On the stroke of noon, Nick entered Ismal's bedroom to announce Lord Avory's arrival. Ismal was still in his dressing gown.
"Shall I let him cool his heels in the library?" Nick asked.
"What sort of mood is he in?"
"About as beastly as yours." Nick slammed shaving materials onto the washstand. "I daresay you'll expect to get shaved in thirty seconds."
"You should not have let me oversleep."
"When I tried to wake you, you offered to relieve me of my private parts. In painfully explicit terms." Nick commenced to stropping the razor with vicious energy.
"I think I prefer to shave myself today," Ismal said. "Send His Lordship up."
Nick stalked out.
Ismal had lain awake a long time, pondering Leila Beaumont's aching temples and the self-loathing that seemed to be part of it—a shame Ismal had little doubt her husband had planted. Beaumont, clearly, had possessed a gift for poisoning minds.
Undoubtedly, Sherburne's mind had been poisoned, to cause such a bitter and painful estrangement from an adoring wife who'd erred but once—and then mainly thanks to her husband's provocation. Then there was Lady Carroll, who'd conceived such an intense hatred of Lord Avory...and Avory himself, with the terrible secret that prevented his wooing the girl he loved.
Unfit, Avory had called himself. He had also pinpointed the time his problems had begun. Two years ago, right after Edmund Carstairs' suicide.
During his sleepless hours, Ismal had begun to formulate a theory. Now, as he began lathering his face, he prepared himself to test it. He wasn't looking forward to the procedure. He had become rather fond of Lord Avory...who was attached to him, trusted him, looked up to him as though Ismal were an infinitely heroic and admirable older brother.
Avory couldn't know Ismal was a vulture, waiting to pluck out his secrets.
Just as Ismal finished lathering his face, the marquess entered.
"Please forgive me," Ismal said as he took up the razor. "I overslept."
"I wish I had done." Avory plunked himself down on the window seat. "Instead, I spent the morning reviewing my accounts with Mama."
Ismal gave him a sympathetic glance. "Your expression tells me the experience was not agreeable." He began shaving, his mind working with the same brisk sureness as his hand.
"It is thoroughly mortifying to have to account—with receipts—for every curst ha'penny," his guest said. "Today I learned receipts aren't enough. I'm now expected to provide all the whys and wherefores as well. So we quarreled." He bent to brush a speck of dust from his boots. "I told her that I she disapproved of how I spent my paltry allowance, she needn't give me any. She threatened to oblige me. I recommended that she and Father make a proper job of it and disown me entirely," he said, straightening.
The vulture began to circle and descend.
"It is no use, you know," Ismal told him. "If you do not wish to inherit, you will have to hang yourself. They cannot disown you. You are all they have—the last male of your line."
"Not all they have. There are other branches of the family tree." Avory gave a short laugh. "Still, I most certainly am the very last of the direct line. Father's so proud of the fact that the title's gone straight from father to son since the time of the first Duke of Langford—unlike the convoluted genealogy of the Royal Family. As though that were anything to boast of, when it's just a matter of luck."
His face hardening, he rose and moved to the dressing table. "It seems our luck has run out." He sank down into the chair and began arranging Ismal's toiletries in rows in order of size.
"So that is the problem," Ismal murmured as he angled the shaving glass for a better view of the marquess' countenance. "You believe you will fail to produce the necessary heir." He saw the muscle leap in Avory's jaw. "Or do I misunderstand?"
There was a very long silence. Ismal continued shaving.
"I shouldn't have quarreled with Mama," Avory said at last in a low voice. He was staring at the orderly arrangement he'd made. "I simply should have told her. But it's not the sort of thing one tells anybody. I didn't mean to tell you. But I seem to have dropped a broad enough hint. I'm always complaining to you. Sorry."
"It is necessary to speak to someone," Ismal said. "You refer to impotence, yes?"
¯¯
Several hours later, Ismal sent Avory home with a list of dietary instructions, a recipe for an herbal tisane, and the promise that Nick would prepare and deliver some pills before nightfall. The pills were no more necessary than the diet and tisane, for the cure was already taking effect. The problem was all in Avory's head, where Beaumont had maliciously put it with a few well-chosen words. Ismal had simply excised it with a few very different well-chosen words. But being English, the marquess was more likely to believe in the efficacy of bad-tasting medicines than mere speech.
