Her Quicksilver Lover: Even Gods Fall in Love, Book 6

by Lynne Connolly

  Like many of the new generation, the family had a tragic history. When the Duke of Boscobel had murdered Amidei’s contemporaries, in order to replace them with his own puppets, the ones that got away had only done so at a cost of blood and tears aplenty. Apollo was one of them.

  Amidei entered the main salon cautiously, quizzing glass at the ready. Men and women sat here, so both sexes witnessed his entrance. He had prepared for that. Anyone watching him would not know his inner turmoil, not even other immortals. He was older than most, and skilled at hiding the emotions he wanted concealed.

  He took his most arrogant pose, chin up, eyelids half closed, head tilted very slightly to one side and quizzing glass raised to his eye. He surveyed the room, taking his time, ignoring the occupants. Considering the season was several weeks off as yet, the club was creditably full. Gratifying.

  Not that Amidei gave that more than a passing thought. Ignoring the cries of people he was passing and invitations to join them, he set off down the room towards his quarry.

  The man sat with his back to his host, but every step Amidei took brought him closer, increasing the pulse of awareness between them. This was not merely another immortal returning to the place where he was sure of finding others—this was Apollo. Amidei’s best friend, his comrade in arms, the man he spent so many hours with.

  No. It was the god in the body of someone else. Apollo he might be, but he was not Arthur Seymour, scion of a great family, roister and rogue. He was the Earl of Wickhampton, a man from the north of England who had two sisters, and had recently lost his brother. Amidei was involved in Wickhampton’s brother’s death. Would the man resent him for that?

  The man turned, putting his profile into view. His perfect profile, of course. Apollo was the most handsome of the gods, and that was certainly reflected in the features of the man who had just deigned to notice him. The shock did not affect him as it had before.

  Amidei grinned, but not so that it would show. He kept his wry pleasure to himself. The man exuded graceful power, and if Amidei was honest, he probably had more presence than Arthur had possessed. But he was a stranger, and likely to remain so, if his original, cool demeanour continued.

  Wickhampton got to his feet with a graceful swirl of his dark blue coat skirts, leaning immediately into a bow so graceful that several ladies sighed. “Delighted to meet you, Lord d’Argento.”

  Amidei inclined his head and bowed in his turn. “Lord Wickhampton. I trust your journey was not too arduous?” His heart rate was finally slowing. Every time he thought of Apollo, he recalled his friend, expecting to see him. That he did not came as a constant disappointment. One day he would get over the emotion, but he would never stop grieving.

  “Not at all.” A sapphire ring glinted as Wickhampton rose, a gentle smile wreathing his mouth. “Most restful. Unfortunately. I could find no trace of the—person—you asked me to contact on your behalf.” Amidei had sent a message, requesting his help. That was business. This meeting was so much more than that.

  “Ah, yes. I am sorry you had a wasted journey.”

  “Oh, I would not call it that. Won’t you take a seat?”

  Amidei eyed the armless chair. “I would like nothing better.” Flicking up his skirts, he sat. He would not even attempt to compete with Apollo’s grace on retaking his seat, but he had some of his own, and he deployed it now, letting his Italian accent highlight his words. “How did you find Paris?”

  “Empty,” his lordship said. “These days most people are in Versailles. Only the government and the ordinary people linger in Paris. A shame, I think, because the city has a beautiful aspect.” What happened? The woman had fled.

  The mental communication startled Amidei. It came so easily and fluidly, it reminded him of the old days. The newer gods were less comfortable with the way they could converse privately, and many preferred to use verbal speech.

  He was more than capable of replying. You alerted her. She came here. After creating disturbances that nearly got her and her lover killed, she married someone else. “I have not visited Paris for years. As you say, the court flocks to Versailles. Elegant to most senses, except that of the nose.”

  “Indeed, and that is probably why the king prefers his smaller house on the estate. They say if the wind is in the right quarter, you can smell Versailles all the way to Paris.” Venus?

