The Lover Read online

  The footman calmly reached inside his black jacket. He held out an envelope to Michael. “You have a letter, sir.”

  Michael tensed. Goddamn it. He wouldn’t lose her. “Where is she?” he snarled, knowing the answer.

  The man had taken everything.

  “The letter, sir.” John continued to hold out the envelope. “I was told to give it to you.”

  Michael didn’t want to read a fucking letter.

  He wanted Anne.

  He wanted to know who thought sterling coin was worth so many lives.

  “Where’s Raoul?”

  “I was told to tell you that the letter would explain what you need to know, sir.”

  Violence would do no good.

  John was not afraid of death. Of pain.

  He was too much like Gabriel.

  With one exception.

  He had gotten out of the business before it had taken away his soul.

  Michael snatched the envelope out of the footman’s hand.

  The handwriting was masculine. Familiar.

  Michael felt the blood drain out of his head. He ripped open the envelope.

  There was no mistaking the handwriting.

  A high-pitched hum rang inside his ears.

  He remembered Gabriel’s body. How weightless it had been.

  He remembered Gabriel’s face, smashed beyond recognition.

  He realized how cleverly he and Anne had both been manipulated. By lust. By love.

  Michael had walked into the man’s trap as easily as Anne now walked into it.

  He glanced up. John’s face was impassive. “When was this letter delivered?”

  “Three hours ago.”

  While Michael was conveniently away, fighting to save his friend’s life.

  “Who delivered it?”

  John did not have to answer.

  When would the games end?

  “When did Anne leave?”

  “Three hours ago.”

  “Did the messenger accompany her?” he snapped.

  “No, sir. Raoul did. He escorted her to the train station.”

  Anne would arrive in Dover in time for tea.

  The man would offer her refreshment. And she would drink it.

  And there was nothing Michael could do to stop it.

  “Miss Aimes wrote a letter, sir.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I believe it is in the trash bin, sir. Raoul would know best.”

  Raoul.

  Butler. Caretaker. Pawn.

  Every man has his price.

  He wondered what lie the butler would have fabricated to explain Anne’s absence.

  How long would Raoul have attempted to delay him?

  Bending his head, Michael carefully refolded the letter and slipped it back into the envelope. Opening his jacket, he slid it inside the pocket slit in the silk lining, thoughts racing, ideas forming.

  Slowly he raised his head. “And has Raoul returned from his trip to the train station?” he asked evenly, his gaze pinning the footman.

  “He is in the kitchen,” John returned imperturbably. He stepped aside.

  Michael could not afford to hope. But he did.

  For one desperate second he hoped that friendship was stronger than jealousy. Greed. Hate.

  “Did he tell you to inform on my butler, John?”

  John stared straight ahead. “No, sir. I was concerned for the lady.”

  Either he lied … or he told the truth.

  Michael believed him.

  No one commanded complete loyalty. The letter in his hand was proof.

  Downstairs, the scent of roasting meat filled the air; a beef roast instead of human flesh. Mrs. Banting, his cook; Marie, his housekeeper; and Raoul, his butler, sat at a long, rectangular, maple wood table. The cook, a short, plump woman with apple red cheeks who had always reminded Michael of an elderly fairy he had once seen portrayed in a children’s storybook, peeled a potato. Marie, steel-rimmed glasses perched on her nose, wrote in a ledger. A glass and a bottle of gin sat in front of Raoul. Both containers were half-empty.

  Or perhaps Raoul saw them as half-full.

  The cook was the first to see Michael. She jumped up and awkwardly curtsied, potato in one hand and a paring knife in the other. “Sir.”

  Marie glanced up, her expression freezing. The tip of her steel nib audibly snapped. Raoul alone remained undisturbed by Michael’s presence. He reached out and poured more gin into his glass.

  A malicious smile curled Michael’s lips.

  Raoul’s hand visibly shook, belying his unconcern.

  He should be afraid.

  “Mrs. Banting, please get me a box of matches,” he politely ordered.

