Madeline frowned. “If he uses a disguise and is sufficiently clever, it will be difficult to spot him, let alone catch him in the throng outside the theater.”
“He will make his move when I go to fetch the carriage after the performance,” Artemas said with impressive confidence.
Bernice raised her brows. “How do you know that?”
“Because it is the only opportunity that I shall allow him,” Artemas said with deadly softness. “I will not leave you or Madeline alone until that moment. This time we will play the game according to my rules.”
Artemas had planned for every eventuality except the one that proved to be the most unsettling, Madeline concluded as the performance drew to a close that night. She had been so involved in the details of the scheme that she had not realized she would be the object of so many interested stares. It was worse than the night she had attended the Clay ball. Between acts the lights glinted on any number of opera glasses aimed in the direction of the box she shared with Artemas and Bernice. For his part, she noted with some irritation, Artemas appeared sublimely oblivious of the speculative gazes. She had a suspicion that, unlike her, he had anticipated the attention they would draw. It did not seem to concern him in the least. He lounged in his seat with casual grace, commenting on the delivery of the actors and arranging for glasses of lemonade to be brought into the box. Unlike many of the other well-dressed gentlemen present, he did not make any excuses to pay calls on the inhabitants of the other boxes. He remained with his guests, the perfect host in every respect.
“Well, what did you expect?” Bernice murmured a few minutes later as they waited in the crowded lobby while Artemas went to fetch the carriage. “You are the Wicked Widow, after all. What is more, you have taken up residence in the man’s home. It is all quite a delicious scandal.”
“You told me that the news of my connection with Artemas would soon cease to amuse the ton.”
“Yes, well, apparently it will take a bit more than an appearance at one ball and a night at the theater to render the topic boring.”
“I vow, Aunt Bernice, I could almost believe that you are enjoying yourself.”
“I have news for you, my dear, I am having an absolutely splendid time. My only regret is that Henry could not join us tonight.”
“Artemas said that he needed Henry positioned outside the theater to watch for the villain. Zachary could not do the job alone.”
“Yes, I know. Such a fearless gentleman.”
“Artemas? Yes, he is, isn’t he?” Madeline pursed her lips. “A bit too fearless, for my taste. I really wish that he did not have such a taste for—”
“I was referring to Mr. Leggett, dear.”
Madeline hid a smile. “Yes, of course.”
She started violently when someone jostled her elbow. But when she turned her head, she saw only an elderly matron in a pink turban. The woman moved on without paying her any notice.
The plan was a simple one. Artemas assumed that the villain would arrange to snatch Bernice’s reticule just outside the lobby and escape into the streets, which were choked with carriages. But Zachary and Henry had been strategically stationed to keep watch. When the villain made his move, they would track him through the crowd while Artemas closed in on him. It was an ancient Vanza maneuver.
“I wonder if—” Madeline broke off as something hard and sharp jabbed the small of her back.
“Silence, my dear sister-in-law.” The voice was low and masculine. It carried the underlying accents that had flavored Renwick’s speech, but this was not Renwick. “You will do precisely as you are told, Mrs. Deveridge. My companion has an annoying little street urchin named Short John in one of those carriages outside. If you and I do not get into that vehicle together quite soon, he has instructions to slit the lad’s throat.”
Horror shot through her. The only thing she could think to do was to stall. “Who are you?”
“I beg your pardon, we have not been properly introduced, have we? Renwick died before you got around to meeting the rest of the family. We are not a closely knit clan, you see. Nor is our name Deveridge, as Renwick led you to believe. The name is Keston. Graydon Keston.”
“Madeline?” Bernice turned to look at her. “Is something wrong?” Her eyes went past Madeline to the man who stood behind her. “Dear God.”
“Give the key to your niece, madam.”
Bernice stiffened and clutched her reticule with both hands.
“Do it, Aunt Bernice,” Madeline whispered. “He has Short John.”
