The Emperor's Conspiracy (21 page)

“I haven’t told anyone. Neither has Em. She owes her children’s well-being to you, and she would never betray you.” He checked himself in an unconscious move to look at Tavenam again. There was something primitive in the way he held himself.

“What will I tell him?” She didn’t need to say who. “He threatened to tell everyone, not just you. I wouldn’t care, but Catherine would, and I don’t want her hurt.”

“What I can’t understand is why I was part of the threat in the first place.”

She twined her fingers together. “Their watchers saw you holding me in the street the other day. They think we are lovers, or that I am interested in being your wife or your mistress. They made a guess I would not want you to know my past.” She shrugged. “But they are obviously not sure enough, because they threatened me with the ton in general, as well.”

Edward indicated the open doors to the terrace, which let in the sweet scents of jasmine and rose to the hot room. “Let’s talk.” He edged her toward the doors as he spoke. “I hadn’t wanted to involve you, but it’s too late now.”

She looked up at him, refusing to move.

“Hurry. Lady Howe will look this way any moment, and we will have no time alone if she has any say in it.” His smile was rueful.

She tried to find Catherine in the crowd. “If my guardian wouldn’t approve, we should stay here.”

His eyes widened in surprise, then his lips quirked in reluctant humor as she gave him a small, cheeky smile and placed her hand in his, and allowed him to take her out onto the terrace.

As she stepped over the threshold, she turned slightly and caught Tavenam’s eye. He gave a satisfied smirk, and it was as if a slug had crawled over her skin.

Edward tugged her into the shadows, and his touch centered her again. “You almost had a second apology from me. I thought you were serious about pleasing your guardian.”

She hesitated. “You make me think we should return, because I
am
serious about pleasing her. Always. I would be a whore or a beggar but for her, Lord Durnham. She saved me and Luke both, and I cannot forget that, even though she begs me to. But at the same time, I find myself doing things, like now, standing out on this terrace with you when I know she’d prefer me to stay within, or I walk down to the rookeries late at night and keep company with criminals.” She shrugged, suddenly sadder than she’d been for a long time, weighed down. “I’m a worry to her, and I can’t help myself. I am too old for my years, and have been too long my own person.”

He did not say anything to that, no platitudes or trite words, and she felt the same sensation she had this morning, that her hold on something, herself, perhaps, had been dislodged and she was falling.

She leaned against the balustrade to stop the vertigo, and
looked out onto the garden, lit with lamps down some of the paths, and with lights hanging in the branches of some trees.

It was magical.

“Do you think Tavenam’s cronies are in this, too?” Edward leaned next to her, so close she could feel his heat and the material of his jacket brushing her satin gloves. A woody green scent of soap came off him. She remembered that scent from the first time she’d been in his house, waiting for him and Emma with the boys in the hallway. She’d wondered then if he had come straight from his bath, because it was so strong.

She inhaled it deeply and tried to recall the question. “No. Or if they are, they have more control than I’d give them credit for.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’d just suggested I prostitute myself to you to get the information he wants. But none of the men he joined afterward so much as looked back at me, let alone leered. And it is my experience, when men think you can be had for a price, they look you over to establish if they could pay it themselves, and if they’d want to if they could.”

“My God, you think little of us.”

She did not respond, but she did look at him sidelong, and he leaned farther over the balustrade and hunched his shoulders. “So, most likely it was only him.” He conceded her point grudgingly.

“Am I finally going to find out what this is about?”

“Yes.” He sounded angry. “And you won’t have to prostitute yourself to me to do it.”

Oh, she had hit a sore spot with that comment. Drawn blood, even. She gave a mental shrug. She had only spoken the truth. And it made her head clearer to think he was angry with her; better that than how he’d been a little earlier. Apologizing and holding her hands.

She felt the prick of goose bumps in the warm night air. “Can we start with what you do for the Crown?”

“I work on projects or help develop policies. And my involvement is secret. While no one realizes my role, I can ask questions, sound people out, and come and go from various offices without raising suspicion. Not one of my friends and none of my family know, and that is the way it needs to stay.”

“So no teasing you about your role over tea and cakes?” There was a touch of laughter in her voice.

“I’d appreciate it.” He shifted toward her, keeping his voice very low. “People are smuggling gold guineas out of England. Not just a few, but sometimes as much as twenty thousand at a time.”

She turned slightly as well, leaning on her elbow, so they faced each other like two turtle doves. “That doesn’t sound good for England.”

“It’s not. We don’t know the exact effect it will have on the economy, but with gold at a premium, and the current recession, the law prohibiting guineas leaving the country has never been more important. The gold in the guineas themselves is worth more than the guineas. Give a Continental banker a guinea, he’ll give you more than a guinea back, the current gold price being what it is. It sounds like a lucrative
and almost risk-free way to make money. Except that it’s illegal, and we’re at war, and so nothing is risk-free. We can’t understand where these guineas are going. If the French catch the smugglers, they’ll lose everything. There’s obviously something about this plan we don’t understand.”

“And it’s the work of one group? Tavenam’s group?”

“My colleague and I have found overwhelming evidence of a single group directing most of it. There may be a few rogue operators, but the overwhelming number are too consistently lucky, and too well spaced, to be anything but organized.” He looked back at the ballroom. “Tavenam made a mistake tonight. He wasn’t even close to being in our sights until now.”

Charlotte followed his gaze. “Tavenam would never believe I would come to you with the truth, and out him. It would be beyond his comprehension. Of course, when they don’t need me anymore, I will have to be silenced like Frethers and Geoffrey, most likely. A loose end to be tied up.” She heard him take a sharp breath. And then she could not help the devil inside her that said: “He thinks I’m out here getting to work on you like a good little girl. Worming my way into your bed.”

