply asleep. They had not spoken much after her father had quit the house. What words had been said aloud were terse, strained. Yet the whole of the evening, he wanted to clutch her close, to bury his face in her hair and draw her scent deep into his lungs. To whisper the things that weighed heavy within him.
Instead, they had sat far apart, mute, and even in the bedchamber, they had moved around the room like strangers encased in glass. They had lain beside each other with intimate formality. Smothering darkness pressed down, leaving words and touches stillborn.
Now Anne slept. He hated having to leave her, limbs soft, skin warm and fragrant. But his business could not wait.
Slipping on his banyan, Leo padded through the dark corridors of his house, and down the stairs. A lone footman drowsed by the front door. The servant did not stir as Leo passed through the foyer. The place was still as a tomb.
In cold and darkness, he entered his study. He did not bother lighting a fire, but he lit a candle and set it on the end of his desk.
“Veni, geminus,” he said.
The scent of burnt paper stained the air. And then there stood the geminus, dressed for an evening out, like any man of means. Leo tried to stare hard at the thing’s face, yet his gaze continually slid away.
“Such a pleasure,” the geminus said, bowing, a smile in its voice.
Leo folded his arms across his chest. “Time for answers.”
“I am in all things obliging. Whatever you desire shall be yours.”
“The truth,” said Leo tightly. “Neither you nor your Mr. Holliday ever told me about the flaw in my gift.”
“Flaw?” The geminus chuckled. “Not a flaw, but merely a limitation.”
“The name you give it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that I couldn’t tell Wansford about the mining disaster. I couldn’t even warn the damned mine owners when I went down to the Exchange.” Leo had approached the men at the coffee house, determined to tell them that there would be loss of life if they did not take precautions. And he had stood there like a dullard, spouting nonsense about the best kind of fish to eat, whilst the mine owners stared at him, baffled.
He had tried to write, just as he’d done with Wansford. Again, only nonsense came from his pen. There had been nothing he could do. No way to prevent the disaster.
“Such events cannot be averted,” answered the geminus. “Even my master cannot stop it.”
Leo stalked toward the creature. “None of this was told to me.”
“Why should it?” The geminus spread its hands. “Until now, it has served you exactly as you desired. Have you not profited, and profited well, from this gift?”
Leo dragged in a breath. Only one answer: he had.
“It matters naught,” continued the geminus, its tone appeasing, “this tiny aspect of what is a most generous gift. So you cannot prevent what is foreseen. What of it? You can still reap profits the likes of which are unknown to all mortal men. Your wealth and power continue to grow. Those men you consider your enemies continue to fall. There is nothing you cannot have. Nothing,” it added, “you cannot give to your wife.”
Damn it, but the geminus was a sly bastard. Leo knew the thing manipulated him, said
precisely what he needed to hear. He was aware of the creature’s machinations, yet they played upon him, just the same.
He fought against the subtle trap the geminus wove. “That doesn’t change the fact that, even if I didn’t want to stop the mine from collapsing, I couldn’t warn Wansford not to invest in it.”
The geminus shrugged. “Again, ’tis trifling. The man is no friend of yours. Further, with your knowledge of the imminent misfortune, you made a counterinvestment that shall yield very agreeably, to both you and to him. I see no difficulty.”
Surely the Devil and his underlings must practice their art at the Exchange, for this creature spoke honeyed words intended to beguile. Had Leo not trained himself well in the art of deception, he might have ceded to the geminus’s blandishments.
“The underhandedness of this whole business makes me wonder: what else are you not telling me? What hidden traps does the Devil have in store?”
The geminus made a shocked sound. “Sir, you wound me and my master. He has been most generous, and here you cast aspersions.”
“He’s been called worse, and by far more than me.”
The geminus strolled away toward the fireplace. With a wave of its hand, the kindling blazed. Firelight limned the outline of the geminus, the rest of it naught but shadow. It studied the flames for a moment.
“It is time,” the geminus said, “for a reward.”
Leo frowned. Of all the responses he’d anticipated, this was not one he’d considered. “Why?” he demanded.
“Because you have served my master well.”
His frown deepening to a scowl, Leo said, “I serve no one. I act in my own best interest.”
“Of course,” the geminus answered quickly. “You are your own man. A quality my master admires greatly. What I meant to say is that you have made my master exceedingly proud. The ruthlessness you display at the Exchange, the men whose lives you destroy ... all of this pleases my master. Thus, he desires to give you a reward, in recognition of your good works.”