The Bride Wore Scarlet (7 page)

“And yet there is no place for me?” Miss de Rohan lifted her chin defiantly. “Admittedly, I am not much of a Vates, Lord Bessett. I can read the tarot—Nonna Sofia taught me—and I sometimes . . . well, I can sometimes guess what people are thinking, or feel their presence. Nonetheless, I am strong and resolute and willing. I believe in the F.A.C. and its noble mission. So I ask you again—is there no place for me here?”

“You are a friend to the
Fraternitas
, Miss de Rohan,” he said. “You will always be that. Vittorio and your great-grandmother have seen to it. Over time, yes, you might become one of those women of great influence within the sect.”

“And that is it, then?” Her voice dropped dejectedly. “That will be the
Fraternitas
's final answer to my ten long years of struggle?”

For a long moment, Geoff considered what he was about to say—and his motivations for saying it. He had the oddest sensation of diving into something that looked almost bottomless. Something that would doubtless be cool and refreshing and a little shocking to the system when one hit the surface and plunged deep. But a mystery lay within those depths all the same.

“Actually, there might—if you are willing—there might be a way you could help us.”

“I should
help
you?” she asked, her voice faintly incredulous. “You do not want me, but I should help
you
?”

“Just hear me out,” he said. “And then . . . say no if it pleases you. I daresay you should do, honestly. And I have no doubt whatever that it is what your father would wish you to say.”

“Lord Bessett.” She stepped incrementally nearer. “I am a woman grown, and I can manage my father's crushed expectations—and frankly, he hasn't many, crushed or otherwise. He is not exactly your typical English gentleman.”

“He isn't even English, is he?”

“Not by blood, perhaps.” She flashed a sardonic smile. “But as you guessed, I'm English born and bred. I grew up in Gloucestershire and London, save for those few months each year when I went to Tuscany. But let us get back to
your
expectations—what was it you wanted of me?”

Geoff considered how best to explain. “It is awkward,” he said. “I need a woman—”

She trilled with laughter. “Do you indeed?” she said. “With those gold-bronze locks and that jawline of yours, I shouldn't think it much of a problem.”

“Miss de Rohan—”

“It must be those grim eyes,” she interjected, circling as if he were horseflesh on the block at Tattersall's. “Oh, they are handsome, but they do not quite inspire poetry—not the swooning female sort of poetry, at any rate.”

Geoff looked down at her, deliberately arching one brow. “A crushing blow indeed,” he murmured. “But skill with a pen is not one of the talents I ordinarily look for in a woman.”

At that, a slow, lazy smile curled her mouth. “Is it not?” she murmured. “Then perhaps you do not look high enough, my lord.”

He managed a smile. “But we digress. Here, let me try and get a proper chokehold on this conversation.” He motioned toward the matched leather sofas that sat opposite each other near the hearth. “Would you kindly sit down, Miss de Rohan? I should have asked sooner but something about you throws me out.”

“I've been told I have that effect on people,” she said. “Fine, thank you. I shall sit. And you will tell me what it is you wish me to do.”

Geoff bought himself a few moments by ringing for coffee, which Miss de Rohan assured him she took hot, black, and very strong. Strangely, he could have guessed as much.

While waiting, he forced himself to make very dull, very proper conversation about the English weather, the start of the London Season, and Town society in general.

But Miss de Rohan was having little of it. She was ambivalent about the first, unaware of the second, and generally disdainful of the later—reminding him once again that no matter how hard he tried, he would likely never see her in the usual way.

Once the coffee had been poured, he gave up and got right to the point, repeating almost verbatim DuPont's story of Giselle Moreau and her father's untimely death.

When she was finished, she put down her coffee cup, now empty, and leaned back against the sofa. “And this address in Brussels,” she said, “it is a town house, I collect?”

“So I'm told.”

“Can you climb?”

“Climb?”

“Trees,” she said. “Downspouts. Ropes. In short, are you still nimble, my lord? Or has the stiffness of age set in along with that rigid attitude of yours?”

