by Amanda Quick
The sound of his voice made her lose her faltering concentration. Venetia blinked. The world reverted to its normal hues and colors.
“You’re alive,” she whispered.
“Yes, I am, as a matter of fact,” Gabriel said. “I can see that the news has come as an unpleasant shock to you. Forgive me, but speaking personally, I must admit to being somewhat relieved under the circumstances.”
Everything in her was urging her to throw herself into his arms, to touch him and inhale his scent; to revel in the glorious knowledge that he really was alive. But she was paralyzed by the enormity of the disaster that loomed.
She swallowed hard. “The notice in the press—”
“Contained some factual errors. Never believe everything you read in the papers, Mrs. Jones.”
“Dear heaven.” Pulling herself together with an effort of will, she managed to reach the desk. She sat down hard in the chair. She could not take her eyes off him. He was alive. “I must tell you, sir, that I am delighted to learn that you are in good health.”
“Thank you.” He remained where he was, silhouetted against the window. “Forgive me, madam, but I feel that, under the circumstances, I must ask if you are…well?”
She blinked. “Yes, of course. I, too, am quite fit, thank you.”
“I see.”
Was that disappointment she heard in his voice?
“Did you expect to find me unwell?” she asked, baffled.
“I was concerned that there might have been some repercussions from our earlier association,” he said gravely.
Belatedly it dawned on her that he had wondered if she was pregnant. She turned very warm and then quite cold.
“I suppose you are wondering why I borrowed your surname,” she mumbled.
“I can certainly understand why you decided to set up in business as a widow. It was a shrewd decision, given Society’s attitudes toward unmarried females. But yes, I will admit to some curiosity concerning precisely why you chose to use my last name. Was it simply a matter of convenience?”
“No.”
“Was it because you concluded that Jones was such a common name no one would notice the connection?”
“Not entirely.” She gripped a pen very tightly in her right hand. “Actually, I made the choice for sentimental reasons.”
His dark brows rose. “Indeed? But I thought you just implied that there was no need to conceal anything of a personal nature.”
“It was your decision to employ me to photograph the collection at Arcane House. The generous fee that I received for that project allowed us to open our gallery here in London. I thought that taking your name would be a fitting tribute, as it were.”
“A tribute.”
“A very private, very personal tribute,” she emphasized. “No one outside the family knows about it.”
“I see. I can’t recall that anyone has ever before seen fit to honor me for merely having seen to it that a bill was paid in advance.”
His low, dark, resonant voice sent a chill of awareness through her. He did not sound amused.
She put the pen down on the blotter, sat forward and folded her hands. “Mr. Jones, please believe me when I tell you that I sincerely regret this entire situation. I am very much aware that I had absolutely no right to appropriate your surname.”
“Appropriate is an interesting word under the circumstances.”
“However,” she said, plowing on, “I must point out that the problem that appears to have arisen here would never have occurred in the first place if you had refrained from giving a somewhat detailed interview to that correspondent from the Flying Intelligencer.”
“Otford?”
“May I ask why you spoke with him? If you had kept quiet, we could have passed this off with no one being the wiser. There are a number of Joneses in the world. No one would have made a connection between the two of us.”
“Unfortunately I fear we cannot depend upon that assumption.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.” She unclasped her hands and spread them wide. “If you had not spoken to the press no one would have paid the least attention to a coincidence in names. Unfortunately, you saw fit to declare to that reporter that you were looking forward with fervent enthusiasm to being reunited with your wife, the photographer.”
He nodded. “Yes, I believe I did say something to that effect.”
“No offense, sir, but I must ask you why, in the name of all that is sane and reasonable, you did such a feather-brained, mutton-headed, doltish thing? Really, what were you thinking?”
He studied her for a moment. Then he crossed the room to stand directly in front of her, looming over the desk in a most unsettling manner.
“I was thinking, Mrs. Jones, that you have greatly complicated my life and in the process quite possibly put yourself in mortal danger. That is what I was thinking.”
She sat back very quickly. “I don’t understand.”
“Is it the word complicated or the word danger that defeats you?”
Her cheeks burned. “I fully comprehend the meaning of the word complicated, especially given the context.”
“Excellent. We are making some progress.”
She frowned. “What is this about my being in danger?”
“That aspect of the matter is also complicated.”
She flattened her shaking hands on the blotter. “Perhaps you would be so good as to explain yourself, sir.”
He exhaled heavily, turned and walked back toward the window. “I will try, although it will take some time.”
“I suggest you go straight to the heart of the matter.”
He stopped and looked out into the tiny garden. “Do you recall the night you departed Arcane House via the secret tunnel?”
“I am hardly likely to forget the incident.” A thought struck her. “Which reminds me, since you are obviously alive, who was the man whose body was found in the museum? The one the housekeeper and coachman identified as Gabriel Jones.”
