The Rake's Revenge

by Ranstrom, Gail

  Lord Glenross, Robert McHugh. Though foppish elegance and a slender frame were all the rage, Afton preferred a more substantial man, and Glenross was certainly that. He was almost too muscular for current styles. The narrowly cut jackets strained over his shoulders and chest in a most distracting manner. The prospect of being alone with him, even in disguise, caused her no small amount of anxiety. To her, he was larger than life. He filled a room, claiming it with no more than a crooked smile. And his eyes! Those cool ice-green eyes that looked right through her flesh to her soul! Thank heavens for her veils!

  A glance at the clock on the small dressing table inspired her to hasten. She had slipped out of an impromptu tea and lively discussion of Lord Byron’s latest exploits, with barely a nod in her aunt’s direction, but the delay had caused her to run late. She stripped and donned black crepe de chine widow’s garb that covered her from throat to toe. Above that, a gray wig topped by black silk veils obscured her face. Last, she pulled on a pair of white silk gloves to cover her hands. Nothing, she knew, would betray her identity.

  The clatter of horses’ hooves and the jangle of harness from the street below drew her to the window. A black town coach drew up outside and the door opened. Instead of a patron of Madame Marie, the occupant was none other than her client. Early. Afton smiled, thinking he must be more anxious for a reading than she’d thought, and watched through the sheer lace panels as the top of his head disappeared though the doorway below. She wondered again at the incongruity of a man like McHugh consulting a fortune-teller as she decided not to pull the heavy velvet draperies over the lace curtains.

  For good measure, Afton checked her appearance in the mirror above the fireplace. Yes, the veils obscured her features and made her virtually unrecognizable. She would be safe enough. Just as she lit white candles and sandalwood incense, a knock sounded at the door. She lifted the little brass disk that covered the peephole to see the Scot, quite alone. She paused with her hand on the latch, anxiety twisting her stomach in knots.

  “He is just curious,” she whispered to herself, though she was too well aware that any client—this one?—could be Auntie Hen’s murderer. She glanced at the bell rope, touched the little dagger in her sewn-on pocket, squared her shoulders and lifted the latch.

  The door opened slowly, revealing a smallish woman swathed in black. Even the heavy veils covering her face betrayed no hint of the features beneath. Though he itched to peel the layers back and expose the face, Rob schooled himself to patience. Madame Zoe’s actual identity was only one part of his problem. He could discover that whenever he chose. He needed to know her weaknesses, to uncover her vulnerabilities and decide the perfect way to destroy her. He estimated he would need at least three visits.

  “Entrez, m’sieur.” Soft, well-modulated tones greeted him as the veiled woman stepped aside to grant him entry. If that was a crone’s voice, he was not Rob McHugh.

  A quick glance around the small room revealed a dozen telling details. The meager supply of wood on the hearth indicated use of the room for only short periods of time. Personal items were at a minimum. This was a salon only, not a home for the fortune-teller. The furnishings were tasteful, though shabby and worn. A single window facing the street below was hung with an airy lace curtain, and small pots of greenery lined the sill. Blue velvet draperies could be pulled for additional privacy, and would darken the room for a mystical atmosphere. A curtained alcove in the far corner likely hid a chaise and washstand, perhaps a wardrobe or clothespress. The only concession to female vanity was the old mirror mounted above the fireplace.

  But most interesting to Rob was the small dark stain on the threadbare rug beneath the central table. Tea? Wine? Blood? Very interesting. And then there was the discreet bell rope hung from a hook near the fireplace. Where would it ring?

  “M’sieur?” the woman asked again.

  “Madame Zoe? Am I late?”

  “Mais non,” she said. As he passed her going into the room, he caught the subtle scent of lilies of the valley. Sweet, warm, seductive. Also very interesting.

  She swept her arm toward the table in the center of the room in an invitation to sit.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked, ignoring the chair.

  Her voice was still soft and heavily accented, but now held a hint of humor. “I know all, m’sieur.”

  He laughed, amused by her conceit. “Then who am I?”

