A square of pale ivory paper and wink of fire-tinged gold fluttered in the candlelight as she shook the contents onto the counterpane. Picking up the medallion first, she held it closer to the light in order to study the engraving. She hadn’t taken the time to scrutinize the items taken from Lady Spencer’s desk drawers, but now that she was to meet with Concord, she couldn’t afford to overlook any clue that might help bring her father’s murderer to justice.
For it had been a premeditated murder, and not some random robbery. On that she was willing to bet her life.
Forcing her focus back from the past to the present, Arianna squinted at the curling script phrase on the medallion.
Fay çe que vouldras.
Her brow furrowed as she mentally translated the French into English.
Do as you please.
Unsure what to make of the words, Arianna replaced the medallion and the list back in the pouch and unfolded the letter. The message here was less cryptic. Lady Spencer had another paramour who was unhappy about her liaison with the Prince Regent. Did all of this—the murderous attacks, the violent death, the government panic—boil down to a simple matter of sex?
She tucked the paper away and put the pouch back in its hiding place. The earl ought to be told about the contents of the letter. It would save him from running in circles, chasing phantom conspirators. This was most likely not about international politics, but a personal grudge against a Prince who couldn’t keep his pizzle inside his breeches.
However, sharing the information wasn’t to her advantage.
Arianna looked around the elegant room and gave a sardonic grimace. Saybrook’s goal was to end the investigation as soon as possible, while her role was simply to serve as a pawn—a pawn in a ruthless game where she was expendable. That he would not hesitate for a heartbeat to sacrifice her was a fact that she must never forget.
Kill or be killed. That was one of the cardinal rules of survival.
Indeed, it might be the only rule that mattered.
Because come hell or high water, she meant to survive long enough to taste the sweetness of revenge.
11
From the chocolate notebooks of Dona Maria Castellano
Senor Diego Martinez invited me to study some old books in his library, and in them I found the first mention that I’ve seen of chocolate in Italy! In 1606, Francesco d’Antonio Carlette, a merchant from Florence, submitted a report to Ferdinando de’ Medici, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, on his world travels. In it, he includes a whole section on the New World and its trade in cacao. . . .
Chocolate Cookies with Gin-Soaked Raisins
½ cup golden raisins
⅓ cup gin
3 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar (sift before measuring)
⅔ cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-
processed (sift before measuring)
1 teaspoon instant espresso powder
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour (unsifted)
⅛ teaspoon salt
3 large egg whites
½ teaspoon vanilla
8 ounces pecans, toasted, cooled, and coarsely chopped
1. Combine raisins and gin in a cup and let stand at least 8 hours to macerate.
2. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Butter and flour 2 large baking sheets, shaking off excess flour.
3. Mix confectioner’s sugar, cocoa powder, espresso powder, flour, and salt with an electric mixer at low speed. Add egg whites and vanilla and continue mixing until smooth.
4. Drain raisins in a sieve, without pressing, then add raisins to dough with pecans. Stir until thoroughly mixed. (Dough will be thick and sticky.)
5. Working quickly, drop ¼ cup dough for each cookie onto a baking sheet, spacing cookies at least 3 inches apart, and gently pat down each mound to about ½ inch thick.
6. Bake cookies, 1 sheet at a time, in middle of oven, rotating sheet halfway through baking, for 15 to 17 minutes total, or until cookies appear cracked and centers are just set. Cool cookies on sheet 1 minute, then transfer carefully to a rack to cool completely.
Too unsettled to sleep quite yet, Arianna took up the candle and made her way down to the kitchen. Its worktables and well-stocked pantries were now familiar territory, for several days ago, on learning that Arianna was studying the chocolate notebooks belonging to the earl’s grandmother, the cook had issued an invitation to help make up the week’s supply of cacao for hot chocolate.
Apparently Arianna had passed the test, for she had been given carte blanche to make use of the space and supplies whenever she wished.
After adding fresh coals to the stove, she lit a lantern and gathered the ingredients she wanted. Spices and almonds, cream and butter, flour and sugar, a ball of cacao paste . . . after measuring out the exact amounts of several ingredients, she set the copper pot on the hob to heat.
As the gloom came alive with soothing sounds and smells of cooking, she felt her tension melting away into the kitchen rhythms.
Lost in thought, Arianna wasn’t aware of the approaching footsteps until the scrape of a boot on the mudroom floor jarred her from her work. Pulse pounding, she grabbed up the long-bladed chopping knife and whirled around from the worktable.
Framed in the doorway was a dark shape, a blur of black on black in the murky corridor.
Her throat seized, her hands clenched.
“A late supper?”The earl stepped out from the ominous shadows, his caped coat flapping around his shoulders.
The blade wavered as she expelled a sharp breath.
“Or is it breakfast?” added Saybrook, slipping out of his coat and shaking off the droplets of rain. He draped it over a stool and came forward into the pool of lantern light. In the flickering flame, he looked tired. Troubled.
Or perhaps pensive was more accurate. It was hard to say. She didn’t know him well enough to recognize his moods.
“Neither,” she replied.
