Seductive as Flame

by Susan Johnson

  After a brief detour home to bathe and change, he had himself driven to Dalgliesh’s apartments in St. James. A cool, self-possessed butler of considerable consequence took his name, said, “The earl is waiting for you,” and had a footman escort him to a paneled study with a fire on the hearth and Dalgliesh seated before it, drinking.

  The earl didn’t rise as Fitzwilliam approached. He only looked up and gruffly said, “What the hell were you doing there?”

  “I charge more for that tone of voice.”

  “Charge what you want. Answer my question.”

  “I’ll have a drink first. She worked me like a galley slave.”

  Dalgliesh stared at him for a fraction of a second and then burst out laughing. “But it wasn’t a complete hardship for all that, I’ll warrant,” he said, still chuckling as he handed over the bottle he held in his hand. “Glasses over there,” he said with a wave toward a drinks table. “And more liquor if you don’t like whiskey.”

  “Whiskey will do, thank you,” the barrister said, taking the bottle and sinking into a large wingback chair on the other side of the hearth. “Christ, I’m exhausted.”

  “You deserve a bonus for services rendered. Add whatever you wish to your fees. And I await your pleasure once you’ve rested and drunk your fill.” Coming to his feet, Dalgliesh strolled over to the drinks table and carried back two more bottles. “I’ve a feeling we have something to celebrate,” he said with a grin. Sitting down, he leaned over, placed one bottle by Fitzwilliam’s chair, uncorked the other, and lifted it to his mouth. “By the way, what’s your Christian name.”

  “Francis.”

  “Well, Francis, let’s drink to my freedom.”

  “Your freedom in due time, my lord. Even though your wife incriminated herself rather conclusively this afternoon, the case still needs to be presented to the court. Nothing is guaranteed. An unsympathetic magistrate, a counter suit, some unanticipated technicality. Things can go wrong.”

  “I understand. But by and large, Violetta’s case is indefensible, don’t you agree?”

  “Particularly should you disclose the more sordid details.”

  “If I have to, I will. I haven’t told you yet of her plot to murder Zelda. We found and interrogated the man she hired. He signed a confession.”

  “She wants Miss MacKenzie dead, not you?”

  “Yes. She wants me to live a very long life. For if my cousin inherits, she’d have to survive on her dower stipend.” His lashes drifted downward. “That’s hardly pin money for Violetta.”

  “She said you were generous.”

  “Out of indifference, not kindness. Although, if you plan on seeing her again,” Alec said with a faint smile, “I wouldn’t recommend going in unarmed. Nor would I eat or drink anything.”

  “Consider me warned. So tell me about this man she hired. Is he still in your custody?”

  Alec nodded. “She’s looking for him though. She has men staked out at his apartment.”

  “Did she pay him or did someone else?”

  “Her personal footman paid him. You saw him—the large, good-looking fellow. Very young. I imagine he’s delighted to be allowed in her bed from time to time—not that a bed’s required for Violetta, as you no doubt discovered.”

  Fitzwilliam’s brows rose. “Indeed.” He slid down on his spine and exhaled softly. “Forgive me, my lord, but I’m fagged. Ask me what you wish and I’ll try to answer. If I fall asleep, shake me awake.”

  “Finish your drink, then go home and sleep. We can talk tomorrow.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “It’s for me to thank you,” the earl graciously replied. “You’ve apparently not only gained valuable information, you’ve renewed my faith in humanity. I wasn’t quite sure what to make of you when I saw you lounging in Violetta’s boudoir.”

  “I’m very dependable, sir. I pride myself on my loyalty.”

  “Good. Get me this divorce and I’ll make you a very rich man.”

  “I’m already rich.”

  “Would you like me to buy you a title, then? I know the chief whip, Akers-Douglas. Not that you have to be a personal friend anymore. The tariff for a peerage is common knowledge.”

  “Which, of course, makes it less valuable.”

  “You don’t want one?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Well, it’s yours if you wish. Or anything else you’d like. Let me know.” He was prepared to pay handsomely for results.

  “If we win, I’ll decide.”

  “I always win.”

