Captives of the Night

  "We spoke on occasion. That is not intimacy." The potent blue gaze settled again upon Leila. "My definition of intimacy is most precise and particular."

  The room's temperature seemed to be climbing rapidly. Leila decided it was time to leave, whether her allotted ten minutes had passed or not. As the count accepted a wineglass from Francis, she rose. "I had better get back to work," she said.

  "Certainly, my love," said Francis. "I'm sure the count understands."

  "I understand, and yet I must regret the loss." This time Esmond's intent blue gaze swept her from head to toe.

  Leila had endured far too many such surveys to mistake the meaning. For the first time, however, she felt that meaning in every muscle of her body. Worse, she felt the pull of attraction, dragging at her will.

  But she reacted outwardly in the usual way, her countenance becoming more frigidly polite, her posture more arrogantly defiant. "Unfortunately, Madame Vraisses will regret even more the delay of her portrait," she said. "And she is one of the least patient women in the world."

  "And you, I suspect, are another." He stepped closer, making her pulse race. He was taller and more powerfully built than she'd thought at first. "You have the eyes of a tigress, Madame. Most unusual—and I do not mean the golden color alone. But you are an artist, and so you see more than others can."

  "I do believe my wife sees plainly enough that you're flirting with her," said Francis, moving to her side.

  "But of course. What other polite homage may a man pay another man's wife? You are not offended, I hope." The count treated Francis to an expression of limpid innocence.

  "No one is in the least offended," Leila said briskly. "We may be English, but we have lived in Paris nearly nine years. Still, I am a working woman, monsieur—"

  "Esmond," he corrected.

  "Monsieur," she said firmly. "And so, I must excuse myself and return to work." She did not offer her hand this time. Instead, she swept him her haughtiest curtsy.

  He answered with a graceful bow.

  As she headed for the door a tightly smiling Francis hurried to open for her, Esmond's voice came from behind her. "Until next we meet, Madame Beaumont," he said softly.

  Something echoed in the back of her mind, making her pause on the threshold. A memory. A voice. But no. If she'd met him before, she would have remembered. Such a man would be impossible to forget. She gave the faintest of nods and continued on.

  At four o'clock in the morning, the unforgettable blue-eyed gentleman relaxed in a semi-recumbent position upon the richly brocaded sofa of his own parlor. Very much in the same manner, many years before, had he often reclined upon his divan, to plot against his wily cousin, Ali Pasha. In those days, the gentleman was called Ismal Delvina. Nowadays, he was called whatever was most convenient to his purposes.

  At present he was the Comte d'Esmond.

  His British employers, with the aid of their French associates, had thoroughly documented his bloodline and title, Ismal’s French was flawless, as were most of the other eleven languages he spoke. To speak English with a French accent presented no difficulty. Speech, in any form, was one of his many gifts.

  Apart from his native Albanian, Ismal preferred English. It was an unsystematic language, but marvelously flexible. He liked playing with its words. He had very much liked playing with "intimacy." Madame Beaumont had become wonderfully incensed.

  Smiling at the recollection of their too brief encounter, Ismal sampled the thick Turkish coffee his servant, Nick, had prepared.

  "Perfect," he told Nick.

  "Of course it's perfect. I've had practice enough, haven't I?"

  Nonetheless, Nick visibly relaxed. Though he'd served Ismal six years, the younger man had not lost his determination to please. Twenty-one-year-old Nick was a trifle short on patience, and he was not very respectful, except in public. But then, he was half-English, and in any case, Ismal had had his fill of obsequious menials.

  "Practice you've surely had," Ismal said. "Even so, I am impressed. You've endured a long and tedious night following me and my new friend from one Parisian den to the next."

  Nick shrugged. "As long as it was worth your while."

  "It was. I believe we shall have disposed of Beaumont in a month. Were the matter less urgent, I should allow Nature to take her course, for Monsieur is well on the way to disposing of himself. This night he consumed opium enough to kill three men his size."

  Nick's dark eyes glinted. "Does he eat it or smoke it?"

  "Both."