  “You are my three o’clock appointment, m’sieur.”

  Clever thing. He shook his head. She was not going to make him like her. “Do you mock me?”

  “Mais non, m’sieur.” She gripped the back of the chair opposite the one she had indicated for him. “That would be very bad for the business, no?”

  “My business, at any rate.”

  “So. You ’ave the curiosity to know what the future ’olds for you?”

  “Yes, indeed.” He nearly rubbed his hands together in anticipation.

  “’Ow do you wish your fortune told, m’sieur? Cards? Tarot? Tea leaves? Crystal orb? Runes?”

  Rob gestured at the deck of cards on the table. “Cards.”

  He smiled as she sat and made a graceful mystic gesture over the deck, as if invoking the fortune-telling god, before passing the deck to him. “You must shuffle the cards, m’sieur. They must carry your energy. Your…essence.”

  Without sitting, Rob shuffled the deck three times before sliding it back across the table to her. She then dealt a circular pattern of cards, faceup, on the table and placed one card facedown on top of each. In the center of the pattern, she turned a single card up. The king of spades.

  Pointing to it, she said, “You, m’sieur.”

  “Are you quite certain?”

  “Oui. Were this a tarot deck, you would be the king of swords. A good card. A strong card. A warrior.”

  Flattery? Somehow he thought not. “Swords, eh? What am I doing?”

  She pointed to a queen of hearts. “Doutant moi.”

  Another joke? “How do you know you are the queen of hearts?”

  “She is presently close to you and ’as the gift of sight. Do you know such another?”

  She had him there. “No,” he admitted.

  “Voilà! C’est moi.” There was a note of triumph in her voice, as if she had surprised even herself.

  “Will my doubt prevent you from giving me a reading?”

  Madame Zoe sat back, folded her hands in her lap. “Mais non, m’sieur. Do not concern yourself. The cards are what they are. But I feel the doubt in you. You do not think telling the future is possible, no?”

  “Pray, do not allow my reservations to hinder you. This is my first time at a fortune-teller. You must allow me my little doubts.” He took the chair across from her and folded his arms across his chest.

  She appeared to be weighing her words, deciding what to say, or how much. “You are a warrior, m’sieur. You ’ave come ’ere with the…plan. The strategy. There is something you wish to know, but you will not speak it aloud.”

  He raised an eyebrow. That was a clever ploy. While quite true of him, the same could be said of nearly everyone who visited a fortune-teller. “Hmm. Must I speak it aloud, madame, for you to answer the question?”

  “No. I confess it would be easier, but not needed.” She pointed to the ten of spades. “I think it ’as to do with the revenge. I do not see a ’appy outcome, m’sieur. Revenge is a two-edged sword. It draws blood on both sides, n’est-ce pas? One cannot be certain ’oo will be cut.”

  A remarkably good guess, he thought. “Sometimes the reason for revenge makes it worth the risk.”

  She shook her head slowly. “Mais non, m’sieur. There are only two reasons for revenge. Both silly.”

  “And those reasons would be…”

  “L’amour ou l’argent, monsieur.”

  Of course. Love or money. One did not have to be a fortune-teller to know this. “Which do you think is my motive?” he asked, unable to keep the challenge from his voice.<
br />
  Her own voice was steady and sure. “Love. You are not a man to quibble over money.”

  “You are very logical, madame. Very perceptive.” Was it perception that passed for fortune-telling? Did she merely tell people what she guessed they wanted to hear? Was she little more than an intuitive observer?

  “Not logical, m’sieur. I only speak what the cards say.”

  “Balderdash!” The word was out before he could stop it.

  A small muffled laugh emerged from beneath the veils. “I am sorry you think so. Néanmoins, you ’ave come for the reading, and I shall oblige.” She bent over the spread cards once again in an attitude of rapt concentration, turning the facedown cards up in a precise pattern. “You, and you alone, ’ave the power to determine your future. What I tell you now is only what could be…what might be. You must choose your course.

  “You are now suffering from…’ow you say—chagrin d’amour?”

