by Gaelen Foley
Beau frowned.
“I took him for a tradesman or solicitor or some such. Not wellborn, judging by his speech—though I suppose he could have been disguising his accent. One thing is certain. He was much too nervous ever to have done this sort of thing before.”
Beau considered this.
“I could tell he was out of his depth. He was so nervous his hands were shaking . . . until I plied him with brandy and offered him one of the girls.” She tossed Carissa a challenging look.
She didn’t flinch. “Did he accept?”
Beau swelled with pride in his little lady of information.
“He accepted the brandy but was in too much of a hurry for the girl.”
“Did he say anything about who he was working for?” he pressed her.
“I asked. He would tell me nothing.”
“Is there anything else you can remember?” Carissa spoke up.
Angelique gave a very Gallic shrug. “I don’t know. I did not like him.”
“Why?” Beau clipped out.
She paused in thought. “After we had concluded our business, his relief that it was done, and perhaps, the brandy that I gave him made him bold.”
“How so?”
“He started asking me impertinent questions. Personal questions. About the past. The war.” Angelique met Beau’s gaze warily. “He wanted to hear about the Terror. What it was like living through that. He couldn’t seem to help himself. Normally, I would not have tolerated such ill-bred, prying questions—but for eight thousand pounds,” she added wryly.
“What sorts of things did he want to know?” Beau persisted. “Names? Dates?”
“No! That was the strangest part. He asked about the details of what it was like to be there. He wanted to know the sound when the guillotine fell. How the crowd went silent, waiting, until the blade rang, and the thump of the head dropping in the basket. And then the crowd’s roar.” She stared into space for a moment. Then she shoved the memories away with a shudder. “That’s what he wanted to hear about. So I told him, as much as I could stand.”
Beau studied her.
“When Mr. Mason saw he was distressing me, he stopped his questions, and he actually apologized. Odd. He said he meant no harm, that he was an artist—in his spare time, I suppose. He said he was working on a piece dealing with the Revolution. Strange topic for an English painter, no? Or was he a sculptor?” She frowned. “Come to think of it, I did not ask what sort of artist he was. I was too annoyed.” She shook her head again, mystified. “Very odd man.”
“And you have no idea who might have sent him?”
“Pah! If he pays in gold, what do I care?” She fell silent. “But I will tell you one thing,” she added after a moment. She eyed them shrewdly. “I think somebody sent him into the lion’s den and didn’t much care if he got eaten.”
“How’s that?”
“You don’t choose such a greenling for your liaison to hire a killer unless you’ve already decided he is a disposable man. Whoever sent him is probably going to kill him after the job is done. I would,” she said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must attend to my guests.”
Beau and Carissa exchanged a guarded glance as they went back out into the night.
“Sorry,” he mumbled ruefully as he walked her back to the coach, his hand on the small of her back. He glanced around over his shoulder, making sure no one was following them. “She wanted to meet you.”
“It’s all right,” Carissa answered. She lowered her gaze to watch her footing over the unequal gravel down the drive. All the while, she fought to keep her mouth shut.
It took almost more discipline than she possessed to refrain from asking her husband bluntly how many times he had slept with that formidable woman. He did not seem too proud of it, but it was obvious he had. A lady of information recognized the small, guilty signs.
Carissa refused to ask the question, though, considering she had no room to talk when it came to matters of virtue. More than ever, her conscience was gnawing at her to tell him everything.
After the wild goings-on she had just observed inside that chateau, she could not believe that Beau would be shocked by anything she had to tell him.
But now surely wasn’t the right time. He already had so many other things to worry about, she reasoned. Besides, having kept up her deception since their wedding night, she was beginning to think he’d view the cover-up as worse than the crime. How was she even supposed to bring up such a topic? Oh, by the way, dear, I know you thought you married a nice little virgin, but I actually had a lover before I married you.
The thought of it made her cringe. She had better figure it out soon, just in case Roger Benton heard about her match, as Aunt Jo had warned.
One thing was certain—Madame Angelique would have no trouble brazening her way through this situation. Carissa, on the other hand, was supposed to be a gently bred young lady.
As they walked to the carriage, she realized that, yes, she was rather jealous of that woman, oddly enough, a woman who was also noticeably jealous of her.
It was not the fact that she had slept with Beau that chiefly bothered her. Many women had, she’d been forced to accept. But that was in his past: She was the one he had married. What she was jealous about was how he had talked to Angelique. He had treated her with the respect due an equal, as if she were a man.
The contrast could not have been more marked as he assisted his little bride to the carriage and hovered over her every move with the utmost protectiveness. Lord, did he see her as helpless?
Was she?
If only she had but a small dose of that Frenchwoman’s audacity . . .
When she thought of how timid and secretive she had become ever since her fall from grace, how frightened of disapproval, she was angry at herself. Shame had made her sneaky. One thing she’d say for the brazen Angelique—she did not appear in the least ashamed of what she was.
In some strange way, that brazen harlot inspired her.
What would it be like to flaunt the world without a care? What would it be like not to be bound up in secrets? But to demand a man’s respect on her own terms.
