The Secrets of a Scoundrel (25 page)

“In 1802, Count Frederic Truveau ordered his men to burn one of the villages near his castle to the ground.”

He eyed her warily. “The fire would have been reported in the papers. That proves nothing about this book.”

“You’re right, it says here that the newspapers reported the blaze as an accident. But according to the book, the truth behind it is a great deal more sordid. It centers around the death of a young footman, Luc Minot, who supposedly committed suicide, hanging himself from a tree.”

Limarque’s lips curved in a sinister half smile, as though he remembered it well. “Go on. You have my full attention,
chérie.
”

She swallowed hard, unnerved by his snakelike stare. “Minot was new to the household, and apparently before his death, he was shocked to have stumbled across certain perversions going on among the family members of the Truveau clan. He must have confided in someone what he’d seen, for local rumors exploded.

“A few days later, Minot’s body was discovered hanging from the tree, then came the blaze. According to this, the Count Truveau set the fires as a warning to the people to keep quiet about his family secrets.” She glanced up at him with her heart in her throat. “I’m sure they didn’t put that part in the papers.” She swallowed hard. “So, is it correct?”

“Oh, yes. I was there,” he said softly. “I helped light the fires. Give me another one.”

Her heart sank at this command.

“Something about the Order this time,” he urged her. “We know they keep a safe house in Calais. Where is it? Give me the address.”

Gin dropped her gaze. “There’s nothing about that in here.”

“Fine. Then let’s try another one. Which of the court ladies around the Empress Josephine was their informant?”

“It would take me some time to find that. I haven’t got to that part yet.”

“You’re boring me. Let’s try an easy one.”

“Yes?” She lifted her gaze to his in dread.

He leaned down close, until their noses nearly touched. “Tell me who killed old Count Truveau. That mystery was never quite solved.”

As he stared into her eyes, Gin felt like a hare trapped, mesmerized by the beady gaze of a snake.

Her heart raced with newfound panic.

The wild gleam in Limarque’s eyes brought on a sickening realization. Just as lying about the book’s contents would have guaranteed her death, telling the truth—showing she really
could
decipher it—would surely condemn her to untold years as his prisoner.

Not to mention what he might do with the information if and when he finally forced it out of her.

It would likely lead to the eventual destruction of every one of Virgil’s boys, the valiant men her father had loved as his own sons.

She couldn’t let that happen.

The only way she could think to turn the tables on him in that searing moment was to quit trying to feign cooperation and go on the attack.

Seize the element of surprise and find some way to escape.

“Well?” Limarque prompted. “Tell me who the book says killed the Count Truveau.”

Holding his stare, she gathered her courage, and whispered coldly: “You did.”

Now, there, my love, is a gamble,
she mentally told Nick, wherever he was.

And as it turned out, she was right.

Stunned incredulity flashed across Limarque’s face. He straightened up, staring at her, his mouth open, as if to ask,
How on earth could the Order know that?

She pressed her attack, eager to keep him off-balance. “You killed your own employer and blamed the attack on some unknown Order agent. Why did you do it?” she persisted. “Did you ever confess it to your comrades—”

He suddenly grasped her by the throat. “Stop playing games with me!” he roared in her face. “Who are you? Who do you work for? There’s no way they could know that!”

In answer, she seized the chunky pewter candlestick nearby and bashed him on the head with it.

He cursed, his hold around her throat dislodged. Leaping to her feet, she fled past him, but he was right behind her. She shrieked in terror when he grabbed her by the hair and threw her onto the nearby couch.

“Little bitch. You need to learn some manners before we proceed.” He came toward her with blood trickling down the side of his face from the cut on his temple. With a smooth motion, he reached into his pocket, then snapped the spring on a folding knife as he stalked toward her.

The look in his eyes was terrifying. Gin righted herself on the couch and, heart pounding, glanced past him toward the locked door. The chances of making it past him seemed slim, let alone his henchmen in the other room and all throughout the building.

