Sweet Enemy (39 page)

Arrive mid Oct with piece for exchange.

Heaviness descended, covering Liliana like a shroud. Price? And it said “piece.” That sounded like more than just information. What
had
her father gotten involved
in? It couldn’t be good, given the secrecy surrounding it and how it turned out—for both men. She glanced up at Geoffrey.

He, too, had finished his letter and was contemplating a message of his own. That there was one was clear, given the grimace lining his mouth and the tired, sad downturn of his eyes.

Liliana’s heart ached for them both.

“What does yours say?” she asked quietly.

His eyes snapped to hers and Liliana tried not to recoil from the pain in them. She suspected he saw similar hurt in her own, as his mouth softened.

“As best I can make out, it says, ‘Authentic corselet, belonged to Cleopatra, emeralds in gold. Exchange for asylum and funds for life. Advise offer.’ ”

Liliana read her message aloud as well, which seemed to follow his. She scrunched her face, her mind reeling. Whatever she’d been expecting, it certainly wasn’t this. “Treasure?”

“Egyptian treasure,” Geoffrey clarified. “It fits my father, at least.”

“But not mine,” Liliana said. “He never showed any interest in such things.” She looked back at her message, staring at the initial
T
.
T
would be neither Edmund Wentworth nor Charles Claremont. So who could it be? These letters were the ones her father had written, the ones she’d found amongst Edmund Wentworth’s things. So that meant
T
was known to her own father, as it seemed he was the one brokering whatever exchange was meant to happen. But her father associated only with other scientists.

Liliana gasped. “When Napoleon invaded Egypt, he took with him one hundred and fifty French scientists. They were called the savants. Napoleon ordered them to catalogue and classify every aspect of the country.”

Geoffrey nodded. “I remember,” he said. With his mind distracted by the mystery, it was as if he forgot his anger with her, and his tone was one of easy intimacy. It caressed Liliana’s battered heart like a lover. “When
things got hairy, the coward abandoned them there. They were stranded in Egypt until British troops ‘rescued’ them in 1801. Of course, we relieved them of all of their findings and treasures, including the Rosetta stone, and sent them home empty-handed.”

“Exactly,” Liliana said, excitement and hope finally bubbling through her gloom. “After my mother died, my father stayed in England with me, but before that he traveled extensively throughout the continent, studying and lecturing. He could have easily met and befriended one of those scientists who would later become a savant and…Oh!” she exclaimed, a memory surfacing. “Triste. My father shared rooms with a French scientist named Triste at university. He used to talk of his old friend, when I was little. The
T
must stand for him.” Without thinking, she grasped Geoffrey’s hand and a bolt of current shot through her, raising gooseflesh.

Geoffrey stiffened at her touch, his face once again going blank. He pulled his hand away and stood, the wooden chair scraping against the stone floor.

Liliana’s throat tightened, tears once again stinging her eyes. Her hand still burned where she’d touched him, but Geoffrey had gone cold. He paced beside the desk, one hand gripping the vellum he still held and the one she’d touched balled into a fist.

“So what if Triste was a savant,” he said, his voice equally cool, “and was able to retain this…corselet? He’d have returned to France in an upheaval, with Napoleon about to declare himself emperor and gathering all wealth to himself.”

Liliana stood as well, unable to keep her seat. She tried to make her voice sound as impersonal as his so he wouldn’t see how his rebuff stung. “Yes, and Triste would no doubt be bitter over being abandoned in Egypt for those long years and might think the treasure should be his alone—”

“So he gets in touch with his old friend.” Geoffrey stopped before her.

“My father.” Liliana nodded.

“And asks him to find someone in England who would be willing to purchase the piece so he can start a new life here,” Geoffrey finished. He raked his fingers through his black hair and blew out a breath. “It’s thin.”

“It’s reasonable, given what we know,” Liliana countered. She pulled one of the bundles of letters to her. “Now we need to decode the rest and see if we’re right.”

