A Proposition for the Comte

by Sophia James

  ‘You should not have come here, Violet.’ None of the American drawl remained and his hand on her arm was like a vice. ‘It was foolish.’

  She noticed that the gold Parisian ring was back on his finger even as she pulled away. ‘Let me go this instant, sir, or I shall scream.’

  He did just that, but the fury in his eyes was unhidden. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘I imagine for the same reason you are, my lord. To do business with the jeweller.’

  He turned at this and began on a different topic altogether. ‘I have heard it said that you have an expert knowledge on the values inherent in gold?’

  They were in the carriage now and the door was closed behind them.

  ‘My father was a successful jeweller. I grew up with the knowing.’ She looked at him full on, the very threads of her existence hanging in a balance. He was French and everything she knew of him was shrouded in shadows. Shifting. Changing. A chameleon. A man of violence. The disguised American. She was heartened by the frown on his face and pushed on.

  ‘I am here, too, because most women enjoy the thought of jewellery, sir, and I am no different.’

  The idea of appearing so very shallow stung a little, but it was much better than the alternative.

  ‘Yet I have never seen you wear even a single piece of adornment, Lady Addington. There are things about you that do not quite make sense.’

  ‘I could throw the same accusation at you, Comte de Beaumont. If I had alerted the Home Office of your injuries on the night I found you on Brompton Place, would they have been interested in your movements, do you think? Would they still be now?’

  ‘Are you blackmailing me?’

  ‘I liken it to playing chess, my lord. One move can be checked by another. If you insist on asking questions about me and my family, then you leave me with no other option.’

  He leaned forward at that. ‘You think it a game, Violet? A small entertainment? What if I told you I believe your husband was murdered?’ His head tilted slightly as she gave no answer and he swore. ‘But you knew that already, did you not? Then know also that you could be the next in their sights, the wife of a man who was not quite as he seemed. What if I also told you that George Taylor, the jeweller, is dead, too. His body was found in a ditch outside Chichester three days ago and his injuries were substantial.’

  Horror consumed her.

  ‘Whatever your husband got involved in was brutal, Violet, and cruel, so if by any chance Addington’s gains were also your own I would leave London and disappear immediately.’

  ‘Gains?’ She could barely speak.

  ‘When one melts down gold and replaces the bulk of it with silver and lead there is great propensity for a lucrative exchange, but there is also a greater chance of dying for it.’

  She lifted her hand and banged hard against the wall of the carriage, glad when it came to a standstill.

  ‘I do not know what it is you speak of, but this is your stop, sir.’

  He nodded. She could see the muscles in his jaw moving, though he himself made no effort at all to climb out.

  ‘If you ever have a need for help, Lady Addington, day or night...’

  She tipped her head and looked away.

  ‘I shan’t.’

  He looked at her in a way that broke her heart and as the door shut behind him she watched him move off into the showery rain, the greyness of the city swallowing him up.

  * * *

  The jeweller Whitely was a part of the ring of silence regarding the gold, as was the murdered Harland Addington.

  Aurelian had found reference to them both in a letter that he’d come across in the armoire of George Taylor when he had broken into his London premises. In the letter the amounts of gold leached from the largesse sent from France was set out in plain black and white.

  He had only found the sheet of paper because it had fallen down the back of one of the drawers in the desk. A fact which attested to the care those involved had taken in leaving no trail of their activities whatsoever.

  The question now was had Violet Addington known either about the gold coming in from France or the hidden thievery of her husband? What could have been gained in such an endeavour, for surely it was only a matter of time before the ruse was discovered. He wondered how many ornaments had been made even as Harland Addington’s gambling addiction came to mind.

  From what he had discerned, nothing had ever been put in place to stir up the hornets’ nest of resistance in Britain that had been promised and paid for. It had been pure greed that had motivated those here receiving the gold right from the start.

  Nothing quite added up, though, for neither Whitely nor Violet Addington had left London in the past week. So had George Taylor been killed by another?

  Was the string of murders a culling of people who knew the pathway of the French gold perhaps? Until there was only one left to claim it in silence and without recrimination?

  Where did Lady Addington sit on such a ladder?

  He swore softly and hailed a hackney cab that happened to be passing. Once home he would write down the patterns and find the thread. It was only a matter of time before it would form into the truth.

  * * *

  Violet stood in her room that night and went over every second, every word, every inference of her meeting with Aurelian de la Tomber. A lump rose in her throat and she swallowed it back, gritting her teeth against such weakness.

  Desolation was always just a heartbeat away, the loss of self and life and love. How often had she stood on the edge of a precipice looking down, a long way down, the crumbling edge of the cliff under each foot. Closing her eyes, she could feel herself falling and opened them up again quickly.

  She did not know which way to turn. George Taylor was dead and she had seen that the jeweller Whitely had known of it, too. Who would be next?

  Aurelian de la Tomber was here to recover the French gold, for there were shadows of knowledge in his amber eyes and his words about the gold content in the statue sent to France were telling. Was he one of the senders or was he someone far more menacing?