After instructing Nick to make the harmless pills as foul-tasting as possible, Ismal set out for a walk. The last few hours had proved emotionally wearying. Since the fatigue was mental rather than physical, exercise was a preferable remedy to lying about brooding.
He was striding briskly through Pall Mall when he spied a familiar black-garbed feminine figure entering the door of number fifty-two—the British Institution. Madame Beaumont was accompanied by a gentleman. And neither Gaspard nor Eloise was anywhere in sight.
Within minutes, Ismal had gained admittance. Moments later, he found her in a chamber where a handful of artists labored before an assortment of old master works. She was speaking to one of the artists—a young woman—and the fellow with her turned out to be Lord Sellowby. Who turned out to be standing much too close.
Ismal simply stood in the entryway, looking idly about while he focused all his furious concentration on Leila Beaumont. Finally, after two interminable minutes, her posture stiffened and her gaze shot to him.
Arranging a polite smile on his face, Ismal approached.
"The British Institution is exceedingly popular today,” said Sellowby, after greetings had been exchanged and the young artist introduced as Miss Greenlaw.
"I misunderstood," Ismal said. "When I saw Madame Beaumont enter, I assumed some of her works were on display."
"They might be," said she icily, "if I'd been dead a couple of centuries."
"And if she were a man," said Miss Greenlaw. "You shan't find a woman artist's work in this lot." She informed Ismal that she was entering the annual competition to create a companion piece to one of the works on display. The three best works would win prizes of one hundred, sixty, and forty pounds, respectively.
"Miss Greenlaw did me the honor of requesting a critique," said Madame. "Which I am sure she would prefer not be done before a crowd."
"I do not believe two onlookers constitute a crowd," Sellowby said with a faint smile.
"Two bored and fidgety men do," she said. "I know you'll fidget—first, because the discussion isn't about you and second, because you won't understand what it is about." She waved her hand dismissively. "Go talk among yourselves—or look at the pictures. Perhaps you'll absorb some culture by accident."
"I shouldn't dream of taking such a risk," said Sellowby. "I shall await you outside, Mrs. Beaumont. Esmond, care to join me?"
By the time they reached the pavement, Ismal was apprised of the fact that Mrs. Beaumont had consented to dine with Sellowby and his sister, Lady Charlotte, at what Sellowby deemed the ungodly hour of six o'clock.
"One encounters fewer strictures when dining with the King," Sellowby said as they ambled down the street. "My sister must have an early dinner. Mrs. Beaumont must speak to Miss Greerdaw first, for she promised. But before she could do that, we had to wait for Mrs. Beaumont's woman servant to finish whatever it was she was doing, so that she could accompany us."
Eloise, it turned out, was waiting in His Lordship's carriage. This news allayed Ismal's agitation not a whit.
Sellowby was a large, dark, well-built man with a sleepy gaze and sardonic manner certain women found irresistibly intriguing. Ismal imagined one certain woman intrigued across a dinner table set for two. Thence his imagination moved through a dimly lit hallway, up a set of stairs, through a bedroom door and on, with bloodcurdling clarity, to a bed.
"It would have been a good deal simpler if Fiona were about," Sellowby went on. "But if she had been, we shouldn't have this problem in the first place."
Despite the thundering in his ears, Ismal did understand the words and somehow amid the turmoil, his brain managed to operate.
"I am sorry to hear this," he said. "Madame Beaumont has had problems enough, I should think."
"I mean Charlotte, my sister," Sellowby clarified. "She's in a dither because Fiona hasn't answered any of her letters—or anybody's, it seems. Charlotte's heard from most of the Woodleigh family, all in a dither because they haven't had a word from Dorset—not even a note from their pestilential Aunt Maud. If Mrs. Beaumont can't quiet this tempest in a teapot, I know just what will happen. I shall be ordered to Dorset to demand an explanation—from a woman who can't bear the sight of me—for the benefit of her family and my busybody sister."
"But there are nine brothers," Ismal pointed out, his detective instincts stirring.
"And every last one of them dances to her tune. Fiona ordered them to keep away, and they wouldn't dream of disobeying. Have you ever heard anything so idiotic?"
