Captives of the Night (22 page)

For nearly two hours he sang the count's praises while regaling Leila with details of where they'd gone, who had been there, what Esmond had said to this one and that, especially what he'd said to David. Every word, evidently, was a pearl of sublimest wisdom.

By the time he left, Leila's nerves were at the breaking point.

She had spent the last week in a torment of guilt and indecision, aware it was her duty to tell Esmond about Sherbume, but unwilling to open a door which could lead the earl to the gallows.

Instead, she'd dithered — making bad drawings, preparing canvases she didn't want to paint, wishing some visitor would come to distract her, then feeling relieved and distraught at the same time when no one did. She'd gone for walks, to the burying ground, but even that didn't clear her head. Either Eloise or Gaspard went with her, because Leila was not permitted to go out unescorted. Though she was wise enough to appreciate the protection, she couldn't forget whose servants they were and whose orders they acted under. Which meant she couldn't keep Esmond out of the turmoil in her mind.

And while she'd been accomplishing nothing — except making herself more crazy — Esmond had been stalking David.

They had attended every rout, ball, card party, musicale, and play in London — where the count spent half his time playing the God of Perfection to David and the other half flirting with every female between the ages of eighteen and eighty.

He'd even taken David to Almacks' — that bastion of respectability to which Leila Beaumont never had, never would be admitted in a million years, because she was a mere peasant. Not that she
wanted
to enter those stuffy assembly halls. She had tried, though, every way she could, to get David to go — to meet respectable young ladies and associate with decent young men of his own class. David, however, had said he'd rather be buried alive. Neither his parents nor Leila had been able to persuade him to darken the portals of Society's marriage mart — but he'd gone at Esmond's bidding.

Esmond, whom he scarcely knew. Esmond, who was interested in him only as a murder suspect, who didn't give a
damn
about him, and who would drop David — and hurt him by doing so — the instant a more promising suspect came along.

And it was all her fault.

She stood at the parlor window, staring bleakly into the fog-shrouded square.

She'd said she wanted justice, wanted to know the truth, but she couldn't face truth if it was ugly, if it would hurt anyone she cared about. Esmond had been right. She wanted clean abstractions. Not dirty, painful reality.

Most of all, she didn't want the pain of seeing him again.

Shutting her eyes, she pressed her forehead to the cold glass.

Go. Stay. Keep away. Come back.

Come back.

Weakness.

Because she'd
let
him make her feel weak, she reproached herself. She'd never let Francis do it. She'd stood up to him, right to the very end. No matter how she felt, she'd behaved, always, as though she were strong.

She opened her eyes and turned away from the window, away from the haze and gloom outside.

She
was
strong. Cowardly and base in some ways, yes, but not in all. Sensual weaknesses weren't all she'd inherited from her father. He'd passed on his cleverness and toughness, too. If he'd been clever and ruthless enough to plot and get away with so many crimes, surely his daughter was clever and tough enough to face and
solve
one.

And surely, after ten years' dealing with Francis, she must be able to deal with Esmond. She knew how to close off her feelings, conceal her vulnerabilities. She'd amassed an arsenal of weapons against men. Somewhere in her armory there must be a weapon, a tactic, a defense that would preserve her.

Half an hour after Lord Avory departed, Madame Beaumont marched into the kitchen.

Gaspard thrust away the pot he'd been scouring and leapt to attention.

Eloise put aside her chopping knife, wiped her hands on her apron, and gazed at her mistress with no expression whatsoever.

"I assume you have some discreet means of passing a message to the Comte d'Esmond," the mistress said haughtily.

"
Oui, madame
," said Eloise.

"Then tell him, if you please, that I wish to speak with him at his earliest convenience."

"Oui, madame."

"Thank you." She swept out of the kitchen.

Gaspard looked at his wife. She said nothing until the mistress' footsteps could no longer be heard.

Then, "I told you," said Eloise.

"He will not come, my little one," said Gaspard.

"He will not
wish
to come," his wife returned. "But this time, I think, the master cannot make matters exactly as he wishes. Well, why do you stand there like an imbecile? Go," she said, waving him off. She took up her knife once more. "Go tell him."

Gaspard went out, his face grim. Only when the door had closed behind him did Eloise smile. "How I wish I could see Monsieur's face when he's told," she murmured.

At eleven o'clock that night, Ismal stood in Leila Beaumont’s studio doorway. During the short walk down the hall, he had composed himself — or rather, the outer man. The inner man appeared to have no hope of composure.

Ten days he had kept away and kept himself busy, outwardly at ease and easily entertained. Inwardly he'd been wretched. To be with her made him edgy and irrational; to be away from her made him restless and lonely. The former was worse, yet it was the former he wanted, evidently, for she had only to beckon, and he had come running.

His willpower and wisdom hadn't held out more than a few hours. Her message had come at five o'clock, and here he was, will and wisdom crushed by longing. He had missed her. He'd even missed this disorderly room, because it was hers, where she worked, where her true self lived.