“Well, it smells good enough to eat.” He paused for a look at the simmering sugar, which was slowly caramelizing to a buttery shade of gold. “What are you making?”
Arianna pointed to the sheet of paper by the grater. “I copied one of your grandmother’s recipes for a chocolate and almond confection. I was too restless to sleep, so I thought I would try it. I find cooking relaxing.”
“Sounds delicious.” He went to a tall cabinet by the larder and took down a bottle. She heard a soft splash, and when he returned he was cupping a rounded glass filled with a dark amber liquid.
“Spanish brandy,” he said, catching her questioning look. “Simpler and sharper than the French style. But I’m not in the mood for complexity tonight.”
She looked away from his shadowed face. “What are you doing here?”
“I don’t need an invitation to enter my uncle’s house. I am family, and welcome at any hour.”
Family. For a fleeting moment Arianna found herself wondering what it would be like not to be always alone.
“What about you, Lady Wolcott?” His dark eyes seemed to pierce her private thoughts. “Or whoever you really are. You must have family somewhere.”
“No.” Arianna scooped up a handful of almonds and set them on the chopping block. “Not all of us are privileged enough to have loving relatives. I’m on my own in this world, naught but a nomad.”
“Even a nomad has a family name, one that roots her to the past, whether she likes it or not.”
“I have a family name,” she shot back. “I told you, it’s Smith.”
“I think not.”
“It’s of no concern to me what you think, sir.”
“I beg to differ, Lady”—there was a quiver of silence before he spoke the next words—“Arianna Hadley.”
The blade slipped, nicking her finger. “I—I don’t know what you are talking about,” she stammered as a bead of blood welled up from the cut. In the low light, the color appeared more black than crimson.
Saybrook passed her his handkerchief. “To be more specific
, Lady Arianna Hadley, the only child of Richard Hadley, the fourth Earl of Morse, who left England for Jamaica in ’02. The rumors hint at some dark scandal. Would you care to illuminate it?”
Arianna answered with a low curse.
“I can easily find out all the details,” he went on. “But it would save me time if you told me yourself.”
“Why does it matter?” she demanded.
“I don’t know that it does. However, experience has taught me that in any investigation, it’s important to have all the facts at hand, no matter how irrelevant they may seem.”
She heaved a harsh sigh and resumed chopping. “He was accused of cheating at cards. One of his so-called friends confronted him with the charge, and another bloody bastard corroborated it. My father was given a choice—leave the country or have the incident made public.” The staccato sound of the blade hitting wood grew louder. “You know the aristocracy and their precious code of honor. Had he stayed, he would have been forced to put a bullet through his brain.”
“Again, I ask why?”
“Why did they frame him?” Arianna lifted her shoulders. “How in Hades should I know? Perhaps they were bored, like so many indolent aristocrats. Or perhaps they resented that my father had a knack for winning.” She caught his expression and quickly added, “And before you ask—no, he was not guilty of cheating!”
Saybrook said nothing.
Unwrapping the ball of cacao paste, she began to dice it into tiny pieces. Thwock, thwock, thwonk. The rhythmic rap helped calm her temper. “My father was very clever with numbers,” she went on. “He had a system of counting—the cards, that is—which allowed him to work out patterns of probability. He said it gave him an edge in calculating the odds.”
“A helpful skill for a gamester.”
Arianna measured out some flour, then took the mixture of melted sugar and butter from the stove. “How many eggs?” she asked abruptly, after stirring in the chopped cacao paste.
Saybrook consulted the recipe. “Four. The yolks are to be separated and the whites whisked until they form soft peaks.”
Before she could reach for the egg crate, he pulled it to him and deftly cracked them one by one.
“What the devil are you doing?” she demanded.
The wire whisk was already thrumming against the bowl. “I, too, find cooking relaxing,” murmured the earl.
She chuffed a sigh. “Yet the last time we were together in the kitchen, someone ended up dead.”
“Let’s try to avoid any more bloodshed,” he replied, casting a glance at her hand. “For now, at least.”
“I’m innocent of any misdoing—save to be in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she countered.
“So you keep telling me.” He quickened his strokes. “By the by, this is just about ready.”
Arianna added the chopped almonds to her mixture, then gently folded in the whipped egg whites. After spooning it into a pan, she placed it in the oven.
“And now?” asked Saybrook.
“We sit,” she said, perching herself on one of the kitchen stools. “And wait. But you need not stay, sir. Obviously, you are not happy unless you are poking your nose into some dark, disgusting hole, in hopes of stirring up the muck.”
“On the contrary, I take no pleasure in unearthing painful memories, Lady Arianna—”
“Lady Arianna,” she interrupted bitterly. “I did not give you leave to use my given name, sir. There is no intimacy between us.”
“None was intended,” answered Saybrook mildly. “Perhaps you’ve forgotten the all the complex rules of aristocratic address. As the unmarried daughter of an earl, the proper form of address is Lady Arianna, not Lady Hadley. When you marry, you will take your husband’s name, or title if he has one. I, on the other hand, am never called Lord Allessandro, but Lord Saybrook, or simply Saybrook—”
“Spare me the prosy lecture on Polite Society’s asinine rules,” she snapped.
