Sweet Revenge

by Andrea Penrose

  “Thank you,” he croaked, slowly levering to his feet.

  “De rien,” muttered Arianna, wiping her red-stained fingers on the remains of her smock. “You saved my life earlier. Now we are even.”

  She quirked a sardonic smile, but realized her hands were shaking uncontrollably. Clasping them to her mutilated belly, she slanted a look at the lifeless body. “Oh, merde.” Her words were barely a whisper. “Now I am really in the suds.”

  Saybrook bent down and pressed a finger to the man’s throat. “The fellow is dead,” he confirmed after several long moments.

  Arianna blinked. “I . . . You . . . you are hurt,” she said, eyeing his slashed trousers, the fringes of charcoal wool now black with blood.

  “Just a scratch,” he replied. Sitting back on his haunches, he slowly peeled the mask from the corpse’s face.

  “Merde,” she muttered again, echoing her earlier epithet. It seemed exactly the right word to sum up her sentiments.

  “Do you recognize him?” he asked.

  Arianna nodded grimly.

  “So do I.” But before he could elaborate, the hurried thump of boots upstairs warned that all hell was about to break loose.

  How long had it been since the first shot? A few minutes at most, she calculated.

  “Bolt the door,” he suddenly ordered.

  Arianna hesitated.

  “Quickly, goddamn it! ” He rushed to the window and checked the back garden. Seemingly satisfied, he turned. “Then hide in the pantry. Don’t make a sound.”

  At the moment, he seemed like the lesser of two evils, so she decided to do as she was told.

  Tucking the mask in his pocket, Saybrook hurriedly retrieved the pistols and dropped them close by the body. Gritting his teeth, he yanked the knife from the dead man’s back and rolled the body over. “God forgive me,” he muttered, cutting several quick jabs into the fast-cooling flesh before lodging the blade between two ribs.

  What was he doing? she wondered, casting a sidelong glance at the macabre scene.

  After reordering a few of the other fallen objects, Saybrook rose awkwardly to his feet.

  “Open up! Open up!” A fist pounded on the kitchen entrance, rattling the locked latch.

  “I’m coming!” Glancing down at his bloodied trousers, Saybrook gave a wry grimace. “I won’t have to exaggerate my own ineptitude,” he added under his breath.

  Shooting back the bolt, he flung the door open. “Don’t just stand there,” he snarled at the four guards who were staring in bewilderment at the carnage. “The chef has escaped. I tried to stop him but the damned fellow is as skilled as a butcher. You and you”—he jabbed a finger at the two closest men—“go after him. He fled through the garden. But have a care—he’s armed and dangerous.”

  As the pair headed off in pursuit, Saybrook quickly turned to the remaining men.

  Crouched in the darkness, Arianna listened to his orders, growing more mystified by the moment. He was saving her from the wolves. But why?

  Through a crack in the door, she saw Saybrook grab the nearest man by the arm. “I want you to carry a message to Mr. Basil Henning, at number six Queen Street—and do it with all haste,” he barked. “Tell him that Lord Saybrook needs to see him immediately, but say nothing of what has happened. You are to wait and escort him back here. Understood?”

  “Yes, milord!”

  Milord? She frowned, feeling even more disoriented.

  Saybrook waved the man on his way, and then addressed the last man. “And you are to remain with the Prince Regent. Lock yourself in his chamber, draw the curtains, and admit no one until I come and tell you otherwise.” He paused for a fraction. “Is that clear?”

  The man snapped a salute.

  “Go!” he ordered.

  Drawing a deep breath, Saybrook waited for several long moments before approaching the pantry. He opened the door a touch more but did not enter. “I assume you have female clothing hidden in your room.”

  “Yes,” answered Arianna in an equally low voice.

  “Get dressed. And pack up any traces of your disguises,” he said curtly. “Be quick about it. When the moment comes, we will have to move fast. In the meantime, stay quiet as a church mouse.”

  Arianna didn’t waste any time with questions. Gliding past him with quick, silent steps, she slipped into the shadows of the bedchamber.

  “Who the devil are you?” he growled.

