Arthur released Gen gently enough that she stepped backward without falling into anybody. He stuck out his hand to shake. “Wulfram!”
“Arthur,” the blond guy said. “So good of you to come. May I present my very dear friend, Ms. Rae Stone. Rae, this is Lord Arthur Finch-Hatten, the Earl of Severn.”
The redhead stuck out her hand to Gen. “Howdy.”
The woman’s Western American accent was like sweet, nourishing honey to Gen’s Texan ears.
She grabbed the woman’s hand and pulled her in for a hug. “Howdy!” Her Texas accent bloomed like the desert after rain. “Oh my Lawd! It’s so good to hear someone talk normal-like!”
The woman laughed a hearty, full-throated laugh and bobbled back and forth, hugging Gen. “Nice to meet-cha.”
Arthur laughed and said over the giggling, “Wulfram, may I present my very dear friend, Ms. Genevieve Ward. Gen, this is Wulfram von Hannover, the older brother of the bride and my old friend from school.”
See? They did know each other from that weirdo school that turned out the six-feet-four demi-gods. Yep.
Gen looked up at him. “Nice to meet-cha.”
He tilted his head. “The pleasure is all mine, Genevieve. Rae, can you breathe?”
“I’m fine,” she said. To Gen, “We have to keep in touch.”
“Oh, God, yes.” They let each other go and talked for a few minutes, too few, before the guy motioned to someone else. “We should go pay our respects. Do stop by the place sometime. We have some financial matters to discuss.”
“Yes, I probably should,” Arthur said.
Wulfram Hannover and Rae Stone threaded into the crowd.
Arthur watched them go. “Well, that was fascinating.”
“She had a tiara,” Gen said to him. “I want a tiara. Do earls get tiaras?”
He laughed. “You noticed that, too, did you? Yes, the lady was certainly wearing one of his family’s tiaras, with all that entails. There is a tiara or two in the Finch-Hatten family. Perhaps next time.”
“Do you have a crown?” Gen asked him.
“A coronet,” Arthur said. “Earls wear coronets, silver with eight strawberry leaves and silver balls or pearls. They’re only worn when one is made an earl or at a sovereign’s coronation. It’s hideous. And heavy.”
Gen looked over the crowd. “Maxence’s brother is waving us over,” she said. “I think Pierre has found our next victim, I mean, the last member of the committee whom we ought to schmooze tonight.”
Lord David Sumner, the Baron of Corwyn
LORD David Sumner was the Earl of Corwyn, but he sat in the House of Lords as the Baron Sumner because he had been given a life peerage in recognition for his advances in cancer research that had saved thousands of lives in the UK alone.
At the moment, Lord Corwyn was huddling as far behind the starter buffet as he could manage.
So many people packed the ballroom. So damn many.
It had been a mistake to accept the invitation. When the formal wedding invitation had arrived, David had been a bit flattered to be invited. He was distantly related to Wulfram von Hannover through King Charles II, and he and Wulfram had been friendly at school in Switzerland.
David and Pierre didn’t speak, ever.
Evidently, Friederike had remembered him, and he had thought that a wedding might be a nice change from his daily pace from his home to his university laboratory at Cambridge.
He didn’t even like going to the House of Lords for votes and other business, but it was his duty.
Now that David had arrived at the wedding and was barricaded in the lobby area of the Louvre, it all seemed like such a spectacular mistake.
So damn many people. He had seen so few friends that he had known from school. He had been hoping for a Le Rosey reunion of sorts, someplace quieter.
The crowd clustered closer.
Pierre Grimaldi, the groom of the evening, stepped out of the scrum and waved to David.
David exhaled so hard that he wilted. He waved back. “Pierre! Good to see you!”
Pierre trotted over and shook his hand. “I say, David, splendid of you to come.”
Was it David’s imagination or longing, or did Pierre’s hand linger in his for a moment longer than was necessary?