Geoffrey narrowed his eyes and Liliana held her breath. She resumed her seat, determined to remain until the mystery was solved. She wouldn’t leave, even if he ordered her to. Even if he tried to physically toss her out on her bottom. But she prayed he wouldn’t.

He dropped into the chair next to her. “Fine.” He snatched the letters she held but thrust another stack forward. “However,
I
will decode the ones from your father, and you, mine. That way,
neither
of us is able to hide anything from the other.”

Liliana swallowed, knowing by
neither
he meant her. She accepted it, knowing he didn’t trust her. Might never trust her again. She was only grateful he hadn’t fought her staying, because she’d known very well when she’d given him all of her evidence that he could have her tossed off of the estate. It had been a risk she’d been willing to take, showing her trust in him. Whether he would ever see it that way was yet to be determined. She nodded her head and set to work.

Long minutes passed, each of them scribbling furiously. An odd peace stole over Liliana. Their savant theory grew more and more feasible with every message she decoded, and while she still was unsure what had gone so terribly wrong that it had ended with her father’s death and possibly Geoffrey’s father’s, too, just knowing she’d been right to pursue her instinct acted as a balm on her ragged, conflicted feelings.

There was no clue as to how Charles Claremont and
Edmund Wentworth met, as by the time they started using coded letters to communicate, it was clear their scheme was already afoot. As Liliana read on, bits and pieces of the story unfolded. A price agreed to, a plan for
T
to bring the piece to England himself. A date set. Then, a snag.
T
being watched, unable to escape France. Scrambling for another plan. Agreement to pay a bribe to one of Napoleon’s government officials for safe passage of the piece to a university in Belgium, where it would be sent on to her father, hidden amongst scientific papers, with
T
to follow at a later date.

And then…

Liliana’s breath caught as she stared at the next decoded message.

HVARRNGDFORSONTODLVRPKGASHEPASSESBRDR

Have arranged for son to deliver package as he passes border.

She put the letter down, her hand shaking. When she glanced over at Geoffrey, he watched her intently, likely drawn by her gasp. Yet his usual robust coloring had washed pale, and she knew he must be reading similar messages from her father’s side of the communication.

“Did you know you were paying a bribe?” she whispered.

Black lashes dropped, even as Geoffrey shook his head in a slow denial. He looked as if he were going to be sick. “Father asked me deliver a vase, told me it was a priceless antique he wished a friend of his in France to have, but because of the war, he couldn’t send it through normal channels. The bribe money must have been inside, but I never knew it.”

Liliana searched Geoffrey’s face. Lines of sorrowful anger marked his features. She believed him. At the same time, she longed to reach out to him, to pull him
into her arms and give him comfort. In only a few hours, everything he thought he knew had been turned on its head. He must be reeling.

When he raised his eyes to her, Liliana’s breath caught at the anguish in them. “Do you know what this means?” he rasped.

Liliana shook her head, yet the hairs on the back of her neck tingled to life.

“It means I committed treason.”

Chapter Twenty-five

“T

hat’s ridiculous. Of course you didn’t commit treason,” Liliana insisted, a deep V forming between her chestnut brows. She sounded almost offended for him, and yet the expression on her face spoke of concern, of compassion. She looked rather as if she wished to reach for him, and Geoffrey felt an almost undeniable pull to let her, to lean on her.

He placed his hands on the edge of the desk and shoved, pushing himself away and gaining his feet. These last hours had thrown him more than he wanted to handle, and as far as his feelings for Liliana were concerned…well, they vacillated like the pendulum of human nature, from good to evil, love to hate…hope to regret. He couldn’t trust anything he was feeling at the moment.

What he could do was focus on how to handle the most recent blow.

