London's Most Wanted Rake (16 page)

‘She was, as were several others. It seems the
comte
was a man who was either intensely liked or disliked by his peers.’

This is where it got tricky. ‘Did anything come of the suspicions?’ Seymour asked, sliding the papers back into the folder.

‘Nothing but rumour. It was never determined who might have done the
comte
in. The list remains long and distinguished to this day. It could have been anyone from the
comtesse
to his valet and several other nobles in between.’

That was disappointing, Seymour thought. ‘I’ve already heard the rumours and they’re fairly vague.’ At the house party, he’d heard only that her husband’s death had been quite unlooked for and, as such, it had struck people as unnatural. But there’d been no mention of poison or of suspects, only that it was suspicious in nature. ‘If there are multiple suspects, that only seems to weaken the power of that rumour to do the
comtesse
any damage.’

Eagleton’s eyes began to gleam. ‘There is a bit more to it. You do recall that there was some pre-existing tension between the
comtesse
and her English family. It seems she wanted a divorce and her family disapproved of her pursuing one.’

That got Seymour’s attention. There was something about divorce in France he was trying to remember. ‘Isn’t divorce illegal over there?’ He didn’t know exactly, it seemed to change with the wind. Under Napoleon, divorce had been legalised, but under the restored monarchy, the king had retracted the right to divorce. Seymour wasn’t sure if that was still the case or if there might be exceptions.

‘Oh, it’s still illegal, all right, if you’re French,’ Eagleton said, ‘but she’s English. She was hoping to trade on her English heritage and get the divorce passed through Parliament. She hoped her parents might support it and help see the deed done, but her parents were scandalised. They wanted nothing to do with it. It would have been a long shot even if the
comte
had been game for it. But he was French and he would have none of it.’

It was all coming together now. Seymour nodded his head. ‘With no option for divorce, our
comtesse
is left with only one way out.’

‘Thus the suspicions. She asked for a divorce just three months before he died. The rumours have never been clarified—we could stir the pot a bit, rekindle some interest, give the rumours some teeth, some details, doesn’t matter if they’re true.’

Seymour gave a malevolent grin. It would be the perfect pay back for trying to draw him out. ‘It would certainly be leverage, something that could be held against her to stop her from exposing us.’

Eagleton nodded. ‘The best part is, we don’t even have to have any real proof, we simply have to have her believe the rumours won’t be so harmless as they were the last time. If she had real fear that she could be brought up on charges for murder, she would think twice about pushing her suit with us.’

‘She should be thinking twice already. Don’t forget—’ Sefton spoke up for the first time in a while. He’d been quietly listening and thinking ‘—there’s still the current issue of fraud. She deliberately put forward a false deed in an attempt to take money from us. Think how that will look to a court of law. If we coupled that with the suspicions about her husband’s death, her character would look black indeed.’

Seymour liked where this was going. There was a certain irony in a fraudulent agency being able to legitimately prosecute someone else for fraud. But Eagleton was quick to ruin his mental celebration.

‘Before we get overly confident in our position, I think we have to ask ourselves why? Why would the
comtesse
take such a risk? Is she that impulsive, or is she that sure of herself? If the latter is true, who does she have backing her? Protecting her?’ Eagleton fixed him with a searching stare. ‘Who are her friends?’

‘No one. I’m sure of it. Women are too intimidated by her and men, well, men just want to bed her.’ Seymour sounded more confident than he was. He wasn’t sure at all that it was true. Images of the summerhouse came to mind, but he wouldn’t tell the syndicate about Deveril yet, not when there was no clear need. In the meanwhile, it wouldn’t hurt to keep a watch of his own. Maybe there was a way to neutralise Channing Deveril before he became too attached to the
comtesse
or too involved.

‘How soon can we strike?’ Seymour asked, hoping not to appear desperate, but really, the
comtesse
left unchecked promised to be problematic.

Eagleton fingered the file and thought for a moment. He looked across the table to Sefton. ‘Almost immediately, if we like. We just have to feed these rumours to the right sources and then we’ll let the London gossips do their work.’

Seymour grinned. The sooner they could expose the
comtesse
and flush out Deveril’s true position, the better. He shifted in his seat. Soon she’d be imploring him to forgive her. She’d be sorry she’d ever forged that deed. He knew exactly how he’d make her beg: on her knees, straddling his cock the way she’d straddled Deveril’s in the summerhouse.