  "That does make it easier. You've only to add a few grains of strychnine or prussic acid—gad, you could do it with ground up peach pits or apricots or apples or—"

  "I could, but it is not necessary. I have an unconquerable aversion to killing unless it is absolutely necessary. Even then, I dislike it excessively. Also, I have a particular aversion to poison. The method is not sportsmanlike."

  "He's hardly been sportsmanlike himself, has he? Besides, it would get rid of him without a lot of fuss."

  "I want him to suffer."

  "Well, that's different, then."

  Ismal held out his cup, which Nick dutifully refilled.

  "It has taken many months to track down this one man," Ismal said. "Now that his greed puts him in the palm of my hand, I wish to play with him for a while."

  It had begun in Russia. Ismal had been pursuing another inquiry when the tsar had thrust a more disturbing problem into his hands. Peace negotiations between Russia and Turkey were threatened because the sultan had obtained some letters that didn't belong to him. The tsar wanted to know how and why those letters had ended up in Constantinople.

  Ismal was well aware that throughout the Ottoman Empire, spies routinely intercepted correspondence. Yet these letters had not been anywhere in the sultan's domains, but in Paris, safely locked in a British diplomat's dispatch box. One of the diplomat's aides had shot himself before he could be questioned.

  In the following months, traveling between London and Paris, Ismal had heard a number of other stories—of similar thefts, inexplicable bankruptcies, and other abrupt, major losses.

  As it turned out, the events were connected. Those involved had one thing in common: all had, at one time or another, been regular visitors to an unprepossessing building in a quiet corner of Paris.

  The place was known simply as Vingt-Huit—number twenty-eight. Within its walls one might, for a price, enjoy any of the full range of human vices, from the most mundane to the most highly imaginative. There were some people, Ismal well understood, who would do anything for a price—and others desperate or corrupt enough to pay it.

  It was Francis Beaumont they paid.

  They didn't know this, of course, and Ismal himself hadn't a solid piece of proof. Nothing he could use in a court of law, that is. But Francis Beaumont could not be brought to a court of law, because none of his victims could be brought to the witness stand. Each and every one, like the young aide, would choose suicide rather than submit their sordid secrets to public scrutiny.

  Consequently, it was left to Ismal to deal with Beaumont—quietly, as he'd dealt with so many other matters troubling King George IV, his ministers, and his allies.

  Nick's voice broke in on his master's meditations. "How do you mean to play this time?" he asked.

  Ismal studied the contents of the delicately painted cup. "The wife is faithful."

  "Discreet, you mean. She'd have to be crazy to be faithful to that corrupt swine."

  "I think perhaps she is a little crazy." Ismal looked up. "But she possesses a great artistic gift, and genius is not always fully rational. Beaumont has been fortunate in her artistic dedication. Her work occupies nearly all her mind and time. As a result, she scarcely notices the many men seeking her attention."

  Nick's eyes widened. "You don't mean to tell me she didn't notice you?"

  Ismal's soft chuckle was rueful. "I was obliged to exert myself."

  "Well, I'll be hanged. I'd have given anything to
see that."

  "It was most disconcerting. I might have been a marble statue, or an oil portrait. Form, line, color." Ismal made a sweeping gesture. "I look into her beautiful face and all I discern is lust—the lust of an artist. She makes me an object. It is insupportable. And so I am a bit...indiscreet."

  Nick shook his head. "You're never indiscreet—not without a purpose. I'll lay odds your purpose wasn't just to make her pay proper attention."

  "I believe you mean 'improper attention.' The lady is wed, recollect, and the husband was present. And so when I obtained a reaction not altogether artistic, I also obtained a reaction from him. He is vain as well as possessive. Consequently, he was displeased."

  "He's got a lot of nerve. The goat's bedded at least half the married women of Paris."

  Ismal waved this aside. "What interested me was that he was surprised, even by my very small success with his wife. It seems he is unaccustomed to worrying about her. Now, however, I have planted the seed of doubt, which I shall cultivate. That is but one of the ways I shall make his days and nights unquiet."

  Nick grinned. "No harm in mixing some pleasure with business."

