Captives of the Night E-Book

Loretta Chase

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 537

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006

Beschreibung

Leila Beaumont is a gorgeous and talented portrait painter trapped in a loveless marriage with her profligate husband, Francis. Though long ago, Francis very much played the hero, rescuing and wedding the orphaned 17-year-old Leila - Francis' more recent hedonistic lifestyle of drinking, drugging and womanizing has not only earned him quite a few enemies in London, but lost him the love of his wife. When Francis turns up dead in the Beaumont townhouse, right after a loud and vitriolic argument with his wife, Leila is seen as the primary suspect, innocent though she is. Because of Francis' many enemies and victims, government officials instigate a quiet investigation, many of whom fear fallout from Francis' numerous blackmail and extortion schemes. The man they call on - the sexy blue-eyed Comte d'Esmond - is a man of many talents who has spent the past ten years as one of the government's most trusted covert operatives; a man who also has a dark and treacherous past.Neither Leila, nor Esmond is especially happy to be working together - their relationship is one of intense attraction accompanied by intense resistance. Leila had long ago given up on the idea of love and saw her husband as a means of propriety in London, but now she finds the dangerous Esmond's seductive charm nearly irresistible. But work together they must: Esmond, with a carefully hidden identity that would shock Leila to the core and Leila with her own secrets to keep... It's danger that unites them and it's danger that chains their hearts: Esmond's virility and bold touch enflame Leila's blood...and draw her into the most irresistible intrigue of all...truly passionate love.

Leseprobe

Captives of the Night

Loretta Chase

Copyright

This e-book is licensed to you for your personal enjoyment only.

This e-book may not be sold, shared, or given away.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the writer’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Captives of the Night

Copyright © 1994 by Loretta Chekani

Ebook ISBN: 9781617508509

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

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http://www.nyliterary.com

Acknowledgments

Several themes in the story, both artistic and detective, are based on my undergraduate studio art courses with Professor Donald Krueger, who also provided some of the most useful historical resources for Regency era crime and justice, and numerous details on artistic methods and materials of the period. Lesli Cohen, administrative assistant in the same Clark University academic department, provided additional technical guidance, as well as her usual generous and enthusiastic moral support. Both, however, must be absolved of blame for errors, excesses, and/or inadequacies, factual or fictional.

Prologue

January 1819

Twilight had fallen over Venice, to plunge the marble corridors of the palazzo into gloom. The sound of unfamiliar masculine voices made seventeen-year-old Leila pause at the top of the stairs. There were three men, and though she couldn't make out the words, the rhythms of their low-pitched speech told her they weren't English.

She peered down over the elaborately carved balustrade. As her father emerged from his study, one of the men moved toward him. From her lofty vantage point, Leila could see only the top of the stranger's head, shimmering gold in the light of the open study doorway. His voice was an easy, friendly murmur, as smooth and soft as silk. But Papa's wasn't smooth. The edginess she heard in his tones made her anxious. Hastily she retreated round the corner and hurried back down the corridor to her sitting room.

With shaking hands she took out her sketchbook and forced herself to focus on copying the intricate woodwork of the writing desk. It was the only way to take her mind off whatever was happening on the floor below. She certainly couldn't help her father—if he needed help, and perhaps he didn't. He might simply be vexed by the interruption at teatime. In any case, she knew very well she was supposed to keep out of sight. Papa's work for the government was difficult enough. The last thing he needed was to be worrying about her.

And so, left to her usual companions—her sketchbook and pencil—Leila Bridgeburton awaited the arrival of the tea tray, sadly aware that today, like yesterday and the day before, it would contain only service for one.

***

The man with the shimmering gold hair was Ismal Delvina, twenty-two years old. He had recently arrived in Venice after a most unpleasant voyage from Albania. Since he'd spent most of that journey recovering from poisoning, he was not in particularly good humor. His angelic countenance, however, evinced only the sweetest amiability.

He hadn't noticed the girl above, but his servant, Risto, had heard the swish of skirts and looked up an instant before the girl retreated.

As they followed Jonas Bridgeburton into the study, Risto softly mentioned the discovery to his master. The master's infallible instincts did the rest.

Ismal smiled at his unwilling host. "Shall I send my servant upstairs to ascertain the girl's identity?" he asked, making Bridgeburton start. "Or would you be so kind as to spare him the trouble?"

"I haven't the least idea—"

"I pray you will not tax our patience by pretending there is no girl, or that she's merely a servant," Ismal smoothly interrupted. "When my men become impatient, they forget their manners, which are not so elegant in the first place."

Bridgeburton glanced from the huge Mehmet, leering down from his six-and-a-half-foot height, to the dark-featured countenance of the smaller but more openly hostile Risto. The color draining from his face, the Englishman turned back to their master. "For God's sake," he croaked, "she's only a child. You can't—you won't—"

"In short, she is your child," said Ismal. With a sigh, he dropped into the chair behind Bridgeburton's untidy desk. "A most unwise father. Given your activities, you should have kept the girl as far from you as possible."

"I did—she was—but the money ran out. I had to take her out of school. You don't understand. She doesn't know anything. She thinks—" Bridgeburton's panicked gaze shot round the study, from one pitiless countenance to the next. He glared at Ismal. "Damn you, she thinks I'm a government agent—a hero. She's no good to you. If you let these filthy bastards near her, I'll tell you nothing."

Ismal merely flicked a glance at Risto. As the latter moved to the door, Bridgeburton lunged at him—but Mehmet moved in the same instant and dragged the Englishman back.

Ismal took up a letter from the heap on Bridgeburton's desk. "You will not alarm yourself," he said. "Risto goes to administer laudanum, that is all—merely to ensure against interruptions while we complete our business. You will not make any unpleasantness, I hope. I prefer not to make you childless, or the little girl an orphan—but Risto and Mehmet—" He gave another sigh. "They are barbarians, I regret to say. If you find it difficult to cooperate quickly and fully, I fear it will prove impossible to soothe their turbulent spirits."

Still perusing the letter, Ismal sadly shook his head. "Daughters can be so very troublesome. Yet so valuable, are they not?"

***

Leila remembered waking—or dreaming she was waking—and the prompt onset of sickness. There was movement, and a man's voice. It was reassuring, but it wasn't Papa's. And it couldn't calm her churning stomach. That was why, in the night of the dream or the actual night, the carriage had stopped and she had stumbled out and fallen to her knees. Then, even after the retching stopped, she had not wanted to get up again. She had wanted only to stay there and die.

