Page 20 of A Proposition for the Comte
She gave no heading to the missive, but carried straight on into the body of her message. A direct and ordered reply leaving the receiver with no doubt of her intentions. It was how she managed things these days, it was how she survived.
When she’d finished, she tucked the ring into a twist of paper and laid both items on her side table.
Would this set some dreadful chain of events into motion or had she just stopped the cogs of an imminent disaster from winding up further?
‘Unlike you, Harland,’ she whispered into the dark, ‘I take responsibility for my actions and am prepared to bear the consequences.’
The letter came before the hour of nine, an unusual happenstance in the ordered world of theton. A servant of the Addingtons had delivered the note personally and when Aurelian opened the missive he could well see why.
The ancient ring of the Lorraine-Lillebonne family seat was twisted up in the protection of paper and with it came a message.
Either you have no idea of the value of this ring, my lord, or the promise of my silence must be of inordinate worth to you. Whichever it is, my honour is not for sale.
She hadn’t signed it, but when he brought the parchment to his nose Lian could smell her. Violets. He smiled. Well, the game was started and the players had already surprised him. He liked that they had. The feeling of excitement swelled, a living, breathing flame that wormed through him in the way it had done a thousand times before.
Life was not cheap, but neither was it certain. Lady Addington had thrown her dice into the corner of honesty, but that did not mean she was trustworthy. Cunning had its own edicts and sometimes surprise was as effective a weapon as force.
She knew the ancient gold marks of Paris. That in itself was revealing. He wondered if she understood the responsibility that accompanied such knowledge, the appreciation of purity, the fight against counterfeit.
His thoughts wandered to the ornament that by pure good chance had come into the Ministry of War’s hands, the one he had told Shay of with its accompanying warning.
When the metal had been examined by theministère, those checking its properties had been shocked by the measure of greed inherent in it. The bulk of the ornament was silver, a small slither of gold on the outside, cased with lead at the base to compensate for the weight. A further note attached with a dab of glue outlined what was known of the French connection and their cause, but said nothing of the English receivers.
Whoever had sent it had held an expertise in the properties of the precious metals and when he’d gone to the boarding house in Brompton Place the man who had shot him had whispered six words before he had pulled the trigger.
She sent me to kill you.
Violet? He hoped not, but the small and important clues were beginning to mount.
Sometimes intelligence was simply a matter of waiting for the right place and for the right circumstance. This time, however, he had an inkling that waiting would only be more dangerous. To him?
He shook his head and tried not to breathe in the quiet scent of violets. He wasn’t worried about himself—after all, he had been in this game for years. No, it was Lady Addington who was in trouble, he was sure of it, whether it was of her own making or someone else’s. Lifting the ring from its bed of paper, he put it back on the third finger of his right hand. He had not missed it, which was surprising, and more surprising still was the fact that he had wanted her to have it, to wear it, a part of him with her, the fiery-headed widow of a man who was had died in an unfortunate accident.
Violet Addington held secrets in her eyes, but he liked talking to her. He liked watching her. He liked the smattering of freckles across her nose and the way she used her hands when she spoke. She made him laugh and her light settled his isolation.
He’d seen her at the Creightons’ ball before she had noticed him. She was gracious and charming, but there was something held back. She’d been rattled when she had known he was there and no doubt the woman she had been talking to had pointed out all the ways he was dangerous.
They did that here far more so than in Paris. He could feel the tension in the mamas when he walked by them, protecting their chicks from perceived harm while balancing the attractions of his wealth and title.
Violet Addington observed him in a different way. There was a decided sensual slide underneath the mask of cordiality.
She was no untried girl, no ingénue who would demand careful handling and slow measured steps. She was no longer young and that attracted him, too. He wanted her in his bed underneath him, her tresses of fire falling across white sheets and staining their tryst with passion.
He wanted her as he had never wanted a woman before and that was saying something, for he’d seldom been short of female companionship.
Reaching down, he adjusted the fit of his breeches as they tightened around an arousal that was growing with each passing thought.
God.She might be the poisoned chalice he had been sent to expose. His Frenchministèrewanted the matter settled, but someone else here did, too, and the cache of gold that had been hidden away had not materialised at all.
A wind outside battered the thinness of glass and brought the spiky branches of a chestnut close against the southern wall of the town house. It was freezing and he was sick of the aching cold of the climate. His head still hurt where the miscreant had got in that one lucky strike and an ache in the arm that he had broken two years ago left him irritable and restless. The dull throb in his side underscored every other pain.
It was long past time to retire from the business of intelligence. He deserved it, damn it, deserved quiet after chaos and mayhem.
But he needed first to see that Lady Addington stayed safe.
