The Seducer (29 page)

“Don’t tell anyone. That pistol is all that stands between my sister and the gallows if she is caught.”

“How is that?”

“If she does not get away, you saw me fire. You saw me kill Tyndale.”

Diane’s heart flipped. Alarm that Daniel was still in danger shuddered down her back. Suddenly Paul’s progress up the rise of the park seemed very slow.

Hampton gestured over his shoulder. “I think it is safe to say that she will get away.”

Louis and the other members of the Dueling Society had circled Jonathan and the servants. Their expressions said that no man would leave this estate for a good long while.

Daniel’s eyes glistened. His arm stretched in Diane’s direction and she stepped into his embrace. “They don’t even know why she did it. They do not understand who Tyndale was to us.”

“They know you,” Hampton said. “They trust that the story, when told, will exonerate you both. If not in the eyes of the law, at least in those of honor and justice.”

“And you? You are the law’s man, Hampton.”

He favored them both with one of his rare smiles. “Today I am your friend, St. John. We all are.”

chapter
28

T
he Marquess of Highbury appeared nonplussed as he received the news of his brother’s death. Julian Hampton told the story in his best solicitor’s voice.

The marquess surveyed the visitors who had intruded on his London house. His lazy gaze drifted over the son of an earl and the brother of a viscount and the French chevalier. It came to rest on the least significant man in the study.

“So, you are St. John. I heard the rumor of my brother’s doings with your cousin. My wife told me you stood down and married the girl. I try not to listen to her gossip, but it is so incessant that some leaks in anyway. Decent of you to handle it that way.”

“Unfortunately, as you have just heard, your brother was not so decent,” Daniel said.

Vergil, standing beside him, gave a subtle but sharp nudge.

The marquess shook his head. “Abducted her, you say. Well, I always knew what I had in him.”

Daniel doubted that, but the rest of the story, the oldest parts, would not be told in this room unless it became necessary. They had all decided that back in Kent.

“You all swear it transpired as you say? That St. John’s pistol misfired and his sister shot to protect him when Andrew did not stand back?”

Vergil, Adrian, and Julian all muttered vague assurances.

“Who else was there, besides the two women? Hell of a thing, women watching a duel—”

“Some of his servants,” Daniel said.

“Well, they can be bought off.” He rose from his chair. “Gentlemen, my brother died in an accident. That is the story I will give out. He was at his property in Kent and died in a hunting accident.”

Daniel did not doubt that a marquess could find a surgeon who would ignore that a pistol’s ball had entered Tyndale from the back.

“I do not want the rest of this, the business over this woman, the duel, any of it known. I a pistol’s bury my brother quietly, with his good name intact.”

“The local justice of the peace—” Hampton began.

“Let me explain it to him. I relieve you of any responsibility, since officially you were not even there. The matter is in my hands now.”

There was nothing more to say. Led by Louis, the Dueling Society took their leave and filed out of the study. Daniel was the last in line.

“St. John,” the marquess said, stopping him.

He turned and faced Tyndale’s brother.

“I know about you. All that chattering gossip, you see. Know how you seduced your way into some of his circles, how you mesmerized certain ladies several years ago to get where you are. My wife spoke of you so much that I wondered if you were pursuing her.”

“The marchioness and I have never met. Her world is too selective for me.”

“I see to that. I don’t approve of these new notions of mixing the classes, as some do. It is merely a passing fashion, and one I will be glad to have end, as all fashions do.”

One could hear the low rumble of a demonstration riding the breeze entering the open window. Its rise and fall mocked the marquess’s words.

The marquess’s face fell. “There is more to this than I have been told, isn’t there?”

“Yes, but believe me when I say that you do not want to know any of it.”

“Then let no one know of it. If I hear any slurs on him, any hints of scandal because of this, I will have to crush you.”

