My Wicked Marquess (9 page)

“You don't owe anything to any man!” the elfin lady thundered in righteous indignation.

Daphne bit her lip as her blush deepened.

“Oh…wait one moment! I see what is going on here!” Carissa propped a hand on her hip and looked at Daphne matter-of-factly. “You
like
him.”

Daphne winced at the accusation. She pursed her lips, refusing to admit it aloud.

“Daphne! Oh, leave it to the perfect lady to take an interest in a bad, wicked scoundrel!”

“It's not like I'm going to marry the man!” she retorted in a whisper. “What harm can there be in one dance?”

“Famous last words,” Carissa said archly. “Come, you little henwit, I will save you from yourself!”

Taking Daphne's wrist with sudden laughter, Carissa dragged her back to the ballroom and cheerfully shoved her off to dance with someone safe and boring.

But all throughout the dance, Daphne kept glancing at the door, hoping against her better sense that Lord Hellfire might return.

Fortunately for her reputation, he did not.

P
ish-posh?
Inside his lightless carriage, Max shook his head, the lingering trace of a smile on his lips. It was not easy to leave her.
Delightful creature
. She was even more alluring up close. The light scent of her floral perfume still clung to him as his coach traveled through the midnight streets of London.

The earlier storm had tapered off into a thick cloak of mist; the moon shimmered in the watery sky like a silver coin at the bottom of a garden fountain.

Though his first encounter with the enchanting Miss Starling had left him hungry for more, Virgil had summoned Max to the club with the news that Warrington and Falconridge had just arrived in Town.

It was turning into a very good night.

The Inferno Club lay only half a mile from the brilliance of the Edgecombe ball, but in the darkness, it seemed a world away.

As his carriage rolled into the shadow of Dante House, a place of mystery, he glanced out the window at the sinister-looking building, dubbed by locals “the Town residence of Satan.”

Between its black, twisty spires, a glass-domed observatory bulged atop the roof. At the street level, a high spiked fence and misshapen mounds of overgrown thorns warded
off the uninvited.

Warped shutters and roof shingles creaked when the wind blew off the river like a tribe of moaning ghosts, but the diabolical aspect of Dante House was only a façade. What appeared a haunted mansion to the outside world was in fact a compact, efficient fortress in disguise.

The paradox of it pleased him.

While the evil members of the Promethean Council contrived to present themselves as upstanding pillars of European society, it seemed only fitting, in turn, for good to hide behind a mask of wickedness, the better to wage their shadow war.

Max got out of his carriage and told his coachman to drive home without him. There was no point in making the man wait around till dawn. With his friends back at last, Max had no idea how late he might stay out. This night called for celebration. They had not seen one another in about two years, and there had been moments during the war when he'd wondered if they would ever get through it alive.

He walked through the front gates of Dante House and closed them behind him. Ahead, the entrance portico loomed.

In a wry tribute to the poet for whom the house was named, the front door had a brass knocker in the shape of a medieval scholar's head, his expression inscrutable under his flat-topped cap.

Above the door hung a placard with a word of advice to visitors, echoing the famed inscription over the poet Dante's gateway to Hell:
Abandon hope all ye, etc.

With the worldly, irreverent ennui for which most Inferno Club members were famous, the placard did not even bother finishing the quote. Which was just as well, for few would enter here. Entrée was strictly guarded, by invitation only, possibly on pain of death.

Occasional wild revelries were held here for the sake of keeping up the appearance of dissipation, but these were actually highly choreographed events overseen by Virgil himself.

Security was intensive, all possible measures taken to
assure that none of the painted ladies who were brought in for the fun had any idea what was really going on.

The door swung open ahead with a mournful creak, and there stood Mr. Gray, who had been the butler at Dante House for time immemorial.

The tall, gaunt butler—who looked like something the resurrection men had dug up—had always possessed uncanny timing. Standing aside, he bowed gravely as Max strode in.

“Good evening, Marquess.”

“Evening, Gray.” He stepped into the foyer. “I understand we have cause tonight for celebration.”

“Indubitably, sir.” Gray closed the door behind Max just as a few of the Order's hellhounds came bounding forth to greet him.