She didn't remember climbing back into the carriage, but she must have returned to it somehow, because when she woke again, it was to the same bone and belly-wrenching bump and rattle. She began to believe she was truly conscious, because she was thinking: Italy's roads were nothing like the smooth, macadamized roads of England, and the carriage wheels were surely made of stone or iron, and the Italians had not yet invented carriage springs.

Leila smiled weakly, because maybe all this was funny. She heard an answering chuckle, as though she'd told a joke. Then the masculine voice said, "Coming back at last, are we?"

Her cheek was pressed to wool. When she opened her eyes she saw it wasn't a blanket, but a man's cloak. She looked up, and even that slight motion made her so dizzy that she clutched at the cloak to keep from falling. Belatedly she realized she couldn't possibly fall. She sat on the man's lap, securely cradled in his arms.

She was vaguely aware that it wasn't right to be there, but everything in the whole world was wrong. Since she had no idea what else to do, Leila began to cry.

He pushed a large, crisp handkerchief into her shaking hands. "Laudanum can be very sick-making if you're not used to it."

Between sobs, she managed to choke out an apology.

He pressed her closer and patted her back andlet her sob until she was done with it. By that time, it was too late to feel afraid, even if he was a stranger.

"L-laudanum," she stammered when she found her voice again. "B-but I d-didn't t-take any. I n-never—"

"It doesn't last forever, I assure you." He smoothed her damp hair back from her face. "In a very short while, we'll stop at an inn, and you'll wash your face and have some tea, and feel more yourself again."

She didn't want to ask the question. She was afraid of the answer. But she reminded herself that being afraid didn't help or change anything.

"Wh-where is P-Papa?"

His smile faded. "I fear your father got himself into serious trouble."

She wanted to close her eyes and lay her head on his shoulder again and pretend it was a bad dream. But the dizziness was subsiding, and her mind painted chilling recollections: the three foreigners in the hall below...her father's edgy voice...the little maid trembling as she carried in the tea tray...the odd taste of the tea. Then dizziness...and falling.

And she understood, without having to be told. Those men had killed Papa. Why else would she be in this fast-moving carriage with an Englishman she'd never seen before?

But he was holding her hand and urging her to be brave. Leila made herself listen while he explained.

He'd come to deliver a friend's note to Papa and arrived at the same moment a badly beaten servant had staggered out of the palazzo. The servant had hardly finished explaining how foreigners had invaded the house and killed the master when he spotted one of the villains returning.

"We managed to take the brute by surprise," the man went on, "and learned he'd been sent back for you."

"Because I saw them." Leila's heart thudded. They'd come back to kill her.

He squeezed her hand. "It's all right now. We're going away. They'll never find you."

"But the police—someone must—"

"Best not."

The sharpness in his tone made her look up.

"I scarcely knew your father," he said. "But from the looks of things, it's plain he'd got himself involved with some very dangerous people. I strongly doubt the local police would trouble themselves with protecting a young English female." He paused. "I was told you had no other connections hereabouts."

She swallowed. "Or anywhere. There was only…Papa." Her voice broke.

He was dead, killed in the line of duty, exactly as she'd dreaded ever since he'd told her about his secret work for England. She wanted to be brave, and proud of him, for he'd died in a noble cause, but the tears fell anyway. She couldn't help grieving, and she couldn't help feeling utterly, hopelessly alone. She had no one now.

"Don’t worry," the man said. "I'll take care of you." Tilting her chin up, he gazed into her tear-stained face. "How would you like to go to Paris?"

The carriage's interior was gloomy, but there was light enough to make out his face. He was younger than she'd assumed at first, and very handsome, and his gleaming dark eyes made her feel hot and muddled. She hoped she wasn't going to be sick again.

"P-Paris," she echoed. "N-now? W-why?"

"Not exactly now, but in a few weeks—because you'll be safe there."

"Safe. Oh." She eased her chin away from his smooth fingers. "Why? Why are you doing this?"

"Because you're a damsel in distress." His mouth wasn't smiling, but she heard a smile in his voice. "Francis Beaumont would never abandon a damsel in distress. Especially such a pretty one."

"Francis Beaumont," she repeated, wiping her eyes.

"Yes. And I shall never abandon you. Rely upon it."

She had no one and nothing else to rely upon. She could only hope he meant it.

***

Not until they reached Paris did Francis Beaumont reveal the rest of what the servant had told him: The father she idolized was a criminal who trafficked in stolen weaponry and had apparently been killed by displeased customers. Leila screamed that the servant was a liar and wept hysterically in her rescuer's arms.

But weeks later, Andrew Herriard, a solicitor, arrived, and she couldn't deny the facts then. He was, according to the will he showed her, her guardian. He had her father's private papers, as well, along with copies of police documents, which more than confirmed what the servant had told Mr. Beaumont. The Venetian authorities had blamed Leila's disappearance on her father's killers. In the circumstances, Mr. Herriard felt it was safer not to correct that impression. She could find nothing to object to in his wise and gentle counsel, even if she'd had the heart. But she hadn't. She listened and agreed, her head bowed, her face hot with shame, all the while aware she was worse than alone. She was an outcast.

But Mr. Herriard promptly set about giving her a new identity and rebuilding her life, and Mr. Beaumont—though under no similar legal obligation—helped arrange for her studies with a Parisian art master. Though she was the daughter of a traitor, the two men stood by her and looked after her. In return, she gave them all the gratitude of her young heart.

And in time, innocent that she was, she gave Francis Beaumont a great deal more.

Chapter 1

Paris, March 1828

“Idon't want to meet him." Leila jerked her arm from her husband's grasp. "I have a painting to finish, and no time to make idle chitchat with another degenerate aristocrat while you get drunk."

Francis shrugged. "Surely Madame Vraisses' portrait can wait a few minutes. The Comte d'Esmond is perishing to meet you, my precious. He admires your work." He took her hand. "Come, don't be cross. Only ten minutes. Then you can run away and hide in your studio."

She stared coldly at the hand grasping hers. With a short laugh, Francis withdrew it.