“He was one of the intruders you spotted moving through the woods that night. I regret to say the other one got away, although he did not succeed in making off with the relic that he and his companion had planned to steal. The artifact was heavy, you see. It would have required two men to carry it.”
“The notice in the newspaper mentioned that there was an accident in the museum,” she ventured. “Something to do with a heavy stone artifact falling on the unfortunate victim, as I recall.”
“I believe that was the way the death was reported, yes.”
“I don’t understand. Why did the Willards identify the dead intruder as you?”
“The staff at Arcane House is very well trained,” Gabriel said expressionlessly. “And very well paid.”
The servants had lied, she thought. Another icy shiver trickled down her spine. She felt as though she were wading into very deep, very dark waters. She did not really want to know any more about the secrets of the Arcane Society. But in her experience, blissful ignorance of a potential problem had a variety of unpleasant consequences.
“Can I assume that there was no fire and that no artifacts were destroyed, either?” she asked.
“There was no blaze and the relics are all in excellent condition, although many have been moved into the Great Vault for safekeeping.”
“What did you hope to accomplish by letting it be known in the press that you were the one who was killed?” she asked.
“The intent was to buy some time and confound the villain who sent those two men to Arcane House. It is an ancient strategy.”
“I would have thought that going after villains was a job for the police.”
He turned his head and gave her his cryptic smile. “Surely you learned enough about the eccentricities of the Arcane Society to realize that the very last thing the members would wish to do is involve the police in the society’s affairs. Tracking down the villain is my task.”
“Why would the society select you to perform such an inve
stigation for them?” she demanded suspiciously.
His mouth twisted in a humorless smile. “You could say that I inherited the problem.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Believe me, Mrs. Jones, I am very aware of that fact. Unfortunately, in order to bring you to a full realization of the danger you may be facing, I am going to have to tell you some of the Arcane Society’s most closely guarded secrets.”
“Frankly, sir, I would rather you didn’t.”
“Neither of us has any choice. Not now that you have elected to call yourself Mrs. Jones.” He studied her with his sorcerer’s eyes. “We are man and wife, after all. There should be no secrets between us.”
She felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her lungs. It took her a few seconds to collect herself and find her voice.
“This is not an appropriate moment in which to indulge your obviously warped sense of humor, sir. I want an explanation and I want it immediately. I deserve that much.”
“Very well. As I said, I more or less inherited this situation.”
“How did that come about?”
He began a slow prowl of the room, halting in front of one of the two framed photographs that hung on the wall. He examined the picture of the dark-haired woman first and then turned to the portrait of the robust, larger-than-life man.
“Your father?” Gabriel asked.
“Yes. He and my mother died a year and a half ago in a train accident. I took both pictures shortly before they were killed.”
“My condolences.”
“Thank you.” She paused meaningfully. “You were saying?”
He resumed his prowl. “I told you that I was in pursuit of the individual who sent the intruders into Arcane House.”
“Yes.”
“I did not tell you what it was those men went there to steal.”
“One of the more valuable artifacts, I assume.”
He stopped, turned and looked back at her. “The exceedingly odd aspect of this affair is that the relic those men tried to take was not considered particularly valuable in either a scholarly or a monetary sense. It was a heavy, two-hundred-year-old strongbox. Perhaps you remember it. The lid was inset with a sheet of gold inscribed with a design of herbal leaves and a passage in Latin.”
She sifted through her recollections of the many disturbing items in the society’s collection that she had photographed. It was not difficult to recall the strongbox.
“I remember it,” she said. “You said that it wasn’t considered particularly valuable but what about the gold in the lid?”
He shrugged. “It is only a thin sheet.”
She cleared her throat. “No offense, Mr. Jones, but such things are relative. Gold is gold, after all. The box may have appeared far more valuable to a poor, hungry thief than it does to you or the other members of the society.”
“A thief intent only on financial gain would have tried to take one of the smaller, gem-encrusted artifacts, not a box so heavy it requires two men to lift it.”
“I see what you mean,” she said slowly. “Well then, perhaps the thief assumed there was something of great value inside the strongbox.”
“The box was empty and unlatched because the object that had once been housed inside was stolen several months ago.”
“Forgive me, Mr. Jones, but it would seem that the society has a rather serious problem guarding its antiquities.”
“I must admit that lately that does appear to be the case whenever I’m involved.”
She elected to ignore that strange remark. “What was originally stored in the strongbox?”
“A notebook.”
“That’s all?”
“Believe me, I am as puzzled as you are,” he said. “Let me explain. The box and the notebook it protected were part of the contents of a secret laboratory built by a notorious alchemist who lived in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The alchemist died inside his hidden room. The location was lost for two centuries. Eventually the laboratory was discovered and excavated.”
“How was it discovered?” she asked.
“Two members of the society succeeded in deciphering some coded letters that the alchemist wrote shortly before he disappeared into his laboratory for the last time. In the letters there were hints and clues that were eventually pieced together.”