Great black-and-tan dogs of German origin, tamed demons, all gleaming fangs, sleek speed, and rangy motion, they danced around Max, tails wagging, their big canine grins at odds with their fierce looks and spiked collars. “Sit!” Max held up his hand to silence their raucous greeting.

The guard dogs immediately dropped to their haunches. One large pup-in-training licked its nose nervously and stared at him with a small whine. “Good boy.” Max gave the dog a pat on the head just as Virgil joined them.

To this day, Max was not sure if that was really his handler's name.

The gruff, giant Highlander had always filled Max with a certain degree of awe, ever since that day so long ago when Virgil had arrived at the Rotherstones' dilapidated country house in his role as Seeker.

The first time Max had met him, himself only a boy, Virgil had been wearing the kilt of his clan. Though he wore ordinary clothes in Town, he still had the air of a mighty laird. In his fifties now, he had a good deal of gray mixed in with the reddish-gold of his wild hair. His impressive orange mustache, which Max had so envied as a lad, was shot through with salt-and-pepper grays. But he was still formidable, a grizzled warrior of a man, with all the scars to prove his lifelong loyalty to the Order.

Rather than mellowing him, the years had only seemed
to harden the Scot. After thirty-five years spent in the Order's struggle against their Promethean enemies—slightly more time than Max had even been alive—Virgil was now the head of the Order in London. Who Virgil's superiors in the government were, that was information Max was not privy to.

As the Link for his team, however, he knew of other cells in great cities throughout the Continent, wherever the Promethean Council had been gaining too much sway.

To be sure, the Promethean Council had had tentacles in every court in Europe. They planned not in years, but in decades, in centuries, driven by their endless lust for power over mankind. From time to time, they rose to threaten humanity, but never before in all their history had the Prometheans come so close to their aims as they had in the past twenty years, by infiltrating the structure of empire Napoleon had built.

Parasites that they were, it was their way was to creep in unobtrusively, gaining the trust of the powerful by degrees, extending their own dark influence ever deeper in the guise of trusted advisors, seasoned generals, longtime friends; patiently, quietly, always deniably, they spread their corruption, taking over slowly from the inside like a cancerous disease.

This time, they might have succeeded. But when Napoleon was finally vanquished at Waterloo about three months ago, the Promethean overlords' fondest dreams of destiny had also come crashing down.

If Napoleon had won that battle, Max mused, the future of the world would have looked very different. But Bonaparte had been defeated, and now the nations of the earth might know another fifty years of rest before the Promethean enemy rose again in some new, ruthless incarnation.

Of course, the Council had succeeded in delivering one last, cruel parting blow before going down in defeat.

A Promethean spy had delivered false news to London about the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo. In the early morning hours, someone had spread the word that Wellington had lost—that Napoleon had crushed the British army in
Belgium, and the long-dreaded nightmare of “the Monster” landing on England's shores was imminent.

The terrible rumors had ignited London, causing a panic that day in the financial markets. The London stock exchange had crashed violently, but the soulless Prometheans had been ready, buying up solid British companies for pennies on the pound.

Every stockholder in London had wanted out of their investments immediately, believing they'd need their money in hand to survive, perhaps to flee, if necessary, to save their families from the soon-to-be-invading Grande Armée. Panic had run wild. In their desperation, people had been willing to take whatever pittance they could get for their stock, but the only ones buying were the shell companies the Promethean overlords had set up in anticipation of this deception.

Great companies had changed hands overnight. Countless reputable merchants had been ruined, the life savings of countless innocent people wiped out, and no one, not even the Order, had seen the thing coming.

Max's own holdings had taken a thrashing, but fortunately, most of his investments were in land. The market panic had been halted when the truth of Wellington's victory at Waterloo had arrived, but by then, much of the damage was already done.

The Prometheans had walked away with a fortune of many millions. No doubt it would help to fund their next attempt to impose their tyranny on the world, which was why the next generation of warriors for the Order of St. Michael were already being trained at the same remote castle in Scotland that Max had been brought to as a boy.

“Good. You got my note,” Virgil said gruffly as he joined Max in the foyer.

“So, where are the bastards?” Max asked with a grin as he shook his old mentor's offered hand, that grasp that had once seemed to him as big as a bear's paw.