Turning away from his dissolute face, she moved to the hall mirror—and frowned at her reflection. She had been planning to work in the studio, which meant that her thick, gold-streaked hair was merely dragged back from her face and tied behind with a ragged ribbon.

"If you want me to make a good impression, I'd better tidy myself," she said. But when she started toward the stairs, Francis blocked her way.

"You're beautiful," he said. "You don't need to tidy anything. I like you mussed."

"Because you're thoroughly undiscriminating."

"No, because it makes you look like what you are. Tempestuous. Passionate." His voice was taunting. His gaze trailed over her ample bosom to linger on her—regrettably—equally lavish hips. "One of these nights—maybe tonight, my love—I'll remind you."

She crushed a surge of revulsion and a fear she told herself was irrational. She hadn't let him touch her in years. The last time he'd tried to wrestle her into an embrace, she'd broken his favorite oriental urn over his head. She would fight him to the death—and he knew it—rather than submit, ever again, to the body he'd shared with countless women, and to the humiliation he called lovemaking.

"You wouldn't live to tell of it." Pushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear, she gave him a cold smile. "Do you know, Francis, how sympathetic French juries are to any reasonably attractive murderess?"

He only grinned. "What a hard creature you've turned out. And such a sweet kitten you were once. But you're hard to everyone, aren't you? If they get in your way, you walk over them. Best that way, I agree. Still, it's a pity. You're such a lovely baggage." He leaned toward her.

The door knocker sounded.

With an oath, Francis drew back. Shoving a loose hairpin back into place, Leila hurried to the parlor, her husband close behind. By the time their visitor was announced, they were perfectly composed, the model of a proper British couple: Leila, her posture straight, upon a chair, with Francis standing dutifully at her side.

Their guest was ushered in.

And Leila forgot everything, including breathing.

The Comte d'Esmond was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. In real life, that is. She'd encountered his like in paintings, but even Botticelli would have wept to behold such a model.

Greetings were exchanged over her head, whose internal mechanisms had temporarily ceased functioning.

"Madame."

Francis's nudge brought her back to the moment. Leila numbly offered her hand. "Monsieur."

The count bowed low over her hand. His lips brushed her knuckles.

His hair was pale, silken gold, a fraction longer than fashion decreed.

He also held her hand rather longer than etiquette decreed—long enough to draw her gaze to his and rivet all her consciousness there.

His eyes were deep sapphire blue, burningly intense. He released her hand, but not her gaze. "This is the greatest of honors, Madame Beaumont. I saw your work in Russia—a portrait of the Princess Lieven's cousin. I tried to purchase it, but the owner knew what he had, and would not sell. 'You must go to Paris,' he told me, 'and get one of your own.' And so I have come."

"From Russia?" Leila resisted the urge to press her hand to her pounding heart. Good grief. He'd come all the way from Russia—this man who probably couldn't cross a street in St. Petersburg without having to fight off a hundred desperate painters. Artists would sell their firstborn for a chance to paint this face. "Not merely for a portrait, surely."

His sensuous mouth eased into a lazy smile. "Ah, well, I had some business in Paris. You must not think it is mere vanity which brings me. Yet it is only human nature to wish for permanence. One seeks out the artist as one might seek out the gods, and all to the same purpose: immortality."

"How true," said Francis. "At this very moment, we are all slowly decaying. One moment, the mirror reflects a well-looking man in his prime. In the next, he's a mottled old toad."

Leila was aware of the faint antagonism in her husband's voice, but it was the count who held her attention. She saw something flash in his fiercely blue eyes, and that brief glitter changed not only his face, but the atmosphere of the room itself. For one queer instant the face of an angel became its opposite, his soft chuckle the Devil's own laughter.

"And in the next moment," Esmond said, releasing Leila's gaze to turn to Francis, "he's a banquet for worms."

He was still smiling, his eyes genuinely amused, the devilish expression utterly vanished. Yet the tension in the room increased another notch.

"Even portraits can't last forever," she said. "Since few materials are permanently stable, there's bound to be decay."

"There are paintings in Egyptian tombs, thousands of years old," he said. "But it hardly matters. We shall not have the opportunity to discover how many centuries your works endure. For us, it is the present that matters, and I hope, Madame, you will find time in this so-fleeting present to accommodate me."

"I'm afraid you'll want some patience," Francis said as he moved to the table bearing a tray of decanters. "Leila is in the process of completing one commission, and she's engaged for two more."

"I am known for my patience," the count answered. "The tsar declared me the most patient man he'd ever met."

There was a clink of crystal striking crystal and a pause before Francis responded. "You travel in exalted circles, monsieur. An intimate of Tsar Nicholas, are you?"

"We spoke on occasion. That is not intimacy." The potent blue gaze settled again upon Leila. "My definition of intimacy is most precise and particular."

The room's temperature seemed to be climbing rapidly. Leila decided it was time to leave, whether her allotted ten minutes had passed or not. As the count accepted a wineglass from Francis, she rose. "I had better get back to work," she said.

"Certainly, my love," said Francis. "I'm sure the count understands."

"I understand, and yet I must regret the loss." This time Esmond's intent blue gaze swept her from head to toe.

Leila had endured far too many such surveys to mistake the meaning. For the first time, however, she felt that meaning in every muscle of her body. Worse, she felt the pull of attraction, dragging at her will.

But she reacted outwardly in the usual way, her countenance becoming more frigidly polite, her posture more arrogantly defiant. "Unfortunately, Madame Vraisses will regret even more the delay of her portrait," she said. "And she is one of the least patient women in the world."

"And you, I suspect, are another." He stepped closer, making her pulse race. He was taller and more powerfully built than she'd thought at first. "You have the eyes of a tigress, Madame. Most unusual—and I do not mean the golden color alone. But you are an artist, and so you see more than others can."

"I do believe my wife sees plainly enough that you're flirting with her," said Francis, moving to her side.

"But of course. What other polite homage may a man pay another man's wife? You are not offended, I hope." The count treated Francis to an expression of limpid innocence.

"No one is in the least offended," Leila said briskly. "We may be English, but we have lived in Paris for nearly nine years. Still, I am a working woman, monsieur—"

"Esmond," he corrected.

"Monsieur,"she said firmly. "And so, I must excuse myself and return to work." She did not offer her hand this time. Instead, she swept him her haughtiest curtsy.

