I am both.
She’d said it the night of the ball, too, and he’d thought it just as ridiculous then. How could one be both French and English? It was true that one could be born of both, as in Lady Olivia’s case—an English father and a French mother. But it was beyond his comprehension how a person could choose to be of both heritages. One was either French or English. Not both.
She was a most annoying woman, in more ways than he could name, possessing a remarkably strong intellect for an Englishwoman of aristocratic background, coupled with a face and body that defied description. That bothered him most of all.
Yet it shouldn’t, he admonished himself, shifting his large frame in the carriage as he rode along Upper Rhine Street toward Colin’s town house. That she still looked like the French goddess he’d seen in her the night of the ball was really not her fault. He’d hoped she’d be less appealing under the telling light of afternoon, but nothing about her, or her clothing, could be considered remotely ordinary. True, she wore much less formal attire today—a day gown in…blue? He couldn’t remember. Even so it remained obvious how remarkable she looked in or out of clothes, making it extremely difficult for him to concentrate on anything she actually said. And he hated admitting that he was attracted to her—his brother’s wife, for God’s sake. What a nightmare this could turn out to be.
The morning had been stormy, gloomy and gray, but as evening approached the rain began to ease somewhat, allowing him to alight from his carriage at the front gate of Colin’s home without getting drenched. He marched quickly to the tall black door and knocked hard, twice. After a long moment a silver-haired butler he’d never seen before answered and moved aside immediately for him to enter. Sam stifled a chuckle. Colin changed employees like he changed his drawers. He’d never seen the same servants twice, and each time he visited, he wondered if his friend rotated the help so much because of his clandestine work for the Crown. But then he didn’t really care and he’d never thought to ask. Right now he had more important issues on his mind.
After walking swiftly through the parlor and down the entire length of the long, dimly lit hallway, Sam rapped twice on the door to Colin’s spacious study, where he’d been told his friend awaited him, then opened it without waiting for reply. The warmth of the low burning fire struck him immediately, as did the strong odor of tobacco that encircled Colin’s head as he sat behind his enormous oak desk.
Sir Walter Stemmons of Scotland Yard, a hard, broad-shouldered man with a pockmarked face and keen eyes that missed nothing, stood beside his friend, peering down to paperwork in which they were both obviously engrossed, until Colin glanced up and grinned dryly at him.
Sam snorted as he stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He knew what was coming.
“So, the damsel tie you down?” Colin asked with a flick of his head.
“Literally or figuratively?” he returned nonchalantly, walking toward a black leather chair beside the fireplace.
Sir Walter chuckled and stood upright, pulling down hard on his sleeves. “If my wife had any notion of the things bachelors discuss—”
“She’d tie you down?” Sam cut in.
“I’m deathly afraid so, yes,” Sir Walter said with a nod and a crooked grin that made his features look remarkably young for his nearly sixty years. “Colin has been explaining your unusual dilemma, your grace. I’ll be happy to help in any way I can, of course.”
Sam nodded a silent thanks to the man as he sat heavily on the cushioned leather, leaning slightly to the side and stretching the opposite leg out in front of him. “It could get rather complicated, I’m afraid. I don’t want to take too much of your time away from the Yard.”
With a toss of his hand, Sir Walter balked at that and leaned his hip against the edge of the desk. “I’m nearly retired at this point,” he maintained, his voice gruffly proud. “My time is generally my own, meaning that I can take my own cases, and frankly, any threat to the peerage is my business.”
Sam didn’t know if he’d call Olivia Shea a threat to the peerage, unless one considered her striking appearance.
Dammit.
“She didn’t seem very threatening to me,” Colin said lightly.
He groaned inwardly and rubbed his tired eyes with his fingers and thumb. “She claims Edmund married her then disappeared, taking her fortune with him.”
Sir Walter grunted. Colin let out a low whistle then mumbled, “Unbelievable.”
Sam looked directly at the two men. “Really? I don’t think so. This is Edmund we’re discussing. I’d only be more surprised if he’d married and cheated a homely girl. But true to form, Olivia isn’t homely in the least.”
“No, not in the least,” Colin repeated through a grin. He sat forward, forearms atop the papers and notes on his cluttered desk. “What did you bring me?”
“Her marriage license.” Sam waved the paper in front of him but remained sitting, wanting to talk the situation through before he gave it to his friend to scrutinize.
Colin raised his brows. “Indeed. The original? She trusted you with it?”
