London's Most Wanted Rake (12 page)

Channing was very good at pretence. It was his job, after all, it was what made him such a success. He created fantasies women wanted to believe in, fantasies that went beyond the sexual, but encompassed their emotional lives, too. She’d seen it for herself when she’d hired him and she’d seen him at a distance with other women, too. She wasn’t the only one he created that other fantasy for, yet she’d nearly fallen for it again last night.

She had to remember being here with her was a job, too, for him. It was not unlike the Christmas she’d first hired him. The only difference was that he was here as Amery’s substitute. She could indulge in what he offered, but she had to keep a firm grip on precisely what that offering was—a fantasy that would end, a fantasy that wasn’t real in the first place. This was business first and last for Channing. She’d do best to model that for herself. She would start reasserting a certain distance between her and Channing this morning.

Her brain registered a faint rustling somewhere in the room. It wasn’t only the sensation of waking next to Channing that had drawn her from sleep with a feeling of unease. Something else was wrong. She caught the rustle again. Someone was in the room.

‘Celeste?’ Alina called out. Ugh, her voice sounded awful, proof of a late night.

‘Comtesse.’
Celeste hurried towards the bed, giving Channing’s sleeping form an approving smile before launching into her news. ‘I thought you would want to know at once. Roland Seymour’s carriage left here at dawn with trunks and all.’

That got her attention. Alina sat up, her mind whirling. The bastard wasn’t supposed to leave until tomorrow like the rest of them. He’d be in London this afternoon before the offices closed. She didn’t want him discovering anything until she was back in town and had access to her team of solicitors. Damn and double damn. There was only one thing to do. Alina threw back the covers and jumped out of bed. ‘We must pack, Celeste.’ She was going to have to go after him, that despicable bounder.

‘Right now?’ Celeste queried, nodding towards Channing.

‘Right now. We can’t have him reaching town before us. Lay out my travelling dress.’

This was not the morning she was hoping for. The day had been set aside for ‘recovering’ by their hostess. Guests would sleep the morning away, spend the day overseeing packing and perhaps taking a few quiet last walks with friends they’d made. She’d been looking forward to such a day, a day to celebrate that her efforts in regards to this party had been successful. A day to rest, to think of nothing before she had to think of what lay ahead in London; a Season she was obligated to attend just to prove to everyone her reputation was passable, reeling in Seymour and his dishonest heists. All she had wanted was one day of peace. What she had got was...

‘I think it’s time you tell me what is going on.’ His voice sounded like gravel.

Channing. Wonderful. He was awake.

Alina turned from her dressing table. Celeste had come to the doorway of the dressing room. ‘It might be best,
madame
. You could use an ally.’

Alina gave Celeste a hard stare. She did not appreciate the vote of confidence in Channing, but Celeste’s point was well taken. If she didn’t tell Channing, he might seek out the information on his own and that could prematurely tip her hand before she was ready. Perhaps this was a case of keeping one’s enemies closer. Not that Channing was an enemy precisely, but interference was.

If this was to be all business, she had to begin as she meant to go on. ‘If you promise to let me do this my way, I’ll tell you. But I must have your word, Channing.’

‘It seems I have no choice but to agree.’ Channing propped himself up on the pillows, the sheet falling to his waist. Celeste’s eyes popped at the sight of his bare chest. Alina wished he had the decency to cover himself. It was one thing for her to see him naked, but she found she didn’t like the idea of others seeing him in the same state.

Alina took a deep breath. ‘Roland Seymour is a swindler and bankrupter of the unsuspecting. He offers to help people in distress by becoming a partner on deeds to their properties in exchange for loaning them money during the interim. Eventually the deed reverts full ownership back to the original holder and it does, just as agreed upon, but in the meantime he takes out huge loans, using the land as collateral. When he defaults on his loans, the banks come looking to possess the land, which is now back in the unsuspecting victim’s hands, and, since Seymour is only a co-signer on the deed, the owner is now responsible.’ She tried to keep the telling unemotional, tried to keep it devoid of the sordid way such a practice had affected her family.

Channing pushed a hand through his already-tousled hair and groaned, a far different groan than the ones he’d given the night before. ‘Celeste, I’m going to need coffee.’ He looked around the room. ‘And I’m going to need my clothes. My valet will know what to send over. I think better when I’m dressed.’ He gave her a once over in her white dressing robe. ‘How about you,
comtesse?
Clothes?’

Alina shook her head and scowled. ‘This is what I feared would happen.’

Channing cocked his head. ‘What? Getting dressed or do you prefer to do your thinking naked? I could be persuaded to try, I suppose, although I can’t guarantee which head I’ll think with.’