He answered with a graceful bow.

As she headed for the door a tightly smiling Francis hurried to open for her, Esmond's voice came from behind her. "Until next we meet, Madame Beaumont," he said softly.

Something echoed in the back of her mind, making her pause on the threshold. A memory. A voice. But no. If she'd met him before, she would have remembered. Such a man would be impossible to forget. She gave the faintest of nods and continued on.

***

At four o'clock in the morning, the unforgettable blue-eyed gentleman relaxed in a semi-recumbent position upon the richly brocaded sofa of his own parlor. Very much in the same manner, many years before, had he often reclined upon his divan, to plot against his wily cousin, Ali Pasha. In those days, the gentleman was called Ismal Delvina. Nowadays, he was called whatever was most convenient to his purposes.

At present he was the Comte d'Esmond.

His British employers, with the aid of their French associates, had thoroughly documented his bloodline and title. Ismal’s French was flawless, as were most of the other eleven languages he spoke. To speak English with a French accent presented no difficulty. Speech, in any form, was one of his many gifts.

Apart from his native Albanian, Ismal preferred English. It was an unsystematic language, but marvelously flexible. He liked playing with its words. He had very much liked playing with "intimacy." Madame Beaumont had become wonderfully incensed.

Smiling at the recollection of their too-brief encounter, Ismal sampled the thick Turkish coffee his servant, Nick, had prepared.

"Perfect," he told Nick.

"Of course it's perfect. I've had practice enough, haven't I?"

Nonetheless, Nick visibly relaxed. Though he'd served Ismal for six years, the younger man had not lost his determination to please. Twenty-one-year-old Nick was a trifle short on patience, and he was not very respectful, except in public. But then, he was half-English, and in any case, Ismal had had his fill of obsequious menials.

"Practice you've surely had," Ismal said. "Even so, I am impressed. You've endured a long and tedious night following me and my new friend from one Parisian den to the next."

Nick shrugged. "As long as it was worth your while."

"It was. I believe we shall have disposed of Beaumont in a month. Were the matter less urgent, I should allow Nature to take her course, for Monsieur is well on the way to disposing of himself. This night he consumed opium enough to kill three men his size."

Nick's dark eyes glinted. "Does he eat it or smoke it?"

"Both."

"That does make it easier. You've only to add a few grains of strychnine or prussic acid—gad, you could do it with ground up peach pits or apricots or apples or—"

"I could, but it is not necessary. I have an unconquerable aversion to killing unless it is absolutely necessary. Even then, I dislike it excessively. Also, I have a particular aversion to poison. The method is not sportsmanlike."

"He's hardly been sportsmanlike himself, has he? Besides, it would get rid of him without a lot of fuss."

"I want him to suffer."

"Well, that's different, then."

Ismal held out his cup, which Nick dutifully refilled.

"It has taken many months to track down this one man," Ismal said. "Now that his greed puts him in the palm of my hand, I wish to play with him for a while."

It had begun in Russia. Ismal had been pursuing another inquiry when the tsar had thrust a more disturbing problem into his hands. Peace negotiations between Russia and Turkey were threatened because the sultan had obtained some letters that didn't belong to him. The tsar wanted to know how and why those letters had ended up in Constantinople.

Ismal was well aware that throughout the Ottoman Empire, spies routinely intercepted correspondence. Yet these letters had not been anywhere in the sultan's domains, but in Paris, safely locked in a British diplomat's dispatch box. One of the diplomat's aides had shot himself before he could be questioned.

In the following months, traveling between London and Paris, Ismal had heard a number of other stories—of similar thefts, inexplicable bankruptcies, and other abrupt, major losses.

As it turned out, the events were connected. Those involved had one thing in common: all had, at one time or another, been regular visitors to an unprepossessing building in a quiet corner of Paris.

The place was known simply as Vingt-Huit—number twenty-eight. Within its walls one might, for a price, enjoy any of the full range of human vices, from the most mundane to the most highly imaginative. There were some people, Ismal well understood, who would do anything for a price—and others desperate or corrupt enough to pay it.

It was Francis Beaumont they paid.

They didn't know this, of course, and Ismal himself hadn't a solid piece of proof. Nothing he could use in a court of law, that is. But Francis Beaumont could not be brought to a court of law, because none of his victims could be brought to the witness stand. Each and every one, like the young aide, would choose suicide rather than submit their sordid secrets to public scrutiny.

Consequently, it was left to Ismal to deal with Beaumont—quietly, as he'd dealt with so many other matters troubling King George IV, his ministers, and his allies.

Nick's voice broke in on his master's meditations. "How do you mean to play this time?" he asked.

Ismal studied the contents of the delicately painted cup. "The wife is faithful."

"Discreet, you mean. She'd have to be crazy to be faithful to that corrupt swine."

"I think perhaps she is a little crazy." Ismal looked up. "But she possesses a great artistic gift, and genius is not always fully rational. Beaumont has been fortunate in her artistic dedication. Her work occupies nearly all her mind and time. As a result, she scarcely notices the many men seeking her attention."

Nick's eyes widened. "You don't mean to tell me she didn't notice you?"

Ismal's soft chuckle was rueful. "I was obliged to exert myself."

"Well, I'll be hanged. I'd have given anything to see that."

"It was most disconcerting. I might have been a marble statue, or an oil portrait. Form, line, color." Ismal made a sweeping gesture. "I look into her beautiful face and all I discern is lust—the lust of an artist. She makes me an object. It is insupportable. And so I am a bit...indiscreet."

Nick shook his head. "You're never indiscreet—not without a purpose. I'll lay odds your purpose wasn't merely to make her pay proper attention."

"I believe you mean 'improper attention.' The lady is wed, recollect, and the husband was present. And so when I obtained a reaction not altogether artistic, I also obtained a reaction from him. He is vain as well as possessive. Consequently, he was displeased."

"He's got a lot of nerve. The goat's bedded at least half the married women of Paris."

Ismal waved this aside. "What interested me was that he was surprised, even by my very small success with his wife. It seems he is unaccustomed to worrying about her. Now, however, I have planted the seed of doubt, which I shall cultivate. That is but one of the ways I shall make his days and nights unquiet."

Nick grinned. "No harm in mixing some pleasure with business."

