Captives of the Night (14 page)

In the first place, it was the height of folly to become entangled in any way with any participant, male or female, in an investigation.

In the second, according to his Albanian code of honor, he owed her amends for her father's death. Even if his men hadn't killed Bridgeburton, they
had
rendered the Venice household defenseless, making murder easy for someone else. To protect Madame during the present murder investigation and provide justice by finding her husband's killer constituted a form of amends for the injury Ismal had thoughtlessly done her a decade ago. To use her beautiful body to slake his lust, on the other hand, was to heap insult upon injury.

Last, but most significant, she was dangerous. She'd haunted him ceaselessly after he'd left Paris and drawn him here against his better judgment. She had then stirred his feelings so intensely that he'd made not merely a mistake, but an unbelievably stupid one. Worst of all, she saw through him — not everything, not even a fraction. Nonetheless, that she glimpsed anything at all of the truth clearly proved she was a serious problem.

Yet he wanted her still, more than ever.

And so, instead of behaving himself, he had deliberately cast sexual lures, testing his powers of attraction against her fierce resistance. Which demonstrated — as if one needed more evidence — just how dangerous she was to him.

Even now, as he followed her up the stairs, it wasn't crime scenes he contemplated, but her criminally tempting body.

Black became her far too well, and this gown in particular was fiendishly well-designed. Despite the fashionably exaggerated shoulders and sleeves, her form appeared in all its tantalizing lushness. The twilled fabric hugged her full, firm breasts and wrapped itself snugly about her small waist, then swelled lazily below with the curve of her hips.

Ismal had studied countless women clothed and unclothed, and not always with detachment. He was not immune to desire nor did he wish to be, for desire was the beckoning of pleasure.

In her case, it was an invitation to disaster. Yet the invitation, he silently admitted as they reached the top of the stairs, was well nigh irresistible.

A single oil lamp stood on the hall table near the master bedroom door. The soft light caught the golden threads in her hair and lit gold sparks in her eyes, but the rest was shadow. Such was desire: an uncertain light amid the darkness of unreason.

He took up the lamp, opened the door, and let her proceed him into the room.

"You can set it on the nightstand," she said. Her voice was brittle. "Not that there's much to see. Less than you did before, I'm sure."

"Let me see with your eyes," he said. He put the lamp down and moved away to stand by the fireplace, in the shadows. He knew how to make f himself invisible. With her, this would be difficult, but after a few minutes, if he was careful, she would at least partially forget he was there. "Tell me what you noticed."

She stood silent for a moment or two, looking about her — and collecting her composure, no doubt. He wondered whether it was the room, where death had been, that troubled her most, or himself.

"The oddest part was the tidiness," she said finally. "Most of the house was so orderly that I felt certain Francis had hardly been home the entire two days I was away. The trouble is, two other circumstances contradict that notion. One, his clothes didn't reek, and they weren't nearly as rumpled and stained as they usually were after a night's entertainment. Two, there were so very many wine bottles in the kitchen."

Already her voice was losing its edge, her posture easing. Ismal guessed that she had not only steeled herself to talk about this, but had organized her thoughts beforehand.

"Francis didn't like to drink alone," she explained. "All I can conclude is that whatever he did that night wasn't in character. Either he had company and didn't make a mess, or stayed home alone and didn't make a mess, or went out and behaved himself."

She strode purposefully to the foot of the bed. "I considered the possibility that he'd brought a woman home, and she may have been the sort who habitually cleans up after men. But there was no sign of that — none of the usual signs, that is. He'd brought tarts home before, when I was away. Yet he had the effrontery to complain about my refusing to share his bed."

She paused but an instant, and her voice was cool when she continued. "There's no point pretending all the world doesn't know it, or that I minded his telling people. I had rather be deemed a callous wife than a loose-moraled one. As we've discussed, the latter reputation would injure my career. And I didn't object to his tarts, either. Better them than me, I felt."

"But it was not always so, was it?" Ismal asked. He'd meant to hold his tongue, but he needed to know. Her cool, cynical speech drove his mind back to Venice and the girl he'd left defenseless. She'd been married nearly ten years, which meant she'd wed soon after her father's death, in the intervening years, life had taught her to be cynical. Though this happened to everyone to some extent, he was troubled.

"No, of course it wasn't always that way," she said. "I was seventeen when I married Francis, and thoroughly infatuated. I do believe he was faithful for a time. I was twenty, the first time I noticed the perfume and rouge on his clothes. Even after that, it was a while before I comprehended the extent of his infidelities."

She turned to face him. "It's a question of degree. One is prepared for the occasional affair, the mistress. But Francis was a tomcat. It was just like the drink, and later, the opium. He did nothing in moderation. There are limits — at least for me. Martyrdom isn't in my style."

"I have no patience with martyrs," he said.

This elicited a faint smile. "Nor do I. Still, some women haven't much choice. He never beat me, you know. I'm not sure what I would have done if he were that sort. But he wasn't, in any case, once I opened my eyes, it wasn't so very difficult to manage matters."

"Also, you had your work."

