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She hugged him. "Yes. Oh, yes. You are a truly remarkable man."
"Indeed, I am a prince."
"Noble to the core."
He grinned. "At the core I am very bad. A big problem. But only you see the core. My pedigree is enough for the others. It should be—I worked very hard to earn my title."
She drew back. "To earn it? You are not telling me your title is legitimate?"
"King Charles himself bestowed it upon me."
"But you're not Alexis Delavenne."
"By French law, I am."
He explained that finding the missing "sucker shoot" of the Delavenne family had been one of his earliest missions. He finally located Pierre Delavenne in the West Indies and was obliged to kidnap him to bring him back to France.
"He was very angry," Ismal said. "He had taken a black woman as his mistress and fathered half a dozen children and liked his life just as it was. He hated France in general and the Bourbons in particular. Eventually, it occurred to some of us to make intelligent use of his hostility. I needed an identity; he didn't want his. The similarity of surnames, as you can imagine, struck my superstitious nature. I legally adopted the name, which pleased King Charles, and he bestowed the title upon me, which pleased my English slave drivers."
She laughed. "And so you really are the Comte d'Esmond, after all."
"And you shall be my comtesse."
"How absurd. I—an aristocrat."
"It is not absurd. You are haughty as a duchess." He tangled his fingers in her hair. "You do not mind, I hope?"
"I shall try to ignore my consequence as much as possible," she said. "And I shall continue to call you Ismal in private. If it slips out in public, we shall say it's a pet name."
"You may pet me all you like, wherever you like." He guided her hand downward. "Let me help you find some places."
Chapter 18
The dowager arrived just as Leila and Ismal were enjoying a second cup of coffee.
She followed close upon a harassed-looking Gaspard's heels, and pushed her way into the dining room before he could announce her, let alone ascertain his employers' wishes.
Ismal calmly greeted her and pulled out a chair. She swept the room and its occupants one withering glare, then sat and opened her mammoth purse.
"You'd better marry her," Lady Brentmor told Ismal as she slammed a sheaf of papers onto the table.
"I am happy to report that Madame has perceived the error of her ways. She has agreed to let me make an honest woman of her."
"It was the charitable thing to do," Leila said. "He's utterly useless without me."
"That's true enough," her ladyship muttered. She handed two documents to Ismal. "I hope you've told her a few things. Otherwise, you've got a devilish lot to explain."
"I have confessed all my black past—all but the secret that was not mine to reveal." He frowned down at the documents. "This is Jason's hand."
"He come in late last night. He's still sleeping, and I wasn't about to wait all day for him to wake up." She turned to Leila. "Would've been here weeks ago, but he got my letter finally, and stopped in Paris to look into the problem himself. The money," she added in response to Leila's baffled look. "I thought there was something wrong about your money—that bank account. I was sure Jason had told me, ages ago, that your pa had set aside ten thousand pounds for your dowry."
"Ten thousand?" Leila repeated blankly.
"Jason did go looking for you—after he'd settled other pressing matters here, that is," the dowager said with a scowl at Ismal. "But by the time he got to it, you was wed, and Herriard seemed to be looking after your affairs well enough. So Jason never gave it no more thought."
"Ten thousand pounds," Leila said, her mind whirling.
"Jason had a lot of cleaning up to do after his fool brother," Lady Brentmor went on. "Your pa's partner in crime. That's the name Esmond here was too delicate to mention. My son Gerald. You might as well know. We're in the same boat, ain't we?"
"Your son was my father's partner," Leila said slowly, trying to take it in. "And I had a dowry of...ten thousand pounds. That does...explain...a good deal."
"It certainly do explain why Andrew Herriard took such good care of a little nobody orphan gel, protecting her funds from her philandering sot of a husband. It was one thing in the beginning, when Herriard was just starting his practice. But even after he got important, he looked after you like you was the Royal Family. But then, he wouldn't want anyone else looking after you. Someone else might start asking embarrassing questions."
Leila turned to Ismal. "That would explain why Andrew was so disturbed about your interest in me.
"I assuredly mean to ask embarrassing questions." Ismal handed the two documents to Leila. "These are Jason's copies of the instructions your father supposedly wrote to the bank, the day before he disappeared. I suggest you pay close attention to the language."
Leila needed to read only the first letter to understand.
"The style is familiar, is it not?" he asked. "You have received countless business letters from your solicitor over the years."
"In other words, Andrew forged these letters to the bank."
"Also your father's will, I have little doubt. A trip to Doctors' Commons will settle that question easily enough." His smile was grim. "A forger to catch a forger, you see."
"He stole my dowry," Leila said. "Nine thousand pounds. From an orphan. And all the world thinks him a saint. I certainly did. He could tie my insides into knots with just a few words, ever so kindly uttered. That manipulative hypocrite."
"I am sorry, Leila. I know I must not say it was all my fault—"
"Not unless you wish to persuade me you're the Prince of Darkness," she said crisply. "You didn't make Andrew do it, any more than you made Francis take me away and seduce me."
"All the same, they took advantage of a situation I created: your father crazy with fear and drink—the servants drugged or incapacitated—and you unconscious, unable even to scream for help."
"They didn't have to take advantage. Decent men wouldn't. Can't you see?" She flung the papers down and got up to pace the room. "It was planned. I'm sure of it. They already knew about the ten thousand pounds. Had to. That's not the sort of thing you find out in a matter of minutes from a raving drunk. And they knew about me. They didn't just wander in off the street. That carriage was packed. Those letters were written ahead of time, I'll stake my life. Andrew couldn't do that on the spur of the moment."
"Unless you have the gift, it requires repeated attempts."
She scarcely heard him. She was trying to remember. "The servants, too. That was wrong. The little kitchen maid...when it should have been Gabriela who brought my tea. Something was wrong before you came." She closed her eyes. "In the hall. Papa. You. The big man and the small, dark one with you—and Papa was annoyed."
She opened her eyes to stare at the doorway. "Because Antonio wasn't there. Papa had to answer the door himself."
"It is true. I wondered why he had so few servants. Risto had no trouble. He did not even need Mehmet's help."
"Because Andrew and Francis had already lured away or driven off the servants who would have caused difficulties. All they had to do was wait until Papa's unexpected visitors had left, then move in to carry out their plan." She turned to him.
"Your mind has leapt, as mine has, I think," he said. "When you came to in the carriage, Beaumont told you your father was dead. I wondered how he knew, for Jason said the body was not found for two days."
"He said your men carried Papa away. But that doesn't make sense, does it? Even if they disregarded your orders, even if they had made off with Papa, they wouldn't have left me—an eyewitness—behind. It was Francis and Andrew who carried or led Papa off and dropped—or pushed—him into the canal."
"And so we have our motive," Ismal said.
"We have a villain.” Leila said.
"I wish Jason was here," the dowager muttered. "He wouldn't believe me when I sai
d you was made for each other."
Mr. Andrew Herriard, returning from his midday meal, paused before the front door of his office to gaze at the man he'd just passed. He wasn't the only one to stare, though there were others who preferred to look the other way when the shabbily clad man with the lantern, cage, and dog passed. While a necessity in London, the ratcatcher was not the most agreeable of figures to contemplate. He was certainly not agreeable to contemplate directly after luncheon.
