The distant sound of the front door knocker had him turning expectantly to the door.
Christian glanced that way, too, then, as the sound of firm footsteps on the stairs reached them, he set down his pen.
Her concentration absolute, Madeline continued transcribing.
She heard the door open, heard Gasthorpe announce, “Mr. Dalziel, my lords.”
Blinking, she glanced up as a deep, dark voice drawled, “Dearne. Crowhurst. I understand there’s something you believe I should know about.”
Primitive precognition sent a frisson arcing through her. Madeline stared at the tall gentleman who strolled with unutterable grace into the room. He was outwardly similar to Gervase and Christian, tall, broad-shouldered, dark-haired, the long, austere planes of his face a testimony to his heritage. Yet beneath the urbane, sophisticated veneer, there was an element of something else-something harder, sharper, altogether more subconsciously alarming. She felt unexpectedly glad that Gervase stood, at least metaphorically, between her and his ex-commander.
There were dangerous men, and then there were the impossibly dangerous; Dalziel belonged in the latter category.
Whoever he was; she could now see the evidence on which Gervase and his colleagues based their belief that Dalziel was no mere mister.
Gervase moved forward to shake his hand. “Glad we caught you-I was afraid you might have left town.”
A faint smile flirted about Dalziel’s mobile lips. “Not quite yet.” He turned to shake hands with Christian, then glanced briefly at her before looking, inquiringly, at Gervase.
With a smile for her, Gervase turned to Dalziel. “Allow me to present the Honorable Miss Madeline Gascoigne.” To Madeline he added, “Dalziel, who you’ve heard me mention.”
Madeline remained seated; they were all towering over her but even if she stood they would still be taller, and there was a certain statement to be made by remaining where she was-queens remained seated-so she faced him, head high, smiled graciously and, consciously imperious, offered her hand. “Good day, sir.”
She caught another upward twitch of his lips as Dalziel took her fingers and very correctly bowed over them.
“An honor, Miss Gascoigne, although I believe it’s something less than pleasant that has brought you to town.”
“Indeed. Some blackguard has kidnapped my youngest brother.” Madeline looked at Gervase.
He waved Dalziel, whose gaze had grown sharper, to a chair. “Sit down and I’ll tell you the story.” He glanced at Madeline. “I’d better begin at the start.”
Sinking into a chair, elegantly crossing his long legs, Dalziel nodded. “You perceive me all ears.”
While Gervase related the tale of how her brothers had found the brooch, and subsequently where she’d worn it, the information he’d gathered on where it might have come from, then Ben’s disappearance and all they knew of that, Madeline turned back to the desk and continued penning Christian’s notes. Christian, too, continued, but from time to time he’d look up, frown-and the ink would dry on his nib as he became distracted with the story.
Madeline didn’t bother to recall him to his task; there were only a few more notes to write, and it was barely eleven o’clock. Christian had said it might be counterproductive to send the notes out before noon, and at least writing them gave her something to do to fill in the time, making her feel she was actively engaged in the task of rescuing Ben. Lips compressed, she wrote on, aware of Dalziel asking questions, of Gervase replying.
She could see, comprehend, that Dalziel could be intimidating, but he wasn’t a threat, and as long as he could and would help them rescue Ben, that was all she cared about.
“So this brooch might well be the key.” Dalziel frowned; Gervase had given him a brief description of the brooch. He grimaced. “I wish you’d brought it with you.”
Madeline lifted her head. “I did.” Reaching into the pocket of her borrowed gown, she drew out the heavy brooch; she’d taken it from her own gown, wanting to keep it with her. Setting down her pen, she swiveled from the desk and held out the brooch to Dalziel; when he took it, lifting it from her palm, she looked at Gervase. “I thought if by chance we meet this blackguard face-to-face, he might be willing to exchange Ben for it.”
Gervase met her eyes, but then glanced at Dalziel.
Madeline did, too, as did Christian.
Dalziel had made no sound, no movement to draw their attention; it was his stillness, the sheer focused intensity of it, that had seized their collective attention.
Cradling the brooch in his long fingers, he was staring at it as if it were the Holy Grail. “Good Lord,” he breathed.
When he lapsed back into awestruck silence, Christian hesitantly prompted, “What?”
Dalziel drew in a long breath, then leaned back in the chair. He laid the brooch on the arm, his fingers tracing the curves, the pearls. “Our paths, it seems, cross again.”
His tone was distant, detached. Madeline glanced at Gervase. He looked as puzzled as she.
His gaze on the brooch, Dalziel at last continued, “Let me tell you what’s been keeping me in London-one of the things, at any rate. As we-the members of this club and I-know, there’s some person, some Englishman, a member of the aristocracy, who was a French agent during the wars, but who escaped detection. He’s continued to elude me, and all others, but we know he exists, that he is a flesh-and-blood man.”
He paused, then looked up at Gervase, then Christian. “Flesh-and-blood men usually require payment for their services. We’ve had a net in place for years, identifying any payments that came via the usual channels of cash, drafts or any other of the customary monetary instruments. We’ve accounted for all such payments, leaving unresolved the question of how our elusive last traitor was paid.”
Long fingers lightly tapped the brooch. “After Waterloo-indeed, even before that-we’d started getting reports from the new French authorities. They were perfectly willing to work with us to trace any payments made by Napoleon’s spymasters. However, we still turned up nothing-nothing we hadn’t already found-until some enterprising French clerk started an inventory of the palaces, and the artworks and artifacts contained therein, the jewelry collections amassed by the various princely families of the ancient regimes. He started reporting pieces missing. Not wholesale ransacking but one piece missing here, one there. At first he assumed it was simply mislaid items, the natural outcome of the disruption of war, but as he discovered more such missing items, he began to sense a pattern. That’s when he approached his masters, and they sent his list to me.”
