“Fair enough,” he said, finally looking down at her with a cynicism that was galling. He didn’t trust her.
Laughable, given the situation, she thought, tensing her shoulders. As though she could trust herself or even begin to explain her actions. Ignoring Meredith’s warnings. Accepting Wadsworth’s invitation. Launching herself at the footman. It was all a form of madness.
She shook her head silently and slanted a look at her adversary, his hands resting on the back of the chair. She expected him to reach for her at any moment. Nothing about him suggested inaction.
“At least we can dispense with force,” he said with a trace of a smile in his voice. “I’m much relieved.”
“I’m sure you are,” she said, suddenly suspicious. She eyed the tray at the foot of the bed. “I take it the wine was not laced with opiates?” Despite the mockery in her tone, her stomach tightened further.
“Entirely unnecessary, as it turns out,” he said lightly, straightening away from the chair. She noticed again how tall, how broad he was. That this Alexander was anyone’s lackey, even a man as powerful as Faron, was preposterous.
She stared at him, her suspicions lending her courage. “So what will it be? What is expected of me?” She forced out the words, pulling the sheet over her shoulders. Her mind cringed at what was in store for her. “Attend a few hours of this wretched evening, feigning enjoyment?”
“You may surprise yourself,” he said, appearing unmoved, as far from mortification as the sky was wide. He was utterly at ease in the outrageous, dangerous situation.
Blood drained from her cheeks. “I’m not entirely the country mouse you take me for, sir. I have heard of this unfortunate taste for licentiousness among the upper classes.”
“Truly? I’m amazed.”
Unreasonably irritated, she said, “I have read de Sade, Laclos and the like. My aunt saw to it that my sister and I received a thorough and comprehensive education. She does not believe women should be kept in ignorance of the world.”
“Your credentials are impressive.”
“You would mock me.” She wished she could order him to quit the room. As though that would do a whit of good. “I am simply well read,” she said, hating the pinched tone of her voice.
“Clearly,” he replied, and miraculously retreated from the massive bed. He strolled toward the windows hung with heavy damask curtains, casting a quick glance to the courtyard below. When he looked up again, he said, “If you permit me to say it, you are an unusual woman, Miss Woolcott. Shy and retiring on the one hand and yet ready to take up a letter opener upon the slightest provocation.”
“Provocation? I should say in self-defense.”
“You appear to be a creature of extremes, Miss Woolcott. You have just assured me of your familiarity with what many would deem salacious texts, yet you cringe like an untried maiden at the specter of carnal behavior.”
Carnal behavior. The room might as well be spinning out of control. Taking a deep breath, Julia schooled her features into passivity. She prided herself on her breadth of knowledge. “I am, of course, familiar with Ovid and Catullus.” She had the uncomfortable sense that he meant to test her.
His glance was assessing. “One cannot hope to learn everything from books or from the Western canon of knowledge. We seldom think to include the knowledge and wisdom of the East.”
Needing to defend her scholarship, she sat up straighter, ignoring the numbness in her leg. “Of which you have some small knowledge, I am persuaded to believe?”
“Yes, some small knowledge.” He shoved both hands into the pockets of his trousers and looked at her expectantly. For one moment, she believed she’d seen a glimpse of something personal in his eyes.
She gave an unladylike puff of derision. “Here we sit discussing the merits of ancient texts whilst Sir Wadsworth’s evening unfolds below. I assure you, if you’re at all concerned, I shan’t dissolve into vapors at the first glimpse of”—she broke off awkwardly at the sight of his arced brow—“at the first sight of a well-turned ankle,” she concluded. “I am hoping to make short work of the evening and then make a hasty retreat. I take it you’re to be my escort.”
“Something like that.”
Julia could not trust herself to meet his eyes. Instead, she glanced at the ornate ormolu clock on the fireplace mantel. “Let’s be done with it, then, sir,” she ground out. “Send me a serving maid and the clothes you promised and give me twenty minutes more.”
It was the only way. To become the hunter and not the hunted.
