by Kelly Bowen
Within minutes she had found a footman and procured a new bottle of French brandy, along with another glass. She approached the table and found King leaning casually on his walking stick with one hand, presumably observing a game of piquet being played nearby. His outwardly laissez-faire deportment would fool most, but it did not fool her for a second. She could almost feel the tension rolling off him in waves.
Rotham and Marstowe had their backs to King and were unaware of his presence, while he’d be able to hear everything being said. Adeline looked away. When King had promised to merely observe, she had assumed that it would be with a larger measure of discretion. Served her right. Assumptions were perilous things, after all.
Adeline slid silently into an empty chair between the baron and the duke. Neither man seemed to notice her, absorbed as they were in their game. She glanced at the dealer, somewhat surprised to discover that it was a woman who sat opposite the players. She was blond, dressed in a gown and mask the color of the Mediterranean shallows, and sharp blue eyes assessed Adeline. Adeline gazed back until the dealer returned her attention to the game that was still in progress.
The duke was rubbing his forehead above reddened eyes as he contemplated the seven of hearts and the ten of spades that lay in front of the dealer. He was, as King had predicted, utterly foxed, his movements clumsy and slow. The baron appeared somewhat less inebriated, or perhaps he was simply concealing it better. He had a look of fierce concentration on his face as he stole another look at the cards trapped beneath his palm on the green felt.
Up close, Adeline studied Marstowe’s soft hands, his manicured nails, his tailored clothing, his carefully trimmed gray hair, and his upright posture. He looked every inch the well-groomed, well-dressed gentleman, as one would expect of a man of his station. He didn’t look like the sort of killer portrayed by caricaturists, with pointy teeth and a forked tail, but then none of them ever did.
Adeline slowly filled her glass as both players asked for another card and both went over twenty-one.
Rotham threw his cards down in disgust. “Goddammit,” he swore. “You better find your pocketbook fast, Marstowe, ’cause mine’s not goin’ to last long at this rate.”
The baron slapped his cards down beside the duke’s. His face was flushed with heat, frustration, or anger—or maybe all three.
“S’posed to distract me from my troubles, no’ remind me,” he groused. “An’ I’m working on it.”
“Work faster.” Rotham drained the last of his brandy and reached for the almost-empty bottle. “Goddammit,” he cursed again. “We’re out.”
“May I?” Adeline pulled her chair closer to the table and set down her glass on the edge, lifting her brandy bottle in invitation.
The duke and baron seemed to notice her for the first time. Rotham leered at her décolletage while Marstowe merely shoved his cards away and slid his glass in her direction.
“God, yes,” the baron slurred.
Adeline poured, aware of the men’s eyes on her.
“I don’t know you,” Rotham said with the slow, exaggerated deliberation with which the very intoxicated spoke. “We’ve no’ met.”
“No.” Without asking, Adeline reached for the duke’s glass and filled it as well.
“I am th’ Duke of Rotham,” he announced with all the pomposity he could muster.
Adeline tried to look duly impressed.
“Marstowe.” The baron downed half his brandy.
“Marstowe,” she murmured as if searching her memory. “Ah. You’re just recently back from the Americas, if I’ve heard correctly.”
The baron grunted.
“That he is.” The duke’s eyes hadn’t made it up past her chin yet. “Mebbe you could welcome ’im back properly. Wha’s your name?”
Adeline suppressed a shudder. “You may call me Adrestia.”
“Greek name,” Marstowe mumbled into his glass.
“It is.” Adeline pretended to be delighted. “Are you familiar with the language?”
“Mebbe.” He took a large gulp of brandy.
“’Course he is,” Rotham chortled. “Taught Greek an’ Latin fer twenty years for Will’am an’ Mary in the backwoods.”
“For whom?” Adeline tried to untangle that statement.
“College in the godforsaken colonies. Can’t imagine what they need Greek fer in Virginia.” He slapped Marstowe on the shoulder. “Don’ know why you stayed s’long either.”
“Would you like to be dealt in, my lady?” the beautiful dealer asked smoothly.