  “I could ask the same of you, sir.”

  He made a face. “A far more pressing question for both of us, Miss Smith, is why Major Crandall, late of the Horse Guards and Lord Grentham’s senior staff, is lying dead on the kitchen floor.”

  6

  From the chocolate notebooks of Dona Maria Castellano

  Oh, how I had to laugh when I found another old journal in which the writer debated whether it was Columbus or Cortez who brought the first cacao beans to Europe. My research leads me to agree with his conclusions that Columbus had little interest in chocolate. But a far more delicious discovery was that English pirates who preyed on the Spanish treasure fleets sailing from the New World once burned an entire cargo of cacao beans, thinking they were sheep turds! Sandro will find that story greatly amusing. . . .

  Mini Brownie Cupcakes

  4 sticks unsalted butter, cut into pieces

  8 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped

  1¾ cups all-purpose flour

  ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (preferably

  Dutch-processed)

  ½ teaspoon salt

  3¾ cups granulated sugar

  8 large eggs

  vegetable-oil cooking spray

  confectioner’s sugar (optional)

  1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and line 2 mini-muffin tins with liners. Spray liners with cooking spray.

  2. Melt butter and chocolate in a 4-quart heavy pot over moderately low heat, stirring until smooth. Whisk together flour, cocoa, and salt. Remove pan from heat and whisk in granulated sugar. Add eggs, 1 at a time, whisking after each addition until incorporated, and stir in flour mixture just until blended.

  3. Spoon batter into muffin liners, filling cups to top, and bake in middle of oven 25 to 30 minutes, or until a tester comes out with crumbs adhering. Cool 5 minutes in tins and turn out onto racks. Repeat with remaining batter.

  4. Dust with confectioner’s sugar if desired.

  “This way—and quickly, damn it.” Wrapping his long fingers around her arm, Saybrook shoved her past the upturned corpse. “You moved fast as a snake earlier.”

  Arianna tore her gaze from the slashed shirt linen and pooled patterns of viscous red. Bile rose in her throat but she forced down her momentary nausea with an acid retort. “For which you should be bloody thankful.”

  “I’ll compose a suitably sentimental ode to your audacity later.” He inched the door open a fraction and made a rapid survey of the garden. “Let’s go.”

  Ungrateful wretch.

  Saybrook stumbled on the uneven gravel but quickly steadied his stride and cut through a narrow gap in the ornamental plantings. Despite the labored hitch of his gait, he moved with surprising speed. Arianna found herself hurrying to keep pace.

  Hugging close to the leafy shadows of the ivy-twined wall, he led the way to the side gate, which gave access to an alleyway.

  “Left leads past the mews and out to Welbeck Street,” she murmured as he ventured a peek through the wrought iron bars. Her first day of employment, she had scouted out the area, making a mental note of how to disappear in a hurry. “Right goes straight to Wigmore Street. It’s shorter, but there’s usually more traffic.”

  “Which means a greater likelihood of finding a hackney,” he said, more to himself than to her. “We’ll chance it.” He shifted his weight, leaning a shoulder to the painted metal. His coat covered the rent in his trousers, but she saw that the wool was growing wet and sticking to his knee.

  “Your leg—”

  “Sod my leg,” growled Saybrook. “You oug
ht to be far more concerned about your neck.”

  She bit back a sharp reply. His face was deathly pale, accentuating the Stygian shadows beneath his hooded eyes.

  The gate creaked, and in another moment they were turning the corner.

  “Aren’t you afraid that we’ll attract attention?” demanded Arianna. His hand was still clamped like a manacle around her arm. To emphasize her point, she gave a small shake of her canvas satchel. “You are limping, and ladies aren’t often seen carrying such bags.”

  Saybrook reached around and plucked it from her grasp.

  “Don’t be an arse,” she protested in a low voice. “You’re having trouble enough hauling your own carcass to the next crossing. What I meant was, I would draw less notice on my own.”

  “Arse?” His grip tightened. “I was an arse to accept this . . . this . . .”

  This what? Arianna waited for him to finish, but he merely sucked in a breath and looked up and down the street.

