But he was wrong. James had changed. He hadn’t let Lusinda go. He had no intention of ever letting her go. He knew her worth, and it was far more than even Marcus could imagine. Indeed it was blasphemous for Ramsden to even mention her name. Anger energized his fatigued limbs. He’d show Ramsden what for. If he could just get one arm free, he’d show Ramsden what had changed.
Ramsden, though, appeared to have no notion of James’s dangerous thoughts. He studied his fingers like some dandy. “You know what she told me, Locke? We were dancing about the ballroom.” Marcus inhaled deeply and a delight spread across his features as if he had scented the bouquet of a fine glass of cognac. “She was wearing that gown that displayed her breasts like two magnificent pearls begging to be plucked. Did you ever think to sample them, Locke? Taste that tender skin and those succulent nipples?” His tongue swept across his upper lip. Locke pulled so hard on the ropes he thought to tear them from the ceiling.
Marcus laughed. “What am I saying? You probably never lifted your nose out of a book long enough to even see that she had breasts. Well, I noticed, and she saw me noticing, and she liked it. You know what she told me, James? She said you were cold. She said you were calculating. She said she loved you, but you refused to love her in return. She couldn’t reach your heart. You couldn’t love her. You can’t love anyone.”
Her face loomed in his mind. Her soft vulnerability hidden behind a masque of defiance. He thought of the time he had stood in the rain rather than face his desire for her, and his accusations after the unfortunate accident. Guilt and shame knifed through him and hurt more than the bloody stripes on his back. She was wrong. He loved her. He was just afraid she’d be hurt by that love. He wanted to protect her. Keep her safe.
That’s a lie, something whispered deep inside.
You were afraid you would be the one hurt if you loved her. Just like those other women hurt you. That’s why you brought her to this devil’s lair, knowing all the while you were placing her in danger.
His heart squeezed tight, he felt the fight leave his muscles.
Perhaps Marcus is right. Perhaps I don’t know how to love . . .
“Sinda . . .”
“It’s too late. Don’t call out for her now. She’s already gone.” Marcus gloated. “She begged me to take her away. Begged me, James. How could I refuse? Tonight, I held her in my arms while we danced. I sampled her sweet, sweet lips, and she promised me that I’d be able to sample more. I’m taking her back to Russia, James, where she’ll be appreciated for her talents. She’s gone, James. You have nothing left. Nothing.”
A salty tear ran down his face, stinging the cuts and broken skin it encountered in its path. A tear for all the things he should have told her, for all the things he should have done. She hadn’t hurt him. She had accepted him as no one had done before. She understood him and loved him. No. He had hurt himself. His Sinda had warned him about Ramsden, warned him that Ramsden had lied. That thought held. James tried to pull together, to focus on Ramsden. He was lying now. He could feel it. His convictions grew stronger.
“Give me the names of the other British agents, Locke. I know you know them. Haven’t you suffered enough? Tell me so I can put an end to this.”
Lusinda must have gotten the letter in time. She hadn’t abandoned him. She’d never abandon him. That thought reverberated in his brain. It felt so right, it had to be true. Her face loomed brighter in his thoughts, and her scent filled his nostrils. Sweet Lord, he loved her so much he could conjure up the very essence of her.
“You’re lying,” he said, the knowledge giving him strength. He shifted the position of his legs, taking some of the strain from his shoulders.
“I’m not lying to you Locke. Why should I? You can’t harm me. You couldn’t crush a flower in your condition. Tell you what, tell me the names of three agents and I’ll let you have Lusinda when I’m through with her. You’ve probably been too moral and stalwart to taste the chit, but not me. I’ve wanted her for a long time, even before I knew of her talents. She has a way about her, a defiant streak that I’ll take pleasure in breaking. I’ll make her bend for me. Bend whichever way I want. I’ll make her ride me in the moonlight while I watch her turn invisible. Or maybe I’ll let you hold her on the ground while I make her lithe little body writhe in the moonlight. I’ll plough deep within her, then watch her fade away.” He laughed, a disgusting sound. “I’m hard as a rock just thinking of it.”