“I also have a knife,” Keston drawled. “In this crush, I can sink it between Mrs. Deveridge’s ribs and be gone before anyone even sees her fall to the floor.”
Bernice’s shocked eyes flashed to Madeline’s face. All of the cheerful excitement that had animated her a moment ago had vanished.
“Madeline,” she whispered in a voice that quavered with fear. “No.”
“I will be all right.” She reached out and took the reticule from Bernice.
“Very good.” Keston used the blade to prod her toward the door. “Now let us be off. You have caused me enough trouble, Mrs. Deveridge.”
Madeline started forward and then stopped short as Zachary loomed in front of her. His grim gaze was on Keston.
“You must be the bodyguard,” Keston said calmly. “I expected as much. Move aside or I will kill her right before your eyes.”
“Please, Zachary, you must do as he says,” Madeline whispered tightly. “He has Short John.”
Zachary hesitated. There was a desperate expression on his face.
“Tell him about the knife I have in your ribs, my dear sister-in-law.”
Zachary’s jaw tightened at the words. He stepped back and disappeared almost immediately into the crowd.
“Gone to tell his master that the plans for the evening have been altered, I expect.” Keston urged Madeline out into the fogbound night. “Did Hunt really think I would be so easily manipulated? He is not the only one who has studied the ancient arts of strategy.”
He pushed her swiftly to the fringes of the noisy crowd that had formed near the carriages. Madeline felt his hand on her shoulder. He shoved her between several hackneys that were parked closely together. Drivers shouted. Horses flattened their ears.
She hesitated and promptly felt the point of Keston’s knife in her back. She gasped, stumbled, and brushed up against the shoulder of a massive coach horse. Already made nervous by the congestion and the loud voices, the great creature took exception. Its ears went back and it half reared. The huge hooves came within inches of Keston’s leg. A whip cracked loudly in the darkness.
“Have a care, you little fool,” Keston snarled.
Yanking Madeline past the restive horse, he moved her quickly through the dense, chaotic maze of carriages and teams, dodging footmen and the flocks of young boys trying to earn coins by securing hackneys for those who had not arrived in private vehicles.
Halfway along the street, Keston pulled her to a halt. A carriage door flew open.
“Got her, I see.” A large hand reached out to haul her into the unlit interior of the vehicle. “Hunt’s mistress, ye say. Now, that presents some interesting possibilities.”
Madeline smelled brandy fumes on the man’s breath. His fingers were rough on her arm as he pulled her down onto the seat beside him. Her foot brushed up against a solid bundle on the floor. She looked down. There was just enough light from the outside carriage lamp to see a familiar face.
“Short John. Are you all right?”
He looked up at her with wide, frightened eyes and bravely nodded his head. She realized that he was bound and gagged.
Keston paused halfway into the carriage to call orders to the coachman. “Let’s be off, man. There’s extra blunt in it if you get us to our destination quickly.”
The whip cracked ominously in the night, and the horses plunged forward.
“I believe we have an enthusiastic man on the box,” Keston noted wit
h satisfaction as he dropped into the seat across from Madeline. He lifted the edge of his cloak and deftly slipped his knife into a sheath strapped to his leg. Then he straightened and removed a pistol from his coat pocket. He trained the weapon on Madeline. “We should arrive at our destination in short order.”
“If you had any sense, you would free Short John and me and try to flee the country before Hunt tracks you down,” Madeline said fiercely. “If you harm either of us, he won’t stop until he finds you.”
The man beside her stirred uneasily “She’s right about one thing. Bloody bastard never lets go. Who’d have thought that after all these years—”
“Shut up, Flood,” Keston said.
Madeline whirled partway around in the seat to stare at the big man who loomed next to her. “You’re Flood?”
“At your service.” Flood’s teeth gleamed in a brief, brutal grin. “On second thought, it will be you who will soon be at my service.”
She turned back to Keston. “Flood was your source of information?”