"It is odd that Lady Carroll would write to no one," Ismal said. "Surely she realizes they are anxious about her sister's health."
Sellowby paused to frown into a printshop window. "Odd isn't the word for Fiona. I'm not sure what the word is. 'Inconsiderate' will do for the moment. Because of her, we are obliged to plague Mrs. Beaumont. And wouldn't you know it? Not a one of them thought to invite her out until they needed something from her. Even then, they must do it by proxy. My only consolation is that Charlotte has ordered an excellent dinner and I shall supply my very best wines. Mrs. Beaumont will be lavishly fed, at any rate."
"You make her sound like a lamb led to the slaughter."
Sellowby turned away from the window and gave a short laugh. "Quite. I begin to sound just as theatrical as the others. But she knows what she's getting into. I did warn her about our ulterior motives."
And naturally, she would jump at the chance to go out, to do some detecting of her own, Ismal unhappily realized. Or perhaps she simply wanted to spend a few hours in the company of a more manageable man, a normal English rake.
Finding he liked neither proposition, Ismal tried to persuade himself she simply wanted to help, as she'd wanted to help Sherburne. Yet she had held Sherburne's hand...and she had been detecting. And so, Ismal couldn't like the way she "helped," either. His gut was in knots and he had the irrational urge to dash Sellowby's brains out on the pavement.
Still, he remained outwardly his usual ingratiating self. When at last Madame exited the building, Ismal bid her and Sellowby a courteous adieu and casually sauntered away.
Leila came home at half-past nine. At nine thirty-seven, she was quarreling in the studio with Esmond.
"Asked you?" she repeated indignantly. "I don't ask your or anyone's permission to dine out."
She stood, stiff with outrage, in the center of the carpet. She wanted to throw something. That he of all men—lying, manipulative snake that he was—should dictate to her—in her own house. And look at him. He couldn't even pace like a normal man. Instead he prowled the room, like a surly jungle cat, closing in for an attack. She wasn't afraid. She had some attacking of her own to do.
"You were not dining," he snapped. "You were detecting. Which is not your business, but mine."
"It’s not your business to tell me what my business is," she said crisply. "You do not dictate my social activities—such as they are. Do you think I've nothing better to do than sit about all evening, waiting for you? If, that is, you're in a humor to turn up. Not that you've turned up lately to much purpose other than immorality."
"You try to turn the subject," he said, stalking past the draped windows. "That has nothing to do with the issue at hand."
"It is the issue," she said, summoning her control. "I have learned virtually nothing from you but how extremely talented a seducer you are. And I begin to suspect you want it just that way. You don't want me to know anything about this case. You especially don't want me to suspect there's more to it than meets the eye."
His restless motion slowed fractionally, telling Leila she'd aimed accurately.
'That's why you don't want me out with others," she went on, her confidence building. "You're afraid I'll hear something. Well, it's too bloody late." She marched straight into his path, bringing him to a sharp halt. She looked him square in the eye. He tried to stare her down, his eyes shooting fierce blue sparks. She refused to be cowed. She was getting used to being singed.
"I went out, Esmond," she said. "I heard something. Do you care to hear about it—or do you prefer to waste your valuable time in an idiotic row?"
"I am not idiotic! You put yourself in danger. You do not even consult with me first."
"So you can tell me what to do?" She swung away from him. "Because I'm too stupid to figure it out for myself? Just because it's so easy for you to play havoc with my morals, you think I'm brainless, don't you? Just because you've pulled the wool over my eyes from the start, you think I'm an imbecile."
"That is nonsense," he said, storming after her, toward the fire. "What is between us has nothing to do-"
"It has everything to do with everything! There's nothing between us. Never has been. You only pretend it to keep me distracted—and you're good at that, aren't you?" she demanded. "At pretending. Distracting. You drove Francis distracted. With jealousy. Do you actually believe I'm too stupid to see the flaw in that picture?"
He drew back sharply.
Ah, yes. He hadn't been prepared for that.
There was a short, deadly silence.
Then, with a patently false, patronizing smile, he asked, "What flaw?"
"If you want to seduce another man's wife," she said, her voice low and level, "it is counterproductive to arouse the husband's suspicions. You are far too clever and calculating to let that happen. Ergo, your main interest was not seduction."
