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And that, she resolved, was what he’d pay for.
At half past four in the morning, Dain was holding court in Antoine’s, a restaurant in the Palais Royal. His circle of companions had by this time widened to include a handful of Lady Wallingdon’s guests: Sellowby, Goodridge, Vawtry, and Esmond. The subject of Jessica Trent was scrupulously avoided. Instead, the fight in the cardroom, which Dain had missed—between a drunken Prussian officer and a French republican—and the ensuing mayhem were discussed in detail and at argumentative length.
Even the tarts felt obliged to express their opinions, the one on Dain’s right knee taking the republican side, while the one on the left was squarely with the Prussian. Both argued with a level of ignorance, both political and grammatical, that would have made Bertie Trent seem an intellectual prodigy.
Dain wished he hadn’t thought of Trent. The instant the brother’s image flickered in Dain’s mind, the sister’s arose: Jessica gazing up into his eyes from under an overdecorated bonnet…watching his face while he unbuttoned her glove…hitting him with her bonnet and her small gloved fist…kissing him while lightning flashed and thunder crashed…whirling round a dance floor with him, her skirts rustling about his legs, her face glowing with excitement. And later, in his arms…a fire-storm of images, feelings, and one sweet, anguished moment…when she had kissed his big, loathsome nose…and cut his heart to pieces and put it back together again and made him believe he was not a monster to her. She had made him believe he was beautiful.
Lies, he told himself.
They were all lies and tricks, to trap him. He’d ruined her brother. She had nothing left. Thus, like Susannah, whose brother had gambled away the family fortune, Jessica Trent was desperate enough to set the oldest trap in history to catch herself a rich, titled husband.
But now Dain found himself considering the circle of men about him. All were better prospects altogether.
His gaze lingered upon Esmond, who sat beside him, and was the most beautiful man on three continents, and also very possibly—though no one knew for sure—even wealthier than the Marquess of Dain.
Why not Esmond? Dain asked himself. If she needed a rich spouse, why should a quick-witted female like Jessica Trent choose Beelzebub over the Angel Gabriel, hell rather than heaven?
Esmond’s blue gaze met his. “Amore è cieco,” he murmured in perfect Florentine accents.
Love is blind.
Dain recollected Esmond telling him a few weeks ago about “bad feelings” regarding Vingt-Huit, and recalled the events that had taken place almost immediately thereafter. Gazing at him now, Dain had an uncomfortable feeling of his own: that the angelic count was reading his mind, just as he’d read clues, invisible to everyone else, about the now defunct palace of sin.
Dain was opening his mouth to deliver a crushing setdown when Esmond stiffened, and his head turned slightly, his gaze fixing elsewhere while his smile faded.
Dain looked that way, too—toward the door—but at first he could see nothing, because Sellowby had leaned over to refill his glass.
Then Sellowby lounged back again in his chair.
Then Dain saw her.
She wore a dark red gown, buttoned up to the throat, and a black shawl draped like a mantilla over her head and shoulders. Her face was white and hard. She strode toward the large table, chin high, silver eyes flashing, and paused a few feet away.
His heart crashed and thundered into a hectic gallop that made it impossible to breathe, let alone speak.
Her glance flicked over his companions.
“Go away,” she said in a low, hard voice.
The whores leapt from his lap, knocking over glasses in their haste. His friends bolted up from their places and backed away. A chair toppled and crashed to the floor unheeded.
Only Esmond kept his head. “Mademoiselle,” he began, his tones gentle, mollifying.
She flung back the shawl and lifted her right hand. There was a pistol in it, the barrel aimed straight at Dain’s heart. “Go away,” she told Esmond.
Dain heard the click as she cocked the weapon and the scrape of a chair as Esmond rose. “Mademoiselle,” he tried again.
“Say your prayers, Dain,” she said.
His gaze lifted from the pistol to her glittering, furious eyes. “Jess,” he whispered.
She pulled the trigger.
Chapter 8
The shot threw Dain back against his chair, which crashed to the floor with him.
Jessica brought the pistol down, let out the breath she’d been holding, then turned and walked away.
It took the onlookers a few moments to make their brains comprehend what their eyes and ears told them. In those moments, she made her way unhindered across the restaurant, out the door, and down the stairs.
A short time later, she found the hackney she’d ordered to wait for her, and told the driver to take her to the nearest police station.
There, she asked for the officer in charge. She turned over the pistol and told what she had done. The officer did not believe her. He sent two gendarmes to Antoine’s, and gave her a glass of wine. The men returned an hour later, with copious notes they’d taken at the scene of the crime, and the Comte d’Esmond.
Esmond had come to release her, he said. It was all a misunderstanding, and accident. The Marquess of Dain’s wound was not mortal. A scratch, that was all. He would not bring charges against Mademoiselle Trent.
Naturally not, Jessica thought. He would lose a court battle against her. This was Paris, after all.
“Then I shall bring charges against myself,” she said, chin high. “And you may tell
your friend—”
“Mademoiselle, I shall be honored to convey any message you wish,” Esmond said smoothly. “But you will communicate more comfortably in my carriage, I think.”
“Certainly not,” she said. “I insist upon being jailed, for my own protection, so that he can’t kill me to keep me quiet. Because, monsieur, that is the only way anyone is going to keep me quiet.”
She turned to the officer in charge. “I shall be happy to write a full and detailed confession for you. I have nothing to hide. I shall be delighted to speak with the reporters who will no doubt be mobbing the place in the next half hour.”
“Mademoiselle, I am sure the matter can be settled to your satisfaction,” said Esmond. “But I recommend you let your temper cool before you speak to anyone.”
“Very wise,” said the officer in charge. “You are agitated. It is understandable. An affair of the heart.”
“Quite,” she said, meeting Esmond’s enigmatic blue gaze. “A crime of passion.”
“Yes, mademoiselle, as everyone will deduce,” said Esmond. “If the police do not release you immediately, there will be more than reporters storming the place. All of Paris will rise up to rescue you, and the city will be plunged into riot. You do not wish innocent people to be killed on your account, I am sure.”
There was a clamor outside—the first contingent of reporters, she guessed. She drew out the moment, letting tension build in the room.
Then she shrugged. “Very well. I shall go home. For the sake of the endangered innocents.”
By midmorning, the Comte d’Esmond was with Dain, who lay upon a sofa in the library.
The wound was nothing, Dain was sure. He’d scarcely felt it. The bullet had gone clean through. Though his arm had bled a great deal, Dain was used to the sight of blood, including his own, and should not have swooned.
But he had, several times, and each time he’d come to, he’d felt hotter. A physician had come and examined the wound and treated it and bandaged it and told Dain he was very lucky.