Fury filled Locke and he pulled hard on the ropes suspending his arms. Suddenly one gave free and then the other. The strain on his arms and the shock of their release caused him to double over. The cut rope ends lay harmless on the ground. Lusinda! He looked up to see a knife hurling steadily through the air toward Ramsden’s throat.
“Sinda, no!”
Ramsden’s eyes opened wide as moonflowers. The knife point stopped an inch from his throat and slowly turned as if to slice his throat rather than stab it straight through.
“You’ll never forgive yourself, Sinda,” James said, letting the blood flow back into his lifeless arms. “Don’t kill him. He’s not worth it.”
“Look what he did to you.” Her voice was like a magical elixir. “He deserves to die.”
He heard the emotional sob in her voice and wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and cover her with kisses, but that would have to wait till they were free of this place. He gentled his tone. “Perhaps, but not by your hand. Give me the knife.”
The knife wobbled a bit, then drifted down to the vicinity of Ramsden’s protruding trouser bulge.
“Lusinda . . .” Locke warned, though he couldn’t suppress a bit of a smile. He wondered if Ramsden appreciated her defiant nature at the moment.
“Can’t I take a little piece off? The pig broke my sister’s heart.”
Ramsden turned as pale as . . . well, almost as pale as a Nevidimi in mid-phase.
“I’ll wager your sister is better off without the likes of him.” James started to work at loosening the knots about his wrists. “Don’t forget he saved my life a long time ago.”
The knife slowly withdrew but hovered close enough to Ramsden’s chest to become an instant threat.
“I suppose now we’re even.” Locke addressed Ramsden as he finished untying the ropes. “A life for a life.”
“Tell me the names of the agents and I’ll see that you both get out of here alive,” Ramsden said.
Bloody hell! The man just didn’t know when he was defeated.
“You had the list. Did you lose it?” Locke asked with a painful attempt at a laugh. He imagined the expression that must have been on Ramsden’s face when he discovered the list was missing. He had been right about one thing. Lusinda was indeed a treasure.
“There never was a list,” Ramsden said with a smirk. “I invented that ruse to draw you back to London. You and I both know that if a list existed, your name would be on top. What you didn’t know is that we already knew of your skills and loyalties.”
He couldn’t hide his shock. “Then all this . . . it was for . . .”
“Nothing.” Ramsden smirked. “I thought that if I could place you in just this situation, and if you thought you had nothing to lose because we already had the information, I’d learn enough names to create a list.”
“He’s lying, James,” Lusinda said. “I found the list and destroyed it.” Her voice changed. He imagined she had turned toward Ramsden. “I’m a thief, you know. A good one.”
Pride swelled Locke’s chest in spite of his injuries. She’d done it. The result of his teaching and hours of practice, she’d broken into the safe and secured the letter. Though by the looks of it, she certainly didn’t have it on her.
Ramsden kept his gaze on the knife as if it was the one speaking. Locke supposed in a certain sense, it was. “I’m not sure what you destroyed, but there was no list,” he insisted.
“Pembroke said the letter was sealed. I burned—”
“You heard Pembroke? You were there? But it was a new moon,” Ramsden exclaimed, his face a study in disbelief.
Locke chuckled.
“I burned the letter with a red wax seal,” Lusinda continued unperturbed.
“The red seal? That was a letter from the tsar himself,” Ramsden said, a note of dread entering his voice. “The ambassador was to open it tonight after the ball.”
“What do we do with him, James?” Lusinda asked.
“Give me the knife, and then you leave. It’s a waxing moon, remember.”
He couldn’t see her, but he knew she smiled. She had been the one earlier reminding him of the risks, now it was his turn.
“Can you walk?” Her voice softened. “Do you need my help?”
He needed her in far more ways than she could imagine. But knowing she was still there, knowing that she never abandoned him, gave him strength. He’d walk away from all this now that he had someone to walk toward.
“I’ll find you in the moonlight,” he said, knowing that she’d be the one to join him. And she would. She’d be there. For the rest of his life, if she’d have him. “Were there guards in the hallway?”
“No. They must be with the ambassador. There was quite a crowd searching his room when I left. However, before I go . . .”