She wrenched her eyes back to the window. Not for the first time, she was aware of an acute need to watch him, to study his face, the gray eyes that gave nothing away, his preternatural calm. This lackey of Faron’s required her unadulterated attention.
He was her link to Montagu Faron, her escort to his underworld.
Chapter 3
“He sleeps at last.
“The man known only as Sebastian nodded. He was long and angular, with a high, domed forehead and narrow shoulders. “This episode was not as acute as a fortnight ago,” he said more to himself than anyone else in the room.
They both knew to what he referred. A detritus of broken glass and crockery crunched underfoot, the aroma of a spilled astringent pinching their nostrils. As for the rest, little enough damage had been done. Two rectangular tables lined the room, topped by rows of microscopes, most of which were double-barrelled. Each instrument had a lamp by its side, the beam adjusted so as to illuminate a prepared specimen. Minute and beautiful shells, dredged up from a sea bottom of unfathomable depths, glistened like jewels in their scientific settings. Glass cases were mounted on the walls, from floor to ceiling, replete with intricately constructed creatures, some vegetable, some animal, some dyed with carmine to better display their transparent bodies.
“It was not such a struggle this time,” said Giles Lowther, the larger of the two men. He crossed his arms over his barrel chest. His booted foot nudged a broken beaker aside. Subduing Montagu Faron was never an easy task, a sobering reminder that twenty years earlier one of the world’s finest minds had been destroyed. Whether there were lingering outward injuries was difficult to determine, as Faron was never without his leather mask, shielding the world from the facial tremors that overtook him with unexpected ferocity. For decades, no one had seen his face.
Sebastian grimaced, for a moment looking away from the chaos inside to the ordered park outside, which had been designed by one of Louis XIV’s esteemed landscapers. “I shall have the laboratory set to rights in no time,” he said, making a swift accounting of the disarray with an abrupt glance. “Difficult to understand, this mania. He was perfectly lucid just this morning.” They both knew that the voices in Montagu Faron’s head clamored for his attention, the crashing of cymbals destroying the former orderly music of his mind. In the past, primitive societies would have said the voices came from God or the Devil, but as acolytes of a great man of science and reason, they both knew differently.
“Perhaps it was the daguerreotype in the library. An all too potent reminder,” said Lowther.
“Since this business began, he has been most savagely beset by his demons.” Sebastian lowered his head to examine a flake of coal on the floor, laboriously filed down with sandpaper until it had become as thin and transparent as a sheet of notepaper. He straightened, putting a bony hand at the base of his spine. “You saw to it that Strathmore received the proper directives?”
Lowther nodded. “To the letter.”
Sebastian leaned his hip on the table at his side. He flicked a glance over a small dish at his elbow displaying a frog, its foot spread out and pinned to show the circulation of its blood. He pursed his lips in contemplation of the amphibian. “I fear this is simply the beginning. Faron will never be satisfied. He is manifesting all the signs of morbid obsession, I’m afraid.”
“And we’re to do his bidding, as always. Although I don’t quite understand Strathmore’s involvement.”
>
Sebastian continued addressing the moribund frog in its distressed state. “You and I both. What I do know is that Faron has been following Strathmore’s progress these years past with feverish intensity. As we both realize, that intensity is prompted by envy, curiosity and, quite possibly, a desire to punish.”
Alexander Francis Strathmore was known as England’s preeminent adventurer and explorer, conversant in at least nine eastern languages, discoverer of Lake Tanganyika in Africa, chronicler of exotic mountain ranges and rushing rivers, a man with a reputation for being both fearless and relentless in his quest for knowledge.
Everything that Montagu Faron had been and was no longer.
Lowther exhaled sharply. “I begin to understand. However, why would Strathmore allow himself to become involved in these desperate machinations? The man has everything he could possibly desire.”
Sebastian flicked a finger over the frog dismissively. “You believe so, do you, Lowther? Then you have not learned as much as I from Faron.” He added abruptly, “Think on it. Clearly Faron has something that Strathmore covets.”
