The Lady Chosen (43 page)

Breathless, Leonora leaned close as they continued on. “Was he checking?”

“Yes. We’ll stop a little way along and argue about which way to go so he can pass us again.”

They did; Leonora thought they put on a creditable
performance of a pair of lower-class lovers debating the merits of music halls.

When the man was once more ahead of them, striding along, Tristan grasped her hand, and they followed, now rather more briskly as if they’d made up their minds.

The area surrounding St. James’s Palace was riddled with tiny lanes and interconnecting alleyways and yards. The man turned into the labyrinth, striding along confidently.

“This won’t work. Let’s leave him to Deverell and go on to Pall Mall. We’ll pick him up there.”

Leonora felt a certain wrench as they left the man’s trail, continuing straight on where he had turned left. A few houses along, she glanced back, and saw Deverell turn off in the man’s wake.

They reached Pall Mall and turned left, ambling very slowly, scanning the openings of the lanes ahead. They didn’t have long to wait before their quarry emerged, striding along even more quickly.

“He’s in a hurry.”

“He’s excited,” she said, and felt certain it was true.

“Perhaps.”

Tristan led her on; they switched with Deverell again in the streets south of Piccadilly, then joined the crowds enjoying an evening stroll along that major thoroughfare.

“This is where we might lose him. Keep your eyes peeled.”

She did, scanning the throng bustling along in the fine evening.

“There’s Deverell.” Tristan stopped, nudged her so she looked in the right direction. Deverell had just stepped into Pall Mall; he was looking about him. “Damn!” Tristan straightened. “We’ve lost him.” He started openly searching the crowds before them. “Where the devil did he go?”

Leonora stepped closer to the buildings, looked along
the narrow gap the crowds left. She caught a flash of grey, then it was gone.

“There!” She grabbed Tristan’s arm, pointed ahead. “Two streets up.”

They pushed through, tacked, ran—reached the corner and rounded it, then slowed.

Their quarry—she hadn’t been wrong—was almost at the end of the short street.

They hurried along, then the man turned right and disappeared from view. Tristan signaled to Deverell, who started running along the street after the man. “Down the alley.” Tristan pushed her toward the mouth of a narrow lane.

It cut straight across to the next street running parallel to the one they’d been on. They hurried along it, Tristan gripping her hand, steadying her when she slipped.

They reached the other street and turned up it, strolling once more, catching their breaths. The opening where the street the man had turned down joined the one they were now on lay ahead to their left; they watched it as they walked, waiting for him to reappear.

He didn’t.

They reached the corner and looked down the short street. Deverell stood leaning against a railing at the other end.

Of the man they’d been following there was absolutely no sign.

Deverell pushed away from the railing and walked toward them; it only took a few minutes for him to reach them.

He looked grim. “He’d disappeared by the time I got here.”

Leonora sagged. “So it’s a dead end—we’ve lost him.”

“No,” Tristan said. “Not quite. Wait here.”

He left her with Deverell and crossed the road to where a streetsweeper stood leaning on his broom midway down the short street. Reaching under his scruffy coat,
Tristan located a sovereign; he held it between his fingers where the sweeper could see it as he lounged on the rails beside him.

“The gent in grey who went into the house across the way. Know his name?”

The sweep eyed him suspiciously, but the glimmer of gold spoke loudly. “Don’t rightly know his name. Stiff-rumped sort he is. ’Ave ’eard the doorman call him Count something-unpronounceable-beginning-wif-an-eff.”

Tristan nodded. “That’ll do.” He dropped the coin into the sweep’s palm.

Strolling back to Leonora and Deverell, he made no effort to keep his self-satisfied smile from his lips.

“Well?” Predictably, it was the light of his life who prompted him.

He grinned. “The man in grey is known to the doorman of the house in the middle of the row as ‘Count something-unpronounceable-beginning-wif-an-eff.’”

Leonora frowned at him, then looked past him at the house in question. Then she narrowed her eyes at him.
“And?”

His smile broadened; it felt amazingly good. “The house is Hapsburg House.”

At seven o’clock that evening, Tristan ushered Leonora into the anteroom of Dalziel’s office, secreted in the depths of Whitehall.

“Let’s see how long he keeps us waiting.”