Ismal set down his cup and, closing his eyes, leaned back against the plump cushions. "I believe I shall leave the greater part of the business to you. There are persons at the upper levels of Parisian authority in Beaumont's pay. You will arrange a series of incidents which will require him to pay more for protection. The incidents will also frighten away some of the more vulnerable clients. They pay a great deal for secrecy. If they feel unsafe, they will cease patronizing Vingt-Huit. I have some other ideas, which we will discuss tomorrow."

"I see. I'm to do the dirty work while you amuse yourself with the lady artist."

"But of course. I cannot leave Madame to you. You are half English. You have no comprehension of violent-tempered women, and so, no appreciation. You would not have the least idea what to do with her. Even if you did, you haven't the necessary patience. I, however, am the most patient man in the world. Even the tsar admits this." Ismal opened his eyes. "Did I tell you that Beaumont nearly dropped a decanter when I mentioned the tsar? It was then I knew beyond doubt I'd found my man."

"No, you didn't mention it. Not that I'm surprised. If I didn't know you better, I'd think the only one you were interested in was the woman."

"That, I hope, is precisely what Monsieur Beaumont will think," Ismal murmured as he closed his eyes once more.

***

Fiona, the Viscountess Carroll, was intrigued. "Esmond—a bad influence? Are you serious, Leila?" The raven-haired widow turned to study the count, who stood talking with a small group of guests by the recently unveiled portrait of Madame Vraisses. "That's quite impossible to believe."

"I'm sure Lucifer and his followers were beautiful, too," said Leila. "They had all been angels, recall."

"I've always pictured Lucifer as dark—rather more in Francis’s style." Her green eyes gleaming, Fiona turned back to her friend. "He's looking especially dark this evening. I do believe he's aged ten years since the last time I was in Paris."

"He's aged ten years in three weeks," Leila said tightly. "I didn't think it was possible, but since the Comte d'Esmond became his bosom bow, Francis has taken a decided turn for the worse. He hasn't slept at home for nearly a week. He came in—or rather, was carried in—this morning at four o'clock. He was still in bed at seven o'clock this evening, and I was half inclined to attend the party without him."

"I wonder why you didn't."

Because she didn't dare. But this Leila would not confide, even to her one woman friend. Ignoring the question, she went on detachedly, "It took another twenty minutes to rouse him and make him take a bath. I do wonder how his tarts can bear it. The combination of opium, liquor, and perfume was overpowering. And of course he notices nothing."

"I can't think why you don't throw him out," said Fiona. "It's not as though you're financially dependent on him. You haven't any children he could threaten to take away. And he's too lazy for violence."

There were worse consequences than violence, Leila could have told her. "Don't be absurd," she said, taking a glass of champagne from a passing servant. She usually waited until later in the evening to enjoy her single glass of wine, but tonight she was tense. "The last thing I need is to live separately from my husband. The men plague me enough as it is. If Francis were not about, playing the possessive spouse, I should have to fight them off myself. Then I'd never get any work done."

Fiona laughed. She was not, strictly speaking, beautiful, but she seemed so when she laughed, partly because everything about her seemed to gleam: the even white teeth, the sparkling green eyes, the ivory oval face framed by sleek black curls. "Most women would rather a complaisant husband," she said, "especially in Paris. Especially when someone like the Comte d'Esmond appears on the scene. I'm not sure I'd mind his exerting his bad influence on me. But I should want to observe him at close range first."

The mischievous spark in her eyes intensified. "Shall I catch his attention?"

Leila's heart gave a sharp thump. "Certainly not."

But Fiona was already looking toward him again, her fan poised.

"Fiona, you must not—really, I shall leave you here—"

Esmond turned at that instant and must have caught Fiona's eye, for she beckoned with the fan. Without hesitation, he began crossing the room to them.

Leila rarely blushed. Her face felt warmer than it should, however. "You're shockingly forward," she told her friend as she started to move away.

Fiona caught her arm. "I shall seem a great deal more brazen if I'm obliged to introduce myself. Don't run away, Leila. It's not Beelzebub, you know—at least not on the outside." Her voice dropped as the count neared. "Lud, he's stunning. I do believe I shall faint."

Well aware that Fiona was no more likely to swoon than to stand on her head, Leila set her jaw, and with rigid politeness, introduced the Comte d'Esmond to her incorrigible friend.

Not ten minutes later, Leila was waltzing with him. Meanwhile, Fiona—who'd been so determined to study Esmond closely—was dancing with a laughing Francis.

Leila was still trying to figure out precisely who had engineered this arrangement when the count's soft voice came from above her head.

"Jasmine," he said. "And something else. Unexpected. Ah, yes—myrrh. An intriguing combination, Madame. You blend scents in the same distinctive way you mix colors."

Leila used a light hand with perfume, and she'd put it on hours ago. He should have needed to be much closer to identify it, but he held her nearly a foot away. It was a fraction too near for English propriety, though well within Gallic bounds. All the same, he seemed far too close. In their many encounters since their first meeting, he had never touched her except to kiss her knuckles. Now she was tautly aware of the warm hand clasping her waist, the faint friction of glove against silk as he gracefully guided her round the ballroom.

"With scent at least I need only please myself," she said.

"And your husband, of course."

"That would be pointless. Francis has almost no sense of smell."

"In certain circumstances, that may be a gift—when, for instance, one walks the streets of Paris on a hot summer day. But in other circumstances, the loss must be a profound one. He misses so much."

The words were harmless enough. The tone was another matter. The last and only time Esmond had flirted openly with her was the day she'd met him. Leila wasn't certain he'd flirted covertly since then, either. Maybe the tone she heard as seductive wasn't meant to be. But intended or not, she felt the inner hurry his soft voice had triggered time and time again, even during the briefest of encounters. In its wake came the usual flutter of anxiety.

"I'm not sure how profound it is," she said coolly, "but it does affect his appetite. It seems to be getting worse. I believe he's lost a stone in the last month."

"So I have observed."

She looked up, then wished she hadn't. She had looked up into those eyes a score of times by now, yet every time they caught and held her fascinated. It was the rare color, she told herself. The blue was too deep to be human. When—if—she painted those eyes, anyone who hadn't met him would believe she'd exaggerated the color.

He smiled. "You are transparent. Almost I can see you selecting and mixing your oils."

She looked away. "I've told you I'm a working woman."

"Do you think of nothing else?"