Lowther held up his arms to indicate the room and its contents. “You are suggesting something of a scientific nature?” he asked.
“Whatever else?” Faron was wealthy beyond belief, damned by a family fortune that gave him unrivaled power and had led him down the darkest of paths. Sebastian leaned away from the table with its scientific offerings that many believed blasphemed the work of God. “What we have here is a Faustian dilemma,” he continued, “wherein a man will sell his soul to the very devil to gain the knowledge he craves.”
“What knowledge are you suggesting?”
“I’m suggesting that Strathmore knows Faron has the original Ptolemy maps.”
“I have yet to set eyes on Ptolemy’s Geography,” said Lowther, refering to the ancient Greek astronomer and author of an eight volume treatise on physics, mathematics, optics, and geography. Ptolemy was renowned for having created a world map one hundred and fifty years after the birth of Christ, but it was believed that none of his maps had survived.
Sebastian knew otherwise. “The volume exists, believe me, including the world map.” Scholars in the fifteenth century had recreated Ptolemy’s map using the instructions in his work which explained how to project a sphere onto a flat piece of paper using a system of gridlines. “And it is not a replication but the original,” he emphasized.
“The original? How is that possible and how did Faron come by it?”
“Who knows? But we can be certain Strathmore wants it. He wants it enough to do anything to get it. From what Faron has told me, Ptolemy compiled his geography of Africa based on the writings of Marinus of Tyre who recorded the Greek trader Diogenes’s travels over land from Tanzania. In it he described two great lakes and a snowy range of mountains from which the Nile, purportedly, draws its source. He also made the first recorded rendering of the Mountains of the Moon.”
His heavy brow furrowed, Lowther said, “Understandably irresistible to a man like Strathmore. But the question remains—why has Faron taken such an interest in Strathmore, baiting him with promises of the map?”
“He has his reasons. He always does,” said Sebastian, who had first heard of Faron while studying at the Sorbonne in Paris. “And he requires someone without scruples who will conclude this situation with the Woolcotts.”
“A further mystery—this Woolcott situation. Why a man with the vision of Faron occupies himself with such seemingly petty concerns, stemming from some perceived injustice perpetrated years ago—although it is said that his injuries stem from—”
Sebastian interrupted. “As I said earlier, Faron does nothing without purpose.” Lowther was English and could not begin to understand the complex mind of his French master.
“If I might ask,” began Lowther carefully, “does this matter involve Faron’s…” He searched delicately for the right word.
“Injury?” supplied Sebastian. Without waiting for Lowther’s nod, he continued. “Suffice it to say, your tracking down the Woolcotts at Montfort was much appreciated. Faron has been at a loss for many years, unable to determine their whereabouts.”
Lowther did not fail to notice that Sebastian had not answered his initial question. “Faron has demanded that Strathmore furnish proof of Julia Woolcott’s death. Clearly, he is serious about the matter.”
“Without doubt,” agreed Sebastian tersely. “At least when he is lucid, Faron knows the measure of a man.” He paused deliberately. “You may count on it—Strathmore will not disappoint.”
Alexander Francis Strathmore, the younger son of the Earl of Dunedin, gave Julia Woolcott an hour to prepare.
Procrastination was not in his repertoire but for some reason he preferred to ignore the evidence of the entertainment underway in Wadsworth’s opulent halls below. The subdued hum of crystal and china hung in the air, a backdrop to the troop of silent servile feet making their way through polished hallways. Dinner had been served unfashionably early, to ensure plenty of time for the main course the assembled guests were slavering for.
Not that Strathmore gave a damn. Whatever Wadsworth had planned would hardly be shocking to a man of his experience. Boredom was the more likely enemy. He loosened the unfamiliar tightness of his cravat, shot his cuffs, and hovered in front of the heavy oak door, behind which Julia Woolcott stood prepared. Bloody hell, it was like serving up the proverbial sacrificial lamb to the angry gods. Embarrassingly easy.
