The Emperor's Conspiracy

by Michelle Diener

  Tavenam stepped away from her, sent Catherine a violent look, and stalked away without responding.

  Charlotte watched him go, watched him carefully reconstruct his habitual air of bonhomie as he made his way to a group of men standing beside the card room.

  Were they part of this, too? Or merely his acquaintances? She made a note of those whom she knew or had been introduced to.

  “What is it?” Catherine pitched her voice low. “He looked ready to kill you. I’m sorry I left you alone so long. I was too busy chatting with Lady Crowder to notice what was going on.”

  This always surprised her, Catherine’s willful habit of seeing her as a well-brought-up lady of the ton. A woman who would have fainted dead away after a conversation such as she’d just had with Tavenam. A woman who needed a chaperone. Despite herself, she smiled.

  “Stop that.” Catherine drew her farther away from the dance floor.

  “Stop what?”

  “That pitying way you have of looking at me, when you think I’m being foolish in protecting you. You deserve the same respect and protection as every other woman here. Never forget that.”

  Charlotte lifted a hand and touched Catherine’s face, sorry that she was wearing gloves and could not do it skin to skin. “I love you, Catherine.”

  Catherine made a little hiccup of sound and fumbled in her reticule, then brought up a handkerchief. “You always surprise me, Charlotte. You have given me more than I have ever given you, and you must never forget that. Never.”

  There was a stir at the entrance to the ballroom, and Charlotte glanced over Catherine’s shoulder to see what it was about.

  Catherine gave a tiny sniff and dabbed at her nose. “Now what did that horrid little man say to you?”

  “I’d rather not worry you with it,” Charlotte said, frowning at the knot of people that had formed by the door. “I can sort it out without your having to …” She trailed off.

  Breaking free of the crowd, shaking them off like a dog shaking off water, was Edward.

  And as he walked straight toward her, she suddenly wondered, who in the ton had been talking about her past?

  She had only told three people of good society—Catherine, who would never say anything; Emma; and Edward himself.

  How had Lord Tavenam gotten his information?

  25

  Edward shrugged off the crowd and saw Charlotte standing to one side of the dance floor with Lady Howe. She was watching him with that cool look of hers.

  She was in a pale blue gown with white satin gloves, her hair piled high on her head in a complicated style. His very own Ice Queen, in this, the hottest summer in London he could remember. The reserve and detachment on her face was certainly a bucket of cold water.

  He almost stumbled, and wondered if the floor could be uneven.

  The way she stood, the look in her eye, made him want to grab her again and kiss her until nothing was left but supple, warm compliance.

  It had not gone that way this morning, but that had been on the heels of the angry insult he had thrown at her, and he hoped—prayed—that she had wrenched herself away and ran out of anger, not revulsion or disgust.

  He had a chance with anger.

  She and Lady Howe waited for him, and the look on Lady Howe’s face was so set, he almost stumbled again. The lady looked like a tiger with a threatened cub, and as dangerous.

  “Ladies.” He bowed.

  “Lord Durnham.” Lady Howe eyed him with displeasure, and Edward could tell she was thinking about the last conversation they had had together, where he had insulted Charlotte and Lady Howe had come to her defense. “I will speak plainly. Charlotte has been inveighed against once this evening, and I will not have it again.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “By whom?”

  Charlotte grinned at him, her haughtiness momentarily gone. “Only you can insult me, and no one else?”

  “No, not even me.”

  The music started up, a quick polka, and he indicated to the dance floor. “Would you dance with me?”

  Charlotte hesitated, and then shook her head. “I have not had much practice, I’m afraid.” But it wasn’t that. He could see she was lying.

  He stared at her.

  “Lady Crowder is beckoning me,” Catherine said with exasperation, and Edward turned. His hostess was indeed trying to attract Lady Howe’s attention. “I’ll be back in a moment.” With a dark look at him, Lady Howe moved away, and Edward realized Lady Crowder would be wanting details of why Edward had decided to come to her ball after he had refused every other invitation for the last five years.

  “Why don’t you want to dance with me?” he asked Charlotte, seizing with both hands the precious seconds Lady Crowder’s curiosity had given him.

  His question forced a surprised laugh from her. Then she narrowed her eyes, the Ice Queen again. “You would dare ask me that? After what you suggested this morning?”

  He took her hands in a movement so fast she did not have time to draw away, and drew her close. “I’m sorry.”

  She tugged her hands free and fiddled with her fan, but did not flick it out.

  “Apology accepted. Your stepfather did seem very shocked and afraid. Even I was racking my brain to remember if I knew him.”

  He was glad she hadn’t implied his apology should also be for the kiss. He would never apologize for that.

  “The question is, who did he think you were?”

  She said nothing for a time, turning to watch the couples on the dance floor. When she turned back to him it was with steady, serious eyes.

  “Have you been talking about me? To your friends, perhaps?”

  He frowned. “No.”

  She watched his face, as if to discern the truth from it. “Do you know if Emma has?”

  He shook his head. “Not while I was with her.” The music came to a stop and they remained silent until it started again. “Why do you ask?”

  She flicked her eyes briefly in the direction of a small group of men. One of them was staring at them, then turned away, pretending disinterest. “That’s Lord Tavenam.” She spoke in a quiet murmur, and he bent his head to hear her better. “He just tried to blackmail me, with the threat of exposing the circumstances of my birth to you specifically and the ton in general. I have only told three people in these circles the truth of that—Catherine, Emma, and yourself.”

  Much as he wanted to look in Tavenam’s direction, he forced himself to turn his back, to face Charlotte fully. “What did he want for his silence?”

  She looked down at her fan, flicked it open and shut. “He wanted me to report on everything you know about the affair you are investigating. He told me to copy your notes, relate every word you spoke about it to me.”

  He almost turned then, but managed to keep his gaze on her. “How were you to get it?”

  “I asked him the same.” She smiled up at him, a hint of a blush on her cheeks. “He told me to let you take me to bed, if that would do it.”

  He could not hide his shock, and the fierce, hot anger that washed over him. And beneath it all, an intense interest in doing just that. Taking her to bed. He should be ashamed of himself, but he found that shame was the last thing he felt.

  Her eyes widened a little, and her blush deepened. “So what will it be, Lord Durnham? Will it taking sleeping with you to finally discover what this is all about?”

  Charlotte watched Edward’s fists curl, and she could feel the control he exerted on himself not to turn back to Tavenam. There was violence in his eyes.

  She had also seen a brief, heart-stopping flash of lust when she’d asked her question, and however angry he was at Tavenam’s suggestion, he clearly would not turn her away from his bed if she wanted to go to it.

  She had never wanted a man before. Not even when she’d become Luke’s lover. She’d never enjoyed it, had tolerated it only because it was what he wanted from her, and seemed so little to give for all he had done for her.

  Since he’d bee
n taken to the Hulks, she’d never been with another man, had never considered it, until now.

  She swallowed hard at the thought.

  “You suspect either Emma or myself of betraying you? Why not one of Luke’s people, or your servants?”

  “It could be them, but the way he spoke, only of my mother, and mentioned nothing about my time as a sweep, or Luke’s lover …” She shrugged. “It seemed a very upper-class outrage, to me. If I’d been snitched on from the rookeries, it would have been more detailed.”

  He looked at her thoughtfully.

  She cleared her throat. “I don’t think you told him yourself; he wouldn’t have threatened to expose me to you if he already knew that you know my secrets. That is where his whole plan fell down from the start. But if you or Emma had told a close friend, and they had passed the information along without mentioning you—that occurred to me as a possibility.”

  “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

  Edward 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?”