Banquet of Lies (31 page)

He tapped on his knee with long, blunt fingers. “I can understand your not wanting to hand over a letter from the tsar, which opens the way for a secret treaty between England and Russia, to someone who might throw it into the fire.”

She wasn’t even surprised anymore that he knew so much. She lifted her skirt and drew the letter from the secret pocket in her petticoat, then held it out to him. “My father died for this letter. I couldn’t take the easy route and give it to just anyone.”

“No.” He took it without looking at it, his eyes on her, bracing his other hand on the side of the coach as it shuddered over the rough road. Slowly, he slid the parchment into the inner pocket of his jacket.

She felt no great relief, no lessening of the grief that sat on her heart like a stone, at giving up her burden.

Sadness and a sense of loss came over her, mixing with her exhaustion. She wondered how much he must dislike her.

“I really am sorry for hiding in your house. I needed a place to get my bearings, to work out what to do next. I was still very . . . upset . . . about my father’s murder. It seemed the perfect solution.”

She cast her eyes down to her lap to avoid the bright blue
gaze that seemed to burn through her. Her skin was too tight all of a sudden, too confining.

“Two others and myself have been working night and day to discover whether you’re alive and well. One of us, Lord Dervish, rushed off to Sweden because we’d heard you might still be there. Except the whole time, you’ve been under my own roof, taking risk after risk with your life.” Those bright eyes were snapping with temper.

She blinked. And in that down-up movement of her eyelids the anger she’d been fighting all day sprang fully to hot, leaping life, pushing aside her guilt, her sense of loss, her self-pity.

She gave a deliberately laconic shrug and leaned back against the cracked leather of the seat. “Well, accept my apologies, Lord Aldridge, for not informing you. I didn’t know you were involved with my father’s sideline. I didn’t have a single name, thanks to being kept continually in the dark. I knew the value of what I carried with me, and I also knew that the man who killed my father worked for the Foreign Office. I couldn’t trust anyone I didn’t know, and I didn’t know anyone except Georges.”

She took a deep breath. Blew it out. “I was trying to find a man who corresponded with my father, a man my father trusted, and after I met Dervish that morning at Aldridge House, I thought it might be him. That’s what I was looking for that day in your office. A note from him, to see if his handwriting matched that in the letters to my father.”

His hand curled into a fist and he knocked it on his upper
thigh. If he was thinking of what had happened between them in that study, she couldn’t tell from his expression.

“Searching desks, running about at night—you were hardly lying low, though, were you?”

“How else could I find the man who killed my father and bring him down?”

He sucked in a breath. “You could have ended up dead, like your father.” His words were harsh, and she flinched.

“I didn’t, though. And now we know who he is, even if we weren’t able to hold him.” Anger made her rash, the sarcasm dripping from her words like cream over a hot tart.

He said nothing, giving her a long, cool look, and she stared straight back, crossing her arms under her breasts.

The coach turned a sharp corner and she had to grab hold of the strap hanging from the roof to keep from sliding off the bench.

“I thought your mother the most beautiful, wonderful woman alive.” His change in conversation was so abrupt, she couldn’t speak for a moment.

“I know,” she said eventually.

It was his turn to be surprised. “You do?”

“I was there that day at tea, Lord Aldridge.” She didn’t know how the smile came to her lips, given the charged, angry air between them, but it did. “The clear good taste you showed that day has worked very much in your favor with me.”

N
ow that he knew who she was, he realized she was Adèle Barrington come back to life. An almost perfect replica of that warm, sleek beauty and elegance.

It was the eyes that had misled him.

Where Adèle Barrington’s had been a deep, soulful brown, her daughter had inherited her father’s light hazel-green. The contrast with her dark lashes, her dark, elegant sweep of hair, and the warm cream of her skin was breathtaking. It had certainly been taking his breath since he’d met her only a week ago.

It was taking his breath now.

While she glared at him defiantly, and insultingly assured him she wouldn’t hold him to his earlier behavior. As if he were worrying about that.

The kiss in the study, the way he’d leaned into her by the wall at the kitchen door. The way they had watched each other, felt the sparks. She thought he’d done that as a dalliance
with a servant. That he would never have touched her if he’d known she was a woman of his own class.

She was wrong.

But now wasn’t the time and place to say so.

The cab came to a stop, and Jonathan opened the door reluctantly onto the real world. He helped her out into the gloom of the street, half lit by the light shining from his hallway.

Edgars opened up before they reached the top step, holding the door and standing to one side so they could enter.

There was an uncomfortable silence while Miss Barrington looked at Edgars, and he avoided looking at her.

Edgars took his coat in what could have been an automatic movement, but when he turned from hanging it, he pointedly avoided Miss Barrington’s gaze again.

After a moment, Jonathan slipped her coat off her shoulders himself, and enjoyed the feel of her under his hands, the sound of her murmur of thanks.

Edgars’ eyes lifted to his face, and they stared at each other.

“We didn’t expect your return until tomorrow, my lord, so I’m afraid I’ve given the staff the night off. I’m the only one here.” Edgars cleared his throat.

“We’ll be going back out shortly, so it doesn’t matter,” Jonathan said curtly.

“I’ll go down and get my luggage. With so many people having gone through my things, I may need a little time to sort it all out.” She spoke quietly, but there was a razor-sharp edge to her words and she was looking pointedly at Edgars.

“Take the time you need, but it will be better to move quickly, if you can.” Jonathan’s lips quirked. “I believed Wittaker’s threat of coming for you in two hours.”