She moved to the sofa and perched on the arm and watched the words sink in. Now that she'd commenced what she'd braced herself to begin and finish, she felt wonderfully calm. Outrage and hurt rolled away, like a spent storm, leaving crystal clarity behind. "I have a theory of what you did want," she said. "Thanks to something Sellowby mentioned."
"A theory." He turned away to the mantel and took up the small bust of Michelangelo, then put it down again.
"It begins with Edmund Carstairs," she said.
He went very, very still.
"That friend of David's who shot himself after some important papers were stolen from him," she amplified. "According to Sellowby—who was in Paris at the time, having an affair with a diplomat's wife—the papers were confidential letters from the tsar. Your friend, the Tsar of Russia."
The light played fitfully upon his pale gold hair, but that was the only sign of motion.
"The tsar demanded someone get to the bottom of it," she said. "According to Sellowby, no one could. And so I found myself wondering, Esmond, just who might be called in to solve a riddle no one else could. Then I asked myself why the tsar's good friend, the Comte d'Esmond—who also turns out to be friends with British and French royalty—should choose, out of all the men in Paris, a sodden nobody like Francis Beaumont as boon companion."
He turned then, very slowly, as though drawn in spite of himself. The lines at the corners of his eyes were sharply etched.
"'The reasons for certain friendships" she softly quoted. "'Not always what they seem.' I pay attention, you know. I do treasure your little gems of wisdom."
His blue gaze grew clouded.
"It was a slow ride home," she said. "The streets were busy this evening. I had ample time to ponder a number of puzzling matters. Why, for instance, the great Lord Quentin bothered with the suspicious death of a nobody like Francis. Why His Lordship had no trouble believing my astonishing announcement that my husband had been murdered. Why His Lordship was so very obliging about conducting a covert inquiry into the murder. And why, of course, he sent for you."
"In the carriage," he said very softly. "You formulated this theory of yours during the ride home."
"I believe I see the outlines," she said. "I do see a discreet inquiry regarding those Russian letters that began some time ago. And Francis must have been the primary suspect, since you devoted nearly all your time to him. Since it was so very discreet, since he was never prosecuted, I assume there must have been potential for some nasty scandal. What I can't decide is whether the papers alone held the potential for scandal or whether Francis was involved in some larger crime, and the papers were merely a part."
Shaking his head, he looked away. "This is bad," he said. "You cannot—You should not—Ah, Leila, you make me so unhappy."
She heard the unhappiness in his tones, and something more in the sound of her own name. Not the crisp English Lie-la nor yet Lay-la, but something uniquely, caressingly, his. The sound echoed achingly inside her, and she understood then that he was genuinely troubled on her account.
"That's your conscience," she said, striving to keep her tones cool. "Telling you how unfair and sneaky and disrespectful you've been. If I were you, I should make a clean breast of it. You'll feel better, and so shall I. I should like to have it all clear and settled, so we can put it behind us and get down to our present business. We'll never make proper progress with this—this—whatever it is—hanging between us."
He wanted to. She saw that in his taut stance and in the rigid planes of his perfectly sculpted profile. More important, she could feel it.
"Oh, come, Esmond," she said. "Be reasonable, will you? Just tell me the story. A report, if you will. As though we were colleagues. I've already figured out it's going to be nasty. But I have a very strong stomach. Obviously. No woman of delicate sensibilities could have survived ten years with Francis."
"I should have killed him." His voice was low, tight with remorse. "I should not have brought you into it. A stupid mistake."
She believed the remorse she heard was genuine, too. He had used her, as she'd guessed. But not altogether coldbloodedly, as she'd feared.
"Yes, but your mind was clouded by lust," she said. "It happens to the best of men. Nobody's perfect."
She waited through a long, unhappy silence. Then, finally, he came to the sofa, and without looking at her, sat down.
Then, still without looking at her, he told her about a place called Vingt-Huit.
Ismal didn't tell her everything. He limited himself to a few of the milder examples of Vingt-Huit's activities. And his concise summary of what he'd done to destroy it and Francis Beaumont’s sanity didn't include Beaumont's infatuation with himself. This wasn't to spare her the news that Ismal had deliberately misled the man, but because he didn't want her to know her husband had for years been betraying her with his own sex as well as with women. She was English, like Avory. And if Avory could regard one drunken episode with Carstairs as an unforgivable, beastly and unnatural crime, Ismal had little doubt Leila Beaumont would be sick with horror that she'd ever let her husband touch her.