  “Yes, sir. Of course, sir. Are you all right, sir? I heard about the fire. Is Mr. Gabriel all right, sir?”

  Gin splattered onto the maple wood table. Marie jerked the bottle out of Raoul’s hand and slammed it down.

  Her hand shook, too.

  Which of the two, his butler or his housekeeper, had been most eager to betray him? he wondered.

  “The matches, Mrs. Banting. I am waiting.”

  The cook dropped the knife and potato into a large aluminum bowl filled with peels and potatoes. Wiping her hands on her apron, she hurried across the kitchen and nervously fumbled on a shelf near the black iron cooking stove. She returned with a box of matches, flinching away from his fingers when he took it from her hand.

  “Thank you,” Michael said gently. “You may leave now.”

  Bushy gray eyebrows shot up her wrinkled forehead. “But, sir, dinner—”

  “Is cooking. I know, Mrs. Banting.” Michael refocused on Raoul and Marie. “I won’t take long. I have several bottles of an excellent sherry dated 1872. Be so kind as to fetch one from the cellar. I’m sure you will find it much more palatable than gin.”

  “Now see ’ere,” Mrs. Banting protested, revealing her gutter origins, another one of Gabriel’s homeless people. “I only ’ave a bit of a nip ’ere and now t’ take th’ chill out o’ me bones—”

  Michael did not care if she bathed in gin every night, so long as she performed her duties.

  He spared her a glance. Her normally flushed cheeks were pale, revealing a broken network of veins that were the source of her perpetual rosy glow. “Go, Mrs. Banting.”

  The cook fled. Marie snapped shut her journal and folded her glasses.

  Raoul still did not look up.

  Michael slid open the box, retrieved a match, struck it, and walked over to the table. He dropped the flaming stick into the glass of gin.

  Blue flame swooshed upward.

  Marie gasped and jumped up from the table.

  The smile twisting Michael’s lips widened. “Imagine if I had fed you that match, Raoul.”

  “He didn’t harm her!” Marie shrilled.

  For the butler’s sake, he hoped not.

  “What did you do, Raoul?”

  Raoul looked up. His eyes were glassy from drink. “I escorted Mademoiselle Aimes to the train station. To protect her.”

  Michael lit another match. For the first time in five years he relished the yellow teeth that ate wood, paper, skin.

  “Did you look inside the trunk that you so anxiously apprised me of to see the results of a man being fed fire, I wonder? It’s not a pretty sight.”

  “I do not know what you are talking about. I opened no trunk.”

  Perhaps not. It had been locked.

  How long had the man planned for this moment? How many men had it taken to see it through?

  One, two, three, four?

  The fire steadily burned.

  “Five years ago. How did he know that Lady Wenterton traveled to Brighton?”

  “I telegraphed him.”

  Michael saw Diane’s laughing face. She had blown kisses from the train.

  It had been the last time he had seen her laugh.

  Heat licked Michael’s fingers. “Did you know what he was going to do to he
r?”

  Raoul’s gaze did not waver from Michael’s. “Non.”

  “But you sent Mademoiselle Aimes to him. Knowing that Lady Wenterton killed herself because of what he had done to her.”

  “Oui.”

  “C’est un mensonge!” Marie hissed. “She killed herself because she was a whore. No woman can live with herself if she gives up her children!”

  Michael ignored her. The man would not.

  “Why did you do it, Raoul?”

  Raoul’s gaze slid away from Michael’s. He reached over the blazing glass of gin for the bottle. “L’argent, monsieur. We cannot all make our fortunes by selling our bodies.”

  The glass exploded. Blue fire spit into the air; it simultaneously spread across the maple tabletop in a liquid sheet of blazing heat.

  Raoul jumped up, wooden chair careening across the floor, alarmed now that his own life was at stake. He frantically slapped at his flaming shirtsleeve.

  Michael dropped the match onto the burning table. “Everything has a price, Raoul. Remember that when next you close your eyes to sleep.”

  He turned around and walked away.

  Neither of them would live long enough to enjoy the money.

  The man would see to that.