He made a choking sound. “I doubt that.”

His words drew her up in surprise. “Why do you doubt it?”

“Tavenam knows I never attend balls, but not only have I attended this one, I have spent my time here with no one but you. I think he’s quite aware, as is everyone here, that you don’t need to worm your way into my bed, Miss Raven.” He stepped away from her. “You need only crook your finger and I would be ripping your clothes off your body.”

There was movement at the doors, and she turned. Saw Catherine frowning at them.

Edward bowed formally to her. “We will have to speak later. May I call on you tomorrow?”

She must have murmured a yes, because he was suddenly gone, and she turned slowly back to face the garden.

She sensed Catherine beside her. “What did he say to you?”

She shook her head. “We talked about things that concern Emma’s husband.”

“That’s not all you talked about.” Catherine sighed.

“No.” Charlotte tugged a little at the shoulder of her suddenly constrictive dress. “That is not all we talked about.”

She lifted her face to the cooling breeze, and marveled at the sweet, painful burn of desire.

26

E
dward approached Dervish, who was sitting in his usual corner at their club but rose from his seat.

“When I told you you should be attending more balls, I didn’t mean for you to create such a scene you are more or less considered leg-shackled to Charlotte Raven.” Dervish spoke very low as Edward stepped up to him. “My guess is you only left Lady Crowder’s two hours ago, and already the gossip is everywhere.”

Edward recalled, with great clarity, why he never attended balls. He should have had more self-control. Chased Charlotte down somewhere less public.

“Come, let’s take a stroll outside. The interest in you is too strong for us to have an uninterrupted talk here.” Dervish set down his almost full glass.

Edward nodded. He liked the idea. The thought of a walk was far more pleasing than sitting under the curious, avid eyes of his fellow club members. “There’s a bet about it already?” he
asked as Dervish retrieved a small leather case from beside his chair.

Dervish snorted. “What do you think?”

“What is the bet?”

“Whether you’ll propose, or simply make her your mistress.”

Edward stood dead still while shock took a smithy’s hammer to his heart. “Why would anyone think she’d agree to be my mistress?” He spoke quietly, but Dervish wasn’t fooled and checked his progress toward the door.

The look he sent Edward was sharp. “There is nothing to suggest she would. You’re right, it’s an odd bet to make.”

“I’d like to know who made it.” His hands were shaking, and he looked around the room, as if he could discern by merely looking just who would write such a foul thing.

Dervish made a play of clapping him on the shoulder, drawing him toward the door. “Please God, not to call him out?” His voice was as low as he could make it.

Edward didn’t answer. He would make some retribution, even if it wasn’t an actual calling out. “I’ll tell you when we’re outside.” He negotiated the stairs and the front entrance, tolerating the sideways looks and leers of men who usually minded their own business.

“Well?”

They were outside, but there were enough coaches coming and going for Edward to shake his head again and start walking toward St. James’s Park. It was after midnight but there was enough moonlight for the walk to be an easy one, and the
breeze was cool and welcome. “Last night we suspected they’d try to blackmail you again, but with Frethers dead, they can’t do it as easily. They’ve found someone else, although I’m not sure where they got their information on her.”

“Her?” Dervish had been keeping pace with him along the tree-lined street but now he stumbled to a halt.

“Charlotte Raven.”

Dervish blew out a breath. “For a moment, I thought it was your sister.”

“It being Miss Raven is as bad,” Edward said, teeth gritted, and Dervish snapped his mouth closed with a look on his face that said things had just become clear.

Good. Edward wanted them crystal clear.

“What have they got on her?”

“That’s part of the mystery. They’ve got a lot less on her than they could have. Their plan to blackmail her is their biggest mistake so far. She’d told me the secret they threatened her with revealing some time ago.”

“They threatened to reveal her secrets to
you
?” Dervish asked, confused.

“To me, and then for good measure, to the rest of the ton.” He shrugged. “They think she wants to become my wife. Which was their first mistake. And their second was thinking that she would never tell me the truth about herself.”

“I don’t understand.”

“It is I who want her, not the other way around.” Edward found saying it wasn’t so hard as he thought it would be. “And she is not ashamed of her secret. She has kept it because she
knows it will hurt Lady Howe if she is shunned by society, but I have known it for nearly a week.”

“How did they approach her? Does she know who it was?” Dervish did not ask what the secret was, and Edward felt the first stirrings of real camaraderie for him.

“She knew him, all right. He approached her at the ball, in full view of everyone.” Edward sent Dervish a slow, satisfied smile. “Lord Tavenam.”

Dervish was speechless for a moment. “They must be desperate to be so brazen.”

“Or too self-assured. Or both. We certainly never had Tavenam as a possibility, did we?”

“I certainly didn’t.” Dervish was rubbing his hands. Then he stopped again. “What did they want Miss Raven to do?”

Edward clamped his lips together and had to breathe through his nose as the rage flared in him again, replacing the smug satisfaction he’d had a moment earlier at knowing Tavenam had handed himself to them like a willing sacrifice. “They wanted her to report my conversations about the smuggling to them, to copy my notes, and generally give them as much information as she could find on the business from me.”

“Do you talk to her about it?” Dervish asked, surprised.

“No, I don’t. When she told Tavenam this, he told her if she couldn’t do it another way, then she was to insinuate herself in my bed, and get the information from me that way.”

“Ah.” Dervish looked back at the club, although it was far behind them now. In fact, they were crossing the street into the park itself. “This is about the bet?”