It didn’t matter. Pierre had just married Friederike, the younger sister of their friend Wulfram von Hannover. Surely Pierre wouldn’t want to rekindle their old affair.
Right?
Not that David was looking to, either. He was carrying on a torrid relationship with a French tutor back at Cambridge.
After the way it had ended with Pierre, David wasn’t sure that his poor heart could handle another encounter with the notorious Rat Bastard. “Thanks, old chum. It’s been years.”
“I say, do you remember Arthur Finch-Hatten, Lord Severn, from school? He is friends with my brother.”
“A bit,” David said.
A tall man, even taller than Pierre, stepped out of the crowd behind him and smiled at David.
His eyes were even more stunning than David remembered, that dark blue ring around his pupils that were such a light gray that they almost shone silver. Arthur had been several years behind them in school, so he must be twenty-nine or so now, a nice age for a man. He’d filled out since David had last seen him as a lanky teenager.
Arthur held out his hand to shake. “Lord Corwyn, so nice to see you again.”
“Arthur, call me David. We’re old friends.”
Arthur had held onto David’s hand even longer than Pierre had, a lingering touch before he let go. “I’m glad you remember me.”
“Likewise,” Arthur said, staring into David’s eyes.
Good Lord, was Pierre trying to set David up?
Perhaps Pierre felt bad after all these years and was trying to make amends, which spoke to David. It was a nice gesture.
As David was involved in that rather steamy relationship with his favorite Frenchman, he couldn’t act on anything with Arthur, of course, but it was nice to be paid attention to.
Arthur introduced a woman who had come up beside him. “This is Genevieve Ward, my barrister.”
David shook her hand. She was a pretty little thing with a nice smile.
Actually, she was a statuesque thing, as he looked up at her, but her eyes crinkled sweetly. David asked, “So why did you bring your barrister to a wedding, Arthur?”
Pierre said, “Genevieve is going everywhere with him these days, David. It seems that Arthur has a bit of a problem that you could help him with.”
Naughty answers sprang to mind, but David remembered who was waiting for him back home. He smiled at Arthur, though. “And what would that be?”
Arthur opened his plush lips and said, “Seems that my brother wants my inheritance.”
“That’s awful.”
“I would say so.” Arthur leaned toward David. “And the case is going to be tried in front of the House of Lords Committee for Privileges.”
So Arthur wasn’t after a piece of David’s ass, but stopping the flirtation now would be rude, wouldn’t it?
David would never be so gauche as to insult a fellow Englishman.
“Why, I sit on that committee,” David said. “Isn’t that a coincidence?”
Pierre laughed. “Oh, David. You always had a delightful sense of humor.”
David turned his back on Pierre Grimaldi, lest he become angry.
Instead, he ran his finger down Arthur’s strong biceps. The fine cloth of the tuxedo coat caught on David’s fingers. “But you were saying, Arthur?”
“That it’s a complicated case.” Arthur watched David’s hand curl around his elbow. “Gen? Would you care to explain the fine details of the case to Lord Corwyn?”
The woman’s dark eyes were flared open with laughter. “You’re doing smashing, Arthur. Doing your part for the cause.”
Arthur bit his lush lip.
David wanted to bite it, too.
Arthur blinked a few t
imes and smiled at David, though not quite as flirtily as before. “And it’s important to discuss the case with the members of the committee so that they understand what’s at stake, nothing less than the inheritance laws of the United Kingdom.”
David smiled at Arthur. It was probably time to let the poor man off the hook.
He patted Arthur’s arm. “That sounds perfectly logical. It’s been lovely talking to you. You have my support. I’m sure you’ll charm your way through the rest of the committee, too.”
About Arthur
IN the crowd at the wedding reception, near the towering cake, Dieter Schwarz bent toward Wulfram von Hannover, their blond heads almost touching.
Wulfram was behaving oddly, Dieter could see, though he doubted anyone else could. Wulfram kept looking over the crowd and stretching his shoulder.
