by Laura Parker
Devlyn’s eyes narrowed slightly. “What sort of proof?”
“Your severed hand,” Hemphill offered, then hastily looked away from Devlyn’s harsh expression. “Grisly business. It was given a burial.”
“The hand still bore a ring, a large turquoise.” Winslow paused to clear his throat “Gossip said it had been stolen from the Zaman Shah himself … by the Hind Div.”
“What else is in the chest?”
“We don’t know,” Hemphill declared, for Devlyn’s tone was that of a man with a short leash on his temper. “ ’Pon oath!”
“It’s been in our safekeeping until such time as you seemed to require it.”
Something moved in Devlyn’s face, an emotion so terrible his companions glanced at one another in genuine alarm. “I require it now.”
“I’ll fetch it.” Winslow sprang to his feet.
“I’ll help.” Hemphill bounded to his feet with equal alacrity. “Who knows but it might trigger a memory or two.”
Devlyn watched them go, fighting the urge to stride after them so that he might put his hands on the chest all the sooner. Something held him back, something greater than the simple fear of the future. He felt the dread of the past dragging at his newfound joy.
Devlyn sat with his feet stretched out before him, a half-empty whiskey bottle at his elbow. Beside him lay an ornate turquoise and silver ring, a book of Persian poetry by Mullah Jami, and an unfolded letter. In the distance Big Ben struck ten of the clock. It was the hour to dine, dance, and visit the opera or theater. But he would not be going out this night. A rare and dangerous rage had him in its powerful grip. Even he was afraid of what might happen should he step outside his door.
The Hind Div was he!
Memory did not bolster that conclusion. Nor did feeling. The acceptance was more innate. Like his lost memory, he simply knew it was so.
Devlyn squeezed his eyes shut, not wanting to be distracted by his own view of the bleak world that was his room. Instantly there appeared before his mind’s eye a pair of dark eyes feathered by red-gold lashes so bright they seemed unreal. Serious eyes, honest eyes, eyes that had looked all the way into his soul and knew the truth that lay hidden from his own psyche. He had read the truth in Japonica Abbott’s gaze the first time she laid eyes on him but he did not recognize it. Her fear of him now had cause.
He was the Hind Div!
He came to feel the full revulsion of that truth by accident. It lay at the bottom of the box Winslow had handed over to him. Tucked into the leather binding of Joseph and Zuleika lay a thin piece of parchment that made the story damagingly complete.
He reached for it again, could not long keep from reading. In the last hours he must have read it a dozen times. But the words would not stick. The exact phrasing eluded his whiskey-soaked wits when he was away from it for more than two minutes together.
And so he picked it up and read it once again.
Dear Boy,
I have found for you a bride! Wondrous creature! She is that rarest of women: resourceful, levelheaded, and with a true loving heart. I send her to you for your approval. And then I shall borrow her back for a time. No doubt you’ve made an impression upon her to last a lifetime.
Until you are ready, she will be in my care.
But don’t make her wait too long, my proud young cock. I would not like to think of her shackled to a less-deserving man.
George Abbott
Below, scrawled in another hand was the name JAPONICA FORTNOM. Japonica Fortnom was meant to be his bride.
Even now with damning evidence before him he could not recall a single moment of the encounter that she had described to him the night before. He thought he had seen in her face what the admission cost her. Now he understood how miserably he had underestimated her courage. How could she tell her story to the villain in it and then listen to the very same man promise to help her overcome the greatest shame of her life?
Drugged her! She accused the Hind Div of that. This mysterious being who dealt in treachery and intrigue and guile and sorcery, must have found potions that served his purposes well. Too well.
Japonica’s wariness, her evasions, her resentments of him all made sense. In fact, every encounter they had shared made sense save one, the hours he had spent in her bed. That memory, not twenty-four hours old, seemed to hold out to him a promise of a future he had never imagined. Now he did not understand a single moment of it.