Even now, though she heard him out quietly, Ismal had no idea of her state of mind. When he finished, he braced himself for the bitter recriminations that were sure to follow and, worse, the tears he knew he couldn't bear.
After an interminably long moment, she let out a sigh. "Oh, Lord," she said softly. "I had no idea. But then, I couldn't, could I? Even professionals—even you—had a devil of a time getting to the bottom of it."
She laid her hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Esmond. You have relieved my mind. There wasn't anything I could do. Francis wasn't just weak. He was evil. Even Papa's crimes seem small compared to this. Papa was greedy and conscienceless, I'm sure. But Francis was cruel. I can see why you wish you had killed him. I can also see why you wouldn't want to dirty your hands."
She had not taken her hand away, and it took all his self-control to keep from pressing his cheek against it and begging forgiveness. "I am not an assassin," he said.
"No, of course not." She squeezed his shoulder. "Are all your missions so horrid and complicated? How the devil do you bear it—dealing with the lowest of vermin, and having to walk on eggs the whole time. No wonder the Royals think so highly of you." She laughed softly. "Francis said you weren't quite human—and he didn't know the half of it."
That affectionate squeeze, the compassion he heard in her voice, bewildered him. Her laughter left him utterly at sea.
"You are laughing," he said stupidly.
"I'm not a saint," she said. "I'm not above enjoying a bit of vengeance. Francis deserved to suffer. And you, apparently, were the only one who could make him do so. I wish you'd told me sooner. It appalls me to think of the tears I wasted on that filthy, despicable—Gad, I don't know any words bad enough." She got up from the sofa arm. "But you do, I daresay. You've twelve languages at your disposal, Avory says. Would you like some champagne?"
He couldn't make sense of her. He rubbed his head. "Yes, yes. I should like something."
"Lady Charlotte and Sellowby gave me a few bottles," she said, moving toward the door. "At first, I was sufficiently vexed with you to consider breaking them, one by one, over your head. But you've risen above yourself tonight, Esmond. And I think one ought to reward good behavior."
Numbly, he watched her leave the studio.
She wasn't angry, hurt, disgusted. She thought he'd been good.
She had actually thanked him a moment before and said he'd relieved her mind. And she had touched him, all on her own, unbidden. In affection. And sympathy. "Horrid and complicated" she'd called his work—as it was. And she'd wondered how he bore it—as he wondered sometimes, late at night, alone.
She could have turned away and hated him, for using her, for leaving her to deal with the maddened wretch he'd made of her husband.
Instead, Leila Beaumont had turned to him, and touched him, as though he were the one who had suffered and needed comforting.
He realized then how very much he'd wanted comforting. Because the task had been vile, and he had resented it and the demands the curst Royals made upon him. And he had grieved for Beaumont's victims, just as he'd grieved today for Avory's lonely misery.
And, yes, Ismal had wanted her compassionate voice and the touch of her strong, beautiful hand, because he was almost human, and he wished, like any mortal, for someone to turn to.
Which was a risk he couldn't afford.
Ismal was standing at the worktable when she returned with the champagne.
Moving to her work area had helped him bring his mind and heart back to objectivity. He had collected his composure and his wits, and had sunk his unsettling emotions back into the quagmire that passed for his heart.
After he'd filled their glasses and given her hers, she said, "I shall propose the first toast. To you." She touched her glass to his. "For your clever handling of a thorny problem—and for showing a proper respect for my intelligence. For once."
"I am in awe of your intelligence," he said. "I knew you were perceptive. I did not realize, though, how diabolically quick your mind was."
Or how generous your heart was, he added silently.
"Flattery," she said, and sipped her wine.
"Truth," he said. "Your mind is diabolical. It goes with your body. I should have realized."
"You were bound to say something like that." She brought her glass to his. "Very well, Esmond. To my confounded body, then."
She took a longer sip this time, then settled onto one of the stools at the table and proposed they get down to business.