Indeed, what would it be like if Beau treated her like that, as well, instead of always protecting her as though she were a child or a dainty china doll? Of course, she knew, he meant nothing but the best. He was a gentleman; it was how he had been raised, and she loved him for it, but still.
Inexplicably peeved, she strove to dismiss the unpleasant twinge of jealousy. “We’d better get home fast,” she remarked, putting it out of her mind as he got the carriage door for her, gallant as ever. “It would seem we’ve got an artist to hunt down.”
“No-ho, my girl,” he chided with an idle smile. “You’re not hunting anyone. You’re staying out of this.”
“The devil I am.” She paused, one foot on the carriage step. “You need my help. Tracking down this kind of information is exactly what I’m good at.”
“No,” he replied. “I mean it, Carissa. It’s not safe. You stay out of this.”
She stared at him for a second, hardly surprised by his patronizing answer. Nevertheless, she fought a brief, silent battle with her temper. Then she shook her head, sprang up into the coach, and took her seat.
He gave his men their instructions, then joined her inside. He pulled the door shut, glancing at her. “You’re not pouting, are you?”
She sent him a mutinous look, arms folded. “I can do this.”
“Perhaps you can, but you shan’t.” He rapped on the carriage to signal to the driver.
The carriage rolled into motion.
“Why must you treat me like a child?” she asked a few minutes later as they rolled along, the carriage squeaking and rocking over the rutty road. “One would think you’d be grateful for the help.”
“I can do it myself.”
“You sound like that eight-year-old boy your father told me about, stuck in the tree, refusing to let anyone help him! Well, I’m sorry,
the stakes are too high for me to coddle your stubborn pride.”
“What pride? I’m trying to protect you!”
“Exactly! Maybe I want a chance to return the favor.”
He scoffed. “You protect me?”
“What?” she cried angrily.
“That’s absurd.”
“How? Why can I have no role in this? Nick threatened me. I obviously have a vested interest!”
“I can’t have you interfering.”
“Why can’t you trust me?”
He just looked at her.
She blanched. “I’m an intelligent woman! I can do things! I have skills!”
“And no training. Carissa, you are not an agent. Look, I appreciate your sentiments, really. But I can do this myself. Women have no part in this.”
“What were we just talking to?”
“She doesn’t count!”
“But I do?”
“You’re a lady. Besides, look what happened the last time you meddled!” he reminded her. “We both ended up getting shot. Now, please. Enough!”
“Enough?” She tossed her head in outraged amusement. “Madame Angelique would never let you get away with that.”
“Madame Angelique is not my wife. You are, and you will do as I say.” With that, His Lordship dismissed her by turning aside to watch out the opposite window.
Carissa huffed, folding her arms across her chest as she leaned against the squabs. But although she did not speak her mind aloud, she was busy hatching a plan.
By Jove, she would make him eat his words, prove herself his equal. She’d show him what she was capable of; and then he would treat her with the same respect he had shown to Madame Angelique.
Sitting there, she decided she would make her coup by figuring out who this artist fellow was, the “disposable man” who’d been sent by some anonymous party to hire Nick.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission.
Stubborn creature, not even an Order agent could be everywhere at once. He needed help, whether he’d admit it or not. The man already had enough to worry about. She would simply lighten the load for him and bring him answers. Maybe then her arrogant spy would see that a lady of information could put her skills to equally good use.
Things were rather prickly between them on the boat ride back across the Channel.
But it was just as well that they had headed home.
For when they arrived the next morning, the butler worriedly handed Beau an official-looking letter. The news it brought made Carissa’s stomach plummet to the floor.
The Committee wanted to see him.
Now.
Chapter 18
“Lord Beauchamp, how good of you to join us.”
Beau was getting seriously tired of Ezra Green’s sarcasm, but he bit his tongue.
At least they had not found out he had left the country for the past forty-eight hours. “Gentlemen, what seems to be the matter?” he asked in a most amiable tone as he took his seat in the cold, stone, parliamentary chamber.
Green studied him from his elevated seat in the center of the long table across from Beau. “We received news overnight of a most shocking violence that took place a few weeks ago in Germany. Bavaria, to be precise, several miles north of Munich—right in the vicinity where you say your colleagues went.”
Beau went very still. “What happened?”
“Mass murder, it would seem. More than seventy bodies were found burned to a crisp inside a large cavern in the Alps.” Green could not seem to help his gloating. He shrugged. “There was some sort of fiery explosion that people reported hearing for miles around. Some villages even saw the fireball. They thought perhaps a firedamp leak had ignited inside one of the old mines up in those mountains,” he said. “When the locals went up to investigate, they found dozens of charred bodies inside the cave.”
“How unfortunate,” Beau said cautiously.
“Hmm, yes. The authorities from Munich were called in to investigate. They’re still not sure how many people died in there. For some, there wasn’t much left of them to find.”
Beau sat there for a moment, tapping his fingers idly on the table. “And how does this concern me?”
“Don’t be coy!” Green said scornfully. “We both know your fellow agents were behind this!”