Alina’s frustration rose. She was trying to keep their ‘morning after’ interaction all business, absent of any reference to uncomfortable disclosures from the night before. Channing wasn’t helping. He was using an entirely different script, wanting to play and flirt and interfere. ‘This is no laughing matter. I’ve signed over a deed to him in order to catch him in action.’

What he ought to say was, ‘I can see you have important matters to deal with, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll take my leave.’

What he said instead was, ‘I suggest you get dressed. We have a lot of thinking to do.’ Channing’s grin vanished. ‘It won’t just be a disaster, it will be dangerous. A man like Seymour won’t take kindly to being thwarted and he’ll be even less appreciative of being exposed. Have you thought of that?’ He sounded angry. He also sounded as if he understood everything after her brief summary. She’d forgotten how quick his mind was when it came to grasping nuances.

‘I’d hate to think that the world would prefer to ignore a wrong simply out of fear to right it,’ Alina answered firmly. But she knew herself to be a hypocrite in that regard. She doubted she’d be so motivated to stop Seymour if he hadn’t personally struck at her family. When it had happened she’d been in France, unable to stop it until it was too late. But she’d spent the year and a half of her return gathering the information she’d need to bring Seymour down. If she was for ever to be branded with her former husband’s title, she was going to put it to good use. The Comtesse de Charentes was no longer powerless.

‘Good God, you’re set on this.’ Channing sighed. ‘Celeste, make that a lot of coffee.’

He was staying. So much for ridding herself of Channing’s presence. It wasn’t precisely the outcome she’d sought. But there were other ways of establishing distance, it wasn’t only a consideration of proximity. If there was one good thing to come out of the morning, it was that she’d succeeded in keeping this all business. As long as they were discussing Seymour, they weren’t discussing her or any of the foolish things she’d given vent to in the night.

Chapter Twelve

W
hat had Alina got herself into now? Channing pushed his hand through his hair yet again a half-hour later. He was dressed, but his hair was going to be a tousled mess at this rate while he listened, questions darting through his mind. ‘If it’s him why hasn’t anyone caught him before?’ Channing sipped at his coffee.

‘It’s not him directly,’ Alina explained. ‘He is behind several syndicates that operate under different names. But he’s used other aliases before so it’s very difficult to catch him. Then there’s the embarrassment factor. To catch him means exposing oneself to public scrutiny. He picks victims very deliberately, people who would be reluctant to let others know their finances were in trouble or that they’d been taken advantage of in an awkward business situation.’

‘You are potentially courting scandal if your involvement in this becomes known,’ Channing pointed out. Surely Alina had thought of that. If others worried over public censure, it ought to be a sign that she should worry, too.

‘Only if I fail,’ Alina reasoned. ‘If I succeed, it might help my rather precarious reputation if it came out I had struck a blow for social justice.’ She shrugged, but Channing could see the determined set of her jaw. She didn’t believe she would fail.

‘All right then, tell me how you’re going to catch the thief.’ Channing chose his pronouns carefully. He really meant ‘we’ or even ‘he’ if it came to that. Alina was not going to put herself in danger and for all her impressive research in tracking the man down, he didn’t think she had any idea of what the villain might be capable.

‘I’ve co-signed him on a deed to a property here in England that supposedly reverted back to me as part of the settlement and in turn he’s loaning me funds to make improvements on the property for three months. My solicitors are on watch for the very second Seymour attempts to use the deed as collateral.’

‘It seems risky—what if your solicitors simply miss their moment?’ If it was that easy to spot, Channing thought, the man would have been caught by now, syndicate or not. Certainly, anyone’s solicitor would notice activity involving a deed.

‘Other solicitors are not as diligent as mine.’ She paused here, her eyes sparkling with excitement. ‘Besides, he won’t be able to draw against the deed because the property doesn’t exist.’

Channing spit out his coffee and gave up all pretensions to bland neutrality. ‘You’ve forged a deed?’

‘It’s not really a forgery, it’s just made up.’ Alina said. ‘It’s not as bad as you think. The land actually exists and it’s mine, it’s just deeded under a false name.’

Channing relaxed slightly. ‘Not that it makes it any better. Seymour will be furious to have been caught and duped. He will come after you. Did Amery know any of this?’

Alina shook her head. ‘Absolutely not. It had nothing to do with him.’ Channing understood the message completely. This had nothing to do with him either except for the fact that she was involved.

‘What Amery knew or didn’t know is irrelevant at this point.’ Alina turned the conversation away from any ethical considerations he might raise, of which Channing felt there were a few.