Chapter Sixteen

O
ne, two, three steps and three steps again was all that separated her from him. Channing quietly shut the door to Lord Evert’s library behind him and stepped into the dimly lit room. Alina stood at the console, her back to him as she played with the decanters. Ah, her delicious
bare
back. Well, her
almost
bare back. A stab of desire hit him hard, making him want to forgo the conversation and go straight to assignation. She’d worn peach chiffon tonight, tailored to perfection over the curve of her delicate shoulders, the low vee of her bodice mirrored by the low vee exposing her back.

She knew how to dress to her advantage from the combs in her hair to the slippers on her feet. Not a single item was haphazardly selected. But it wasn’t only the clothes and the accessories, it was everything else: the buffed nails, just in case one saw her without her gloves, the light scent of her
toilette,
the discreet use of cosmetics. And yet a man would never mistake her for an empty-headed fashion doll. She was very much alive; it was there in her eyes when she looked at him, in her smile, in the sound of her laugh, in the way she’d risen against him today in the carriage in her passion. It made him feel
alive
in return.

There was no woman in London who compared and he wasn’t the only man in the ballroom who’d noticed. Lady Evert’s ball was an absolute crush, one of the biggest early events of the Season. People were eager to see and be seen after the long winter and Easter break. Plenty of people had noticed Alina. The sight of other men watching her, dancing with her, their hands at her waist or on her arm, had stirred something primitive and possessive in Channing.

No matter that she could handle herself in such a setting, he wanted to be the one, the only one, ever, to be the recipient of that smile, of that laugh. To know at the end of the night, he’d be the one to slip those beautiful gowns from her shoulders. Channing felt his groin tighten in response. She was lost in thought and had not heard him yet. It would be simple enough to come up behind her, bend her over the console and take her most thoroughly. It was wicked and fast and it did little cosmetic damage to one’s appearance. One could be put to rights almost instantly.

‘Don’t even think it.’ Alina’s sultry tones were quiet in the dark room.

Damn. She’d noticed him. ‘Don’t think what?’ Channing couldn’t help but ask. She was right, of course. To do it now would completely derail what he’d come here for.

‘Using the console as a staging area for something other than pouring drinks.’ But there was no scold in her voice. There was the clink of stoppers being removed, followed by the sound of liquor flowing into glasses. She turned towards him and offered him a drink. ‘Are you sure we’re safe here?’

‘No one reads at a ball.’ Channing laughed. ‘The Everts don’t read at all. I think we’d be safe in this room in the light of day. We could probably
live
here before the Everts noticed.

Alina settled herself on the little sofa, her skirts pooling about her. ‘Have you thought of your answers?’ She was playing it cool tonight, putting the onus of the conversation on his shoulders.

Channing took the chair near the sofa. The dim light and the brandy was helping. He took the plunge, revealing a piece of his soul, but protecting the rest. ‘When I ask myself why I would help you with Seymour, it is because my feelings are engaged yet again where you are concerned. Should my attentions not be welcomed, I would prefer to walk away now. I would leave you the services of my solicitors, but any further contact between us should be discontinued.’ It sound fairly stiff, fairly formal when he couched it in those terms, a lot less like the lines running through his mind at present:
I could fall in love with you again. Indeed, there’s no could about it—I have. What I feel with you is nothing I’ve ever felt with anyone else and I have to know—will you hurt me again?

He waited, watching her process the carefully chosen words and then pick a carefully worded response of her own. He noticed everything about her in those tedious moments: how the firelight played on the white-gold of her hair, how her fingers played with the pearls at her throat.

‘You’ve not thought this through, Channing. You only think you’re in love with me,’ she stated softly. ‘But when you look at the practicalities you’ll know better.’ She was talking about the scandal that would follow her always. He didn’t care. He’d quelled those silly rumours once before, he would do it again if need be. ‘You will tire of fighting for me eventually. Although I appreciate the sentiment.’ She’d read his mind. ‘I don’t deserve such a knight, Channing. I’m really quite ruined goods. I’m not capable of returning such sentiments.’ Then she was cruel. ‘Are you sure? I will cost you the agency, your lifestyle. I will not marry another man who treats his vows lightly.’

