A Proposition for the Comte

by Sophia James

  ‘Your husband stands right in the very centre of everything. He was a greedy and immoral man by all reports and had been watched by the Home Office here for the last year of his life. They suspected he had French sympathies, though I doubt even Mountford knew the extent that they were a blind for his own bottomless greed.’ He stopped for a moment and then went on. ‘But perhaps you did and, with your knowledge of gold markings and its properties, you helped him hide it. In ornaments at first and then...somewhere else.’

  ‘You are wrong. Everything you say is wrong.’ She hated him at that moment because she had expected so much else from him. Gentleness. Compassion. Thankfulness after a whole night of loving.

  ‘If I were to further guess at the truth of your fear, I’d say it’s because you weren’t the person who really killed Harland Addington in the stables. I imagine, however, it was you who then led the most difficult stallion into the stall. After doing that you would have gathered the murder weapon and, using the cover of darkness, thrown it as far as you could into the lake at the foot of the gardens before the manor.’

  The thought hit Violet then that Aurelian de la Tomber was like no other at all. No wonder he had walked through Europe unchallenged with a mind that could place all the small disparate variables of life into one whole and perfect pattern. Amaryllis’s future sat so firmly in the palm of his hand it made her feel sick.

  ‘You are wrong, my lord, in your summations and I want you to leave.’

  For now this was all that she had, this chance of distance. Two days till Amaryllis took ship to Rome. Forty-eight hours before her sister-in-law’s safety was assured.

  She was pleased when he tipped his head and did just as she had asked.

  * * *

  Aurelian watched Cummings’s house for the rest of the night, perched in the space between a stone wall and a small evergreen. He’d learned how to sit still and focus for as many hours as he needed to, a training honed in the harsher war zones of Napoleon’s push into Spain. To block everything out, except for specific visual and observation skills, required effort. With such a quiet and solitary life, he often felt others saw only the danger in him, the softer parts lost in the expectations of intelligence.

  He blocked out the fury of Violet’s untruths. Sex was a double-edged sword after all, for it cleaved the body together while leaving the mind open to question.

  Why had she offered her body to him yesterday and why had he come into her arms with such relief? The light around her was a part of it, that he knew, but there was also distrust burning between them. Untruth had a certain sound and he’d heard it many a time.

  He’d peered in the downstairs window, too, before he had climbed the vine and noticed that the ornament was gone, another ivory bust in its place. The portrait of Harland had been replaced, as well, a peaceful rural scene resting in its stead.

  She’d been prickly and distant tonight, but she was also as sensual as hell. The nightgown she had been wearing hugged her bosom, outlining generous breasts and a thin waist. It had been an effort to look away and then leave when all he had wanted to do was take her and be damned any consequences. He shook his head at the thought and concentrated on the job at task.

  * * *

  Having slept in fifteen-minute quotas, he woke into stillness and in the very early morning the door to Cummings’s quarters opened and a woman stepped out. Alone. A carriage collected her, a conveyance with two well-bred horses, a driver and a footman. Every detail was noted. Her dark hair, the walk, her voice as she bade the man on the box to take her home.

  The time of departure pointed to a liaison and her face was imprinted on his mind as he sifted through memory. Peter Flavell had mentioned a woman of means in the company of Miller. The dice rolled into place. Too many clues to be simply chance, for he was sure that this was Mrs Antoinette Herbert and he would visit her later in the day. It was past time to break this game wide apart to see in which direction the rats scurried for cover.

  * * *

  Aurelian took a hackney to the house in Kensington in the early afternoon after a quick snatched hour of sleep.

  Mrs Herbert was sitting in her downstairs parlour, drinking a fine brandy, when he was shown through by her butler. She was not as young as he might have thought initially and she did not look in the slightest bit surprised as he gave her his name.

  ‘You expected me?’

  ‘I had heard you were here in London and I imagined you might visit.’

  ‘It’s your association with Stephen Miller I hold interest in, Mrs Herbert. You went to see him in gaol? Why?’

  ‘He was a lover.’ She sat back at that and laughed. ‘I have shocked you, I think.’

  His eyes ran across the pages on her desk filled with writing and he shook his head.

  ‘It takes a lot to shock me, madam.’

  What was she telling him? There were things here he could not quite decipher.

  ‘Why are you here?’

  Her expression changed with these words, the blue eyes darkening and the lines around her mouth much more noticeable. Not a beauty, but handsome none the less. Placing her question aside, he countered with one of his own.

  ‘Where is it you were born?’

  ‘In Normandy and I have heard your name mentioned on many different occasions, Comte de Beaumont, though some of the rumours are not so favourable.’ She sat up and took a large sip of her brandy.

  ‘I remember your name, from before, too. You are a supporter of Napoleon Bonaparte and you hold out the hope of French supremacy in Europe.’

  ‘I was told you were quick.’

  ‘Were you also told what brings me here?’

  ‘I imagine it is to trace the lost French gold? Perhaps I should tell you right now that I was one of those who contributed to its largesse.’