  Where did he stay here in London? How could she find out without raising suspicion? When she had sent back his ring she had left it to her butler to find the address. She could not now ask him of it without inciting question.

  De Beaumont had warned her in the carriage today with a fierce and honest anger. You should not have come here. It was foolish.

  But he did not know the half of it and she would never tell him. To protect herself she needed to maintain an innocence.

  Grimacing, she knew that was also a lie. She was not an innocent. Not by a very long shot.

  Her sister-in-law Amaryllis had gone to bed with a headache tonight and her two children looked haggard and drawn after returning from a small holiday with their aunt in Bath. Michael and Simon worried for their mother and at ten and thirteen she could see their sense of uncertainty and sadness.

  Pray to God her sister-in-law remained strong enough to cope. If she did not, then all this would be so much more difficult.

  Amara was falling apart before Violet’s very eyes, duplicity leaking out in ill health. Well, Harland would not ruin what was left of his family, Violet decided, as she crossed to the armoire in the alcove and removed a small key from its bed of green baize.

  Folding out a corner of her rug, she pushed down on a loose section of timber and then lifted up an ornate wooden chest in the space between and inserted the key.

  The copy of her note written to the French Embassy when she had sent the statue was there on top, standing as a protection for her part in trying to end the duplicity if she needed it in the end. Harland’s threat of killing her lay folded in ribbon, as well, his black writing clearly indicating his anger. She did not even glance at this, but dug deeper.

  Here. The necklace was wrapped in t
issue and when she opened it the broken gold and sapphire circle spilled out. Her fingers gripped it and pressed down, the jagged gold hurting her skin. She had found this on the floor of Harland’s study at Addington after a small group of people had come up unexpectedly to see him. There had been an argument and they had left with the slam of doors and a distinctly heard threat of dying for the gold.

  These would be the clues that de Beaumont must be trying to find. All the ruin and lies and the pointers as to whom was involved.

  She heard Amaryllis cough in the adjoining chamber, her malady from the autumn still hanging on with a fervour. She heard the bells, too, ringing out midnight over a sleeping London town.

  ‘You will not win, I swear it,’ she whispered and hated the anger that was building inside her. It was to Harland she spoke and to his soul lost in the depths of the hell he had put them all through.

  She needed to see that no one would come after them. She also needed to understand just exactly who Aurelian de la Tomber, Comte de Beaumont, really was.

  Then she would make her next move.

  * * *

  She met the French Count three days later at a small soirée her godfather, Charles Mountford, had invited her to. She saw Aurelian de la Tomber the moment she arrived, standing on the other side of the room, head and shoulders above every other man present. She was pleased she had worn her ugly cap and a gown that covered every bit of her.

  ‘I have been wondering how you fared, my dear.’ Charles smiled at her in the way he always did, a sort of wistful memory of her mother present.

  ‘London suits me and I am happy here, Uncle Charles.’

  ‘It is good to see you have shed the widow weeds. Colour brings out all the parts of you that were in the shade before.’

  ‘It is time for me to move on, I think, time to find some other purpose for myself in life and focus on the future.’

  ‘Have I not always told you that, my dear? Your mother will be smiling from up above to hear of such a decision. But now come, I want you to meet the Comte de Beaumont, newly returned from Paris. He is an interesting man.’

  Gritting her teeth, she followed Charles with a good deal of hesitation. As the Comte looked up at them some primal interest showed before he could school his face.

  ‘This is my goddaughter, Lady Addington, Comte de Beaumont, a girl of good name and sense.’

  ‘We have met’ came the rejoinder. ‘At the Creightons’ ball a week or so back.’

  ‘Indeed.’

  Her godfather gave the impression that he had known already of their first introduction and Violet wondered why he should have tested them.

  ‘In that case I shall leave you both to become reacquainted and see to my other guests.’

  Within a few seconds he was gone, winding his way to the far side of the room. Charles was up to something, Violet thought, but the Comte’s first words chased such ruminations away.

  ‘I see you have not taken my advice, Lady Addington.’

  ‘Advice?’

  ‘To leave London. To go to safety.’

  He spoke quietly so that his voice did not carry and she did the same.

  ‘I want neither trouble nor any added attention, Comte de Beaumont, but...’

  ‘I think it is already too late for that.’

  ‘I don’t understand?’

  ‘How close are you to Mountford?’

  ‘He was a good friend of my late mother and he is my godfather.’

  He had taken her arm now and walked with her out on to an enclosed balcony where no one else had as yet come to stand.

  ‘Your husband gambled. Large amounts, it is said, too large for the income he was receiving.’

  ‘Not every marriage is an easy one, my lord.’

  She could barely believe she had admitted that, she, who was so private about her own affairs. The words seemed to have taken him aback for he looked concerned, his golden eyes full of it.

  ‘Do you have other family?’

  ‘A sister-in-law, my lord.’

  ‘Who do you talk to, then, confide in?’

  The silence between them was telling.