Now his own was equal to it, and as for the Scot's towering height at which he had marveled endlessly as a youngster, Max now met him eye to eye.

“Below,” the Seeker answered. “They've both finished giving their reports.”

God, he had missed those lads. “Virgil?” Max stared into his sharp blue eyes with a trace of worry. “Are they all right?” Max immediately saw that he should have expected the testy scowl he got in answer.

“Of course they're all right! I didn't raise you lads for a stroll in the daisies, did I?”

“Er—no, sir.” He dropped his gaze in amusement, the memories of those brutal years of training at the Order's secret castle up in Scotland seared into his mind.

The punishing regimes, the steely discipline, the “games” that involved the youths beating the blazes out of each other so they'd all be toughened up for the hell that lay ahead for every one of them. The endless rounds of lessons in so many diverse disciplines, turning them into gentlemen as well as killers, “worthy companions of kings,” like the ones they'd go on to protect from time to time.

The countless tests of body, mind, and soul had finally forged Virgil's young recruits into a brotherhood bound by loyalty, and sealed by the Order's blood oath.

While other boys their age had been shirking their books, taunting girls, and playing pranks on their headmasters, Virgil and the rest of their trainers had been molding them into cold-blooded assassins as the occasion called—trained liars, survivors, spies.

The Highlander had known, of course, that they would inevitably suffer in body and mind during the course of their missions, so he had prepared them to be able to take it, to keep moving forward relentlessly in their various quests. All that mattered was the Order's ancient guiding mission to keep the Prometheans' evil under their heel, and to guard the security of their secret web with their lives.

“You head on down,” Virgil grumbled. “You lads will want to catch up, and God knows ye've earned your rest. Ring if ye need me, Gray,” he added over his shoulder as he headed back about his own business. “We've all got to stay on our toes until we're certain no one's been followed.”

“Yes, master.” The sepulchral butler bowed once more,
then spoke a sharp order in German to the dogs to resume their duties guarding the premises.

Max suddenly snapped his fingers. “Virgil, before I forget, have you found anything yet on those fake companies that raked in all those profits from the market crash? Whenever you've got a lead for me to follow, I can start looking into it.”

“Not necessary. I put another team on it.”

“Are you sure? I have the time.”

“Beauchamp's team is still across the Channel tying up loose ends on the Continent, and since the only lead I've got concerns a man by the name of Rupert Tavistock, who apparently left England months ago, I put them on the matter. Beauchamp and his men are to track this Tavistock down before they come home.”

“Rupert Tavistock,” Max echoed. The name was not familiar. “Very well. Let me know if you need anything.”

Virgil looked askance at him, well aware of his bride hunt. “You've got more important things to worry about at present, don't you?”

Max smiled.

“Get to breeding, my boy!” Virgil said as he turned and began walking away. “This fight is never really done, you know.”

Max frowned at his ominous words, but called after him. “Virgil, one more thing.” The memories of the old days at the castle had triggered a thought of another friend he had not seen in far too long. “When do you expect Drake's team back from the Continent?”

Virgil went still, then lowered his gaze to the floor, as though he had hoped to escape before Max asked that question.

Max sensed his hesitation. “Virgil?”

“They're not coming back, Max.” The Highlander turned around slowly. “Drake's team was killed in Munich.”

Max stared at him in shock. “When?”

“Six months ago, far as I can reckon.”

Turning away as he tried to absorb it, Max ran his hand slowly through his hair.

“Go and see your friends, lad,” Virgil muttered.

“The few I've got left,” he breathed.

“At least all three of you came back alive.”

“Who killed them—Drake and his team? Do we know?” Max asked tautly.

Virgil shrugged. “They were tracking Septimus Glasse when we lost contact.”

“Septimus Glasse…?” Max echoed. He knew the name. Septimus Glasse was the head of the Council's operations in Germany.

Virgil nodded, then fell silent for a moment. “I'm sorry, Max,” he said at length, retreating into his usual gruff demeanor. “Go on below, now. I'll let you know as soon as I learn anything. The boys are waitin' for you.”

“Yes, sir,” he answered barely audibly, but he still could not believe that Drake had fallen. The man had been one of the best fighters they had.