The four men who had just left already knew all of it, but they would be discreet. “I have no more interest in your brother. He is dead, and it is over. I cannot guarantee that some of his other sins won’t be exposed in time, however. If you truly knew what you had in him, you’d understand what I mean. If I were you, I’d lay aside some money to pay whomever is necessary to prevent that.”

What a mess this library was.

Gustave clucked his tongue as he worked his way along the shelves. He had been at it for hours, since waking from the deep nap his adventure had demanded. Since the footmen in this house would not let him leave, he had to do something.

Examining St. John’s library took his mind off things too. Not entirely, unfortunately. Even as he read titles on bindings, he worried. What if Tyndale came looking for him? What if St. John’s sister went to the authorities? What if the little sparrow swore evidence against Gustave Dupré, even though he had risked his life to save her?

The books had no organization. Unlike Tyndale’s library, they had all been read, however. On pulling a few out, he had seen that some even had margin notes.

He moved along, critical of the varied subjects. St. John’s mind was that of an amateur, veering this way and that. No focus, no specialization. There was more poetry than Gustave approved of. At least the man seemed to favor the old French poets, and not the messy, meandering, emotional nonsense popular of late.

“Have you found what you are looking for, Dupré?”

Gustave jumped. He turned to see St. John and Jonathan by the door.

“I was only browsing to pass the time.” He pointed to the shelves. “It is customary to arrange them by some system. You would find that more efficient.”

“They are arranged by a system. They are in the order in which I obtained them. The most recent ones are down here. For example, Volta’s paper on creating electrical effects from metallic piles is on the next to bottom shelf.”

It appeared that St. John intended to explain himself. That boded well for how this unpleasant episode would end. Apparently there had been no murder, but rather negotiations. Now St. John was ready to rectify his criminal behavior rather than risk exposure.

“Volta’s discovery is well known and your knowledge of it does not surprise me. However, you were aware that speculations regarding the effect of electricity on metals could be found in my library. That is more provocative.”

“Not your library. It once belonged to my tutor, who was in correspondence with Volta and knew his theory before other scientists. He drew an image in his notebook, to show me how such a pile might work, and told me his ideas about how chemical and physical properties might be isolated once electricity could be produced at will.”

“Are you saying that the rest was yours alone, built on these conversations with your tutor? But the other manuscript—”

“A forgery. A fake. The rest of it was all a product of my imagination.”

Gustave had held on to the slim hope that the theory had some merit, and that he had not invested his fortune and reputation in a total hoax. Despite Tyndale’s conviction that they had been duped, he had hoped that with a little experimenting, a little tinkering . . .

He regretted having interfered with Andrew’s plan to kill this man. Right now he would shoot St. John himself if he could. The man had seduced him to ruin, and he had followed the lure as a dog tracks the smell of meat.

The door opened and another man entered. It was Adrian, his secretary.

“What are you doing here?”

Adrian smiled at St. John.

Really, it was too much.

“Are you in this swindler’s employ? How diabolical is this plot?” The answer rushed in on him before the question was asked. “The experiment in Paris, the iron’s markings—you told him everything. Traitor! I will tell everyone about both of you. You will learn that Gustave Dupré has influence. You have ruined my fortune and now I will ruin you.”

A snickering laugh greeted his outrage. It sputtered into coughs as Jonathan dropped into a chair and doubled over.

“Dupré, you are such an ass.” He barely got the words out as the coughs and laughter racked his body. “We abducted the man’s wife, you fool. Be glad you are still alive. You will probably write your next treatise from a prison cell.”

Prison?

“Do not swoon on me, Dupré. I have no plans for you,” St. John said. “Adrian, will you see to them? Diane is waiting for me, to learn what transpired with the marquess.”

After St. John left, Gustave turned on his secretary. “I am very disappointed in you.”

“He told me everything,” Adrian said coldly. “I know about your old history with Tyndale, and how you got that library. So I know how you came by that proof that bears your name.”

“You would never—” But he might. St. John probably would. There would be those who had always been suspicious, who would spread the rumor.

Gustave had never felt so helpless in his life. Not only his fortune but his reputation was destroyed.

