The Secrets of a Scoundrel (13 page)

While they waited, Gin wondered what to say to Nick after this. His posture was stiff, his face tense; he refused to meet her gaze.

She followed his stare back to the vault, where Lowell was opening a small mahogany box.

From out of it, he lifted an ivory chip carved in the shape of the diamond and engraved with back-to-back B’s for the Bacchus Bazaar.

This done, he shut the box and put it back in the vault. Leaning on his cane, he pushed the iron door closed and locked it up tightly once more.

After that came the painstaking process of his turning around again and hobbling back across the room. At last, he sank back into his chair with a sigh of relief.

“Here you are.” Slightly winded, he offered Nick the chip.

Nick reached across the desk and took it.

Gin glanced at Mr. Lowell for confirmation. “This will get us in?”

He nodded, heaving for breath and dabbing his sweating brow with his napkin. “Present the chip at the Imperial Suite of the L’Hôtel Grande Alexandre in Paris anytime within the next fortnight. That will get you formally signed in for the auction. At that point, you’ll also have to show them what you’ll be offering for sale.”

“Everyone’s got to bring something to sell,” Nick informed her, though she already knew the procedure, thanks to her father’s journal. “That way, everyone present is incriminated, thus ensuring that all participants will keep their mouths shut.”

“Once everyone has registered,” Mr. Lowell said, “then and only then, the time and place of the auction will be announced. They’ll send you a note. You won’t have much time to get there, wherever it is. They change the location every time.”

“Any inkling of where it’s going to be this year?” Nick asked.

Lowell shook his head. “Last one was in Prague, that’s all I know.”

Nick nodded. “We won’t take any more of your time, then.” He headed for the door, but Gin lingered by the desk a moment longer.

She leaned toward the gambling-hell owner. “Are we all square, then, Mr. Lowell? I have your word that you’ll erase Lord Forrester’s debt from your books?”

He nodded, eyeing her warily. “I’ll send down to my Jerusalem Chamber at once.”

She smiled at him. “Thank you.”

“You are one lucky bastard in your lady friends, Forrester,” Lowell remarked, as she followed Nick toward the door. “First Angelique, now this one. Maybe you’re not as horribly unlucky as I thought.”

Nick sent him a wry glance from the door as he held it open for her. Then he pulled it shut behind them.

Out in the hallway, the guards returned their weapons to them.

Gin could tell by the way Nick moved that he was angry. As soon as he had his brace of pistols and his knives back in their places, he stalked off ahead of her, neither waiting for her nor bothering with a show of gallantry this time.

She got the feeling he was furious about her paying his gambling debt, but what else could she do? Let him hand over his medal of honor to that cretin?

Her father would roll over in his grave.

Through the labyrinth, past the kitchens, back into the stairwell, and up the steps they climbed. Gin lifted the hem of her skirts running up the stairs, trying to keep up with him. He took them two at a time.

Overtaking the guard, Nick let himself out through the door at the top of the stairwell, going back into the gambling hell. The guard frowned after him but waited to hold the door for Gin—not out of politeness, to be sure, but to make sure she left the backstairs region where unescorted visitors were not allowed.

Ahead, she saw Nick striding through the gambling hell. He looked neither to the right nor the left, as if he did not dare trust himself with so many temptations on every hand. Her heart ached for him even though she wanted to throttle him for his stubborn pride.

Very well, so he was angry, she thought. But at least they now had the necessary game piece.

Moments later, they were back outside, striding down the dock toward their slip, where Haynes waited in the boat. The bracing chill of the night wind was most welcome, blowing the stink of Lowell’s office off her, though the smell still clung inside her nose.

Certainly, she had never met anyone quite like Mr. Lowell before; she couldn’t help feeling sorry for him even though he was a ruthless crime boss. Then she put him out of her mind. “Nicholas.”

“What?” he flung back, stopping to turn around and face her. “What is it now? What do you want from me this time? God, you’re as demanding as your father.”

