His dark lashes hid his eyes. “It would be wrong to take advantage of your present emotions. I would rather not let you do something that you might regret in the morning.”
“An honorable, incorruptible gentleman,” she jeered. “I thought that species only existed in fairy tales.”
Saybrook didn’t react with any anger, which was what she was hoping for. “I do my best to live by certain principles,” he said calmly.
“Why should any of us care about abstract principles?” she challenged. “What does it matter? One only ends up defeated, disillusioned.”
“Only if you let yourself turn tail and run,” said the earl.
Arianna sucked in her breath. “I see no reason to care anymore. Let Concord and his evil cronies do as they please. It no longer matters to me.”
“I should think you would care about justice. It is an even more compelling reason to act than revenge.”
“Unlike you, sir, I’m not idealistic,” she retorted. “Far from it.”
“Perhaps you will surprise yourself.”
“How can you speak of justice? You heard the sordid facts—my father was guilty.” Her throat constricted. “Guilty.”
“Whatever his sins, he paid the price for them,” answered Saybrook. “Don’t you wish for the others to be called to account for their own misdeeds?”
“I . . .” Arianna was suddenly aware of the hot sting of salt against her lids. “I don’t know,” she said in a small voice.
“A show of feminine frailty?” His brow rose in a sardonic arch. “Of all the roles you’ve played, a weak, weepy female is by far the least convincing one.”
Crack. The impact of her hand left an angry red imprint on his cheek.
He didn’t so much as flinch. “Feeling sorry for yourself?”
“Yes!” she cried. “I bloody well am.”
“So you want to give up? Crawl away and wallow in self-pity, leaving your father’s murderers free to plot yet another sordid scam?”
She blinked.
“If that’s what you wish, pack up your belongings and I will allow you to slip away to . . . wherever it is that you wish to go,” he finished.
“Is that a challenge, Lord Saybrook?” muttered Arianna.
His mouth twitched. “Of a sort.”
Walk away and forget about everything? The idea was tempting. After all, she didn’t owe anything to anyone.
“Though it’s understandable if you’ve lost your stomach for a fight,” said the earl. “I did warn you that in a mano a mano duel of wills, you would not come out on top.”
“Don’t sheath your steel just yet, sir.”
“Then come tomorrow, be ready for another round.” Saybrook moved for the doorway, but paused with his hand on the latch. “By the by, in answer to your question earlier this evening, I was approaching your town house because I thought you might be interested in knowing that Lady Spencer is as rapacious in business as she is in pleasure.” He turned slightly, setting his dark hair to dancing across his shoulders. “In addition to sleeping with Kellton, she was also making money from him, and in more ways than one.”
He would have made an excellent actor—his sense of dramatic timing was superb.
“H-how do you know that?” she demanded.
“Armed with my aunt’s revelation, I decided to pay a visit to her town house after leaving the ball,” he replied.
“But your leg—”
“Like you, I can improvise, Lady Arianna.” He quirked a thin smile. “Your information about the hidden panel in her desk saved me a great deal of time. I was able to read through the packet of letters from Kellton before having to leave.”
Click, click. The latch shifted slightly under his hand. “From what I could gather, she was involved in a business enterprise with Kellton, and was passing him some sort of valuable information.” His smile had turned to a frown. “Though what that information was, I am not sure.”
Arianna felt a twinge of guilt over keeping the folder of papers she had taken from the desk to herself. But until she was more certain of its meaning . . .
“We may never know,” went on Saybrook. “In any case, it seems that Lady Spencer knew some details of the business that had Kellton worried. So he was paying her not only a cut of the profits, but a spot of blackmail to keep quiet.”
He thought for a moment. “I am surprised that such a clever lady is careless enough to keep written evidence in her own home, even though it is well hidden. But I suppose we should count ourselves lucky, for it seems she hasn’t yet noticed that anything has gone missing.”
“The secret compartment is ingeniously designed, so she likely thinks there is little danger that a common thief would find it—or have any interest in mere papers,” said Arianna. “It’s easy to become overconfident—which leads to making mistakes.”
“Very true. It’s a good reminder that we must never let down our guard.”
An oblique warning? She didn’t need the earl’s words to know how many slips she had made over the past several weeks.
She thought for a moment. “Perhaps you should have asked some further questions of Ashmun. He seems to know a good deal about the inner workings of English commerce.”
“Yes—maybe too much.”
“Oh, surely you don’t think . . .”
“Let us just say that for now, I take his tale with a grain of salt,” replied Saybrook. “And I would advise that you do, too. Think on it—he may sound sincere, but there could be a more sinister explanation for all the things he knows.”
“Lies and betrayal,” she whispered. “But of course, I’ve come to expect no less.”
“Lies and betrayal.” Saybrook shifted his stance. “You told me when we first met that you trusted no one. I hope you haven’t had a change of heart.”
“I don’t have a heart, sir.”
His face remained expressionless.
Arianna abruptly changed the subject. “How do you mean to pursue Lady Spencer? More and more, it appears she is intimately involved in whatever intrigue is going on.”
“I’ve already taken the first steps. While you were dancing with Gavin, I was enjoying a champagne stroll along the balcony with her.”
“I don’t think you’ll get very far,” she said bluntly. “You are not her type.”
“Some women find that a challenge.”
“But she knows you are conducting the government investigation on the Prince’s poisoning,” pressed Arianna. “It would be dangerous to encourage your attentions.”
“Danger is like a drug,” replied the earl. A spark from the dying embers seemed to light a reddish gold gleam in his gaze. “It can bubble through your blood and reach down into the deepest, darkest recesses of your being, making you do wild things. Risky things.”
“At times, you frighten me, Lord Saybrook,” she said.
“At times I frighten myself.” He withdrew a piece of paper from his pocket and dropped it on the sideboard. “One last thing—you missed a sheet of numbers when you were riffling the lady’s desk. It looks like gibberish to me, but seeing as you mentioned tonight that you had inherited a little of your father’s skill in mathematics, perhaps you can make some sense of it.”
19
Sandro has sent me the most delightful chocolatiere that he found at Sotheby’s Auction House. It is made of delicate cream-colored porcelain and is painted with a fanciful scene of the tropics. He thinks it is quite old, and in doing a bit of research on the subject, I found that this style of pot was invented in the late seventeenth century, and features a tall, thin shape and a lid with a small hole, designed to fit the handle of a molinillo. . . .
4 sticks (1 pound) unsalted butter, cut into pieces