“Damnation!” He reached for the whiskey bottle and swallowed a good bit of its contents. The beating at his temples for once was welcome, for it served as a companion to his painful thoughts.
What sort of thinking allowed a woman to welcome her defiler to her bed? He could not doubt the anguish he saw in her eyes as she told him her story. No one could lie that well. But what contortions of mind had persuaded her to surrender—no, encourage him to lie with her?
He sat forward so fast his brain seemed to careen into the front inside of his skull, the impact creating radiant pain that made him gasp and swear again. But the salient fact survived even the pain. Perhaps Japonica Abbott had dared to beard the lion in his den because the lion did not know his own power over her. Defanged and unmasked by his lost recollection, what a pitiable creature he must seem to her after the terrifying spectacle he had once presented.
He had heard the talk among the officers on the voyage back to England of a foreign spy of such stealth, cunning, and treachery that some did not believe him wholly human. They did not even suspect that he was the man once known as the Hind Div. Even Hemphill and Winslow said they knew nothing—until after he was thought dead, after he was maimed and made useless in his former profession of spy.
Devlyn made a sudden violent movement with his right arm, as if he could dash away the torment building inside him. Useless! And pitiable, that’s what he was. So impotent that even a gently bred lady whom he had once dishonored felt so little awe that she could use his weakened state to extract an ingenious and most subtle form of revenge from him.
“Exorcising her demon!” The thought made him laugh, but it was hard, bitter laughter with regret and recrimination as its chaser.
A woman scorned. He had treated her badly even here in England, dismissing her first as a governess and then calling her to account for her poor showing as a woman. Could any demonstration of his blind arrogance be more damning than that? Only perhaps, that he could not even remember her. Yes, he could well believe her ripe for revenge. He wanted it, too. Against himself.
He was ready to call out her seducer! Her defiler! The Hind Div!
How cleverly she had arranged it all. How sweet her vengeance must taste. Best of all he could not even blame her for it She was a worthy opponent of the man he had once been.
He drank deep, trying to drown the feelings that stirred even in the depths of his humiliation. Despite all that he knew. In the face of reason and very good argument to the contrary, her vengeance was more complete than she might ever guess. For, last night, she had won from him his heart.
“Shall I stir the fire up again, my lady?”
Japonica shook her head. “No, Bersham, and you may retire for the night. I will shortly.”
The family retainer gave his mistress a small smile as the clock on the mantel struck the hour as one A.M. “An unavoidable detainment, no doubt.”
“No doubt,” she agreed dully. “Good night, Bersham.”
“Good night, my lady.”
Japonica stood up and walked purposefully across the room. She would find another reason to wear the gown she had bribed Madame Soti to sell her though it was pledged to another customer. There would be other nights for the opera. Other nights for a small quiet supper like the one that sat congealing amid the silver, crystal, china, and lace of the table she approached. London was full of the kind of sperm whale tapers that had burned so low they had begun to sputter as she reached out to snuff them with her fingers.
She stared at the wax that came away on her fingers. There would be a perfectly good explanation for Devlyn’s absence without even a note of regret. Something amiss, surely, yet reasonably explained. It would not be that she had made a fool of herself the night before. And that he, realizing it in the full light of day, had not known how to send his regrets and so remained silent even to her utter humiliation.
Could it be that she had made a dreadful mistake in believing that they had leapt some impossible hurdle as they lay in each other’s arms just before dawn? Would Jamie arrive in London to find no welcome at all from his sire?
“He has remembered!” The words escaped Japonica on a breath of horror.
Chapter Twenty
“She wants us to come to London.” Hyacinthe’s face shone with a rare smile of satisfaction. “We are to accompany her to an ‘at home’ with Lady Ouseley and another with Lady Hepple.”
She laid the letter aside, her expression forming thoughtful lines. “Father knew Lady Hepple. He spoke frequently of her botanical gardens. Her roses are judged to be among the finest examples in the world. If I am not mistaken, he brought her a new specimen from one of his voyages. To meet her would be splendid. To tour her gardens? Singular!”
