by Kelly Bowen
“Why?”
King paced to the bookcase and back. “The old baron enjoyed a fair bit of celebrity in society. He was famous for his lavish events, titillating salons for all manner of artists and writers, and was a significant patron of the theater. He was quite popular. But there was never a mention of John Westerleigh anywhere.”
“Then how do you know that Evan’s death was not an accident?”
“I was there. I saw him kill Evan.”
Adeline frowned. So then there had been a witness. “Yet you did not tell anyone what you saw?”
“I tried…” King hesitated. “And then I couldn’t.”
An odd choice of words. “Couldn’t or wouldn’t?”
“The distinction doesn’t matter. No one believed me.”
“Why?”
He only shook his head, not meeting her gaze, his expression impossible to read.
Adeline waited for King to go on, but he remained mute. For as much information as he had given her, there was a great deal more he wasn’t sharing.
She pressed a different angle. “Tell me, is the baron here tonight to kill you?”
“What?” He looked momentarily nonplussed.
“Given what little you’ve managed to share about this particular crime, one might call you a loose end,” she continued. “I’d like to be adequately prepared for such a possibility.”
“That’s not funny.”
She turned his own words back on him. “It wasn’t meant to be.”
“No,” King said, finally moving. He skirted his desk and came toward her, sinking into the chair, his fingers pressed flat on the smooth surface. “The baron has no idea who I am.”
“You’re sure?”
“Yes. It happened over twenty years ago. I was a child.”
“I see.” That explained a great deal. The word of a street urchin would never have stood against the word of an aristocratic gentleman destined for the church.
“I was eleven. I should have—” He stopped abruptly and didn’t finish.
“You didn’t expect to see Marstowe here tonight.”
King went eerily still. “I thought he was dead. I was told that the ship he was on sank off the coast of Massachusetts. At the time it was a small comfort. But if I had known he was alive—” He stopped again.
This time, Adeline knew the end to that sentence.
“Who was Evan Westerleigh to you?” she asked.
“He was my best friend.” His words were barely audible.
Adeline sighed. The boundaries of class should have made such a relationship impossible, but children were rarely bothered by such details. Adeline would know. “I’m sorry.”
“For what? You weren’t there. You couldn’t have done anything. At least not then,” he added pointedly.
Adeline bit the inside of her lip. If this had been any other person, she would most likely have walked away. A client who refused to provide information was impossible to serve. And yet…
Falaise d’Argent.
Named for the dark-silver cliffs against which it nestled, the small château and its vineyards had belonged to her family for over two centuries before it had been stolen. To Adeline it represented the roots she had never been able to put down, the only tie she had left to a family long gone. It was a promise of constancy, of a place where she might finally rest her weary soul. She had despaired of ever being able to recover the land, but now, in a single moment, the possibility dangled before her.
It was too much to turn away from.
“Very well,” she said.
“Very well?” King repeated. “What does that mean?”
“I agree to your proposal. Though I will verify the merit of what you have asked me to do.”
“The merit?” His voice was a growl. “That’s not—”
“That’s my offer to you,” she interrupted him. “The same offer I make to every potential client until facts can be corroborated and proven to my satisfaction.”
King gazed at her, his chilling eyes once again remote and unreadable. “Fine.”
Adeline touched the locket at her neck. “I will return to London immediately after I deliver—”
“You can’t leave.”
Her hand fell away, her fingers curling in her skirts. “You may control the darker side of London and everything in it, but you do not control me. I have property to return to its rightful owner. A contract to finish, a promise to keep.”
“I will see it done.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I will have the sapphire returned. Provide me with your client’s direction, and it will be delivered immediately.”
Adeline frowned.
“You doubt my word?”
“No,” she said truthfully. “It is your motivations behind such an offer that are opaque.”
“As I said, if I am left alone with him, I will simply kill him and regret that kindness later.”
“And keeping me in London will prevent you from doing that?”
“No. You misunderstand me.” King paused. “You will stay here. At Helmsdale.”
Chapter 6
Adeline did not stay at Helmsdale.
The demand had surprised her, but she hadn’t bothered arguing—really, where she slept was an insignificant detail when cast against the possibility of recovering Falaise d’Argent. She would collect her belongings from the Four Cocks when she was able and eventually return to Helmsdale, but right now, Adeline had work to do.
The end of King’s auction had prompted a mass exodus of attendees, similar to the emptying of a theater, its patrons all drunk on spirits, gossip, excesses, and the entertainment provided by all three. Adeline had slipped from the house, her hired carriage still waiting exactly as she’d instructed, and it hadn’t been difficult for her to follow the Duke of Rotham’s flamboyant equipage as he and Baron Marstowe had departed Helmsdale.
Adeline had spent the entirety of the auction alternatively observing Marstowe and observing King observing Marstowe. The baron had bid on nothing and had appeared to be more interested in imbibing from the trays of expensive liquors that footmen had circulated through the ballroom than in examining the treasures surrounding him. Aside from Rotham, he’d generally avoided those around him and made little effort at conversation. The baron had sought no further interaction with King, even though the owner of Helmsdale had been easily visible as he’d watched the spectacle alone from the ballroom balcony, his expression cold and grim.
