Page 72 of Lord Appleby's Gorgeous Imposter
“Where did you go?” His blue eyes were the crafty slits of a snake.
“To a little house in Richmond.”
“Why?”
“I was ill.”
“Too ill to work?”
“Yes.”
“Were you pregnant again and delivering a stillborn?”
Viv shuddered. He knew about Charmaine’s scurrilous past, too. “No.”
“Since when do you carry a pistol?” He smiled and waited while she closed her mouth. “Well?”
“Many years. I learned how to shoot when I lived in Norfolk.” That was true, though of Viv, not Charmaine.
But how had he learned she carried a pistol?Oh, of course.The attempted robbery.
“You had me attacked on the road near Rouen. Those men were—”
“Mine,” he said with satisfaction. “They were. Good fellows. Know how to rough a carriage.” He took two steps to stand before her and look into her eyes. “You carried laudanum and perfume in your little étui. Your pistol, too. And you were accompanied by your little dog.”
She froze as his smile became utterly evil.
“Charmaine hates dogs. Only your little bastard sister keeps one. Charmaine has men. Many men. One or two at a time.”
Viv locked her gaze with his and could have wept for all she had just lost in this room. Diane. Her own innocence.
“You are very brave, mademoiselle.” He smiled with sad satisfaction. “To travel all this way to learn the fate of your sister. To come to…what? Kill those who hurt her? To kill me? But that is not who you are, is it, Vivienne?”
She expelled a breath. “I thought I could,” she told him, and marveled that she had the means to admit it.
“Return to England, Vivienne. Tell your sister I still look for her. I will have her under my thumb, and soon.”
She shook her head.
“No? You think not?” He bristled. “Why not?”
Viv opened her mouth, but the look in her eyes must have said more.
“Charmaine will not kill herself before I get to her for my revenge. Your oldest sister is a coward, Vivienne. So that means… Ah, yes. She is ill. Dying. Of the pox, is it? Cheating me of my satisfaction, is she, with her disease? But she failed in her duties to me. And I could not let that stand. She was valuable to me for many years.”
“No!” Viv objected. Horror that Charmaine had spied for him made her blind.
“Oh, yes, she was. My payment for my services are very steep.”
“You cannot mean that Charmaine—”
“I must say it for you? Charmaine is my agent, my tool, my toy.Oui, mademoiselle.”
Viv could not breathe.
Vaillancourt preened. “Charmaine Massey was my spy in London. Mine. It was what I paid her for, and she was good. Until she wasn’t and disappeared last spring.”
He put a hand beneath Viv’s glass and persuaded her to lift it to her mouth. “I promised you would need it. Drink.”