  She married Vulcan. You can guess who she had the affair with. “For a man who disliked Versailles, you spent quite a time there.”

  “Indeed I did. I said all senses but one.” He flourished his glass, half filled with ruby liquid. It glistened in the light of Amidei’s best wax candles. “The ladies are also most accommodating.” Round heeled, not to say eager. Did you not spend time there?

  Amidei shrugged, aware of exactly how that sent the diamond buttons on his coat glittering. “They have little else to do.” Not as much as most people believe. I travelled further afield, searching.

  You must have known most were in Britain.

  I was not sure. Boscobel recruited his puppets from all over Europe.

  The corner of Wickhampton’s mouth twitched. “I must admit I am glad to return home. I have reunited with my sisters, who are, understandably, subdued.” Not a line marked his face, but Amidei saw the sadness in his eyes.

  “My condolences on your brother’s passing. He was a giant of a man in more ways than one.” But not in intellect. His devotion to his sisters was admirable, but they should have kept him living quietly in Yorkshire. The commotion he had caused in life and death had taken a great deal of smoothing over. I fear his death led to some undue attention from unwelcome quarters.

  They had slipped so deep into the lines of communication that nobody else could have overheard them, not even the most powerful of immortals. Perhaps Wickhampton had inherited more than his predecessor’s godlike attributes. They had conversed that way in the past, more familiar than brothers.

  Then I must help. “My sisters will be arriving back in London soon, eager to enjoy the season. I have sent for them.”

  “Your sisters do as you tell them?” The thought amused Amidei. The ladies Damaris and Nerine were not the easiest damsels to control.

  “They do as I ask.” He paused. “If I ask pleasantly. When it suits them.” He smiled then, transforming him to one of the happiest men in the world. When he smiled, Apollo dazzled.

  Amidei blinked. He had not seen a smile quite like that ever before. His old friend Seymour had the dazzle, but he’d applied it rather than having it come from somewhere deep inside. Perhaps this Apollo might eclipse his predecessor. He laughed with the man, and nodded to Lightfoot, who brought a bottle of wine. “I trust you like burgundy? Or would you prefer something else? We have an excellent cellar here.”

  They fell to discussing wines and spirits, and the benefits of each. Conversation rolled easily between them. Others joined them, and while Amidei was conscious of the joie de vivre, he kept Apollo under close observation, trying to learn him again. Of course he was aware of the same courtesy being accorded him.

  Cautiously, Amidei began to wonder if at last, he had found some of what he’d lost thirty-one years ago.

  *

  When she caught herself dressing with more care in the morning, Joanna paused. Her hands on her snowy white, fine fichu, she stared at her reflection in the mirror. That would never do. Stripping off the cap with its modest frill of lace, she replaced it with her usual heavier, plain, and eminently more practical one. That was better. She pulled her spare pair of spectacles out of the drawer and put them on. Better still. But she’d keep the fichu. Mrs. Holdsworth liked her staff neat and tidy.

  The thought of the day ahead sent a thrill through her, because today she would see him again. Foolish, but the feeling came independent of her rationality. He was her enemy, according to Mr. Gough. Patrick, he wanted her to call him. While the name Amidei came naturally to her, she found Patrick more difficult, although she had no idea why.

  Leavin
g her room, she clattered down the stairs and plucked her cloak and hat from the pegs in the office. Her father was gone. She was so used to the heavy, thumping sound of the press operating, shaking the flimsy house to its foundations, when it had started at three this morning, she had only turned over in bed and grabbed another two hours of sleep. Her father distributed the journals to the coffeehouses himself and paid half a dozen street urchins sixpence each to sell them on the street. More often than not he made far more copies than they needed. Tonight would probably be the same, unless there was a hanging at Tyburn later. He could sell several copies there, because it could take hours before the condemned reached the scaffold. Neither Joanna nor her father enjoyed hangings, but it was the way of life, and starting a campaign against the practice would only end in plummeting circulation and howls of fury from the mob. The mob relished its hanging days.

