London's Most Wanted Rake (13 page)

Channing’s gaze studied her for a moment and she felt far too vulnerable as if he saw every secret she’d ever kept. ‘You feel guilty.’

‘Yes, it nearly ruined them. It did ruin my father. I should have stopped it. I
would
have stopped it if I’d been here. I should not have started it at all.’ She should have kept her desperation to herself. She’d smelled a rat when her father had first written to her about it. If she hadn’t been so far away in France, if her odious husband had given her leave to come home when she’d asked, it might all have turned out differently. Annarose would not have been endangered. ‘I tried, you know. The
comte
would not hear of it. He feared I would not return and he denied me the permission.’

Channing’s gaze had not moved from her. ‘How did he deny that permission?’

‘You don’t want to know.’ She moved away from him, trying to put a literal distance between herself and the conversation, but he reached out and took her arm. She’d not meant to share even that much, but it had tumbled out.

Channing’s grip was firm. He was not going to let her walk away from him. ‘Was that why he branded you or was that because of me?’

He’d kept his voice low, but Alina found herself looking around anyway. They were alone and yet she wanted to scold him, to tell him to hush for voicing such words out loud. They were horrible words that should not be uttered. Anger radiated through his touch, tightening his grip on her arm. ‘Tell me, was it because of me?’

She held his gaze, the hard stare meant to scold him for invading her privacy. ‘It was neither.’ She wanted him to leave it alone. It was none of his business and the current nature of their relationship did not entitle him to make it so, but Channing disagreed.

Channing had set his jaw in a firm line, his arms crossed as he blocked the path. ‘Tell me, Alina. What did he do?’

What had he said last night? Everyone needs a champion? She’d never told anyone. Now the
comte
was dead and she was here. That part of her life was over. ‘Knowing can change nothing, not for the better any way.’

‘Try me, let me decide.’ Channing stood firm.

He would be repulsed when he heard. Perhaps that was what she needed in order to drive a wedge between them, one last reminder of why it could only be business between them. Alina drew a deep breath and spat out short, declarative sentences devoid of emotion and detail. ‘He locked me in my room. He took away my clothes. For two weeks, he sent trays twice a day with the sparsest of meals until I had to choose between my own stubbornness and my health. I would be of no use to anyone sick, so I relented and stayed in France.’

Alina braced herself. He would pity her now, the one thing she hated above all else. It was why she’d not told anyone of the many things that had occurred. She didn’t want pity, didn’t want people looking at her and seeing the poor, misused wife. But Channing’s face was impassive, unreadable, except his eyes. They burned.

‘After that, I knew if I wanted to be free of him, I’d have to have something to hold against him, something to bargain with. It wouldn’t be enough simply to defy him.’ And she’d begun to plot, alone or almost so. There’d been no one in the household she could trust except Celeste. ‘It didn’t take long to discover how deep and how dark
le comte
’s vices went and then one night those vices worked in my favour.’

Channing was silent, his gaze thunderous in the sunny afternoon. ‘I wish you’d come to me from the start.’ It was one of those carefully layered comments gentlemen of good breeding made when they did not want to speak directly. He did not mean just the start of the Seymour gambit.

‘How could I?’ Alina replied softly, knowing he heard the layers in her response as well—
how could I have left the legal and religious promises of my marriage vows, made myself an object of bigamy, shamed my family, caused them certain financial ruin?

Channing sighed, his hand curling over hers, conveying warmth and strength. ‘I can wish for it, all the same.’

Chapter Thirteen

R
oland Seymour could not have wished for better luck. Expenses were high with the Season starting and the Comtesse de Charentes’s deed would come in useful. He’d left for London immediately and, a day later, sat ensconced with his syndicate in their offices on Fleet Street. ‘I want to send someone out to the property right away so we can determine what improvements need to be made. Then we can show the bank our list of intentions in order to get a lien approved.’

Seymour winked at the young man who served as the syndicate’s assayer. ‘Look hard, we want a nice long list, Charlie.’

