The Devil May Care (Brotherhood of Sinners #1) (4 page)

Sudden anger sent her pulse pounding against her ribs, her eardrums, the inside curve of her skull. “I don’t have a home anymore,” she said, and added pointedly, “
mon beau
monsieur
. Safe or otherwise. Thanks to all of you.”

Helm came to stand before them then, his hair more disheveled than before, his neckcloth a shade or two more dingy, in contrast to the gargoyle’s perfection. “There’s no need for this unpleasantness, Sebastian. Miss Covington’s come to us quite voluntarily and proved herself possessed of considerable backbone. Perhaps you might prefer to wait in your library or return to your club while we—”

Something tugged at Rachel’s skirts, and she gave a cry.
Good God
, the gargoyle had seized the hem of her dress, and was lifting it quite high enough to expose half the length of her stockings.

“What
is
this fabric?” he was asking, in a tone of utter disgust, rubbing the cloth between his fingers. “Sal would have gone naked before she’d have—”

Rachel kicked her skirt out of his hand, and sprang to her feet. “Stop it!” she cried. “I don’t know what game you are up to, Mr.—” She hesitated, realizing she had no decent way to address him. “Mr.
Sebastian
. But you will not speak of my sister in those terms! And you will most certainly not touch me!”

“Ah,” he purred, standing in a fluid motion which brought him far too close for her comfort. “So she has a temper.” His gaze slid over her, somehow insolent and appreciative all at once. “I wondered just how deep that Quakerish stillness ran.”

She stood as squarely as she could, glaring straight back into that wicked angel face with its hostile smile. She could only hope her blush wasn’t as blazing as it felt. Both her hands clenched into fists now, and wild hot pressure boiled up through her chest. And out, in words. “You have very fine teeth, Mr. Sebastian. Pity if a few of them were to be broken.”

“Bravo!” cried Mawbry. “Looks like she’s brought some fireworks of her own!”

To her surprise, the gargoyle laughed again, a sound quick and intimidating as a cracking whip. “Bravo, indeed, little nun,” he said. “But it’s Hawkesbridge.”

“What’s Hawkesbridge?”

“
I
am Hawkesbridge,” he drawled again, his voice cool, contemptuous. “Sebastian Talbot, Marquess of Hawkesbridge, to be precise. If you’re going to threaten me, you ought to get the name right. You could just call me ‘my lord,’ if you prefer.” He gave a small, elegant shrug. “When you make your next threat.”

Bastard. Of course a man that arrogant had to be a lord. A marquess, no less.

Lord Gargoyle,
then
.
The Marquess of Bloody Gargoyles. The Gargoyle
Prince
.

She was saved from doing something utterly unladylike by the Black Giant. He swooped in, towering over her tormentor by more than a head, a feat few men on earth might manage, given Lord Gargoyle’s very considerable height. That deep voice boomed from behind the dark hair, “You will show Miss Covington respect, Marquess.”

But if the marquess was cowed in the slightest, he didn’t show it. If anything, he looked faintly amused. “Spare me the whiff of brimstone,” he commanded, extending one forefinger to push against the Giant’s chest. When the Giant failed to budge, the look of glittering amusement only increased. “Though I appreciate the reminder to observe the social niceties. So delightful, coming from you.”

The Giant went dangerously still; his shoulders, which had been rising and falling faintly with his breathing, might have turned to granite. The cold, black eyes bored viciously into the marquess’s. It seemed impossible that Lord Gargoyle would not, within moments, be clutching a mashed and bloodied nose. If not lying on the floor with his neck snapped.

But to her astonishment, the Giant gave a soft grunt, then took a slight step back as if to let the marquess pass.

To her further surprise, the marquess himself now turned and sketched her a civil bow. “Forgive me, Miss Covington, for my less than gracious welcome.” His mouth twitched, though, still clearly in amusement. “If you’ll do me the courtesy of taking a seat again, I shall attempt to answer at least some of your questions.”

She scanned his face. The fire in his gaze now seemed carefully banked, and his eyes regarded her calmly, their sky-blue centers smooth and cool as mirrors. Which was somehow more unnerving than their previous heat.

“Thank you,
Lord Hawkesbridge
.” She took a seat with what grace she could muster, though a trickle of chill sweat slid down the small of her back.

The gargoyle settled himself into a seat as well, leaning back and crossing one long leg over the other. “Your sister was my partner,” he began, and there was something proprietary in the way he said the words, something challenging, as though
partner
outranked
sister
in connection. “My partner for nearly seven years, in our work for England.” He paused, then added. “In espionage. The theft of state secrets.”

“I know what espionage is.” She nearly said she’d read Machiavelli and Cicero and Thucydides and understood political intrigue, but sensed the gargoyle would mock her for it. “But I still don’t see how my sister became involved in such a business.”

His sky-blue eyes flicked to the Black Giant for a moment. “How she came to work for us is not the most important question at the moment.”

“No? Not for you, maybe, but for me—”

“Have you considered that your sister might have preferred you not know everything about her life?”

That stung. And she could hardly argue otherwise, since Sarah made no deliberate contact, not so much as a letter, in all the years since she’d run from home. Rachel’s hands twisted in her lap.

“Sal,” the marquess continued with relentless calm, “posed a particular threat to a network of French spies led by a woman named Victoire de Laurent. Sal was betrayed into Victoire’s hands by a double agent, a very high-ranking English agent named Robert Ehlert. A man who was once my mentor.” The gargoyle’s handsome face hardened further, into a blank mask. “Ehlert was suborned into French service by Victoire de Laurent herself.”

“An Englishman betrayed my sister? Why?”

