Virgin Star (27 page)

Kyler watched from the window, finally shouting as the carriage pulled through the gates. "He's here." Over an hour late, the Frenchman was. The duke had sent his card, requesting a visit on Tuesday evening. Seanessy had agreed; all they needed was to smooth his ruffled feathers, strike a deal, and get an invitation to the island. They'd blow the opium surplus sky-high.

It was a fine carriage too; Kyler had never seen one of this make. Gold lined and black enameled, top of the line. There was nothing like it in London. The man must have had the carriage shipped.

Butcher looked up from the cards. "How many with him?"

Kyler counted ten men riding behind the carriage. "An even dozen." Two footmen rode on the side, leaping down to open the door as the carriage stopped in front of the house. The steps were flung down, a carpet laid.

"Good God." He chuckled at the show, and to the men behind him, he said, "The type of man who requires two servants to take his boots off at night. One to pull them off and the other one to powder and paste his tooth comb."

The men laughed. Butcher motioned to a waiting manservant. "Fetch the cap'n. Tell him Molly's hosted his hot flesh enough to last a lifetime."

Impassioned French swearing sounded as the duke or one of his men discovered the barrel of snakes. Kyler chuckled. The doorbell rang. Charles, ever obsequious, went to open it. Booted feet sounded from

the entrance hall as Charles and Tommy took hats and gloves and welcomed the men to Hanover

House.

Seanessy shut the door and quietly stepped into the hall. He spotted her as he started down the stairs. Shadows hid her as she apparently stared into the entrance hall, watching something intently.

Shalyn. The very last person he wanted to see. His foul mood showed in a harsh light in his eyes as he appraised her. This mood owed itself to the last hour or so with Molly, an hour in which he learned just how far his untried desire for this slim one hundred-or-so-pound package had gone. Molly had appeal only when he closed his eyes and conjured someone else: someone with impossibly long legs, a delicate flare of slender hips to that mercilessly tight and narrow waist, the luscious pink tips of her breasts—

Don't think of that now.

He closed his eyes a moment, trying to rid himself of the annoyingly persistent images. He could not have her, and what’s more, he told himself again and again, he did not want her. That was if he thought about it. Which he rarely managed to do. She was far too young. She was a virgin with a previous entanglement that she could not remember, but that was surely characterized by some perversity, an entanglement that left her vulnerable and fragile. Worse—the girl was probably quite mad.

As if he needed even more reason than the little cottage by the sea. A fate that was certainly not for him and one he had always imagined he was invulnerable to.

Until Shalyn. Until all her trouble.

"Shalyn," he said as he descended the stairs, "why is it I always find you sneaking about in shadows like a Covent Garden thief?" Covent Garden was the sorry side of London: rat-infested hovels of all manner of thieves, pickpockets, weary prostitutes, and pimps.

She looked up with a gasp. Guilt sprang in her eyes, though for the life of her she could not understand why. She glanced down the stairs again, swallowing, checking to see if he could see...

Just then Charles led the Duke de la Armanac and his entourage into the gallery; drawing room. Seanessy looked from the girl to the duke. Enlightenment dawned in his shrewd gaze, and the moment it did, he didn't know whether to laugh or box her ears. "Smitten, are we?"

The inexplicable anger in his voice put the same in hers. Her chin tilted up. "Don't be ridiculous. I just wanted to hear. I was hoping ..." Her voice trailed off. She swallowed, then asked point-blank, "May I join you?"

"Don't you be ridiculous. Look what you are wearing. Some men might actually enjoy viewing that slim derriere outlined in breeches, but I'll be damned if they do in my house."

"Why, I went all over London with you wearing this! Your friends all loved it; they thought it eccentric and refreshing, and any number of women are starting to wear trousers—"

She stopped because after a angry, "Huh!" he continued down the stairs two at a time, disappearing into the lower gallery. Shalyn's mouth pressed into a hard line, her brow crossed with mean thoughts. He was so ... so.., something! Terrible! Incorrigible! Mean!

"There you are!" Tilly said moments later when she found Shalyn sitting on the stairs. With a whoosh of wind, she sat down too, easing her considerable weight next to the girl. "Oh, now, did you get to see him, Miss Shalyn? Our French duke?"

"Barely," she said, still cross. "Seanessy caught me

at it. They're in the gallery drawing room now." She didn't know why but: "Oh, I wish I could see him again!"

"I was out back when he came in," Tilly told her. "Charles says his carriage be the finest rig he's ever seen. Velvet lined, gold trimmed, and listen to this, Charles swears the gold is as real as Fat George's crown. And Mary says he's more handsome than an Asherella prince and every bit as majestic. The French be like that," she explained, in the event Shalyn didn't know. "The French nobility is to our English lords and ladies as peacocks are to game hens. I cannot help but think it's a shame, a livin' shame. Why, lords and ladies nowadays hardly dress any better than a tea merchant or a country vicar! The only difference be their fine silver tongues. That's one thing that'll not change until the last breath leaves the last English soul. Didn't used to be like that in the old days, you know. Why, I remember my mother once met—"

"Tilly." Shalyn knew to interrupt the kind woman or be still listening when the sun rose. "Is there some way we could eavesdrop?"

The question drew a blank stare, yet the blank stare changed with the realization of where the men convened. "Oh, aye! There be a peepin' hole the size of a goose egg from the other side. Oh la! I'll never forget that night 'twas made. Oh, but the captain—"

"Will never know, I'll never tell him."

Footsteps sounded behind them. They turned to see a woman descending the stairs. Not just any woman, but the most strikingly beautiful woman Shalyn had ever seen. A fine high melody sprang from her lips as she carefully pulled on pink lace gloves up to gold bangled wrists. She all but beamed with a secret pleasure.