But this could not happen to her—of all women.

He stopped in front of her, cutting off her yelp of fear as he took hold of her throat again and pushed her onto her back.

His nasty little blade glinted in the candlelight as he held it up before her face. “I think . . . you never intended to help me in the first place. But you will, by the time I’m done with you. Like you, I can be very persuasive.” His hand on her throat slid around to grip her nape; he kissed her neck, his lips on one side, his knife on the other.

Gin squeezed her eyes shut and strove to stay calm.

“I must confess, I’m going to enjoy this,” he said in a husky tone as he squeezed her breast roughly with his free hand.

She considered kneeing him hard in the groin but feared she’d only be making it worse for herself.

“You’d better hope he’s dead.
” The words escaped against her will in a terrified whisper.

“What?” Trapped under him, she eyed Limarque in seething wrath as he pulled back to meet her gaze. “What did you say?”

“You heard me.”

He scoffed. “Black?”

“You think that’s his real name?” she countered, the truth her last resort. “Don’t be a fool! He isn’t a criminal. He’s one of the Order’s deadliest assassins—who personally saved the life of the Prince Regent not long ago.

“As for me, I’m no thief. I happen to be a baroness, related by blood to half of London’s aristocracy, and that man in the alley, he’s also a peer, and my lover. He’s better connected than you have any idea and more dangerous than you can possibly imagine.”

He hissed and jerked back a bit, but a spark of doubt sprang into his eyes.

“More than that,” Gin charged on rather brazenly, “he happens to be in love with me. If he hears you forced yourself on me, the pit of Hell itself isn’t deep enough to hide you from his wrath. Touch me again, and you can rest assured, Mr. Limarque, you and all your men are already dead.”

Limarque recoiled from her, obviously rattled. “You’re lying.”

She stared into his eyes and shook her head. “Let me go, and maybe he’ll let you live.”

He climbed off of her abruptly, studying her as though weighing the truth of her words.

She could see that she had shocked him.

Excellent.
She pressed her attack with the direst warning she could manufacture as she sat up on the couch, nodding. “You should have killed him while you had the chance. You’re going to wish you had. Because he’s going to come back with all of his fellow warriors from the Order. And they’re going to burn your little kingdom to the ground, tear you all to pieces—”

“Even if what you say is true, you think the Order’s going to authorize all that just for one man’s harlot of a mistress?”

“Oh,
monsieur,
you don’t understand. The man who wrote that book was my father. I’m like a sister to them all. All those mean, vicious lords who brought down the Prometheans. Let me go, or I promise you, you haven’t even seen them angry yet.” She shook her head with a chiding smile, while Limarque turned white.

“Abducting me was the biggest mistake you ever made. I’m the only chance you’ve got of getting out of this alive.”

He gulped, backing away from her. “It was your idea!” he accused her. “You offered to come with me if I spared him!”

She was thrilled to see him looking so unnerved, but she merely gave a cool shrug. “You’ve only got your own greed to blame.” Then she nodded toward the door. “Why don’t you go tell your comrades how you’ve just painted the biggest possible target on your whole gang? One visible all the way from Dante House in London?”

His dark eyes flared with fear, then all of a sudden, he slammed out of the room.

Gin let out a trembling exhalation.

Limarque had looked so shaken, she was almost certain that when he came back after a brief consultation with his henchmen, it would be to let her go.

But as it turned out, she was wrong.

Chapter 19

N
obody knew better than a spy that a straight line was not necessarily the shortest distance from point A to B.

Though it was torturous not to follow his raging protective instincts directly and start tearing Paris apart to find Virginia, Nick knew such action would only waste time and probably prove more dangerous to her.

Besides, there was brave, and there was idiotic.

Even if he knew where to find them, single-handedly attacking a whole gang of criminals in their hideout would have been stupid, indeed. Instead, a circuitous route would take him to her side much faster—and would avoid cornering Limarque.