She stopped, startled by his vehemence. “And here I was, thinking you’d be grateful!” she exclaimed.

“I don’t need your charity,” he snarled at her.

He was gripping her game piece tightly in his fist; she still clutched his medal of honor in her hand.

“How could you think to part with this? How could it mean so little to you?”

“I pay my debts. I don’t need your help or anybody else’s!”

“Well, I need yours!” she exclaimed.

He scowled at her. “Why are you doing all this for me? What are you getting out of it? Just be honest.”

“Like you are?” she retorted.

“Why did you really get me out of that cell? Why pay my debt? Why are you interfering in my life?”

She faltered, scarcely knowing what to say. He was in no frame of mind to hear the rest of the truth about what was really at stake.

“Nick, my father loved you like a son. You’re a part of his legacy. I’m not going to let you taint Virgil’s memory by throwing away the greatest symbol of everything he taught you.” She held up his medal.

He just looked at it, then at her.

Gin lost patience. “Look, all I care about is my investigation! If I help you, it’s merely incidental,” she lied hotly. “Your life’s a mess, your soul’s half-lost, your reputation is in shambles. I’m not going to let you darken my father’s memory by leaving one of ‘Virgil’s boys’ in this position before the world. Is that what you want to hear?”

He lowered his gaze, obviously stung, but not shrinking from the truth of it. “So now I owe you,” he conceded quietly after a moment.

“I know you’ll pay me back when you’re able. Surely it’s better to trust me than to trust that man!” she added, searching his closed expression. “You should have told me you were in debt to Lowell before we went in. With all that’s at stake, you should not have let me walk in there not knowing that he had that sort of leverage over you.”

He turned away, staring at the river. “You were supposed to stay outside.”

“Well, it’s done now. Let’s both be grateful I happened to wear those ugly red earrings. I never really cared for them.”

He looked askance at her, as though well aware she was only saying that to make him feel better.

“The point is,” she continued, “now you have to help me. I know it hasn’t been easy, figuring out how to work together, but I really need your help. I’m not the expert that you are. Now, if you want your medal back, then stick with me and help me save those girls instead of cutting out on the mission and going your own way, as you planned.”

He stared at her. “You really think I would have left?”

“But that’s what you said in the carriage!” she cried. “You said you didn’t care about those girls. It’s just the way of the world, happens everyday. Am I wrong?”

“I didn’t mean it!” he fairly roared.

She blinked. “Well! Maybe you should start saying what you actually mean for a change. How am I supposed to know what goes on in that head of yours? You tried to leave the Order; why should I not expect that you’d desert me, too?”

He winced and turned away with a small, pained laugh.

It was hard telling someone the truth, and Gin half regretted saying it as she watched him smile bitterly in the darkness, shaking his head and struggling to absorb the painfully honest jab.

“Of course I’m going to help you,” he finally forced out. “It’s what I intended all along.”

“What?”

“I didn’t want to tell you because I meant to go without you. Anyone with eyes can see you are in so far over your head. You really have no business being involved with any of this. This is warrior’s work, and you’re just a scared little girl trying to prove herself to her dead father. Do you think that I don’t see it?”

She blanched as he skewered her with honesty just as neatly as she had done to him.

Her jaw had dropped, but she managed to close her mouth, not that she could mount any sort of believable denial.

Folding her arms across her chest, she could only shrug, in desperate need of another topic. She steered the conversation elsewhere. “So who is Angelique?”

He flinched, then shook his head with a low, harsh laugh. “Oh, you two would get on so well. I daresay she could teach even you a few things.”

Gin bristled even more. “Really? And who is she?”

“Why, you might say she’s the female version of Hugh Lowell, my dear. Only she’s beautiful. And instead of gluttony, her sin of choice is lust.” He paused. “Now that I’m in debt to you, I suppose you’ll want to be paid back in the same manner Angelique preferred to accept repayment. So, fine. Let’s go. It’s all the same to me,” he whispered. “Take me to your bed and I’ll do whatever you want. After all, you bought me fair and square, didn’t you—”

Crack!

