by Trisha Telep
Chauncey did not want to remember what happened next. He let out a groan. He’d been a fool. He hadn’t understood the significance of what he’d been ordered to give. The angel had deceived him, tortured him, blinded him, taken away his will to speak for himself. Chauncey had given his oath to end a phantom pain. A few spoken words that had proved to be his undoing. Lord, I become your man.
He flung his arm across the desktop, sending ink bottles and a glass paperweight crashing to the floor. “Damn him!”
There was a disturbance in the shadows along the far wall.
Chauncey’s body went taut. “Who’s there?” he demanded, hoarse with rage.
He expected a sputtered apology from one of the servants, but instead a polished and feminine voice spoke.
“Back in town, Chauncey? And you hadn’t thought to pay me a visit?”
Chauncey breathed deeply through his nose and squared his shoulders. He tried to place the voice, thinking he should know it, but at present it escaped him. “You should have spoken up,” he said more composedly. “I would have had Boswell bring an extra glass with the wine.”
“I didn’t come here for a drink.”
Then what? he thought. “How did you get inside? Boswell?” But he couldn’t believe the butler would leave a strange woman inside Chauncey’s personal library unaccompanied. Not if he valued his employment.
“My key.”
Well, hell.
He dragged his hands down his face and attempted to sit again, but a sharp pain in his leg cut the movement short. “I never got that back, did I?” he said at last, finding it unfortunate that of all the things his memory could have failed him on tonight, Elyce wasn’t one of them.
They’d met in a hotel de passe; she was a dancer, the most exotic and venomous creature he’d ever seen. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen, which led him to believe she was a runaway. He’d wrapped his cloak around her and escorted her back to his home with less than a dozen words of introduction between them. She’d stayed at the château ... what? Eight weeks? Their affair had ended abruptly.
Elyce had revisited him often in the weeks following their breakup, demanding payment for something (a gown she insisted she’d left that he’d never returned, reimbursement for the carriages that had moved her belongings from the château, and eventually, just because), and he’d indulged her, secretly finding pleasure in her titillating company. Finally she’d disappeared altogether, and he’d seen nothing of her in two years.
Until now.
She picked up the glass paperweight off the floor and studied it with a bored expression. “I need money.”
He snorted in amusement. Always right to the point—particularly that point.
She slid him a look. “I want twice as much as last time.”
Now he laughed outright. “Twice? By God, what do you do with it all?”
“When should I expect it?”
Chauncey cringed as he stepped around the desk to blow out one of the lamps, which was inflicting a headache. “If you’d been this demanding when we were together, I might have respected you more.” She’d always been demanding; he was saying it now to take the upper hand in their banter. In a certain twisted way that he didn’t care to analyze, he enjoyed sparring with her. She was pushy, self-serving, and manipulative, but above all, entertaining.
She was a mirror of himself.
“Give me the money, and I’ll be on my way,” she said, running her finger along the top of a gilded frame and inspecting the dust. She was the picture of ease, all right, but she couldn’t look him in the eye.
Chauncey walked to the fireplace mantle and leaned into it; a favorite position of his for deep contemplation, though now he was propped against it for support. He tried to hide that fact. The last thing he needed was to fuel the curiosity burning in her eyes. He didn’t care to be reminded of the humiliating circumstances that had put his body in its present shape.
An image of chasing a carriage down the boulevards of Angers flashed up from his memory. He’d bounded onto the back of the carriage in an effort not to lose Jolie Abrams, the young woman he’d been following all night, but had lost his footing when his cloak became tangled in the wheels. He’d been dragged behind the carriage a good distance, and when he’d finally rolled free, he’d been half trampled by an oncoming horse.
Elyce cleared her voice. “Chauncey?” It sounded more like an impatient order than a polite reminder that she was waiting.
But Chauncey hadn’t fully shaken the memory. He’d spent a full week in Angers, searching out the seedier parts of the city where the angel was known to play cards in gambling houses or box in the streets—a modern alternative to dueling that was spreading across the whole of Europe. There was good money in it—if you could win. Chauncey had no doubt that the angel, with his arsenal of mind tricks, could.
It was while spying on the angel at one of these matches that Chauncey first laid eyes on Jolie Abrams. She might have been disguised in peasants’ clothes, her dark brown hair unpinned and loose, her pouty mouth laughing and downing cheap ale, but Chauncey wasn’t fooled. This woman had attended the ballet, the opera. Underneath the shabby clothes, her skin was clean and perfumed. She was a nobleman’s daughter. In the middle of his amused inspection of her, he saw it. A secret glance between her and the angel. The look of lovers.
