Never a Gentleman (42 page)

Jack was shaking his head. “I don’t know. I don’t remember anything about it.”

“This might help,” Kate offered dryly. Opening the back of the flask, she handed it over. “I assume you know her.”

Jack took the flask. “Mimi,” he breathed, looking stricken.

“Your mistress?” Diccan asked. “The one who turned you over to the French?”

“Evidently Evenham’s mistress, too,” Drake mused, “if the miniature came with the flask.”

“Evenham didn’t have a mistress,” Diccan said quietly. “Believe me.”

“He had the flask,” Jack insisted, “which connects him to Mimi.”

“It connects them both to someone else.” Grace extended her hand for the flask. Taking one last wistful look at it, Jack handed
it to her. Grace passed it to Diccan.

Diccan took one look and blanched. “My God.”

His glass hit the floor with a thud and rolled, spilling a rivulet of whiskey. He didn’t even seem to notice, his focus on
the miniature. The men gathered around him.

“Bloody hell, Diccan,” Harry said. “That’s Minette.”

“So it is,” Grace said. “Does anyone besides me find it singular that she has… um, entertained many two Drake’s Rakes, who
just happen to be investigating the Lions?”

“Two Rakes and a Lion cub,” Chuffy said with a shake of his head. “Too smoky by half.”

“I’m telling you that she was not Evenham’s mistress,” Diccan insisted.

“She certainly seemed to know him,” Chuffy retorted.

“Admirable stamina,” Kate said with a grin.

“Untidy,” Bea retorted with a moue of displeasure.

“Diccan?” Grace asked. “What do you think? Is the woman in this miniature just overly friendly, or is something more going
on?”

Slowly sitting back down, Diccan kept staring at the flask. Finally, with a harsh laugh, he shook his head. “I have an awful
feeling that the hen is really a fox in disguise. And we thought we were all so clever.”

“Is she the reason you’re being discredited?” Grace asked.

It was Marcus who answered. “I’m afraid he can’t say.”

“Because we’ve already been so free with the information we already have,” Olivia almost growled. “Even after being attacked
and threatened and ruined.”

Grace sighed, feeling her strength flag. “We know the basics about the Lions already. We want to know what the risk is to
us. To you. We want to know if there is anything we can do to help.”

“No,” the men all said together.

Kate shook her head, motioning to the flask. “You forget we’ve just helped. I assume you learned something from Evenham, Diccan.
If the Lions found out, why didn’t they
just try and kill you, like they tried with Jack? Why all the dancing around?”

Another exchanged look. A moment of discomfort. “We don’t know,” Marcus finally admitted. “Indeed, it seems… inefficient.”

“Not really,” Diccan admitted, absently running his thumb over the ivory portrait of his mistress. “Not if they can find some
other work for me that compromises me even more.”

They all looked up at him. Grace felt her heart catch. “What work?”

Diccan took a moment to meet her gaze before turning to Jack Wyndham. “For one, I’m supposed to be reporting back to Smythe
about Jack’s memory. I’m sure they’re terrified you’ve remembered more names. And secondly…” He looked up with a singularly
dry smile. “I think they’re setting me up to kill Wellington.”

Grace found herself gaping. “The Lions? Just what have you been doing?”

“Just what you said,” he said without looking at her. “Fucking the Frenchwoman for the flag.”

“Diccan,” Jack admonished.

“Finally,” Kate muttered. “A particle of truth.”

Diccan looked back down at the flask. “Evenham told me the Lions would try to recruit me any way they could. Whitehall thought
that I could get near some of the suspects by resuming my affair with Minette. It’s seemed to work a champ. They think I’ve
been spying for foreign governments and am amenable to coercion. I’ve been the perfect patsy.” He turned to Grace, his eyes
stark. “You should have been safe. I would never have hurt you like that if I hadn’t thought it would keep you safe. I’m so
sorry.”

Grace heard the ragged pain in his voice and suddenly understood what every vile accusation, every seemingly cruel act had
cost him. It shook her how much she hurt for him.

“You’re forgiven,” she said softly.

She was even more shaken when she saw tears in his eyes. Oh, Diccan.

“What can we do?” Kate asked, pulling Grace’s attention back.

“Stay out of the way,” Harry Lidge said. “This is dangerous business.”

“Indeed,” Kate said with a speaking look. “Who could imagine?”

“No, no,” Chuffy objected. “Worse than the collywobbles. Knives.”

