Royal Talisman

by Cooper-Posey, Tracy

  Patrick stared at her. His lips worked, but no words emerged.

  “I thought not,” she said, putting on the wide-brimmed hat and pulling it down around her ears to disguise as much of her face as she could. “Remember that the next time you sit down to tea with a lady, or speak of business in front of a maid.”

  He was staring down at his untouched roast beef as she shut the door, a bewildered look on his face.

  * * * * *

  Bian walked along the mostly deserted footpaths, using the strides of a lad with long legs, enjoying the freedom and ease of movement that trousers and flat shoes provided. As she passed the occasional stroller, she touched her hand to her hat brim, with a polite nod, which was all someone of her apparent rank would consider appropriate. The movement also covered her un-English eyes. It was quite dark, but if her eyes were seen at all they would be noted and remembered.

  When she was within a few hundred feet of Stuart’s house, she slipped into the alley that ran behind the houses in this area. The alley gave service carts access to the servants’ entries to the houses, and to the servants’ quarters, stables and service buildings at the back of the houses.

  It was close to midnight and the moon had not yet risen. A crisp frost lay over everything, making her footsteps crunch alarmingly. It was impossible to approach the house silently, so she walked openly instead. When she arrived at the gateway that gave access to the servants’ entrance to Stuart and Aiden’s townhouse, she looked around for observers. But it was too cold a night for anyone to be lingering and she had not seen anyone since leaving the street.

  The servants’ entrance would be locked and barred by now. Any day staff would have left long ago. She looked up at the second floor of the townhouse. All the windows were dark. Along the side of the house, there was a window with a low glow that might be a single candle burning. That was Stuart’s room. She would avoid that side of the house, for Aiden’s rooms would most certainly be at the front of the house, and possibly on the other corner opposite Stuart’s.

  She spotted a very small window on the second floor, with marbled glass. It could be a large closet or a small room, but would not likely belong to one of the staff—not with impenetrable glass of that kind. There was a drainpipe right next to it and the house was made of brick and mortar. Here at the back, there was no plaster overlay on the bricks. It would be as easy as climbing stairs.

  She slipped through the gateway and over to the drainpipe and laid a hand against it. It was bitterly cold to touch but not slippery. Not yet. She dug into her jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of leather gloves so thin and light they were like a second skin. She drew them on, then gripped the back of the pipe with both hands and braced her feet flat against the wall. The heels of her shoes were held by the tiny lip created by the mortar sinking between the bricks. It was a fraction of an inch but enough to keep her feet from sliding down the bricks.

  Moving hand over hand and one footstep at a time, she walked her way up the wall, until she was parallel with the window, some twenty-five feet off the ground.

  She tested the window. It moved a little, then stuck but not from a lock or bar. It was simply lack of use that made it reluctant to rise. She leaned her elbow on the window sill, worked her fingers under the tiny space beneath the frame and heaved, using the sill as leverage. It gave an almost soundless squeal of protest, then moved another inch. Taking a breath, she re-anchored herself and tried again. Her left arm was burning from taking all her weight as she hung off the pipe. She closed her mind to it.

  Finally the window was opened the necessary inches she needed to wriggle through. At least with such a stiff window, she did not have to worry about the frame falling down on her, or slamming closed once she was inside and alerting the household.

  She swung over to the sill and used her arms to pull herself through the window. The room was utterly dark and her eyes, already adjusted to the little light outside, could make out nothing. As soon as her hips were supporting her on the sill, she reached down, feeling for objects beneath the window. As her hands met nothing, she groped further, until her palms rested against the cold wooden floor. She could feel no objects within a couple of feet of the window, so pulled herself through until she was crouched on the floor.

  The room was still and silent around her. There was no-one else here, not even a sleeper.

  She waited until her eyes had adjusted again and gradually made out dark shapes propped against the wall, and more of them hanging from pegs. Rotund objects crouched on the floor beneath. They were cleaning items—brooms, buckets, wash cloths. The cleaning staff’s upstairs equipment. Any of it would make a clatter loud enough to wake the dead if she knocked into it.

  She carefully stepped her way across the room to the door and eased it open. The corridor beyond had doors on the other side as well, but none of them was open. She looked left and right, then decided on left just because Stuart’s room was on the right of the house, from where she stood.

  The corridor had a good, thick runner along it. The runner helped quiet her footsteps as she moved down the centre of it and muffled the odd creak of floorboards. The corridor followed the outside of the house, turning to run toward the front, where the sweeping stairs led down to the ground floor. Somewhere down there was a study, a place where documents were kept that would give her the information she needed.

  She manoeuvred carefully along the edge of the corridor, her shoulder almost brushing the wall, as she came to the front half of the house. Against the wall was where the floorboards squeaked the least and now was when she must be most silent. When she made the top of the staircase without a soul stirring, she breathed a small sigh of relief.

  The stairs were of much more solid construction and she hurried silently down them, knowing that none of them moaned or squealed, for she had used them more than once in the light of day and had automatically taken note of their soundness.