His lips thinned into a line of annoyance. “She made me sign for it.”
Both men chuckled, and Sam felt a certain flush creep up his neck.
“She’s thought of everything, hasn’t she?” Colin remarked.
Sam’s eyes narrowed. “She’s apparently something of a perfumer, and manages a business called the House of Nivan in Paris.”
Sir Walter remained silent, kneading his chin with his fingers and thumb as he absorbed the information like a good detective would.
“Fascinating,” Colin said seconds later, bemused. “And I gather she’s come here looking for her wayward scoundrel of a husband but found you instead.”
Sam tendered no response to that. Instead, he bluntly asked, “What did you think of her?”
Colin shrugged minutely. “She’s amazing; well-spoken, well-dressed, stunning to look at.”
He sighed. “Besides the physical.”
Colin’s chair creaked as he sat back fully and relaxed again. “I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t help me,” he said through a snort. “I need more of your first impression of the woman. Just…ideas, thoughts that come to mind, however seemingly insignificant.”
After a long moment of a more serious contemplation, Colin expounded. “She’s…clever, and obviously spirited. A woman of passions, which, I suppose, is typical of the French.”
So very true, Sam thought, in every respect, which worried him, frankly.
“Under the right circumstances,” Colin continued, “she might prove to be an engaging confidante; she seems genuinely quick with words and…sophisticated, probably due to her travels and apparently good upbringing. However, these are my impressions from only talking to her briefly, Sam.”
“May I suggest she’s probably also extremely organized?” Sir Walter piped in. He pushed himself away from the desk edge to stand straight again, crossing his arms over his chest as he began to pace to the side of it, staring down to the hardwood floor. “I realize I’ve never met her personally, but if she truly oversees a thriving perfume business—and I say thriving because if Edmund indeed stole her money, she had to have enough for him to spend the time devising this enormous scheme—then she can certainly plan and execute operations. She was clearly determined and independent enough to come to England on her own in search of her missing husband. Most ladies would never dream of such a thing.”
“Organized, determined, independent. The worst qualities in a female,” Sam said, wiping his palm down his face in feigned pain.
Sir Walter laughed. “I’m sure there are worse.”
“Like stupidity,” Colin interjected, his tone rather sober in light of the discussion. “It should be noted that if she did marry your brother, Sam, such an action was obviously unwise. She didn’t seem at all dense to me, or shy. She’s certainly sensual, but not obviously a frivolous romantic, so there’s no telling what he might have told her, or how he might have charmed her, to get her to wed him.” Colin drew a long breath and let it out slowly. “There’s also the possibility that she devised this scheme all by herself after meeting Edmund and learning his twin brother is a wealthy man of the British nobility. I think she’s probably that smart.”
He’d thought so, too, and added, “It’s also possible that she and Edmund are lovers, married or not, and that they’re working together to extort money from me by playing on my sympathies for an abandoned female and my contempt for my brother.” He gave the two men a sideways glance. “Her showing at the ball three nights ago might have been the first act in a very long play of wit and games and devious calculation. I don’t know her, but I wouldn’t put anything past Edmund. And she is half French.”
“Doesn’t that also make her half English?” Sir Walter asked carefully.
Sam chose not to respond to what he knew was a rhetorical question. Both Colin and a few he knew well at the Yard, Sir Walter included, were very much aware of his past relations with one particular Frenchwoman. Some scandals never died, however one tried to forget them, or however one’s friends tried to put past mistakes in a positive light.
Colin drummed his fingertips on the top of a pile of tossed papers. “It doesn’t help that she’s beautiful also, does it?”
Tightening his jaw, he softly replied, “No, that doesn’t help at all.”
Silence droned for a few seconds. Then Colin said, “Let me see the document.”
Sam stood warily and walked to the desk, holding the marriage license in his outstretched hand.
Colin reached for it gingerly, then lighting a lamp on his desk, he placed the paper beneath it and began to scrutinize it inch by inch.
Sir Walter stood behind his friend, staring down at the document, his thick brows crinkled. Sam waited with as much patience as he could muster under the circumstances, trying not to ask Colin questions before he’d finished his evaluation. This was what he did for a living, and the man was quite possibly the greatest forger—and the greatest detector of forged documents—that had ever lived in England. He’d been caught at the age of twenty-four, sentenced to work for the Crown, and this he’d readily done for more than twelve years. But very few people knew of his work. To everybody outside a small circle of friends and colleagues, Colin was simply the dashing, but rather lazy, Duke of Newark who spent his time attending parties and flirting with the ladies. The fact that his line of work remained a tightly held secret was their government’s greatest asset.