  Careful to close the door properly, since it stuck on mornings like this when rain sleeted over the streets, Joanna hunched her shoulders, pulled her hat over her forehead, and took the first step in her long walk. A hackney cab stood in the road, the horse steaming gently and the driver muffled in so many layers of clothing that his own mother would not have recognised him. Joanna thought longingly of the dry warmth to be had, and then shook off her melancholy. If she married the viscount’s son—if he was such—she could afford hackney cabs in weather like this.

  “Miss Spencer!”

  Her head went up at the male bellow, sending a drip of water from an overhanging roof into her right eye. Screwing it up to get rid of it, she turned to discover who owned the voice.

  The man sitting on the driving perch of the cab flourished his whip. “Are you Miss Joanna Spencer?”

  She blinked, and the water trickled down her face. “Yes. What of it? Do you have a message?”

  “A ride.”

  He must have seen the name on the plaque outside the print shop. “I can’t afford a ride.” Why haver about the truth?

  “It’s paid for.”

  Immediately her thoughts went to their visitor last night. “I’m on my way somewhere.”

  “I’m paid to take you to St. James’s Palace and leave you at the corner. Is that right?”

  “Y-yes. Who sent you?”

  “He says he’s looking forward to seeing you. He didn’t leave a name. A tall man, skinny, around forty, grey eyes. Dressed like a butler.”

  Lightfoot? Then the cab had come from Amidei. She shouldn’t accept, she really should not, but the rain would drench her before she got to the club, and she’d have to spend all day in damp, steaming clothes. She should perhaps take a change of clothing to the club for days like this. If she had more than three outfits, she probably would.

  The rain had puddled in the street, so even ankle-length skirts weren’t safe. She had to lift them and her cloak to her knees to get through the wet to where the cabbie waited. He wasn’t about to climb down to open the door for her, so she turned the brass lever and climbed in.

  The driver set off immediately. Even though the carriage smelled none too good, the leather upholstery was faded and split in places, and gaps showed between the planks that made it up, Joanna could imagine she was a great lady bowling along the streets to visit her latest lover. Or to go shopping, dawdling at the toyshop to decide between fans, and buying a dozen pairs of silk, embroidered stockings for her underwear drawer. Joanna had a very good imagination.

  Once, a very long time ago, she’d had silk stockings, but she’d been much smaller then and her father had more money. When that pair had worn out, they’d been replaced with a wool pair, but then her mother had been alive, and they were happy.

  The city passed by the window, the cramped streets of the business end making way for the broad thoroughfares of the Strand and Piccadilly. They took the latter route, and her glimpses of the Thames showed her a swollen river, mist hanging over it in the early morning gloom. Her stomach growled, but she ignored it. Normally she would buy a penny pie from a shop on her route and eat it as she went. Perhaps Mr. Lightfoot would let her have a heel of bread with butter.

  The coach ride was worth a little hunger. This was not the first time she’d felt it.

  Her mind drifted back to the two men who had unexpectedly entered her life. Although Patrick was dark in colouring, he was taking the role of the angel, the benefactor, the man who had offered her respectability. But did he really mean it? Joanna suspected not. He was dangling the possibility before her like a carrot before a donkey. He’d admitted the betrothal was a subterfuge, in any case. He wanted to speak with her privately, but he did not want to ruin her reputation, such as it was. Which was considerate of him, she supposed.

  So why did her heart not quicken and her breath shorten when in his presence?

  She could think properly, her mind without the turmoil that Amidei sent it into.

  There, she’d said his name, if only in her mind. Amidei, Amidei, Amidei. However much she repeated it, the name lost none of its potency. Sitting in the warm, damp, slightly odorous confines of the cab, she laughed. She was being foolish, a child reaching for a toy she could never have. Except that he had offered her something no respectable woman would ever accept. Not a respectable unmarried woman, that was.

  Why then did she yearn to take it? Why believe him? What was the point of respectability? He made no secret of his Italian origins and the time he’d spent in France. Both countries were opposed to Britain and its German monarchs, both known to send spies from time to time. At the moment Europe was at peace, but it was an uneasy peace, and most people expected war to break out again before too long.