  On the ground floor, she avoided the rooms she already knew; the kitchen and family parlour and the front foyer. She turned instead to the other front rooms, suspecting she would find a formal lounge room of some sort and beyond it a study or library.

  She stepped through a grand archway into a room where dark shadows of chairs hunched around occasional tables. It smelled dusty and ill-used. There was light coming from the windows, for the street lamps were kept burning all night in this district and there was one just outside the window. She paused again, memorizing the layout of furniture in the room. If she had to hurry back this way, she needed to know the quickest route across the room.

  There was a grand fireplace on the wall opposite the windows and a teak mantelshelf over it. She saw that the picture above the shelf was a framed mirror, not a picture at all. There was very little on the shelf itself. Not even a box of tapers for lighting a fire, which confirmed in her mind that the room was seldom used.

  But there was a little figurine on the end of it.

  Her heart stuttered, came to a stop, then began again, this time slamming against her chest with every beat. The pain was excruciating. Clutching at her chest, she moved to the mantelshelf and reached for the jade tiger and lifted it down. Under her fingers, she could feel the Latin scripted message from her mother to her father, carved into the chest and haunches of the beast.

  Whoever had placed the documents in her father’s chest had also taken this from the same hiding place, stolen it and placed it upon the mantle in plain sight for all to see.

  Which one was it?

  “I’ve never had the pleasure of catching a thief red-handed,” came the drawl from the doorway. “What am I to do with you?”

  She looked over her shoulder, carefully avoiding showing more of her face than she had to. She had failed to remain alert when she had found the tiger and now she must pay the price for her lapse.

  From the voice and the shape of the figure by the archway, she was facing either Aiden or Stuart. But he had his back to the light. She couldn’t see his e
yes.

  “Nothing to say, lad?”

  “Ye caught me, gov’,” she said, deepening her voice and added a Cockney accent. “Right fair ’n square. Better get it over wiv. Call the coppers.”

  “As soon as you put whatever you have in your hand back where you found it.”

  He didn’t know what it was. This one, then, wasn’t the one who had placed the figurine on the mantle, or he would have called it that.

  A flood of light from a strong, well-lit lamp came from around the archway. “What on earth…?” came a second voice. Aiden or Stuart…again, she could not tell. There was not enough light. Yet.

  The lamp was carried into the room by the other twin. This one wore the same robe Stuart had worn. Was this one Stuart? But the other had not known what she held in her hand.

  The second of the pair to arrive lifted the lamp and placed it on the lamp stand just inside the door, then looked at her. His eyes widened. “You!”

  Not “Bian.”

  She looked at the first, who now stood on her right. He was staring at her. He wore a similar robe but it was a dark green, rather than a dark red. “Take off your hat,” he said, his voice low.

  She had already been recognized, so she took the warm hat off gratefully. It would increase her range of vision to have it off. And she would need that advantage, for a plan of action had occurred to her. She looked at them both. “Yes, it’s me,” she said in her normal voice. “I suppose you’re surprised to see me.”

  “Bian, what on earth…and why are you wearing those clothes?” This was from the one on the left. She still could not see his face clearly. The lamp was behind him. But he called her Bian.

  “You’re an unusual lady, Bian. I suppose you must have an explanation,” said the other.

  Stalemate.

  Mentally, she rolled up her sleeves. “I’m here tonight to learn which of you is a traitor.”

  This time both of their eyes widened.

  “One of you has betrayed England, sold her secrets to the highest bidder and into the bargain, managed to shift blame to the Duke of Pemberton. He was executed six days ago, did you know?”

  “You know I know that.” From the left.

  “Bian, for God’s sake, what are you talking about?” From the right. “Treachery is a serious accusation. You can’t simply fling it about like that.”

  “I’m not flinging,” she assured them. “I have proof.”

  Then she shut her mouth, watching them closely. Both their eyes widened again.

  She needed another goad.

  “One of you is feigning innocence,” she said. “Whichever one of you it is, you have been pretending to be the other, in order to shift blame again. To fool me and put me off your trail. But you’ve failed. I have my proof and need only give it to Lord Baring, who will see that you’re tried and executed, just as you arranged for the Duke of Pemberton.”

  This time they glanced at each other.

  Bian rubbed her thumb over her proof and braced herself. She looked up, beyond their shoulders and threw out her hand, pointing. “Watch out! Behind you!” she shouted in Vietnamese.

  The one on the left whirled to face the danger she had warned him of. The other’s brow wrinkled in puzzlement, a silent “What?” forming on his lips.

  The first was already turning back to look at her when she lifted up the tiger and threw it as hard as she could at the other. It hit him square on the right shoulder, sending him staggering backward, flailing for balance.

  She ran at him and from five feet away, launched herself at him. She landed against his chest. As he was already off balance, he fell to the floor with an impact that vibrated across the boards to jar the whole room.

  “What in God’s name…?” Stuart said, next to her.

  Bian was ready for the fall and the impact. Before Aiden, beneath her, could do more than shake the dizziness from his head, she had her knee against his windpipe and her pistol an inch from his nose. He looked up into the barrel and grew very still.

  “Bian, what are you doing?” Stuart asked.