“Intentionally, no. But do you think that will matter to my political opponents? Or to the men I’ve been working all year to convince to invest in employment opportunities?” His face tightened as he clenched his jaw. The weight of every ex-soldier he’d seen starving, suffering, slowly dying before his eyes seemed to bear down on him. He gritted his teeth against the crushing burden.
“Christ, all it would take is a whiff of scandal and everything I’ve worked for will be for naught.”

He turned his glare upon Liliana and she flinched. He closed his eyes, marshaling his emotion. This wasn’t her fault. Hell, she’d been a child when all of this had happened. He’d been barely a man himself. Yes, she’d brought it to his door, had ripped his heart out by the way she’d chosen to go about her investigation, but really, hadn’t she done him a favor? At least now he knew what the blackmailer must have against his family. However,
that
was none of her business. As far as she was concerned, they were the only two people who knew of this sordid affair.

When he looked upon her once more, Liliana hadn’t moved. She looked so achingly beautiful as she sat there with her face open and imploring. His heart twisted. No, it wasn’t her fault, but damn, how he wished he’d never laid eyes upon her. Had never kissed her satiny skin, never ran his fingers through her silken tresses, never breathed in her crisp, clean scent.

But he had—and much more. That alone obligated him to do what was right by her. The fact that he had inadvertently been involved in the death of her father only compounded his duty. By marrying her, he’d make up for her loss in some way.

Liliana stood, her moves graceful and slow, never breaking eye contact. “Then no one ever has to know.”

He scoffed. If only it were that simple, but someone else already knew. Worse,
he
knew. Knew how she’d been wronged. Knew how she’d used him. Knew how his father had used him, had duped him, had potentially made him party to murder.

“I know you don’t believe me, Geoffrey, and I don’t blame you, but I would never do anything to hurt you.” Liliana winced and looked away. Then she straightened her shoulders and took a step toward him. She reached out to her left and snatched one of the decoded letters from the desk and held it out before her. “I plan to stay
until we discover the truth. I need to know what went wrong, what really happened to my father, but then”—she crumpled the letter in her hand—“I’ll disappear. You’ll never hear from me again, if that’s what you want, and I’ll never tell a soul. You can trust me on that. I lo—”

She clamped her mouth shut and cleared her throat.

Geoffrey narrowed his eyes. She’d almost claimed to love him again. At least she’d stopped herself from uttering the lie. But then, she didn’t need to pretend to love him anymore, did she? Still, the truth and magnitude of her deceit knifed through him anew.

Liliana began again. “I…” Her eyes suddenly widened, her face taking on a look of horror. “Oh no, Geoffrey. Someone else
does
know. A man—he tore apart my father’s library. Everyone thought it a robbery at the time, but he could have been after the treasure.”

“When was this?”

“A few weeks ago.”

Damn. Another person? Or was this the blackmailer, searching either for the treasure or for more evidence against him? Was there even a chance to keep all of this quiet?

“We can’t worry about that until we’ve solved the rest of the mystery.” Geoffrey reached for her closed fist, which still held the crumpled note. He gently pried her fingers open and took the letter, detesting that the mere touch sent a sweet ache through him. He let her go and smoothed the vellum out. “How many more letters have you to decode?”

Her lip trembled and dropped, but she gamely said, “Three.”

He had only one left. He nodded to her chair and sat himself. “Then, let’s finish this.”

The last message from Claremont indicated that the piece had arrived from the university in Belgium, and he inquired about making the exchange. Geoffrey sat back in his seat and steepled his hands, touching his index fingers to his lips. It should have been simple, so what had
gone wrong? As angry as he was with his father for lying to him—for duping him into committing an act of treason, for God’s sake—he didn’t see the man as greedy, willing or even able to kill for money—

“Here,” Liliana’s voice broke through his thoughts. “Your father has set up a meeting with mine, for December twenty-third. Father was to bring the treasure and exchange it for the money, which he would then hold for Triste.” She stood and paced beside his chair. Apples and lemons wafted to him as she passed, and despite everything, desire poured into his veins. “Yet the meet was moved up two days, and my father was killed. Why?”