Dieter scratched the bandage on his arm, a souvenir from that afternoon, and told Wulf in Alemannic, “Tell me what you know about Arthur Finch-Hatten.”
Wulfram stepped back and asked through clenched teeth. “Why?”
That was not the reaction Dieter had been expecting. He touched his ear, ready to circle his people if Wulfram told him that Finch-Hatten was a plant.
Damn it, asking for security at the wedding was a perfect way to get inside Wulfram’s perimeter and observe their operation.
Dieter said, “He’s inside the circle. Do I need to take him down?”
“No.” Wulfram frowned. “Probably not. Why is he inside the security cordon?”
“He called me yesterday, asking for security while here and using your name. I checked with Flicka. She vouched for him. Who is he?”
“Flicka only knows him from school and socially.” Wulfram looked over the crowd, scanning. “I can’t imagine why he would need extra security from us.”
“We’re the best.”
Wulfram glanced at him, his dark blue eyes barely squinted at the corners in amusement. “He has other resources, to put it mildly.”
They had been friends for over a decade, as close as brothers. Dieter could read between the lines of what Wulfram was saying better than anyone could. “Where’s his loyalty?”
“He’s British,” Wulfram said. “I’m quite sure of that. He’s perhaps the most loyal subject the Queen has, and if he’s not calling in that cavalry, something is terribly wrong.”
“He said he wanted someone who answers to him alone.”
Wulfram nodded. “Other people’s loyalties may be in question. That’s troubling.”
Great, so Dieter might have unfriendly national intelligence services in the room or even rogue units.
Rogue. Good word. Dieter made a mental note.
Dieter asked, “Do you think he’ll make a move for one of you?”
He meant one of the three primary security subjects: Wulfram, Rae Stone, and Wulfram’s sister Friederike.
Wulfram shook his head. “I can’t believe he would have any interest in us. Indeed, I hold a substantial amount of his money in my investment accounts.”
“So he’s entangled,” Dieter grumbled. “Just great.”
“I’d say he has problems of his own. Be very careful about him, though. Don’t let him have any access at all to your computer or your phone. Don’t let him use your phone to make a quick call because he’s forgotten his. Don’t click any links that come up on your phone screen or in an email while you’re on the same continent with him. Don’t use electronic billing with him, and don’t give him any sort of a network account for payments or anything else. If you do, you’ll never get your network back, even if you think you have.”
Dieter shrugged. “So he’s a hacker.”
Wulfram looked over the crowd. “He’s far more than that. Arthur Finch-Hatten is probably the most dangerous man you’ve ever met.”
A Countess or a Spy?
ARTHUR was standing over to the side of the enormous reception in the Louvre, drinking a vodka tonic and watching Gen as she chatted with the slim, blond Friederike von Hannover, the bride that evening. He had introduced them and slipped away when it had become obvious that they didn’t need him around at all.
He didn’t notice Elizabeth until she was right beside him.
“Hello, Arthur,” she said, tucking her hand under his arm.
He didn’t like it when she touched him, but he was too well-trained to recoil. He said, “I’m surprised to see you here.”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
Arthur could think of several answers that Elizabeth had told him over the years, but he wasn’t sure if any of them were true. “I couldn’t say.”
“Your little barrister has changed.”
“I hadn’t noticed,” he said.
“Look at her, wearing the Marchesa gown with the right bag and shoes and wearing your family jewelry. She’s chatting up the aristocracy as if she belongs here, and her clients are flocking back to her in droves. She’s pretty, successful, and is becoming quite well-connected. It’s almost as if you were grooming her to be a countess.”
Gen? His wife? “We’re helping each other,” Arthur said. “It’s quid pro quo.”
“We never taught you that. They—” She meant the agents that they ran during intelligence operations. “—give us what we need freely, for freedom and democracy, or for tokens of our affection, not for a fair exchange.”
It wasn’t inconceivable that Gen could be a countess. Nothing prevented her from being created a countess, certainly. “She’s a lawyer. Lawyers only do pro bono work for the needy. Everyone else is quid pro quo.”
