A Proposition For The Comte. Sophia James

Work was always strictly professional for you and damned be anyone who got in the way.’

      ‘That was when I believed in Napoleon’s ability to make France a better place. Then I didn’t and your own wife was a part of that. When she exposed me in Paris I understood that there was no true loyalty left and the idea of spilling one’s blood for nothing was less appealing.’

      ‘I still have contacts, Lian. Good ones, too. Perhaps...’

      ‘No. Your loyalties now lie with your family, with Celeste and Loring and the new little one when it comes. I can handle this.’

      ‘Wounded and alone?’

      ‘I am improving daily. This morning I managed the stairs without holding on to the banister. Tomorrow I will climb them twice.’

      ‘Someone knows you are here and if they are prepared to kill you without any dialogue at all, then everyone is dangerous. You have to promise me that you’ll send word if you need help.’

      Lian nodded, but knew that only if he lay dying would he consider it and he did not intend for that to happen. His more usual manner was reasserting itself, the ideas churning and the details noticed. It was a jigsaw, intelligence, all the pieces needing to be put in just the right place. Talking to Shay had steadied him and made him think. He would need to go back to see Violet Addington and ask her about the statue.

      He dreaded her answer.

      When the conversation turned to other things, Aurelian relaxed. It was good to have a friend to talk with.

      ‘How is Celeste’s grandmother?’

      ‘Flourishing as she hurls advice and gives her opinion on any and everything related to bringing up children.’

      ‘Yet her own were such disappointments.’

      ‘Well, Celeste says that a second chance is what everybody needs and she is going to give it with love to Susan Joyce.’

      ‘You were lucky in her, Shay. Lucky to have found her.’

      ‘And don’t I know it.’

      Fiddling with his glass, Lian leaned back in the wing chair, the ancient leather squeaking.

      ‘When did you realise that she was the one, the one you loved? The one you could not live without.’

      ‘About a moment after I met her again in Paris in heavy disguise and whispering sensitive state secrets. Why do you want to know that?’

      Lian looked down, careful to shade his eyes. Shay was a man who noticed almost as much as he did and it was always the tiny gestures that gave one away.

      ‘Sometimes it is good to hear about things that are not hard or wrong or dangerous.’

      ‘Does Lytton Staines know you are back?’

      ‘I haven’t seen him yet, but then I have not been here for long. He is due back from Scotland tomorrow.’

      ‘My advice would be to go out on the town with him when you are better, for in a social setting you can observe Lady Addington without being noticed. See who she converses with. Find out those who might also be involved and get your leads there. If you are going to be the lure in all of this, you may as well go slowly and carefully so that what’s just happened to you never does so again. Where was the gold sent to here in England?’

      ‘To a man who went by the name of Derwent in Kensington. I followed up that lead and can find no sign that he ever existed.’

      ‘A front, then?’

      ‘The investors in Paris received acknowledgement of the donations. They also received correspondence outlining detailed plans of connecting with others who were anti-government here. Then communication simply stopped about a year and a half ago.’

      ‘It took you a while to get here, then?’

      ‘Those sending the gold were all gentlemen. They did not wish to be identified publicly with such an endeavour, preferring to make it a more private crusade.’

      ‘What changed?’

      ‘When the statue turned up with the warning they thought that blackmail might come next.’

      ‘And because you were half-English and had been to school here you were chosen as the one to come and sort it all out?’

      ‘Not quite. After your wife’s accusations against me in Paris I have been watched, though distrusted might even be a better word for it. When I was shot in the boarding house on Brompton Place I even wondered if the man was not French.’

      ‘God. A double-cross? Le Ministère de la Guerre?’

      ‘The struggle for power is never easy. People do not wish to relinquish their assets without a fight.’

      ‘And one of those assets is you?’

      Lian began to laugh and felt better. It had been a long time since he had been able to speak so openly like this.

      ‘I got out the money I had in France a good while ago after selling my personal properties.’

      ‘Which was another black mark to your name?’

      ‘I suppose so. Being the first to recognise the truth of Napoleon’s doomed campaigns and act upon it leaves others...vengeful. The noble families are not what they once were in France, for although aristocracy is tolerated it is no longer encouraged. Papa sent my sister and his old aunts here to England when he sensed the danger in it all, but nothing could induce him to leave.’

      ‘So he stayed?’

      ‘My mother’s grave is at Vernon. That was part of it, too. His heart lies in that soil.’

      ‘The soft underside of true politics? The place where the soul collides with reason?’

      ‘Perhaps.’

      ‘So your first questions will be to Lady Addington.’

      He nodded, hating to have her name so carelessly tossed into the ring. ‘She is scared somehow and isolated. When she speaks there are shadows in her words.’

      ‘How long were you in her house?’

      ‘Four hours and I slept for three of them.’

      Shay finished his brandy and got up to pour himself another. ‘She made quite an impression on you, then, for such a brief acquaintance.’

      ‘There were many books in French in the downstairs library, though the whole place looked shabby and in need of redecoration.’

      ‘The twin persuasions of loyalty and greed.’

      ‘But that’s not enough, is it? I need a reason. She is a lady and a gentlewoman. She is delicate and thin. Her hands are soft. Her heart is kind.’

      ‘The husband, then? Lord Addington? How did he die?’

      ‘In an accident in the Addington stables. One of his prize stallions booted him.’

      ‘Were there witnesses?’

      ‘None.’

      ‘Easy to apply such a death, then, if you had the motivation. Enough gold might give you that.’

      ‘There’s something else, too.’ He waited until Shay returned again before beginning.

      ‘Violet Addington’s father, Wilfred Bartholomew, was a northern businessman made rich by his acquisition of jewellery shops.’

      ‘A man who knew his way around gold, then, and how to stretch its worth.’

      ‘And his sister left England years ago to marry a Frenchman and settle in Lyon. A family connection?’

      Shay stood against the warmth of flame. ‘I miss it sometimes, Lian, all the energy of intelligence. I miss it until I kiss my wife and son and understand the impossibility