Adeline shook her head. “I do not know how to play,” she lied.
“Not mus’ of a game for women, an’ways,” the duke said, leaning toward her. “Maths, you know. Hard for you to unnerstand.”
“Of course.” Adeline glanced with no little irony at the woman dealing the cards, who only gazed back impassively. “Would you mind if I watched?”
“S’long as your French friend stays put,” Marstowe mumbled, gesturing at the bottle by her elbow.
“What made you decide to go to the Americas, my lord?” Adeline asked guilelessly.
Marstowe didn’t answer or even cast a glance in her direction. He only picked up his glass and took a healthy swallow.
Adeline tipped her head in consideration. Interesting. Not that she’d expected him to confess that he’d killed a child and had had to flee, but her fawning ingenue approach almost always yielded better results with men deep in their cups.
The duke, however, did not disappoint. “The kind o’ opportunity the church don’ give,” Rotham answered for him instead, his eyes straying once again to Adeline’s bodice. “His father wanted ’im to join th’ church but we’ve been frien’s since Eton an’ Marstowe would ’ave made the worst sort o’ cleric.” He sneered. “Bloody bunch o’ thieves, the church—”
“I heard that the ship you were on sank in a terrible storm off the coast of Massachusetts,” Adeline interrupted, facing the baron and putting a hand to her chest. “How terrifying that must have been.”
The baron’s head finally came up. “How’d y’know that?”
“One hears things,” Adeline said.
“You never tol’ me that, Marstowe,” the duke protested. “Yer ship really sank?”
“It was a goddamn packet,” the baron mumbled. “Goddamn pig o’ a ship captained by a half-wit. Blew off course in th’ wind.”
“You sailed on a packet?” Rotham asked, sounding suitably horrified. “How primitive.”
“S’what was available.” Marstowe picked up his first card.
“That’s what happens when you kill someone,” Adeline said with a forced chuckle.
The baron’s hand jerked, the card bending in his grasp. His face drained of color. “What did y’say?”
“You must have killed someone. That’s why you were in such a terrible rush to leave England,” she continued gaily. “Desperate enough to sail on a packet.”
“Jesus, Marstowe, careful wi’ th’ damn cards.” The duke elbowed him. “She’s no’ serious.” He accepted two cards from the dealer.
The baron clutched his glass and drained the rest of his brandy in a single gulp.
Rotham turned and grinned sloppily at Adeline. “I know some Greek too, my lady.”
Adeline ignored him, watching Marstowe. His color was starting to come back, though he hadn’t relinquished his grip on his glass.
“I bought Hercules tonight,” the duke announced, his eyes once again straying south to lodge at her breasts. His hand followed his gaze, his fingers reaching for the embroidered edge of her bodice. “Mebbe you’d like t’ be my Hippolyta an’ show me yer girdle—”
“Heracles.” A new voice broke into the conversation and stayed the duke’s wandering fingers. “It was Heracles who was Greek.”
Chapter 7
As the shock of seeing John Westerleigh had subsided over the course of the evening, the knowledge that the man still lived and breathed had become like a festering sore
that could not be ignored. However, King had managed to rein in the rage and revulsion that had dictated his actions in that study and blinded him to good sense. The time that had elapsed since coming face-to-face with a dead man had also allowed King the opportunity to think more clearly, and he’d come to the very uncomfortable realization that he should have heeded the goddess of retribution.
Adrestia had urged him to either take the night to think or simply deal with the situation on his own. But he hadn’t listened. Hadn’t thought beyond his all-consuming need for revenge. And he hadn’t really comprehended just how many layers of his own life would inevitably be peeled back and exposed once she started chasing the truth.
And that intrusion into his privacy and his past was unacceptable.
King settled himself into a chair beside the duke. Adrestia was glaring at him now through her mask. She was breathtakingly beautiful, even when furious, or maybe more so because of it. The mask only added to the alluring air of mystery that surrounded her. It didn’t, however, conceal the fact that she was a threat to his privacy and, more alarmingly, his control.
