Elizabeth Boyle (15 page)

Perhaps I’ll have need of it later
, she’d told herself when Gauthiér offered a handsome sum for the rich piece.

Now she realized it had been common sense and not sentiment that had convinced her to pull the necklace out of the lot of items to be sold.

It would have taken quite some explaining if he’d found his betrothal gift to Lady Sophia in a Paris jewelry shop.

Lord Trahern stared at her as if he didn’t quite see the point of her laughter. Sophia was of no mind to enlighten the man.

Looking him directly in the eye, she asked, “What do you intend to do with it?” All things considered, there was no reason why the bracelet couldn’t be sold again.

“Return it.”

Her mouth opened, but the words hung up in the back of her throat in a strangled sound of dismay. He wanted to return it? How could he be so thickheaded?

The drunken
sans-culottes
turned down a side street, leaving the street safe for Sophia and Giles to continue. In outraged frustration she stomped down the stairs and up the boulevard.

“You don’t like the idea of seeing it returned to its rightful owner?” Giles asked when he caught up with her.

“I cannot believe you would return my bracelet to that vile man. Not after all the trouble I went to to relieve him of it.” She came to an abrupt halt next to a large tree on the edge of a park. Her hands went to her hips, her elbows jutting out like exclamation points. “If you do feel the need to return it, you have to realize it will only end up in another pawnshop by the end of the month.”

“Delaney selling his family’s heirlooms?” Giles laughed at her. “What makes you think Lord Delaney would sell a family heirloom? With his fortune he could buy ten identical necklaces and toss them in the Thames,” he said, snapping his fingers in the air.

“Then he won’t miss this one, so you might as well give it back to me.” Sophia found that his moralistic indignation couldn’t be more misplaced. Yes, she would agree that in some circumstances stealing was wrong, but men like Delaney didn’t deserve the law’s consideration.

His gaze rolled upward. “Give it back to you? What, so you can sell it again?”

“Why not? I’ll put the gold to better use than he will.” Of this Sophia couldn’t be more positive. The thought of what Delaney would do with the money disgusted her.

“I’m still not convinced Delaney has any reason to be selling his mother’s jewels. If by chance she hears her son was mixed up with you, he’ll probably have to buy out Rundell and Bridge to get back into her good graces.”

“How little you know,” she said with a pompous huff. She started back down the street, and when he caught up with her, she glared up at him. “And what exactly is he going to use to buy his way back into his mother’s heart?”

“What he’s always used. Money. I don’t think even you could have carted out the entire Delaney fortune under your skirts.”

She stopped again. “I did exactly that. At least what’s left of it.”

Giles scoffed at her, shaking his head in scathing disbelief.

Oh, his utter arrogance! At least in this she could bring him down a notch or two with her better intelligence about the Delaney family. Poking him in the ribs, she closed the distance between them and rose up on her tiptoes so she nearly looked him square in the eye. “There is no Delaney fortune. It’s all gone.”

He shook his head. “Gone? You’re starting to believe your own rumors.”

She threw up her hands. “Fine, don’t believe me, but how do you explain why his mother suddenly packed up and left town at the beginning of the Season?” She paused for a second. “His mother left to escape their creditors.”

“Even if it were true, how could you know any of this?” Giles asked. “If Delaney’s ruined I doubt even his valet would divulge something that shocking. And if he were penniless it would be the buzz of the
ton
.”

This time she smiled. “You’d be surprised what a valet will reveal. Especially when someone else is buying the drinks.”

Giles took a second glance at the woman beside him. This admission proved his theory that she thoroughly researched her victims—and explained how she so easily tapped into their secret fantasies.

They stopped at the next block. “So, you see, you can’t return it,” she persisted.

“If Delaney’s ruined then he’ll need the money the bracelet will bring.”