She slapped him hard across the face, then stared at him in fury as he slowly brought his hand up to his jaw.

“That’s for thinking I’d ever have to pay for it,” she informed him.

Then she walked away.

Chapter 9

T
he boat ride home was exceedingly cold. The Thames was as black as the River Styx as the ferryman conveyed them back to the north shore. The lanterns on the boat were but feeble pinpricks of light in the soupy darkness. The water flowed like liquid onyx while the wind whipped, complicating the ferryman’s task.

Gin fumed throughout the crossing, keeping to herself. If there were any other way, if there were anybody else who could have helped her, she’d have gladly thrown her partner overboard.

What had her father ever seen in him to choose him for the Order, when a sensible person like herself had not been allowed?

Nick Forrester, loathsome man, was maddening beyond words. He’d been deliberately hurtful. But how could she have expected a trained assassin to be other than at least a little cruel?

She’d be surprised if they didn’t kill each other before this mission was over.

He, too, was silent when they arrived on the northern shore and got into the carriage to return to her town house.

Maybe he regretted throwing it in her face that he had acted as a male whore to this Angelique woman, whoever she was. Or perhaps he was glad to have told her. As if to ensure that he had just killed any interest in him she might have.

The streets of London were all but deserted at this hour. Nick and she seemed to be the only two people awake, but despite being confined inside a coach together, still, they had nothing to say to each other.

The journey home seemed to take forever.

Finally, they arrived outside her town house. The moment the carriage rolled to a halt, she jumped out, not waiting for her coachman to get the door.

Her parting words to Nick were a terse command: “Be ready to leave for Dover by dawn tomorrow. We’ll sail from there to Calais.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” he drawled barely audibly from inside the darkness of the carriage.

She marched off, not looking back as Nick wearily climbed out of the carriage behind her. He slammed the door behind him.

Gin went into the house, but with the way this night was going, she should have known the fun was not over yet.

Indeed, the lamps were lit throughout the first floor—to welcome home an unexpected guest.

P
hillip knew he’d be in some trouble for this, but he had escaped his minders at Deepwood and followed his mother and the fascinating Lord Forrester all the way to London in order to prove a point.

That he could do it. That he was resourceful, clever, and brave.

But his point was lost on his mother when she stepped into the parlor, took one look at him standing there, and gasped. “Phillip!”

“Hullo, Mum!” he greeted her with a forced grin, striving for a light tone in the hopes of avoiding her wrath. “Awfully late to be coming home, even for Town hours, what?”

She flew toward him. “What are you doing here? Where is Mr. Blake? Has something happened?” she cried.

“No, no, everything’s fine.”

“But—how did you get here?” she exclaimed, looking him over as if to make sure he was not injured. “You should be in bed back at the estate!”

“I’m not a child, Mother!

“Yes!” she countered. “Yes, you are!”

“I’m almost sixteen—”

“Oh, good Lord.” She looked like she might go into an apoplectic fit. “You came here on your own?”

“To help you with whatever case you and Lord Forrester are working on!”

He kept talking, telling her how helpful he could be, but he could see that she wasn’t listening. She looked glazed over for a second, then his heart sank as she recovered enough from her shock to launch into a rant.

All the yelling attracted another curious party. Phillip looked past his furious mother and suddenly brightened as his new hero stepped into the doorway of the parlor.

“Lord Forrester! There you are!” He walked away from his mother, striding in relief toward the Order agent, which only enraged her the more. “I’ve come to help,” he announced. “Would you please tell my mother to let me be a part of whatever’s going on?”

N
ick went motionless, unsure how to react.

He was glad to see the kid—all the more so because he knew how much Phillip’s arrival would infuriate his mother. It was better than Nick’s having to bear all her ire by himself. Still, he was much too smart to get into the middle of this. Especially when Her Ladyship looked over her shoulder and gave him the very Evil Eye in warning:
Don’t you dare interfere.