Nick knew a coward when he saw one, and with his back to the wall, Limarque was more likely to do something drastic.

Like killing her to get rid of the evidence.

In the interests of racing ahead of this double crisis so he could stop it from reaching the next stage of disaster, he rushed off to the outskirts of Paris and arrived at last at Angelique’s decadent establishment.

The day’s gray gloom and the bleak, bare trees of the wooded grounds made the sprawling, towered chateau look all the more sinister. At this hour, the flambeaux that lined the straight formal drive up to the castle were not lit, and the ornate, wrought-iron gates stood open.

Nick drove right in.

It was odd to see the ancient house in such a state of stillness, but of course, the revelries here never really got started until midnight. Pulling the horses to a halt, he told the boys to wait in the carriage while he jumped down from the driver’s box and stalked toward the heavy front doors.

Banging the huge metal knocker against the door, he hoped the “vampire queen,” as he had once privately dubbed her, was not sleeping the day away. He had to talk to her.

A harried servant woman finally answered the door, some poor, haggard, old maid probably tasked with mopping up vomit from the previous night’s guests, judging by the terrible smell of the place when he stepped inside.

The chateau was a different place by moonlight, magical, alluring, but in the harsh glare of day, Nick found it all deeply disturbing.

The old woman recognized him as the former top mercenary employed by her mistress. Wearily letting him in, she told him to do as he liked. He answered with a nod that he would show himself to Madame’s apartment upstairs.

God knew, he knew the way.

Bracing himself for her reaction to his return and barely daring to wonder how many people he might find her in bed with this morning, he strode through the chateau, passing the wasteland of the card rooms and the little, velvet-curtained theatre where the most exotic acts were performed at night.

He passed a parlor where the whores without their makeup sat sipping their morning coffee, swathed in loose dressing gowns, dark circles under their eyes. Without the glamour of candlelight and wine, the ill, pallid cast of their complexions rather startled him, but not as much the apathetic dullness in their eyes, the hardness of their deadened souls.

Marching on, his bootheels ringing over the dirty marble floors, Nick passed the heavily guarded banker’s chamber, where Angelique’s current head of security, Luc, a man he had trained, was overseeing the counting of money from the previous night’s haul.

Leaning on the accountant’s desk, Luc shot to his feet in shock when Nick walked by. He rushed into the doorway.

“Black!” he called after him in astonishment.

Nick tensed, unsure of the welcome he’d get and resenting any delay. Nevertheless, he put on a smile and turned.

“It is you!” Luc strode toward him with a grin. “Sweet Hades, man, I thought you were in prison!”

Nick smiled wryly and shook his offered hand. “Ah, they let me out for good behavior.”

“Right.” Luc laughed and clapped him on the back. “
Ça
fait longtemps!
”

“I know, six months. Believe me, I counted.” Though smiling, Nick stayed on his guard, well aware that his friend would turn on him if Madame gave the order that he was not to leave.

Luc gave him a knowing look. “She’ll be thrilled to know you’re back.”

“Can’t stay,” Nick replied in a breezy tone. “Just popped in for a visit.”

“I’ll bet. She is alone up there.” He glanced meaningfully toward the ceiling.

Nick raised a brow. “What is the world coming to?” he drawled. “Must be pining for me.”

“Actually, it’s possible,” Luc replied.

Nick frowned. “Bloody hell,” he said under his breath.

Luc snorted. “Good luck, then.”

As Nick started to walk away, his friend called after him, “Some cards with me and the boys this afternoon?”

“No, thanks, can’t stay. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”

As Nick jogged up the curved, marble staircase, he wondered how much poor Luc currently owed the house. For as beautiful as she was, Angelique was a shiny black spider who lured in her flies, then sucked the life out of them. In more ways than one.

He braced himself outside the door to her bedchamber.

If there was no other way, he supposed he could play the whore for her one more time. He had done it for the Order. She liked him, and she always had good information.