Nonetheless, he behaved as though he were exceedingly put out — as though she'd interrupted the most joyous day of his life.

She was sitting at the worktable, spine straight, chin high.

He imagined his lips against her smooth white throat. He gave her a curt nod. "Madame."

"Monsieur."

He would not go to her. A few steps closer, and her scent would come to him. He walked to the sofa and sat down.

There was a silence.

After a minute, perhaps two, he heard — for he wouldn't look — the rustle of fabric, the scrape of the stool upon the wood floor, then slippered footsteps approaching. When she reached the worn rug, the sound was further muffled, but it sounded as loud in his ears as drumbeats. So, too, did his heart drum, as her scent came to him, carried by the curst draught from the windows.

She paused only a few feet away. "I apologize," she said. "I humbly beg your pardon for offending your delicate sensibilities by trying to tell you how to do your job. Most thoughtless of me. You are a genius, after all, and everyone knows geniuses are exceedingly sensitive creatures."

Ismal looked up into her smoldering tawny eyes. How he wanted her — the insolence, the scorn, the heat… passion.

"It is true," he said. "I am very sensitive. But you apologize so sweetly that I cannot resist. I forgive you, madame."

"You relieve my mind. And I, of course, forgive
you
."

"I have not apologized."

She waved her hand dismissively. "I forgive you for that, too."

"You are a saint," he murmured.

"Possibly. You, regrettably, are not. But I'm prepared to overlook that, and help you. It's the Christian thing to do."

"Your generosity overwhelms me."

"I doubt anything overwhelms you." She moved away — to stand by the fire, he thought at first. Instead, she pushed a heap of canvas onto the rug, to reveal a shabby but comfortably cushioned footstool.

"If you wish to throw something at me, the bust of Michelangelo would be easier to hit," he said.

She shoved the footstool toward the sofa. "I'm not going to throw anything. I'm going to sit at your feet and humbly offer my pitiful bits of information and bask in your blinding brilliance."

Accordingly, she sat and folded her hands upon her knees. Her expression a perfect mockery of humble dutifulness, she asked, "Where should you like me to begin?"

Farther away, he thought. Her honey-gold head was just within reach. His fingers itched to tangle themselves in that tantalizing disorder.

"Wherever you wish," he said.

She nodded. "Sherburne, then. What do you know about him?"

He didn't want to know about Sherburne. Ismal wanted his hands in her hair, his mouth on hers. How was he to think about the inquiry when his head swam with her scent and his body ached to be near, enfolded with hers, as he had dreamed every curst night these last ten nights and all the nights before?

"He was a friend of your husband's," Ismal said. "Until, that is, Monsieur Beaumont offended. With Sherburne's wife, it would seem, for the friendship ceased, and the Sherbumes had some grave quarrel about the same time. I have also heard Sherburne visited you a week ago."

Her ripe mouth curled.

"You are amused that your husband debauched Lady Sherburne?" he asked.

"I am amused because this whole time you've behaved as though I didn't exist," she said. "You let me believe I couldn't be of any possible use to you — yet you've been spying on me all the while. I suppose Gaspard and Eloise provide daily reports."

"I am well aware you exist, madame. As aware as if you were a thorn in my foot."

"I'm amazed, then, that you didn't come the instant you'd heard. Weren't you in the least curious about what I might have found out?"

"You did not send for me."

"I am not in charge of this inquiry. You are," she said. "I'm the temperamental and irrational one, remember? You must have encountered difficult informants before and managed them. If you could get David to Almacks', you could surely get me to answer a few questions."

"You know very well that I cannot manage you," he said. "You make me stupid — as you make every man who deals with you. Even your husband was stupid where you were concerned. Knowing the secret about your father, he had the power to rule you, yet he could not."

"I should be in a fine predicament had I let Francis — "

"Even Quentin, one of the most powerful and clever men in England, could not manage you. It is no surprise, then, that Avory is enslaved — "

"Enslaved! Just what are you implying?"

"And Sherburne, too. I cannot believe it is a coincidence that he went home to his wife after visiting you, and remained with her all that night and all the following day and night — and that suddenly, since then, he is always wherever she is."

Her countenance lit. "Truly? Have they made up?"

Her triumphant expression told him all he needed to know: somehow, during that short visit a week ago, she had wrapped Sherburne round her finger.

"Yes," Ismal said, frustratedly aware that he was in a similar condition… and irrationally jealous, besides.

Her smile widened. "Then you've just proved yourself wrong. He wasn't stupid at all. On the contrary, he came to his senses."

Then she told him of her meeting with Sherburne. Ismal tried to focus on the crucial aspects, but when she was done, his mind fixed on one issue, and that one ruled his tongue.

"You held his hand?" he asked tightly.

"To make him listen," she said. "It was instinctive, I suppose. Not ladylike, I'll admit. But it worked, and that’s all that matters."