Banquet of Lies (32 page)

J
onathan ran through Edgars, knocking him aside. When he reached the door he took a precious second to pull out the knife in his boot, and he noticed Edgars had fallen badly and hit his head against the desk. He was moaning, though, so the little bastard wasn’t dead.

He took the stairs three at a time and jumped the last five, landing in the gloom of the kitchen with every sense alert.

He felt the familiar fizz of excitement and nerves in his blood he’d had in Spain at the start of every battle.

But this time, there was also a debilitating fear.

“I was hoping your butler could keep you occupied for longer,” Frobisher spoke from the shadowed doorway to the left, and when he moved into the weak firelight, Jonathan saw he had Giselle Barrington clamped to his chest.

“He thought I still had the document,” Miss Barrington said calmly, and he finally saw the deep cut across her throat, the rivulets of blood.

His fear snapped to rage and he held himself very, very still.

“It almost doesn’t matter.” Frobisher edged toward the stairs up to the back door, dragging Miss Barrington with him. “Wittaker and the whole of Queen Square Station know my name. I’m ruined anyway. But the letter would have meant I wouldn’t have to keep looking over my shoulder for the rest of my life.”

Jonathan weighed the knife in his hand, and Frobisher stopped his awkward sideways movement.

He propped the hand holding the pistol onto Miss Barrington’s shoulder. “No time to reload, so if I shoot, I’ll have to be very sure of stopping you.” He seemed to consider the odds. “If you lift that knife arm or step a foot closer, I’ll risk it. Or . . .” He turned the pistol so it was resting against Miss Barrington’s temple. “Now
that
will be a sure thing.”

They froze in a silent standoff. A loud pop and crack from the fireplace made Frobisher jerk the gun barrel, and it seemed to bring him back to himself. “Throw the knife across the room, and when I get to the kitchen door, I’ll let Miss Barrington go.”

Jonathan hesitated. One quick, well-aimed throw would be all it would take. If he could get a clear target.

“Let me put it this way. If you don’t throw the knife into that far corner there, I will shoot Miss Barrington when I get to the door. Believe me, I’ve dreamed of killing her for some time now. It would be no hardship.”

Jonathan threw the knife without a second thought. It
clattered and skittered across the floor, coming to rest somewhere in the shadows.

He would have to use his hands.

“If you shoot her, you’ll have used your bullet. And then I’ll come after you.” Jonathan thought he saw a movement behind Frobisher, and realized he was looking at the servants’ stairs on the opposite side of the kitchen. Resisting the urge to stare harder, he kept his gaze on Frobisher’s face. Waiting for the moment when he lowered the gun.

“It’ll be worth the risk to know she’s dead, and you had to watch her die.” Frobisher shuffled toward the stairs to the kitchen door again, and the gun barrel dipped down.

Jonathan was gathering himself to leap, when a frying pan came down from above Frobisher’s head and smacked him full force.

Frobisher went down, conscious but dazed, and Miss Barrington lunged for the kitchen table, flicked open what looked like a bundle of linen and pulled a wicked-looking fillet knife out of it.

Iris stood with the pan held two-handed in her grasp, ready to strike again, and Jonathan belatedly realized that Frobisher had dropped the pistol and that it had slid almost to his feet. He picked it up, then pointed it straight at Frobisher’s heart.

“I were too sick at heart to go out with the others,” Iris said, her voice hushed. “I heard voices down here and came to see what was what.”

“I told you you were a Valkyrie,” Miss Barrington said. She sat down on a chair and winced as she lifted a hand to the cut
across her throat. “And I congratulate you on choosing exactly the right person to fall in battle.”

A
s he walked to his club, Jonathan felt as if he were in the limbo of a soldier waiting for the call to arms. All was ready, everything prepared—but until the enemy entered the field, there was nothing to be done but wait.

He gave a half grin at what Giselle Barrington would think of being compared to an enemy army.

She’d probably enjoy it.

She was a force to be reckoned with. She had proved that in everything she’d done.

He couldn’t count the number of times he’d looked down toward Goldfern and forced himself not to walk in that direction, unsure whether he’d have the self-control not to knock.

He didn’t know what he would do if that knock were answered.

Everything he wanted to say would be in poor taste, given that she was mourning her father and recovering from a knife attack.

And so he waited. Wanting desperately to engage, to clash, to fight for his place in her life. But while she remained behind those massive double doors in her massive house, waiting was all he could do.

He turned the corner, and as a hoot of raucous laughter sounded from the entrance of his club, Jonathan slowed his steps.

Henry Ingleton and three friends stepped out, loud, brash and cocky. He felt a surge of pure anticipation.

The smell of violence about to erupt always had the tangy, hot scent of metal to him, the sweat of horses and men, and the crushed green of bushes and grass trampled underfoot. It was so clear, he could almost feel he was drawing it into his lungs on this cold London street.

He’d made a promise to two women, and realized with a sense of shame that he hadn’t done anything about it. Almost five days had passed since he’d come across Lord Matherton’s and Sir Ingleton’s cooks talking about the danger Henry posed to one of the maids.

He hoped it wasn’t too late.

“Ingleton.” He tried to keep his voice level, but one of Ingleton’s friends eyed him more cautiously than was normal on meeting a fellow club member. He must not be hiding his hunger for a confrontation well enough.

Ingleton swung his way, perfectly sober but, by the looks of it, in high spirits.

Ah, youth.

Jonathan smiled, and Ingleton’s step faltered. He lost some of the smug amusement on his face.

“What is it?”

“A friendly warning.” Jonathan kept the smile on his face, and Ingleton blinked.