Shalyn's breath caught as she waited for the woman's impossibly tight bodice to give way. English women were so immodest!

Tilly nudged Shalyn's elbow conspiratorially. "A good evenin' to you, Mistress Molly."

Fine eyes came to the two women crouched like children in the darkness on the stairs. "Good heavens, Tilly, what are you doing down there? Lord." A gloved hand came over her nearly naked bosom. "You gave me a start!"

"Shall I show you to the door, mistress?"

"I believe I know the way."

The idea made the beautiful woman laugh with a levity and gayness Shalyn envied. She remembered the afternoon out in the garden with Butcher, and how his storytelling and the little creatures had made her laugh with abandon. Envy turned to longing ...

"Evenin' tides to you, Miss Molly," Tilly said.

The two women watched as the creature seemed to float down the stairs, followed by enough silk and lace to cover a dining table for twelve. Tilly giggled like a girl half her age as Molly disappeared. "Did you see that? Done up like a dog's dinner. La, 'tis just my point—"

Shalyn decided it was best not to think about the wanton creatures who patronized the house so frequently. Why they bothered her so much, she swore she'd never understand. "Tilly, about our plan?"

"Shalyn miss, the master would hit the ceilin' if'in he catches the two of us. Oh, come on," Tilly said as she took Shalyn's hand and stood up. "We'll just have to be as quiet as nestin' mice."

This was not a great difficulty for Shalyn.

Tilly led her down the stairs and through the gallery to the room next to the drawing room where Seanessy entertained the duke and his men. No lamps were lit in the adjacent room, as no one was expected to use it. Masculine voices came from the wall. She heard them almost clearly. Seanessy was asking about a Ho Cong family. Tilly quietly fumbled with a matchstick before striking and setting it to a candle. She put a finger to her lips for silence, unnecessary because no one moved as easily and soundlessly as the girl.

Tilly set the candle down on a drawing table. She went to a carefully placed chair and with a heave, she pushed it a foot across the carpeted space. She motioned for Shalyn. In the candlelit room, Shalyn saw the large plaster hole in the wall. "One of the boys threw a heavy vase when he found out he didn't make the cap'n's officer's rank," Tilly said in a low whisper. "The master let him go that night. I've been meanin' to see it repaired ever since."

The plaster and wallpaper had been ripped about a foot by the vase. Light shone straight through a hole about three fingers wide. Just enough.

Tilly leaned over and peered through.

The plump woman rose, grabbing her heart. "La!" she whispered. "He is a fairytale duke!"

Shalyn peered through the hole. Tilly was right; he was a devastatingly handsome man, made more so by his extreme aristocratic bearing, a thing that affected his every manner and gesture. Exaggerated gestures, she noticed.

"... Captain, you must realize you are shipping six, seven percent of the tea market." The duke stood, pausing as he opened a silk knee-length jacket, and withdrew a long cigar from his breast pocket. Her fascinated eyes watched unseen as he held the cigar in the air, waving as he continued. "The point, monsieur, is that it amounts to a formidable threat to the Chinese, to the Taniko family specifically."

She could see only the wide width of Seanessy's back, the neatly tied long blond hair. He wore a charcoal-black vest over a white cotton shirt, his shoulder harness over that. The two heavy pistoles might be an extension of his arms for all the ease with which he wore them.

Seanessy sat at a great rosewood desk, facing his distinguished guest as Charles held a tray of whiskey and crystal goblets, serving the men in the room. The butler did not ask Seanessy. Seanessy only rarely drank, one of the many things Tilly had told her about her master. The fact that two or three times a year a terrible headache knocked Seanessy out, keeping him bedridden in a dark and quiet room, kept him from drinking. He suspected alcohol made the headaches worse when they came, so he rarely indulged. It was hard to believe anything at all could go wrong with his body, let alone a headache.

Shalyn did not have to see Seanessy's face. She knew without thinking about it that his face would remain expressionless in that way he had, a way that gave no clue what he was thinking, but somehow left no doubt that he was. Kyler stood to the side, his intelligent eyes veiled too as he listened.

The duke seemed to study the cigar a moment as if he just realized he had withdrawn it. "One has only to calculate seven percent of the tea market to discover the reason and purpose of the treachery. The pieces fall into place once one views the picture in its entirety."

The silence was overpowering as Seanessy considered the words. He reached for his glass of water, brought it to his lips, drained it, and refilled the glass. "On the other hand, Your Grace, a circus fool using an ounce of imagination could produce your very own reason for such treachery. I personally can generate three good ones."

The duke's smile did not reach his eyes; his chuckle sounded cold. "I am the first to admit financial interests in the region. Nor will I deny interest in the shipping enterprise you and Monsieur, er, Lord Barrington worked into such a formidable profit—-"_

"Which interests you more," Seanessy interrupted. "The profit or the political threat?"

Again the duke's laughter somehow conveyed the aristocratic contempt he had for the Irish peasant before him. Shalyn's brow rose, and she bit her lip, half expecting Seanessy to tire of this grandiose pretense, stand up with some clever speech, and then shoot the duke dead, ending the whole by calling for a late supper.

"I believe you answered your own question, monsieur. It is no secret that it has been many years since I was last motivated by want of coin."

"Aye." Seanessy leaned back, his hands reaching behind his head, a gesture that seemed casual but that she now associated with his boredom with preceded by a second his impatience. "I am wondering just what your ambitions are."

"Control,” the duke paused, staring at Seanessy with a hooded gaze as if measuring the man and the limits of his honesty. Some incomprehensible signal made one of the duke's men leap forward and strike a kindling match, holding it up for the duke's long cigarillo. A sudden cloud of smoke filled the room. "No less than control of the entire Chinese and Indian trade routes."