He just hoped it didn’t come to that, or if it did, that at least she was no longer quite so enthralled with whips and chains. He supposed he would endure anything to save Virginia, but it was the middle of the day, he was on the brink of multiple disasters, and frankly didn’t have time to get as drunk as he’d need to be to play her dirty games.

Of course, he understood that Angelique herself was not entirely to blame for what she was. Surviving the Red Terror could warp a person in any number of ways. Life had made her ruthless from the time she had been the sixteen-year-old mistress of a duke who had gone to the guillotine.

Nick did not believe she had let her guard down for one second ever since. But maybe, just maybe, for once she’d do something for somebody else out of the goodness of her heart. He steeled himself and knocked.

“Qui est là?
” she barked from inside the chamber.

“Jonathan Black.”

He heard a gasp and light, running footsteps, then the door whooshed open. And there she stood in all her dark beauty, wearing nothing but fluffy heeled shoes and an open silk dressing gown that swirled around her naked body.

Her dark eyes wide, she suddenly launched herself into his arms. “Oh, my darling! They let you out? I am so glad to see you!” She pulled him into her room, pushed him up against the wall, and kissed him, picking up right where they had last left off nearly a year ago.

Nick was rather taken aback.

But things had definitely changed. The last thing he felt like doing was kissing her, but he was wary enough of her vanity not to protest. Oddly enough, though he did not have a monogamous understanding with Virginia, he felt guilty anyway—and tainted by Angelique’s passionate onslaught. He saw it for what it was, after all. Simply her way of claiming what she believed to be her property.

“Mmm.” Ending the kiss, she stepped back just enough to cup his face between her hands, staring up into his eyes. “I knew you would come back to me. Oh, my darling. We shall have such times together! Come. Let me give you a proper welcome home.” She took his hands and started drawing him toward her huge, feverishly carved canopy bed.

But Nick could not hide how he recoiled at the order, let alone that she should call this place his home.

God, no.

This was not where he belonged. It couldn’t be. He was no longer one those dead-eyed people wandering around downstairs like lost souls.

Not anymore.

She tilted her head, scrutinizing him, her dark eyes shrewdly narrowed. “What is it?”

Nick abruptly remembered he was supposed to be a well-trained spy, cool and calculating. “Business before pleasure, love,” he murmured, capturing her chin with his thumb, caressing her cheek with a fond air. “I have a proposition for you.”

“Ooooh, this day is off to a good start.” She released him and flitted over to her sumptuous velvet chair, tucking her feet under her as she posed pertly. “Do tell.”

Nick sauntered toward her. “I was wondering, Madame, if you would like me to take a shipment of weapons to the Bacchus Bazaar and sell them for you. I’ll get you a good price.”

She toyed with a lock of her long, dark hair, studying him. “Hmm. I wasn’t
planning
on participating in the auction this year . . . but . . . Is this for the Order?”

He nodded.

“I thought you wanted to part ways with them for good,” she said in surprise.

With a rueful sigh, he sat down idly on the arm of her chair. “Let’s just say they helped me see the error of my ways during my incarceration,” he answered dryly.

“Ah, that bit of nastiness. Poor Nicky.” She laid her hand on his knee and caressed him. “So that’s why you’re here, then. Another mission. Why do you never come simply for
me?”
she asked with a petulant, little-girl pout.

“I have come for you many times,” he reminded her with a dark smile.

She bit her lip as she dug her fingers into his thigh appreciatively. “And I for you.”

“Next question. Do you know a man named Simon Limarque? He used to work for Truveau.”

“Oh, Truveau’s bodyguard, right. Hmm, he shows up to gamble here every now and then. Never had much of a conversation with the man. Not sober, anyway. But he’s on my list of beddable guests.”

“Who isn’t?” he drawled.

She smacked him lightly and laughed.

“Do you know where he keeps his headquarters?”

“No idea. I could probably find out for you if you give me a few days.”