“Good God, Miss de Rohan!” Geoff was insulted. “I'm not yet thirty.” Which was true, but only just. “Yes, I can climb. What has that to do with anything?”

“Well, you could take me along with you to Brussels,” she said. “You
are
going to Brussels, I collect? Otherwise, someone else would be telling me this story. So we'll go together. I'll befriend this woman—ingratiate myself with her, even—then manage to slip into the nursery and unfasten one of the window locks. Then you can climb up at night—or
I
can—and snatch the child whilst a carriage waits below, and we'll be off to Ostend by—oh, two or three in the morning.”

“Just like that?” he said dryly.

“Just like that,” she said. “It cannot be above eighty miles to the coast. Once the trains begin to run—about half past five, I should think—we can abandon the carriage in Ghent, and arrive at the port in time for breakfast.”

“I begin to believe you and Lazonby should take this on,” he grumbled. “One blunt instrument to beat upon another—that might drive the spike through the poor woman's heart in half the time.”

“What poor woman?” Miss de Rohan's eyes widened. “Oh, yes, I see what you mean. The mother. Well, you can always send word to her once the child is safe on English soil. She probably is not complicit in any of this, but her judgment in taking up with this Lezennes character is questionable at best.”

Geoff said nothing, but he could not deny the same thought had crossed his mind. Her period of mourning was scarcely out. Could she really be contemplating marriage?

“I think it more likely the lady is near destitution,” he said pensively.

Miss de Rohan appeared to consider it. “All the more reason to reunite her with her English kin,” she said. “Whilst we're away, have your Preost go dig up that family in Colchester—he's the genealogist round here, is he not? And an ordained minister in the Church?”

“He is both, yes,” said Geoff.

Miss de Rohan flashed a mordant smile. “Well, in my experience, no one can slather on the guilt like a priest bent on finding redemption for some poor devil's soul,” she said, “and Sutherland looks like he could get the job done.”

Geoff set his coffee cup down very carefully. “Well, Miss de Rohan, you seem to have it all worked out,” he murmured, “but you are missing one critical element.”

“And that would be?”

“An invitation.”

At last she had the good grace to blush.

But the truth was, he was going to invite her. She was impulsive, but she was not stupid. And she had summed him up pretty thoroughly. Moreover, the plan she had proposed was precisely what Rance would have done.

It was not, however, what he would have done.

He eyed her across the tea table. “Miss de Rohan, how old are you?”

She lifted her chin, her eyes faintly teasing. “How positively rude,” she said. “A lady never tells. But then, I just claimed not to be very much of a lady, didn't I?”

“I believe you are making my argument for me.”

A sly smile toyed at her mouth. “Very well,” she said. “I am two-and-twenty, or will be soon enough.”

“That is very young,” he said. “You still possess the impetuousness and impatience of youth, I think.”

“Oh, I hope so,” she said. “And the optimism. That wonderful sense that all things are possible. Yes, guilty as charged. Besides, impatience is not always a bad thing.”

Geoff relaxed against the back of the sofa, and studied her appraisingly. “Let me explain something to you, Miss de Rohan,” he said softly. “If you run the risk of accompanying me to Brussels, you will have to live with the result.”

“To my reputation, you mean.” She managed a slightly acid smile. “I understand, Lord Bessett. And by the way, I am not husband hunting.”

“That's good to know,” he said, “because you won't find one here. And the risk, of course, might go well beyond a sullied reputation. Save for what DuPont has reported, I know nothing of Lezennes or how dangerous a man he might be. I don't even know DuPont, come to that. Our
Fraternitas
contact in Rotterdam will come down and do what he can, of course, but the truth is we might be walking into a lion's den.”

“Understood,” she said.

“And your family,” he pressed on. “I can't imagine what you mean to tell them, but it is up to you to deal with it. If I get a glove in the face from your father, I will not be amused, Miss de Rohan.”

“Please, call me Anaïs,” she said, “since you are already contemplating such intimacies as a dawn appointment.”

“I am perfectly serious,” he said. “I know the influence your father wields in Whitehall, and I don't particularly give a damn. The
Fraternitas
is not without power. Power at the highest levels of government. Do we understand one another?”

