Page 9 of A Proposition for the Comte
The remodelling had been finished for a good ten months now and yet he had barely spent a night there. He wanted that to change. He needed a base so that all the parts of him that were compromised did not spin out, never to be regathered again. Lost in artifice and trickery.
He needed light.
That thought had him swearing because the only woman he had ever met with a distinct aura of brightness was Lady Addington and she was probably rueing her decision to pick him up off the freezing streets to take him home.
Such rumination made him feel dizzy and he sat with relief on the leather chair in his dressing room, a drink in hand and trying to regain a balance that could allow his breath to soften.
He could do nothing yet. He needed to get stronger, needed the weakness that held him captive to dissipate and to lessen. Wisdom came with the knowing of when to wait and when to strike and at this moment he understood that his physical means were restricted.
Drawing in, he made himself relax, made himself reach for the remembered warmth of a Parisian summer, the music in the streets of Montmartre, the pastries in the small bakeries off St Germaine. The lazy flow of the Seine was there, too, in his mind’s eye, wending its easy way through the city, as were the ancient mellow buildings of the Marais with its hidden spaces and green trees. The history of life wound about his uncertainty, knitting resolve and purpose together.
His thumb rubbed across the engraving on his ring which evoked the traditions of an ancient and powerful family. Such rituals heartened him and rebuilt the shaken foundations of his hurt.
Lord, how many are my foes.
How many rise up against me...
David’s Prayer of Deliverance had helped him many times and he liked the peace of it. Finishing the entreaty and the last of his drink he leaned back against leather and closed his eyes. To rest, not to sleep. He’d long since given up even the hope of that.
Six nights later Summerley Shayborne, Viscount Luxford, was at his door.
‘This is unexpected.’ Aurelian could barely take in his friend’s presence.
‘Celeste insisted I come up to see you, Lian. She felt there was something wrong.’
‘Has your wife become a clairvoyant now? A woman who might see through space and time?’
‘More like a pregnant and anxious worrier. She has constant inklings of imminent danger about those who are close to her and sends me to check.’
Aurelian smiled. Shay’s wife might have been the reason for the scar on his chin and the missing half-finger but there was a lot of respect between them now. He liked Celeste Shayborne, loved her even, if he were to be honest, like a favoured sister or cousin.
‘I am fine.’
He suddenly remembered uttering those very words when first Violet Addington had leaned over him on the street, the clouds above her filled with snow. A new memory, that. He filed it away to think about later.
‘Hawkins said that you were lucky to escape with your life. Your valet said a bullet that went through your arm and side festered and it was only the ministrations and expertise of your old aunt’s physician that stood between you and death.’
‘Hawkins talks too much.’
‘Your valet is the cousin of mine. He feels he is family and kin looks after its own.’
Family.Shay had always been like that to him, the brother he’d never had and a friend who through thick and thin had stuck beside him.
‘Someone is trying to kill me, Shay.’
‘Hell.’
‘Someone sent a note to meet at the boarding house at Brompton Place. My assailant shot me the moment I arrived, missing anything important inside by a hair’s breadth.’
‘Had you seen him before?’
‘No, but he was well dressed and had a heavy purse in his jacket pocket.’
‘When you first arrived in England two weeks ago, you said that you were here to recover some lost gold. Someone might be more than interested in stopping you from doing that.’
Lian crossed the room and found two glasses and his best bottle of brandy. Proceeding to pour out generous drinks, he motioned Shay to take a seat in a chair by the fire and, when he did so, took the opposite one himself.
‘Interested because ill-gotten gains can make men do a lot of things that they might not otherwise countenance?’