“Wish I could help,” he told the boy in a breezy tone, “but she doesn’t listen to me, either. Believe me, my word carries exactly zero weight with the lady in question.”

“But that can’t be true!” Phillip protested, glancing uncertainly from Nick to his mother and back again.

Softening a bit, he shook his head in regret. “You might as well have stayed at Deepwood, my young friend. I’m afraid the case is nearly solved already, thanks to your mother’s cleverness. This one was awfully boring, anyway. Maybe she’ll let you help some other time.”

Phillip looked crestfallen.

Nick glanced at the boy’s mother. “I’m going out for a walk,” he told her. Then he looked at Phillip. “Good evening.” With a nod to them both, he stepped back outside, leaving them to sort out their domestic squabble for themselves.

A
s soon as Nick had gone, Phillip looked at Gin suspiciously. “Why the icy looks? Are you two in a fight?”

“Phillip, honestly, you’re going to drive your mother mad,” she muttered, turning away. His perceptiveness, despite his tender age, never failed to startle her.

“But I thought you liked him!” he said. “And I’m certain he likes you.”

“No, he doesn’t!” she retorted against her better judgment, turning radish-red. “The man despises me. And he thinks I’m old.”

Phillip laughed. “Well, you are! But that’s all right, so is he. You’re both ancient. I’m mean, you’re both over thirty!”

She eyed him ruefully, fighting the urge to tousle his hair. “Don’t be adorable when I’m cross at you. It’s most annoying.”

He grinned at her, then took a bite of an apple. “So you want to hear what route I took from Deepwood? I got here awfully fast—”

“No. I want you to write a letter of apology at once to Mr. Blake for disappearing. Let’s hope you haven’t killed the poor old fellow from the shock.”

“Oh, Mother.”

“Don’t you understand I’m trying to protect you?” She cupped his smooth, rounded face for a moment between her hands. “I know what you’re trying to do, my darling. But I forbid it.”

“Why?” he demanded.

“So you don’t turn out like Lord Forrester, for one thing!”

“What do you mean? The man’s a hero!”

“No. He’s a most unhappy soul, who’s seen too much and been too many times to Hell and back, all because of the Order. It changes a person, Phillip. Just look at him. Look closely next time. It’s made him hard and cold inside. I don’t want that to happen to you. I want you to live a happy life and be a part of things and be able to get close to other people. He can’t do any of that.”

“Don’t be daft, Mum, of course he can.”

“No, my love. They trained it out of him. He’s a hollow shell, and all he’s got left is anger.”

Phillip shrugged. “Didn’t seem like it to me.”

“You have to trust me, sweeting. I’m your mother, and I know what’s best for you.”

He snorted in reply.

“I know right now it frustrates you to hear that, but someday you’ll thank me. Now this matter is not up for discussion. You want to be a hero, and I know that someday you will be. But you’ll have to find some other way to make your mark on the world. You’re not joining the Order, and that’s final. Hate me for it if you must, but I love you too much to turn you over to them for their war machine.”

“I’ll bet Lord Forrester’s mother never babied him!”

She shook her head. “How any of their mothers parted with them, I cannot fathom.”

That her own father had been the Seeker to whom those lads had been surrendered by their own families, well, she thought in sorrow, that was Virgil’s own private, family curse.

Indeed, their handler had never quite been able to forgive himself for dragging those boys into that dark and dangerous life.

She wondered if Nick or any of them knew the secret guilt Virgil had suffered over that, though he had only been doing his duty, just like the rest of them.

He had made heroes of them, but surely, when they were starry-eyed lads like Phillip dreaming of adventure and great deeds, nobody had seen fit to warn them that heroes were only forged out of sacrifice and pain.

“What’s that in your hand, Mother?”

Her son’s question drew her from her pained thoughts. She opened her palm slowly and showed him Nick’s medal of honor from the Regent.

The boy made a sound of awe and took it from her, staring at it.

“Why don’t you hold on to that for me?” she murmured softly. “Keep it somewhere safe until it’s time to give it back.”

