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“I’ll bet he did.” Obviously Savage had been back to Edenwood since he returned from Ireland.
“So, you may have your sister’s chamber until she arrives. Confidentially, Tony, I am betting your sister will be the chatelaine of Edenwood.”
Tony made a rude noise. “Indian Savage will never saddle himself with a wife.”
“Oh, indeed, young sir, you are wrong. Excellency has been seeking a wife for a very long time. He seeks a titled lady to be a leader of fashionable society. Someone who will be a perfect hostess when he entertains his political friends. Edenwood is the setting he has created for this priceless jewel. He needs many children. He intends to found a dynasty!”
“John Bull, you are a gold mine of information. My mouth is watering for one of your curries. After I have viewed my room, or rather, my twin sister’s room, I’ll come to the kitchen so we can have a talk.”
The chamber was indeed lovely. She realized she had chosen every piece in the room herself, save the priceless silk Indian carpet. She wondered if Adam Savage had furnished it by design, and decided he had. She must never make the mistake of underestimating him. She heard a faint rustle of silk and her nostrils detected an exotic fragrance.
“Kirinda, how are you?”
“I am very good, memsahib. Are you wishing me to unpack for you?”
“It isn’t necessary, unless you are curious about my clothes.”
“It would give me great pleasure to see your dresses. I never knew how you had the courage to be wearing men’s clothes,” Kirinda said softly.
“How did you know I was a woman?” Antonia asked curiously.
“The way you looked at the master. I, too, love him, memsab.”
Antonia caught her breath. Lecherous swine! His conquests were legion. Well, he could strike the name of Antonia Lamb from that endless list.
After they had unpacked, Tony went down to the kitchen. John Bull eyed her with open curiosity, then dismissed the other servants from the spacious room. He tapped his forehead. “At last the sun has risen upon me.”
She puzzled for a moment, then murmured, “It has dawned upon you.”
“Dawn, sunrise, what is the difference?”
“At the moment it escapes me,” she answered softly.
“I am shrewdly thinking you are not a man dressed as a woman. Oh, no, you are not as simple as you look.”
“I hope not,” she said faintly.
“Make your confession, you were a woman all along the way.”
“You have guessed my secret.”
“No one is pulling the wool over John Bull’s ears for long, not even Excellency.”
“I imagine you know everything about his clandestine activities?”
“Ah, yes. He is making the run across the Channel thrice weekly. He had a dock built right here on his own property for theFlying Dragon.The Greek temple down by the river is really a warehouse where the stuff is stored. There is going to be a resolution in France.”
Antonia felt sick. She had refused to believe Savage’s smuggling activities were harmful, but she could pretend ignorance no longer. Her own common sense told her the illicit cargos that made money in wars or revolutions were guns, weapons, explosives. Killing people for profit. Savage had told her that she hadn’t the stomach for it, and he was right. It was mercenary, corrupt, conscienceless. Part of her cried out that Adam Savage would not do such a thing, but another part of her decided to see with her own eyes what was being stored in the large warehouse.
As she watched John Bull’s deft fingers crush the chili peppers and carefully wash the rice, she probed for information that would condemn Savage. “You are the only one who knows the shameful secrets of his past.”
“Ah, memsab, he has done things that blackened his soul. He is needing a good woman to redeem him.” He looked at her with speculative eyes.
“If redemption is what he seeks, he has a strange way of going about it,” Tony said dryly.
“Strange and wonderful are the ways of the Leopard,” John Bull said, touching his ruby reverently.
Tony thought grimly,The wages of sin are supposed to be death, but obviously they are jewels, gold, castles, and titles.She sighed heavily. “I wish he wasn’t such a bastard.”