Keston shrugged. “One of them. And only in recent days. Most of my information came from the taverns and from the odd bits and pieces I managed to acquire from my half brother’s notes.”
She glanced at Flood with disgust. “So you allowed him to use you. Don’t you think that was a somewhat risky move on your part?”
“He didn’t use me,” Flood said loudly. “I’m his partner in this venture.”
Keston smiled. “Flood has been most helpful. I have promised to reward him well, and, as it happens, thanks to Hunt, he is quite desperate for the money.”
“It isn’t only money I’ll be collecting when this night is over.” Flood leered at Madeline. “You’re part of my reward.”
“What are you talking about, you dolt?” Madeline demanded.
“Keston here has agreed to give you to me when he’s done with tonight’s scheme,” Flood said. “I’m going to get a bit of my own back for what Hunt did to me. I’m going to use you well, my sweet. The way I used his little actress.”
“How very odd,” Madeline said. “And to think that Hunt always considered you the most intelligent of his three enemies. Obviously he was mistaken.”
For an instant she thought he was unaware that he had just been insulted. Then Flood’s face worked furiously. He reached out and slapped her hard. Her head snapped to the side. She sucked in a deep breath.
“We’ll see how mouthy you are after I’m done with ye. Maybe you’ll jump off a cliff the way his other whore did, eh? That should prove amusing.”
“Enough,” Keston said. “We do not have time for these games. Open the reticule she has in her hand. There should be a book in it. A small, slender volume bound in red calf.”
Flood snatched Bernice’s large reticule from Madeline’s grasp and yanked it open. He reached inside, fumbled around, and brought out a package wrapped in cloth.
“Still don’t understand why you’ve gone to all this trouble for a bloody damn book,” Flood muttered.
“My aims in this matter need not concern you,” Keston said tersely. “Unwrap the volume and give it to me. I want to make certain that I have not been duped.”
Madeline heard fabric rip in the shadows.
“Here’s your damned book.” Flood handed the volume to Keston. Then he reached back into the reticule and removed another object. “Aha, what have we here?”
Madeline glanced at the small flask he held. “That belongs to my aunt. She always carries a bit of brandy with her. She uses it for a tonic in emergencies. She has very weak nerves.”
“Brandy, eh?” Flood removed the top of the bottle and sniffed the contents with great interest. “Some of Hunt’s best, I’ll wager.”
He downed the contents in a single swallow.
Keston looked disgusted. “No wonder Hunt’s scheme to ruin your finances worked so well, Flood. You have no control over your own urges, do you?”
Flood glared at him as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve. “You think you’re so bloody clever, but where would your plans be without me, eh?” He hurled the little bottle out the window. “You’d have got nowhere without me and don’t you forget it, sir.”
Madeline ignored Flood. The carriage was flying along at a great speed, making things most uncomfortable inside the vehicle. After a particularly violent lurch, she felt Short John bump onto his side, facing her foot. She prodded him with her toe, willing him to search for the small blade sheathed just beneath the hem of her gown.
“So this is what all the fuss is about, eh?” Keston spoke to himself as he held up the book.
Madeline sensed his excitement. “That is the key you seek.” She thrust her ankle into Short John’s fingers. “Although I cannot imagine it will do you any good without the Book of Secrets. Surely one is ofno use without the other.”
“So you know about the rumors concerning the old volume, do you?” Keston asked. “Not surprising, I suppose. They have been floating around since before Lorring’s death.”
“Only the most eccentric members of the Vanzagarian Society believe the Book of Secrets actually exists,” she said.
“Eccentric or not,” Keston said easily, “there are some extremely wealthy members of the Society who will pay a fortune for this little volume. Many are convinced the Book of Secrets survived the fire in Italy. The fools will waste their lives searching for it. But in the meantime they will pay dearly for the key because they will believe that it will bring them one step closer to the ultimate secrets of Vanza.”
She searched his face in the shadows. “Do you not seek those secrets for yourself?”