Channing raised an eyebrow to indicate he didn’t quite agree with her assumption. ‘Oh?’ Amery had only sensed he was outgunned in the arrangement and his instincts had served him well.

‘What is relevant is that Seymour has bolted. I want to be in London, I
need
to be in London when he acts.’ She started pacing. Maybe coffee wasn’t such a great idea after all. He didn’t need Alina to be more energised than she already was. She
would
go haring off to London without a thought for the consequences.

‘He can’t possibly do any harm today,’ Channing argued. ‘It will take more than an afternoon to get any paperwork through the banks and it’s likely, since he wasn’t planning on acquiring this deal with you, that he’ll need time to think through what he wants to do. You have a few days at least.’ He could see Alina didn’t like his reasoning at all. It was far too sound.

‘Think about your position. We can’t both leave the house party a day early. It will look suspicious and, quite frankly, you are not going to London without me. Whether or not you like it, you need a protector.’

‘I had Amery,’ Alina protested.

‘Not a protector like Amery. He was only good for making you unavailable to the unwanted advances of others. You need someone to be your partner if you mean to do this mad thing.’

‘And you think that partner should be you.’ Alina faced him, hands on hips, looking most displeased.

‘Yes, I do think it should be me.’ Channing drew a deep breath. ‘Alina, why not me? You know you can trust me.’

That earned him a steely blue stare. ‘Do I? Well, it seems I have no choice.’ That was his cue to exit.

* * *

Could
she trust him? Could she trust him not? Alina picked the petals off a summer rose as she strolled around Lady Lionel’s garden. It was good to be alone. The afternoon was warm, the weather and the walk had helped calm her nerves. She’d been agitated after Channing had left. How dare he insinuate himself into her business and
then
have the audacity to suggest she could trust him after...?

After what? She had to tread carefully here. After she’d come to England and then proceeded to engage him in a business arrangement, hiring his services to reintegrate her into English society? And all the while
she’d
mentioned nothing about the desire to establish an intimate arrangement akin to what they’d dreamed of in Fontainebleau? She’d made no overture and neither had he. Therein lay the rub. Of course, she’d been waiting for him to establish
his
desire to continue as they had been. No overture had come. At the Christmas party, she’d discovered why.

There’d been nothing between them but business, but Alina had acted as if there was. The argument that had followed the party had not been well done of her. She’d thrown several accusations at him and a vase or two for good measure simply because she’d let herself be convinced she wasn’t just another job to him.

* * *

‘What the hell do you mean by leaving the ball?’ Channing shut the door behind him with a resounding slam. She was sure the rest of the house would have heard it, if the music hadn’t been playing.

‘What do you mean by barging into a lady’s bedroom?’ she fired back, yanking the pins from her hair and making it clear she would not return to the festivities.

‘I mean to settle this once and for all.’ Channing was in rare form. He advanced on her with firm strides. She backed up, her knees hitting the back of her dressing table. ‘You asked me to introduce you to society and I have. I have smoothed your way with introductions and with shaping the story of your return to downplay any scandal attached to it. I have done my job and you dare to walk away from me in a crowded ballroom where everyone is bound to notice.’

‘You’ve done your job, absolutely, for me, and for every other woman at the party. You’ve made a fool out of me and you’re right. Everyone is bound to notice.’ She threw his words back at him.

‘What did you expect? I couldn’t possibly dance every dance with you and make you socially acceptable. Exclusivity was never part of the deal.’

‘No, it never was. That’s what your precious League is about, isn’t it? An excuse for promiscuity.’ She all but spat the accusation.

His blue eyes had narrowed dangerously. He gripped her arm for a moment. ‘You don’t understand anything if that’s what you think.’ He stepped back. ‘The League is to protect men from women like you.’

She felt as if she’d been struck. ‘You bastard, how dare you! This whole time, you made me believe...’ Her voice threatened to break. She would not give him the satisfaction of knowing how much these weeks, this introduction to pleasure, had mattered, how close she’d come to thinking the impossible was possible when it had only been revenge to him, revenge for an act he couldn’t comprehend. She was glad now she hadn’t told him the whole of it: her marriage, that day in the park. He didn’t deserve to know. Her hand closed over the vase on her vanity, the object an anchor while her mind reeled.

‘What did I make you believe?’

That was when she threw it. The vase smashed on the door frame, satisfyingly close to his shoulder, close enough to make him flinch. She would not tell him, not ever.

It was the right decision. They’d returned to town and parted ways. The contract was fulfilled. But town society was not so large in January that she could avoid him. She saw him occasionally at events, always with a beautiful woman, always smiling, always handsome, always at a distance. She never stayed long if he was present. By February she’d succeeded in avoiding him altogether—that, too, was for the best, until now.