Charlie grinned—he knew the game. ‘Yes, sir. I’ll set out this afternoon if you like.’

‘You may set out now,’ Roland offered expansively. There was a practicality to the request that suited him. Charlie might know the game, but only on the surface. The fewer people who knew about the darker side of his business, the better. There were things he and the syndicate needed to discuss in a more private setting.

With Charlie gone, Roland leaned forward and fixed Mr Eagleton with a strong stare. Eagleton specialised in knowing all sorts of unsavoury details about everyone, a collateral that was often more useful than money. ‘Well?’

Eagleton was a skinny weasel of a man with a sallow complexion. He usually looked avaricious. Today he looked contemplative and that worried Seymour. In fact, the whole atmosphere in the room had bothered Seymour from the start. He’d expected today to carry a celebratory air to it—he’d brought them a French countess, after all. But the tenor of the meeting had been quite serious.

‘She’s rich enough, I’ll give you that much, Seymour,’ he admitted slowly. ‘However, need I remind you that this is not usually how we go about it? Typically, we pick the “client”, not the other way around.’

Seymour fought back a grin. Client was a polite way of saying ‘mark’, but mark was far too much of a backstreet, St Giles sort of word and the syndicate wanted to paint themselves with a finer brush. ‘I did pick her,’ he answered quickly, his agitation building. They were questioning him? He’d been the making of them and now they doubted his judgement?

Eagleton looked about at the group as if waiting to take a cue from them and shrugged. ‘Perhaps. We’ve heard your account of the house party.’ He paused here and looked about the group before continuing. ‘We believe from your account it’s not entirely clear who picked whom. She made the first approach, did she not? She flirted with you across the dinner table, she sat with you for cards and she encouraged the walk about the room.’ Eagleton ran through the key events leading up to the introduction of her business.

‘She’s a widow and she might as well be French for all the time she’s spent over there. She’s bound to be more forward than other Englishwomen,’ Seymour defended his choice.

Eagleton steepled his hands. ‘We are worried you may have been manipulated, that’s all. We think we should proceed with caution until we know more about her. Even if she’s just another widow, you picked her quite hastily without a background check.’

Hugo Sefton, the group’s legal mind, leaned forward and joined the conversation. ‘I concur with Eagleton, Seymour. She’s not our normal sort. She’s richer than most and that means she runs with a higher set of people. She may have connections that would protect her or fight for her should she be wronged.’ He gave a harsh laugh. ‘In other words, she might not be helpless enough.’ Then he sobered. ‘It would be a mistake to assume she’s just a French
comtesse
. She was English before she married, but who was she? Who does she know? We haven’t been caught because we’ve been careful.’

Seymour thought of his concerns over Mr Deveril and the summerhouse. He was glad he’d withheld that piece of information from his recounting. The group, in their overly protective mood, would have feasted on that titbit. He was banking on the
comtesse
’s assurances that Deveril was a house-party fling and nothing more. If he turned out to be more significant, that might be a problem. Then again, the summerhouse might be a delicious piece of blackmail to use against her when the time came.

‘Surely the
comtesse
is not dangerous to us,’ Seymour scoffed at Sefton’s notion of caution. He decided to go on the offensive. ‘Frankly, I’m disappointed. I would have thought by now, Eagleton, you would have ferreted out any juicy gossip about her, something to serve as leverage.’

‘It’s only been a day, Seymour. Even I can’t spin straw into gold in that length of time,’ Eagleton answered, affronted. ‘But I will—no one is free of scandal.’

‘I certainly hope so, it’s what you’re paid to do,’ Seymour replied. That was more like it. Eagleton was getting a big head on him.

* * *

No plan was free of strings, not even hers, but Alina didn’t need to be reminded of that as she paced the inner courtyard at Lincoln’s Inn, waiting for Channing. They’d been back in London for three days and he’d finally convinced her to take a meeting with a barrister friend of his. She’d agreed at last. In part because she wanted Channing to drop the matter, but also because she was worried. If Channing was being so persistent, it was either because he felt obliged to be overprotective after her disclosures in the garden or because there was something she’d overlooked in her planning.