"I've already relayed my most momentous discovery," she said. "My hosts believe or pretend to believe Lettice chose to go away for a change of scenery and rest. They are aware of David's interest in Lettice and of Fiona's disapproval. Lady Charlotte is on Fiona's side. Sellowby is square on David's. That was how I learned about Carstairs. Sellowby was pointing out to his sister that David had lost a brother, then, a year later—in shocking circumstances—a close friend. Sellowby feels David is fundamentally a model of propriety who went a bit wild on account of confusion. Furthermore, being young, David needed a good bit of time to sort things out."
"Sellowby is closer to the mark than he can know," Ismal told her. "Avory is confused, and Carstairs' death was the start of his problems. We spent half the day together. I learned his terrible secret."
Her fingers tightened about the glass stem. "How terrible?"
"Actually, it is not so bad. He is impotent and—"
"Oh, God." Her face white, she set down the glass with shaking hands.
Ismal hadn't expected her to take it so hard. Hadn't she listened to the tale of Vingt-Huit and her husband's perfidies as calmly as though it had been a lecture on galvanic currents? But she'd despised her husband. Avory she cared for very much. Ismal should have understood the difference.
Inwardly cursing his tactlessness, he took her hand. "Do not upset yourself. It is not permanent. A simple case to remedy. You do not think I would leave your favorite to suffer, do you?"
He released her hand and gave her back the glass of champagne, and ordered her to drink. She did.
"Avory's ailment can be easily corrected," he assured her. "When I tell you the story, you will understand. He was out debauching with Carstairs the night the papers were stolen. The next day, Carstairs shot himself. The shock of his friend's death, along with some needless guilt and too much liquor, caused Avory a common, but temporary malfunction. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, he met up with your husband, to whom he confided his problem during some drunken evening. Your husband told him it was an incurable disease—worse than the pox—contracted through certain intimate activities."
"Don't tell me," she said. "I can guess. There isn't any such disease, is there?"
Ismal shook his head. "But Avory believed the lie, and his mind, deeply affected, affected his body. If he had told a doctor what he told your husband, he might have been healed long since. But Beaumont made Avory so sick and ashamed that he could tell no one else. And so he has lived two years with the loss of his manhood. Also, in recent months, I am sure he lived with the anxiety that your increasingly irrational husband would expose the hideous secret."
She drew a long, steadying breath. "Cruel," she said. "Unspeakably cruel. Poor David." She emptied the champagne glass. "Is that why you were so unreasonable when I came home? You had a delicate job, I collect, to get the details out of him. It must have been beastly for you. If I'd had to investigate a friend—Fiona, for instance—in such a way, and hear of such cruelty and misery, I should be wretched." She stroked his coat sleeve. "Oh, Esmond, I am sorry."
The emotions he'd so ruthlessly buried began struggling to surface. Shoving them down, he said, "If you feel sorry for me, I can only conclude you are drunk."
She shook her head. "It takes more than two glasses of wine—with a large dinner—and one glass of champagne. And it’s no use trying to persuade me you don't feel anything—especially regarding David. I know you're upset because he's got a strong motive for murder."
"He does, certainly. Now he also has a strong motive to kill me."
"You're upset because you like him," she persisted. "You always call him my favorite, but he's your favorite, too, isn't he?"
"I am not upset," he said, edgily aware of her hand still upon his coat sleeve. "Even if he did the murder, it does not follow that he must be punished. My ideas of justice are not English. And all Quentin wants is to satisfy his curiosity. He likes to know all the answers. He is like you."
She was absently stroking the sleeve, her countenance thoughtful.
"You don't want me to believe you have a heart," she said. "Or a conscience."
"Leila."
"You might have a little bit of a heart." She lifted her hand and brought thumb and forefinger nearly together. "Since you're almost human, you might have a tiny little piece of a heart," she went on, squinting at the narrow space between her fingers. "And a tiny, tiny sliver of a conscience." She shot him a glance from under her lashes. "And I never gave you leave to use my Christian name. You normally manage to observe certain formal proprieties of address, even when you're behaving most improperly. But tonight I've got you so upset that you say—"
"Leila."
"That's three times now. Very upset, indeed."
"Because you provoke me," he said, grabbing her hand. "Because you probe. But I am not Avory. I do not tell my every thought and feeling to everyone who shows me a small kindness."