  The corner of his mouth twitched. “You say, ‘a broken ’eart.’” At last Madame Zoe was going astray. Maeve and Hamish’s deaths had not broken his heart, they had hardened it.

  “Oui, ’eartbreak. But you must not worry, m’sieur. You will love again. You will love deeper.” She pointed to the queen of clubs. “She was not your grande passion. You will ’ave la grande passion. If…”

  “If?”

  She shrugged. “If you let go of your ’urt. If not, your quest for revenge will poison you and those around you.”

  Dangerously close! How could she garner that from a few common cards? “You misunderstand, madame. What you call revenge, I call justice. As for putting it aside—that’s easy to say, impossible to do.”

  “M’sieur, I…” She trailed off in a sigh.

  “If you have something to tell me, madame, do so,” he said.

  She leaned over the cards again and turned another three up, then another three, stopping to study the way the cards had fallen. “Danger. Clearly, danger. Spreading in a radius around the king—you, m’sieur. Alas, I cannot tell if the danger is to the king or from the king. It may be both. You must be very careful, m’sieur.” She fell silent, her head bent over the cards.

  Damnation. Was she about to give him a warning from the cards? Had he just tipped his hand? He stirred uneasily as he waited for her to finish. “Madame? Have you fallen asleep?” he asked when the silence stretched out.

  When she answered, her voice was subdued, and he felt for the first time that she was hedging. “You must not worry, m’sieur. The matters that are troubling you will soon come clear.”

  “Is that what your cards tell you?”

  She touched her forehead through her veil. “I…I ’ave suddenly come over with the malaise, m’sieur. I will instruct my factor to reimburse you.”

  “I do not want reimbursement, madame. I want a reading.”

  The hand on her forehead began to tremble, and Rob realized she was not feigning to get rid of him. She was actually in distress. He leaned toward her, surprising himself with a quick pang of concern. “Do you require assistance, madame?”

  She waved one hand to prevent him from coming closer. “’Ow kind of you, mais non. I must ’ave quiet. I cannot see your future, m’sieur. There are clouds, barriers—”

  “Ah.” He nodded “The doubts you spoke of earlier.”

  “Oui,” she sighed.

  “Then can you tell me the past?”

  She studied the remaining cards after fanning them in an arc across the table. “Your past is filled with, ah, turbulence. And much pain, I think. There ’as been betrayal and injury. You ’ave learned not to trust. You…you are a man of strong passions, though you ’ide it well. You are intelligent, thoughtful, deliberate—relentless in pursuing your goal. Alas, m’sieur, you are not ’appy. You ’ave the deep ’urt. You must overcome these things if you are to live again. In the present, m’sieur, you do not allow for the—’ow you say—caprice of life. For the whim, the ’umor or the silly thought. You ’ave not learned that dreams, no matter ’ow impossible, make dreary lives worth living, and that when ’ope dies, the ’uman spirit dies. You ’ave not found within you the ability to laugh at life’s absurdities. The world does not turn because you turn it, m’sieur. Au contraire. It turns of its own accord. Time is even more relentless than you.”

  He narrowed his eyes at the unvarnished rebuke. She had not falsely flattered him, nor couched her message in a veil of euphemisms. And her reckoning was dead-on. He hadn’t a single whimsical bone in his body. That she knew so much about him made him uncomfortable. He began to think that, however misguided, she might be sincere in her delusions of “knowing all.”

  “You are loyal to your friends,” she continued, “and will not ’esitate to protect them, even from themselves. You—”

  “Enough!” he snapped. She was more than a fortune-teller—she was a witch! He stood so quickly the little wooden chair tipped backward and clattered on the floor. “That is enough for today. I will be back for my money’s worth, madame. You may count on that.” Feeling as if the walls were closing in on him, he turned on his heel and headed for the door. He could have sworn he heard a muffled curse on his way out.