He forced himself to look away from her.
Rotham had straightened and was regarding him with a bleary sort of wariness, as if he had just discovered a tiger amid a room of house cats. “King. What’re you doin’ here?”
“I do like to get out from time to time.” King waved at a passing footman and a glass of amber liquor appeared in front of him. “Hercules was a Roman hero, adapted from the Greek Heracles,” King continued from his earlier comment, tracing a lazy pattern on the green felt with his fingers. “But it was Heracles who fell to madness and killed a child.”
Marstowe hadn’t said a word yet, his eyes fixed firmly on the damaged card in his hand. King looked away before his animosity and revulsion became obvious.
The duke blinked at King and then shrugged. “Roman, Greek, no matter. What matters is it’s sculpted by Michelangelo hisself.” He looked back at Adeline and waved his glass at King. “Didn’ think he’d find such a thing. But I shoulda known better ’cause this man is famous fer findin’ the impossible—” He abruptly stopped. “That’s it.” He gave Marstowe another jab with his elbow. “He can find it.”
“What?” Marstowe didn’t look up, only asked for another card from the dealer.
“The money. Your money. He could find it for you.”
King took a small sip of his brandy and forced himself to remain still. The duke had made a comment about money when Adrestia had first sat down, but King hadn’t given it much credence. He was certainly paying attention now, because what the blundering duke was alluding to was a fair sight more than a missing pocketbook.
Marstowe glanced at his new card. “I don’ think—”
“Yer damn solicitors ’ave been looking fer an age,” the duke whispered in a voice that was far from a whisper. “King might be yer best chance.”
The baron looked unconvinced.
Adrestia had suddenly become absorbed in a loose thread on the shoulder of her gown.
“May I ask what it is you seem to have lost?” King asked Marstowe. He was careful to keep his expression blank.
“Money,” the duke told him.
Marstowe grimaced, the muscles in his neck flexing.
“I see,” King said, trying not to imagine snapping that neck. He adjusted his grip on his walking stick where it rested against his thigh. “Money from your personal coffers or money tied to the barony?”
The baron hesitated.
“Oh, fer God’s sake, i’s not like it’s a secret,” Rotham grumbled. “Least not fer much longer. An’ I can’t keep payin’.”
Marstowe stared into his empty cup.
“The barony,” Rotham told King impatiently.
“How much?” King inquired.
“All of it.” The duke sat back with a thump.
King stared at Marstowe. He knew that there was no land associated with the barony, only the expensive town house in London, but Marstowe’s great-grandfather and his grandfather had each made an obscene fortune from their very unfashionable obsession with trade. For that much money to have disappeared…
“Gambling debts?” he asked as evenly as possible. “Poor investments, malicious blackmail, diabolical mistresses, or failed ventures?”
The baron only glowered and reached for the brandy beside Adeline.
“No,” Rotham answered for him. “The damn estate lawyers think mebbe his brother gave everything t’ the church. I tol’ you, thieves, the lot o’ them,” he finished, banging the table with the flat of his hand.
“Indeed?” King pushed his glass back and forth across the felt with his fingers, watching the brandy splash gently against the sides. The loss of the entire Marstowe fortune should please him. Yet he didn’t feel pleased. There was no amount of money lost that could equal what King had lost. “An inopportune donation to the church can be verified.”
“How?” Marstowe finally found his voice.
“Leave that to me.” He glanced at the baron. It was hard to look at the man and not feel nauseous. “I’ll take twenty-five percent.”
“I beg your pardon?” Marstowe nearly pitched from his chair, gripping the edge of the table to regain his equilibrium.
“Twenty-five percent of whatever I find and recover,” King repeated. “That is my offer to you, Marstowe. It’s not negotiable.”
Rotham was looking wide-eyed between the baron and King.
“You’re a goddamn thief,” Marstowe hissed.
The duke went ashen. Even the dealer paused.
