“I prefer my staff not to risk life and limb.” He poured the tea himself, and put the delicate dish and saucer on a side table, where she could reach it. She eyed it doubtfully. Her clumsiness was not something she was proud of.
“Besides,” he continued, “you did me a favour. If one of the guests had slipped, there’d be hell to pay.”
That was true enough. The members of the club did appear particularly demanding, but that was not unusual in the upper echelons of society. She had watched them particularly closely recently; she’d had good reason to. “Sir, I should go.”
“When you have done as I asked. Have a nap, then you may go home. Take tomorrow off.”
She gulped. Did that mean he didn’t want her back? Although that was probably for the best. “Yes sir, thank you. I am very grateful for your help.”
He sat and crossed one leg over the other, then lifted his tea-dish with delicate precision, his little finger crooked to balance the weight. He sipped his tea without taking his eyes from hers. His eyes were brighter than the jewels on his fingers or at his neck, and far more beautiful.
He put his tea-dish down, finding the saucer without hesitation, even though he did not look. “I like to interview all the servants here at least once. I should have seen you a week ago, but I’ve been busy. Where do you come from, Joanna?”
“London, sir.”
“And you come in every day?”
She nodded. “Yes, sir. I live with my father, who is not well.”
“Ah.” He delicately adjusted the fit of the dish in its saucer. “So that is why you’re not a live-in maid. It must be difficult finding work that leaves you free to care for your father. Is he an old man?”
Joanna thought briefly of her father. Her hale and hearty father. “Yes.”
“I see. So you go home every evening and return in the morning in time to clean the guest rooms and help with breakfast.” He gazed at her, and for the life of her she couldn’t look away. “That’s a lot of work.”
She didn’t need him to tell her that. “No more than most maids undertake, sir.”
He nodded. “True enough.”
He finished his tea in a couple of quick gulps, his throat moving when he tipped his head back. When he lowered the dish, he caught her watching. He kept her attention effortlessly. “We will consider the matter at an end. Now you will rest, and then go home in a chair.”
She swallowed her protest that she couldn’t afford to pay for a sedan chair. “Yes, sir.” His gaze was too intent; she could not look at him any longer. Joanna turned her attention to the side, noting the fine portrait over the mantel.
“Oh, what a beautiful lady,” she said impulsively. She had never been in this room before, as the comte was very particular about the staff that attended to his private quarters. She was privileged to even be here.
The lady in the picture was wearing silk and velvet in the style of the last century, her bosom perilously close to exposure. She gazed out at the onlooker, her stare provocative and challenging.
His voice took on a wistful tone. “The painting pleases me. It looks very much like her.”
“She was very lovely.” A question wisped through her mind. How would he know that about a lady a hundred years dead?
He got to his feet. “Lightfoot will ensure you get home. We will meet again the day after tomorrow.” He strode to the door, his heels clicking against the polished mahogany floor.
Before he left, he turned back. “I shall expect to see you when you return. Do not disappear or I will make it my business to discover you.” Once more he paused, and cast a smiling glance over his shoulder. “My mother was English, and I was reared with fluency in a number of languages. The accent is good for business.”
He left her gaping because she had not asked him about the loss of his Italian accent.
As she finished her tea, Joanna went over recent events, debating the consequences. Why would he insist on her returning to work when she had failed so miserably? Two reasons sprang immediately to mind, one of them to be immediately dismissed. He did not want her in that way, not carnally, unless he had serious problems with his vision. His lordship was wealthy, fashionable, and could command any woman he chose. In the kitchens nobody had warned her that he took advantage of the servants—in fact, quite the contrary. The comte had a reputation for never touching the domestics, even the prettiest ones. He never varied from that, so he would certainly not do it for the most unprepossessing of his servants.
She was ordinary-looking at best. When she put her mind to it, Joanna could appear pretty, but only in the right clothes with her hair dressed the right way. Most people barely noticed her. She had brown hair and eyes, and rarely powdered. Not tall enough to attract attention, she could slip through a room leaving people wondering if they had seen her or not.