“Victoire’s talent for manipulating men is . . .
extraordinary
. Robert Ehlert had always seemed the most loyal and patriotic of men. Rest assured he is now dead.” Somehow his very blandness suggested the gargoyle had killed the man himself.

Strange heat surged through Rachel’s limbs, and the strength to tear someone apart with her bare hands. “And this Victoire de Laurent? Where is she?”

“Unknown. But she’s at the very center of the web.” He paused. “Victoire took a great risk going after Sal. And sacrificed a very valuable double-agent to do it.” He shifted forward in his seat, planting both boot-soles on the ground. “The French have hated your sister for years, but shortly before her death, Sal somehow came into possession of something—a book of some sort, an encrypted book—which Victoire wanted very much to recover. I’m quite certain that if the French think Sal still lives and possesses that book, Victoire and her minions will crawl from the woodwork fast enough.”

Rachel took a deep breath, and nodded. “So I’m to serve as bait.”

“Essentially, yes.” The gargoyle’s voice was cold, but his eyes were searing again, fixed on her mercilessly. “In any case, the most important question right now is one only you can answer.”

She refused to let him stare her down, though looking back into those hot eyes made her spine quake. “What question would that be?”

“A simple one.” He smiled at her, a smile with no warmth in it. “Tell me, Miss Covington, can you play the part of courtesan?”

“Courtesan?” Her breath and her heartbeat stuttered.

“Yes, courtesan. A woman whose profession it is to—”

“I know what a courtesan is,” she snapped, her cheeks heating. “I am literate.”

“Oh, you’ve
read
about courtesans?” His smile widened, though it did not increase in warmth, only in undisguised disdain. “Well, then, no doubt your knowledge of human relations is quite complete.”

She ignored his sarcasm. The implications of his question were slowly sinking in. “But Lord Helm said Sarah
broke ciphers
. She wasn’t . . . ”

“She
was
,” the gargoyle said. “And expert at using the connections that role gave her.
Salomé
. That’s how she was known. Salomé Mirabeau. Fallen daughter of a French count who was slain in
la Terreur
. Grown up to become one of the most infamous women of the London demimonde.” A more authentic smile flickered briefly across his mouth. “The melodramatic tale amused her greatly. As did the play on her real name.”

“Her real name? No.” Rachel knew she sounded foolish, insisting on this detail at this time, but she couldn’t help herself. The world would melt and slip from her grasp if she didn’t. “Her name was
Sarah
, not Sal.”

“Sarah,” he repeated, in a tone of indulgence even a child would find patronizing. “But for you to succeed in this mission, Miss Covington, a courtesan is what the world must understand you to be. So tell me: can you play the role? Convincingly? Can you, my quiet, gray, drab little nun, transform yourself into a Salomé?”

Her head swam.
Courtesan
.

It was too much to take in at once. That Sarah had become such a thing. That she herself was being asked to convince the world she’d done the same.

What had that life been like for her sister? Echoes of pain and fear and tears she’d sensed over the years swept over Rachel now. Loneliness. Anger. Shame.

Rachel wanted to curl in a ball and pull the cloak over her head.

But the gargoyle’s eyes were glaring into hers, and there was something ugly in them, something that infuriated her. It was not just the implied insult, the one he’d already thrown at her in Helm’s office, that she lacked feminine wiles. No, this was something else, this was . . .
satisfaction
. A cruel satisfaction. Lord Gargoyle didn’t think she could do it. Worse, he didn’t
want
her to do it.
He
wanted
her to fail
.

Damn him.
Her
sister had died.
Her
sister had been murdered.

She had every right to be part of this.

She’d seen that look of his before, on the faces of the few men who’d ever stooped to play her in a game of chess. Most took her on only to shame her, to defeat her, to demonstrate her proper place. Whenever she’d encountered that look, she’d always—however carefully and quietly she’d had to do it, and however mild she’d had to keep her expression afterward—handed shameful defeat to them instead.

Now, she didn’t stop to think.

In one movement, she shifted forward boldly and slipped one palm around the back of the gargoyle’s neck. She’d never touched a man in such a way before, and panic threatened to overwhelm her. She fought it down.

“
Amabo, mei delicii
,” she murmured against his ear. The words of an ancient love poem:
I shall make love to you, my delight
.

His neck jerked against her hand, but he seemed too surprised to do more. His eyes widened; his breath puffed against her cheek.

Forcing herself to gaze into his eyes, she brushed her fingers up towards his nape, weaving them into the thickness of his hair, while she murmured, “
Domi maneas paresque nobis novem continuas fututiones
.”
Stay at home and prepare for our nine continuous . . .
Her cheeks flamed as she thought on the translation of the crude final word.

He gasped.

Then she shocked herself as well: she pressed her lips against his, drawing him closer with the hand tangled in his hair.

His lips were soft, and warm, not the cold marble she’d imagined he was made of. They parted slightly, and his breath pushed into hers, and then it was more than touch, it was taste and smell—the tang of the liquor he’d drunk, and something else rich and dark and hot and undeniably
him
. An intoxicating combination that drew the whole focus of her body to the joining of their mouths, then somehow rippled out again, sending unexpected waves of sensation through the peaks of her breasts, through her belly, through her limbs.

The gargoyle made a low sound in his throat. A sound that didn’t seem quite like a protest. That didn’t seem to be under his control at all.

At that, she pulled back, breaking the kiss and dropping her hand from his neck as her heart galloped wildly in her chest. But she’d clearly achieved the effect she desired. Helm and Mawbry grinned broadly. The gargoyle stared at her in a rather stunned manner, his eyes having quite lost their coolness. Heat rose in a wave from his body.

Then anger snapped back across his features. “Point taken, Miss Covington,” he snarled. He sat back, and cocked a very aristocratic eyebrow. “Though I think few courtesans can quote Catullus in the original.”