Dark eyes narrowing, Dalziel lifted the brooch, slowly turning it between his fingers. “Would it surprise you to learn that on that list is an oval cloak-brooch dating from the age of Charlemagne, Celtic goldwork with diamonds and pearls surrounding a large rectangular emerald?”
His voice faded into absolute silence.
Madeline broke it. “Are you saying that the man after the brooch, the one searching for a cargo the brooch formed part of-the man who has Ben-is this unidentified traitor?”
Dalziel’s eyes rose to meet hers. His jaw set. “I fear so.” He paused, then added, “As it happens, that increases the likelihood that your brother will be released unharmed once he’s identified the beach for our traitor. Our man is careful and clever-he’s only killed once that we know of, and then he was forced to it, when a henchman who knew his identity was cornered. Murder attracts too much attention-he’ll just want Ben to be lost for a while, more to keep you occupied than anything else. You’re right about that.” He looked down at the brooch. “Now we know it’s him, things make more sense.”
He stared at the brooch, then leaned forward and carefully handed it back to Madeline. “Regardless of what happens, please don’t offer to give it back. If he demands it and there’s no alternative…but don’t volunteer it.”
She considered the brooch, felt its weight in her palm. Understood why he’d given it back to her, into her keeping, appreciated his comprehension. She looked up and met his dark eyes. “Thank you. I won’t.”
He nodded, then looked at Gervase. “I think we can conclude that your blackguard is indeed our old foe, and he’s after that cargo. No surprise he was wise enough not to agree to be paid in French sous, and careful enough to wait until now to bring his ill-gotten gains into England, and used French smugglers to do it. Far safer to cache his thirty pieces of silver in France while Napoleon was in power, and bring it over now, long after the wars are over and, so he would reason, no one’s watching anymore.”
Gervase nodded, his gaze locked on the brooch. “It all makes a certain sense.”
“Indeed. We’ve already established what sort of man he is. He has no need of money, but items such as that”-Dalziel watched as Madeline slipped the brooch back into her pocket-“the treasures of kings and emperors, those would hold a real incentive for him-something only he was clever enough and powerful enough to gain, something no one else could ever have.”
Christian snorted. “Symbols of his greatness.”
Dalziel nodded, then came to his feet in a rush of nervy energy. “He’ll want that cargo. After all this time, all his planning, waiting for his moment of triumph-he’ll be fixated on regaining his treasure.” He smiled chillingly. “And fixated men make mistakes.”
He looked at Gervase. “Regardless of what happens here today, I’ll be on my way to Cornwall this afternoon.”
Gervase’s face hardened. “Madeline and I won’t leave here until we find Ben.”
Dalziel nodded. “I’ll help in whatever way I can, but this might be our last chance at catching this man and I can’t let it pass.”
“We’ll have to find Ben first,” Madeline said.
Dalziel nodded again, more curtly. “I’ll put all the forces I can muster at your disposal before I leave-”
“No, you don’t understand.” Her voice held a hint of suppressed humor, enough to make Dalziel frown at her.
“What don’t I understand?”
She knew she was supposed to be intimidated by that voice, by his chilly diction, but she now had his measure. She held his gaze calmly. “The Lizard Peninsula is large-you won’t be able to watch all the beaches, nor will you be able to monitor access to the peninsula itself-there are too many ways to reach it, including by sea. To catch your last traitor, you’ll need to know which beach he’ll be heading for. And until we find Ben, you won’t know that.”
Dalziel’s frown didn’t lift. “But we know which beach the brooch came from.”
She nodded. “Indeed. But as Edmond-another of my brothers-pointed out, it’s more than likely Ben will lie.”
The frown evaporated; frustration took its place. After a moment, Dalziel flung himself back into his chair. “Haven’t you taught him not to lie?”
She inwardly grinned at the disgruntled grumble. “I have, but the lessons don’t take well with Ben. Perhaps when he grows older. Regardless, at present, he lies quite beautifully-he’s so…”-she gestured-“fluent, even when I know he’s not telling the truth, he makes me think I might be wrong.”
Dalziel stared at the floor, then grimaced. “All right.” He lifted his head; his eyes pinned Christian, then moved to Gervase. “So how are we going to locate the whelp?”
Suppressing a smile, Madeline turned back to the desk. She completed the last of Christian’s notes while around her a wide-ranging discussion of how to scour London, especially the slums, raged.
Dalziel was making plans to contact various commanders in the Guards as she laid the last note on the pile. She glanced at the clock. Twenty minutes to twelve. She turned to Christian, intending to suggest he send for the footmen they’d told her Gasthorpe would provide, when the knocker on the front door was plied-not just once or twice but with persistent, repetitive force.
The three men broke off, turning to the door. It was shut, muting sounds from the front hall below, but the knocking had stopped.
Ears straining, Madeline listened…heard a light, piping voice politely ask…
She was out of her chair, past Dalziel and flinging open the library door before any of the men could blink. Sweeping to the stairs, her heart in her mouth, she paused on the landing, looking down into the hall, to the group before the front door. Then she grabbed up her skirts and rushed headlong down.
“Ben!” She couldn’t believe her eyes, but there he was; she saw the relief that washed over his face as he glanced up at her call, disbelieving her presence as much as she had his.
Reaching him, she swept him into her arms, hugging him wildly, only just remembering in time not to lift him from his feet, bending over him and clutching him to her instead, her hands patting over him.
"Beyond Seduction" отзывы
Отзывы читателей о книге "Beyond Seduction". Читайте комментарии и мнения людей о произведении.
Понравилась книга? Поделитесь впечатлениями - оставьте Ваш отзыв и расскажите о книге "Beyond Seduction" друзьям в соцсетях.