His first impulse had been to kill her directly. Anything the angel valued, Chauncey longed to dash to pieces. But for reasons he wasn’t altogether sure of, he’d followed her. Watched her. He hadn’t headed back to the château until he’d lost her in the carriage. The entire trip home, he’d reshaped this startling revelation. The angel valued something physical. Something Chauncey could get his hands on.
How could he use this to his advantage?
“Do you mean to keep me waiting all night?” Elyce folded her arms and drew herself up a little taller. She lifted an eyebrow, or maybe both; half her face was turned away from the light and hidden in shadow.
Chauncey merely looked at her, willing her to shut up so he could think. What if ... what if he locked Jolie Abrams away in the château? The idea took him by surprise. He was a duc, the Lord of Langeais, a gentleman. He’d as soon plow his own fields than take a lady hostage. And yet there the idea was, rolling forward. The château had a myriad of towers, convoluted corridors, and ... dungeons. Let the angel try and find her. Chauncey sneered.
As a child, his stepfather had warned him of the fate of those who wandered beneath the château without a guide, and Chauncey had thought the tales the scare tactic of a man who relied on fear to discipline. Then, during one secret exploration of the musky tunnels beneath the kitchen, Chauncey stumbled across skeletal remains. The rats had scattered from under the bones at the sight of his torch, leaving Chauncey standing alone with the dead. He’d made it a point from that day on to keep to the above-ground parts of the château.
“You’ll get your money,” he told Elyce at long last. He looked over his shoulder at her. “Once you do something for me,” he said slowly.
Elyce tossed her hair back and jutted her chin. “Pardon?”
He nearly smiled. She was indignant. Heaven forbid she had to earn her keep. “Jolie Abrams,” he said, the idea of kidnapping flexing inside him.
Elyce narrowed her eyes. “Who?”
He turned, giving her his full attention. “The lover of an enemy,” he murmured, eying Elyce with newfound interest. If the angel caught scent of him, all would be lost. Which meant he needed a proxy. Someone capable of moving unnoticed under the watchful eye of the angel. Someone capable of securing Jolie Abrams’s trust. A woman.
“Then I feel sorry for her. You’re hardly one to treat your enemies kindly. I’ll expect my money by the end of tomorrow. Good night, Chauncey.” She turned, bustling away in a dress that was too lavish to be anything but a Coste original, and had, no doubt, been funded by his pockets.
Chauncey clenched the silver candlestick he’d been absently
stroking and hurled it through the air at her.
She must have heard the candlestick scrape against the mantle; she half turned and ducked under the hurled object, tripping backward into the sofa. Her whole expression blanched. She was scarcely breathing, and Chauncey smiled at the fine tremble vibrating through her.
He cocked his eyebrows in silent inquiry.
Shall we start again? he spoke to her mind, using one of the great and terrible powers that came with being the bastard son of a dark angel. He’d never met his real father, but his opinion of him was fixed in contempt. However, the powers he’d inherited from him were not altogether loathsome.
He watched a flick of confusion seize Elyce’s face as she grappled with the idea that he’d spoken to her thoughts. It was quickly replaced by denial. Surely he couldn’t have. It was impossible. She’d imagined it. It was a typical boring response that only irritated him further.
“Don’t be such a bully, Chauncey,” she said at last. “I’m not afraid of getting my hands a little dirty. What did you have in mind?”
She was trying hard to sound inconvenienced, but Chauncey could tell that underneath the well-practiced layers of her expression, she was more than a little worried of his answer. Of him. Her boldness had always been a cover for her fear.
“I want Jolie Abrams brought here. Before tomorrow night. You’ll have to hurry; she lives in Angers.”
“You want me to bring her here?” She blinked at him. “Why not just send a carriage for her?”
Send a carriage. Oh, certainly. With the family crest of Langeais blazed across the door. If that didn’t alert the angel, he didn’t know what would. “Tell her lies, make her promises, I don’t care. Just make sure she’s here before midnight.”
“And her lover?”
Chauncey made a disgusted gesture.
“Does he have a name?” Elyce pressed.
Chauncey nearly snorted. She wanted to know if the man was of stature and wealth. She’d turn on Chauncey for a generous sum. Elyce’s loyalties always went to the highest bidder.
“No,” was all Chauncey said, an image of the angel’s face darkening his mind.
“Surely he has a name, Chauncey.” She took a bold step toward him, laying her hand on his sleeve.
Chauncey retracted, locking his hands behind his back. “Meddling doesn’t become you, love.”