“Chuff…”

But Chuffy shook his head. “They should know, blast it. Fellow’s out there cutting lines from Shakespeare into people’s heads.
Well, he hasn’t cut any of
us.
It’s the ladies he usually goes after. Like Lady Gracechurch.”

Olivia went pasty white. “The Surgeon?” she asked in stricken tones. “What about him?”

“Quotes?” Grace asked, suddenly feeling sick again. “What are you talking about?”

No one heard her. They were focused on Jack, who went to kneel by Olivia so he could take her hands. “I’m so sorry, Liv,”
he said. “The Surgeon has escaped, and no one knows where he is. But we’ve had you protected. I swear.”

The Surgeon. Oh, sweet God. Sweet, sweet God.
Grace thought
, they couldn’t mean it.

“The Surgeon is at large?” she demanded, knowing she sounded shrill. “Did you know that, Olivia?”

She knew by the stark pallor of Olivia’s face that she
hadn’t known. The scar that ran down her friend’s cheek seemed to stand out against her pallor like a personal accusation.

“What did you mean about a quote, Chuffy?” Grace demanded.

Chuffy flushed uncomfortably. “Shouldn’t have told you. Not a thing for women to hear.”

“It’s his signature,” Diccan reluctantly said. “He… carves a quote into his victims.”

A quote. Like something from Sophocles. Grace closed her own eyes a moment, swamped with sudden nausea. “Damn you,” she rasped,
hitting the chair arm with her fist. “Damn you all. You could have warned us! But you decided you knew best, and you let that
monster wander around without telling us!”

“Grace, come,” Diccan said, reaching for her hand. “Do you really think I’d let the Surgeon anywhere near you?”

But she batted his hand away, unable to face him. How could she have felt sorry for him? “Kate,” she said. “Will you get my
reticule, please? It’s on my dresser.”

“Grace?” Olivia asked. “What is it?”

But she shook her head and kept her silence until Kate had returned with Grace’s serviceable knit reticule dangling from her
wrist. Unable to give Diccan so much as the comfort of a glance, Grace took it and opened it up. Her hands were shaking.

“I tried to show you,” she told Diccan, retrieving the business card she’d kept. “I tried to tell you something was wrong.
But you wouldn’t listen. You didn’t talk to me. You all decided that would be too
dangerous
. So how could I know the Surgeon wasn’t safely in prison? How could I have connected the two? You tell me.”

She all but threw the calling card at him.

“Grace,” Marcus said softly. “What about the Surgeon?”

She didn’t answer him either. She felt her heart shrivel inside her. She knew, finally, just how badly she’d been used.

Diccan was reading the card. “Mr. Carver,” he said, and she saw the light begin to dawn on him.

“What about him?” Marcus asked, stepping up.

Diccan handed over the card, and his hands were shaking, too. “Mr. Carver gave Grace a card with the address of Lincoln’s
Inn Fields. Chuffy? What else is at Lincoln’s Inn Fields?”

Chuffy’s round face scrunched in thought. “Royal College of—”

Marcus was staring at the card as if it were a snake. “Surgeons.”

It was what had confused Grace, because she’d known all along that an address on Lincoln’s Inn Fields was significant. She
wanted to scream with frustration. With outrage. “He’s been beneath your noses all along, and you didn’t know. Because you
wouldn’t tell me!”

Diccan looked up at her, and she saw the fear that had blossomed in his once-cool gray eyes. “Where is he, Grace? Do you know?”

“Of course I know. He’s been following me more closely than my abigail, telling me I needed to turn you in. Warning me about
you. Threatening me with arrest and ruin if I didn’t help him. How could I
not
know where he is?”

Again Diccan tried to grab hold of her hand, but she wouldn’t let him. “Where, Grace?” he asked. “Where is he?”

Fear bubbled like acid in her chest. “He’s here, Diccan. He’s at Oak Grove.”

She might just as well have loosed a bomb in the room. Suddenly every man was on his feet, and everyone was trying to talk
over each other. It took a good twenty minutes for her to be able to tell them her story, to describe the man she’d met time
and again, thinking he was a government agent. It took another ten minutes for the men to disappear, scrambling to collect
a force to search the grounds.

The grounds that should have been secure.

Grace couldn’t seem to move. She kept seeing the cold smile in that man’s eyes. She heard the suggestive whispers she had
never spoken of to anyone. She felt cold and hot and dirty. She felt afraid. She never allowed herself to feel afraid.

