"That's your conscience," she said, striving to keep her tones cool. "Telling you how unfair and sneaky and disrespectful you've been. If I were you, I should make a clean breast of it. You'll feel better, and so shall I. I should like to have it all clear and settled, so we can put it behind us and get down to our present business. We'll never make proper progress with this—this—whatever it is—hanging between us."
He wanted to. She saw that in his taut stance and in the rigid planes of his perfectly sculpted profile. More important, she could feel it.
"Oh, come, Esmond," she said. "Be reasonable, will you? Just tell me the story. A report, if you will. As though we were colleagues. I've already figured out it's going to be nasty. But I have a very strong stomach. Obviously. No woman of delicate sensibilities could have survived ten years with Francis."
"I should have killed him." His voice was low, tight with remorse. "I should not have brought you into it. A stupid mistake."
She believed the remorse she heard was genuine, too. He had used her, as she'd guessed. But not altogether coldbloodedly, as she'd feared.
"Yes, but your mind was clouded by lust," she said. "It happens to the best of men. Nobody's perfect."
She waited through a long, unhappy silence. Then, finally, he came to the sofa, and without looking at her, sat down.
Then, still without looking at her, he told her about a place called Vingt-Huit.
Ismal didn't tell her everything. He limited himself to a few of the milder examples of Vingt-Huit's activities. And his concise summary of what he'd done to destroy it and Francis Beaumont’s sanity didn't include Beaumont's infatuation with himself. This wasn't to spare her the news that Ismal had deliberately misled the man, but because he didn't want her to know her husband had for years been betraying her with his own sex as well as with women. She was English, like Avory. And if Avory could regard one drunken episode with Carstairs as an unforgivable, beastly and unnatural crime, Ismal had little doubt Leila Beaumont would be sick with horror that she'd ever let her husband touch her.
Even now, though she heard him out quietly, Ismal had no idea of her state of mind. When he finished, he braced himself for the bitter recriminations that were sure to follow and, worse, the tears he knew he couldn't bear.
After an interminably long moment, she let out a sigh. "Oh, Lord," she said softly. "I had no idea. But then, I couldn't, could I? Even professionals—even you—had a devil of a time getting to the bottom of it."
She laid her hand on his shoulder. "Thank you, Esmond. You have relieved my mind. There wasn't anything I could do. Francis wasn't just weak. He was evil. Even Papa's crimes seem small compared to this. Papa was greedy and conscienceless, I'm sure. But Francis was cruel. I can see why you wish you had killed him. I can also see why you wouldn't want to dirty your hands."
She had not taken her hand away, and it took all his self-control to keep from pressing his cheek against it and begging forgiveness. "I am not an assassin," he said.
"No, of course not." She squeezed his shoulder. "Are all your missions so horrid and complicated? How the devil do you bear it—dealing with the lowest of vermin, and having to walk on eggs the whole time. No wonder the Royals think so highly of you." She laughed softly. "Francis said you weren't quite human—and he didn't know the half of it."
That affectionate squeeze, the compassion he heard in her voice, bewildered him. Her laughter left him utterly at sea.
"You are laughing," he said stupidly.
"I'm not a saint," she said. "I'm not above enjoying a bit of vengeance. Francis deserved to suffer. And you, apparently, were the only one who could make him do so. I wish you'd told me sooner. It appalls me to think of the tears I wasted on that filthy, despicable—Gad, I don't know any words bad enough." She got up from the sofa arm. "But you do, I daresay. You've twelve languages at your disposal, Avory says. Would you like some champagne?"
He couldn't make sense of her. He rubbed his head. "Yes, yes. I should like something."
"Lady Charlotte and Sellowby gave me a few bottles," she said, moving toward the door. "At first, I was sufficiently vexed with you to consider breaking them, one by one, over your head. But you've risen above yourself tonight, Esmond. And I think one ought to reward good behavior."
Numbly, he watched her leave the studio.
She wasn't angry, hurt, disgusted. She thought he'd been good.