  “As do I.”

  Dalgliesh smiled. “Well, then, it’s just a matter of you deciding if you want to be a peer of the realm or not.”

  After discussing the details of the case, the men parted on good terms, Fitzwilliam returning home to his solitary bed, Dalgliesh staying up late, drinking and coming to terms with the remarkable changes in his life. With the temporary aberrations and the future ones, with all the curious startling changes. With the even more curious obsessions, when all his grown life he’d relied on detachment as his means of survival.

  Because all his grown life, he’d understood that he was irredeemably alone. Not that he didn’t have a mother who loved him, and Creiggy, of course, and the servants who were like family. But even when young, when they’d finally left the main house and taken up residence in the dower house, he’d found himself the master of the establishment. His mother, never strong, had given up the struggle to save her marriage and had retired to her music and books. Her love for him was unconditional, but when strength was required or special skills to forestall his father’s inroads, it had been left to him to face the storm. He was big for his age and capable—thanks in large part to Creiggy’s stout training—and he’d managed his difficult, disputative, drunken father more times than he cared to remember.

  Ultimately, whether here or in South Africa, whether large or small, his decisions had always been his own. And now, for the first time, the purpose of his life had expanded beyond caretaking and business and estate governance.

  He’d found love. Or love had found him. The quiet misery of his life had been forever altered, and he wished to protect this newfound joy at all costs. For a man who’d always guarded his privacy from outside intrusion, he was in awe of the breathtaking intimacy of love.

  His greatest strength had always been his ability to stand alone, to influence or militate, to prejudice or persuade, to prevail. To not belong but to lead. And now, because of an extraordinary woman, he was about to share both his privacy and power.

  He started to make plans.

  Contingency plans.

  He didn’t know if he could abide the slow grinding wheels of justice required for a divorce. He didn’t know if he had the patience. He didn’t know if a month of more or less continuous fucking would allow him that freedom of choice.

  No, no, and probably not.

  Good. He was rather of a mind, anyway, to expedite things.

  Rising from his chair, he glanced at the clock. Midnight. Was James still awake? Not that it mattered. He’d wake him.

  He had lists on top of lists he needed to dictate.

  And first thing tomorrow, he wanted to find Freddy.

  Hopefully, not in Violetta’s bed.

  CHAPTER 26

  ALEC WAS DRESSED and breakfasted before six. If Freddy wasn’t at Violetta’s, who’d been entertaining him rather exclusively of late, he likely was at Brooks’s or home in bed. Since he had no intention of making his proposal to Freddy at Violetta’s or at Freddy’s wife’s garish pseudo-chateau on Park Lane, Alec started with Brooks’s. Walking the short distance to the club, he entered the quiet foyer, greeted the porter with a smile, handed his coat to a footman, asked for Freddy, and was sent to the gaming rooms, where a few diehard gamblers in various stages of cast-off evening rig were still at play.

  He knew everyone; some looked up and waved, others were too far into their cups to notice. Freddy was one of the latte
r.

  Walking up behind him, the earl looked at Freddy’s depleted pile of markers and nodded at Jameson, who was the only one who appeared completely sober and, in consequence, was the only one who appeared to be winning. “How much does he owe you?”

  “Enough that his wife’s going to want his balls,” the viscount said.

  “How much?”

  “Twenty thousand.”

  “I’ll have my man send over a bank draft. Freddy’s out. Come, Freddy,” Dalgliesh said, plucking the cards from his hand and bodily lifting the marquis from his chair. “I have something you might like to hear.”

  Freddy’s heavy-lidded gaze lifted, and a drunken grin displayed a set of perfect white teeth to go with the perfect face and perfect body that had brought him a rich wife and an unhappy marriage. “Alec, you old dog! Gettin’ a divorsh, I hear.” He hiccuped, took a moment to regain his train of thought, and muttered, “Wish like hell I could.”

  Alec smiled. “Is that so?”

  Having manhandled the tipsy marquis from the gaming rooms, Alec made for a quiet corner in the reading room, which was empty that time of day, and dropped Freddy into a chair. He ordered him coffee and breakfast, woke up Freddy when it arrived, put a cup of coffee in his hand, and pointed at the plate of eggs and kippers on the table.

