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Authors: Mia Marlowe

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BOOK: Touch of a Scoundrel (Touch of Seduction 3)
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“I’d think you mad if you did,” Ted said.
Something broke over Devon in shimmering waves, an emotion he’d felt so seldom, he scarcely recognized it. He inhaled deeply. Peace.
The doctor finished tying off the bandage. “There. That’s as good a field dressing as I can manage. I’d like to see that arm in a sling for a week or two.” He stooped to pick up Devon’s bloody shirt. “There’s no help for this. The stains will terrify Lady Devonwood if she sees you returning in it.”
“And Devon without a shirt will scandalize the arriving guests good and proper,” Northrop said with a laugh. “Plenty of port, twenty paces at dawn, and an earl caught in a public state of undress. I knew this party would be worth attending.”
“Never fear, milord.” Baxter scurried back to the horse he’d ridden and rummaged through the saddle bag. He pulled out a slightly rumpled, but otherwise clean shirt. “One has brought a change of clothing for both you and Master Theodore.”
“I say, that’s forward thinking of you, Baxter,” Teddy said.
“As was the fact that Dr. Walsh is also an embalmer and would be just as efficient tending to his lordship if he’d cocked up his toes,” Northrop said. “You’ve a brutally competent butler there, Devon.”
Baxter shot Northrop a tight-lipped glance. “One tries to anticipate all eventualities.”
He helped Devon into the fresh shirt, taking care with the bandaged arm, and the party mounted and rode back to the castle.
Ted rode beside Devon most of the way. Dr. Farnsworth and Northrop kept up a running diatribe debating the comparative merits of true Scotch whisky as opposed to the distilled liquor of the same name from the Yank’s Kentucky. The brothers didn’t speak.
There was no need. Devon felt the bond between them healing with each measured step. It would take time to mend the rift completely, but he and Theodore would emerge from this whole.
And so would he and Emmaline.
She must be sick with worry.
He urged his gelding into a trot. When Dr. Walsh complained that he’d open the wound again, he broke into a canter. The need to see Emma was sharper-edged than the brightest blade. If it made him bleed, so be it.
When he passed under the portcullis and reached the bailey, he found Lady Bentley and a gaggle of matrons descending from a hired coach.
“Oh, Lord Devonwood, I see you’ve tried to stop them. To no avail, I gather,” she said breezily. “It’s no shame to you or your brother, of course. They had such a head start, you know.”
“My apologies, Lady Bentley,” Devon said as his mount side-stepped near her. “You have lost me.”
“I saw them in Shiring-on-the-Green.
He
tried to hide his face with that top hat of his, you understand, but
she
was standing there bold as brass at the ferry landing. Met my eye without a blink, too, the cheeky girl. Off to Gretna Green for the pair of them, I shouldn’t wonder.” She made tsking sounds. “One shouldn’t be surprised, Theodore, dear. Blood will out, you know.”
“Who are you talking about?” Ted asked, still mounted.
Lady Bentley’s eyes widened. “Oh! Oh, so you don’t know. My word. How to tell you? It’s simply so shocking to see a young lady and an eligible peer without a proper chaperone. It’s simply not
done
. However, I assumed she’d jumped at the chance to have a title. Oh, Theodore, I do apologize, I didn’t mean to imply—”
“Are you talking about Miss Farnsworth?” Teddy interrupted.
“Of course, who did you think? Honestly, it’s too bad of her after the way she dangled you along and all, but I suppose she figured Lord Kingsley controls the chinks on his estate and can give her a heftier allowance.”
“Kingsley!” Dr. Farnsworth said. “I wonder . . . Mr. Baxter, would you please betake yourself to Emmaline’s room and see if the Tetisheri statue is missing.” He leaned in the saddle toward the butler and whispered. “It should be in the drawer with her unmentionables.”
Lady Bentley gave a little squeal of shocked delight over this juicy tidbit. Mentioning “unmentionables” brought out her fan and set it aflutter.
“You think Emmaline would have taken it?” Devon asked.
“No, but Lord Kingsley might have. We almost came to an agreement for me to sell it to him last night, but I guess he didn’t like the terms.” While Baxter dashed into the newer wing of the monstrous edifice, Dr. Farnsworth explained Kingsley’s intense interest in the statue. “So I think he may have absconded with it and if that’s the case, I don’t think my Emma would have gone with him willingly.”
“Agreed,” Devon said and started to turn his gelding’s head so he could bullet away down the long drive, but Theodore reached over and grabbed the reins.
“Hold a moment,” he said. “We don’t know that the statue is missing yet.”
“I don’t give a damn about the statue,” Devon said, yanking the reins back. “All I care about is Emma.”