She took a deep breath and let it out as if she were trying to restrain her growing impatience. “And you think that by giving it back to him he will use it to lighten his debts? You really don’t know the man, do you?” Her hands were back on her hips, but her tone was softer, as if she wanted him to understand something very important. “More likely it will go to buying him more young girls. Since you don’t seem very enlightened as to Delaney’s preferences, let me explain: The man is quite partial to virgins. Young, soft girls he can break. Their bones, that is, as he beats them with a cane. Then, once they are bloody and crying for mercy, he takes his ruthless pleasures. So give it back if you feel so compelled, but know that with it he’ll buy the lives of three or four girls fresh from the country. Girls, who if they survive a night with that beast will spend the remainder of their miserable lives whoring for the type of man who cares not how they look.” A haunted, angry look broke through the twisted makeup on her face. Without another word she started across the street in haste.

Giles stared after her.

There had been whispers of Delaney’s sports, but he had never really listened to the malicious gossip.

Though Monty had obviously known. And no wonder he’d vehemently protested Giles’s decision to let her go into the Delaney house alone.

“You knew all this and still entered the man’s house?” he asked when he caught up with her. He pulled her to a stop. He didn’t know why he was suddenly so mad at her, and at himself.

And why it left him needing to hold her so tight.

“Tell me. Why did you go with him?” he asked again, struggling to make some sense of it.

She shook her head and looked away.

Gently, he swept away the stiff horsehair curls of her wig and found the brilliance of her blue eyes sparkling with tears. She must have been silently replaying the events from that night. With her mitt she swiped at the drops on her cheeks, wincing at the hasty movement.

In his anger over her hasty departure, he’d all but forgotten how she’d arrived at his house—her dress torn, her face bright red with the print of Delaney’s hand. The resulting bruise must have been quite a sight.

He still couldn’t fathom her reckless decision to rob Delaney. “Why him if you knew what he was capable of?”

“I met one of his victims.” She continued to look away, but this time her eyes didn’t fill with tears. A strange solemnity filled her voice, giving it a ring of truth he’d never before heard in her often teasing, playful speech. “I couldn’t give him the hanging he deserved, but I could take his remaining coins and baubles to see that he wouldn’t hurt anyone else. And who would protest? He’s ruined as it is. No one will raise a fuss, when most would probably agree he deserved a share of what he so gleefully metes out.”

The revelation sent chills down Giles’s spine.

He supposed he’d always half-enjoyed her choices of victims, as had the rest of the
ton
. With the exception of Monty, they’d been reprobates, each and every one.

But her compassion and recognition for their forgotten victims, for the innocents they exploited to obtain their own deviant ends, gave a new dimension to the strange, mercurial woman he held in his arms.

If she was capable of this much empathy, could she in turn betray someone as honorable and kind as Webb Dryden?

As much as the evidence argued against it, he found himself believing she’d had nothing to do with Webb’s death. He couldn’t base the suspicion on any new facts or tangible evidence, just on the unfamiliar notion that for once he needed to trust something he couldn’t see or touch. That still didn’t answer his original question.

“Why did you risk it?” he asked. “Yes, you might have saved another girl the fate Delaney had planned, but what of your own life? What can be so important that you’d wager your neck to steal a man’s gold?” His fingers traced a gentle path down the side of her face, along the curve of her neck, until his hand cupped her chin. The silk of her skin enticed him.

He struggled against the desire to pull her closer and kiss her. To offer his protection, his assistance. Anything to prevent her from taking one gamble too many.

Didn’t she know what one mistake could cost? Considering her disregard for caution, he figured her luck was already overdrawn.

She looked ready to give him the answers he so wanted. He watched the struggle of emotions in her eyes, as if she weighed whether or not to trust him.

A sigh escaped her lips and she pushed away.

Obviously, her suspicions won out, for the Brazen Angel fled his arms and continued down the street, hugging the shadows like a creature of the night. Hell-bent and reckless.

And all he could do was follow.

Pausing briefly before a small fenced churchyard, she turned and smiled at him. Her finger curled in invitation before she entered the adjoining cemetery. Around them rose the solemn monuments of the dead.

Loving mother and wife of. . .

Devoted servant of the church . . .

The prayers and names blurred in the darkness as she wove through the maze of the dead. Beneath their feet, weeds choked the paths. Finally, she stopped at the back fence, far from the street, far from any prying eyes.