Worldly, Miss Woolcott was not, despite her self-proclaimed bookishness. Damned irritating, that. He’d never liked bluestockings or whatever they called women who spent more time with their heads in dusty volumes than was wise. That was it—on the shelf. He wondered whether the term was still in use. It had been some time since he’d observed his own culture, whereas he could discourse at length on the sexual practices in Somalia, the politics of the Sufi order, or the geologic formations underlying the Nile.
Strathmore paused again, crossing his arms across his chest, straining the superfine of his evening coat. What the hell was going on with him? He’d made a life out of being a rakehell, exploiting his unhealthy curiosity and unsettling ability to learn exotic languages and dialects, to scale mountains and cross deserts, to absorb more by living in a place for one month than others would perceive in years. He’d been summarily exiled from Oxford and dishonorably discharged from the East India Company. He was more at home on an expedition disguised as an Afghani physician than at a country house weekend, for God’s sake, saddled with a spinster with nerves as thin as parchment.
Yet something nagged at him. Why had Faron chosen Julia Woolcott? There had to be a reason, though he was damned if he knew. Or if it even mattered. Miss Woolcott was a small price to pay. He allowed images of staggering mountains, cobalt rivers, and sultans’ palaces to shimmer in his mind’s eye, effectively overriding any lingering and inconvenient spasms of conscience.
He gave the door a sharp knock and, not waiting for a response, pushed it open. He took two steps, then stopped. Julia did the same, reaching blindly for her discarded nightshift, crumpled at the foot of the bed. But Strathmore had already received an eyeful, taking in the startling length of slender white thighs, delicately turned calves, as well as the full, lower curve of her buttocks. Her unbound hair fell like a shimmering curtain into a tumble that reached clear to her hips. Arms as slender as reeds clutched the nightshift to her breasts. Her violet eyes blazed beneath raised brows.
It was then he knew that he would not kill her. The realization was as blinding as the sun at high noon in the Kalahari desert.
“This,” she seethed, gesturing violently from her neck to her hips, “is impossible!”
He knew exactly to what she was referring. The midnight blue silk of her gown, if one could call it that, fell in a diaphanous array around what was a totally and unexpectedly lush female form. The acres of gray wool and the muslin shift of the night before had done little justice to the long slende
r legs and narrow waist now displayed to his eyes. Desire, as unexpected as an oasis in a wasteland, shot through him.
Julia’s eyes widened and her lips emitted deep gusts of outrage. “No shift, no petticoats, not even a corset,” she hissed at him, turning and affording him a magnificent view of her backside. He had thought her too thin, and she was, except where she wasn’t.
He took a moment to consider. True, he hadn’t had sexual relations since his return to England but celibacy didn’t trouble him, at least not since his time in a monastery in Tibet, a transformative experience during which his mind had been trained to rein in an unruly body. So what was it, precisely, that caused him to hesitate?
His eyes slid up her body to her elegant face, which save for the generous mouth, had hardly hinted at such erotic beauty. She eyed him expectantly over one pale, exposed shoulder.
“That’s the idea,” he said, making his voice pleasant. “A certain dishevelment is what’s required. Although I can absolve myself from guilt—I had no hand in choosing your garments.”
“Then who did?” Her reproachful expression indicated her notice that he was thoroughly clothed.
He felt the pull of his black evening coat across his shoulders—a trifle too small. Since he was no longer accustomed to full evening regalia his London valet had done his best to outfit Strathmore in a short time.
For some reason he found himself staring at Julia Woolcott’s lush full mouth, as he stood stiffly, legs braced wide and thighs tensed, just inside the door. Incapable of moving and feeling like an intruder was not at all what he’d intended. He had never claimed to be a gentleman and had long ago made peace with the hypercritical and largely illogical societal standards of his class. It could not explain why he was suddenly undone by the outraged histrionics of a nervous female who should have at least five children and was instead staring at him as though he was the very devil. Which he was, in fact.
The Deadliest Sin Page 3