“I’m not your love.” She covered the frustration in her voice by injecting a new level of spite into it. “Do you have your eye on her, then? This Jolie. Do you wish her to be...” She trailed off, but Chauncey was perceptive enough to finish her sentence.
Do you wish her to replace me?
He smiled to himself. Ten seconds ago Elyce had despised him, but now that she feared he’d found someone to fill her void, she was suffocating in her own jealousy. She hadn’t completely hardened her heart to him, then.
“I could find him, you know,” Elyce said. “I could, and then what would you do? Kidnapping? They’d send you to prison!”
“I never said anything of kidnapping,” Chauncey said quietly.
“Oh but I know you, Chauncey.”
He grabbed her chin, wrenching her face up to meet his eyes. He was about to say something, but realized the rough gesture was more threatening than words. Let her fill the silence by imagining the worst.
She tossed her head to the side and stumbled back a step. Then she hurried toward the door, stopping at the threshold.
“After this, I’m through with you.”
“Delivering the girl will earn you half the money.”
She stared, momentarily dumbfounded. “ Half? ” she echoed, eyes flashing.
“Keeping an eye on her here at the château and making sure she doesn’t die under my roof will earn you the other half.” He didn’t want to bring down the full wrath of the angel—he merely wanted a bargaining chip. “I’ll pay in full when the job is finished.”
He saw her balk at the idea of a dozen consecutive days of labor. As if she had no concept of what he went through for the same period of time every year. And would again, unless he brought the angel to his knees.
“No,” she said.
Chauncey took a seat on the sofa’s armrest. He meant to speak pleasantly, but an undercurrent of warning slipped into his voice. “I doubt I need to remind you how I’ve come to your aid in the past. What do you think, love, will become of your future without me?”
“This is the last time,” she snapped.
He folded his hands loosely in his lap. “Always slinking back, begging for money. Always swearing this time it’s the last.”
“This time it is!”
He made a face of mock belief, which he could tell only infuriated her further. She might let him have the final word tonight, but it wouldn’t last. She’d come around sooner rather than later to trump him. He was already looking forward to it. She was a fiery nymph, standing before him in cream velvet that melted seamlessly into her translucent skin and pale hair. Only her icy blue eyes stood out. He found himself on the verge of being spellbound by her all over again. “Do we have an agreement?”
“Beware, Chauncey. I’m not a woman to be toyed with.” At that, she whirled back around, marching past Boswell, who jumped to life from his station just outside the door and jogged after her to try and reach the château’s doors first. He lost. The doors slammed, reverberating through the halls.
Chauncey smiled, despite the headache splitting his skull. He hated surprises, but Elyce’s unexpected visit tonight, well, he couldn’t have planned it better himself.
He’d be very surprised if Jolie Abrams wasn’t sitting prettily in this very room tomorrow evening.
***
The following evening, Chauncey was in his bed chamber, his valet dressing him in green velvet breeches and a matching waistcoat, when Boswell entered.
“Miss Cunningham and Miss Abrams are waiting in the library, Your Grace.”
“I’ll be down in a minute.”
Boswell coughed uneasily into his fist. “Miss Abrams is in a state of sleep.” He put a funny intonation on the word.
Chauncey turned to face his butler. “She’s sleeping in my library?”
“Heavily drugged, My Lord.”
Chauncey broke into a grin. Elyce drugged her? The nymph was even more imaginative than he remembered.
“Miss Cunningham said Miss Abrams offered resistance. Myself and two other servants carried her in. She’s dead to the world, pardon the expression.”
Chauncey thought on this a moment. He hadn’t expected her to arrive drugged, but it was of little consequence. She was here. His eyes swept to the window. The moon was high, the stars taunting in their brightness; midnight sneaked closer with every passing second. He’d planned on relishing the deep, lurid satisfaction that came from hearing Jolie scream as he dragged her deeper into the labyrinthine tunnels, damp with standing water, musty from the catacombs, but there wasn’t time to let the sedative wear off. He needed to get her into the bowels of the château before he left to meet the angel in the cemetery. There was much still to do: he had to map the way. He had to prepare provisions to last her a fortnight, just in case. He had to instruct Boswell and the other servants to stay away from the château. He wanted no one around to unwillingly help the angel—
Suddenly his impatience faded away. Knowing he was not the only one unable to control his own destiny tonight caused him a sudden wave of satisfaction.
In the kitchen, Chauncey lit a torch and opened the heavy door leading down to the cellar. The tunnels were still very much a mystery to him, despite all the years he’d lived in the château. He’d gone down once or twice since his last excursion as a child, and only to prove to himself he could—he was a grown man now, and not afraid of the invented monsters of his childhood.