“Do we? Perhaps the villagers were right. ’Twas an accident. A firedamp leak at an old mine. Unless you have some evidence that my agents were connected? Were they seen by the living, found among the dead?”
“Very well, you want to play that game. Who were the dead, you ask? Only some of the most powerful players in Europe. Personal friends of various crowned heads from Rome to Russia!”
“Prometheans,” Beau murmured.
“So you say! Though the bodies were burned mostly beyond recognition, the authorities were able to guess at their identities by the personal effects they left behind at the nearby home of a nobleman—Waldfort Castle. Sound familiar?”
Beau clenched his jaw. Indeed, it did. It was the name of the place Drake had gone with James Falkirk.
“The Munich authorities questioned the servants at this castle. One of them finally admitted to the strange goings-on there. She spoke of a raid in which Count Glasse, the castle’s rightful owner, was killed. Upon his death, all authority was transferred to an Englishman. I think you know his name: Drake Parry, the Earl of Westwood.”
Beau quickly hid his shock.
“Your colleague didn’t even bother to give a false name.”
“Why should he? The Prometheans had already learned his identity when they captured him. They tortured it out of him, Mr. Green.”
“Well, it may interest you to know that soon after Lord Westwood took command of Waldfort Castle, another Englishman showed up there, matching the description of your friend, Lord Rotherstone.”
Beau’s heart was pounding. So, they got inside. But seventy bodies—? “Were they in that cave?” he asked, bracing himself for the worst. “Do we know if they’re alive?”
“I have no idea—and you are missing the whole point!” Green exclaimed. “Don’t you see? The German authorities have traced this back to England! We’ve got scores of the rich and powerful burned to cinders in a cave, and if British agents are found to be behind it, your friends may have just set off a major bloody international incident!”
“What, on the word of a servant girl?” he shot back. “What you people should be asking is what all these bleeders were doing in that cave in the first place. That’s the real question! But you don’t want to hear the answer to that, do you?” He struggled to check his anger. “We have long known the Prometheans had one of their underground temples in the Alps, but we never managed to find the location. Apparently till now.”
“So, you admit the Order was behind this?”
“I couldn’t say, but I certainly hope so.” Privately, his awe grew as the news of his colleagues’ accomplishment sank in. Seventy dead!
The Promethean cult’s surviving leaders had been meeting at Waldfort Castle—at least that had been the Order’s theory.
If this news was true, it meant that the Order’s centuries-old shadow war against the Prometheans was genuinely over, at last.
God, how he wished he had been there!
Instead, he was left with the miserable task of cleaning up the mess their victory had caused.
At least it was a victory.
He asked again: “Did our men survive?”
Green gave him a withering look. “Unknown, but unlikely, especially Lord Westwood. The servant said he led the others into that cave that night. So he could blow them up, it would seem. No questions asked. No proper trials. No due process for any of these high-placed men from countries, some of whom count themselves friends of England. If this is true, once again, our nameless, faceless, invisible Order agents took it upon themselves to act as judge, jury, and executioner.”
“The bastards were Prometheans!”
“Prometheans,”
Green said with a smirk.
Beau stared at him, marveling. “You still don’t believe the threat is real, even after all the evidence you’ve seen?”
But Ezra Green’s cold smile informed him the man had already fixed on a single-minded notion of who the real enemy was. And he looked at Beau with a hatred he no longer bothered to conceal. “There will be hell to pay for this, you must understand, Lord Beauchamp. Not even the Regent can protect your precious Order anymore. Not after this.”
“Just tell them it was a firedamp accident.”
“Oh, you gentlemen are so very good at covering your tracks. But this time, you’ve gone too far. It cannot be excused away. This is an embarrassment to our government. I am sorry to inform you, Lord Beauchamp, not even peers of the Realm are at liberty to go committing mass murder abroad.”
Beau shot to his feet and slammed his hands on the table in frustration. “You don’t even care what the truth is, do you, Mr. Green? This investigation is a travesty, and what your true reasons are for conducting this witch hunt, I scarcely dare to wonder!”
“What is that supposed to mean?” he cried.
“It means the crowned heads you claim are going to be so offended by these deaths are the very ones the Order has just saved! The Regent, the Czar, the Habsburg emperor—they all should be thanking us.”
“For what?”
“Securing their lands from a threat they won’t even acknowledge until everything’s on the brink! Just like you! But why is that, Mr. Green? Why do you brush off this threat? Could it be because you’re—” Beau bit back his words, silencing himself from unleashing a truly reckless tirade.
“Oh, do, please, go on.” Green rested his chin on his hand and waited intently for him to finish.
The unspoken question hung on the air like a cloud of dark smoke in the chamber. Could it be you’re one of them?
But even Beau knew that was absurd. If Ezra Green were a Promethean, the Order would have known about it long ago.
No, Green hated them for entirely different reasons.
“Never mind,” Beau muttered.
“Good. Now, then, if you are quite through hurling accusations, my lord. When you hear from your colleagues, you will bring any communiqué from them directly to me.”