Her set down had been prettily done up until then. But that last was a slap in the face on two levels. She’d compared him to the
comte
and she’d done so by referencing the Christmas fight, that the agency was an excuse for promiscuity. Channing straightened. He’d known this would come up. It was one of the unpleasant things they had to discuss. ‘Those words were a mistake on my part, spoken in the heat of argument,’ Channing replied.

Alina set down her glass. ‘I would hate to become another mistake. It would not be only your emotions that were engaged should we pursue anything. I would not want to wake up one day and discover you’d been wrong about your feelings.’

‘It was not my feelings that were mistaken,’ Channing corrected. ‘I was unaware at the time that you would be jealous of any advances I made elsewhere. If I had understood what you really wanted from me, I would have pursued a different course of action.’ Lord, this was a stilted conversation, but they were both trying so hard to protect themselves. There was consolation in that. He was not the only vulnerable party here.

‘You should have asked.’ Alina took a healthy swallow of the brandy.

‘I did ask,’ Channing snapped. ‘I asked you to come away with me.’ He rose to his feet and began to pace. A storm was rising between them, electric and swift. Now was the time for discretion and care, but caution seemed to elude him.

He was not alone. Alina was on her feet, facing him with fiery eyes. ‘
You
asked me to choose between bigamy and adultery by coming with you. Both fine lifestyle choices, don’t you think?’

He would not stand for that. She would not turn his heartfelt offer into something sordid. ‘Don’t preach principles at me when you chose to stay for money and wealth. Remember, I saw you draped in your jewels and silks and you looked right through me.’ The old anger, the old hurt was breaking free inside.

‘Bastard!’ Alina hurled her glass against the fireplace. It smashed, the sound of the crystal shattering loud in the quiet of the library. Her face was a mask of fury. ‘Is that what you thought? I stayed for money?’ She was moving towards the console with the decanter, sweeping up anything in her path. She had a vase in one hand. ‘Alina!’ Channing raced towards her, slowed momentarily by the sofa, her words starting to translate into meaning, but he needed more.

She threw the vase. He ducked and it crashed against a table. Channing charged on. ‘Alina, stop!’ But she was in full rage. She reached for a tumbler and threw, then another. Channing grabbed up a delicate Louis XV chair to use as a shield and counted. There were only six glasses. She couldn’t hold him off for ever.

The sixth shattered against his chair shield and he tossed the piece of furniture aside. He was five feet from her when she grabbed the decanter. ‘I’ll throw it, I swear I will!’

‘I know you will.’ Then she’d be out of missiles, but Channing didn’t relish smelling like a drunk the rest of the night, nor did he relish the idea of the damage the leaded crystal decanter could do to him. It
would
hurt. Channing held his hands out to his sides in a gesture of openness. ‘Alina, please, put the decanter down and talk to me.’ He kept his tone even. Angry women were an occupational hazard in the League. He’d dealt with his fair share.

‘You thought I chose him!’ she railed. ‘That makes you a bastard and a stupid one at that.’

Channing stepped closer. Alina did not hesitate. Only the weight of the half-filled decanter gave Channing any warning. He leapt for her then, pinning her to the console, his hand closing around hers on the neck of the decanter.

‘No!’ Alina cried, but she was no match for his strength.

He felt her grip go slack, felt the decanter come under his control even as he saw the tears start to form in her eyes. His voice was quiet when he spoke. ‘Tell me about Paris, about the park that day.’

He stepped back from her, giving her space and trust, but his eyes watched her intently. She started with simple words and he drank them up, piecing the story together. ‘The
comte
knew. He knew there was an Englishman who had been at Fontainebleau. Someone had remarked on it to him. He did not know it was you, but he guessed that my affections might be engaged to some degree and he feared, as he always did, that I would steal away if given the chance.’

To protect you.
Channing guided her back to the sofa. The words made him sick. To think he’d thought she’d played him false all these years, to think the worst of her. ‘And what else?’ he prompted.

‘He’d brought me gifts from Italy: silks, jewels. He made me wear them, to show everyone I was his.’

‘But that was not all,’ Channing urged. She was holding something back. The man who had locked his wife in her room, taken her clothes and branded her skin, would not stop with a show of fine clothes and jewels.