She had actually thanked him a moment before and said he'd relieved her mind. And she had touched him, all on her own, unbidden. In affection. And sympathy. "Horrid and complicated" she'd called his work—as it was. And she'd wondered how he bore it—as he wondered sometimes, late at night, alone.
She could have turned away and hated him, for using her, for leaving her to deal with the maddened wretch he'd made of her husband.
Instead, Leila Beaumont had turned to him, and touched him, as though he were the one who had suffered and needed comforting.
He realized then how very much he'd wanted comforting. Because the task had been vile, and he had resented it and the demands the curst Royals made upon him. And he had grieved for Beaumont's victims, just as he'd grieved today for Avory's lonely misery.
And, yes, Ismal had wanted her compassionate voice and the touch of her strong, beautiful hand, because he was almost human, and he wished, like any mortal, for someone to turn to.
Which was a risk he couldn't afford.
Ismal was standing at the worktable when she returned with the champagne.
Moving to her work area had helped him bring his mind and heart back to objectivity. He had collected his composure and his wits, and had sunk his unsettling emotions back into the quagmire that passed for his heart.
After he'd filled their glasses and given her hers, she said, "I shall propose the first toast. To you." She touched her glass to his. "For your clever handling of a thorny problem—and for showing a proper respect for my intelligence. For once."
"I am in awe of your intelligence," he said. "I knew you were perceptive. I did not realize, though, how diabolically quick your mind was."
Or how generous your heart was, he added silently.
"Flattery," she said, and sipped her wine.
"Truth," he said. "Your mind is diabolical. It goes with your body. I should have realized."
"You were bound to say something like that." She brought her glass to his. "Very well, Esmond. To my confounded body, then."
She took a longer sip this time, then settled onto one of the stools at the table and proposed they get down to business.
"I've already relayed my most momentous discovery," she said. "My hosts believe or pretend to believe Lettice chose to go away for a change of scenery and rest. They are aware of David's interest in Lettice and of Fiona's disapproval. Lady Charlotte is on Fiona's side. Sellowby is square on David's. That was how I learned about Carstairs. Sellowby was pointing out to his sister that David had lost a brother, then, a year later—in shocking circumstances—a close friend. Sellowby feels David is fundamentally a model of propriety who went a bit wild on account of confusion. Furthermore, being young, David needed a good bit of time to sort things out."
"Sellowby is closer to the mark than he can know," Ismal told her. "Avory is confused, and Carstairs' death was the start of his problems. We spent half the day together. I learned his terrible secret."
Her fingers tightened about the glass stem. "How terrible?"
"Actually, it is not so bad. He is impotent and—"
"Oh, God." Her face white, she set down the glass with shaking hands.
Ismal hadn't expected her to take it so hard. Hadn't she listened to the tale of Vingt-Huit and her husband's perfidies as calmly as though it had been a lecture on galvanic currents? But she'd despised her husband. Avory she cared for very much. Ismal should have understood the difference.
Inwardly cursing his tactlessness, he took her hand. "Do not upset yourself. It is not permanent. A simple case to remedy. You do not think I would l
eave your favorite to suffer, do you?"
He released her hand and gave her back the glass of champagne, and ordered her to drink. She did.
"Avory's ailment can be easily corrected," he assured her. "When I tell you the story, you will understand. He was out debauching with Carstairs the night the papers were stolen. The next day, Carstairs shot himself. The shock of his friend's death, along with some needless guilt and too much liquor, caused Avory a common, but temporary malfunction. Unfortunately, shortly thereafter, he met up with your husband, to whom he confided his problem during some drunken evening. Your husband told him it was an incurable disease—worse than the pox—contracted through certain intimate activities."
"Don't tell me," she said. "I can guess. There isn't any such disease, is there?"
Ismal shook his head. "But Avory believed the lie, and his mind, deeply affected, affected his body. If he had told a doctor what he told your husband, he might have been healed long since. But Beaumont made Avory so sick and ashamed that he could tell no one else. And so he has lived two years with the loss of his manhood. Also, in recent months, I am sure he lived with the anxiety that your increasingly irrational husband would expose the hideous secret."
