Orchestrating Lady Avalon’s residency at the hotel where Lucien stayed had taken careful maneuvering—not to mention, a good deal of coin—but it had served him well in the end.
The concierge had been exceptionally helpful, informing him of every coming and going of zee three Misses Parrish, including precisely when they were departing to continue their supposed holiday. And the moment their hired coach had driven away, Lucien and Pell had set off in pursuit.
Leaving France, they traveled over hills and dales, through vineyards and the forests that brought them into Germany. The land was green and abundant with cherry trees, laden with the red stone fruit, lining the narrow roads.
It had been days since his last encounter with Meg in Paris. Ten days to be exact, and Lucien was still no closer to discovering the whereabouts of his book than before.
All he knew was that, after a brief surveillance, neither Count Andret nor Colonel Whittingham proved capable of being the mastermind behind this plot. Erring on the side of caution, however, Lucien hired a man to follow Andret and report anything more interesting than mummified cats. He also sent word to his investigator to keep an eye on the colonel when he returned to England with his young bride, along with her cousin, Miss Hartley, whose close connection with Lady Avalon was still under suspicion.
He hated not having answers. It was taking far too long to unearth the name of the man that Lady Avalon was working for. Though, whoever he might be, he apparently did not live in France.
The Parrish women had been on a peculiar zigzag course into Germany. But they visited no jewelers, officers, heads of state or anyone he would consider the architect of this charade.
They’d paused for a brief stay in Trier to admire the Moselle from a hired boat for a few hours. Then they continued onward, making a point to stop at nearly every Gasthaus along the way, as if for the sole purpose of sampling the local cuisine.
It confused him exceedingly. Normally, he enjoyed a good puzzle, but he disliked when the pieces failed to fall in place.
What did these excursions have to do with the book she’d stolen from him? Or any of the other pilfered goods she’d taken over the years, for that matter?
He glowered through the window of his carriage, where it sat on an overlook shielded by bramble and coniferous shrubs. In the valley below, his quarry had been loitering in a quaint village square market for two hours and seventeen—eighteen—minutes.
“For a master of espionage, Lady Avalon certainly leaves loaves’ worth of breadcrumbs behind,” Pell said with a yawn from the opposite bench. “We’ve tracked her every step of the way through France and now Germany with minimal effort. At least on my part. I don’t know the lengths you’ve gone to with all your calculations and deductions. Then again, I’m not interested. Just wake me when they leave.”
As Pell eased into the corner of the carriage, arms crossed and hat tilted over his face, Lucien returned his gaze to the figure in the pink-striped dress as she idly twirled a frilly parasol and sauntered among the crowds with a basket on her arm. “Clearly, she is working with the older women. I hadn’t thought so at first. But after seeing the elder two steal away into the kitchens of coaching inns and through back doors of market shops, I’m sure they are part of it.”
“While Lady Avalon serves as a distraction,” Pell murmured groggily. “You’ve mentioned that before. You always repeat yourself when something doesn’t make sense to you. So they must be quite the clever team of cohorts.”
“But to what end?”
Lucien scrubbed a hand along his shaven jaw. Thinking back to a previous conversation with Lady Avalon, he recalled her mentioning that certain ingredients could only be found in specific parts of Europe.
So perhaps she was delivering the ingredients and the recipes at the same time. Which meant that the man she was working for was interested in complete authenticity. Hence, he could very well be a scholar of the ancient texts. And hadn’t his little wolf already confessed that her own father had known all the stories?
Perhaps the person he was looking for was in her own family, whoever that may be. He hoped his investigator in England would be able to unearth something more concrete than a list of thefts connected to her alias.
Lucien wanted to know more about her—who she was, where she came from, how she fell into this line of work and why she felt it necessary to seduce so many men.
Not that the last mattered to him. Not in the least. Her amorous escapades were none of his concern. Although, why she found it necessary to linger so long at the market stall with the burly chap in the lederhosen, he didn’t know. But when her parasol tilted enough to expose her beaming smile as she drank from an offered cup, a seething hot breath fogged up the window.
“You know,” Pell said as Lucien wiped his sleeve in a circle over the pane, “it is entirely possible that we have the wrong woman altogether.”
