The Deception (Baron 3)

“I will be punished, never fear. But you must let me escape. You must. You can’t be the one to hang me.” “So you’d disappear from me just as suddenly as you arrived? No, Evangeline, I’m not about to let you out of my sight.” He pulled back the covers and looked at her. “You are really quite good, do you know that? You have my compliments. And to have you a virgin, despite all your blatant interest in me—why, it wasn’t at all necessary. I was expecting a woman with a bit of skill, but no, you’d saved your maidenhead for me. To think, I, the duke of Portsmouth, a man who wants to see Napoleon in a very deep grave, a man who hates all who want to bring down England, that proud fool was brought low by a woman, and it wasn’t all that difficult for you to do. There’s sure to be something edifying in all this, but I doubt I’ll see it for a long time to come.” He jerked the covers down to her ankles. She made no move to cover herself; she had no more fight. He laid his hand on her belly. “The only part of you that isn’t scraped or cut or scratched.”

She tried to jerk away from him, but he held her down.

“Cover me,” she said. “I can’t fight you.” “You would be a fool to fight me now. I’ll cover you soon enough. First I’m going to make sure that you’ve done yourself no lasting injury.” He changed from the man who’d been her lover, from the man who’d spewed his anger at her, to a man who simply didn’t care. She turned her head away and closed her eyes. She felt his fingers lightly probing her ribs.

“You were right. Your ribs aren’t broken. You should count yourself very lucky. No, don’t move. Otherwise, you’re a mess, but there isn’t anything serious. Hold still. I’m going to put some of Mrs. Needle’s healing ointment on you.”

She lay there naked, wondering what would happen to her, to her father, to Edmund. When he came back to the bed, his face was set, his hands were steady. He said only, “Hold still.”

She felt his fingers lightly massaging an ointment into the worst of the scratches. He realized that his hands were shaking. He stared down at her averted face.

As if she sensed that he was looking at her, she slowly turned her eyes to his face. There was a bitter, helpless smile on her mouth. “I never wanted to hurt you, never. Now it’s too late. You must protect yourself, you must protect Edmund.”

“You can spill your innards to me in a moment. Right now, just keep your pleas to yourself.” He turned her onto her stomach. There were scratches and bruises on her back and hips, the backs of her legs. He cursed. She didn’t move as he rubbed in ointment, lightly touched his fingers to the bruises. She heard his heavy breathing.

He was seeing her struggling back to Chesleigh, her life in the balance. Unwillingly, he found himself marveling at her force of will. If Drew had somehow come to suspect her, her performance would have convinced him of her innocence. Drew doubtless believed her a foolish, quite frivolous woman.

“There,” he said finally, helping her onto her back again and pulling up the covers. “It’s done.”

He drew a chair to her bedside and sat down, formed his fingers in a steeple, and tapped them thoughtfully together.

He said in a very controlled voice, “Certain things are now quite clear to me, Mademoiselle. Your unexpected arrival at Chesleigh, your indigent status, and your unremitting insistence on remaining at Chesleigh. Even your claimed widowhood. Had you arrived as a supposed innocent young lady, the proprieties would have demanded that I provide at the very least a chaperone—that, or you couldn’t have remained.” He paused for a moment, recalling Evangeline’s grief at the death of the old woman. He frowned. “I’m certain that you were innocent of Mrs. Needle’s murder. Indeed, it very nearly destroyed you. But you know who killed her, don’t you, Evangeline? If I hadn’t taken matters into my own hands, if I hadn’t brought a Bow Street Runner, why, you would still be bringing in spies.” “Yes,” she said.

He suddenly remembered her insistence upon visiting Drew at the Ministry. “Ah, another little something. Your visit to the Ministry. That wasn’t a lady’s frivolous request, was it?”

“No, I was ordered to leave an envelope in Lord Pettigrew’s office, in one of the books on the second shelf. I don’t know what was in the envelope.”

“I believe it’s time for you to tell me everything, Evangeline.” He saw such pain in her eyes that he nearly stopped. But he had to know. He had to know every damned thing she’d done and why. Still, she said nothing. He said, “I see. You would have me believe that you’re nothing more than a devious traitor who has, in t

he most calculating manner, deceived me and my entire family.”

“No,” she said, her voice cold and dull. “It wasn’t like that. Please, your grace, I had no choice at all about anything.”

“Tell me. No more dancing around it. Trust me, Evangeline. Tell me why you did it.”

“My father isn’t dead. He’s being held prisoner by a man named Houchard in Paris.”

She told him in a halting voice of the night the two men had broken into their home, of the journey to Paris, her meeting with Houchard. “He knew all about my family and yours. You were to be my dupe, my cat’s paw; else he would have my father killed as a traitor. Only the Lynx would know the truth.” “Who is the Lynx?” “John Edgerton is the Lynx.” He started forward in his chair. “The devil, you say.”

“That’s what I think he is. He or one of his men murdered poor Mrs. Needle. That first night I met him, I knew I couldn’t succeed at this. I told him there was already someone who thought something was wrong. I mentioned her name to him. Oh, God, he killed her. I think it was more a lesson to me than to silence anything that she might have said. He wanted me to know that if I told you, asked for your help, there would be consequences that I wouldn’t be able to bear.” She drew a breath, remembering. “I had made up my mind to tell you. Edgerton must have guessed I was wavering. He told me that if I ever let anything out to you, he personally would kill Edmund. I never said a word then. I never would, except now this has happened.” She swung her legs out of bed, grabbing the covers to keep herself covered. “Listen to me, your grace. You must get Edgerton now or Edmund is in danger.”

“You would have confessed all to me but for his threat against Edmund?”

“Yes. Believe me, Edgerton isn’t mad. He’s simply willing to do anything, even murder a child and an old woman, to gain what he wants, and that is Napoleon’s success.”

“I have known John Edgerton since I was eighteen years old, new to London, and he was a polished gentleman of thirty. He is well liked. He has access to so many decisions, to so many men. This is hard to believe. You’re not a Bonapartist, are you?”

“If I were the only one involved, I would willingly have died before betraying my country or you.”

The duke thought about the vagaries of fate that had brought her to him in the first place. “You would have told me but for Edgerton’s threat toward Edmund?”

“He more than threatened. He painted a picture in words what he would do to Edmund. He said that my father and Edmund could be buried together. I knew then that he’d won. Edmund was my boy, you see. Nothing was worth Edmund’s life.”

He lowered his face to rest against her hand, held between his. “No one will hurt Edmund,” he said finally. “But your father. What do you think will happen?”

She swallowed. “I don’t know. Soon Edgerton will discover what happened. He will return to Paris, and then my father will die. Perhaps he will come here first to kill Edmund and me, naturally.”

“I will see what I can do about your father. I will see that you and Edmund are both protected.” “I forgot to tell you. Drew was frantic about those spies who are already here. I kept a journal with all their names and to whom they’d be assigned in London. It’s in the bottom of the cushion of the window seat. Remember Conan DeWitt at the Sandersons’ ball? He’s one of them. He was threatening me that night. He’s a very dangerous man, perhaps even more dangerous than John Edgerton.”