Leonora settled her skirts on the wooden bench Tristan had handed her to. “I would have assumed he’d be punctual.”

Sitting beside her, Tristan smiled wryly. “Nothing to do with punctuality.”

She studied his face. “Ah. One of those strange games men play.”

He said nothing, simply smiled and leaned back.

They only had to wait five minutes.

The door opened; a darkly elegant man appeared. He saw them. A momentary hiatus ensued, then, with a graceful gesture, he invited them in.

Tristan rose, drawing her to her feet beside him, setting her hand on his sleeve. He led her in, halting before the desk and the chairs set before it.

After closing the door, Dalziel joined them. “Miss Carling, I presume.”

“Indeed.” She gave him her hand, met his gaze—as penetrating as Tristan’s—coolly. “I’m pleased to make your acquaintance.”

Dalziel’s gaze flicked to Tristan’s face; his thin lips were not quite straight when he inclined his head and waved them to the chairs.

Rounding the desk, he sat. “So—who was behind the incidents in Montrose Place?”

“A Count something-unpronounceable-beginning-wif-an-eff.”

Unimpressed, Dalziel raised his brows.

Tristan smiled his chilly smile. “The Count is known at Hapsburg House.”

“Ah.”

“And—” From his pocket, Tristan withdrew the sketch Humphrey had, to everyone’s surprise, made of the Count. “This should help in identifying him—it’s a remarkable likeness.”

Dalziel took it, studied it, then nodded. “Excellent. And he accepted the false formula?”

“As far as we could tell. He handed over Martinbury’s vowels in exchange.”

“Good. And Martinbury is on his way north?”

“Not yet, but he will be. He appears genuinely appalled by his cousin’s injuries and will escort him back to York once he—Jonathon—is fit enough to travel. Until then, they’ll remain at our club.”

“And St. Austell and Deverell?”

“Both have been neglecting their own affairs. Pressing matters necessitated their return to their own hearths.”

“Indeed?” One laconic brow rose, then Dalziel turned his dark gaze on Leonora. “I’ve made inquiries among government ranks, and there’s considerable interest in your late cousin’s formula, Miss Carling. I’ve been asked to inform your uncle that certain gentlemen would like to call on him at his earliest convenience. It would, of course, be helpful if their visit could take place before the Martinburys leave London.”

She inclined her head. “I’ll convey that message to my uncle. Perhaps your gentlemen could send a messenger tomorrow to set a time?”

Dalziel inclined his head in turn. “I’ll advise them to do so.”

His gaze, fathomless, lingered on her for a moment, then switched to Tristan. “I take it”—the words were even, yet gentler—“that this is farewell, then?”

Tristan held his gaze, then his lips quirked. He rose, and extended his hand. “Indeed. As close to farewell as those in our business ever get.”

An answering smile fleetingly softened Dalziel’s face as rising, too, he gripped Tristan’s hand. Then he released it, and bowed to Leonora. “Your servant, Miss Carling. I won’t pretend I would much rather you did not exist, but fate has clearly overruled me.” His lazy smile robbed the words of any offense. “I sincerely wish you both well.”

“Thank you.” Feeling far more in charity with him than she had expected, Leonora politely nodded.

Then she turned. Tristan took her hand, opened the door, and they left the small office in the bowels of Whitehall.

“Why did you take me to meet him?”

“Dalziel?”

“Yes, Dalziel. He obviously wasn’t expecting me—he
clearly saw my presence as some message. What?”

Tristan looked into her face as the carriage slowed for a corner, then righted and rolled on. “I took you because seeing you, meeting you, was the one message he could neither ignore nor misconstrue. He is my past; you—” He lifted her hand, placed a kiss in her palm, then closed his hand about hers. “You,” he said, his voice deep and low, “are my future.”

She considered what little she could read in his shadowed face. “So all that”—with her other hand, she gestured back toward Whitehall—“is at an end—behind you?”

He nodded. Lifted her trapped fingers to his lips. “The end of one life—the beginning of another.”

She looked into his face, into his dark eyes, then slowly smiled. Leaving her hand in his, she leaned closer. “Good.”

His new life—he was impatient to get on with it.

