Captives of the Night (Scoundrels 2)

And so the affair was public knowledge after all, Leila thought. Very likely Esmond had heard about it by now. "I'm sorry to hear it," she said. "I liked Lady Sherburne very much. A lovely girl, with golden curls and great blue eyes. All that innocence—and lonely besides. I can see how Francis wouldn't be able to resist. Still, you'd think even he would have known better. Sherburne wields considerable social power. If, as you say, he snubbed Francis—"

"He did, and a great many others promptly followed Sherburne's lead. About bloody time, too, that Francis got what he deserved."

Fiona had never made any secret of her dislike. Never before, however, had Leila heard such bitterness in her friend's voice.

The disquiet she felt must have shown in her face, because Fiona laughed. "You needn't look so amazed. You know I despised Francis. And I know you did."

"The way you spoke..." Leila hesitated. "I wondered if he'd offended you personally, that was all."

Fiona shrugged. "In Paris, I was mainly aware of his callous disregard for your feelings. Here, I watched him use and hurt others I cared for as well. Sherburne's a jackass in some ways, but he acted right in cutting Francis. He was a beast who should have been banned from Society ages ago. The demimonde was better equipped to handle him. Their feelings wouldn't be hurt, their marriages wouldn't be wrecked. Furthermore, the Cyprians get paid for their trouble."

"I wish he'd kept to the professionals, too," Leila said tightly. "But there was no way I could make him do so."

"I know that, love." Fiona's voice softened. "No one would dream of blaming you."

Leila rose and walked to the window. "Still, I can't help wishing I'd realized he was after Lady Sherburne." She gave a forced laugh. "I could have played the jealous wife. That might have frightened her off. She's younger than her years. But I couldn't have dreamed Francis would betray Sherburne, who was not only a boon companion, but also an influential one."

"A fatal mistake. It’s as though Francis was begging for trouble."

Through the window, Leila watched a stooped, elderly woman's painfully slow progress toward the opposite corner of the square. "Deteriorating," she murmured. "He was only forty years old, but he was falling to pieces." She sighed. "And he left a shambles in his wake."

"The Sherburnes seem to be the only major shambles," Fiona said. "And tonight I get to view the damage for myself. Or the repair. They haven't been seen in company together since Christmas, you know."

Leila came away from the window. "I wouldn't know—about anybody. I wasn't about much, except with you, and even then I was...oblivious." On purpose, she thought. She had shut her eyes, not wanting to know, to see, even to guess.

"Yes, darling. That's one of your eccentric charms." Fiona's smile was affectionate. "And since you haven't been out and about, you won't have heard that Sherburne ordered a sapphire necklace from Rundell and Bridges, which he was to collect this very day. If his wife isn't wearing it tonight, one can safely assume there has been no reconciliation. In that case, I'll expect to see it adorning Helena Martin's snowy bosom at the theater tomorrow. Rumor has it Sherburne has beat out Malcolm Goodridge and the other rich tomcats vying for her favors."

"If he hadn't been competing with the other tomcats for a series of tarts, his wife wouldn't have fallen under Francis' claws," Leila said. "It's Sherburne's own dratted fault. It's unjust—cruel—to punish her."

"Perhaps I shall tell him so tonight." Fiona rose. "In that case, I shall want to appear my intimidating best—and Antoinette will want hours to accomplish that. All the same, she'll complain that I never give her time enough to dress me properly. You don't know how fortunate you are, my dear, to be allowed to dress yourself."

"And what a fine job I make of it," Leila said dryly. "If Antoinette could see me now, she'd go into palpitations—and this is one of my better efforts." She shoved a hairpin back into place.

"You look wonderfully artistic, as usual—but rather pale." Her expression concerned, Fiona took her hand. "I hope I didn't upset you, speaking of Francis in that way."

"Don't talk nonsense. If I'm pale, it's only from gluttony. My blood has been flooded out by tea."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"The fussy mama role ill becomes you," Leila said. "When I'm truly ill, I shall tell you so—and make you nurse me."

Fiona answered with a look of horror so theatrical that Leila laughed. Melodramatically clutching her throat, Fiona ran from the room. Leila chased after her. There was more laughter, and joking farewells, and by the time the door closed behind Fiona, Leila's niggling doubt about her was altogether forgotten.

