“The opiate did help those in your camp,” he said. “And I’m assuming my attackers were your emissaries.” The footpads had posed very little challenge as a matter of fact. But then if he hadn’t let them wrestle him to the ground and into this small corner of hell, he would not be facing Devon Caravelle at this moment, a critical link to one of the most dangerous men in Europe—and a most convenient outlet for his own plans for vengeance.
“Now I suppose you’re here to tell me how I might be of help?” He scanned her face with a professional expertise, searching for something he couldn’t yet define.
She refused to be pushed into any quick answers. “In good time.”
The diffuse light cast a sheen on her dark auburn hair and threw into sharp relief the delicate planes of her face. Her English appeared perfect and unaccented. And she was clearly accustomed to brandishing revolvers. Without lowering her pistol, she moved in closer. Her cloak was brown, deliberate camouflage for physical assets tempting enough for a Jesuit. Every time she moved, he heard the unmistakable shimmer of the silk she wore underneath. He knew her type—and her world—all too well.
She shrugged in his direction, her brow raised in reproof. “For your own sake, I caution you. I can and will use this revolver should the situation dictate.”
Blackburn didn’t doubt it. “What threat do I possibly present?” He held up his bound hands for her inspection. His jaw must be sporting at least a few bruises as well, now dark with two days’ stubble. De Maupassant’s henchmen weren’t known for their subtlety, causing Blackburn to wonder if this beautiful ambassador knew the extent of their cruelty. He expected at least a flicker of revulsion, but her eyes remained unmoved.
“True—but you do seem to look after yourself remarkably well.” Her lips curled over the last word as she took a few steps away from him.
Blackburn accepted the backhanded compliment with a small smile, waiting for her next move. Seated on the bunk, held immobile by thick ropes, he felt a strange euphoria, a coiled tension that he hadn’t felt in a long while, an edginess that perversely cut through some of the guilt and darkness that marked too many of his days. Devon Caravelle was not exactly as he had expected.
He watched the slow pulse at the base of her slender neck above the rise of rounded breasts no amount of brown wool could conceal. She did an admirable job of hiding her thoughts, those wide compelling eyes revealing little except a penetrating acuity. She was her father’s daughter, there was little doubt.
Yet there was a strange vulnerability about her as she stared at him over the gun, her expression a closed prison door. “I’m going to tell you what I want from you, Blackburn. I trust you’re ready to hear it.”
Bloody hell, he couldn’t wait.
But keeping his face expressionless, he merely shrugged. “A cynic would conclude that everybody wants something. It’s an unfortunate aspect of human nature I’ve learned.”
“Indeed.” Devon Caravelle’s delicately rounded chin lifted higher.
He smiled inwardly. This was exactly what he and the Duke of Wellington had planned—for Devon Caravelle to come to them. They both knew how useless her father, Brendan Clifton, had turned out to be, refusing to be of help to St. James’s Palace, throwing his lot in with neither the English nor the French. And how convenient it had been for him to send his daughter away to the music conservatory that last year, as the dangerous currents of the war between England and Napoleon swirled about him. Right before his murder.
Blackburn felt his gut tighten like a bow. Despite those measures, Clifton had left his daughter with a highly volatile and explosive legacy.
She was the only person alive who had a chance of accessing the dangerous truth embedded in Beethoven’s Eroica score.
With that thought, the pounding in Blackburn’s head resumed. In response, he attempted to stretch the cramped muscles in his shoulders as Devon Caravelle instantly retrained her pistol, aiming precisely for his heart.
“I’m just getting comfortable,” he reassured her, surprised at her nervous reaction, the tightening of her lips as she concentrated her gaze on him.
“That’s precisely my concern. The last thing I want you to feel is comfortable.” The words dripped acid.
She stood limned in the dimness, and he focused on the slender but strong gloved hand that gripped the pistol.
“You’re not going to kill me—at least just yet,” he played along with the game. “Are you preparing me for another bout with those henchmen? I suppose I should be trembling in my boots.” What he really wanted to ask her was why she had aligned herself with a man as cruel and dangerous as de Maupassant.
“It can be arranged,” she said dryly, seemingly secure in her position as the Frenchman’s mistress and musical protégée.
“For Christ’s sake, put down the gun and relax. I’m not going anywhere,” he ground out. Blackburn saw her eyes widen in momentary surprise but the pistol didn’t waver.
“I’ll relax when this is over, thank you.” She wet her lips seemingly unaware of his gaze following the sensuous curve of her mouth.
He tried to keep the grimness from his tone. “When what’s over? You’re taking a rather long time to get to the point.”
“That’s my prerogative given the circumstances.”
“Circumstances can change quickly.” Blackburn watched her remarkable eyes darken at his comment. He would probably bed her, he thought cynically, but with purpose in mind. Here was just another link in the chain of de Maupassant’s machinations, another weapon to get to the Eroica and the cipher that was the ultimate prize. A beautiful, sensual package that possessed the secrets of untold power and of England’s and Europe’s potential devastation.
“There is a chair available.” He gestured with bound hands to the stool in the corner.
“I prefer to stand.”
“You have the pistol, so naturally, whichever you prefer.” They eyed each other. Blackburn shifted slightly on the bunk and sensed the apprehension in the tight set of her shoulders.
He itched to get his hands on her. “You’re probably not going to shoot me, or you would have done so already. What is it that you want?” he asked instead, lowering his gaze, completely at ease staring down the barrel of a gun.
She made a small sound, a clearing of her throat, giving his question some consideration. “I sense that like most men, you have little patience.” The words were said in a low contralto in the gloominess of the cell. “And yet, I have my suspicions that you already know what I want.”
There it was, the gauntlet, thrown down in challenge. He regarded her impassively, all the while wondering how she would go about asking him—forcing him—to work with her on deciphering the score.
Without turning her back to him, she walked slowly toward the stool in the corner and dragged it to the center of the room before sitting down and carefully arranging her skirts as though the action was the most important thing in the world at the moment. She was a fine actress. And why wouldn’t she be? He was in the presence of the daughter of one of Europe’s most accomplished mathematicians and cryptologists. As a worldly