  “You know Vietnamese. He didn’t. If he did, he would never have put this statue on the mantelshelf. Read it, Stuart.” She picked up the tiger from the floor and tossed it up to him. “It’s Latin script. You will be able to read it enough to know what it says.”

  She turned back to look down at Aiden’s face. “I’m not afraid to use this gun. It would not be the first time I have shot away a man’s face and I would take great pleasure in doing it to you.”

  He swallowed, his adam’s apple bobbing, and looked at his brother. “This woman is crazy, Stuart.”

  Stuart was absorbed in reading and translating the script on the tiger. “She is a great many things but crazy is not one of them. And I believe her when she says she can use the gun. I suggest you believe her, too.” He finished reading and looked at her.

  Then, abruptly, he lunged at her. Bian flinched but his hands moved past her to land on his brother’s arm, down by her hip. She looked down as Stuart leaned on Aiden’s wrist.

  “What are you doing?” he asked Aiden. “What is it you search for in your pocket?” He dug into the robe’s pocket and brought out a derringer pistol, holding the miniature firearm in his fingers. He looked at Aiden, pain etching his fingers. “Then it’s all true,” he said sadly. He hefted the tiger in his other hand. “There is only one way you could have come across such an intensely personal object belonging to the Duke of Pemberton and only one reason to be carrying such a gun around on your person, here in the heart of London.”

  Aiden swore. “Damn your eyes, little brother. That noble sense of duty of yours has always been your undoing and will be forever more.”

  Stuart shook his head in pity. “You still persist in believing that childhood myth, even now?”

  “I was born first, damn you!” Aiden cried. “Everything that you have, that you will have, it’s mine and you know it!”

  “You would have been taken care of. You know that. The viscountcy would have been yours.”

  “A viscount? While you parade around as the Earl of Salisbury?” Aiden spat. “This is all your fault, little brother. We both know I was born first but you made sure they mixed us up, so you would inherit it all. I don’t want your charity. I don’t need it. I have more powerful allies now. Friends who know how to treat a true lord.”

  “You don’t have any friends at all,” Stuart told him. “And you’ll have no need of them, where you’re going.”

  He looked at Bian. “This is why you are in England, is it not? To find the man that caused your—the Duke of Pemberton’s death?”

  “It did not begin that way but yes, ultimately, that was my goal.”

  His eyes were drilling into her, giving her no room to manoeuvre, no escape. “You thought I was that man. That is why we met.”

  She could find no other answer than the truth that already hung between them. So she spoke it aloud. “Yes, that is why we met.”

  “And right up until you threw that statue, you were still not certain, were you? It could be me, right now, lying beneath your knee with your gun at my face.”

  She could not answer him. She could not speak the words, because she knew that to speak them would bring about the death of anything that lay between them. All the beauty and sweetness they had enjoyed these last few days would be gone.

  But her face, the emotion on it, spoke for her.

  Silently, he turned away from her.

  Chapter Nine

  England, Winter, 1885

  Patrick handed her cloak and his coat to the waiting footman and Bian looked around the grand house. “Have you ever been invited to Lady Grey’s country luncheons before?” she asked Patrick.

  “Never. But we are on a lot of invitation lists now that we once were not.” He shrugged.

  “Why is that, though? That is the question that plagues me. I do not think it is simply that you are the new Duke, either, for our connection is not public. Yet I a
m received in as many houses as you.”

  Lady Grey herself emerged from the drawing room and moved across the tiles toward them, her arms outstretched in welcome. “It’s so good of you to come,” she exclaimed and shepherded them back toward the room. “I have some special guests this year. I believe you may know most of them, including the new Earl of Salisbury.”

  Bian halted and Lady Grey’s hand fell away from her arm. Their hostess turned back to face her, puzzled. Patrick’s face showed surprise, giving way to pity.

  Bian cleared her throat. “The new Earl of Salisbury is here?”

  “Yes, dear, he is.” Lady Grey’s smile was pleasant, but there was knowledge in her gaze, too, along with an understanding light in her eyes.

  “Bian.” Her name was called from the drawing room doorway. Stuart stood there, his hand on the handle, looking tall and dignified in a black jacket.

  Lady Grey whispered something to Patrick, who nodded and walked their hostess to the door, past Stuart and into the room behind, leaving Bian alone to face him.

  “You knew I would be here,” she accused Stuart.

  “I arranged it,” he said flatly, coming toward her. “I had to see you. And since my brother’s…disgrace, there are few places where I am welcome. Lady Grey’s hearth is one of those places. She, at least, does not assume my entire family is tainted because of my brother’s choices.”

  “Whereas I seem to have acquired a reputation that opens doors for me everywhere,” Bian muttered. “It’s almost as if someone had been speaking about me.”

  “Someone has, behind closed doors.”

  “Who?” she said sharply.

  “Your brother. And me.” Stuart reached for her arm, then thought the better of it and dropped his hand. “Would you…could we speak alone? “

  “You would deign to speak with me?” Bian asked. “The last time we were in the same room together, you looked at me with the same distain that most of England hands to you these days.”