  “If any of the guards spot us,” he added, after hailing a hackney, “I shall say that I saw you walking past the house and wish to detain you as a possible witness.”

  “I still say that you should let me go ahead on my own,” she pressed. “We can choose a place to meet up later.”

  He answered with a curt, mirthless laugh. “I may be an arse, but I’m not an idiot,” he added. “Though given my earlier incompetence, I can hardly blame you for thinking me a bumbling fool.”

  Whatever else he was, Mr. De Quincy was no fool, thought Arianna. She had merely hoped to catch him off guard.

  “It was worth a try,” she replied coolly.

  “You’ll have to do better,” said Saybrook, helping her none too gently into the hired carriage. He climbed in after her and collapsed in an inelegant sprawl beside her.

  She could feel heat emanating from his body. Fever? Anger? Or some dark, drug-deranged emotion that she could not name? It bothered her that she was having such a difficult time figuring him out. Men were, in her experience, primitive creatures, ruled by three basic lusts—power, money, and sex. That made them rather simple to understand.

  And manipulate.

  But Mr. De Quincy was proving an exception to the rule. Which made him dangerous.

  Slanting a look through the grimy glass panes, Arianna reminded herself that she had survived for years by outwitting men who posed a far greater threat than her captor. It should be easy to escape his clutches—she would just have to pick the right moment. One twist, one lunge, and she could surely outrun him, leaving her free to pursue her own quarry.

  Let De Quincy chase his own specters. All she cared about was the ghosts from her father’s past. Step by step, she was coming closer to the truth. So close she could almost taste it.

  Sweet, sweet revenge.

  “Turn here!” Rapping his knuckles on the trap, Saybrook called out a few more commands.

  As Arianna watched the buildings roll by, she forced herself to quell the flutter of unease in her belly. Where was he taking her? At present, he seemed reluctant to turn her over to the authorities.

  But that could change in the blink of an eye.

  She had better seize her chance to run, and soon.

  The wheels clattered to a halt on the cobblestones, and once again Arianna let herself be hustled down an alleyway and through a garden gate. The terraced grounds were far fancier than Lady Spencer’s haphazard layout. Formal hedges of trimmed yew flanked pristine paths of white gravel, their precise symmetry blurred by a profusion of colorful flowers.

  “Where are we?” she asked abruptly.

  Saybrook brushed by a trellis of climbing roses, stirring a sudden, overpowering sweetness in the air. For an instant, she was dizzy, disoriented. The lush floral fragrance seemed so insanely at odds with the metallic smell of death still lingering in her nostrils. Silk and steel. Seeing the swirl of soft pinks darken to deep red, she choked down a burble of hysterical laughter.

  Don’t panic, she chided herself. Not when she could still salvage victory from the jaws of defeat.

  Shaking off the strange light-headedness, Arianna tried to concentrate on memorizing the layout of the gardens. There was a second gate ahead, just past a small storage shed discreetly hidden from the main house by a screen of holly trees. The door was partly open, revealing sacks of manure and an assortment of terra-cotta pots—

  Without warning, Saybrook whirled and shoved her inside.

  “Sorry.” The click of the padlock punctuated the apology. “I need to arrange things inside the main house.”

  “Bloody bastard,” she hissed, thumping her fists against the oak planks.

  “I suggest you remain silent, Miss Smith. You’re a good deal more comfortable in there than in one of the Horse Guards interrogation chambers.”

  His reply only fueled her frustration. Kicking at the clay shards underfoot, she muttered several words in Creole under her breath.

  “Look, you ungrateful wench, I’ve put my neck on the chopping block for you,” he snapped. “The least you can do is refrain from insulting my manhood.”

  Arianna clenched her teeth.

  “And in case you are wondering, all the sharp implements are kept elsewhere. So resign yourself to spending the next little while inside. If you’ll notice, I tossed your valise inside with you, so you are not entirely stripped of creature comforts.”

  “It’s dark in here,” she muttered, squinting at the thin slivers of light coming in through the cracks. “And it stinks of merde.”