Leila returned to her studio, took up a sketchbook and pencil, and focused on the untidy bookshelves. But they wouldn't take shape upon the page. She drew instead the elderly woman she'd seen making her slow way down the street, then the carriage that had entered the square just as the old lady turned the corner. A dashing carriage, sleek and assured.

So Francis had been once, long ago: sleek and assured and strong. She had been frightened, confused, and sick. A damsel in distress. And he had been her knight in shining armor, carrying her away to live happily ever after.

Only it wasn't forever after, because he had changed. Paris, with its easy pleasures and easy vices, had corrupted him. Slowly, year by year, Paris had dragged him down.

Fiona didn't understand. She hadn't known him, the way he'd been at the beginning, when he'd first entered Leila's life.

"She doesn't understand," Leila said very softly, her eyes filling. "You were good once. It's just so easy...to slip. So damnably easy."

A tear fell onto the page. "Oh, damn,” she muttered. "Weeping—over Francis. How ludicrous."

But another tear fell, and then another, and she let herself weep, ludicrous as it was, beast that he'd been—because she had known him when he wasn't a beast, and if she didn't weep for him, no one would.

Chapter 7

This night, when Ismal entered the studio, Madame did not slam her sketchbook shut. She merely looked up, her eyes changing focus slowly as she brought herself from the inner world to the outer. Even when he came to the worktable, she still seemed distant, a part of her mind caught elsewhere. As he neared, he noticed the rawness about her eyes, the drawn look of the fragile skin. She had been weeping. His chest felt tight.

He looked over her shoulder at the drawing: the interior of a carriage. "It was elegant once," he said, his voice betraying none of his dismay, "but it seems to have fallen upon evil days. A hired carriage, I think, but not an English one."

She glanced up, her tawny gaze sharpening. "You're very good," she said. "It isn't English." She flipped to the previous page. "There's an English one." She flipped back to the second drawing. "Even while I was working on the other, this came into my head."

"This held your mind more forcibly," he said. "The detail is more precise."

"Yes, it's rather vexing sometimes. I last saw that carriage ten years ago," she explained. "It took me out of Venice the day my father was killed. I was addled and ill—I'd been given laudanum—and yet I remember every last scratch, every stain on the cushions, the shading of the wood."

Ismal drew back half a pace, his heart hammering. 'Ten years ago, and you remember so clearly? An extraordinary gift, Madame."

"A curse, rather, sometimes. I hadn't thought of it in ages. It must be because of Francis. Images come into my head, as though his

death had jarred them loose. As though they had been sitting in cupboards, and something knocked the doors open, and the contents spilled out."

"Old memories, indeed. If it was ten years ago, these must be your earliest associations with him."

"The carriage is where I met him. That's where I came to. It was Francis who rescued me. From my father's enemies." Her gaze reverted to the drawing. "I was remembering…that he wasn't always a swine. It’s not precisely relevant to the case—yet it is. When we started this, you said justice was an abstraction—"

"I was tactless," he said tightly.

"Yet I do owe him something," she went on as though he hadn't spoken. "The fact is, ten years ago, Francis simply stumbled into someone else's nasty situation. He could have turned his back. I was nothing to him, and he didn't even know my father."

She went on to explain what had happened, and Ismal found nothing in her version that didn't fit his own memories of the circumstances.

First, Bridgeburton had given Ismal countless names, but not Beaumont's—which made it unlikely they'd had dealings together. Second, Ismal had gone off alone immediately after the encounter to sample the pleasures of Venice. Away from their master, Risto and Mehmet could have done just what Beaumont had described to her. To ensure the safety of the master he idolized, Risto would have wanted to do away with the girl as well as the father.

In short, Ismal must admit it was more than possible that Beaumont had come to the defenseless girl's rescue. And so, thanks to Ismal, the pig had entered her life. He didn't want to hear more for which he could blame himself, but she was intent on proving how much she owed her husband, and Ismal, hearing echoes of his own native code of obligation, couldn't bring himself to change the subject.

She'd left Venice with nothing but the clothes on her back, she said. She'd known, though, that her allowance and school tuition had come from a Parisian banker. It was through the bank that Beaumont had—with no small difficulty—finally obtained the name of the man delegated to oversee Leila Bridgeburton's affairs. And it was Beaumont who sent for that man, Andrew Herriard.