  Ismal set down his cup and, closing his eyes, leaned back against the plump cushions. "I believe I shall leave the greater part of the business to you. There are persons at the upper levels of Parisian authority in Beaumont's pay. You will arrange a series of incidents which will require him to pay more for protection. The incidents will also frighten away some of the more vulnerable clients. They pay a great deal for secrecy. If they feel unsafe, they will cease patronizing Vingt-Huit. I have some other ideas, which we will discuss tomorrow."

  "I see. I'm to do the dirty work while you amuse yourself with the lady artist."

  "But of course. I cannot leave Madame to you. You are half English. You have no comprehension of violent-tempered women, and so, no appreciation. You would not have the least idea what to do with her. Even if you did, you haven't the necessary patience. I, however, am the most patient man in the world. Even the tsar admits this." Ismal opened his eyes. "Did I tell you that Beaumont nearly dropped a decanter when I mentioned the tsar? It was then I knew beyond doubt I'd found my man."

  "No, you didn't mention it. Not that I'm surprised. If I didn't know you better, I'd think the only one you were interested in was the woman."

  "That, I hope, is precisely what Monsieur Beaumont will think," Ismal murmured as he closed his eyes once more.

  ¯¯

  Fiona, the Viscountess Carroll, was intrigued. "Esmond—a bad influence? Are you serious, Leila?" The raven-haired widow turned to study the count, who stood talking with a small group of guests by the recently unveiled portrait of Madame Vraisses. "That's quite impossible to believe."

  "I'm sure Lucifer and his followers were beautiful, too," said Leila. "They had all been angels, recall."

  "I've always pictured Lucifer as dark—rather more in Francis' style." Her green eyes gleaming, Fiona turned back to her friend. "He's looking especially dark this evening. I do believe he's aged ten years since the last time I was in Paris."

  "He's aged ten years in three weeks," Leila said tightly. "I didn't think it was possible, but since the Comte d'Esmond became his bosom bow, Francis has taken a decided turn for the worse. He hasn't slept at home for nearly a week. He came in—or rather, was carried in—this morning at four o'clock. He was still in bed at seven o'clock this evening, and I was half inclined to attend the party without him."

  "I wonder why you didn't."

  Because she didn't dare. But this Leila would not confide, even to her one woman friend. Ignoring the question, she went on detachedly, "It took another twenty minutes to rouse him and make him take a bath. I do wonder how his tarts can bear it. The combination of opium, liquor, and perfume was overpowering. And of course he notices nothing."

  "I can't think why you don't throw him out," said Fiona. "It's not as though you're financially dependent on him. You haven't any children he could threaten to take away. And he's too lazy for violence."

  There were worse consequences than violence, Leila could have told her. "Don't be absurd," she said, taking a glass of champagne from a passing servant. She usually waited until later in the evening to enjoy her single glass of wine, but tonight she was tense. "The last thing I need is to live separately from my husband. The men plague me enough as it is. If Francis were not about, playing the possessive spouse, I should have to fight them off myself. Then I'd never get any work done."

  Fiona laughed. She was not, strictly speaking, beautiful, but she seemed so when she laughed, partly because everything about her seemed to gleam: the even white teeth, the sparkling green eyes, the ivory oval face framed by sleek black curls. "Most women would rather a complaisant husband," she said, "especially in Paris. Especially when someone like the Comte d'Esmond appears on the scene. I'm not sure I'd mind his exerting his bad influence on me. But I should want to observe him at close range first."

  The mischievous spark in her eyes intensified. "Shall I catch his attention?"

  Leila's heart gave a sharp thump. "Certainly not."

  But Fiona was already looking toward him again, her fan poised.

  "Fiona, you must not—really, I shall leave you here—"

  Esmond turned at that instant and must have caught Fiona's eye, for she beckoned with the fan. Without hesitation, he began crossing the room to them.

  Leila rarely blushed. Her face felt warmer than it should, however. "You're shockingly forward," she told her friend as she started to move away.