She gave a tiny smile in return. “I believed it, too.”

She turned and walked across to the servants’ stair. Something twisted inside him at how she knew the way, the confidence in her step as she negotiated his home.

She knew so much more of him than he did of her.

Edgars was twitchy, his eyes finally on Miss Barrington now that her back was turned. “I need to speak with you, my lord.”

“I think that would be a good idea.” He walked into his library.

Edgars followed a pace or two behind, and when they had both stepped into the room, he looked back to the hall as if he expected Miss Barrington would try to listen in.

“What have you got to say, Edgars?” Jonathan suddenly regretted how short the journey home had been. He hadn’t managed to discover what had happened between Giselle Barrington and Edgars, why his butler was behaving the way he was.

“That woman, my lord.” Edgars looked out toward the passage again and lowered his voice. “She’s a French spy! I knew she were up to something, I
knew
it.”

“And who told you she was a spy?” Jonathan had a cold feeling in his gut.

“Fellow came round from the Foreign Office just after Gilbert took her away this morning.” Edgars gave a sniff. “Hiding under our roof the whole time, she was. Carrying on her sinister deeds.”

“Edgars.” He controlled his voice with effort. “The man who came round this morning is a traitor and a liar looking for Miss Barrington—Madame Levéel—so he can murder her, just as he murdered her father.”

Edgars opened his mouth to speak, but he only managed a croak. He tried again. “He—he told me to tell you. To explain . . . what she was.”

“She’s been hiding here from him, and this morning he at last tracked her down. If you see him, tell me immediately. He’s extremely dangerous and, since his identity was revealed earlier today, extremely desperate.”

“He’ll kill her?” Edgars’ face was gray.

“Not straightaway.” Jonathan rubbed the bridge of his nose. “He’ll want to know where she’s put an important document he’s planning to steal, first.” He shuddered at the thought of the chances she’d taken since the night her father died.

“My . . . lord?” Edgars turned again in the direction of the hall, his whole body trembling. “I let him in. Not half an hour ago. I . . . he’s downstairs.”

S
he stepped into the kitchen, which was silent and dark except for the fire in the grate. After the gloom and cold outside, it made the large open space almost cozy.

She would miss this place.

She knew only too well she wouldn’t have the same run of things in the kitchen at Goldfern. When she sent for Pierre,
who was probably going mad with worry for her at the countess’s, he would let her do a little, but it would be his kitchen, no doubt about that.

She reached for a lantern on the mantelpiece and lit it with a taper, then gathered herself to face whatever mess Edgars and Gilbert had wrought in her rooms.

Her door wasn’t even fully shut, and she pushed it open with a quick, hard shove of anger.

Her trunks were closed and piled carefully against the wall, and the sight released her rage.

Iris had done this. Maybe Babs, too. And Rob and Harry to move them neatly to the side.

She set the lantern on her small writing table, fighting the tears that suddenly burned against her tired eyes.

What would they think of her subterfuge?

“I was about to go through your luggage, but fortunately you arrived before I had to put myself to the effort.” The thin, cold slide of a blade against her throat accompanied the words whispered in her ear from behind.

And then she felt the hard, ungiving pressure of a pistol in her back.

Just like he’d done with her father.

“You do love the shadows, don’t you?” She was ashamed that her voice wavered slightly.

“You’ve led me a merry chase,
bitch
.” He breathed hard, standing so close she could feel the movement of his chest against her shoulder. He rubbed a finger along the dip between her shoulder and her neck, and she couldn’t help the shiver
that racked her. She thought back to Violet, running a decisive finger across her throat.

“You finally have the sense to be scared, I see. It’s about time.” He went quiet, and she had the feeling he was listening.

For Aldridge and Edgars.

She went cold. “Edgars . . .”

“A very helpful man. Very eager to believe the worst about you.” He laughed, a hot blast in her ear. “I’m not sure how long he can hold Aldridge, so you have until the count of five to give me the document.” He pressed the knife hard against her skin, and she felt the searing pain as it cut her.

“I don’t have it.”

“One . . .”

“You think I’ve had it all this time? I’ve been in London for over a week! I gave it up days ago.”

“I don’t believe you. Why else would you still be in hiding, then?” He gave her a little shake. “Two . . .”

“Because I was trying to catch you,” she hissed as he increased the pressure even more, and she felt the warm trickle of blood. “While you thought there was a chance I was still hiding with the document, you’d take chances. Take risks to see if you could still get it.”

He lifted the knife and spun her around to face him.

“I would have heard if you’d handed it over.”

She forced a dry smile. “I was there that night in the garden at Tessin Palace. You didn’t see me, but I watched you kill my father.”

She could see he hadn’t known that by the way he flinched.

“I couldn’t see your face in the darkness, but I heard your voice, and I knew you were British.” She forced herself not to lift a hand to her neck. “So everyone who was there was under suspicion, until this afternoon, when you revealed yourself at Queen Square.”

She straightened as she prepared to lie. To convince him there was no easy escape. “None of the diplomatic staff who were in Sweden at the time were told anything, because the powers that be I approached in London thought it the easiest way to smoke you out.” She took a step back. “And they were right.”

“I thought you’d found the body after I left,” he said quietly, almost to himself. “I’ve been trying to work out how I didn’t pass you on the way in to the ballroom.”

Then he went still as they heard the thundering sound of someone racing down the stairs.