“Begging your pardon, your lordship”—Baxter came back at a run—“but the statue may very well be at the crux of the matter. It
is
missing and what’s more, a letter arrived from my nephew this morning. Seems he’s had time to analyze the sample of the substance we sent him.”
He handed the letter to Devon who ripped it open and ran his gaze over the small, precise script.
“What substance? What’s this all about?” Theodore asked.
“The statue is hollow,” Baxter said. “His lordship and Miss Farnsworth discovered it was filled with an ancient sort of grain. One might speculate that Lord Kingsley suspected as much and it is this that motivates his actions.”
“That makes sense. He’s been a balmy bastard of late,” Northrop said. “Gone a bit queer in the head over that occult stuff. Tried to get me to go to some of the meetings with him. After the first time, never again.”
“Why?” Teddy asked as Devon continued to read the letter from Baxter’s nephew.
“I was expecting a new incarnation of the Hellfire Club,” Northrop said.
Devon was listening with half an ear.
Trust Lionel to be intrigued with a society dedicated to unbridled debauchery.
“Instead, there was plenty of hell,” Northrop went on, “but none of the fire, if you know what I mean.”
Lady Bentley emitted a little squeak of titillated horror.
“You never said anything about Kingsley being involved with that sort of thing,” Devon said.
Northrop shrugged. “You’re his friend, too. I figured you knew. Besides, I’m not given to carrying tales.” Then he leaned down to Lady Bentley who was hanging on every word of their exchange. “I believe Lord Devonwood has pen and ink in his study if you’d care to take notes for future reference, milady.”
She puffed up like a fat grouse on a crisp fall day. “Well, I never!”
“I don’t doubt it, madam,” he said with a wicked grin. “But having none of your own may be why you are so interested in the affairs of others.”
Her eyes widened and she sputtered in search of a retort, but found none. Instead, she wheeled and chugged through the open front doors, calling for Lady Devonwood as loudly as she could.
“That tears it,” Teddy said. “
Maman
will know everything now.”
“Not everything,” Northrop said. “I didn’t mention that Kingsley is mad about brewing potions and elixirs and is always going on about how best to ‘infuse this’ or ‘distill that.’ That news would have given Lady Bentley at least another hour’s worth of material.”
A muscle ticked in Devon’s cheek. The vision of Emmaline sipping something from a teacup rose up in his mind. “Baxter’s nephew says he gave the grain to one of his laboratory rodents. It became frenetic, then aggressive and then . . .”
“Then what?” Teddy and Dr. Farnsworth asked in tandem.
“It went mad.”
C
HAPTER
33
T
he rope cut her wrists and ankles if she struggled at all against her bonds. Emmaline tried to relax, but the straight-backed chair was not built for comfort even if she hadn’t been lashed to it.
She was held in a musty cellar beneath Lord Kingsley’s London town house. In happier times, it had probably held hogsheads of beer and great rounds of cheese, and perhaps had woven strings of onions and garlic dangling from the heavy black beams of the ceiling. Traces of the pungent scents still hung in the air.
Now the walls were covered with signs and symbols from a dozen different mythological systems—ankhs and pentagrams, yins and yangs, stars and daggers and many-tentacled beasts. Kingsley had cherry-picked his way through multiple belief systems, lifted out the most fantastical elements, and synthesized them into something that was wholly his own.
Lord Kingsley boiled water for a pot of “Old Sticky,” the popular name for the Earl Grey blend of tea and bergamot. Then he fussed with the ingredients steeping in a stone vessel over a small kerosene burner that would have been more at home in a laboratory than a cultist’s lair. He consulted a moldering grimoire from time to time.
“I apologize for the wait, my dear,” he said as if he were preparing a spot of tea for her. “These things are delicate and cannot be rushed.”
“I’m in no hurry.”
He laughed. “No, I’d imagine not. I really can’t guarantee the efficacy of this potion since it’s the first brew. But if the effect is what I hope, you’ll enjoy a benefit beyond your wildest dreams.” He cocked his head and considered her with a slightly elevated brow. “There’s no point in preternaturally long life if one hasn’t someone with whom to spend it. If you play nicely, perhaps I’ll share my limited quantity of grain with you.”
“I have no intention of playing with you, nicely or otherwise.” She wiggled her fingers, trying to keep circulation stirring in them.
He narrowed his eyes to slits. “It’s just as well. You may be my taster then and nothing more. I’ll find a more worthy consort, no doubt, once I’ve amassed the wealth and power the potion promises as well. Perhaps I’ll acquire two of them, variety being the spice of my very long life. A man grows weary of the same woman after a while, you know. However, I do intend to have a bit of sport with you after our little experiment. Can’t let Devon have all the fun now, can we?”