She paused beside a tall, moss-covered monument, discarding her bundle at the foot of the gravestone.

As Giles looked up, he found himself staring eye to eye with a griffin held by an fierce-looking angel.

Why did he have the feeling the Brazen Angel had come home?

To the one place where life and death met every day.

“Do you see now how foolish it is for you to be here?” she said, her hands coming to rest on her hips. “Disregarding the fact that your country has declared war against France, how can you think to come here? Paris is no place for an aristocrat, certainly not one with your, shall I say, experience?”

Her statement took him aback.

While Monty liked to speculate on the nature of Giles’s obligation to Lord Dryden, Giles had always wondered what his friend would say if he knew the true extent of his “business ventures.” For that matter, very few knew how far-reaching his role in the Foreign Office had grown over the years.

Now this woman spouted off as if it were common knowledge.

“What do you know of my experience?” he asked cautiously.

She smiled and gave a wistful shrug of her shoulders. “More than you probably want to hear. Let us say, I would wager you didn’t follow me here to return my shoes or lost clothing. You were sent.”

Too close to the truth by his way of thinking, Giles decided to play the game he’d started at the bridge. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean. Sent by whom? Why couldn’t I have followed you to merely return your belongings? Men have launched wars to follow the woman they love.”

The moment he said the word he realized the incredible weight of what he’d uttered. He’d only meant to be rash, as outspoken and shocking as she, and yet. . .

The Brazen Angel stepped back as if he’d slapped her. “You don’t love me. You don’t even know me,” she stuttered, shaking her head in denial, as if the truth of her identity was too dangerous to even consider.

He hadn’t realized his flippant statement would affect her so strongly. She feared love. Especially his.

And right she was to fear that dangerous emotion. It would hang between them with its enticing promise, obscuring their other obligations, stripping them of their reason. And instead of binding them with its promise of strength, it would destroy everything they both held dear.

Yes, he couldn’t agree more. Love was too dangerous for them to share. And yet he wondered if it wasn’t already too late.

He moved ahead, mindful of her wary gaze and his own discovery.

“Isn’t my being here proof enough?” He leaned closer, his fingers catching her chin and tipping her head so he could bend over and whisper into her ear. “You left in such a hurry after our last . . . encounter, I was concerned you might catch cold without your shoes … or your clothing.”

She muttered a rather unladylike French reproach and backed away from him. “Don’t insult me. You certainly didn’t follow me to Paris because you suddenly developed some grand passion. Play the tortured lover for some gullible miss, like your fiancée, someone foolish enough to believe your pretty speeches.”

“You sound as if you don’t approve of my betrothed.”

“What do I care who or what you marry?” she replied. Moving around the marble monument, she used it as a shield between them. “Besides, you brought me here for business. Get on with it then, for when the morning comes I will be away from this place. Without you.”

He pressed ahead, teasing her. Testing her resolve, as he tested his own. “Ah, but we have hours yet until dawn.”

Her powdered brows arched in annoyance. “You wouldn’t be so glib if you were caught by the Guard. …” Her brows dropped, while her words seemed to catch in her throat. “You’ll be tortured . . . executed.”

The emotions in her voice stopped him. No one had ever expressed such a plaintive concern for his safety, not to his face, not out loud.

Giles leaned around the marker and grinned. For some reason it pleased him to hear the anxious sound in her voice. “Would you mourn my passing? Would your heart be filled with regret that we never—”

“Never what?” She tipped her head, studying him.

He leaned forward. “Never finished what we began in my study.”

For a moment her breathing stilled. He saw the conflict in her eyes. And when she caught him watching her and realized that she’d dropped her guard, her pretenses came to the forefront.

Her gaze rolled upward in disgust. “You almost make me believe you are a besotted idiot. But I know who you are, Lord Trahern. Listen well. Here in Paris you are no more invincible to the quick path of the guillotine than I am the heir to the throne. And with nothing but death surrounding us, all you can speak of are regrets for what we—” She stopped abruptly, as if startled by the passion in her voice. She whirled around. Her trembling fingers picked absently at the moss on the gravestone.