Kate Moore (21 page)

“You have a remarkable faith in my libertine ways, then.”

Goldsworthy nodded. “Your way with women. You can manage two at once, can’t you?”

“What are you suggesting?” Conversing with Goldsworthy was like talking to an old yew tree in Epping Forest. Tonight the man wore a forest green jacket over a russet silk waistcoat and tree trunk brown trousers.

“No need to get your back up, lad. A fellow’s gone missing with . . . a report of great interest to the government. The trouble is he was supposed to meet our courier in Koron and the fellow turned up dead. We arranged another to meet him in Naples. Equally dead. So we’ve a problem.”

Koron
, the name caught Blackstone’s attention. So there had been a reason for Goldsworthy to be in that Greek harbor when he’d offered to aid in the rescue of Blackstone and the other captives.

“Any idea who killed your agents?”

“Someone who didn’t want that report to reach us.” Goldsworthy’s large hands flattened over the papers on his desk. He shifted them about the way a hazard dealer might rearrange his cards. Blackstone had a momentary recollection of that card table on the
Redemption
, where he’d lost so much he’d been willing to take whatever Goldsworthy offered. He had not missed Goldsworthy’s hesitation over the missing “report.”

“How were these agents killed?”

“Strangled. Killer used some sort of cord. Necks heavily bruised. One fellow nearly decapitated. Ugly business.”

“Just where do the elegant London drawing rooms, society functions, and willing women come into the case of agents murdered abroad?”

“I’ll get to it, lad.” He ended his paper shuffling, pulling out from under a pile of loose sheets, a small blue velvet box of the kind jewelers used. “Our missing man was to arrive with the Prince of Moldova for a state visit. The prince landed this afternoon, but not our man. We’ve kept the prince and his party tied up in customs as long as we could, but nothing turned up. We think our murderer is one of the prince’s people, and we want you to stick as close to them as possible.”

“Who’s the missing man?”

“A banker. Frank Hammersley.”

Blackstone could not have heard properly. He waited for Goldsworthy to look at his desk again or shuffle his papers some more. But the man sat there with his bluff country squire looks as if he had not just poked a stick in the wasp’s nest of Blackstone’s past.

“Who am I to flirt with then?” He kept his voice level. He could guess the answer.

Goldsworthy flicked the lid on the little box in his large hands. “There’s a countess in the prince’s party. We want to investigate her.”

“And the other woman?”

“Ah, now there’s the pickle. We need you to be a good bit closer than a flirt, Blackstone. We need you to be a fiancé to Hammersley’s sister.”

Blackstone stared at the man across from him. Goldsworthy’s genial country look concealed a sharp mind and a demon’s own gift for torment. Did Goldsworthy know the whole of Blackstone’s past? Everything between him and Violet Hammersley had been public at the time, but there had been scandals since his and no one cared for old news. “The lady may have some objections.”

Goldsworthy tossed Blackstone the small blue velvet box. “To find her brother, she’ll have to swallow them.”

Blackstone flicked open the box. A great square diamond winked up at him. Fate once again assigned him the role of faithless fiancé. He could see himself bending to kiss Violet Hammersley’s cold hand while looking over it to catch another woman’s glance.

“It’s paste,” said his tormentor. “Remember, a year and a day clears you and Blackstone Court.”

Kate Moore is an award-winning author of ten romances. Visit her website at www.katemoore.com

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