  ‘A close association, then, considering you were Lord Addington’s lover, too.’

  This time the blood left her face and she stood with all the care of someone who needed a table to support them.

  ‘Viscount Addington was a fool and his untimely death was not such a surprise.’

  ‘Because without him you could reclaim the gold for Napoleon? You knew where some of it was, after all, and if getting your hands on it required another lover, then...’ He left the implication hanging.

  ‘Politics makes mockery of the small vanities of men.’

  ‘And your beliefs are the only legitimate ones?’ He laughed even as he meant not to, but fools like Antoinette Herbert had filled the greater part of his life in intelligence and he was tired of it.

  ‘I will give you a warning first, Mrs Herbert. Any further attempts on the life of Lady Addington will be met by me with a response that you could never recover from.’

  ‘Get out.’

  ‘With pleasure.’

  He left and walked all the way to Green Park, needing the cold and the silence and the empty landscape to calm down his anger.

  Antoinette Herbert had a part in the deaths and threats and violence, he was certain of it. She could have had no direct part in the killing of George Taylor, for she had not left the city boundaries since the second week of January, the day after he was shot.

  The cards were forming a pattern and the haphazard facts were falling into shape. He would have her watched and she would know of it, a quiet message of intent in such surveillance.

  Mrs Herbert liked jewellery, her neck embellished by two strands of heavy gold and both wrists and ears sporting more. Her brandy was French. Illegally procured given the customs ban on such goods and he knew this vintage had only been cleared from the maker in the last year.

  The picture was building and widening out.

  A house newly painted. Clothes of the latest fashion. The sweat beading on her upper lip when he had mentioned the name of Viscount Addington. That had been a guess and a good one, too.
There were other things he might have mentioned, as well.

  Albert Herbert, her husband, had died in suspicious circumstances, falling from a horse on the road north of Lyon. Since then she had enjoyed an array of disparate lovers. A woman who gathered men to her like a black widow spider, spinning nets around opportunities.

  A woman who might use her lovers as bait as she tried to hide a cache of hidden gold? She’d told him she had been one of the contributors in the attempt to oust a legitimate English Government.

  A dangerous confession that seemed out of place and foolish. But Antoinette Herbert was no dullard and he would have to watch her carefully.

  Chapter Eight

  Violet saw Aurelian at a ball the day after Amaryllis had gone. Her guards were all still in place so that she knew he had not abandoned her entirely which was gratifying. The want and ache of her body for him wasn’t ebbing, but growing to a proportion where she could think of nothing else save him being inside her again. She was swollen with the need, breathless with it sometimes, all the moments of each day focused on appearing normal and sane.

  Had he made her crazy with his instructions on the intimate arts? She longed for moonlight and nakedness and the way he took her mouth under his to make her forget the world and yet thought perhaps it would never happen again.

  ‘You are pensive tonight, Violet. I heard your sister-in-law has gone on an extended visit to Italy. Do you miss her?’

  Antonia MacMillan next to her asked the question softly.

  ‘I do. The house seems very empty without her and the boys.’

  ‘You did not think to go with them?’

  ‘I mulled it over and then decided now was not quite the right time.’ Perhaps she should have simply cut her ties and left. Perhaps it was unwise, all this futile hope of something more between her and Aurelian de la Tomber, especially given the anger between them that seemed as prevalent as the lust.

  Gregory MacMillan had come to stand beside them, his stock tied in a fashion that looked most complicated.

  ‘I hope that you will, as the most beautiful woman in the room, dance with me this evening, Lady Addington.’

  Antonia admonished him with her fan. ‘I am not sure how to take that dismissal, brother. Were I more sensitive I might now never speak to you again.’

  The arrival of a small group at the far end of the salon caught everyone’s attention. Aurelian de la Tomber flanked by the Lords Luxford and Thornton had people turning.

  Tonight the waistcoat and jacket he wore were embroidered in fine black thread to create a pattern across the wool. He was a man whose ancient and aristocratic lineage showed across every line in his face and body and so very different from the one who had smiled down at her on her bed at her town house, his naked body bathed in moonlight.

  She knew he saw her, though he did not come closer, a tight bunch of people in his vicinity keeping them talking.

  Perhaps it was best that way after the fiasco in the park. The Earl of Thornton and Viscount Luxford were men of reputation in their own right and any gossip about Aurelian would as likely founder with the strength of their family ties supporting him. Perhaps that was why he had come, for surely of all men he would know how to use and sway society with ease.

  * * *

  It was a good half an hour later when Summerley Shayborne approached her. She had met both him and his beautiful wife at one or two of the smaller private social soirées earlier in the Season. Rumour had it that they had escaped back to Luxford Manor in Sussex as soon as was feasible and seldom left the place. The Major had been lauded on the Continent for being irreplaceable as Sir Arthur Wellesley’s first officer of intelligence and as such he was a hero here in England of the very first degree.