‘That I was only his, that only he had the right.’ Alina pressed her eyes shut. ‘Please don’t make me tell you more.’

Channing gripped her hand. Remorse, anger and a host of emotions that refused to separate themselves coursed through him. His voice was low and insistent. ‘Did you suffer for me?’ God, he hoped not. But he thought of the brand on her skin and doubted there was any hope in that regard.

‘He’d found the letters, you see. The ones you’d given me from Voltaire,’ Alina said. The story was horrifying. The
comte
had stormed into her room, demanded she stand before him naked, while the room was searched for any item the
comte
had not personally given to her. Clothes had been taken, books had been seized, Voltaire included, and burned on the floor of her room in front of her while she’d shivered and his henchmen had stared. Then the physician had come to assure the
comte
there had been no consequences of any potential infidelity. There would not have been. He’d been chivalrous in those days and followed the lessons of his father. But his father had not met the
comte
.

The following day the
comte
had put her on display in the park in her satins and jewels. ‘I had nothing left, but what he saw fit to give me,’ Alina murmured. ‘He’d promised me he would not seek out the Englishman if I performed well, dutifully.’

Channing’s anger brimmed. ‘I made it more difficult for you by showing up.’ He should have listened to Henri and stayed away. He shook his head. ‘I should have stormed the castle for you. I should have taken you away from Paris.’ Self-loathing swamped him.

‘And been killed or worse?’ Alina flicked a sharp blue glance in his direction. ‘The
comte
’s cruelty and power knew no bounds. He would not have hesitated to have had you castrated if he had any suspicions. I could not have watched that.’

No, but she could allow herself to suffer for him, Channing thought cuttingly. ‘Why did you never tell me? When you returned to England?’ But the words died on his lips before he could finish the thought. He knew why. He hadn’t exactly been a picture of welcoming hospitality. There’d been no opening, just games and bitterness between them.

Alina shook her head. ‘It’s all in the past. But I don’t know if we can move beyond it.’ Channing knew what she meant. The events had shaped them, how they viewed the world and the choices they’d made since then. ‘I will never be an asset to you, Channing. Nice English sons of earls don’t associate with scandalous French countesses.’

Or marry them, Channing mused privately. She was being very delicate with her words. He needed a little distance and time to sort through the revelations. He was thinking with his temper at the moment, something he cautioned the men of the League not to do. He needed cool objectivity. He and Alina had been at cross-purposes, but explaining that didn’t make everything all right, nor did it pave the way to a happy ever after, if that was even what they wanted. He knew what he wanted, though. He wanted her, games and pasts aside, he wanted her with a single-minded fierceness. How did he convince her she could want him, too?

Channing pulled her close. ‘Oh, my dear, brave girl. I wish I could make it right.’ Amery was right. He wasn’t just in over his head, he was in head over heels and every other body part.

A sound at the door broke his thoughts. Alina looked up, alarmed. He shook his head. ‘It’s all right. It’s Amery. The League has a special knock.’

A moment later, Amery stepped inside, his mouth a grim line of determination. He wasted no time. ‘Channing, we have a problem. There are rumours. You need to come back to the ballroom.’ He paused and looked at Alina. ‘I don’t think you should. It won’t be pleasant and I fear we need to be careful about associations at the moment until we understand what we’re up against.’ Channing decoded the message swiftly. Amery must be concerned indeed if he was worried about them being seen with Alina.

‘What are they saying?’ Alina spoke up, her face pale in the candlelight.

Amery glanced at him. Channing nodded. ‘Tell her.’ He would spare Alina, but she’d hear the rumours, whatever they were, soon enough.

‘They’re saying the
comtesse
killed her husband.’

One look at Alina’s stricken face and Channing’s first inclination was to burst into the ballroom and call out the first man who dared to utter such a claim. But that would not solve the problem. It would, in fact, be the very worst thing he could do. It would call attention to the depth of his feelings for Alina. By doing so it would make her even more vulnerable to slander because now she’d think she had to protect him,
again
. No, the best thing to do would be to calmly walk into the ballroom and carry on as if nothing was wrong that affected him directly, gather information and plan accordingly, but damn it all if such a decision was easy.