* * *

‘Have you decided yet?’ Alina jumped a foot and stifled an undignified yelp at Channing’s approach.

‘I hate it when you sneak up on me.’ Alina said crossly. It hardly ever happened. She was usually in tune to his whereabouts whenever he was near. ‘Decided what?’

‘Decided if you can trust me?’ Channing fell into step beside her, modifying his long step to hers.

Alina tossed aside the ruined rose and picked another. ‘That’s a foregone conclusion at this point. I told you my plans. I told you what Seymour was. There’s nothing more to trust you with. Perhaps the real question is whether or not
you
believe me—do
you
trust me?’ Trust was an enormous issue between them. They’d hurt each other with that trust before.

‘You trust me in bed,’ Channing pressed. ‘You trusted me last night.’

‘That was only a game,’ Alina answered quickly. Games were short term, games had ends to them, clear victors and rules. She understood games. What Channing was suggesting went beyond those boundaries. It would bind them together once more for a length of time to be solely determined by them. ‘I can see this through without any help. Your contract is up in two days. I wouldn’t have asked Amery for assistance. I did not hire him for it. It’s not his expertise and I doubt it’s yours.’

‘I doubt it’s yours either,’ Channing argued. ‘Do you go after men steeped in fraud often?’

She gave him a wry look. ‘Don’t be facetious. You know I do not. It’s different. This is my family, it’s not yours. I have to do this for them.’ Catching Seymour would change everything. They had only invested with him as a means of helping her.

‘Now we’re getting to the heart of things.’ Channing gave her a gentle smile, his eyes warm. It was a look that invited confidences. ‘You think to avenge your family? Seymour took advantage of them? I did wonder after I left you this morning what had prompted such an interest in bringing the fellow to justice. Perhaps you might be so good as to tell me the details?’

‘According to the marriage contracts, the
comte
was to pay them a large sum of money spread out over the course of several years. The payments would come monthly and they’d last as long as the marriage,’ Alina began to explain. The
comte
had explained it as a way of providing for her in the future if anything happened to him. Her family could put the money in trust for her, something akin to a jointure or widow’s portion. But the family hadn’t the luxury of saving. They’d needed the income for bills and daily living.

‘It became another way in which the
comte
bound you to him,’ Channing offered succinctly when she finished. She’d left that part out. ‘Those payments were another way to keep you from leaving him.’

She had not wanted to interject that analysis. It brought up other more delicate subjects that veered into the personal. ‘There was my sister to consider. She will be eighteen next year and my parents wanted to give her a London Season and find her a good match. They could not have afforded that without the
comte
’s money.’

Beside her, Channing bristled. ‘Even so, your family should not have allowed you to suffer.’

She was quick to leap to their defence. ‘They did not forsake me. They’d hoped this investment would create an income that would free them from financial dependency on the
comte
. But it didn’t work out that way and I couldn’t allow them to be ruined.’

‘So you stayed and endured whatever it was that bastard doled out,’ Channing said with quiet anger. He didn’t even know the half of it.

‘Yes, I stayed. What else could I do? It was my desperation that caused them to turn to Seymour’s offer.’ In hindsight, she wished she had not confided in them. If they hadn’t known how desperate she was, they never would have risked it. ‘It was my fault it happened at all and it was my fault for what happened next.’

Channing caught her eyes in a solemn gaze. ‘What was that?’

‘Seymour offered to marry Annarose in exchange for clearing the debt that the property now carried. All my father had to do was allow the marriage and turn the property fully over to Seymour. The debt would disappear. Annarose was only fifteen.’

The last implied myriad things: the complete corruption of Roland Seymour to prey on an innocent girl as a means of ‘resolving’ a family’s crisis and the intensity of her own desire to bring him to justice.

Channing nodded slowly, the slow blaze growing in his eyes affirming he understood entirely. Families were important to him. She’d seen him with his own at Christmas. He had sisters and an older brother. ‘Do they know what you’re planning?’

Alina shook her head. Her family wasn’t like his. They’d defend each other to the death. Her family hadn’t the strength or the resources to do that. ‘They don’t know and they can’t know. My mother has enough to worry about besides that. You won’t tell them?’

She didn’t truly believe he would or that he’d ever have the opportunity to. She couldn’t imagine on what occasion Channing would ever meet them. Her father’s health had failed after the disaster with Seymour. They wouldn’t come to London. It would be her job to bring Annarose out next year. She yearned to find Annarose a good man. Surely there was one out there, one that would keep her safe.