  Up close he was as tall as Aurelian and almost as beautiful.

  ‘It is a pleasure to meet you again, Lady Addington. I hear you know my friend, Aurelian de la Tomber. It seems you have made quite an impression upon him.’

  She blushed, something she could rarely remember doing before.

  Antonia was observing her strangely, her eyes questioning, and Violet felt as if all the lies she had built to stand on were suddenly shattering beneath her feet.

  Since arriving in London she had been in control of everything, showing others only what she wanted them to see. People liked her, admired her even, her resilience lauded and remarked upon.

  No one understood the demons that lived inside and the constant nervous worry. The worry of being found out and pulled up before the courts, the wife of a man who was anything but careful in his dealings outside of the law. The worry, too, of losing even the roof over her head and no one else in the world to truly ask for help.

  ‘The Comte saved my life in Hyde Park four days ago. Did he tell you that?’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘The thing is, my lord, that I think he has placed himself in danger by doing so.’

  Shayborne laughed at this. ‘If anyone can handle danger, I imagine it would be him.’

  Other women had joined the group around Aurelian now, each more beautiful than the last, Antonia among them. ‘It seems that you may be right, Lord Luxford, for he has no shortage of admirers here.’

  The Viscount looked straight at her, which was disconcerting. ‘I hear you also saved him a few weeks back from freezing to death one cold and snowy night?’

  ‘Well, perhaps it was not quite as dire as you say.’ She could feel Gregory MacMillan at her back, listening. ‘I picked him up outside the Barringtons’ ball and delivered him home.’

  Shayborne tipped his head and smiled.

  ‘He is a man who needs good friends, I think, and I am gladdened that you are one.’

  With that he moved off, with an air of solidness and certainty. As people watched him she wondered just exactly what his wife, Celeste, was like under the surface, for she could not imagine the Viscount with anyone ordinary.

  Moving herself, she made for the side of the room to glance out of the tall and balconied windows hung tonight with wreaths of greenery. She knew the second that Aurelian joined her, a heightened sense of excitement coursing through her body as she saw his reflection in the window.

  Out of the earshot of the others he leaned down across her. ‘I hope you are well, Lady Addington?’

  The formality of her name made her frown.

  ‘I think I have been better, my lord.’ She was tired of pretending. ‘I had heard that you’d left town altogether.’

  ‘Hardly.’

  She suddenly did not know quite how to handle this. His arm touched hers where they stood, the shock of connection burning across uncertainty.

  ‘I missed you.’ His words. Unexpected.

  All the people around them simply fell away, into the mist. It was as if it was only they and the music floating around the room.

  ‘I missed you, too.’

  She could not hold it in, this honesty that admitted far too much.

  The tune swirled, the colours of silks and satins blending. Her own dress was part of it, as well, the lace was embellished with something she herself had sewn on just last night. Aurelian’s hand pressed against the small of her back and she could feel each finger there.

  ‘Would you dance with me?’

  When she nodded he led her on to the floor. She could feel a wave of notice all around her, the buzz of conversation loud. His hand came into hers then as he brought her around to face him.

  ‘My sister-in-law departed for Italy yesterday.’

  He breathed out hard. She could feel the air against the top of her head even as he said nothing.

  Come tonight and find me, Aurelian. Come and show me all the things that you did before.

  ‘You will be safe alone. I have seen to it.’

  Only this. Disappointment blossomed.

  * * *

  Why the
hell had he just told her he missed her? It had slipped out unbidden as soon as he had touched her arm, her aloneness worrying him.

  She wore the same dress he had seen her in when she had picked him up off the road in Brompton Place, but this time a different lace had been sewn across the bodice. He could make out the catch of stitches in the light. A new question. A further oddness. If Violet had been the one to hide a veritable fortune in gold, she would hardly need to be so penny pinching in her choice of clothing.

  God, the questions kept coming and now here in the most unlikely of settings came a new realisation that even if she were the perpetrator behind the lost gold he would protect her.

  From everyone.

  ‘Did you find out more of George Taylor?’ Her query startled him.

  ‘His luggage was stolen on the road south after he left Chichester. A robbery would allow his death some sense. Gold, while heavy, is still a portable fortune and, should you wish, easy to hide away from the notice of others.’

  ‘Are you implying someone has?’

  He began to laugh. ‘If they have, my advice to them would be to mind their backs. The French gold has made corpses of many so far, but people always leave clues. In my job it’s one of the first things you ever learn.’

  * * *

  Violet thought that his eyes looked like a hawk angling for its prey and she shivered with the realisation.

  The camaraderie in her bedroom at the town house in Chelsea seemed replaced by a more brittle regard and a wariness that held the scent of suspicion. His body was like a stringed instrument tuned in to danger, every small nuance noted and vibrating against truth.

  Had he learnt something of Harland’s proclivity to hurt others? Could he have found out more of her husband’s death in the stables of Addington or of her part in it? There had been a misstep between them, but she could not quite understand where it had happened.