  “I seem to recall that you prefer the dark,” said Saybrook. “As for the odor, would you prefer the smell of death?”

  “How long do you plan to keep me confined in this cesspool?”

  “Hard to say,” he replied. “In the meantime, there’s a small potting bench built into the back wall. “I suggest that you sit quietly and contemplate the error of your ways.”

  She ground out another oath.

  “Rather than spend your time cursing me to the devil, you might want to think about this—it was you, not me, who Major Crandall was trying to kill. Would you really rather take your chances on the streets of London, with no idea of who else might be hunting for you?”

  I can take care of myself. The words were on the tip of her tongue but she held them back.

  “Ah, I had a feeling your oh so clever brain would grasp the logic in that.” She heard him move away. “I’ll return as soon as I can.”

  Logic. Arianna felt her way to the back of the shed and found a sliver of space on the rough planks. Curling up against the stone-cold clay pots, she tried to still her spinning thoughts and focus on making sense of the last few days. It seemed that in hunting down her own quarry, she had unwittingly stepped into a nest of vipers. Slithering serpents with bared fangs, coiled to strike. She drew her knees to her chest, aware of the prickling of gooseflesh along her arms.

  So close, so close, and then she had turned careless in her last few steps. The question was, would their bite prove fatal?

  Lord Concord and Lord Hamilton.

  She had crossed an ocean to pursue those two cold-blooded reptiles. It had been a shock to learn from Lady Spencer that Hamilton had broken his neck six months ago during a drunken carriage race from London to Brighton. But that still left Concord, and she had always considered him to be the more dangerous of the two.

  That he might be dangerous enough to dare an attack on the Prince Regent added an unexpected twist.

  And suddenly her quest seemed tied in a Gordian knot.

  Arianna thought of the three items she had taken from Lady Spencer’s desk. For now, they were her only tangible clues to cutting through the secrets surrounding her father’s death.

  Revenge. Redemption. For years, those twin desires had driven her onward. But in her heart, she also wanted to know the truth.

  Saybrook shifted in his seat, his boots scuffing softly over the minister’s Turkey carpet. “And so, after a quick check of the surroundings showed no sign of
the chef,” he explained, “I thought it best to leave the pursuit to the guards and returned to the town house, in order to arrange for the body to be taken away.” A pause. “I assumed you would want me to dispose of the problem quickly and discreetly.”

  “How very thorough of you,” said Grentham, his expression remaining inscrutable.

  “I try to be,” replied Saybrook blandly.

  The minister tapped his fingers on the three sheets of paper that Saybrook had handed over. “Tell me again precisely what happened.”

  “The details are spelled out in my report.” Another pause. “Milord.”

  “Nonetheless, I should like to hear you recount them again,” said Grentham softly. “Assuming you haven’t suffered too great a shock.”

  Saybrook carefully repeated the sequence of events, omitting any mention of the chef’s transformation from “he” to “she.”

  “Two shots, you say.” Grentham fixed him with a long look. “And yet Major Crandall was accorded to be a crack shot. I wonder how two bullets managed to go so badly astray?”

  He shrugged. “I couldn’t really say, sir. In the heat of battle, strange things happen.”

  “Strange things happen,” repeated the minister softly.

  Saybrook sat in steadfast silence.

  “I can’t help but wonder . . .” Grentham smoothed the creased papers, and then slid them into a dossier. “Have you any idea as to why Crandall would try to kill the Frenchman while you were interrogating him?”

  “No.”

  “And you wouldn’t care to hazard a guess?”

  “I don’t care for parlor games,” replied Saybrook. “If you wish to hear people engage in idle speculation, I am sure you have plenty of lackeys outside your door who will be only too happy to oblige you.”

  “You’re a good deal more facile with your tongue than you are with a weapon, Lord Saybrook.” The minister leaned back in his chair. “I put you in charge of this investigation and what do I have to show for it? Within less than half a day, the Prince’s assassin has escaped, my military attaché is dead, and you—you’re barely able to crawl through my door with a few pathetic pieces of paper.” A slow, mocking clap of applause echoed off the sherry-colored paneling. “Bravo, sir. Bravo.”