"Yes, which few other men would have tolerated, let alone encouraged. Francis had his good points, you see. But that's my view of him. I had certain… compensations. I daresay you'll get rather different portraits of him from others."

Ismal understood the portrait she drew well enough — but it was the portrait of her that intrigued and disturbed him. She'd given him insight, not so much into Beaumont's alleged "good points," as into the resourcefulness and resilience she'd needed to endure her marriage. Beaumont could have destroyed her, but she had not allowed it to happen. She'd even found a way to view the man with a degree of charity and mild affection he couldn't possibly deserve.

But then, she weighed and measured upon her own scales of justice. She even believed the bad character of the victim didn't mitigate the crime. Ismal thought it did, in this case — but she didn't seem to know just how evil Beaumont had been. Next to him Ali Pasha appeared almost saintly.

"But you must have been aware of his good points," she said. "You spent a great deal of time with him."

Ismal recognized a probe when he heard one. His instincts went on the alert. "A few weeks," he said carelessly. "He was an entertaining companion."

"I expect so. He did know Paris better than many Parisians did. I'm sure he could find every last brothel or opium den blindfolded."

"I believe he could. I hope the same cannot be said of London," Ismal added. "I shall be obliged to visit every single place he patronized, in hopes of obtaining information. However, I shall leave that task for later. Perhaps your help will lead me upon , a different trail."

"I shouldn't think you'd mind that sort of job."

He smiled, though she couldn't see it. "But now it will be a
job
. I must observe everything objectively, ask the right questions, keep my wits about me at all times. There is a great difference, you see, between visiting a brothel to lose oneself in pleasure and going there to work. As any prostitute can tell you."

"I shall have to take your word for that." Her voice was crisp. "Though Francis brought his tarts home from time to time, we were never introduced, let alone on speaking terms."

"Certainly you would not know such women, and it was ill-mannered of me to mention the subject at all."

"Don't be ridiculous. I've just been talking about them, haven't I?"

There was a rustle of skirts as she moved to the other side of the bed, farther from the light. It was only a few steps, yet she stirred the air, making the lamplight tremble. Hers was not a quiet grace, but insolent, tempestuous. A passionate soul in a lavish body.

Ismal suppressed a sigh. The Devil had made her on purpose to test and torment him. It was
impossible
to be fully objective. It was close to impossible to think straight.

Leaving the safety of the shadows, he took up the lamp. "It may prove necessary to discuss these women later," he said. "For now, however, we shall deal with the friends with whom you were acquainted. If you are not too weary, perhaps you will help me make a list."

"We're done in here, then?"

"For the present."

"I didn't tell you much." She headed for the door.

"More than I had hoped. Very little is clear, but now at least there is one thing." He reached the door an instant too late to open it for her, but his words made her pause just over the threshold.

"
I
gave you a clue?" she asked.

"Oh, yes. The tidiness. The behavior not in character. Someone
influenced
that behavior, do you not think? Either the murderer or an innocent companion. But an innocent companion — then another to administer poison?" Ismal shook his head. "That seems far-fetched. For the time being, I must give I strong consideration to those able to influence his behavior."

She eyed him with some puzzlement. "That's a clue, is it? You must have patience indeed, to begin with something as small and vague as that."

"It is enough," he said. "The piece of lint. One must begin somewhere."
^!

"I suppose." There was a dissatisfied note in her voice. "Where next, then?"

"It does not matter. At present, we need only begin our list of possible suspects. The studio, perhaps?"

She gave a small start. "Are you serious? It’s a terrible clutter even on my best days, and it smells of turps and oils and — "

"I like the windows," he said. "They are the largest in the house." He knew the studio was no larger than this room, but it was airier, thanks to the draught from the tall windows. He wanted more air. The tension between them thickened an atmosphere already heavy with Beaumont's secrets… with evil.

His reply elicited one sharp glance, but that was all. In silence, Madame Beaumont led him to the studio.

Windows, Leila thought ruefully as she attacked the mess on the studio worktable. That was
her
piece of lint about him, her small, vague clue. The Comte d'Esmond liked big windows.

His presence in her sanctuary made her edgy. He prowled the space just as he had prowled the parlor, examining everything, though here he touched nothing. He was wandering the opposite end of the room, studying the bookshelf, the fireplace, the sofa, and the shabby rug on which it stood. As though every object hid a secret. Her secrets.

"There's another stool behind that stack of canvases in the corner," she said rather top sharply. "Just shove them out of the way."

Even as the words came out of her mouth she realized that the idea of Esmond "shoving" anything was ludicrously incongruous. Out of the corner of her eye she watched him gently stack the canvases, one by one, against the wall. You'd think they were Ming vases, the way he handled them.

She was already seated, a folded sheet of foolscap before her, when he brought the other stool to the table.

"Do you want to discuss them first, or shall I just write down everyone I can think of?" she asked. "Or perhaps you'd rather write. My penmanship is not elegant."

She pushed the foolscap and pen toward him. She didn't have to push far. She'd shoved most of the extraneous materials to her right and left, to clear a space opposite hers. But he had placed his stool to her right, and sat before a heap of sketchbooks, brushes, pencils, bits of charcoal, and other artistic miscellany.