Alina looked up at the brick-and-stone structure rising in front of her, centuries of British legal wisdom housed inside its walls. With any luck there was some wisdom there for her. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake by involving yet another person in her pursuit of Seymour. She’d wanted to keep this a private matter, like her marriage. She’d had little success of that where Channing was concerned. Still, if this friend of Channing’s could convince Channing the plan was sound, that would be a victory of sorts. She knew that was not Channing’s intention in calling the meeting. His purpose was just the opposite. He wanted someone else to tell her how foolhardy her plan was.

Channing strode through the arch and waved. ‘You waited, thank you. I had traffic,’ he apologised, although he was only a few minutes late. She’d arrived early, wanting to get a sense of the place before the meeting.

‘I thought it would be better if we went in together.’ She smiled, but it was a tight smile. She might have consented to come, but she wasn’t happy about it. ‘I still don’t see why we have to involve anyone else.’

Channing favoured her with a smile, more convivial than her own. ‘You can never have too many friends, isn’t that what the French think? Let’s go see what Grey has to say.’

David Grey’s offices were located off the main quadrangle of the building and once inside, Channing made the introductions while she studied this friend of Channing’s. He was a slender man in his late thirties with sharp, kind eyes and an intelligent face that probably invoked confidence from his clients.

David Grey seated them at a long table in his personal library. It was a room designed to impress, another manifestation of that confidence, lined as it was with books. He folded his hands on the table and began immediately, fixing her with all the attention of his sharp eyes. ‘Mr Deveril has discussed your situation with me in brief and I believe I have a good understanding of it, but I’d like to hear from you,
comtesse
.’

It was precisely the right thing to say. He was a smart man, she could see that right away, or perhaps Channing had prepped him on her prickly nature. She would have hated David Grey to presume he knew everything without speaking with her first, no matter what Channing had told him in preface. Alina spoke, Grey took notes. When she ended her account, Grey sat back in his chair, gathering his thoughts before he delivered his verdict. It was not a verdict she was prepared to hear.

‘It seems to me that you have a problem,
comtesse
.’

Her hopes sank. Ideally, she’d wanted him to validate her plan. At the least, she’d wanted him to lay out a legal course of action to follow.

‘What sort of problem is that?’ Alina asked coolly, meeting Grey’s gaze with a challenge. She didn’t dare look at Channing.

‘Seymour isn’t doing anything wrong.’

‘What do you mean, he’s not doing anything illegal?’ Never had she imagined she would hear those words. She’d imagined hearing ‘it’s too dangerous’ or ‘you should leave this to the authorities’, but not this.

Grey was patient, his voice quiet. ‘Answer me this,
comtesse
. May a deed have a co-signer or co-owner?’

‘Yes.’

‘Are the co-signers entitled to equal rights and privileges where the deed is concerned?’

‘Yes.’ Alina’s hands tightened where she’d folded them in her lap. She didn’t like where this was going.

‘As such, does each co-signer have the authority to secure a loan against the property?’

‘Yes.’

Grey nodded. ‘Then tell me, what has Seymour done wrong in the eyes of the law?’

‘The deception is in the details.’ Alina cried. ‘It’s in
how
it’s done.’

Grey raised thinning eyebrows at the exclamation. ‘Does he force the holder of the deed into letting him co-sign?’

‘No, not that I’m aware,’ she had to answer honestly. From what she knew, her father had not been compromised into allowing a co-owner. It had been a private, mutual agreement of collateral.

‘Does Seymour not honour his contractual obligations? For instance, does he not relinquish the property when his ownership has expired?’ Grey had risen and was pacing. She had no trouble envisioning him cross-examining a witness and reducing the poor soul to the sum of his mistakes.

‘No, he honours them in abstention. The property merely reverts back to the original single owner when the deadline arrives.’

