A Most Improper Rumor (23 page)

Chapter 29

B
aiting a trap was tricky enough, but springing it was always the true challenge.

“The most likely candidate is a man named Fetzer. When I inquired, in a few unsavory places I am not sure I care to revisit, as to who could best handle a situation of utmost delicacy, he was recommended above all the others.” Christopher’s cousin, Neville Durham, held an expression that indicated disdain. “So much for being a reputable solicitor. Indeed, even when I told him what I wanted, he didn’t ask questions about my intentions. He simply pleasantly agreed and promised complete anonymity. My impression is he would do business with a serpent without hesitation if the right compensation were involved.”

Lord Lowe’s suggestion was obviously a canny one. The young man had come through admirably.

“How did he suggest the two of you contact each other?” Ben looked thoughtfully at the man across the scarred table of the disreputable little tavern. Young Neville had proved to be remarkably amiable to the task assigned him, especially when he learned of the attempted murder of his cousin.

“I can contact him through this address.” He produced a piece of parchment and extended it. “He said someone would be there during the hours he marked and to leave the letters with them, promising his total reliability and silence.”

Christopher Durham murmured, “That’s interesting. Aside from the initial visit to the firm then, the client would never need to be seen coming and going. The convoluted brilliance seems to fit our man.”

Still thinking, Ben took a sip of tepid ale. “I agree with that and the address is unremarkable. Not fashionable but not in a dangerous neighborhood either. How convenient it is that Lady Eve and our own Mrs. Dulcet have the same coloring. If she delivers a note to the employee of Mr. Fetzer, I have no doubt he will pass it along and the assumption will be that it is from the earl’s vindictive daughter.”

“Can I help?” Neville looked more than ready, interested but not overly inquisitive, his good-looking face holding only smiling inquiry.

“You’ve helped already.” Christopher Durham nodded at him. “Thank you.”

“And someday you’ll tell me what this is all about?”

“You have my word.”

When his cousin rose and left, Christopher and Ben sat there, the tavern loud around them, but for all purposes they were alone, no one paying the least attention to them.

“And now what?” Lowe leaned back, his movements not quite so stiff and the injury to his shoulder not nearly as evident in casual clothing that reflected their surroundings, his tan coat open.

“For a recently wounded man, you look amazingly content.” Ben made the observation with dry intonation. “I take it marriage agrees with you.”

“It does, not to mention I’ve been offered a commission that will, if nothing else, ease Angelina’s fears. It’s to redesign and build a palace in the Spanish countryside destroyed utterly during the war. We will be in Spain for months, maybe more than a year.”

“I see.”

“It had been occupied by both sides at one time and then burned and flattened when the British no longer had an interest in holding it. The owner, a Spanish don who somehow managed to hold on to his fortune, begged me to take on the project and oversee the new construction. It is a challenge as an architect and because I am a newly married man and my wife is breeding, an almost-impossible offer to refuse.” Lowe looked somber. “Until this matter is resolved, she wishes to leave England and who could blame her? At first I refused, but I’m inclined to indulge her, as this is an intriguing project, so we sail soon. My steward is making the arrangements today.”

It wasn’t necessarily a bad idea. Even Ben wasn’t sure what would happen next. Maybe Alicia would be safe, or maybe the threat would linger.

This was most definitely a war. A strike was in order.

“We could arrange a meeting. There is something he wants. Let’s offer it to him.”

He’d anticipated Lowe’s reaction and was not disappointed.

“No. Never.” The other man put his hands on the table, rocking the unsteady base and causing ale to splash from their glasses. “Would you risk your pregnant wife to the scoundrel who has deliberately tried to destroy her?”

“No,” Ben agreed, looking him in the eye. “Did you ever for a minute think I’d risk yours?”

Lowe settled back after a moment, his smile tight. “No,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. All of this has me on edge. There’s a reason I’m taking her away. What is the strategy?”

“A temptation he can’t resist.”

“Angelina?”

“No.” Ben’s tone was even. “You.”

The bustle around them seemed muted, even when several questionable customers laughed in the background, the rough sound ringing out. Lowe inclined his head. “A much more acceptable proposition. Tell me what you want.”