"A woman artist must work twice as hard as a man to achieve half his success," she said. "If I weren't single-minded, I wouldn't have stood a chance of painting Madame Vraisses' portrait. At tonight's unveiling, they would have been applauding a male artist instead."

"The world is stupid, I agree. And I, perhaps, am also a little stupid."

She was, too, to look up into those eyes again. She was already short of breath and dizzy—from trying to talk and waltz simultaneously. "You don't think women should be artists?" she asked.

"Alas, I can think only one stupid thing: that I dance with a beautiful woman who cannot distinguish a man from an easel."

Before she could retort, he swept her into a turn—so swiftly that she missed a step and tripped over his foot. Almost in the same heartbeat, an arm like a whipcord lashed round her waist and hauled her up hard against a mainmast of solid, male muscle.

It was over in an instant. The count scarcely missed a beat, but went on easily guiding her through the crowd of dancers quite as though nothing had happened.

Meanwhile, a fine stream of sweat trickled between Leila's breasts, and her heart hammered so loudly that she couldn't hear the music. Not that she needed to hear it or think about what she was doing. Her partner was fully in control, as poised and sure of himself as he'd been at the start.

He was also several inches closer than he'd been before, she belatedly discovered.

Her swimming mind cleared and the haze of swirling colors about her resolved into individuals. She saw that Francis was staring at her, and he wasn't laughing any more. He wasn't even smiling.

Leila became aware of a faint pressure at her waist, urging her a fraction nearer. Now she realized she'd felt it before and must have responded mindlessly—like a well-trained horse answering the smallest tension of the reins, the lightest pressure of knee to flanks.

Heat swam up her neck. She was not a damned mare. She tried to draw back, but the hand clasping her waist didn't respond. "Monsieur," she said.

"Madame?"

"I am no longer in danger of falling."

"I am relieved to hear it. For a moment, I feared we were not well-suited as partners. But that, as you have discovered, is absurd. We are perfectly suited."

"I should be better suited at a greater distance."

"Undoubtedly, for then you should be at liberty to think of your greens and indigos and raw umber. Later, you may reflect upon them to your heart's content."

Her gaze, incredulous, shot up to his.

"Ah, at last I have your undivided attention," he said.

***

That night, Francis did not go out with the Comte d'Esmond, but accompanied Leila home and to her bedroom. He stood on the threshold for a moment, as though making up his mind about something, then entered the room and sat on the edge of the mattress.

"You're not staying in here," she said as she hung her evening cape in the wardrobe. "And if you've come to read me a lecture—"

"I knew he wanted you," he said. "He pretends he doesn't, but I knew—from that very first day. Gad, that innocent face of his. I've seen and dealt with them all, but he—Christ, sometimes I wonder if he's human."

"You're drunk," she said.

"Poison," he said. "Do you understand, my love? He's poison. He's like—" He made a vague gesture. "Like human laudanum. It's so pleasant…so sweet...no cares...nothing but pleasure. If you take the right dosage. But with him, you don't know what the right dosage is—and when it's wrong, it's poison. Remember how sick you were all those years ago, that night when we left Venice? That's how I feel…inside, outside."

Francis hadn't mentioned Venice in years. She eyed him uneasily. He had come home delirious before, but never in this wretched state. Usually, he was in a fantasy world of his own. He'd ramble on incoherently, but the sound was happy. Pleasure, as he'd said. Now he was miserable and maudlin and ill. His cheeks were grey and sunken, his bloodshot eyes swollen. He looked sixty, not forty. He had been so handsome once, she thought, sickened.

She didn't love him. She'd recovered from her girlish infatuation years ago, and it hadn't taken him much longer to kill even the mild affection that remained. Yet she could remember what he'd been once and imagine what he might have become, and so she could grieve for the waste and the weakness that had brought him to this, and pity him. But for the grace of God, she might have sunk with him. Providence, however, had given her talent and the will to pursue it. She'd also been blessed with a wise and patient guardian. If not for Andrew Herriard, she might be pitiable, too, despite talent and will.

Leila moved to him and brushed the damp hair back from his forehead. "Wash your face," she said. "I'll make you some tea."

He took her hand and pressed it to his forehead. He was feverish. "Not Esmond, Leila. For God's sake, anyone but him."

He didn't know what he was saying. She would not let him upset her. "Francis, there isn't anyone," she said patiently, as to a child. "No lovers, not even a flirt. I won't be anyone's whore—not even yours." She took her hand away. "So don't talk rot."

He shook his head. "You don't understand and there's no point in explaining it because you won't believe me. I'm not sure even I believe it—but that doesn't matter. One thing's clear enough: we're getting out of Paris."

She was moving away, intending to fill the washbasin for him. Now she turned back, her heart thudding. "Leave Paris? Because you took more intoxicants tonight than was good for you? Really, Francis—"

"You can stay if you like, but I won't. Think of that, my sweet, if nothing else. I won't be around to keep your admirers out of your hair—which I know is about all I'm good for these days—a bloody bodyguard. But maybe you've decided you don't want one any more. You didn't want one tonight, obviously. Talk of whores," he muttered. "That's precisely what you'd be. One of hundreds. You should see the tarts when they get a glimpse of the beautiful Comte d'Esmond. Like maggots swarming over a ripe cheese. Anything, anyone he wants—as many as he wants—and it never costs him a sou. Even you, precious." He looked up at her. "You'd do his portrait for free, wouldn't you?"

The picture Francis painted was disgusting. It was also, Leila had no doubt, accurate. So, too, was his assessment of her. Francis was not a stupid man, and he knew her very well. She met his gaze. "You can't truly believe I'm in danger."

"I know it. But I don't expect you to see how dangerous he is—or admit it if you did." He rose. "It's your choice. I can't force you to do anything. I'm leaving for London. I want you to come with me." He gave her a bitter smile. "I wish I knew why. Maybe you're my poison, too."

Leila wished she knew why, too, but she'd given up trying to understand her husband years ago. She'd made a mistake in marrying him and found a way to live with it. Her life could have been better, but it also could have been far worse. A great deal worse could have befallen her had Francis not come to her rescue in Venice. At present, thanks to Andrew Herriard, she was financially secure. Despite her gender, she was gaining respect as an artist. She had a friend in Fiona. When she was working, she was happy. In general, she was happier than most of the women she knew, though her husband was a hopeless profligate. And he...well, he was as good to her as he was capable of being.