“We are caught, Dupré,” Jonathan said. “You are ruined, as I was. Well, it could have been worse for us. After all, Tyndale is dead.”

“Dead!”

“Mmm.”

He was cornered. Doomed. “I may as well shoot myself. I haven’t a franc left.”

“That is not entirely true,” Adrian said. “There is a shed in Southwark full of metal. Those piles contain copper and zinc, and there is a lot of iron there too. When it is sold, you and Jonathan will be better off than when this started. Let us go there now and see what can be salvaged.”

Jonathan appeared incredulous. “St. John will permit this?”

“His wife suggested it and he could not refuse her, since you helped her escape last night.”

“I am overwhelmed,” Gustave said, heady with relief. The little sparrow had done this. He knew she had a special affection for him, but such a gesture— The room swam as this unexpected salvation made his blood rush in all the wrong ways.

“Hell, he is going down,” he heard Jonathan yell, right before oblivion swallowed his consciousness.

Diane took Daniel’s hand as soon as he entered the garden. “Later. Tell me later,” she said.

She led him to a corner farthest from the house and embraced him under the stars while she hungrily sought his kiss. “Just hold me now, so that I am sure we are both here and that it is over.”

“It is very over, darling.”

She grasped him to her, desperate for contact. All of the worry of the last two days threatened to flood back, and only holding him kept it away. “Kiss me. Love me.” Her hands moved over him, feeling his body, searching for all the warmth she could touch. She held his hips to her own, so that she could feel his desire for her.

She wanted no words now. All of that could wait. She needed him, his love and his hunger and the passion that would convince her soul that he was here and safe and that this was real.

His embrace absorbed her. His kisses consumed her. It was not enough. She needed more. Everything.

“Here. Now.” She gasped the pleas between savage kisses. “Love me. Fill me up, darling.”

He lowered them both until she lay on the spring flowers. He settled between her legs, surrounding her totally with his embrace, and covering her with his body. Sweet scents rose up from the crushed blooms, intoxicating her more.

She savored the reality of the scents and sky, of his weight and wanting, of the passion binding them totally. There were no words and no need for any. She felt everything in him, all of the love and relief.

He began raising her skirt. She helped, eager to complete their unity, desperate to be together.

He caressed her, to make her ready. She did not want that, did not need it. “No. Just come to me, darling. Fill my body and heart, fill all of me as only you can.”

He looked down at her, his head framed by the night sky. The frenzy calmed, but not the passion. It filled and surrounded them like a spiritual wind.

The beauty made her want to weep. When he entered her, silent tears dripped down her temples. In their union she knew him completely. Her soul understood the mysteries that had no words. Her heart felt the cautious wonder in his soul.

He made love to her slowly, wonderfully. He held nothing back. The pleasure was the least of it, a mere metaphor for the more important sharing. They poured love into each other, reaffirming their alliance against an indifferent world.

The ending was powerful, mutual, mystical. They melted together for a long moment of fulfillment. In her ecstasy she knew that the best parts of this night’s loving would go on forever. She would never be alone again.

Afterward he stayed inside her, the two of them pressed to the reawakening earth. He quietly told her about the meeting with the marquess, and the way that Tyndale’s brother had erased all of them from the story of Tyndale’s death.

“So you were right when you told Jeanette it is finished,” she said. “All of it might have never happened. Can you accept that the world will never know what he did?”

“I never sought to have the world know.”

“Why not? Why didn’t you denounce him?”

“I had no proof of what he had done, or even who I was. Who would have believed me? He was the brother of a peer, and a powerful man in his own right. Even if I had shouted the truth for years, his world would have ignored me. So I handled it a different way.”

Yes, a different way. A subtle way. A duel over a young woman. Not Jeanette, though. There was no proof on that, either, except the word of a shipper and a crippled woman.

“You brought the others down in ways that echoed the past, and what they had done. I think that you wanted to do the same with Tyndale.”

“Perhaps I did.”