“Can I really?”

She nodded, then kissed him on the forehead and told him in a whisper that he’d better go to bed.

M
eanwhile, Nick spent an hour wandering the streets, hands in pockets, hiding in the darkness that had become so comfortable over the years.

He did not have any particular destination in mind, but seeing Phillip with his mother had once more got him thinking of the past.

It was a painful subject.

Like Phillip, he had been raised by a mother alone.

His father had been a bit of a madman, wild and temperamental. Given to highs of exultation countered by the meanest, darkest lows. He had destroyed himself through his loose living when Nick was only three and left the family teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.

But when Nick was eleven, Virgil Banks, the mighty, red-haired Scot, had come to visit, interested in possibly recruiting him for a mysterious chivalric order that was tied to his family bloodlines.

He had been given little tests of his intelligence, played the giant Scot at chess. Tests of his physical soundness, too: his health, his eyesight. Seemingly innocuous demonstrations of his agility, when other boys his age were tripping over their own fast-growing feet.

And then, for the first time in his life, he had been chosen for something special.

Told he had particular value and that he could belong. With the right training, Virgil had told him, why, one day, he could accomplish great things for his country and himself. Be a hero.

Nick had heard the stranger out, both excited and frightened by the secretive door that had been opened to him.

Most of all, he had seen it as a chance to help his mother. She cried all the time and complained ceaselessly about their hard life. Nick knew that if he went, the Order would reward her handsomely, and she might be happy.

He knew that she was lonely after his father died. They had no money, so she wandered around their ramshackle manor feeling sorry for herself, too proud to visit friends who might have cheered her up simply because she did not have adequate gowns equal to her status; nor could she afford the types of leisure pursuits they enjoyed. Nick had known that if he went with the Seeker and let them turn him into a great knight, their family would have a chance at being rich again. Then his mother could return to London and enjoy herself.

Assuring her at the ripe old age of twelve that he would take care of her, take care of everything, he had marched off to be molded into a killer. Too innocent at the time even to realize he was sacrificing his innocence.

He could have lived with it . . . After all, the Order had given him much: his friends, his skills. He’d had the chance to see the world and be a part of certain deeds that, though secret, had helped protect his country. But only three short years into his training, he had received the shock of a lifetime when his mother, restored to Society, had announced she was getting married.

She had found a new husband, and, in no time at all, they had children together, and suddenly she had a whole new family.

Nick had never quite fit in. He felt awkward around the strangers; indeed, he felt as though he had been played for a fool. The cause he had sacrificed himself for had ceased to exist, indeed, had even turned against him, for he had no real place in her new husband’s household.

He was an afterthought, an embarrassing reminder of her penniless days and what she had done to escape them: sold her son.

As for her second husband, he seemed to view Nick as a threat, a constant reminder that she had once belonged to another man, his father.

In short, Nick had quickly found he wasn’t welcome. So he had quit going home and turned his back on the need for such connections. Of course, he’d felt abandoned and betrayed, but it did not signify. He had merely sworn to himself that no one would ever hurt him like that again.

He still had very little contact with his so-called family. Both parties preferred it that way. His mother had been proud to hear he’d stepped in front of a bullet for the Regent, but he had made sure that nobody informed her he’d been tossed into the Order’s private prison.

Let her keep her illusions about her son, the Order knight. She had her second brood of children to comfort her. Besides, she was daft, anyway.

When he looked up from where his feet had taken him, he was standing in front of her house. The house of her second family, where everyone belonged. Everyone except for him.

He moved closer, up to the edge of the wrought-iron fence that girded the front area. Wistfully, he gazed at the window on the ground floor, but the curtains were closed, and he was shut out in the night.

What was it like to have a family?

Suddenly, to add insult to injury, their dog ran out to the fence and started barking at him.

A quiet, weary laugh escaped Nick. He ordered the dog to be quiet, then wandered on his way—alone—as he supposedly preferred it.