“YOU NEARLY BROKE THAT thug’s jaw,” said a voice out of the darkness.
I groaned and tried to sit up.
“Gently now, Portia, that form of chloroform packs a punch almost as strong as you.”
“Gavin?”
“That’s right. How’s your head?”
“I can hear you,” I said, allowing him to help me into a sitting position. “I must be dreaming about you again.”
“Dreaming about me again? I’m flattered.”
“That’s what you said last time,” I answered, my eyes growing used to the dark. We were in a train car again, but it wasn’t moving. Thank God.
“Last time?” he asked, crouching at my legs that I could now feel were bound in handcuffs, along with my wrists. “Pray, what were we doing the last time you dreamed of me?”
Gavin wasn’t the lecherous type. I knew I had been his very first lover, but his smile was a little suggestive. Something was wrong with this dream. This train car smelled like fish. And he smelled wrong too. Like spice and flowers.
“When did you start wearing cologne?” I asked, noticing that the doors were on the short side, not sliding along the long side, and revising my jail to a shipping container, not a train car.
“Ah, my fiancée insists on it,” he said ruefully, gently moving my bangs so they didn’t hang in my face. “She’s been experimenting with various smells. Speaking of experimenting, I like this new hair.”
“Mouchoir de Monsieur,” I whispered. This wasn’t a dream. It was a nightmare.
“Why yes,” he answered. “Made by the same master perfumers as the scent you’re wearing I believe.”
“But that isn’t why you wear it,” I said, staring at him, trying to see the man I had loved. “You wear it for her.”
“I do,” he admitted. “And I’m doing this for her as well.”
“You’re doing this for yourself,” I corrected, grasping his chin with my bound hands. “At least admit that to me if not to anyone else. I am a thorn in your side. It’s why you took my speech from me.”
“Temporarily, my dear, and only when your chosen career had already put you in danger. I took advantage of the situation, I did not cause it,” he said, not fighting my hands. “I needed your mind otherwise engaged. I always intended to wean you off the pills and I knew that your hearing would return, and look, it has. Patience was all that was required. But now? Well, you’ve forced my hand. I really can’t have you solving this bomb case. Not now. I am too close to my next conquest.”
“Selling arms to the British government?” I asked with a shake of my head. “What are you doing, Gavin?”
“There’s a war coming, or hadn’t you picked up on the signs? I’m helping our side, Portia, or whichever side pays the most, to be frank. Right now, that’s the Brits.”
“But you’re representing the Austrians while dealing under the table with the Brits?”
Gavin shrugged. “Sides change all the time. And the people who are supplying me with weapons aren’t very dear to the Brits, so the Austrian diplomat thing allows for me to launder the arms through my position with very little fuss. Honestly, it works out well for king and country. Surely you can’t complain.”
“What did you do with Lancaster?” I asked.
“Lancaster?” he answered, edging a little closer. “What about the redoubtable constable?”
“Brian is safe from your manipulations,” I said with more confidence than I actually felt. Surely between him and my grandfather, they would have avoided Gavin and his lackeys. “Lancaster was lying on the street last I saw him, another victim of your special brand of chemistry.”
“I’ll tell you what, I’ll let you choose,” Gavin said. “Which one of your suitors would you like to spend your last moments with?”
“I choose you,” I said, putting my bound arms around his neck and kissing him soundly on the mouth. He didn’t fight me, leaning into my embrace, tasting exactly as I remembered, that combination of peppermint and scotch. I pulled him further into the cushioned chair I was bound in and he pulled away first, looking at me with astonishment.
“Portia, you know why we can’t be together,” he said, inches from my mouth.
“I do,” I admitted. “But I wouldn’t condemn anyone else to die with me here.”
“I meant your last moments of freedom — I could never kill you,” he said. “But I can leave you here to be retrieved by Kell’s local agents. I’ll even leave your favourite satchel there by the door with one of those Russian bombs you’ve been searching for. Now, don’t give me that look. I guarantee that even though it looks bad, it will, in fact, exonerate you. Eventually.”
He leaned in and then thought better of it and kissed me on the forehead. “Give Annie my regards. I’m very glad you managed to save her father from the noose. Now you’ll have to do your best to save her from the peer she’s playing house with.”