Colin started to chuckle and his head popped up. “This is marvelous.”
Sam frowned and leaned over the desk. “How so?”
His friend leaned on the armrest of his rocker and tapped the document. “It’s an excellent forgery. Well…it’s not a forgery exactly, but it’s not a legitimate license of marriage, either.”
“What does that mean?” Sir Walter asked, peering closer.
“That the document is real, but it’s been altered. Look here.”
Sam turned his neck aslant to better view the area at the bottom right edge of the document where Colin ran the pad of his thumb over the indented seal.
“The document itself is legal, meaning this is the actual document used to record civil marriages in whichever parish they were married in the country of France.” Colin raised an old steel magnifying glass and analyzed the bottom right corner. “However, the seal height is off—it’s pressed in too high. It’s also got one or two tiny indentations on the bottom of it that aren’t normally there.”
“You’ve seen other marriage documents enough to know this?” Sam asked.
Colin shot him a quick, perplexed glance. “Of course.”
He had nothing to say to that.
“And as I look at the entire document now enlarged,” Colin continued, “there are letters printed off center, perhaps one-twentieth of an inch. See that?”
Sam squinted, staring hard where Colin traced the supposed falsity with a fingertip, yet saw nothing that appeared less than perfect. “No, I don’t.”
Colin didn’t offer a clarification. Instead, he flipped the paper over for a second or two, then back again. Finally, he lifted the magnifying glass again and slowly followed the edges of the document, then moved in to the lettering, tracing each one attentively.
Moments later he straightened once more and tossed the counterfeit license of marriage on top of his own pile of paperwork. “I’d have to see a recent signature from Edmund to know if he actually signed this. But aside from that, this document is real, and it’s been altered, making it a forgery, and a very expensive one. Of that I’m sure.”
Silence prevailed for a second or two, then Sam said thoughtfully, “Meaning someone spent a lot of money to enact this scam. Do you know anyone who could do this kind of work?”
“Personally?” Colin frowned, shaking his head. “No, not offhand. But I’ll think on it, check with some of my contacts if you’d like. It might take some time.”
Unfortunately, time was a luxury Sam was afraid he might not have. He ran his fingers roughly through his hair. “Do what you can. It might help.”
“So,” Sir Walter chimed in, turning his back on them and rounding the desk to stare out the window, hands clasped behind him, “are they not married, then? Or would it still be a legal marriage if done in the eyes of the Church, regardless of the signed document? I would think so.”
Sam’s stomach suddenly clenched uncomfortably; it had been the one question he’d been hesitating to ask.
Colin thought about that for a moment. “I think so, too, but it would depend upon who performed the ceremony. The name on this document means nothing.” He leaned forward to read the license. “Jean-Pierre Savant. I’m sure that’s a very common name in France, and it could be entirely made up.”
“Or it could be legitimate,” Sam argued.
“Yes,” Colin agreed. “And if the signature is that of a man of the cloth, ordained to perform marriages, then I’d have to say they’re legally wed, regardless of the document, at least in the eyes of the Church. And remember, witnesses always count.”
“But we must keep in mind,” Sir Walter said, turning back to consider them, “that actors and even witnesses can be purchased. If she is married to Edmund, even if only in the eyes of the Church, her money is his. He’s not then guilty of anything but abandonment.”
Sam groaned, once more rubbing his eyes. “Which would leave her my responsibility.”
Sir Walter let out a long, loud breath and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Probably. At least until an annulment is secured. Does she have family?”
Sam shook his head. “I’ve no idea. But I suppose the bright side is that she has no children from the union.”
“You can’t be sure of that,” Colin remarked softly.
Sam thought about that for a moment. Then, turning away from the desk, he strode toward the fireplace, his gaze falling on the burning embers. “I just don’t think so. She never mentioned a child, which would be the ultimate argument for my help, financial or otherwise.” He shook his head minutely and clasped his hands behind his back. “I don’t know how long they were married before he allegedly left, but if she had a child, I think she’d tell me for nothing more than just the sympathy.” He paused, then added, “And she’s also very…trim.”
“Trim,” Colin repeated almost pensively. “And spectacularly shapely, I should add.”
Sam ignored that, closing his eyes briefly to chastise himself. He shouldn’t have mentioned her figure. Her appearance was irrelevant as far as he was concerned. Or at least it should be.