‘Does he advance the funds he’s promised for improvements?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted glumly. He was prompt, too. Her father had sent her a letter saying how pleased he was when the money had been transferred to his account within the day. But the money was a red herring only; a small sum when weighed against the enormous amounts he took out against the property.

‘Again, I ask you, what illegal act has Seymour committed?’

‘He leaves the property indebted, mortgaged to the hilt!’ Alina exclaimed. ‘When he knows full well it would be a financial trial for the owner to pay back the funds.’

Grey shook his head sadly. ‘Bad business is not illegal, it’s merely unfortunate. We can’t put the Exchange on trial for losing our money, can we?’ He gave a sad chuckle.

‘This is unacceptable.’ She shot a fiery look at Channing, her anger boiling. ‘You set this up. You knew what he was going to say; perhaps you’ve even asked him to say it. You haven’t liked my plan from the start,’ she accused. This is what she got for letting her guard down in the slightest, for trusting him even infinitesimally.

‘Alina, it’s not like that,’ Channing began to protest, but she was having none of it. She didn’t want to hear any explanation he could offer.

‘I cannot believe there is nothing we can do. He is robbing people,
stealing
from them. The last time I checked those were crimes.’

David Grey thought for a moment. ‘If you could prove there was a trend, something that showed it was more than a coincidence of bad business, perhaps you could get him on intent to defraud.’

It was the best news to come out of the meeting and Alina clung to it even through tea. Channing had taken her to a nice, upscale tea room in a Mayfair hotel, likely as a consolation. ‘You don’t have to pity me,’ Alina said crossly as the tea was served.

‘I’m not. I was hungry.’ Channing smiled over his tea cup. Several women were looking in their direction. It was no doubt exciting for the women; to have a man as handsome, well positioned and single as Channing Deveril was a treat nonpareil.

He nodded to the women who passed their table. The women beamed and Alina grimaced. ‘Do they know what you do for a living?’

Channing shrugged and she felt a satisfying twinge of gratification to have him squirm a bit for a change. They didn’t discuss the agency. It was off limits like her marriage, but since he’d breached that bastion, she felt she had rights to do the same. ‘Maybe, maybe not. It’s hard to know how “secret” the League is these days. Nicholas D’Arcy’s contretemps brought more exposure than I would have wished.’

She gave a light laugh. ‘I heard about that.’ All of London had heard about it. ‘D’Arcy was the stuff of legends.’ She paused. ‘As are you. Do you still enjoy the “work”?’

‘The administrative side of the business is very satisfying.’ Channing answered. ‘You may read into that all you wish.’

An elegantly dressed woman approached the table with a friend. ‘Mr Deveril, I’ve missed you these last weeks.’ She shot an assessing, narrow-eyed look at Alina. ‘I must have you over to the house.’

‘Lady Bixley, it’s good to see you.’ Channing rose and bowed over her hand. ‘Send an invitation around and I’ll see what I can do. Have you met the Comtesse de Charentes?’

Lady Bixley didn’t stay long after that. Alina watched her go, knowing competition when she saw it. ‘Is she part of the “administrative work”?’ Alina enquired once Lady Bixley was out of earshot.

Channing grinned. ‘You weren’t jealous, were you?’

Alina blew into her tea and slanted him a coy look. ‘Hardly.’
Well, maybe just a little
. She hadn’t been prepared for that stab of green envy. In the country, she’d had him all to herself. He had been there solely for her. But here in town, there was no contract anchoring his attentions. There was nothing to bind him to her except his own good will; something she’d assured him she didn’t need or want. They were once more nothing to each other, not even business partners at this point. Yet she’d told him more than she’d ever told another. Her carefully set rules hadn’t protected her.

Channing only laughed at her response to Lady Bixley’s pass by their table. Nothing got under his skin and today it was damned well irritating. ‘Does everything just roll off of you?’

‘No, not everything.’ Channing turned serious, his voice dropping, his eyes forgetting to scan the room and riveting on her alone. ‘For instance, I haven’t forgotten that you didn’t mention to David Grey you’d given a counterfeit deed to Seymour.’