“These two members of the society you just mentioned,” she said. “Were they the ones who excavated the laboratory?”
“Yes.”
“One of those two people was you, wasn’t it?” she guessed.
He stopped his restless prowling and looked at her. “Yes. The other man is my cousin. We were inspired to carry out the project because the alchemist is a family ancestor. He also happens to be the founder of the Arcane Society.”
“I see. Go on.”
“The alchemist was convinced that he possessed some psychical talents. He spent years working on a formula to enhance those abilities. He was, in fact, obsessed with his research. He indicated in some of his last letters that he was close to perfecting his formula.” Gabriel moved one hand slightly. “My cousin and I suspect that was what was in the notebook that was stolen out of the strongbox.”
“For heaven’s sake, what person with any common sense would be so foolish as to believe that an alchemist who lived two centuries ago had actually developed a formula for enhancing psychical talents?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “But I can tell you this much. Whoever he is, he was willing to kill for that damned formula.”
Another chill iced her spine. “Someone was murdered because of this ancient notebook?”
“One of the workmen who helped pack the crates containing the contents of the laboratory was evidently bribed to take the notebook out of the strongbox and deliver it to someone. The workman’s body was later found in an alley. He was killed with a knife.”
She swallowed hard. “How dreadful.”
“My cousin and I spent a considerable amount of time trying to find out who had bribed the workman and murdered him but the trail went cold almost immediately,” Gabriel continued. “Then, three months ago those two men came to Arcane House and attempted to steal the strongbox.”
“I don’t understand. If the thief already possesses the alchemist’s notebook, why would he take the risk of sending men into Arcane House to steal the box in which it had been stored?”
“That, Mrs. Jones, is an excellent question,” Gabriel said. “One to which I do not yet have the answer.”
“There appear to be a great many unanswered questions here, sir.”
“There are, indeed. And I fear that if I do not find the answers soon, someone else may die.”
8
THE NEWS HAD a pronounced effect upon her vivid, expressive face. Venetia was clearly appalled. Gabriel regretted the necessity of frightening her, but it was for her own good. He had to make her understand that the situation was extremely serious.
Her brows snapped together. “Where is your cousin, the person who assisted you in the excavation?”
“Caleb was called back to his ancestral home on vital family business. I’m afraid it is up to me to finish the task of tracking down the notebook and the person who stole it.”
She cleared her throat. “No offense, sir, but have you had any experience in this sort of thing?”
“Not a great deal. This sort of problem doesn’t come up much at Arcane House. I am a scholar and researcher by training, not a detective.”
She sighed. “I see.”
It was so exquisitely satisfying to be in her presence again, he thought. She was even more spectacularly compelling than she had been in his dreams these past months. The fashionably cut black gown she wore was no doubt meant to throw up a forbidding barrier to intimacy, but to his mind it created a startlingly sensual effect instead.
The tight bodice of the gown was cut in a square that framed her graceful breasts. The snug fit emphasized the sleek, enticing curves of her
waist and hips. The skirt was hooked up, revealing a glimpse of ankle. The dainty bustle added a discreetly provocative touch.
He realized that, for all her photographer’s sensibilities, she was blissfully unaware of the exotic, seductive challenge she posed dressed in the colors of night.
Some men might be put off by the feminine resolve and determination that she radiated, he thought. But those characteristics aroused him as surely as the sight of that shapely little ankle.
“What progress have you made in tracking down the thief?” she asked.
She was obviously suspicious of the extent of his abilities in that line, he thought.
“I regret to say that I am not much closer to a resolution now than I was on the night the thieves attempted to steal the box from Arcane House,” he admitted.
She closed her eyes briefly. “I was afraid of that.”
“For the past three months my cousin and I have been operating under the theory that the attempted theft was engineered by a member of the Arcane Society who has managed to conceal his identity. But I am starting to question even that basic assumption. Unfortunately, if someone outside the society is involved, I am dealing with a much larger pool of potential suspects.”
“It cannot be too large. I doubt if there is a vast number of people who even know about your alchemist, let alone that his laboratory was discovered and excavated. Even fewer would give a penny for a two-hundred-year-old notebook.”
“I can only hope you are right.” He held her eyes, willing her to comprehend the severity of the situation. “Venetia, I must tell you that I am not at all happy with the knowledge that you have become involved in this affair.”
“I am not greatly enchanted by the information myself. As you will have noticed, I have a business to pursue, Mr. Jones. I cannot afford to become enmeshed in a scandal involving alchemy, murder and a dead husband who has shown the extremely poor taste to come back from the grave. I could be ruined. If I am ruined, my family will also be ruined. Do you comprehend me, sir?”
“Yes. I give you my word that I will do my best to protect your reputation until this matter is concluded, but do not ask me to walk away from you or this household. There is too much danger involved.”