He was a master of strategy and tactics, of exploiting situations for his own ends; by the next morning, he had his latest plan in place.

At ten, he called to take Leonora for a drive, and kidnapped her. He whisked her down to Mallingham Manor, currently devoid of old dears—they were all still in London, busily devoting themselves to his cause.

The same cause to which, after an intimate luncheon, he devoted himself with exemplary zeal.

When the clock on the mantelpiece of the earl’s bedchamber chimed three o’clock, he stretched, luxuriating in the slide of the silk sheets over his skin, and even more in the warmth of Leonora slumped boneless against him.

He glanced down. The tumbled mahogany silk of her hair screened her face. Beneath the sheet, he curved a hand about her hip, possessively caressed.

“Hmm-mm.” The sated sound was that of a woman well loved. After a moment, she mumbled, “You planned this, didn’t you?”

He grinned; a touch of the wolf still remained. “I’ve been plotting for some time to get you into this bed.” His bed, the earl’s bed. Where she belonged.

“As distinct from all those nooks you were so successful in finding in all the hostesses’s houses?” Lifting her head, she pushed back her hair, then rearranged herself against him, propping her arms on his chest so she could look into his face.

“Indeed—they were merely necessary evils, dictated by the vagaries of the battle.”

She looked into his eyes. “I’m not a battle—I told you before.”

“But you are something I had to win.” He let a heartbeat pass, then added, “And I’ve triumphed.”

Lips curving, Leonora searched his eyes and didn’t bother to deny it. “And have you found victory to be sweet?”

He closed his hands over her hips, held her to him. “Sweeter than I’d expected.”

“Indeed?” Ignoring the rush of warmth over her skin, she raised a brow. “Well, now you’ve plotted and planned and got me into your bed, what next?”

“As I aim to keep you here, I suspect we’d better get married.” Lifting one hand, he caught and played with strands of her hair. “I wanted to ask—did you want a big wedding?”

She hadn’t really thought. He was rushing her—calling the shots—yet…she didn’t want to waste any more of their lives either.

Here—lying naked with him in his bed—the physical sensations underscored the real attraction, all that had tempted her into his arms. It wasn’t just the pleasure that wrapped them about, but the comfort, the security, the promise of all their lives combined could be.

She refocused on his eyes. “No. A small ceremony with our families would suit very well.”

“Good.” His lashes flickered down.

She sensed the spurt of relief he tried to hide. “What is it?” She was learning; rarely did he not have some plan afoot.

His eyes flicked up to hers. He shrugged lightly. “I was hoping you’d agree to a small wedding. Much easier and faster to organize.”

“Well, we can discuss the details with your great-aunts and my aunts when we return to town.” She frowned, recollecting. “It’s the De Veres’ ball tonight—we have to attend.”

“No. We don’t.”

His tone was firm—decided; she glanced at him, puzzled. “We don’t?”

“I’ve had enough of the ton’s entertainments to last me for a year. And when they hear our news, I’m sure the hostesses will excuse us—after all, they love that sort of gossip and should be grateful to those of us who supply it.”

She stared at him. “What news?
What
gossip?”

“Why that we’re so head over heels in love that we refused to countenance any delay and have organized to be married in the chapel here tomorrow, in the presence of our combined families and a few selected friends.”

Silence reigned; she could barely take it in…then she did. “Tell me the details.” With one finger, she prodded his bare chest. “All of them. How is this supposed to work?”

He caught her finger, dutifully recited, “Jeremy and Humphrey will arrive this evening, then…”

She listened, and had to approve. Between them, he, his old dears, and her aunts had covered everything, even a gown for her to wear. He had a special license; the reverend of the village church who acted as chaplain for the estate would be delighted to marry them…

Head over heels in love.

She suddenly realized he’d not only said it, but was living
it. Openly, in a manner guaranteed to demonstrate that fact to all the ton.

She refocused on his face, on the hard angles and planes that hadn’t changed, hadn’t softened in the least, that were now, here with her, totally devoid of his charming social mask. He was still talking, telling her of the arrangements for the wedding breakfast. Her eyes misted; freeing her finger, she laid it across his lips.

He stopped talking, met her gaze.

She smiled down at him; her heart overflowed. “I love you. So yes, I’ll marry you tomorrow.”