“I have it on good authority that you’re a lech, Ingleton. You prey on the staff in your father’s house—women who can’t fight back against you without fearing at the least the loss of
their jobs. I can’t understand how abusing your power with women who have none of their own could possibly be stimulating—but then, I’m not a bully who obviously can’t get women any other way but by coercion and force.” He spoke almost pleasantly, keeping himself loose and ready.

Ingleton was white around the lips, his eyes bulging. “Who—?” He swallowed. “How dare—?”

“I’ll be happy to talk to your father about this, the next time I see him at the club. And I won’t keep my voice down. I’m happy to speak to any number of society ladies about it, too. Lady Durnham and her sister-in-law, Lady Holliday, spring readily to mind. They’re sure to pass on the information to the mamas of the ton. No one likes a husband who diddles the staff. Especially when the staff aren’t willing.”

He cocked his head. “I’m sure your mother will hear about it, too, eventually. Although perhaps she knows already? Or suspects? If so, more shame on her.”

He was hoping Ingleton would be rash enough to strike out, and he wasn’t disappointed. But it was a poor attempt, sloppy and ridiculously off.

He stepped to the side to avoid it, and realized with disappointment that he couldn’t justify hitting back.

It would be too uneven a match.

Something in his face must have registered, because Ingleton dropped his arm, breathing heavily.

“I would love to thrash you.” Jonathan could hear the leashed wolf in his voice; it was almost a croon. “Give me one more excuse and I will.”

Ingleton staggered back.

“I have a number of sources regarding your behavior, and I will hear if you so much as look incorrectly at your maids again.”

He didn’t bother keeping his voice low, and Ingleton’s eyes went wildly to his friends and back.

“I understand you’re responsible for one maid being fired because she was carrying your child, and I want to hear from my sources that you’ve provided for her. I give you until tomorrow afternoon to see to it. And it had better be a generous provision.”

Ingleton stared at him.

“You can go.” He crossed his arms over his chest and watched Ingleton stagger back to his group.

Bringing down Ingleton didn’t quite make up for being outdone by his maid in dealing with Frobisher, but it helped a little.

“Do I want to know what that was about?” Durnham murmured from behind him, and Jonathan looked over his shoulder with a slow grin.

“Probably not.”

He waited for Durnham to reach him on the pavement, and they both watched Ingleton as he walked away.

“What’s the news on Frobisher?” Jonathan asked.

Durnham sighed. “He’ll hang. There is no doubt about it. But he won’t say who his paymasters are. Maybe we’ll get an execution-day confession.”

“Why won’t he talk?”

“Spite, I think. Because we won’t lessen the sentence.” Durnham hunched his shoulders against the evening air and held out a letter. “This came from Dervish with the evening post. He and Greenway were tying up some loose ends for Barrington in Stockholm and arranging for his body to be transported home. They’ll take the next available boat back to England.”

“Does Miss Barrington know?”

Durnham lifted his brows. “I’m not sure. Greenway may have written to her.” He paused. “How does the land lie between you? When you thought she was your cook . . .”

Jonathan said nothing, and after a moment, Durnham gave a sigh and patted him on the shoulder.

“Come to dinner tomorrow night. My wife has invited your former cook as well. If she doesn’t already know it, you can tell her the news yourself.”

S
he had accepted the invitation to dinner at Lord and Lady Durnham’s with some reluctance.

She still felt like a mouse, one that wanted to hide in its little house a bit longer and gather its courage. And then she laughed at herself for even thinking of massive Goldfern as a mouse hole.

And here she was at this dinner, anyway.

She was
le chat botté
, Puss in Boots, although boots were not fashionable at dinner parties, so she was wearing very pretty satin slippers instead.

It was a small affair. The Durnhams and their close family, as well as Lord Aldridge and the Duke of Wittaker.

They were all strangers to her, really. Even the Durnhams, who had been so kind to her over the last few days since Frobisher had been brought down.

Mrs. Jones had carefully dressed her knife wound and then draped a choker of pearls over it, so that it was almost invisible,
but she kept lifting a hand to it and then forcing it back down to her side.

Lord Aldridge moved easily through the small group, greeting everyone with his quick smile and innate charm. She liked watching him; it created the same tension and excitement in her that she always had at the start of a new trip with her father.

He was an adventure come to life.

Even though the facade of a society gentleman was troweled on thick tonight, there was still a hint of the savage beneath, the man who could burst into deadly, immediate action, who could fly down stairs as if he had wings.

Lady Howe, Lady Durnham’s former guardian, placed a hand on his arm and engaged him in conversation, and Gigi moved her gaze to Wittaker. He was playing the sober nobleman tonight, in tune with the mood of the gathering—the drunk, sardonic duke was nowhere to be seen.

She didn’t think this more conservative behavior was his true self, either.

He noticed her watching him, and turned her way. She had the sense he’d known she was looking since the moment she’d focused on him. He moved across the room to her, and they stood where Gigi had positioned herself, slightly apart from everyone else.

He glanced down at her throat. “Neck all right?”

“It is.” She resisted the urge to raise her hand to it again.

“I would like to speak frankly with you, Miss Barrington.” Wittaker gave her a sidelong look. “I have to admit I know
the nature of the letter you carried, due to various committees I sit on, and I’m curious: why didn’t you ask Georges to give it to me?”

“I did.” She paused and saw she had his full attention now. “Georges said you were fighting the Crown over some taxes, and he thought you might throw it in the fire, just for spite.”

He turned fully to face her, looking genuinely shocked. “Did he?”

“You were playing the drunk and dissolute rake a little too well, as it turns out. You even had Georges convinced you were nothing but a wastrel, and it takes a fine skill to get past Georges.” She gave him a smile as his mouth gaped. “It would have saved a great deal of trouble, pain and suffering if you hadn’t been so good at your act, but
c’est la vie
.” She gave a very French shrug.