Adeline had no idea where Rotham and Marstowe were headed now but had simply instructed her driver to follow the pair. As they went deeper into London, the empty spaces and orderly squares soon gave way to a jumble of twisting streets, hemmed in on all sides by looming buildings. The darkened cobblestones were punctuated only by light spilling from the occasional street corner or from the windows of businesses that did the bulk of their trade in the hours long after the sun had set.
Rotham’s carriage eventually rolled to a stop in front of a nondescript brick building, light seeping from the edges of its covered windows, carriages and their bundled drivers lining the street beyond. The two men disembarked and disappeared into the building, the two large lanterns blazing by the door making it easy to observe.
Adeline’s own equipage stopped a short distance away, and she hopped out, shivering against the winter air that stabbed at her with icy fingers. The snowfall that had started earlier had become heavier, and a thick layer of pristine white covered everything, though the streets would be a mucky morass come morning.
“What is this place?” she asked her driver.
“Lavoie’s,” he replied. “A gaming hell, but the exclusive kind that caters to rich toffs with fat purses wishing to amuse themselves. Their ladies too.”
“Mmm.”
“You planning on gambling?” her driver asked.
“Something like that.” She pulled her cloak more tightly about her body.
“You need me to wait?”
“Thank you but no. You’ve spent enough time in the cold—”
“I reckon you’ve ’bout paid me enough this evening to wait for you till Christmas. ’Tis no trouble.”
“There’s no need.” If she didn’t return to Helmsdale, she’d simply lodge back at the Four Cocks after she was done here tonight. She could return to Helmsdale on the morrow, King’s directives be damned.
“Very well.” The driver tipped his hat and pulled away.
Adeline brushed at the snowflakes that clung to her cloak and started toward the gaming hell, the promise of light and warmth beckoning.
A man stepped into her path before she could reach the door, and Adeline’s hand immediately dropped to her skirts, her fingers brushing the handle of her blade. She did not wish to fight in skirts, but she’d done it before—
The man stopped and leaned casually on his walking stick.
Adeline cursed under her breath. “This is starting to become tiresome, King,” she said.
“Define this,” he said, sounding unconcerned.
“You, skulking in alleys, waiting for me.”
“I don’t skulk. And this is more of a street.”
“You followed me here.”
“Of course I did. I am protecting my investment. London is a dangerous place at night. If you die in one of these rotten alleys, you will be of no use to me.”
“I thought we established that I am hard to kill.”
“Hard is not the same thing as impossible.”
She ignored his words. “I also thought we’d established that you are my client and that I was to work on your behalf. I’d like to do so without you spying on me or otherwise interfering with my ability to do my job.”
“Spying implies a level of subterfuge, which this encounter most certainly lacks. And I haven’t interfered with anything.”
“You’re interfering now. Marstowe and Rotham—”
“Are inside, very likely partaking in a bottle of very excellent French brandy that has never seen the inside of a customhouse and, knowing Rotham, getting drunker by the minute. I am supposing you are here to take advantage of that.”
Adeline’s jaw hardened. “I’d like to get a better measure of Marstowe.”
“You could have spoken to him during the auction—”
“Did you think me incapable when you hired me?” she interrupted.
“Not at all.”
“Do you think me incapable now?”
“Of course not. I just would have preferred if you had advised me of your intent to leave Helmsdale this evening.”
Adeline gaped at him. “Advised you? You—” She closed her eyes, forced herself to picture the sun-drenched vineyards of a French château, and collected herself. “You are neither my nursemaid nor my keeper,” she said, opening her eyes. “Did you honestly expect me to remain locked up in your towers to magically spin straw into gold?”
“What does that mean?”
“The tale of Rumpelstilzchen?” Her breath misted in the cold air.
“I’m not familiar.”
“A wretched story meant to entertain children in which a woman becomes a pawn of her foolish father, then a vicious king, and finally a cruel little goblin.”
“Then she should have killed them all,” he said darkly. “And you weren’t locked up.”
“I refuse to be your pawn, King.”
“I can’t imagine you’ve ever been anyone’s pawn.”
The wind gusted, and Adeline shivered. This was ridiculous. She stalked toward the door of Lavoie’s. “Just leave, King,” she said. “Go back to Helmsdale, get some rest, and let me do my job. I’ll keep you abreast of my findings.”
He fell into step beside her. “You have no idea what Marstowe is capable of.”
“That is rather the point here, King. To determine exactly that, since you are hardly a fount of information.”
“You already know that there are two types of people who exist in this world,” he said. “Wolves and sheep. Predators and prey. Marstowe is a predator of the most monstrous sort.”
“There are shepherds too,” Adeline said irritably.