In any case, she dared not stay in Paris or anywhere else without a husband. And he, she knew, would never let her remain here without him, whatever he claimed.

"If you're truly determined to go," she said carefully, "of course I'll go with you."

His smile softened. "It isn't a whim, you know. I mean it. London. By the end of the week."

She bit back a cry. The end of the week—three commissions abandoned...but she'd get others, she told herself.

There wouldn't be another Comte d'Esmond. There would never be another face like that. Still, it was only that—a subject for painting. She doubted she could ever do it justice, in any case.

She thought perhaps it was safer not to try.

"Do you need longer?" Francis asked.

She shook her head. "I can pack up the studio in two days," she said. "One, if you help."

"Then I'll help," he said. "The sooner we're gone, the better."

Chapter 2

London, 1828

As it turned out, French aristocrats weren't the only ones wanting their countenances immortalized. A week after settling into the modest townhouse in Queen's Square, Leila was at work, and through spring, summer, and autumn, the commissions came thick and fast. The work left her no time for social life, but she doubted she could have had one anyhow. Her London clients and acquaintances moved in more exclusive circles than her Parisian ones. Here, the position of a bourgeois female artist was far more tenuous, and Francis’s increasing profligacy wasn't calculated to strengthen it.

He had plenty of friends. The English upper classes, too, bred debauchees in abundance. But they were increasingly disinclined to invite him to their homes and respectable assembly halls to dine and dance with their womenfolk. Since Society would not invite the husband, it could not, with very rare exceptions, invite the wife.

Leila was too busy, though, to feel lonely, and it was futile to fret about Francis’s worsening behavior. In any case, being shut away from the world made it easier to disassociate herself from his vices and villainies.

Or so she thought until a week before Christmas, when the Earl of Sherburne—one of Francis’s constant companions and husband of her latest portrait subject—entered the studio.

The portrait of Lady Sherburne wasn't yet dry. Leila had finished it only that morning. Nonetheless, he insisted on paying for it then—and in gold. Then it was his, to do with as he wished. And so, Leila could only watch in numb horror while he took a stickpin to his wife's image and, with cold, furious strokes, mutilated it.

Leila's brain wasn't numb, though. She understood he wasn't attacking her work, but his evidently unfaithful wife. Leila had no trouble deducing that Francis had cuckolded him, and she needed no details of the affair to realize that this time Francis had crossed a dangerous line.

She also saw, with devastating clarity, that the wall between her life and her husband's had been breached as well. In alienating Sherburne, Francis had put her in peril...and she was trapped. If she remained with him, his scandals would jeopardize her career; but if she ran away, he could destroy it utterly. He need only reveal the truth about her father, and she'd be ruined.

He'd never threatened her openly. He didn't need to. Leila understood his rules well enough. He wouldn't force her to sleep with him because it was too damned much of a nuisance to fight with her. All the same, she was his exclusive property; she wasn't to sleep with anyone else, and she wasn't to leave.

All she could do was retreat as far as possible.

She said nothing of the incident, hoping Sherburne's pride would keep him silent as well.

She ceased painting portraits, claiming she was overworked and needed a rest.

Francis, lost in his own drink and opiate-clouded world, never noticed.

For Christmas, he gave her a pair of ruby and diamond eardrops, which she dutifully donned for the hour he remained at home, then threw into her jewel box with the previous nine years' accumulation of expensively meaningless trinkets.

She spent New Year's Eve with Fiona at the Kent estate of Philip Woodleigh, one of Fiona's ten siblings.

Upon returning home on New Year's Day, Leila heard Francis angrily shouting for servants who'd been given the day off. When she went up to his room to remind him, she discovered, with no great surprise, that he'd had his own New Year's Eve celebration—mainly in that room, judging by the stench of stale perfume, smoke, and wine that assaulted her when she reached the threshold.

Sickened, she left the house and took a walk, down Great Ormond Street, onto Conduit Street, and on past the Foundling Hospital. Behind its large garden two burial grounds lay side by side, allotted respectively to the parishes of St. George the Martyr and St. George, Bloomsbury. She knew not a soul interred in either. That was why she came. These London residents couldn't disturb her, even with a memory. She'd escaped here many times in recent months.

She had wandered restlessly among the tombstones for an hour or more when David found her. David Ives, Marquess of Avory, was the Duke of Langford's heir. David was four and twenty, handsome, wealthy, intelligent and, to her exasperation, one of Francis’s most devoted followers.

"I hope you don't mind," he said after they'd exchanged polite greetings. "When Francis said you'd gone for a walk, I guessed you'd come here. It was you I wanted to see." His grey gaze shifted away. "To apologize. I'd promised to go to Philip Woodleigh's, I know."

She knew she'd been a fool to believe the worthless promise, to hope he'd start the New Year fresh, among decent people…perhaps meet a suitable young lady, or at least less dissolute male friends.

"I wasn't surprised you failed to appear," she said stiffly. "The entertainment was tame, by your standards."

"I was…unwell," he said. "I spent the evening at home."

She told herself not to waste sympathy on an idle young fool bent on self-destruction, but her heart softened anyhow, and with it, her manner.

"I'm sorry you were ill," she said. "On the other hand, I did get my wish: For once, at least, you didn't spend the night with Francis."

"You'd rather I were ill more often, then. I must speak to my cook and insist upon indigestible meals."

She moved on a few paces, shaking her head. "You're a great vexation to me, David. You awaken my maternal instincts, and I've always prided myself on not having any."

"Call them 'fraternal,' then." Smiling, he rejoined her. "I'd much prefer it. Less wounding to one's manly pride, you know."

"That depends on your point of view," she said. "I've never seen Fiona, for instance, show any regard for her brothers' manly pride. She leads them all about by the nose—even Lord Norbury, the eldest—whereas their mother can do nothing with them." She shot David a reproving look. "Mine is more like the mama's case, obviously."

His smile slipped. "The Woodleighs are not an example, but the exception. Everyone knows Lady Carroll is the true head of the family."

"And you're too male to approve that state of affairs."

"Not at all." He gave a short laugh. "All I disapprove is your talking of the Woodleighs when you should be flirting with me. Here we are in a graveyard. What could be more morbidly romantic?"