“Because you are newly returned to England and, it seems, under some duress, I will let that…comment slide for now. But I am a businessman, Marstowe.” King shrugged and crossed his boot over his knee. “And currently, you are nothing but a pauper.” The now-familiar rage and revulsion coiled within him like angry snakes, constricting his chest and squeezing the air from his lungs. His gaze collided with Adrestia’s, and inexplicably it became a little easier to breathe. “You do not need to agree to the terms,” he said.
The baron stared at King, and then his expression cleared. “Very well then,” he sneered. “Don’ much think you can fin’ what the lawyers and Runners haven’t an’way.”
“Meet me at the St James churchyard on Piccadilly,” King said. “Tomorrow at two o’clock.”
“What? Why?” the baron demanded.
Because that is where Evan is buried, King wanted to snarl. And I want you to look upon what you did.
“Seems like a good place to start if the church really does possess your fortune, no?” King said instead. “It is, after all, where your family used to attend services.”
Marstowe stared at King. “How would y’know that?”
“You might be surprised by what I know.” He lifted his glass to his lips. He saw the baron’s gaze catch on the band of gold that circled his little finger and the ruby that glowed in the light.
“Where did y’get that ring?” Another card was being convulsively crushed in Marstowe’s grasp.
King set down his glass and held up his hand, examining the ring. “A gift.” And King had hidden Evan’s gift almost immediately, knowing how angry the old baron would have been if he had known that Evan had given away an heirloom that was meant solely for the Marstowe heir. It had been another decade before King had been able to go back for it, and he hadn’t taken it off since.
“To be honest, I never did care for the setting,” he said, “though the ruby is spectacular. And I’ve always had an affection for rubies. They have been, after all, a talisman of passion and protection throughout the ages. Did you know that there are those who believe that a ruby can warn its wearer of impending danger?” He turned the ring slightly so that the elaborately engraved W could be seen on the side.
“Jesus, Marstowe, wha’d I tell y’bout the cards? ’Ave a care,” Rotham scolded his companion with a grunt.
The baron jerked his attention back to his hand, trying
to smooth the crushed cards.
King relaxed his grip on his walking stick, his hand stiff.
“Are you going to finish your game?” Adeline asked into the silence, sounding for all the world like a spoiled, bored debutante. “All this whispering is tiresome. I want to see who wins,” she complained.
King knew very well she had heard every word uttered.
“I’ll stay,” muttered Marstowe.
The dealer’s deft hands laid out a series of cards before her. An eight of spades, a five of clubs, a two of diamonds. She hesitated before turning over a final card. A six of spades. “Twenty-one,” she said.
Marstowe cursed loudly and smacked his cards on the table. He stood, his chair scraping back and toppling with a loud clatter. “Bloody fixed game,” he barked, pounding his fist on the two tens he had just discarded. He lunged unsteadily over the table in the direction of the dealer, who hadn’t moved. “Bloody cheatin’—”
He stopped abruptly, his eyes bulging.
Adrestia had stood as well, and King took a savage satisfaction in knowing that the steel of her blade was undoubtably pressed discreetly against the baron’s belly. Or possibly lower.
“You’re drunk, my lord,” Adrestia said clearly. “And lady luck has not graced you with her presence tonight. I think it’s best if you retire before good sense and honor desert you as well.”
A man dressed in Lavoie’s livery and roughly the size of an ox had started toward the table at the first sound of the disturbance, his expression set in thunderous, determined lines. He stopped, however, just shy of the table as the dealer held up her hand.
King estimated Marstowe had less than ten seconds before the ox man reduced him to an afterthought or the goddess of retribution ended her fact-finding mission early by simply running him through. King wondered if perhaps either of those possibilities wouldn’t be for the best.
The baron swayed and gripped the edge of the table, and Adrestia shifted, her blade vanishing back into her skirts.
“My lord?” Adrestia prompted.
“Take your friend home, Rotham,” King said coldly. “Before Alexander Lavoie discovers such a disappointing lack of judgment. He is somewhat fond of his vingt-et-un dealer and somewhat…unpredictable when it comes to cup-shot fools threatening her.”