  “Drink your coffee, then eat something,” Alec said. “I want you to hear what I have to say.”

  “Can hear jes fine.”

  Dalgliesh made a drinking motion with his hand. “Do it. I just paid your tick with Jameson. You owe me.”

  “Jeez, for that, I’ll drink the whole bloody pot.”

  “Good, I’ll wait while you do that.”

  Alec sat back in his chair and patiently watched Freddy Chambers, Marquis of Mytton, indeed drink the entire pot of coffee. “Now eat something.”

  Freddy scowled at him.

  “The toast at least. I have a business proposition for you, and I want you semisober so you understand.”

  “Ain’t much for business, Alec.” Freddy plucked a nicely buttered, as ordered, toast triangle from his plate and shoved it whole into his mouth. “You know that.” The words were slightly muffled through his chewing, then he swallowed. “The man you should talk to is my father-in-law. Vulgar turd, but he knows how to make money.”

  Gratified that Freddy was no longer slurring his words and his gaze seemed relatively focused, Alec finally said what he’d come here to say. “If someone were to give you thirty thousand a year to get you out of your marriage, would you?”

  Freddy’s head came up with a snap. “I’d do it for ten.”

  “You wouldn’t say that if you were sober.”

  “Damn right, I would. Who’s paying?”

  “Me.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you.”

  Afterward, Alec said with a fixity of purpose, “I had to know you’d agree before I went to your father-in-law.”

  “Christ, he hates me. He’ll go cheap.”

  He didn’t as it turned out. A steel magnate who’d risen from the blast furnaces to own the largest steel mill in England knew how to negotiate.

  But the rough, burly, red-faced man who lived with his only daughter and despised son-in-law in the house he’d built for them on Park Lane, eventually leaned across his desk, put out his hand that still showed the scars from his early days in the foundry, met the earl’s gaze with a calculating one of his own, and said, “You have a deal.” Then he dropped back into his chair and smiled thinly. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me why you’re doing this.”

  “A private matter.”

  A droop of his eyelids. “Was this Fitzwilliam’s idea?”

  “You’re well-informed.”

  “I like to be. I expect you are, too.”

  “Yes, generally. I know about your daughter’s affaire, for instance.”

  “I’m surprised you paid so much then.”

  “Let’s just say I’m not in the mood to haggle.”

  “You can afford to be.”

  “You don’t need the money either.”

  “Maybe I worked harder for mine. She’s my only child. And her husband didn’t treat her well.”

  There was no point in arguing who’d worked harder for their money; Alec rather thought that six years of scorching heat, bloodshed, and squalor in the mining camps counted for something. But he said only, “I’m sorry. Freddy’s rather selfish, I’m afraid.”

  The bull of a man lifted his chin. “Can you trust him to do what you want?”

  “If it’s in his interest. This is.”

  “Do you mind if we use Fitzwilliam, too?”

  “I don’t mind. You’ll have to ask him though. Personally, I’d prefer buying off the entire Court of Chancery, if it were possible. I’m in a hurry.”

  “There are two arbiters of justice,” the older man mockingly emphasized, “for sale. Wives with pretensions, poor sods. But good for people like us. Would you like their names?”

  “Yes, thank you.” Alec waited while two names were scribbled on a piece of paper and slid across the desk.

  “Servants everywhere. One never knows.”

  “If you pay them enough it helps,” Alec said, folding the paper and slipping it into his pocket.

  “I’m sure you blue bloods know more about that than me,” Freddy’s soon-to-be ex-father-in-law sardonically noted. He surveyed the young grandee impeccably dressed by his tailor and valet lounging across from him. Then he smiled. “It was a pleasure doing business with you, Dalgliesh. Best of luck in your private matter.”

  “Thank you.” Alec rose from his chair, offered a smile in return. “Although I’m rather of the opinion that luck is much overrated. I prefer money and power to advance my interests.”