“Come along, Grace,” Diccan said when he finally strode back into the room. “I’m taking you upstairs, where you’ll be safe
’til we find him.”

And without waiting for her response, he swept her into his arms. She should have protested. She should have kept chastising
him. She had so much to chastise him for. But the minute she felt his arms around her, she weakened. She held on to him, as
if he were all that was familiar. As if he really had held her when she had been so ill. Closing her eyes against the fresh
sting of tears, she leaned her head against his neck and submitted.

“It will be all right, Gracie,” he promised as he pushed open her bedroom door and carried her inside. “I promise.”

“You can’t promise that, Diccan,” she said. “None of us can. I’ll be content if you stay safe. But when this is over, you
and I will need to sit down and decide how to go forward. I refuse to continue like this, Diccan. I just… can’t.”

“I know,” he said, and he sounded sad. “But we’ll have all the time in the world to deal with it.”

“No,” came a voice from the window. “I’m afraid you won’t.”

Diccan came to an abrupt halt. Grace fought a cold flood of terror. She didn’t even need to open her eyes to know who was
there. She did anyway.

“Diccan,” she said, glaring at the man who stood before the open window, gun in hand. “I believe you know Mr. Carver.”

A
h, me,” Mr. Carver said, sounding amused. “I was afraid of this. Leave it to you, Hilliard, to show up in your wife’s bedroom
for the first time in a month. I’m so glad I came prepared for you.” He lifted his gun, a top-over-bottom pepperpot two-shot.
“You see? I even adapted. You see, I need you both dead, and time is of the essence.” He shook his head. “And I had the most
lovely verse reserved to carve into your breast.”

Diccan was so proud of Grace. He felt her tense at Carver’s words, but she kept perfectly passive, as if completely unimpressed.
“Verses,” Diccan drawled, struggling to keep his own calm, his arms tight around her. “I keep hearing about verses. I think
I’ve had my fill of the damned things.”

He got a slow, chilling smile from the assassin. “And you still don’t know what it means. Or who has it. Won’t you be surprised?”

“I’m sure I will.”

“In fact,” Carver said with relish, “I think you have a lot of surprises yet to be discovered. If only you had the time.
But you see, now both of you have had a good look at me. It simply won’t do.”

Diccan’s heart was hammering, and his hands were sweating, but he made sure Carver wouldn’t know. “You seem a bit self-assured
for a man who’ll never get out of this house alive.”

Carver was still smiling. “Don’t underestimate me, Mr. Hilliard. I’ll get away. And before I do, I’ll recover the verse everyone
is so anxious for.” His smile grew. “Not from Minette, of course. She never had it. I’m sure, though, that she amply rewarded
you for your thorough searches of her.”

“Are you going to be tiresome and gloat, now?” Diccan asked. “Are you going to tell me who the man is behind all this, right
before you put a bullet in me?”

“Man?” The Surgeon tilted his head, obviously amused. “Grace, if I were you, I would be insulted that my husband doesn’t give
enough credit to the fair sex. Never assume, Hilliard. It’s brought down more than one spy.”

“A woman is behind the attempts to discredit me?”

“In a roundabout way.”

Diccan held perfectly still. In his arms, Grace kept her silence, as if withdrawing into herself. Diccan could feel the leashed
tension in her, though, radiating from every taut muscle. He hoped she was paying close attention, because the next moments
were vital.

“Ah, well,” he said, coiling his own muscles. “I guess I’ll have to apologize when I meet her. In the meantime, if you don’t
mind, my wife is no sylph. In fact, she’s getting damn heavy.”

And without hesitation, he tossed her over onto her bed.

“Now then, Mr. Carver,” he said, not even watching her land, “let’s continue this.”

Carver barely spared a look to Grace, where she was bouncing on the bed like a tossed portmanteau. Diccan almost laughed.
And Carver had chastised him for underestimating women. Carver never saw Grace reach under her pillow. He saw the gun she
pulled out, but it was already too late. Before he could even turn, she shot him.

The crack rattled the windows. Smoke curled up from the gun. Carver, looking astonished, peered down to see a blood blossom
at his shoulder. Before the man could remember he was still holding a gun, Diccan charged him. Grabbing the gun, Diccan crashed
into the wall alongside Carver, both of them struggling for control. Carver tried to shove Diccan away. He was so close Diccan
could see the black flecks in his blue eyes. He could smell the sudden fear on him. He could hear the gasp of surprised pain
as he was jostled.