  Joanna grabbed the fraying strap on the door as the cab swung around a corner, heading away from the river and its dank secrets. Every day ferrymen and other workers found bodies floating in it. Suicides, murders, and just plain accidents. It was a good way to get rid of an inconvenient body. The club was close enough for two strong men to take a dead body down and toss it in.

  Now her imagination was running away with her.

  Was Amidei setting up a nest of spies? If he was, Joanna had seen no evidence of it. The Pantheon Club entertained the greatest in the land, apart from the stuffy members who refused to have anything to do with a mixed club. More fools them.

  She forced herself to go through the possibilities, the ways people could pass hidden messages.

  The betting book, maybe she should try to look at that. In common with other London clubs, the Pantheon held a book to record debts, odds, and stakes set on the premises. That would make an excellent disguise for a list of spies, or another such list.

  A man with a drawing room facing St. James’s Palace could take note of the comings and goings of the King and his ministers. Except that the King disliked the Palace and preferred to live out at Kensington. A spy would get better information working at Kensington or Whitehall. This was not a political club. Partisans kept their preferences out of the Pantheon.

  Another corner sharply taken made her tumble to the side, and she was forced to hold her hand out to steady herself. The wrench gave her momentary pain, but she could not allow another accident to create an injury that made her unable to work. To her relief, the sting was momentary, a mere prick from one of the upholstery nails, and she could hold it away from her. It did not bleed a great deal, and by the time it had stopped, they had arrived.

  The coachman dropped her at the end of the street, so she had a matter of a hundred steps before she reached the servants’ door of the Club. Joanna thanked the man, and got out. Immediately someone got in the other side, and the man whipped up his horse and was away. Joanna’s respite was over and she was back on the ground once more. The slippery ground. Here, where the rich congregated, pavements had been laid, so she could walk on a relatively smooth surface instead of the cobbles which preponderated in the city. She didn’t even have to lift her skirts clear of the muck.

  For all that, she loved the narrow streets and energy of the city. That was where p
eople made a difference, where rich lived alongside poor and where she’d grown up. The broad streets, the grand carriages and the people with their noses in the air in this part of town made her feel unwelcome, as if she didn’t belong, and that, in its turn, made her angry.

  She crossed the road where Pall Mall met St. James’s Street, and set off for the servants’ area at the side of the building. Entering, she was immediately assailed by damp heat, a result of the kitchen being so close to the narrow stone stairs that led down. As she clattered down them, she recalled that she must be very early. Perhaps she could beg a bite after all.

  Steam rose from the row of drying outer garments hanging on the long row of pegs in the main hall that traversed the building. She was not the only outdoor servant here. She added her own to the row and headed for the kitchen.

  The kitchen was a-bustle, preparing the early morning repasts for the guests upstairs and the master of the house. The smells wafting around—baking bread, bacon sizzling on the hob, mingled with the roasting meats already turning on the spits in preparation for breakfast later in the day—evoked a rumble deep in her stomach.

  Mrs. Crantock the cook, looked her up and down as she entered the kitchen. “Sit down,” she ordered.

  Joanna gratefully took a seat next to one of the housemaids. Early as she was, the domestic staff would have been up earlier, cleaning and preparing the main rooms to face the day. A plate was put before her and she set to, devouring the meal with relish.

  “You’re early,” one of the girls remarked.

  “Hmm,” she said, picking up the dish of tea set down with the food. The dish was thick, cheap white china and had a finger loop on the side. Easier to drink from, certainly. She took a grateful slurp. “I got a ride down here. Usually I walk.”

  “That takes a while.”

  She shrugged. “About an hour. Less if I hurry and it’s a good day.” Usually she preferred to take her time, so she set out an hour early. She had a little more than three miles to traverse, by her reckoning. It kept her legs in prime form, which was as well, since she spent much of the day here on her feet.