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Risto’s companion, encased in a hooded cloak, drew a chair up beside the bed, sat down, and threw the hood back. The candlelight revealed the face of a young man.
“Risto you recall, I see,” said the stranger. “I am his master.” His voice was gentle and his sweet smile that of an innocent youth. These qualities did not quiet Sir Gerald’s fears in the least.
“Is-Ismal,” he gasped.
The young man bowed his head in acknowledgement. “You’ll forgive our unceremonious entry. I thought it best the servants not see me. Servants of all races like to talk, and neither you nor I would wish my arrival made known to certain individuals. I have come merely to settle a small matter of business. Then I shall be gone, I promise.”
Ismal calmly removed the cloak and leaned back, utterly at his ease. He was dressed in English garb, complete to the elaborate knot of his neckcloth. Except for the faint accent, he might have passed as an English gentleman.
“Before you vex your brain contriving some way to escape me, I will explain your position.” He gracefully draped one arm upon the back of the chair. “In Venice, I found a man named Bridgeburton.”
Sir Gerald felt the blood draining from his face.
“This man has been a partner in your enterprises for many years—since the night, some twenty-odd years ago, he helped you cheat your brother out of a valuable property.”
Ismal withdrew from his inner coat pocket a thick letter. “He was persuaded to write a confession of all your mutual crimes.” He dropped the letter onto Sir Gerald’s lap. “That is a copy. The original is to be delivered to a member of your ministry in the event I am inconvenienced in any way. If you think to trick or betray me, you will only betray yourself.”
The dagger withdrew just enough to let Sir Gerald take up the letter. He needed only to skim it to understand how much danger he was in. No one but Bridgeburton knew these particular details.
He set his jaw. “I suppose he’s dead.”
“I fear your partner was so incautious as to fall into the canal.” Ismal examined his smooth nails. “May Risto put away his dagger now? If his hand grows too tired, it may slip.”
“You know I daren’t raise any alarm.” Sir Gerald handed back the letter. “I’ve no more inclination for the gallows than for your servant’s blade.”
When the dagger was withdrawn, he gingerly touched his throat. It was wet. Perspiration, perhaps, or blood. It hardly mattered. He wasn’t dead yet.
What mattered was the young man sitting by the bed. Ismal had got this damning confession out of the immovable Bridgeburton, killed him, and come all the way to England. That was more than persistence. Madness?
“What do you want from me?” Sir Gerald demanded, more boldly than he felt. “I dealt squarely with you. It wasn’t my fault…”
“It was not a deliberate betrayal, I admit,” Ismal amiably agreed, “though I thought so at first. I have since learned that not only have my dreams crumbled, but your empire as well. I cannot believe you’d deliberately destroy yourself. Nonetheless you were careless, Sir Gerald, else no one could have known about every single ship, every single destination.”
“It could have been one of your own people.”
“Only Risto knew all—or nearly all—and he would not be with me now had he betrayed me. It was you, of course.”
“I swear to you—”
“You were incautious in some way, and this error nearly resulted in my death.” Tipping his head to one side, Ismal softly enquired, “Have you ever been poisoned, Sir Gerald? My cousin, Ali, prefers the slow poisons. I did not find the experience at all to my taste. Yet as I recovered on a filthy fishing vessel, I began to appreciate the method’s charms. I should enjoy, very much, watching one who’s played me false die…very, very slowly...in great agony.”
Definitely mad, Sir Gerald decided grimly. But the first shock had passed, and his powers of self-preservation were returning. “I suppose it’s no use trying to convince you I’m not your enemy, or even that I never spoke a word to anyone or within anyone’s hearing. It hardly matters anyhow. You know I must have the original of Bridgeburton’s letter. What’s your price?”
“The sum I paid for weapons I never received, plus a thousand pounds to repay what my cousin extorted from me—because of your niece and her pig of a lover.” An edge had crept into Ismal’s mellifluous voice. He must have heard it, too, for he smiled more sweetly. “And another thousand for my travel expenses,” he continued in gentler tones. “All to be paid in two days.”
Utterly deranged. This, regrettably, did not make a man any the less dangerous. Still, Sir Gerald had strong objections to being blackmailed and a keen sense of the injustice of Ismal’s demands. Moreover, the baronet hadn’t yet met the man he couldn’t get the better of, sooner or later. He thought quickly.
“I can’t raise such a sum in only two days,” he said. “If you know so much about me, you must be aware I’ve already sold off my remaining investments, not to mention half my possessions.”
“Then you will give me the chess set.”
Sir Gerald stared at him.
Ismal’s smile grew reproachful. “Or have you sold that, too—your niece’s dowry?”
Indignation instantly submerged Sir Gerald’s alarm. “Sold it?” he repeated. “And get but a fraction of its worth? Most of the value was in its being complete, with every piece intact, every gemstone the original. Collectors may be eccentric, some of them, and they might, just possibly, overlook a missing pawn—but a queen?”
Ismal’s arm came away from the back of the chair. The false smile had broadened, and his eyes gleamed.
With amusement? Sir Gerald wondered. What the devil was so funny?
Ismal leaned toward him. “Sir Gerald,” he said, “you are in deeper trouble than you know. I am not the only one in possession of your dirty secrets.”
“What in blazes are you talking about?”
“The black queen.”
“Which this backguard said he was going to give you—”
“And which was soon thereafter given to your son. With your message still inside.”
***
Esme’s lips were twitching as she gave the letter back to her grandmother.
“It ain’t funny,” the old lady growled.
“Not only amusing but imaginative,” Esme said. “They say I have tattoos on my hands, wear a ring in my nose, and in this garb—and nothing else—I dance lewd dances in your rose garden. By the light of the full moon. Mrs. Stockwell-Hume does not mention my howling at the moon as well, but perhaps her London friends will think of that in time.”
“It don’t matter if it’s ridiculous. Most of London gossip is. That don’t make it any the less damaging. What do you think Edenmont’s going to say—no, better—when he hears of it?”
Esme quickly sobered. The rumor Lady Brentmor’s friend reported were preposterous, blatant examples of English society’s provincialism and ignorance. All the same, to have one’s wife an object of mockery, and oneself an object of pity…
“Quite,” said the dowager. “We must go to London. Tomorrow.”
“London? Tomorrow?”
“You ain’t an echo, so don’t act like one. I’d leave this minute if I could, but we’ll want all the day to pack. And the young brute must come, too, unless I want to come back and find he’s blown up the house.”
“But, Grandmother, I am not ready. You said yourself my manners—”
“They’re better than what them fools expect. Besides, we ain’t staying the whole Season. Just a week or so. Enough to set ‘em straight. Bloody lot of nincompoops.”
London. Tomorrow. Esme suppressed a shudder. All those women. His women. They’d pick her to pieces, and she lacked the art to defend herself. She wouldn’t have the heart, either, when she saw her rivals. They’d be more beautiful than she’d imagined, more graceful, and she’d feel uglier, utterly worthless. Two months without Varian had already weakened her confidence. She ne
eded time to regather her strength if she hoped to make sensible decisions about the future…without him.
“No,” she said. “This gossip is no more than a joke. But if I am there, they will see what is truly wrong, and that will be worse.”
“It’ll be a deal worse if he takes it into his head to start issuing challenges. A man’s obliged to defend his wife’s good name—even if he loathes her. Gad, men are such jackasses,” the dowager grumbled. “We spend half our lives trying to save the bloody idiots from themselves.”
“You cannot expect me to believe—”