“I refuse to go.” Laurel crossed her arms and shot her sister a dark glance. “This is another of her ruses. Nearly a fortnight and not a word? Now she needs us? It is a trick to lull us into the belief that she means well by us. She will merely use our presence as evidence of our support to advance herself in the world.”
Jerked from pleasant possibilities, Hyacinthe stared at her peevish sister. “I see no harm in being introduced to two of London’s hostesses. As you are at constant pains to point out, we must be known to exist before we can be introduced into society. I believe I shall take Lady Hepple a cutting from Father’s …”
“I cannot believe you are so easily taken in!” Laurel jumped to her feet and began pacing the morning room at Croesus Hall. “There is a trap in this for us. Or this is a bribe.”
“Bribe? For what possible purpose? We have nothing to hold over her but our dislike.”
“You would be astonished!” Laurel turned quickly from her sister as Hyacinthe’s brows peaked in a question.
She had not shared with anyone what she had discovered upon reading the letter stolen from Japonica. Hyacinthe had been so up in the boughs about the sin of theft that she had allowed her sister to believe she had delivered all five missives untouched. The shocking revelation contained in that purloined letter was too enormous to simply share with a sister. She had hugged it to her bruised pride, satisfied that a better moment would arrive when she might use it to smite the interloper in their midst.
Infuriation kindled in Laurel’s breast. She was losing her sisters as allies just when she needed them most. The ninnies had begun to speak of their step-mother in terms one could only label as endearing.
“Deserters!” she murmured. True, Cynara’s spots had begun to clear and Peony was louse-free for the first time in years. As for the regimen of bathing, it clearly had advantages. Her own complexion was smoother and brighter. And yes, it was nice to have a maid to boss and make demands upon, even if the stupid girl had not been successful in sneaking extra portions of meals up to Laurel’s room. But none of it was sufficient to quell the great rage she felt each time that Japonica’s name was mentioned.
It was not fair that she was in London receiving invitations that should rightly have come directly to Hyacinthe and herself. Surely any condescension shown their step-mama derived from the Shrewsbury name.
“Look what we have discovered!” Cynara burst into the room, all heels and petticoats. In her wake came Peony and Alyssum, looking apple-cheeked with December cold from their outing.
“Where have you been?” Hyacinthe demanded, for she had not given them permission to leave the house.
“To town, to see the vicar,” Peony supplied breathlessly.
“To bring clothes for the poor to be distributed at Christmas,” Alyssum added with a blush that deepened her high color.
“Never mind all that,” Cynara said impatiently. “We’ve the most delicious gossip to impart. The vicar himself was kind enough to point it out to us. You’ll never guess. There’s a drawing of the Mirza and our Miss in the pages of a London gazette!”
“She is not ‘our’ miss,” Laurel corrected crossly. “And what do you mean she is in the paper?”
“Well, not Miss precisely, but her likeness.” Cynara held out the Morning Post. “See what it says right there.”
Laurel snatched the tabloid from her sister and began to read the headlines. “There’s nothing here but columns about Parliament, the war, royal decree, stocks, agricultural reports, and shipping discharges. Nothing about her.”
“Look inside!” Peony danced on tiptoe. “Y-y-you will see.”
Laurel jerked open the paper so quickly it tore halfway down the middle. Something did catch her eye. There in the upper left-hand side was a drawing of a tall exotic-looking man in brocade robe and turban and bushy beard. Beside him was the merest sketch of a young lady whose features were so indistinct as to be unrecognizable. A quick scan of the rest of the pages yielded nothing else of interest.
“I see nothing here about her!” Laurel tossed the paper aside in disgust.
Cynara scooped up the paper. “Here it is, under the picture of the Persian ambassador. The column is about the Mirza being given a private audience by the King at St. James’s yesterday.” She cleared her throat as if about to deliver a formal oration. “It reads…”
His Excellency returned to his house, where the crowd was so extremely great that it was impossible for his Majesty’s footmen to get from the carriage, to open the carriage door, and knock at the house door; and had it not been for the vigilance of the Bow Street patrol, it would have been impossible to clear the doorway. The populace gave his Excellency three cheers again, upon his leaving the carriage.