She drew a long, steadying breath. "Cruel," she said. "Unspeakably cruel. Poor David." She emptied the champagne glass. "Is that why you were so unreasonable when I came home? You had a delicate job, I collect, to get the details out of him. It must have been beastly for you. If I'd had to investigate a friend—Fiona, for instance—in such a way, and hear of such cruelty and misery, I should be wretched." She stroked his coat sleeve. "Oh, Esmond, I am sorry."
The emotions he'd so ruthlessly buried began struggling to surface. Shoving them down, he said, "If you feel sorry for me, I can only conclude you are drunk."
She shook her head. "It takes more than two glasses of wine—with a large dinner—and one glass of champagne. And it’s no use trying to persuade me you don't feel anything—especially regarding David. I know you're upset because he's got a strong motive for murder."
"He does, certainly. Now he also has a strong motive to kill me."
"You're upset because you like him," she persisted. "You always call him my favorite, but he's your favorite, too, isn't he?"
"I am not upset," he said, edgily aware of her hand still upon his coat sleeve. "Even if he did the murder, it does not follow that he must be punished. My ideas of justice are not English. And all Quentin wants is to satisfy his curiosity. He likes to know all the answers. He is like you."
She was absently stroking the sleeve, her countenance thoughtful.
"You don't want me to believe you have a heart," she said. "Or a conscience."
"Leila."
"You might have a little bit of a heart." She lifted her hand and brought thumb and forefinger nearly together. "Since you're almost human, you might have a tiny little piece of a heart," she went on, squinting at the narrow space between her fingers. "And a tiny, tiny sliver of a conscience." She shot him a glance from under her lashes. "And I never gave you leave to use my Christian name. You normally manage to observe certain formal proprieties of address, even when you're behaving most improperly. But tonight I've got you so upset that you say—"
"Leila."
"That's three times now. Very upset, indeed."
"Because you provoke me," he said, grabbing her hand. "Because you probe. But I am not Avory. I do not tell my every thought and feeling to everyone who shows me a small kindness."
"Kindness?" she echoed. "Is that what I'm accused of? For heaven's sake, do you think every time a human being tries to deal with another as a human being—as a friend—there's some ulterior motive?" She pulled her hand away. "Because I haven't taken fits and broken things over your head and made an unprofessional fuss about a professional matter, you think I'm engaging in some sort of coldblooded manipulation?"
"You were probing," he said. "I could feel it."
"I wasn't detecting. I was trying to understand—to see matters from your point of view."
"As a friend, you said."
"And what's wrong with that?" she demanded. "Aren't you friends with some of your colleagues—accomplices—whatever they are?" She paused to study his face. Then, her voice dropping almost to a whisper, she said, "Don't you have a friend, Esmond?"
It was truth, and it stabbed deep. He had colleagues and countless accomplices and acquaintances and even devoted companions, like Avory. But Avory looked up to and confided in him. There was no equal give and take. There was no friend with whom Ismal shared himself as an equal.
For one terrible moment, gazing into her golden eyes, Ismal wanted, with a loneliness as sharp as physical pain, to share himself with her. His buried secrets struggled, as though they were living things, up—toward her compassionate voice, the soft warmth of her body, the promised welcome and shelter of her generous heart.
One moment of unbearable temptation...Then he saw there could be no welcome for him. Every secret was tangled in lies. He could not extract even one harmless secret, for it might carry a hint of some damning truth that could turn her against him forever. To share with her anything at all was to open the door to more probing, for she wouldn't be satisfied until she knew everything. That was both her nature and her calling, as an artist who sought the truth beneath the skin. Already, she had reached too deep.
"You are probing still," he reproached, drawing nearer. "Stop it. Now, Leila."
"I only wanted to—"
"Now." He continued to advance, until her knees were pressed against his thighs. Then he leaned in close.