“He doesn’t want to kill her. He never has, because he could have done so at any time. Do you honestly think when she was quietly in seclusion in the countryside she wasn’t vulnerable? Even her own family was not there to protect her. He holds his victims’ lives in his hands. That is what drives him. Dead they are gone to him.”

“I’ll own that makes sense maybe if you were a madman.”

“But you, however, are not immune from his attention by proxy of how you have taken from him the prize he wanted.” Ben fingered the handle of his cup and contemplated his companion. “We both suffer from not thinking like the enemy. I learned to do it during the war, but this is a different kind of foe. Human, yes, but
human
, no. If he kills you, he owns her again. To put the matter succinctly, you have exactly what he wants.”

“Well, he doesn’t own her, and he can’t have her.” Christopher smiled thinly. “I am more than willing to be your target, though I doubt my wife would agree. I don’t think of myself as a vindictive man, but retribution would make me a happy one. For Angelina, my own sense of vengeance aside, I’d no doubt walk through fire to make him atone for what he’s done.”

“No need to be quite so drastic.” Ben understood his friend’s emotions more than he could say. The more involved this became, the more the possibility Alicia could be hurt.

Never
.

“All I need from you is an appearance at a prearranged time and place.”

“And a great deal of trust on my part that you have it all in hand,” Christopher said with dry inflection. “If I am the lamb tethered to the pole, so to speak. Tell me what you have in mind.”

“Fair enough.” Ben settled back in his chair, decided the stale beverage in his cup wasn’t the worst he’d ever had, and took a large sip. “First of all, make your marriage public knowledge. Announce it in the
Times
.”

“Angelina will object.”

“I will talk to her.” He then asked in an offhand tone, “How do you feel about making a public wager in the books at Brooks’s?”

“The look on your face gives me pause. Very well, what kind of wager?”

“That he can’t kill you.”

Lord Lowe set his jaw, his blue eyes holding a shade of incredulity. “Dare him to try again?”

“He is going to do so anyway.” Ben was completely convinced that statement was true. Had Angelina stayed in the countryside and in her solitude, he postulated their adversary would be satisfied he had succeeded in the control he sought over her life and would have left her alone.

But instead she had remarried.

“It will accomplish two goals. It should infuriate him, and it will exonerate your wife when he tries to murder you again.”

“Once is not enough?”

“But no one knows about the first attempt. This one we will not keep so quiet.”

“I see your point, but forgive me if I want my coming child to have a father, not to mention I anticipate an argument of momentous proportions when Angelina hears of this. She swears she does not care what people think of her, just that I am safe.”

And Ben thought that made Christopher Durham a very lucky man. “I understand, and all due precautions will be taken, but this is, as I see it, our opportunity to shift the measure of control to us. Besides, when our challenge is answered, I am going to be the one to accept. We have the same sort of coloring and are of a similar height. Up close perhaps not, but from a distance, we look alike.”

He’d anticipated an argument and was not disappointed. Lowe shook his head and said heatedly, “Your child needs you as much as mine does and you are only involved because Angelina asked you. I am no more susceptible to an unexpected attack than you are, Heathton.”

Mildly, he countered, “But poking the beast is my idea and you must remember, he and I have encountered each other before.”

* * *

As they entered the bunting-draped hall, a now-familiar surge of nervousness swept over her, and Angelina straightened her shoulders. Tight-lipped, she said under her breath, “Tell me again why I am subjecting myself, and even worse, you, to this?”

Next to her, urbane in his evening wear, not showing in the least that he’d been seriously injured recently, Christopher murmured, “Because you swore to love and obey me, and I asked it of you.”

As she drew in a swift breath of outrage, he bent his head toward her, gazing into her eyes as if she were the only woman in the room, a quicksilver smile on his mouth. “I didn’t mean the part about obeying. We are here because London will learn of our marriage soon enough and it should be on our terms.”

He was, of course, absolutely correct. On the other hand, his association with her had endangered his life. Her hand tightened involuntarily on his arm. “Then let me apologize in advance for all the impolite stares.”

