Page 35 of A Proposition for the Comte

Chapter Six

He came that evening late, his shadow slipping through moonlight, the white of the bandage on his hand showing in the gloom.

She was sitting waiting for him in her bedchamber, two glasses and a bottle of wine on the table before her.

He was furious.

‘You are a liar, Lady Addington, and one who insists on weaving a fable of untruth around yourself and your family. Because of it you nearly died today.’

Aurelian de la Tomber looked nothing at all like the gentleman the whole of society was so enamoured of. No, tonight he looked untamed and savage, the bloodstain on his unchanged clothes a dark brown and the gold in his eyes of glittering fire.

She stood, uncertain as to what to do.

‘I am not—’

‘Enough.’ He stopped her with a wave of his injured hand and his voice sounded hoarse and broken. ‘If you think this a game, then you are wrong. George Taylor is dead because of it and you nearly were today.’

‘Because of what?’ She swallowed as she asked this, but she could not deliver Amaryllis into chaos on a hunch. She had to know what he meant, had to understand the depth of his suspicions. Her heart beat so loud in her throat she thought she might fall, from lack of breath, from shock and from the pure and plain horror of all he accused her of being.

‘Where is the gold, Violet? The gold sent from France?’

The sting of his words cut into hope.

‘It is gone.’

‘Your assailant was certain that you have it.’

‘He told you that?’

‘He said that you were the one who knew where it went.’

‘He is wrong.’

‘It seemed to me that he believed it. It is a small strength of mine, this ability to determine honesty, and one that has come in handy on many an occasion. Mountford thinks the man who tried to hurt you in the park was paid well to do so. He is not talking and that is a worry.’

‘Why?’

‘A professional would demand something, a way of moving forward to suit all parties in question. The closed mouth of this one suggests he is more fearful for his own life than he is about the full wrath of the English law bearing down upon him.’

That truth made her start.

‘How did you know him, Violet? You changed your course when he came into your vision. I got the impression you were afraid of him.’

His eyes slanted against the light and she could hear in his voice a carefully tempered fury. A man at the very end of his tether and showing it.

‘I am not your enemy, Lady Addington. It was your husband who was that.’

Her breath shallowed, and the darkness in the room tunnelled into greyness. Sitting down, she took the note from her pocket and laid it down on the table next to her. ‘I think he was the one who sent me this.’

‘God.’ She saw stillness descend as he read it, holding the missive into the light as if the paper itself contained clues. ‘When did you receive this?’

‘A few moments before I went to the park.’

‘Yet you still ventured out?’

‘Amaryllis would have gone alone otherwise and I thought...’ She could not go on, but he finished the sentence for her.

‘You thought he might have hurt her, too?’