Keston uttered a crack of humorless laughter. “I’m not the madman that my half brother was, Mrs. Deveridge. Nor am I a complete crackpot, like so many of the doddering old fools in the Vanzagarian Society.”
“For you, this has been about money right from the beginning, has it not? You did not come to London to avenge Renwick.”
Keston’s chuckle held the echo of a demon’s amusement. “My dear Mrs. Deveridge. Don’t you know Vanza teaches that all strong emotions are dangerous? Vengeance requires a degree of passion that can cloud the mind and cause one to do irrational things. Unlike Renwick, I do not allow myself to be guided by my passions. I certainly would not go out of my way to avenge the fool.”
“But he was your brother.”
“My half brother. We shared a father but not a mother.” Keston stopped laughing very suddenly. His eyes glittered in the shadows. “The last time I saw Renwick, it had become obvious he was falling victim to the same insanity that infected our sire.”
“But you both studied Vanza.”
“That was because our father was deeply involved in the philosophy.” Keston studied the gold handle of his walking stick. “Looking back on it now, I realize that dear Papa was quite mad early on. He was convinced that the great secrets of the world were to be found in the alchemical notions that lie at the heart of the shadow side of Vanza. As we grew older, Renwick became obsessed with the same beliefs. In the end, his fascination with the occult destroyed him.”
The coach bounced and swayed. Madeline felt Short John’s fingers close around her ankle at last. He had discovered the sheath. Neither man was paying attention to their smaller victim, but just to be on the safe side, she casually shook out the folds of her cloak so that the hem covered Short John’s movements.
A thought struck her. “It was you who kidnapped my maid that night, was it not?”
Keston smiled approvingly. “Very good, my dear. Your logic is really quite astounding for a woman. Yes, I thought I would question the girl to see if she was aware of any books having been added to your father’s library recently. But when the effort failed, I decided to concentrate my efforts elsewhere for a while. It took me some time to decide that the key must indeed be in your possession.”
Flood burped and reached out to steady himself. He shook his head as if to clear it.
Madeline struggled to keep th
e conversation going. She had to hold Keston’s attention at all costs. “I cannot help but notice that you carry a walking stick identical to the one Renwick used.”
“Ah, yes.” Keston smiled as he closed his hand more tightly around the golden knob. “A gift from our mad parent. Tell me, Mrs. Deveridge, what did happen the night Renwick died? I confess I am somewhat curious. I find it difficult to believe that a common housebreaker managed to get the best of him.”
“It was Renwick’s insanity that got the best of him,” she said quietly.
“Damnation.” There was a note of astonishment in Keston’s voice. “The rumors are true. You did kill him, didn’t you?”
The carriage lurched and shuddered wildly as the team thundered around a corner. Madeline felt Short John slide the knife out from the ankle sheath. Clever lad.
“Bloody coachman,” Flood mumbled as he seized the strap to steady himself. “He’ll overturn us if he’s not careful.”
“The man is determined to earn his tip.” Keston braced one hand on the edge of the door. The pistol in his fingers did not waver, however.
Flood lost his grip on the strap and toppled forward against the opposite seat.
“Bloody fool on the box,” he grumbled as he pushed himself back into his corner. His words sounded slurred. “Driving too fast. What’s the matter with the bastard? Tell ’im to slow down, Keston.”
Keston gave him a thoughtful look. “How much claret did you drink this evening?”
“I had only a couple of glasses to steady myself.”
“I have no use for a drunken assistant.”
Flood rubbed his forehead. “Don’t worry. Ill finish the job. Nothing I want more than to get my own back. Hunt’s going to pay. By the devil, he’ll pay.”
“You’ll soon have your chance for revenge, provided you do as you are told.” Keston peered out through the window. “We are very near to our destination.”
“What do you intend to do?” Madeline could no longer feel Short John’s hands. She prayed that he was working on the ropes that bound his feet.