  Fiona caught her arm. "I shall seem a great deal more brazen if I'm obliged to introduce myself. Don't run away, Leila. It's not Beelzebub, you know—at least not on the outside." Her voice dropped as the count neared. "Lud, he's stunning. I do believe I shall faint."

  Well aware that Fiona was no more likely to swoon than to stand on her head, Leila set her jaw, and with rigid politeness, introduced the Comte d'Esmond to her incorrigible friend.

  Not ten minutes later, Leila was waltzing with him. Meanwhile, Fiona—who'd been so determined to study Esmond closely—was dancing with a laughing Francis.

  Leila was still trying to figure out just who had engineered this arrangement when the count's soft voice came from above her head.

  "Jasmine," he said. "And something else. Unexpected. Ah, yes—myrrh. An intriguing combination, Madame. You blend scents in the same distinctive way you mix colors."

  Leila used a light hand with perfume, and she'd put it on hours ago. He should have needed to be much closer to identify it, but he held her nearly a foot away. It was a fraction too near for English propriety, though well within Gallic bounds. All the same, he seemed far too close. In their many encounters since their first meeting, he had never touched her except to kiss her knuckles. Now she was tautly aware of the warm hand clasping her waist, the faint friction of glove against silk as he gracefully guided her round the ballroom.

  "With scent at least I need only please myself," she said.

  "And your husband, of course."

  "That would be pointless. Francis has almost no sense of smell."

  "In certain circumstances, that may be a gift—when, for instance, one walks the streets of Paris on a hot summer day. But in other circumstances, the loss must be a profound one. He misses so much."

  The words were harmless enough. The tone was another matter. The last and only time Esmond had flirted openly with her was the day she'd met him. Leila wasn't certain he'd flirted covertly since then, either. Maybe the tone she heard as seductive wasn't meant to be. But intended or not, she felt the inner hurry his soft voice had triggered time and time again, even during the briefest of encounters. In its wake came the usual flutter of anxiety.

  "I'm not sure how profound it is," she said coolly, "but it does affect his appetite. It seems to be getting worse. I believe he's lost a stone in the last month."

  "So I have observed."

  She looked up, then wished she hadn't. She had
looked up into those eyes a score of times by now, yet every time they caught and held her fascinated. It was the rare color, she told herself. The blue was too deep to be human. When—if—she painted those eyes, anyone who hadn't met him would believe she'd exaggerated the color.

  He smiled. "You are transparent. Almost I can see you selecting and mixing your oils."

  She looked away. "I've told you I'm a working woman."

  "Do you think of nothing else?"

  "A woman artist must work twice as hard as a man to achieve half his success," she said. "If I weren't single-minded, I wouldn't have stood a chance of painting Madame Vraisses' portrait. At tonight's unveiling, they would have been applauding a male artist instead."

  "The world is stupid, I agree. And I, perhaps, am also a little stupid."

  She was, too, to look up into those eyes again. She was already short of breath and dizzy—from trying to talk and waltz simultaneously. "You don't think women should be artists?" she asked.

  "Alas, I can think only one stupid thing: that I dance with a beautiful woman who cannot distinguish a man from an easel."

  Before she could retort, he swept her into a turn—so swiftly that she missed a step and tripped over his foot. Almost in the same heartbeat, an arm like a whipcord lashed round her waist and hauled her up hard against a mainmast of solid, male muscle.

  It was over in an instant. The count scarcely missed a beat, but went on easily guiding her through the crowd of dancers quite as though nothing had happened.

  Meanwhile, a fine stream of sweat trickled between Leila's breasts, and her heart hammered so loudly that she couldn't hear the music. Not that she needed to hear it or think about what she was doing. Her partner was fully in control, as poised and sure of himself as he'd been at the start.

  He was also several inches closer than he'd been before, she belatedly discovered.

  Her swimming mind cleared and the haze of swirling colors about her resolved into individuals. She saw that Francis was staring at her, and he wasn't laughing any more. He wasn't even smiling.

  Leila became aware of a faint pressure at her waist, urging her a fraction nearer. Now she realized she'd felt it before and must have responded mindlessly—just like a well-trained horse answering the smallest tension of the reins, the lightest pressure of knee to flanks.