“The shepherds.” King made a dismissive sound. “Those fools spend their lives exposed to the worst of the elements, trying to protect creatures too dumb to understand that they need protecting or understand what the shepherd risks on their behalf.”
“Are you insinuating I’m a fool?”
“If you recklessly risk your safety.”
“Well, since we’re still speaking in similes here, I will remind you that sometimes those shepherds hide dogs within their sheep. Clever, cunning animals that do not fear wolves.”
“Now you’re a dog?”
Adeline threw up her hands in disgust. “You were right the first time. I am a fool, but only for trying to have this conversation with you.”
He didn’t answer, and Adeline took three more steps before she realized that he was no longer at her side. She stopped and turned to find him standing motionless, studying her intently. With his pale eyes, fair coloring, and seeming imperviousness to the snow swirling wildly around him, he looked a little like some sort of avenging Nordic god.
“I will not leave you,” he said quietly.
She should be furious. She should cling to healthy frustration that this man insisted on meddling in her craft. Yet…
I will not leave you.
The way he said those words made her knees wobbly and sent a tide of longing flooding through her. It filled the vast caverns in her soul that had been carved out by too many years of loneliness. Everyone left her eventually, through choice or circumstance, but in this moment she wanted to believe him. In him.
He closed the gap between them, his footsteps muffled by the snow. “I’ll not interfere, merely observe. I need you to…” He trailed off, clearly struggling for words.
Her eyes dropped to his mouth. A snowflake landed on his upper lip, starting to melt almost instantly. She wondered what it might feel like to kiss this man. To press her lips to the place where that snowflake had disappeared. To run her hands over his skin, feel the hard strength of his muscles as he moved against her—
She tore her gaze from his mouth, aware her breathing had become somewhat erratic. She met his eyes and then forgot to breathe altogether. He was looking at her with a heat that should have melted the snow where they stood. Those icy-cool eyes of his had ignited into blue flames, pinning her where she stood.
He was going to kiss her, she thought hazily, right here in the middle of this snowy street. The anticipation made her entire body thrum with want.
Her fingers brushed the sleeve of his coat. “You need me to what?” she whispered.
King started and suddenly stepped back. He shook his head, as if trying to clear it. “You need to remember what is at stake here,” he said harshly. “And you need to remember that you work for me.”
Whatever fantasies Adeline had been entertaining burst like a bubble.
“I have not forgotten,” she said, turning toward the door to hide the uncomfortable flush that was burning across her cheeks. She had never, in all her life, mixed business with pleasure. She would not start now, no matter how enthralling or provocative this man might be.
Adeline reached for the door and yanked it open. She was immediately enveloped in a welcome heat laced with tobacco smoke and perfume. The club opened before her, and while the outside of the building was unremarkable, the inside was anything but. Gleaming floors were almost invisible beneath a wide arrangement of gaming tables surrounded by laughing, chattering crowds of expensively dressed gamblers. Richly papered walls framed two opposite hearths, each with a blazing fire. Liveried servants circulated with silver trays of bottles and glasses.
“You’re going to want this.” King’s voice came from behind her as something soft slid over her eyes.
She managed to resist the urge to spin and yank the offending object from her face. Instead she remained frozen as he adjusted
the mask carefully, his fingers working the ribbons at the back of her head. His breath was warm against her exposed nape, the backs of his fingers lingering gently along her neck as he finished.
That simple touch sent currents of desire rippling through her. It made her want to discover just what it might take to ignite the heat that smoldered beneath that cool exterior of his. But she could not afford this sort of distraction if she was to focus on the task at hand. Starting with the fact that she was now wearing yet another mask.
She raised her hand to her face. It was not the same type of mask that she had worn for the auction—this was a decorative affair, feathers affixed to the side, and covered only the upper part of her face. She frowned in confusion. “Does no one in England show their faces in public any longer?”
“The female guests prefer to wear them here. Gambling, especially in an establishment such as this, is not always considered a suitable pastime for women of genteel birth.” His voice was low in her ear.
Adeline glanced at the women in risqué gowns, realizing that the tops of their faces were also covered with ornate and dramatic masks. “Credible deniability,” she murmured.
“I’ve not heard it stated as such, but yes.” King seemed to find that amusing.
Without hesitating, his hands slid down her neck to her throat, deftly working the ties of her cloak. Adeline felt the burn of his touch all the way through her, making her muscles clench and her breath catch. The woolen garment slid easily from her shoulders as he passed it to an approaching footman.
He had to stop touching her. She couldn’t think clearly when he did.
Adeline stepped away from the man at her back and headed out onto the gaming floor, the snap of cards and clatter of dice occasionally audible over the conversations. Her gaze danced over the crowd, seeking the new Baron Marstowe, and she finally found him sitting at a vingt-et-un table. The Duke of Rotham was with him, both looking significantly worse for wear since she had last seen them at Helmsdale. A nearly empty bottle of what looked like brandy sat between them. Perfect. Next to coin, liquor was often Adeline’s greatest ally.