"Kindness?" she echoed. "Is that what I'm accused of? For heaven's sake, do you think every time a human being tries to deal with another as a human being—as a friend—there's some ulterior motive?" She pulled her hand away. "Because I haven't taken fits and broken things over your head and made an unprofessional fuss about a professional matter, you think I'm engaging in some sort of coldblooded manipulation?"
"You were probing," he said. "I could feel it."
"I wasn't detecting. I was trying to understand—to see matters from your point of view."
"As a friend, you said."
"And what's wrong with that?" she demanded. "Aren't you friends with some of your colleagues—accomplices—whatever they are?" She paused to study his face. Then, her voice dropping almost to a whisper, she said, "Don't you have a friend, Esmond?"
It was truth, and it stabbed deep. He had colleagues and countless accomplices and acquaintances and even devoted companions, like Avory. But Avory looked up to and confided in him. There was no equal give and take. There was no friend with whom Ismal shared himself as an equal.
For one terrible moment, gazing into her golden eyes, Ismal wanted, with a loneliness as sharp as physical pain, to share himself with her. His buried secrets struggled, as though they were living things, up—toward her compassionate voice, the soft warmth of her body, the promised welcome and shelter of her generous heart.
One moment of unbearable temptation...Then he saw there could be no welcome for him. Every secret was tangled in lies. He could not extract even one harmless secret, for it might carry a hint of some damning truth that could turn her against him forever. To share with her anything at all was to open the door to more probing, for she wouldn't be satisfied until she knew everything. That was both her nature and her calling, as an artist who sought the truth beneath the skin. Already, she had reached too deep.
"You are probing still," he reproached, drawing nearer. "Stop it. Now, Leila."
"I only wanted to—"
"Now." He continued to advance, until her knees were pressed against his thighs. Then he leaned in close.
"Don't," she said. "Stop it."
"You stop it."
"Unfair tactics, Esmond," she said edgily. "You are not to—"
He crushed the rest with his kiss and, holding her fast, tenderly punished her mouth until she gave him entrance to its sweet, dark depths. And, in an instant, the ache of loneliness fled on a bolt of pleasure that made his limbs tremble. Then came another bolt, stunning him, when she reached up and caught hold of his shoulders, her fingers digging into his coat.
His mouth still locked with hers, he lifted her up onto the edge of the table and, sweeping the clutter aside, eased her back while he nudged himself between her legs.
She gasped and started to pull away.
"No," he said softly. "Now I interrogate you. Let us see who discovers the most."
He took her mouth again, and she answered swiftly, hotly. He slid his hands over her bodice, and she shivered, and arched into his urgent touch, pressing the delicious weight of her breasts against his hands.
"Ah, yes," he murmured against her lips. "Tell me more, Leila."
"You already know, damn you," she answered breathlessly.
"Not enough." He drew another long, deep kiss from her while he reached down for the fastenings of her bodice. Then, keeping her distracted with feather kisses along her cheek, her jaw, her neck, he quickly freed one hook, then another. He continued unfastening hooks and buttons while he brushed his mouth over her ear and teased with his tongue and grew dizzy with wicked delight when she shivered and twisted against him. Finally, impatient, she caught his hair and brought his mouth back to hers and pressed and coaxed until he surrendered, and answered with the passionate plunder she wanted. Under his deft hands, her armaments surrendered, too: the twilled wool and silk of her bodice arid, beneath, the soft cambric and, beneath…heaven...the warm silk of her lush breasts, rich with her scent...taut under his soft, wondering caress.
"Ah, Leila." His voice was soft and wondering, too, as he brushed his thumb over a hard, trembling bud. She answered with a moan, and drew his head down, and let him worship with his mouth, because there was no choice, for her, for him. No choice at all once they came together. They were strong-willed, both, but this desire made a mockery of will. Just as it did of honor. For him. For her.
And for this moment, for him, there was no will or honor or anything but her...welcome and warmth...creamy flesh under his lips, his tongue...and the intoxication of desire he heard in her low moan, when he took one tawny rose peak into his mouth and tenderly suckled.
At this moment, all the world was one woman and the need she stirred in him, fathoms deep, to the very bottom of his black, false heart. Lost in need, he could not keep himself from restlessly seeking more of her, pushing back every barrier in his way until her lavish bosom was fully exposed, and he could bury his face in that creamy softness.