Emmaline looked away from him in disgust. Her gaze fell on the Tetisheri statue, lying on its side next to the steeping teapots with its base removed. Lord Kingsley had transferred the contents to a “more reliable” set of Mason jars and sealed them tightly. If he were thinking clearly, he’d realize that the design of the base with its threaded seal proved beyond doubt the statue was a modern fake. The enigmatic smile on Tetisheri’s face mocked her.
Kingsley wouldn’t believe anything she said. She was a huckster, a confidence artist, a fraud, and he knew it. Why should he believe her even when the evidence was right before him?
His lordship poured steaming tea into one of the china cups he’d set out, then ladled an equal amount of liquid from a stone vessel. He set the tea on the table before him and the other brew in front of Emmaline.
“I didn’t want you to drink alone, my dear. But you will have to go first.” He lifted the cup to her lips but she jerked her face aside. He grasped her head in a long-fingered grip and turned her back toward the cup.
“I have no intention of drinking at all if you force me.”
“You will when I hold your nose and you have to open your mouth to breathe,” he promised, jostling the cup beneath her lower lip.
“I will spew it out immediately and you’ll have wasted some of your precious grain. Once it’s gone, it’s gone, you said.” When murder glinted in his watery eyes, she lifted her chin and adopted a more conciliatory tone. “However, if you untie my hands so I can manage by myself, I will drink.”
He frowned at her, considering. “Very well. That’s a civilized attitude. Never let it be said that we are less civil than a Yank.”
Kingsley set the cup down and untied the knots at her wrists. She rubbed the raw scrapes and flexed her fingers.
“Your hands are free. Drink.”
Emma raised the cup to her mouth and sniffed. “It smells bitter. I never drink tea without a lump or two. It would be a shame if I couldn’t bear to swallow it because of the taste. Might I have some sugar to make this more palatable?”
“A reasonable request. I’ll take mine with a lump as well,” he said and turned away to rummage in his cupboard for the sugar bowl.
Emma leaned across the table and reached for the cup of tea in order to switch it with hers, but it was slightly out of her grasp. She managed only to turn the cup in its saucer so the handle pointed in the other direction.
The clink of china against china made her jerk her hand back, turning her own cup slightly as well. He whirled around at the small sound.
“You exchanged the cups,” he accused.
Emmaline adopted her most serene charlatan’s face and smiled at him. It was time to execute the best “bait and switch” of her life. “Perhaps I did.”
It was important not to lie directly. Even the best of liars had little tells that gave them away.
“Would you care to join me in a drink to find out?”
 
Griffin stood at the ferry’s prow, leaning into the wind, as if he could make the little steamer go faster by sheer strength of will. After that brief moment of sun following the duel, clouds had swallowed up the sky and now threatened rain. The ferry’s two-man crew was snug in the wheelhouse to the rear of the craft. Theodore and Northrop had descended with the rest of the ferry passengers to the salon below to make the short trip in relative comfort.
There could be no comfort for Griffin. Not as long as Emmaline was in danger.
A ship’s bell sounded on the starboard side and Griffin turned to survey the other traffic on the broad river. A merchantman was making its way up the Thames under full sail, pulling even with the ferry and overtaking it in the favorable tide and stiff breeze.
“I’ll be damned,” he muttered. “The
Rebecca Goodspeed
.”
Finally, the ship on which he’d pinned so much of his hopes had come in. Riding low in the water, her hold was filled to the brim with trade goods that would guarantee his estate’s solvency for years to come. He could set Ted up in whatever endeavor he pleased, give Louisa the Season she deserved, and keep his mother and retainers in comfort.
Even more important, he could marry Emmaline and send her father to that sanatorium to regain his health. And keep the old man out of trouble.
But he had to find Emma first.
He turned at the sound of footsteps, thinking Ted or Northrop had come to join him, but found a monstrously big fellow advancing on him instead.
“You shouldn’t oughta have followed ’is lordship,” the man said. He grasped Griffin’s collar and tried to throw him over the rail into the churning sludge of the Thames below.
It was difficult to fight back with his arm in a sling, so Griffin slipped out of it and wrapped the length of cloth around the big man’s neck. His ruddy face turned an alarming shade of purple, but he clawed at the cloth and managed to tear it off his neck.
The men separated, circling for best position. Once more Griffin found himself with his back to the rail. The man charged him. This time, Griffin bent forward and used the man’s own momentum to heft his attacker at the last moment. He tossed him over his back, over the rail and into the water. The man sputtered to the surface, then disappeared beneath the ferry’s keel.
“Devon!” Theodore came running toward him, with Northrop at his heels. “We heard sounds of a scuffle. Are you all right?”
“Bugger,” Northrop said. “You’re bleeding again.”