  In all, though, his visit had been a success. He had learned a great number of interesting things about the infamous Madame Zoe. Her soft youthful voice betrayed the fact that she could not be an ancient French émigré. Unless he missed his guess, she could not be above twenty and five. Her size was another clue. Despite the mourning weeds, he could tell that her figure was more willowy than that of an aging matron, her posture straight, not hunched. Her scent, lilies of the valley with the underlying hint of greens, was unaffected and free of the cloying heavy scents of musk and rose so popular today. It was a fragrance that had brought his blood up instantly.

  But even more interesting, Madame Zoe was not French at all. No, when speaking the foreign words, her accent was flawless, but when speaking English, her affected French accent was appalling. Truly one of the worst he’d ever heard.

  Best of all, now he had her address. He knew where to find her when he was ready to come for her. And that would be soon.

  Oh, yes. Mr. Evans had been right. She’d been worth the five pounds. And Rob would gladly pay the price again for another visit.

  Chapter Three

  Afton glanced around the grand ballroom of the Argyle Rooms. The elegant setting, replete with crystal chandeliers and fresco-painted walls, was like something from a fairy tale. Everything was perfect and boded well for Dianthe’s further success. It would never do to have other guests at the Lingate fete overhear their conversation and ruin it all.

  She pulled her aunt toward a quiet corner. “I tell you, Aunt Grace, it was eerie,” she whispered. “I know what each of the cards is supposed to mean, but I could not make out the meaning in the way they fell. I was in his fortune, and I was a danger to him—or he to me, I could not tell which. I tried to think, but I kept hearing the word danger, and I could not banish it from my mind. I vow, for a moment I thought it was Auntie Hen whispering to me.”

  Grace blanched. “You do not think—”

  “No! Oh, no. Of course not,” Afton assured her. “It wasn’t real. The voice was in my head—more like a memory. But it distracted me, and Lord Glenross must think I’m quite mad. I had only started to tell his future when I…became mystified. He said he would be back.”

  Grace’s clear brown eyes widened. “And so he is.”

  Afton turned in the direction of Grace’s gaze. Lord Glenross, dressed in elegant eveningwear, was wending his way around groups and couples, progressing relentlessly toward them. Light-headed with anticipation, she said a quick prayer that she would do or say nothing that would betray her as Madame Zoe.

  When he arrived before them, he gave a polite bow and straightened with a smile. Afton noted that he’d had a haircut since this afternoon. He now had the look of the haut monde, but there was something primitive in his bearing and his movements—as if someone had dres
sed a lion in a lamb disguise. She liked him better without his “civilized” veneer.

  He gave a short bow. “Mrs. Forbush, I am in your debt.”

  Grace tilted her head to one side and returned his smile. “Whatever for, Lord Glenross?”

  “Your assistance in contacting Madame Zoe. I hope it did not inconvenience you greatly.”

  “Not in the least, my lord. The information came easier than you might imagine. Were you successful?”

  “Quite. I met with her this afternoon.”

  The knowledge that he did not know who she was intoxicated Afton and made her feel daring. She couldn’t contain her curiosity. “Was your appointment satisfactory, my lord?”

  He turned to her, looking surprised that she had addressed him. He smiled and nodded. “Miss Lovejoy, is it not? Yes, I was satisfied with the appointment. I found Madame Zoe to be quite…insightful.”

  “Is she as good as the on dit has it?”

  “That remains to be seen.”

  Afton was about to reply when she noted Sir Martin Seymour coming their way. He was blond, tall, slender, handsome and perfectly groomed—a fair complement to Lord Glenross. He bowed to her and Grace before turning to Glenross.

  “If it isn’t the McHugh, my childhood chum,” he said, grinning and embracing him. “I heard, but I dared not believe. Glad you made it back, old friend.”

  Glenross clapped the other man on the back and said, “Seymour, it is good to see you. Have you been well?”

  “Tolerable. And you?”

  Glenross’s face clouded. “As you might expect.”

  “Sorry,” Martin murmured. “I did not mean to awaken any loathsome memories.”

  “There are not many of the other kind.” Glenross gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. “I do not usually indulge in self-pity. Bear with me, Seymour. I will regain my balance in another day or two.”