Her caressing hands and aching sighs told him, as her trembling frame told him, that she was lost, too, for this moment. And lost beyond conscience, he pushed the moment on, with long, drugging kisses, while his too-quick hands were busy as well, dragging up her skirt, stealing under the petticoat, sliding swiftly over the silken drawers to the feminine secrets the fragile fabric so inadequately shielded.
The instant he touched the thin barrier, she recoiled, as though she'd been burned. But he was burned, too, for her damp heat was a fiery current that darted through his fingertips and raced through his veins. She was hot and ready for him, and he was on fire, mad to possess.
With one arm lashed against her back, he trapped her in a deep, plunging kiss while he found the silken drawstring. Swiftly untying it, he slid his hand under the fabric.
He was aware of her body stiffening, aware of her withdrawal even before she broke from his desperate mouth, but he couldn't draw his hand from that rapturous womanly warmth. He couldn't keep his fingers from tangling in the silken curls and closing over her moist heat in mindless possession.
"No," she gasped. "For God's sake—no."
"Please," he whispered, blind, besotted, needy. "Let me touch you, Leila. Let me kiss you." Even while he begged, he was sinking, ready to fall to his knees. He would die if he could not put his mouth to her sweet, damp heat.
She grasped a fistful of his hair and jerked him upright. "Stop it, curse you." Digging her nails into his wrist, she wrenched his hand away.
He stood panting like an animal, his loins aching, and watched in furious despair while she retied the drawstring, shoved her skirts down over her long, shapely legs, yanked up her chemise, and hastily refastened her bodice.
"On the table," she said, her voice throbbing. "You would have had me on the be-damned worktable. I wish I had been drunk. That at least would have constituted some sort of excuse. But I wasn't drunk. I wasn't flirting, making advances. My only fatal error, it seems, was trying to—Lord, how am I to explain?" She pushed herself off the worktable and gazed at him exasperatedly. "Don't you understand? I want to do something. Instead of waiting about, all the day. When we began this inquiry, you said you needed my help," she continued quickly, before he could answer. "You called me a 'partner.' But you're doing it all by yourself, and you don't even want to tell me anything. You'd never have told me about Vingt-Huit if I hadn't worked half of it out for myself—then nagged you for the rest. How was I to help when you wouldn't even tell me the basic facts about Francis? How was I to know what to look for?"
His conscience gnawed. He had kept her in the dark about Vingt-Huit only to protect himself, because he'd feared she'd never forgive him for using her.
"Why do you bother coming here at all, when you don't trust me?" she asked, her eyes still pleading with him. "Is it just to seduce me? Is that all I am? A challenge to your powers of seduction? An amusing problem to solve in your leisure time?"
"You are the worst problem of my life," he said bitterly. "And it is not amusing. This night I have trusted you with more than any one other person knows. But that is not enough for you. You want everything."
"So do you," she said. "But you don't want to give anything. You don't know how to be friends with a woman. Which shouldn't surprise me, since you don't know how to be friends with anybody. You don't know how to have a conversation that isn't manipulative, or—"
"You were trying to manipulate me!"
"Which is intolerable, obviously, since you took swift measures to put a stop to it." She reached up to smooth his rumpled neckcloth. "God forbid you should have to regard me as an equal, and play fair."
Though he suspected she was manipulating now, his heart responded to the physical gesture—with its hint of forgiveness, and more important, possessiveness—and softened accordingly.
"You are not playing fair now, Leila. You are trying to confuse my mind. I do not know what you want."
"I'm trying to be patient," she said. "Because maybe if I'm patient and reasonable, you'll believe I can keep a cool head when need be. And maybe, in time, you'll actually let me help you."
He smiled. "I can think of several ways you can help—"
"With the inquiry," she said. She gazed up at him, her golden eyes lit with something startlingly like admiration. "I want to be part of it, knowingly, this time."
Then it finally dawned on him what had happened. She thought he was a hero. "Vingt-Huit," he said dazedly. "You were not distressed at all. You were...fascinated."
"Yes." She smiled, too. "I think it was a fascinating case, and you were brilliant. And this time, I want to be your partner."