  Chapter 17

  Anne had heard that the earl’s estate was guarded more securely than Buckingham Palace, yet the gatekeeper had unquestioningly granted her entrance, as had the rail-thin butler.

  She followed the butler up the sweeping mahogany staircase. No runner softened their discordant steps. Her silk drawers, chemise, petticoats, and stockings whispered against her skin, her treat to herself, a reminder of the pleasure she had experienced the night before. Black wool rustled about her feet, her concession to her mother, a reminder of the mourning that she was still in.

  The earl’s home was palatial, a mausoleum of rich wood paneling, priceless paintings, and elegant, antique furniture. Surely a house this large employed a veritable army of servants, she thought uneasily: grooms, gardeners, footmen, parlor maids, housemaids.

  Where were they?

  An elevator waited at the top of the stairs, metal door barred. Brass and crystal wall sconces dotted the hallway; they emitted glaring electric light. It did not alleviate the darkness of the mahogany wall paneling and floor.

  Her footsteps ricocheted down the long, endless corridor. She should have gone straight to the cemetery, they cautioned her, and seen for herself what the vandalism was before visiting the earl.

  Too late, the butler’s footsteps answered: the earl had agreed to see her.

  A rose damask-covered rococo chair rigidly stood at attention near the end of the hallway. The butler threw open the door beside it. “Miss Aimes, my lord,” he announced before stepping aside to allow her entrance.

  Anne clutched her black-beaded reticule.

  The back of a gray-haired man faced the doorway. He sat in a wheelchair in front of a massive mahogany fireplace, wooden frame silhouetted by orange and yellow flames. Above his head on the mantelpiece, blue Sèvres vases flanked a sculpted white marble clock. Windows on either side admitted waning sunlight. A tea cart was parked between the earl and a latticed Chippendale armchair.

  Every instinct warned her not to enter the bedchamber. Her common sense ridiculed her apprehension.

  She was no stranger to the sickroom.

  The Earl of Granville was old and crippled. He could not harm her.

  He was a former friend of her parents. There was no reason he would want to harm her.

  Ignoring the warning tingles that trailed up and down her spine, Anne stepped inside. The bedroom door softly closed behind her.

  “Welcome to my home, Miss Aimes. I hope you do not mind visiting an old man in his private chambers.” The earl did not turn his head. His voice, genial and cultured, clearly carried across the room. “Please come sit beside me.”

  Anne did not want to take a seat. She wanted to escape back into air that was not tainted with the smell of carbolic disinfectant. Immediately she was ashamed of her thoughts.

  The earl had not asked to be an invalid. He, too, had suffered from circumstances outside his control.

  “Thank you, Lord Granville. It was very kind of you to see me.”

  Her shoes clicked a hollow trail across the vast expanse of wooden floor. The tinny echo drove home to her just how isolated the earl’s estate was and just how far removed she was from the life she had lived before venturing to London.

  In the last few days she had thrice accompanied strange men: Michel, Gabriel, and the man who had met her at the station, a new groom hired by her bailiff in her absence.

  A whimsical smile touched her lips.

  And now here she was, visiting a strange man in his bedchamber.

  She rounded the latticed armchair; heat blasted the smile off of her face. Gingerly she perched on the edge of the maroon velvet-upholstered seat.

  The earl’s face was pale with pain and wrinkled with age. She judged him to be in his early seventies. He looked like a man who had had few pleasures in his life—or wanted them. His eyes—faded, rheumy eyes whose color was indistinguishable in the uncertain light—stared at her shrewdly, as if assessing her reaction to his infirmity. “Forgive me for not rising.”

  Anne’s gaze slid away from his. “There is no need to apologize, my lord.”

  Two gilt-edged cups and saucers rested on the tea cart. A silver-covered serving dish sat between matching cream and sugar containers. It was weighted down by a small stack of folded white linen napkins. Lemon wedges were piled in a small silver bowl. Steam rose from the silver teapot, as if the tea were freshly brewed.

  As if the earl had expected her.

  Anne fought down a new wave of uneasiness.

  A faint, rhythmic click resonated over the monotonous tick, tick, tick of the mantel clock.