She lifted both brows and pinned him with her stare. “I counted a cabinet minister, two undersecretaries, and a member of the Privy Council under those brown hoods last night,” she said. “I am not so
impetuous
, my lord, that I do not understand the
Fraternitas
extends into the loftiest reaches of our government.”

“Here is one more thing you need to understand,” he continued. “If we go forward, I am in charge. I will make every decision at every turn of this operation. I will not have time to argue with you, or parry words with you. I am a plainspoken man, but I am relentless, Miss de Rohan. I will get this child back, trust me. But I will not break that poor woman's heart in the process, and I will not run roughshod over her wishes—not unless someone's very life is at stake. Do you understand what I am telling you?”

“That I am to be a mere pawn in your master plan?” she suggested.

“That, and the fact that I don't even have a plan,” he said. “But I will come up with one as the circumstances warrant. And you will then keep to it every step of the way or I'll have Dieric van de Velde carry you bodily back to Ostend and put you on that clipper himself.”

“Aye, aye, Capt'n.” Miss de Rohan cut him a snappy salute.

“So . . . this is acceptable to you?”

A wide grin spread slowly over her face. “Did you think to run me off with your barks and your threats, my lord?” she said. “It won't work. This is what I thought I was supposed to be doing all along—helping to find justice in an unjust world.”

“As simple as that, is it?”

“What, you thought I was in it for the wardrobe?” she said on a laugh. “Frankly, those scratchy brown things look as if they might harbor vermin—
medieval
vermin.”

“So this is all you wanted?” he said. “Not membership in the
Fraternitas
?”

All the humor fell away then. “Oh, I definitely did not say that.” Her low, throaty voice sent a shiver down his spine. “What I
am
saying is that this . . . well, this is a start, perhaps.”

“A start,” he echoed.

Her smile warmed like the sun. “Yes, and a rather promising one at that,” she said. “Yes, Lord Bessett, I should be pleased to accompany you to Brussels, and to heed your barking and snarling as best I can. Now, am I officially invited?”

For a heartbeat, he hesitated.

Wordlessly, Anaïs de Rohan thrust her hand out across the tea table.

With grave reluctance, Geoff slid his fingers around her smaller, cooler ones, and shook it.

I
n the early afternoon, a London peculiar settled in along the river; a foul, foggy haze so thick coachmen passing through it could scarce see their horses' heads, and so odiferous the stench made a man's eyes water.

Along Fleet Street, the newspapermen hastening up and down the pavements in hope of making their afternoon deadlines were slamming into one another amidst curses and shoves, while below, a loaded dray rattling up from Blackfriars failed to heed an approaching mail coach.

This unfortunate misjudgment sent the dray careening onto its side, left the four coach horses shuddering and stamping in their traces, and left Lord Lazonby standing at the foot of Shoe Lane up to his ankle in loose coal. Cursing his luck to the devil, he shook the filthy black dust off his boot and strode past the quarreling drivers, each of whom had seized a fistful of the other's coat.

Picking his way across the street through the blocked traffic, Lazonby strode through the brume, then turned down the passageway that led to St. Bride's. The curses and clatter along Fleet Street were soon muffled, as if his ears had been stuffed with cotton wool.

With the cunning of a man who knew what it was to be both the hunted and the hunter, Lazonby moved around the church more by feel than by sight, then up into the churchyard. After picking his way gingerly amongst the gravestones, he chose his spot; a mossy little nook just behind one of the largest markers by the north windows.

Righteous fury simmering in the pit of his belly, the earl propped himself back against the cold stone of St. Bride's and settled in for what might be a long, damp vigil.

Perhaps half an hour later, footfalls, muffled and disembodied in the fog, came toward him from the direction of Bride Court. His jaw set tight with ire, Lazonby watched as Hutchens—his second footman for all of three months—materialized from the gloom. The damned fool still wore his red livery. That, and the sound of Hutchens's nervous, nasally breathing, made him impossible to miss.