“Could be worse. I could be swimming.” Devon looked into the murky water. “It must have been the fellow Baxter caught trying to burgle us a while back. Big chap. Hope he misses the paddle wheel.”
“That’s charitable,” Northrop said.
“No, it’s practical,” Griffin said, grim-faced. “A fellow that big could gum up the works and leave us dead in the water. And since his attack proves we’re on the right track, we haven’t a moment to lose.”
 
Kingsley’s smile stretched unpleasantly across his face. “You may be common, but you are also uncommonly entertaining, Miss Farnsworth. Very well.” He dropped two lumps of brown sugar into each of the cups and stirred. “What shall we drink to? Our health, perhaps?”
“Sounds good to me.” She forced a slight smile and lifted her cup to touch rims with his. Then she brought the cup to her mouth without hesitation and tipped it so the liquid lapped at her lips.
“No, wait!” he said and set down his cup.
She peered over the rim at him, straining against the urge to do the same. He mustn’t think her the least anxious about the contents or in any hurry to remove the cup from her lips.
“We’ll switch cups,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she asked, letting her brow wrinkle slightly in what she hoped was convincing, though surreptitious, evidence of worry.
He took the cup from her and gave her his. She stared down at the innocuous tea before her and bit her lower lip.
“You don’t want that one, do you? Yes, I’m sure,” he said with a laugh. He raised his cup and drained it in one gulp. “Now it’s your turn.”
She hesitantly reached for the tea.
“Don’t be shy. Drink up.”
She let her hand tremble a bit as she lifted the cup to her mouth.
“Careful. Don’t want to waste a drop. Drink. Drink. What are you waiting for?” He spoke faster and his voice had gone up at least half an octave in pitch. His pupils widened to engulf his irises. “Come now, I drank, didn’t I?”
He began pacing and wringing his hands. Whatever it was that had been in his cup acted with amazing swiftness, though he seemed unaware his behavior bordered on frantic.
Emma decided it wouldn’t do to give him time to notice. She took a small sip of the Earl Grey and swallowed with deliberateness.
“Again. Again. Again.” His eyes darted around the room as if he couldn’t keep them focused on her.
She finished the contents and set the cup down.
He plopped down in the chair across from her and then almost immediately rose again. “How do you feel?”
She pressed her lips tightly together for a moment. “No longer thirsty.”
He slammed a fist on the table. “No!”
She flinched at his sudden violence. His head jerked several times as if he had a bit in his mouth and an invisible hand were controlling his movements. He sucked in a deep breath and slid into the chair again. His fingers drummed the tabletop.
“How do you feel?” he repeated. “Any palpi-palpi-palpitations? Shortness of b-breath?”
“I feel . . . fine,” she said, allowing her shoulders to relax. “Stronger. As if I could fly.”
“Good. Good. Oh, yes. That’s as it should be. Yes, indeed as it ever shall be. W-world without end. Amen, and all that r-rot.” He cackled out a laugh and then leaned forward to study her face.
She forced herself to meet his gaze.
“Your eyes, they’re brighter. By gum, you’re absolutely positively glowing. There’s a light behind your eyes that’s
absoltively, posiltutely
ethereal-ereal.” He leaned down and rested both elbows on the table, cupping his face in his palms. “I wonder how it looks from the other side. Pop out your eye, why don’t you, and give me a peek.”
Emma’s jaw dropped.
“You should see your face.” He giggled like a twelve-year-old girl. “Never mind. I believe it’s time, yes it’s time, I said it was didn’t I, for me to join you.”
He turned back to his stone pot and ladled out another cupful of the dark draught. He cursed when his hand shook convulsively and a tablespoon or so splashed on the cupboard shelf.
If one dose of the stuff disoriented him this much, Emmaline didn’t want to be present when he consumed a second batch. She bent down and worked at the knots restraining her ankles, while Lord Kingsley drained another cupful of the Tetisheri potion.
She yanked the rope from around her ankle and stood just as he turned around.
“Oh, you’ve slipped your bonds,” he said with an idiot’s grin on his face. “No matter. I’d have had to untie you in any case.”
“Of course, you would,” she said trying to maintain a reasonable tone with him. With any luck, the potion had rendered him suggestible. “Since you’re going to let me go now.”
He made a rude spluttering noise. “Not a chance, ducks. Unless it’s off the roof.”
“What?”
“You said you felt you could fly,” he said. “Me, too. Let’s go up to the widow’s walk and test it out, shall we?”
His head jerked to the side and he seemed to continue the conversation with someone Emmaline couldn’t see. “Yes, we shall. Because I said so, that’s why!”
BOOK: Touch of a Scoundrel (Touch of Seduction 3)
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