He shook his head in instant denial. Then remembering that his cousin had his eyes closed, he said, “No. If you’d spent any time alone with her, then you would know just how cunning she can be. It almost makes me feel sorry for all those other men she has duped.”
Even he had nearly been drawn into her trap. He’d thought that touring the hotel gallery while engaging in pleasant conversation would allow her to trust him and feel at ease. He should have known better. Instead, she’d beguiled him with those eyes and spoke of kissing, purposely drawing his attention to her all too tantalizing lips.
She was a master of her craft, subtly spinning a web around him. Before he knew it, he’d found himself ensnared and admitting things he’d never planned to confess. And when her lashes had descended over her eyes in a sultry, slumberous blink and her mouth parted on a sweet breath, it was only by sheer force of will that he’d been able to pull himself free.
When he’d walked away, he’d intended to leave temptation behind. It was a simple matter of mental fortitude, after all. He’d exercised those muscles often enough that he had no doubt of his success. And yet . . .
Because he was in pursuit of the book, and she was the holder of said book, it proved impossible.
She was all he could think about. And every night he was plagued with dreams of those candied-cherry-colored lips, of wanting to feel them beneath his own, opening, surrendering, of tasting her sigh and exploring every facet of her mouth until he became a scholar of the subject.
“Don’t tell me the great monk of Caliburn Keep was seduced.” Pell tilted up his hat and peered across the carriage with intrigue.
Lucien quickly schooled his features and scoffed. “I’m hardly a monk, but no.”
“It has to have been ages.”
“Unlike you, I do not keep a tally on my bedpost. I have my studies, and they are important to me. Lust only clouds the mind.”
“Always clears up my thinking. You might want to give it a try. And besides, you’re going to need to get closer to her if you want that book. Much closer.”
“If you’ll recall, that was my intention at Andret’s party, to lure her into a false sense of security by being affable.”
“And that went over like a lead balloon,” Pell muttered.
Technically, osmium would have been a better example as it was the denser element, but Lucien kept the information to himself. “She is more likely to reveal the location of the book if she is at ease with me.”
“Which is precisely what I’m saying.” His cousin heaved out a great sigh as if exhausted from his efforts. “Honestly, haven’t you figured her out yet? She’s in her element when she’s seducing men. That’s when she feels most at ease, because she’s in control. Therefore, if you want the chance of finding that book any time in this century, you should let her seduce you.”
“Let her . . . seduce . . . me?” Lucien barely forced the words out, his throat suddenly tight, his pulse thick.
“Unless, of course, you cannot trust yourself around her.”
He sent a glare to Pell, but his cousin had already lowered his hat again, a smug grin curving his lips beneath the brown beaver brim.
Regrettably, Lucien had to admit that his cousin was at least twenty-five percent correct. He’d like to think that he was strong enough but, more often than not, he was a slave to his own curiosity. All those questions that needed answers were simply impossible to resist. And now he was wondering about all the tantalizingly provocative things she might do to him if he let her . . .
He swallowed and slid a finger between his collar and his throat. Had it grown exceedingly warm inside the carriage just then?
Turning back to the window, he found her still twirling her parasol. She’d left Herr Lederhosen with the hairy thighs to stare after her as she continued to peruse the market. Lucien sent a warning glare to the man to stay at his stall.
But where were her chaperones? His gaze swept the square, searching the windowed shopfronts of quaint broad-roofed buildings and the rows of shingled huts and straw-strewn horse carts there to sell their wares. But the elder Parrish women were nowhere in sight.
Damn it all! He’d missed which way they’d gone. But why would they dare leave her alone in a foreign land? And there she was, drinking from another cup at a different vendor’s hut, seemingly without a care in the world.
“Is that your stomach growling like a beast?” Pell mumbled. “If you’re thinking of stepping over to the market, bring one of those wursts back for me.”
“And risk having her observe me, spoiling ten days of careful surveillance? I think not. I have absolutely no intention of revealing our—”
Lucien stopped when he saw the way her head tilted back on a laugh and the heads of several men turned her way.
“Actually,” he said darkly, “perhaps a surreptitious sojourn isn’t a bad notion, after all.”