Instead of repining on her problems, she had used them to her advantage. She had served coffee in one of the most notoriously seditious coffeehouses in London, had attended balls as a maid, helping the ladies in the retiring rooms, and now she was working in London’s newest club. Nobody remembered her.
Except this time she’d failed. She’d managed to get herself noticed. She would have to return for a week or so, enough time for the master to see her, and then retire gracefully. Plead a sick relative or something similar. Her comfortable position here would have to end, before people realised exactly how the journal got its stories.
So she would have to make the most of her one time here. She should have asked him personal questions, should have tried to get him to open up, to tell her something. Perhaps she could describe this elegant room—but then, considering how carefully he kept his privacy, he was bound to work out who had done it. One thing, just one, and she’d have something to keep the journal’s new patron happy.
D’Argento’s grace and perfection covered a powerful body and a swift mind. Of course, anyone who made a success of something like the Pantheon had to have a degree of intelligence, but it wasn’t that. More a personal deftness, a grace he used with purpose. He looked to be thirty, or thereabouts, but she couldn’t be sure. Spare and elegant, a clean bone structure and clear eyes, paired with a firm mouth with the promise of sin.
But for what? Why set this up if he had enough money to last him forever? Either he had no money and the rumours about his wealth were not true, or he was doing this for another reason. One nobody she knew was privy to. Perhaps nobody was. Or was he setting up something else?
After helping herself to another dish of tea, she carefully placed the empty dish in its saucer and settled down to do as she was told and nap. But not before she had taken a look around.
Getting to her feet cautiously, Joanna found she could walk, or rather, hobble. The twist had been worse than she’d thought, but it was still a twist, and it would wear off soon. Clutching the furniture, she made her way around the room. If anyone interrupted her, she’d say she was testing her foot.
First, she went to the portrait.
A small plaque screwed to the frame told her the identity of the sitter. Adora, Comtesse d’Argento, 1675, it read, with the name of an artist she did not recognize. If the portraitist had been true to his subject, he had depicted a lovely woman. Her pearly skin begged to be touched; her eyes dared the observer to do so. Unlike those of her descendant, they were dark, as was her hair. He’d said it was a good resemblance. How did he know that? But at least he had come from somewhere.
Joanna limped around the room. A bureau was set to one side of the window, but when she guiltily slid open the top, it contained nothing but a set of quills, a crystal inkwell and one of fine sand, some embossed calling cards, and engraved writing paper. She picked up a signet ring, but although it was a fine, carved sapphire, it was the coat of arms she’d seen on the side of his carriage, not a secret sigil or something. The drawer was locked, but she had no picks with her and she was not clever enough to use a hairpin. Perhaps she should learn, but she had been loath to do so
, hating this part of the work. Prying and poking around had never appealed.
The lovely couches were new, the side tables elegant, the rugs unmarked. This was a room where the master received visitors. He wouldn’t keep his personal secrets here.
Gaining very little except more pain from her perambulations, Joanna gave up and sat on the sofa once more. Gathering her skirts decorously, she lay down and prepared to rest, although she did not expect to actually sleep, exhausted though she was.
This room was pleasant, and relatively quiet considering it overlooked the busy thoroughfare of St. James’s street. It smelled good too, faintly of lavender polish with a tang of the citrus cologne the comte habitually wore. Breathing deeply, she closed her eyes.
*
Joanna blinked. Goodness, she had fallen asleep after all. The strain of the day and arriving for work at five had obviously exhausted her. Not that she had done that much today. The sofa she had chosen was side-on to the fire, tilted more towards the window.
When she turned her head to consult the clock on the mantelpiece, she paused when a movement snagged her attention. She wasn’t alone. A man sat on a stool by the fire. He hadn’t noticed her movement, so she half-closed her eyes and observed him.