He was one of the few men she would flirt with, because he was safe. Never once had she glimpsed the smallest hint of lust in that handsome young face.

"You ought to know by now that artists are the least romantic people in the world," she said. "You mustn't confuse the creators with the creations."

"I see. I must turn into a blob of paint—or better yet, a blank canvas. Then you might make anything of me you wish."

Idance with a beautiful woman who cannot distinguish a man from an easel.

She tensed, remembering: the low, insinuating voice, the force of collision, the shattering awareness of masculine strength...overpowering...the heat.

"Mrs. Beaumont?" came David's worried voice. "Are you unwell?"

She pushed the memory away. "No, no, of course not. Merely cold. I hadn't realized how late it was. I had better go home."

***

Surrey, England, mid-January 1829

Ismal paused in the doorway of Lord Norbury's crowded ballroom only for a moment. It was all he needed. He wanted but one swift glance to locate his prey. Leila Beaumont stood near the terrace doors.

She wore a rust-colored gown trimmed in midnight blue. Her gold-streaked hair was piled carelessly atop her head—and doubtless coming undone.

Ismal wondered if she still wore the same scent or had mixed a new one.

He wasn't sure which he would prefer. His mind was not settled about her, and this irritated him.

At least the repellent husband wasn't here. Beaumont was probably writhing in the arms of an over-painted, over-perfumed trollop—or lost in opium dreams in a London sinkhole. According to recent reports, his tastes, along with his body and intellect, had rapidly deteriorated upon his removal to London.

This was precisely as Ismal had expected. Cut loose from his sordid little empire, Beaumont was rapidly sinking. He no longer possessed the wit or will to build another enterprise like Vingt-Huit. Not from scratch—which, thanks to Ismal, was the only way it could be done.

Ismal had quietly and thoroughly disassembled the Paris organization Beaumont had so hastily abandoned. The various governments were no longer troubled by that knotty problem, and Beaumont could do nothing now but rot to death.

Considering the lives Beaumont had destroyed, the suffering and fear he'd caused, Ismal considered it fitting that the swine die slowly and painfully. Also fitting that he die in the way he'd ruined so many others—of vice and its diseases, of the poisons relentlessly eroding mind and body.

The wife was another matter. Ismal hadn't expected her to leave Paris with her husband.

The marriage, after all, was merely a formality. Beaumont himself had admitted he hadn't slept with his wife in five years. She became violent, he said, if he touched her. She'd even threatened to kill him. He treated the matter as a joke, saying that if a man couldn't have one woman in bed, he'd only to find another.

True enough, Ismal thought, if one referred to the common run of women. But Leila Beaumont was...ah, well, a problem.

While he pondered the problem, Ismal let his host lead him from one group of guests to the next. After he had met what seemed like several hundred people, Ismal permitted himself another glance toward the terrace doors. He caught a glimpse of russet, but could no longer see Madame Beaumont properly. She was surrounded by men. As usual.

The only woman he'd ever seen linger at her side was Lady Carroll, and she, according to Lord Norbury, had not yet arrived from London. Leila Beaumont had come yesterday with one of Lady Carroll's cousins.

Ismal wondered whether Madame had spied him yet. But no. A great crow-haired oaf stood in the way.

Even as Ismal was wishing him to Hades, the large man turned aside to speak to a friend, and in that moment Leila Beaumont's glance drifted round the ballroom, past Ismal...and back...and her posture stiffened.

Ismal didn't smile. He couldn't have done so if his life depended on it. He was too aware of her, of the shocked recognition he could feel across half a room's length, and of the tumult that recognition stirred inside him.

He left his own group so smoothly that they scarcely noticed he was gone. He dealt with the men about her just as adroitly. He ingratiated himself without having to think about it, chatted idly with this one and that until he'd made his way to the center of the group, where Leila Beaumont stood, spine straight, chin high.

He bowed. "Madame."

She gave him a quick, furious curtsy. "Monsieur."

Her voice throbbed with suppressed emotion as she introduced him to those nearest her. Her lush bosom began to throb, too, when one by one her admirers began to drift away. She was not permitted to escape, however. Ismal held her with social inanities until at last he had her to himself.

"I hope I have not driven your friends away," he said, looking about him in feigned surprise. "Sometimes I may offend without intending to do so. It is my deplorable English, perhaps."

"Is it?"

His gaze shot back to her. She was studying his face with a penetrating, painterly concentration.

He grew uneasy, which irritated him. He should not allow himself to feel so, but she had been irritating him for so long that his mind was raw from it. He returned the examination with a simmering one of his own.

A faint thread of pink appeared in her cheeks.

"Monsieur Beaumont is well, I trust?" he asked.

"Yes."

"And your work goes well, I hope?"

"Very well."

"You have accommodated yourself to London?"

"Yes."

The short, fierce syllables announced that he'd driven painting altogether from her mind. That was enough, he told himself. He smiled. "You wish me at the Devil, perhaps?"

The pink deepened. "Certainly not."

His glance trailed down to her gloved hands. The thumb of her right hand moved restlessly over the back of her left wrist.

She followed his gaze. Her hand instantly stilled.

"I think you have wished me at the Devil since our first encounter," he said. "I even wondered whether it was on my account you fled Paris."

"We didn't flee," she said.

"Yet I offended somehow, I am sure. You left without word—not even the simple adieu."

"There wasn't time to take leave of everybody. Francis was in a great—" Her eyes grew wary. "He had made up his mind to go, and when he makes up his mind, he can't bear delay."

"You had promised me a portrait," Ismal said softly. "My disappointment was great."

"I should think you'd have recovered by now."

He took a step nearer. She didn't move. He clasped his hands behind his back and bowed his head.

He was close enough to detect her scent. It was the same. There was as well the same tension between them that he remembered: the pull...and the resistance.

"Yet the portrait is reason enough to come to England, I think," he said. "In any case, this is what I told your charming friend, Lady Carroll. And she took pity on me, as you see. Not only did she invite me to join her family and guests in this picturesque town, but she ordered one of her brothers to accompany me, lest I lose my way."

He raised his head. In her tawny eyes he saw a turmoil of emotion—anger, anxiety, doubt...and something else, not so easy to read.

"Yes. Well. It would appear that Fiona has lost hers. She should have been here hours ago."