“If you mean to be successful in your charade, you cannot afford to ignore them.”
Arianna hesitated, and then heaved a reluctant sigh of surrender.
“Look, like it or not, we have both been sucked into a cesspool of troubles,” pointed out the earl. “And if we wish to better our odds of emerging unscathed, it would behoove us to cooperate.”
“Ha!” She let out a mocking laugh. “You have some nerve to talk of trust when you have been spending your efforts digging up dirt on me, rather than pursuing the real culprit.”
“If you had been more forthcoming with me, I should not have had to waste my time.”
“So far, I’ve had precious little offered to me in return.”
Saybrook lifted a brow. “You’ve been swathed in expensive silks and satins, and introduced to the crème de la crème of Society. On the day after tomorrow you move into your own spacious town house, complete with a retinue of servants. So do forgive me if I fail to see how you have been left holding the short end of the stick.”
“I was referring to information, sir,” she said. “You aren’t any more eager to share your secrets than I am.”
He picked up a stray almond and absently popped it into his mouth. “It seems that past experience has taught both of us to be wary.”
“Have you a fresh reason to fear?” she asked, not really expecting a serious answer.
“Perhaps.” Saybrook gathered up a few more nuts and arranged them in a neat row before going on. “I paid a visit to my friend Henning earlier this evening, and learned that Lord Grentham is sending someone to have a look at Crandall’s body—even it if means exhuming the corpse.”
Arianna felt the color drain from her face. “Good God, how did your friend hear about that?”
“The minister is not the only one with a network of informers,” answered the earl. “Henning provides a great service for those who could not otherwise afford medical treatment. In return they keep him informed of what is going on in Town.”
Despite the warmth of the kitchen, a chill skated down her spine. “H-how will that affect us?” she asked—then quickly corrected herself. “I mean me. Will they guess it was murder?”
“Hard to say. Henning is very skilled with repairing flesh, and the body is, to put it delicately, losing its ability to tell a clear story.” The earl appeared engrossed in reordering the almonds. “That people do not take kindly to having their graveyards despoiled by resurrectionists also works in our favor. Word has been sent. Grentham’s man may not find his task an easy one.”
The knot inside her belly relaxed somewhat. “Thank you.”
Saybrook looked up through his lashes, the momentary spark of topaz mirroring the exact hue of the caramelized sugar. “There are some benefits of working together, Lady Arianna. When you are surrounded by danger, it is not a bad thing to have a comrade in arms watching your arse. Unless, of course, you have eyes in the back of your head.”
Perhaps. Arianna acknowledged the observation with a slight nod. And yet, she thought cynically, in her experience when a man was watching her arse, it was not for altruistic reasons.
The earl let the silence stretch out a moment longer before adding, “But of course, you are certain that you can look out for yourself.”
The aroma of the baking chocolate—sweet, seductive—wafted up from the oven. Trust. It was a tantalizing notion to lower her guard just a little, realized Arianna.
A flare of light illuminated his profile, and she saw more clearly the tiny lines of tension etched around his mouth. Something else was upsetting him. A sixth sense, a finely honed instinct of self-preservation, allowed her to pick up on a person’s inner conflict. Weakness could often be turned into a weapon.
“Grentham did more than threaten to exhume the body, didn’t he?” she asked.
Arianna couldn’t quite describe it in words, but as Saybrook turned, his expression hardened. The change was subtle, but in that split second, his face became a mask that might well have been sculpted out of hard, cold stone.
“Did he threaten your family?” she prodded.
“Enough,” he said softly.
“Or perhaps you have siblings?”
A faint ridge of color darkened his cheekbones. “You wish to initiate a conversation on family genealogy?” he asked. “By all means. That should prove a very interesting topic.”
“Very well, let us not open Pandora’s Box, as it were.”
His response was a gruff growl. “God only knows what other secrets you are keeping locked away in a dark place.”
“I had better check the cake,” she said, turning abruptly and taking up a chamois cloth to protect her hand. “Overcooking will ruin it.”
“And it would be a great pity to waste all our cooperative efforts,” murmured Saybrook.
Arianna didn’t reply. Setting the hot iron pan on a trivet, she nudged it to the center of the worktable and dipped a fork into its center. The tines came away with a slight coating of the batter.
“Not bad,” she mused, taking a moment to taste the medley of spices. “But naturally, it must cool for a bit before any final judgment can be made.”
“You are cruel and heartless, Lady Arianna.”
“Yes,” she agreed. “I am.”
Saybrook rose and went to pour himself another brandy. He returned with a glass for her. “À su salud.” The liquid swirl spun from pale gold to fiery bronze as he raised his drink in salute.
Arianna couldn’t help but remark the odd twinkle in his eye. In spite of her resolve to remain at odds with him, she smiled. “Yes, I suppose we should toast to the fact that we are still alive.”
“Ah, as the Roman emperors said—eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow you die.” The earl quaffed a long swallow of the brandy. He seemed to be sinking into an even more strangely reflective mood. Or perhaps he was simply getting a little drunk. “Though I prefer the phrase carpe diem. It sounds so much more elegant.”
Sweet Revenge Page 13