  ‘It is said that Harland Addington’s sister Amaryllis Hamilton has been seeing a doctor for a melancholy of spirt.’

  The words made her freeze. He knew. She knew he did. Knew all about her and Amara and Harland.

  Was he a spy? She had it on good account that Summerley Shayborne was a friend of his and Viscount Luxford had been Wellesley’s first officer of intelligence.

  A French intelligence officer, then, sifting through truth and lies? It suddenly all made sense.

  George Taylor was in the mix, too, as was the jeweller Whitely. So many moving parts indicating what might have happened and, if someone should combine those pieces to the bits that she knew...

  She felt her world shift and re-form, the danger close and dreadful. When Douglas Cummings ambled across to join them she stiffened.

  ‘You look like a flower in full bloom on this cold and wintry evening, Lady Addington.’

  Chancing a look at Aurelian de la Tomber, she perceived astonishment in his eyes. The French were known for their gallant courtly manners, but the Comte did not seem to be at all of that bent. If anything, he observed Cummings in the way a hunter might have eyed a deer in some woods. Ready to pounce. In for the kill.

  A new question. Was anything ever just simple with the man?

  ‘Perhaps you might take a turn around the room with me, Lady Addington?’ Cummings reached for her arm and tucked it into the crook of his.

  At the first steps she felt a sense of loss that took her breath away. She wanted to be closer to Aurelian de la Tomber. She wanted to stand beside him and be sheltered by his strength. That thought had her breathing in deeply. Warmer than warm, if she were to be honest. Hot and wanting. The French Count effortlessly made her feel things inside that she never had before.

  What was happening to her? What part of such an admission made any sense at all? She concentrated on what Cummings was now saying.

  ‘Come to the Vauxhall Gardens this Saturday, my dear. Bring your sister-in-law, too. The band this week is a particularly good one and I know you would both enjoy it.’

  Violet was astonished at his invitation and uneasy about it.

  ‘I shall check my appointments. I am not quite sure of what was planned this weekend and my sister-in-law keeps her own social calendar.’

  ‘Were they close? Your husband and Mrs Hamilton?’

  ‘Not particularly. I think after the loss of her own husband she drew inward.’

  ‘Yet you have flourished. I have noticed the differences in you lately.’

  A further confidence she wished he had not made at all.

  As she passed by Aurelian de la Tomber and her godfather again she saw how they both watched her. There were things afoot here that she could not understand, undercurrents and vibrations. Charles Mountford had always been like a favoured uncle, but today even he held an expression that was not familiar.

  She had come out of mourning only a few weeks ago and maybe it was this fact that accounted for Cummings’s sudden want for more of their acquaintance. She knew that black had never truly suited her so that the bright colours she now favoured were like the shedding of a chrysalis she’d been trapped in for too long even despite the fact that all her gowns were old. But Charles Mountford’s expression showed a good amount of worry as well as anger, emotions replicated on the face of de la Tomber next to him.

  Perhaps they were working together? This thought was as surprising as it was hopeful.

  She wanted Aurelian to be an honest man. She wanted him to be good and true and moral in the way Harland had never been. She wanted to make love to him in the moonlight and feel him inside her.

  Her heart began to race. She had always be
en so very unexcited about sexual intimacy. It was one of the things Harland had hated about her the most.

  Yet here she was imagining the Comte above her, his arms tightening as he leaned down to take her mouth.

  ‘Would you like me to find you a drink?’ Douglas Cummings leaned in closely. He had been eating onions, she thought, the sour smell of them strong. When she nodded he departed immediately, leaving Aurelian in his stead.

  ‘Can I visit you tonight, Violet?’

  Her heart thumped loudly in her ears.

  ‘Yes.’

  When she turned to look again he was not there.

  Had he truly just said that or was it some strange trick in her mind? Exhilaration was an emotion she had not had much practice in after her dreary years with Harland. She felt a small trickle of sweat run between her breasts.

  Charles had come across again, too, and his smile was strained.

  ‘Perhaps you should consider taking a holiday, my dear, to a place of warmth and beauty. The grandeur of Rome comes to mind with all its antiquities and history.’

  Another man with good advice. She made herself smile. ‘Perhaps I shall do that.’

  ‘I will write a list of all the places that cannot be missed,’ he continued, a tone in his voice that could be construed as relief. ‘Travel always broadens the mind and stretches one’s boundaries of knowledge.’

  ‘Did you hear that the jeweller George Taylor had died in Chichester?’

  A frown crossed his forehead. ‘I have said before it is better for a lady to let such affairs be dealt with by men who understand these things.’

  ‘You did give me that advice,’ she responded and finished the pale, tasteless orgeat punch she had been offered on arrival. ‘And while it is kindly meant, I find myself quite up to the task of sorting out my own affairs these days.’

  ‘A mistake, my dear.’

  ‘For whom, Uncle Charles?’ She would not back down. This was exactly the sort of game that Harland had played with her.

  ‘You have no idea of the people you would be up against should you delve into your late husband’s past.’ His eyes found de Beaumont talking with another man over by the generous doors.