"Don't," she said. "Stop it."
"You stop it."
"Unfair tactics, Esmond," she said edgily. "You are not to—"
He crushed the rest with his kiss and, holding her fast, tenderly punished her mouth until she gave him entrance to its sweet, dark depths. And, in an instant, the ache of loneliness fled on a bolt of pleasure that made his limbs tremble. Then came another bolt, stunning him, when she reached up and caught hold of his shoulders, her fingers digging into his coat.
His mouth still locked with hers, he lifted her up onto the edge of the table and, sweeping the clutter aside, eased her back while he nudged himself between her legs.
She gasped and started to pull away.
"No," he said softly. "Now I interrogate you. Let us see who discovers the most."
He took her mouth again, and she answered swiftly, hotly. He slid his hands over her bodice, and she shivered, and arched into his urgent touch, pressing the delicious weight of her breasts against his hands.
"Ah, yes," he murmured against her lips. "Tell me more, Leila."
"You already know, damn you," she answered breathlessly.
"Not enough." He drew another long, deep kiss from her while he reached down for the fastenings of her bodice. Then, keeping her distracted with feather kisses along her cheek, her jaw, her neck, he quickly freed one hook, then another. He continued unfastening hooks and buttons while he brushed his mouth over her ear and teased with his tongue and grew dizzy with wicked delight when she shivered and twisted against him. Finally, impatient, she caught his hair and brought his mouth back to hers and pressed and coaxed until he surrendered, and answered with the passionate plunder she wanted. Under his deft hands, her armaments surrendered, too: the twilled wool and silk of her bodice arid, beneath, the soft cambric and, beneath…heaven...the warm silk of her lush breasts, rich with her scent...taut under his soft, wondering caress.
"Ah, Leila." His voice was soft and wondering, too, as he brushed his thumb over a hard, trembling bud. She answered with a moan, and drew his head down, and let him worship with his mouth, because there was no choice, for her, for him. No choice at all once they came together. They were strong-willed, both, but this desire made a mockery of will. Just as it did of honor. For him. For her.
And for this moment, for him, there was no will or honor or anything but her...welcome and warmth...creamy flesh under his lip
s, his tongue...and the intoxication of desire he heard in her low moan, when he took one tawny rose peak into his mouth and tenderly suckled.
At this moment, all the world was one woman and the need she stirred in him, fathoms deep, to the very bottom of his black, false heart. Lost in need, he could not keep himself from restlessly seeking more of her, pushing back every barrier in his way until her lavish bosom was fully exposed, and he could bury his face in that creamy softness.
Her caressing hands and aching sighs told him, as her trembling frame told him, that she was lost, too, for this moment. And lost beyond conscience, he pushed the moment on, with long, drugging kisses, while his too-quick hands were busy as well, dragging up her skirt, stealing under the petticoat, sliding swiftly over the silken drawers to the feminine secrets the fragile fabric so inadequately shielded.
The instant he touched the thin barrier, she recoiled, as though she'd been burned. But he was burned, too, for her damp heat was a fiery current that darted through his fingertips and raced through his veins. She was hot and ready for him, and he was on fire, mad to possess.
With one arm lashed against her back, he trapped her in a deep, plunging kiss while he found the silken drawstring. Swiftly untying it, he slid his hand under the fabric.
He was aware of her body stiffening, aware of her withdrawal even before she broke from his desperate mouth, but he couldn't draw his hand from that rapturous womanly warmth. He couldn't keep his fingers from tangling in the silken curls and closing over her moist heat in mindless possession.
"No," she gasped. "For God's sake—no."
"Please," he whispered, blind, besotted, needy. "Let me touch you, Leila. Let me kiss you." Even while he begged, he was sinking, ready to fall to his knees. He would die if he could not put his mouth to her sweet, damp heat.
She grasped a fistful of his hair and jerked him upright. "Stop it, curse you." Digging her nails into his wrist, she wrenched his hand away.