She slapped Ramsden across the face. Hard. Probably all the more painful, James suspected, as Ramsden had no way to see it coming. “You, sir, are no gentleman.”
The knife handle floated toward Locke. When it came close, he leaned over and kissed Lusinda’s cheek before he took the knife. “Where’s Portia?”
“She’s safe. I’m going to join her. You know where.”
Locke nodded, keeping his gaze on Ramsden. He waited till he knew Lusinda was gone before he addressed him again.
“She warned me about you. I refused to listen, but she knew what you were up to all along. How did you know she was Nevidimi?”
“I had heard the stories, but I never believed them to be true. I’m still not sure I believe what I just witnessed,” he said with a glance to the knife. “I remember the day I met Lusinda in your library. You seemed different that day, happier. I had thought that if she were to get close to you, I could eventually use her against you. I even went to visit her to recommend you to her.” He laughed. “It seems ironic now, doesn’t it? But when I saw her that second time, I thought I recognized her from that Farthington disaster. Every time I called on her house after that day, the aunt made some excuse about her whereabouts. I had hoped the sister would be more accommodating with information.”
“Portia told you Lusinda is Nevidimi?”
“No.” He frowned. “She proved as cagey as the old woman in that regard. No, the confirmation of my suspicions came from a surprising source. That man of yours, Pickering, saw her in some form of metamorphous and believed she was sent from the devil. He felt that I, as your best friend, might be able to warn you of the danger, as it were. Apparently, you no longer listened to his counsel, a result of your association with Miss Havershaw.”
Ramsden laughed. “Little did he suspect that he had given me the confirmation I had been searching for. Still no one believed me when I told them that Nevidimi had settled in London. Perhaps they’ll believe me now.”
“It will do little good. Lusinda’s family will be long gone. They’re accustomed to moving on a moment’s notice because of people like you.”
“Like me?” Ramsden’s brows arched. “Lusinda would have been better off with me. I would never have dragged her into the Great Game. You did that. You put her life in jeopardy. And for what? A list of names that never existed? You thought you could protect your identity by removing the list? We’ve known about you for some time, my friend.”
“Then why have you allowed me to continue?” James asked, uncertain as to whether he really wanted to know the answer. Did they know about the hand tremors? About his ineffectiveness as a cracksman?
“Have you found anything of value in recent months?” Ramsden chided. “If we removed you, someone would take your place. Isn’t it wiser to track your movements and take precautions, than open the door for someone unknown to us? Your days of effectiveness are over, my friend.”
“As are yours,” James replied, chaffing under Ramsden’s use of the word “friend.”
“We shall see. You haven’t left the building alive yet. If you die, my identity as a Russian sympathizer dies with you,” Ramsden said, a dangerous glint in his eye.
“Lusinda should be safe and far away by now,” Locke said. “It’s time for you and me to exit as well.”
“Where are you taking me?” Marcus asked, alarmed.
“I promised to let you live. I didn’t promise to let you live free.”
“I won’t go back into a prison cell, James. I can’t do that again.”
James wasn’t certain, as one eye was swollen shut, but he thought Ramsden had developed a tremor of his own, though one of the body and not the hand. “You don’t think your Russian friends will find a way to set you free?”
“I’ll be of no use to them. My value was my history and connection to Colonel Tavish,” Ramsden snarled. “I imagine you won’t let that go untarnished.”
“No. I imagine he’ll know all the details in the morning.”
Ramsden rushed him, perhaps thinking to overtake him in his weakened state, or perhaps he thought it best to end his personal great game right then. Locke never knew. For whichever reason, the knife Locke held in his hand became buried deep in Marcus’s chest. Marcus slumped, supported by Locke’s weakened arms. Together they fell to the floor. Ramsden’s blood quickly soaked the front of James’s shirt, then spread to the floor surrounding them.
Locke lifted Marcus’s head, then tenderly cradled it in his lap. His throat constricted. He had been a friend, at one time, long ago. “Why? Why did you do it? I was prepared to let you live.”
“I told you . . . no prison cell. I don’t want to die in Russia. ” He found Locke’s hand and squeezed it. His voice strained. “Before the game, we were friends. Let us be friends again in the end.”