“I don’t have a few days.”

“Why?”

“I need to track him down, and I haven’t got much time,” Nick said vaguely.

She leaned her head against the chair back and frowned at him. “I know that look. What, you’re planning to kill him?”

He petted her silky head to distract her with a façade of affection. “Let’s just say you may have missed your chance.”

“Ah, must you? You’re no fun. What’s he done?”

“Abducted an English lady. A baroness.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “The Order sent you to rescue her?”

“Yes,” he said firmly, praying that he concealed all signs of his deeper bond to the baroness in question. “This is my chance to redeem myself in their eyes. I’m sure you know how important this is to me. If I don’t get her back, Limarque is going to sell her at the auction.”

Angelique winced.

“The Crown won’t countenance the insult,” he added. “Her husband is a good friend of the Regent.”

“I heard you got shot for him, by the way!”

Nick shrugged. “You know me. Always getting shot. Hobby of mine.”

She gave his thigh a hearty slap. “Luckily, you’re very hard to kill.”

“Yes,” Nick replied rather wistfully.

“So, what can I do for you, darling?”

“Well, we both know the sort of bad, disreputable folk who attend the Bacchus Bazaar—”

“My kind of people!” she taunted with a grin. “So what do you mean to do, enter the auction and buy her back? Using my guns? You almost make me jealous.”

“No, I plan to get her out of there before it comes to that. They want this woman back alive and preferably unharmed. What I need is a solid cover so I can get into the auction and find out where Limarque is keeping her.” He lifted her hand and kissed her knuckles. “So will you help me? Jonathan Black could go to the Bacchus Bazaar as your representative.”

“Hmm,” she said again, scanning his face before she asked the usual question. “What’s in it for me?”

Nick laughed. “Egads, they should put that on your headstone when you die.”

“Who says I’m ever going to die?” she asked tartly.

“Of course, how silly of me. Everyone knows goddesses are immortal.”

She rose and turned to him, crossing her arms, tilting her head, staring into his eyes. He arched a brow in question. “What are you up to? You’re never this nice to me.”

“Maybe I missed you.” He reached out and grasped the edge of her robe, pulling her to him. When she was in arm’s reach, he wrapped his hand around her nape and kissed her deeply, ignoring the stale taste of last night’s liquor on her breath. “I’ll tell you what,” he whispered.

“I’m listening.”

He knew he was being ruthless, but he also knew her character. Angelique would never help him unless she got exactly what she wanted. “Let me take the weapons, and when I come back, I’ll arrange to stay here with you for a while. Would you like that? We can make up for lost time.”

“You expect me to wait?”

“The Bazaar takes place in a few days, Ange. I have to go. I don’t even know yet where I’m traveling to. Come on. I need your help.”

“And you shall have it,” she breathed, arching against him. “But first, I need
you
.”

His heart sank, and a rush of vicious curses at this waste of time blazed wrathfully through his mind, but he was a consummate actor and didn’t have time to argue.

He scooped her off her feet with a roguish laugh. “Oh, do you, now?”

She wrapped her arms around his neck in breathless delight and started kissing him as he carried her over to her bed.

He set her on her knees on the edge of the mattress, where she proceeded to help him pull off his coat and start taking off his clothes.

Once upon a time, it had been easy to perform for her with reasonable enthusiasm. But something had changed. The moment she slipped her hand into his trousers, Nick experienced an inexplicable malfunction.

For the first time in his life, his member simply refused to cooperate. He glanced down at himself, aghast: Angelique looked up from his peacefully slumbering cock to meet his stunned gaze. She arched a brow in mildly vexed amusement.

“What’s wrong, darling?” she drawled.

“I-I don’t know,” he stammered, reaching up to touch the back of his head. “Maybe it’s the concussion . . . Bloody hell!”
And I thought prison was humiliating.

“Don’t worry. I’m sure I can remedy this,” she said, but she couldn’t.