Mr. Lightfoot had employed her. Tall and lean, with a deeply creased face and sharp, perceptive eyes, Mr. Lightfoot was his lordship’s right-hand man. He managed the club and attended his master as a valet when his duties allowed, working harder than anyone else here. He had high standards too. Left to his own devices he would probably have dismissed her for her transgression this morning, but his master had intervened. Now he waited here, probably ensuring she did not do anything she should not, like pocket one of the small treasures. It wasn’t small treasures she wanted. It was secrets.
The man was sitting by the unlit fire, contemplating his toes. Or rather, his hooves.
Joanna froze, staring at his feet. Lightfoot had removed his shoes and stockings, stretching his legs out before him, his concentration completely on his feet. His hooves. Perhaps if she repeated it to herself long enough, she’d understand what she was seeing. Or was she dreaming? Joanna fought to control her breathing as her heart pulsed harder and faster.
That must be it. She remained perfectly still, her attention riveted on those—hooves.
From the knees down, his legs were hairy. No, that was wrong. They were furry. She couldn’t see his skin for the thick pelt that covered it. And his feet terminated in those horny protuberances that had no business being there.
Of course she’d read of freaks of nature, creatures born with two heads or extra legs, but the aberrations never lived long. They were just accidents. This, though—what was this? How could it happen? He walked like every other person, and he never showed signs of discomfort or difficulty. He was shaped like a man, and as far as she knew he didn’t have a tail, or horns, or anything else she’d associate with what looked more like the legs of a goat than the legs of a man.
Sighing, Lightfoot picked up his stockings, which lay in an untidy bundle by his side, and rolled them back on, securing them at his knee by tucking them under his breeches and tightening the buckles. His feet still appeared odd, even covered, but when he put his shoes on, she could discern no difference. He was very good at hiding his deformity.
As he turned to glance at her, Joanna quickly closed her eyes and fought to keep still. Her heart pounded far too hard, but the shock she’d received had increased the beat and left her mind blank.
Lightfoot got to his feet and left the room, his step as steady as always.
Feet that deformed must cause him pain. Her heart went out to him when she realised what agony he must be in every day. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling, tracing the elaborate patterns etched into the plaster.
Joanna was as sure as she could be that she had really seen a man with a pair of hooves. Once she told her father he would not allow her to leave until she had discovered more. But she could not keep such an explosive fact from him.
Was Lord d’Argento a benefactor to unfortunates, or did he share their misfortunes?
Joanna tried, but she could not imagine the elegant comte with legs that hairy and misshapen or with hooves. She had truly seen them, could describe their horny reality, the way the tan colour darkened to near black at the ends, the tufts of wiry hair that stuck out from the clefts. In her years spent on the streets of London she had seen some terrible deformities, some self-inflicted in order to garner sympathy and pennies, but she had never seen anything like this.
She forced herself to breathe slowly and steadily until her heart regained its regular rhythm. Her instinct was to leap up from the sofa and run, forcing her injured ankle to work, ignoring the pain until she got far, far away.
She had a story. A real story. A philanthropic comte? Or a secret sufferer from a debilitating disease who gathered like-minded people around him? Either story would work. In the past people would have labelled Lightfoot a witch and drowned or burned him, but they didn’t do things like that in the enlightened eighteenth century. They might hang ten-year-old children for stealing a penny loaf, but they would baulk at drowning a man for having hairy legs and hooves. They might take him for further study, or exhibit him at a country fair. Some might call that a fate worse than death.
If she did not return, she would learn nothing. Everyone knew the best way to discover something was from the inside. Otherwise the effort could be like laying siege to a fortress, and she didn’t have time for that.
Gathering her thoughts around her, as she might a thick cloak, she lay back on the sofa and waited for someone to return. She didn’t sleep. She might never close her eyes again, for fear of seeing what she should not.
Of course, when Lightfoot re-entered the room, she opened her eyes, jolted back to consciousness. Gasping, she clenched her fists and shot upright, jarring her foot. The pain helped her to regain her senses.