  Her gaze unerringly settled on the earl’s right hand; it rested on the thin wooden arm of his wheelchair.

  He rolled something between his fingers. Something that gleamed like silver … She glimpsed two metal balls. They were somewhat larger than the marbles she had seen village children play with.

  A log collapsed in the fireplace; sparks and yellow flame flew up the chimney.

  Jerking her gaze back to his, she licked lips that suddenly felt parched. “I want to thank you for your letter, my lord. It was very kind of you to take it upon yourself to notify me of the vandalism to my mother’s grave.”

  “Not at all, Miss Aimes.” Click. Click. Click. “Your parents were particular friends of mine. We spent many an evening playing piquet.”

  He smiled. There was something vaguely familiar about that smile. “Would you care for tea, my dear?”

  “I do not wish to intrude on your hospitality, my lord. Obviously you are expecting a guest. I will take only a few moments of your time.”

  “Nonsense. You are not intruding on my hospitality. My guest will not be here for some time,” he replied cordially. “Please do me the honor of pouring. You have no idea how much I hoped you would visit when I wrote that unfortunate letter. I do not go out now. It is a lonely life, being old and sick. But then you know that, do you not, my dear?”

  Yes, she did know that. Most of the people who had attended her parents’ funeral had not visited them in years.

  “Thank you.” She tugged her black silk gloves off of her fingers and reached for a napkin. “I would enjoy some refreshment.”

  Anne poured, reminded of another teapot, stoneware instead of silver. Of another man, silver-haired rather than gray. Of eyes staring, probing. Watching.

  Hair prickling on the nape of her neck, she carefully placed the heavy silver teapot on the tea tray. Lifting her head, she caught his gaze. “Would you care for sugar, Lord Granville? Cream? Lemon?”

  A cloud of steam hovered between them.

  He smiled blandly. “I will have whatever you have, my dear.”

  Her lips involuntarily tightened. Gabriel had said much
the same thing when the waiter at the pastry shop had taken her order.

  He had followed her, Michel’s silver-eyed, silver-haired friend. Why did she suddenly feel as if the earl, too, had been spying on her?

  Anne added two cubes of sugar to first his cup of tea and then hers. The earl did not touch his. She wished she had followed his example.

  It tasted as if she had added bitters rather than sugar.

  Hastily she set the delicate bone china cup into its saucer. “You said that my mother’s grave had been vandalized in a ‘monstrous manner.’ Exactly what was the nature of the vandalism, Lord Granville?”

  His busy fingers paused. The tick, tick, tick of the marble clock was inordinately loud over the roar of the fire. “Is not the tea to your liking, Miss Aimes? Pardon me, servants do take advantage of a crippled old man. I will ring for fresh—”

  “No, no, it’s fine, really.” Anne lifted her cup and forced down another swallow. “Has the superintendent of police—”

  “You must miss your mother very much, my dear.” His voice cut through hers; he resumed the rhythmical rolling of the two silver balls. “She died two days after your father, I believe. It was very tragic. Most unfortunate.”

  Anne set her cup down. And lied. “Yes, it was.”

  Both her father and her mother had been riddled with uncontrollable pain. Their deaths had been a blessing.

  “Do you enjoy London, Miss Aimes?”

  Click. Click. Click.

  Sweat formed on her forehead. The earl seemed unaffected by the blazing heat only a few feet away from them. “Yes, I find that I quite enjoy it, thank you.”

  “It must have been difficult to tear yourself away from your friends. London is a gay town, not like our staid country life here.”

  An image of the House of Gabriel flashed through her mind. Of disreputable women and wealthy gentlemen.

  Light flickered in the earl’s faded eyes. As if he guessed her thoughts. As if he knew exactly how she had spent her time in London.

  Had gossip spread that quickly?

  “The vandalism, Lord Granville,” she said firmly.

  “Forgive me, an old man’s mind sometimes wanders. Do drink your tea, there’s a good girl. We don’t want it to get cold. Are you quite certain you don’t want me to ring for another pot?”