“Why ever would you apologize? You’ve done nothing wrong.”

There was a reason she loved him. Well, there were
many
reasons, but one of them was his ability to see past her cool bravado, the distant and impervious Dark Angel persona, the woman who caused titillating whispers to rise—just as at this moment—by the simple act of walking into a room.

“They will still whisper.”

“I don’t mind them staring.” He leaned in and whispered for her alone. “I suspect the lot of them are jealous I am with the most beautiful woman in the world.”

“Or astounded,” she replied, but the warmth in his eyes eased the chill. “You know you are considered quite the catch, my lord. Wedding a woman twice widowed, a veritable outcast, an angel of death—”

“The love of my life,” he interrupted, with a lighthearted laugh, his breath stirring her hair. “What does that say about me if all of that is true about you?”

“That you like to live rather dangerously.” Suddenly the gaping crowd was dispelled from her consciousness, as well as the horror of the shooting, even the awfulness of Eve’s betrayal. All she knew of what had happened to her friend was a note in the society pages that Lady Eve had retired to the country to recuperate from a lingering malaise.

That, at least, was a relief. Though Angelina mourned their friendship, she wasn’t at all sure at this time she could bring herself to endure a public meeting with any degree of grace. She still wasn’t sure to what level Eve was responsible for the deaths of two men and the injury to another, but the shock of it all was too new and if forgiveness could be found in the future, it was impossible to imagine it. The personal cost to her aside, the betrayal of Eve not coming forward, especially after Thomas’s death was a cut that might never heal.

“Heard the news, Lowe.” A young man, a strutting peacock with a lavender vest and bleary eyes, came up, his glass of champagne dangerously tilting in his hand. “A bold move, I say, but no doubt worth it.”

All of Christopher’s previous good humor vanished in an instant. He drew Angelina slightly closer, his arm tightening around her waist. “If you are referring to my recent marriage, Jakes, I could not agree more. Please excuse us.”

“My felicitations, old fellow, but that isn’t my reference. The wager.” The drunken Jakes looked at her husband in open admiration. “Quite a statement, that.”

What wager?
Angelina transferred her sharp inquiring gaze to her husband’s profile.

There was a distinct tightening in the line of his jaw. “Not to be discussed in front of ladies, of course.”

“Oh yes . . . quite.” Jakes wiped at his brow, swaying more than a little.

What wager?

“Will you please excuse us? My lovely wife has promised me a waltz.” Christopher guided her away before the man could speak again.

“I assume,” Angelina said in a low tone, flicking her fan shut as they gained the ballroom floor, “you are going to explain that to me.”

Christopher’s voice was low under the swell of the orchestra. “I am not sure I should.”

“I assure you it would be prudent.”

“That tone suffices to tell me it would.” His blue eyes were not on her but on the crowd. “It was Heathton’s idea, but I am not passing any blame on to him. I agreed.”

“You agreed to what?” If she stopped dead, everyone would notice, but the avid interest from the fashionable crowd was worse than even she had expected. The normally crowded floor was all but deserted, groups of people standing and gawking at them with blatant interest, as if a man and a woman dancing together at a ball were a spectacle.

“Waltz with me.” He drew her into his arms. “We’ve never had the chance, except for a completely different sort of dance, which we have done quite often, but if we did that here, we would really set London proper on its ear, love. Come.”

“No one else is dancing.”

“How perfect. I loathe crowded dance floors. The music is playing. Shall we?”

She acquiesced. He had that ability, that lightness, that gift of bringing her out of herself even when she was under such intense scrutiny that she just trusted him.

Trusted him
.

That was the key, she realized with some amazement as he swept her into the steps. Clearly something had happened or everyone would not be so riveted on them that they were practically alone on the floor.

And she didn’t care. Or at least to the extent that as long as he held her, she was not going to argue.

The music was soft and melodic, the closeness of his tall body reminiscent of all the times they’d lain together, and the night might be overcast and the moon obscured, but it was like magic to her, even with the host of curious eyes and the whispers behind gloved hands.