With a deep inhale, he turned to face his friends once more, with stately bearing, his expression grave. “As I see it, gentlemen,” he speculated, “there are two possibilities here. She’s either telling the truth—as far as she knows it—and my brother married her under false pretenses and absconded with her…perfume fortune. Or she’s lying and has come here to extort part of my fortune. Now, if she’s actually telling the truth, and if Edmund actually took her money, they are either married or they are not. Either way, if she is being truthful about Edmund, then she probably believes they are. The only other scenario is that she and Edmund are in this together, in which case I could become the ultimate fool.” Though the thought made him almost physically ill, he also noted that he lacked any real surprise. Edmund’s manipulations had stopped shocking him years ago.
Sir Walter cleared his throat. “Well, to err on the side of caution is the prudent thing to do, of course. Until you understand the situation better, get to know her better, you can’t trust anything more than what she tells you, and only take that at face value.”
Sam nodded in complete agreement. The last thing he intended to do as far as Lady Olivia was concerned was to show her his hand, regardless of whether he bluffed.
“Want me to make a copy of the marriage document?” Colin offered, interrupting his thoughts.
“Can you do it quickly?” he asked, walking toward the two men again.
Colin lifted the forgery and gazed at it once more, front and back. “I suppose I can have a good copy done for you in a day or two.”
“That will do,” Sam said with appreciation. “I’ll invite her to dinner or some such thing in a few days. That should give her time to wonder what I’m doing about her announcement.”
“You don’t trust her at all, do you,” Colin stated rather than asked.
“Not for a minute,” he returned at once, “and for other reasons besides the fact that she’s a Frenchwoman.” Pacing in front of the desk, he noted for the first time that Colin had his study walls recently papered in a god-awful shade of brown. Not that it mattered. “Think of it this way,” he continued, his voice direct as his impressions of the situation began to solidify. “If she’s sincere, and truly believes she’s legally married, I have the upper hand with the knowledge that she’s been duped by my brother. If she’s not sincere, she’ll be forced to wonder how much I believe of her story, and whether I trust her or anything she says.”
“She’ll likely wonder that anyway,” Sir Walter remarked.
“True,” he acknowledged. He stopped pacing and gazed out the window to his left. “Which means my plan must be better than hers.”
“What plan?” Then Colin sighed, leaning back heavily in his chair, lacing his fingers together behind his head. “Tell me you’re not going to France.”
“No, I am going to France.”
“With her?”
Sam almost laughed at the priceless look of shock, even subtle envy, that Colin gave him.
“Of course.” He leaned over his friend’s desk, placing his palms flat on the scattering of paperwork. “Frankly, I don’t care who she is—if she’s only naive or lying with pleasure, or whether she’s working with Edmund or looking for him as she says. I want to find my brother—”
“And Claudette?”
Sam immediately stood erect, his gut burning again with a displaced anger and resentment he’d tried to hide for years.
“If she’s with him, perhaps.”
“For revenge,” Colin bluntly said for him.
“To set things straight,” he murmured in quick response, explaining nothing.
Colin slowly shook his head. Then sitting forward, forearms resting on the cluttered desktop, fingers interlocking, he gazed up at Sam’s face, his tone underscored with warning. “Nothing has changed in all the years he’s been gone. You know why he left, and although this beauty, who claims to be his wife, is part French—”
“And part English,” he cut in.
Colin blinked innocently. “Now you’re defending her?”
Sam didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful to Colin for helping him keep things in perspective. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Well then,” Sir Walter added, rubbing his palms along his wide chest, “I’d be careful if I were you. From what you’ve described of the Lady Olivia, she doesn’t strike me as a woman to be undermined. Especially if she’s toying with you.”
Sam nodded once, acknowledging the older man’s advice with an uncomfortable sense of foreboding.
“So you’d use her for revenge,” Colin maintained wryly.
Sam said nothing for a moment, then harshly whispered, “Opportunity.”
The rain suddenly intensified again, pelting the large window behind the desk, interrupting their discourse with a reminder of outside realities.
Colin stood and stretched. “Let’s eat, gentlemen. I’ve got a new cook and he’s marvelous with a hen.”
Back to realities indeed. “As are you, my friend.”
Sir Walter snickered; Colin laughed outright. “And yet you seem to attract the ones of exceptional beauty.”
“Who never belong to me,” he quickly countered.
“There’s always Edna Swan…”
He didn’t like that option, either.