“So what!” Scorn delineated every line of Laurel’s expression.
“There’s more. ‘On his Excellency’s return to Mansfield Street he invited Sir Gore Ouseley and Mr. Morier to partake of an entertainment called in the Persian language a Pillau…’ ” Cynara skipped a few lines. “Here it is. It says that among the frequent illustrious callers at Mayfield Street is the dowager viscountess Shrewsbury, formerly of Bushire, Persia. There!”
“Let me see that!” Laurel again snatched the paper and bent a hard stare on the article.
Peony reached under Laurel’s arm to point at the drawing. “That is Miss b-b-beside the Mirza. We recognized the b-b-barouche coat as the one Miss purchased at Madame S-S-Soti’s.”
“Let me see!” Hyacinthe poked her head forward over her sister’s shoulder and read the entire column for herself, clucking her tongue from time to time as she read it. “In the company of a heathen, our name attached to this—this …”
“The Post calls him a Noble Personage,” Cynara interjected. “Indeed, he is quite handsome.”
“He is a savage,” Laurel declared, though she had gazed at his likeness long enough to be certain he was quite a tall, well-built young man despite his odious beard. What a jolly good showing she would have made of it had she been there beside the ambassador instead of Step-mama.
Jealousy boiled in Laurel’s breast. She had made up her mind never to forgive Japonica for embarrassing her in front of her sisters over her appetite and dilatory performances on the piano. Resentment built against her stepmother for having stolen Lord Sinclair’s affections from under her nose. Now to think that she had won the interest of a second high-ranking gentleman—even if he was foreign!
That last thought was too much for her. All the resentments, humiliations, and impotent rage of the last weeks built into a crescendo of feeling as she cried out, “It will not serve! Papa’s name dragged about in the gazettes by that adventuress! I will see her brought low! I’ve the means to
do it. You will see.”
“What do you mean?” Cynara asked.
“You wouldn’t do anything t-t-to hurt Miss?” Peony questioned in alarm.
Realizing that she was giving quite too much of her private feelings away, Laurel drew herself up and squared her shoulders. “I do not confide in children. Hyacinthe? You are right We must go to London. Today, in fact.”
“And so it is with most of Almina’s friends.” Mrs. Hepple smiled indulgently at her youngest daughter. “Eugenia Fawnsworth is engaged to Lord Averley’s eldest son and Jane Simpson is known to be attached to the Carradine heir. The rest of our girls must look to themselves.”
“I thank you for your advice, Lady Hepple, as do my daughters,” Japonica said with a glance at Laurel who sat beside her with a cup of tea in one hand and a square of cake in the other.
“Think nothing of it.” Lady Hepple eyed the diminished tray and said a bit wearily, “Another cup of tea?”
The usual quarter-hour visit had been extended indefinitely, it seemed, by her son’s unexpected offer to show Miss Hyacinthe their newest hothouse collection. Lady Hepple had found herself in need of refreshment and so had gone against custom to order tea and cakes for her guests. Alas, her stream of acceptable conversation with strangers was running regrettably thin.
“You were saying, Lady Abbott, that you are new to London ways. Allow me to assure you that you have only to ask for my advice on all such matters pertaining to the debut of young ladies in society. I have launched two daughters successfully betimes. Almina will be my crowning achievement.” She smiled again at the pretty petite confection of a daughter who sat beside her with hands folded calmly in her lap.
“You are to be commended.” Japonica nodded at the Hepple’s youngest child. From the pale gold curls at her crown, past eyes so bright a blue they seemed painted, to the tips of her tiny feet, Almina Hepple embodied nearly every mother’s wish for a daughter. The picture was spoiled only by the complacent smile on the young lady’s lips that betrayed to the exact degree how well she understood and enjoyed her advantages.