Lightfoot stayed at the other side of the room, as if he sensed her apprehension. “I’ve ordered a sedan for you. Paid for, of course. Go home, rest and take tomorrow off. Master’s orders.” His lips tightened, as if the generosity wasn’t his choice. “We’ll see you as usual the day after that.”
She shifted, but he held up a hand. “I’ll send a maid to help you.”
“Thank you.” She didn’t have much dignity left, but she mustered what she had and lifted her chin like a princess.
He raised a brow and left the room. Only then did she realise she was shaking.
Chapter Three
Lightfoot entered Amidei’s room without ceremony, as he usually did. The brief knock on the door was merely a nod to courtesy. “I put her in a sedan, my lord. She seemed a bit shaken.” His grin was positively wicked.
Aware that he’d behaved like a coward, scuttling away without seeking a conclusion to the matter, Amidei turned in his chair and waved at his valet, the one he used when Lightfoot was busy. “Leave us. I’ll wear the grey tonight, the new pale grey velvet. See to it, if you would.”
The valet, another immortal, but a minor one and not someone Amidei would trust with all his secrets—not yet, at any rate—hurried away into the dressing room and closed the door. A damned good valet, though. Amidei only employed the best.
Amidei nodded to the side table by the window. “Help yourself, if you wish.”
Lightfoot crossed to the tantalus and unerringly unfastened it. There wasn’t a lock in the house Lightfoot couldn’t overcome, and he barely noticed this one that nominally at least blocked his access to the three decanters. He chose the brandy and glanced at Amidei, who nodded.
Lightfoot’s deft handling of the crystal decanter and glasses seemed completely at odds to his lanky form and long, spidery fingers, but the man had helped Amidei in some delicate tasks and proved more than adequate to the task. Frequently it fell to Amidei to bind wounds or cure ills, and sometimes the cures could be appallingly bloody. Lightfoot was one of the few people he could trust
to help him.
Amidei’s other, more powerful name was Mercury.
In that capacity, he acted as physician to the gods. They could hardly ask mortals to help them, since their blood, or ichor, was poisonous to mortal touch, but they had enough medical knowledge to handle most situations, and they could call Amidei when something appeared particularly difficult.
The factotum brought the generous doses of brandy over and handed one to Amidei, before picking up a chair and planting it on the carpet, facing his master. After a glance at his master for permission, he sat with a relieved sigh.
“Was I right? When I skimmed her mind, when I was carrying her, I suspected something. A tick of awareness, of not being all she should be. Did you read her?”
Lightfoot grunted. “She keeps her thoughts tidily arranged. I read nothing other than her desire to work hard here. I needed to give her a nudge. Shock a mortal, and they will temporarily drop their guard.”
“So what else did you do?” Amidei demanded.
“Took off my shoes and stockings,” Lightfoot said succinctly.
“What?” Amidei dropped his head into his hands and swore. Lifting his head, he glared at his factotum. “You couldn’t show her something a little less obvious? Hint at our secrets instead of displaying them blatantly? Dropped a glass to startle her? Dear God, man, how are we to keep ourselves hidden if you do things like that? I would never have allowed her to go home had I known what you’d done.”
Lightfoot shook his head, his lugubrious expression lifting when he smiled. “She has a good head on her shoulders, that one. I wanted her to see something she couldn’t excuse away as coincidence or her imagination to give her that shock I mentioned.” Lifting the glass to his lips, he took a good swallow of the fiery liquid. “I can explain it away later. She was half asleep, and yes, I have hairy legs, but cloven hooves? That part must have been a dream.” He winked. “She may tell people, but they’ll not believe her, or if they do they’ll say I’m possessed of a terrible deformity. I had the front part of my feet chopped off in an accident. I’ve told people that one before and they swallowed it whole.”
Her Quicksilver Lover: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 6 Page 2