“She’s had a great influence on you.”
Not that anything should prevent Gen from being created a countess, anyway. “Perhaps.”
“Maybe you are grooming her to be your wife.”
Maybe Gen would make a lovely countess, someday. “Perish the thought.”
Elizabeth lowered her voice. “Have you taught her tradecraft?”
“No.” But he had. Detecting deception. Noticing tails. Manipulating liars.
“Good. If you do marry that half-American lawyer, the deep cover of an unsuspecting spouse is even better than a partner in this life.”
“Your American husband knew about your work.” He didn’t mean Bentley. Bentley was just an associate from the office whom she tapped when she needed an escort for a cover. “Your husband was your partner for years.”
Elizabeth said, “And look where that got him.”
A shallow grave in Afghanistan and an unlabeled star on a wall in Langley, Virginia.
Arthur frowned. “Point taken.”
Ditching Security
NEAR midnight, Gen’s feet felt like raw hamburger stuffed in her shoes, and she collapsed on the overstuffed couch in their suite. She groaned, “That was fun.”
“I’ve just texted Pippa to get the car keys. Come on.” Arthur was digging in their luggage and came up with jeans and tee shirts. “Get dressed. We’ve only got a few minutes.”
Gen glanced at the grandfather clock in the corner of the living room. “It’s after midnight, and you just sent the security guys away.”
“We can’t take Magnus and his associates with us tonight. I want you to meet some of my friends. There’s a dive bar in downtown Paris that I’ve heard has great local beers.”
He tossed a black hoodie sweatshirt to her.
She asked, “Are you serious?”
This didn’t seem safe at all.
Hoodies in Paris
GEN and Arthur stood on the corner of a small, dark street in Paris.
The cobblestoned avenue was pedestrians only, so they had parked several blocks away and walked over. Buildings stacked with apartments lined both sides of the narrow, winding street. Flowers in window boxes gave off their scent, which mixed with a few people smoking outside.
Gen waited while Arthur adjusted her hoodie sweatshirt. She said, “I feel like a freak.”
“It’s standard operating procedure.” Light from the faraway streetlamp ghosted on
the straight line of his nose and one cheekbone under his hood.
He pulled her hood forward, tucking her hair entirely under it and making sure the edges of it stood out around her face like a sunbonnet. Gen had insisted her mother buy her a sunbonnet when she had been a little girl with a Laura Ingalls Wilder obsession.
She said, “We’re adults. We don’t wear hoodies.”
“Also,” he said, talking right over her protestations, “you mustn’t call me by my given name, not even once.”
“You said these guys are your friends.”
“I’ve known them since I was six. They’ll call me Blackjack. That’s not what I’m concerned about.” He turned and started walking.
Gen walked down the narrow street with him, her tennis shoes wobbling on the cobblestones. “You must be kidding me. You have aliases? Code names?”
“Screen names. Think of them as pen names.”
“So your screen name is Blackjack?”
He said, “I have this one, small vice—”
Gen snorted.
“—and that is playing blackjack. We used to count cards together. We still occasionally get a team together and take down a casino if they get sloppy.”
“Why couldn’t I have met them when we got back to London?”
“Everyone is dispersed. We live all over the world.”
“You can’t see them very often if you live all over the place.”
“Every day, usually for hours a day.”
“Whoa. So you play online poker with these guys?”
“We go to Las Vegas or Monaco sometimes.”
“You did not answer the question.”
He tweaked her nose. “And you are becoming much better at detecting evasive answers.”
And that was another non-answer. “So what do I call them?”
“We’ll meet Luftwaffe, Racehorse, and Vlogger One tonight.”
“Do I get a secret screen name?”
He turned toward her, but she still couldn’t see his face in her hood.“We can’t tell them you’re my lawyer. We’ll call you Lara Croft.”
Hard Liquor: Runaway Billionaires: Arthur Duet #2 Page 12