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He had scarcely sat down on the sofa before he got up to walk to the fire. Then he moved to the bookshelves and studied them. Then he went to the cupboards and opened and shut every single door. Then he went to the windows and studied the closed drapes. He went on to unstack and restack the canvases leaning against the wall. He ended his circuit of the studio at the worktable. Having made a neat pile of her sketchbooks, he was at present putting all the pencils into one jar and all the brushes into another.
"It sounds like an excellent plan," Leila said cautiously into the silence. "I assume she understands what I'll be doing—or have you persuaded her to sponsor me out of the goodness of her heart?"
"I have told her about the inquiry." He perched on the stool and, taking up a knife, began sharpening a pencil with quick, sure strokes. "I know she can be trusted. Quentin himself often consults her on financial matters. She has a vast network of informants in the world of commerce, here and abroad. In fact, it was she who called on me today. She had previously provided some information during the Vingt-Huit case. Yesterday, she obtained a document she believed I would be interested in."
He paused briefly. "I might as well tell you. Your husband was blackmailing Lord Avory. But it was not for the reason one might expect. We did not know—and Lady Brentmor was one of a very few who did, it seems—that Avory's elder brother was…attached to Edmund Carstairs."
"Attached?" Leila repeated uneasily.
Esmond explained.
She stared at him.
He shrugged. "Indeed, it vexes me. Charles was unforgivably careless. For him, an Englishman, to write indiscreet letters to another Englishman—in the diplomatic service, no less—is the height of stupidity. Worse, his younger brother—who already has problems because of this same young diplomat—must pay for the elder's mistake. Worse still is that Avory paid, most likely, to shield his parents—the same parents who cannot forgive him because he is not the model of perfection they think his brother was. Still, it is some comfort to know our affections are not misplaced. Avory may be confused, but he is not base or evil. Instead, it appears that he has been caught in a trap of others' making."
Leila realized her mouth had been hanging open for some time. She shut it and commenced to cleaning her brushes. Charles had been guilty of an unspeakable crime against nature and Esmond dismissed this monstrosity as carelessness. All that annoyed the count—and annoyance seemed to be his sole emotion—was that Charles had been indiscreet. Which shouldn't surprise her, given the cool way he'd described Vingt-Huit's trade in sordid secrets and perversion.
She wondered whether there was any vice, any sin, any crime Esmond wasn't familiar with and just as casual about. A vivid image appeared in her mind's eye of herself, entangled with him upon the worktable, crazed with lust like an animal—and just inches away from discovering what, precisely, he liked to do with a woman. She felt the blood draining from her face.
Who are you? she wanted to shriek. What are you?
"I have shocked you," he said.
She picked up her palette knife and began viciously scraping the palette. "I'm just not quite adjusted to the fact that pursuing these sorts of puzzles is like putting one's hand in a nest of venomous snakes," she said. "The closer you get to the bottom of the matter, the more tangled it becomes with complications—and they all turn out to have fangs. But I suppose that's just because I'm not used to poking into other people's nasty secrets," she quickly added. "I daresay in time, I'll develop an immunity. Like yours."
"I was born in a viper's nest," he said, examining the deadly point he'd made. "I have lived among serpents. But so have you. The difference between us is one of degree—and of awareness, assuredly. You were kept in ignorance. But from my earliest consciousness, I knew what was about me. If I had not, I should have been dead long since."
She watched numbly while he returned the pencil to the jar and selected another. "If you are to go out into the world seeking a murderer, Leila, you had better understand what is about you. I shall be vastly annoyed if you get yourself killed."
A chill slithered down her spine.
"I shan't be altogether pleased myself," she managed to choke out. "If you're trying to terrify me, you're doing an excellent job. Do you want me out sleuthing or not?"
"I would prefer to keep you where you will be safe."
With you? she asked silently, while she watched the knife flick steadily, transforming her pencil to a needlelike shaft.
"But it is too late," he said. "You are fascinated, obsessed with this mystery, and you probe at me and plague me because there is no one else. Tiens, I must turn you loose to plague others—and hope, meanwhile, that your survival instincts are as strong as your inquisitive ones."
"There's only one killer," she said.
"And a host of people with secrets they might kill to protect." He tucked the pencil back among its fellows. "Please do not forget this, even for a moment. You must consider every one you deal with a venomous serpent and deal with each as the snake charmer deals with the cobra. Everyone, Leila. No exceptions. Trust no one."
Trust no one. Born in a viper's nest. Lived among serpents. Yes, that fit, she thought, turning toward her canvas—fireplace, footstool before it, a corner of the sofa. Simple interior. Unlike his. She had sensed early on that there was darkness behind his fair, angelic exterior. Darkness in his past and in his heart.
And he was right. She was fascinated and obsessed...with every thread of the case that connected to him and told her something about him and what he was. She did plague him, because he plagued her. She hardly cared any more who had killed her swine of a husband. It was the man who'd charmed and tormented Francis who fascinated her. A dangerous fascination, as Francis had learned to his cost. He'd compared Esmond to laudanum, but Esmond put it better: a snake charmer. Truth again.
Once he turned the charm upon you, you couldn't look away. He didn't have to beckon. His physical beauty and some innate magnetism drew effortlessly. When he did beckon—and all he needed was a few artfully chosen words, the right tone of voice—you were done for.
"Leila."
There. Soft, questioning, the faintest hint of anxiety. Just right. Perfect.
Slowly she brought her gaze to his and felt the tug, palpable, of that aching blue.
"Are you listening to me?" he asked. "It is important." He came off the stool.
"You want me to be careful," she said. "And discreet. I understand." She edged to the other side of the easel.
"I do not want you in danger," he said. "I would keep you safe, but all I do is make a prison, it seems. I trap you with me. It is not fair. I know this. I cannot help it." Moving nearer, he touched her hair. "I weary you with demands—your mind, your feelings, your body. It is not fair, as you said. With others, even though you will be working, there will be some amusement, stimulation, non? If not rest, a change at least. And the satisfaction of discovering your own way. You will like this, will you not?"
"Yes." That was the truth, too. To have something, some small part of her life, under her control. He understood that. But then, it was his business to understand others.
"I have pleased you, then?" he asked softly, taking her hand.
"Is that what you want?" she asked. "To please me?"
"Since the plan displeases me greatly, it must be for you," he said, playing with her fingers. "Fortunately, it is also sensible and efficient—which is what I shall tell myself a thousand times while I go crazy with worry."
"You can't expect me to believe you'll be sitting—or lying about—fretting, while I do all the work." She wondered despairingly how so light a touch, upon her fingers only, could flood every inch of her body with tingling sensation.
"I do not see what else I can do. All I seem to be good for lately is looking after one confused marquess and devising ways to lure one too-clever woman into my arms." He took her other hand. "I did not sleep so well last night, Leila. You cut up my peace."
"Knowing you has
n't been exactly tranquilizing for me, either," she said, her gaze dropping to their twined hands. Even now she felt the tug, though he wasn't pulling. Her body ached to be closer...to what? Physical beauty and fatal charm. Exteriors. She should be trembling to contemplate what lay within.
"It is true. I am a problem, I know." He released her hands and wandered away to the sofa.
Watching him subside into his usual oriental potentate pose, she wondered just how much time he had spent in the East. Few western European aristocrats could have overcome years of breeding to loll about in that careless way. Fewer still could make it look so natural. If he beckoned with his hand and a crowd of dancing girls whirled into the room at the summons, Leila wouldn't have been in the least taken aback.
Mechanically, she reached for her sketchbook.
"Nay, Leila," he said. "Come, talk to me."