  “Bloody right.” Tom Reeves smiled a real smile this time. “If you ever need a financial partner for any of your ventures”—he dipped his head—“my purse is always open to you. You’re a ruthless young thug. I like that in a man.”

  They agreed; ruthlessness was a prerequisite for victory. “I’ll keep your offer in mind.” Alec nodded toward the door. “And you might tell whomever was listening they’d be advised to forget what they heard.”

  “Oh, hell, it’s probably my daughter. You needn’t worry about her. She’s probably in the chapel by now giving thanks to all the angels in heaven. Damned religious like her mother. But then someone has to keep us men on the straight and narrow. Your lordship excepted, of course, the high life being what it is,” he finished with an indulgent flick of his fingers.

  How to answer when faced with the hard truth. Dalgliesh gracefully said, “I appreciate your understanding.” He bowed faintly. “Your servant, sir.”

  On leaving Tom Reeves’ study and stepping into the quiet corridor, he discovered that the angels weren’t yet being thanked. A fashionably dressed, slender-to-the-point-of-thinness, ordinary young lady who must be Reeves’ daughter was waiting for him in the hall. “You heard?”

  “Oh yes, and I’m ever so grateful to you, Lord Dalgliesh,” Freddy’s wife breathlessly exclaimed, her excitement bringing a glow to her wide, cornflower-blue eyes that were really quite pretty. “I didn’t know what to say to Papa. Not at the beginning. Nor ever. He put such store in me being a marchioness, you see.”

  Her plain face was flushed with pleasure, and Alec couldn’t help but be charmed by her joy. He knew the feeling. “I’m pleased to be of service, my lady.”

  “How did you know about Charlie?” she asked, blushing bright red to the roots of her sparrow brown hair. “We were ever so careful.”

  He smiled. “Apparently not careful enough. Your father knows, too.”

  “Papa has spies though.”

  “So do I.”

  “My goodness! Does everyone?”

  “I’m sure not. Sometimes one must, that’s all. Although your Charles talks of you more than he should. I expect he can’t help it when he’s in love,” he said with a smile. Charles Fai
rchild was a nice young man just starting his career as a solicitor; he’d waxed eloquent to his colleagues about his great passion.

  “That’s all I think of, too–my darling Charlie. I—that is—we—dearly wish to marry. Must we wait long?”

  “That I’m only beginning to understand. I’m afraid I know very little about the process.”

  A small pout crinkled her lips. “But I don’t want to wait.”

  A cherished only child, an heiress with a doting father. “I’m sure your father can help.”

  “It’s not that I dislike Freddy,” she quickly said, as though remembering her manners. “He’s the most beautiful man in England, no offense to you, my lord.”

  “None taken,” he said, suppressing a smile.

  “We just don’t suit. We never have. He’s too set in his ways, I suspect, to ever be a good husband.”

  “I’m sure you’re right.” On the other hand, Violetta and Freddy would suit admirably, he suspected. So long as the magnanimity of his financial support continued.

  “I shall include you in my prayers, my lord. You’ve made me so very, very happy.” She smiled. “And I know I can speak for Charlie as well. We shall both pray for your soul.”

  Her simple devotion touched him. And if anyone’s soul needed praying for, it was his. “May I offer you and Charles much joy,” Alec said. What he didn’t say was that Charles was his next appointment. “Good day, my lady.” Walking away, he set his sights on his next interview.

  He couldn’t afford any loose ends; he needed the full cooperation from everyone involved in order for his plan to work.

  Excluding Violetta. She wasn’t apt to be cooperative.

  But he rather thought the prospect of a marchioness’s coronet would win the day with Violetta. She was a vain, pretentious little bitch.

  Charles Fairchild was clearly alarmed when Dalgliesh explained that he’d just come from Tom Reeves’. The young man blanched and glanced out the windows of his office in Grey’s Inn as if he expected to see a man with a horse whip outside.

  “There’s no cause for alarm, Mr. Fairchild,” Alec soothingly said. He always disliked a show of force unless necessary. “Mr. Reeves is aware of your attachment to his daughter and has chosen not to interfere as far as I know. While—ah . . . I’m afraid I don’t know your sweetheart’s name.”