flickering wall sconces did little to allay her anxieties.
They’d be more than pleased to stretch your neck.
The richly patterned wall, draped in watered silk, danced before her eyes.
She didn’t have the score.
Worse still, she hadn’t any idea where it possibly could be found in Le Comte’s town house and she’d been surreptitiously searching for weeks. She shivered, missing the warmth of her cloak just as she heard the knock. Walking to the door and turning the handle, she felt every nerve standing at attention.
Le Comte was already lounging in the hallway, taking in the young woman displayed before him like the finest jewel amid the sumptuous luxuriance of the boudoir. He stepped into the room adorned in the palest cream and amethyst fabrics and raised his eyes to a baroque mirror that reflected the perfection of creamy skin and dark red hair.
He smiled thinly at her reflection in the oval above her vanity as he began to remove one of his pristinely white evening gloves.
“You look somewhat disheveled, ma chère. I hope the Marquess did not give you any undue trouble. Where is he—still rusticating in that cell I arranged for?” His voice was reedy with mockery, his face appearing next to hers.
She saw herself in Le Comte’s gaze, a worldly woman, an intellectual who had the key to something he wanted desperately. Her vision blurred and all she could see was the image of the Marquess of Blackburn. The most strikingly beautiful man she’d ever encountered, a portrait of contrasts, a combination of overwhelming physicality and concentrated intellect. Focused on her.
He was too tall, his shoulders too broad, the jaw too strong for fashion. And it had taken all her control to keep from reacting as he’d surveyed her with those midnight blue eyes. Her pulse raced at the memory of an indefinable energy permeating the cell, pulling her closer to him against both her reason and her will.
Devon dragged herself back to the present, aware of Le Comte’s image in the mirror beside her and all too aware that lying and deception was the only way out.
“I believe you’ll find everything proceeding to plan.” She kept her voice low, infusing resignation and desperation in her tone. “The Marquess, under duress, committed to working with me.”
To distract herself from the lie, Devon picked up a silver comb on the vanity. For a moment the room’s opulence shimmered in the mirror; the door of her dressing room opened to reveal the spill of silks and satins, gifts from de Maupassant, every last one given with a purpose in mind, a small voice reminded her.
“My dear Devon, I am so pleased to hear the good news.” Le Comte began casually to remove his other glove before tossing both aside and lowering himself into a flounced and beribboned chaise. “Although I also heard that you allowed him to waltz out of the prison I so thoughtfully arranged for him, or so my men have informed me. And I take it he’s not waiting for us at the apartments I’d organized for the two of you on Grosvenor.”
Devon improvised. “I needed more time; besides which, the Marquess is as good as imprisoned.” One lie led effortlessly to the next. “He wants access to the Eroica score and to have it deciphered as much as you do and he recognizes that this is—and I am—his only opportunity to do so.”
“Indeed—all of which I knew well in advance,” mused the Frenchman with a superiority that was second nature. “He dearly wants the music and he clearly wants to work with Clifton’s daughter—you—Devon Caravelle. He knows that the two go hand in hand.” Le Comte paused for emphasis, his gaze sharpening. “You worked with your father to the end. You understood—understand—his world. His talents are your talents. His secrets, your secrets.”
If only Le Comte were not speaking the truth.
Glancing down at the open cameo on the vanity table, she could distinguish the faint but indelible images of her parents. The past was becoming for her a series of faded portraits. Their small cottage at Blois. Her mother dying from a fever. Her brilliant and lonely father. His urgings that she continue her study of music, that she play her mother’s pianoforte, although she knew each note and chord she struck was bittersweet for them both.
The terrifying implications of his work and his obsessions.
“I was his assistant, nothing more.” She put down the comb carefully and turned around to look directly at Le Comte.
“Of course, of course, my dear,” the Frenchman mocked her earnestness. “All the more reason I want you to work with Blackburn. Your combined knowledge will prove most useful. I’m certain he will help you, help us, make the most of what little you claim to know.”
“And if I refuse?”
“Come now, I expect better from a woman of your intelligence. Certainly, there’s no need for any more of the high drama and coercive strategies I was forced to use with Blackburn to bring the two of you together.” Le Comte paused significantly, crossing a stockinged leg and absently admiring a silver buckle on his shoe. “And even if you were to refuse,” he reflected philosophically, “I would hand you over to the authorities in France as a traitor. The daughter of a traitor, to be more specific. Or perhaps I’ll turn you over to England. It’s actually difficult for me to choose. Your father changed sides with alarming regularity, as you may recall.”
Devon’s eyes burned at the insult as she dug her hands into the marquetry of the vanity table behind her. “My father was not a traitor. He was a genius.”
Le Comte sighed theatrically. “You are being tedious, Devon, as well as decidedly ungracious. I made a very generous offer when I first came to you at the Conservatoire—and it still stands. Discover what the Eroica score holds and I shall ensure your freedom from prosecution. Even at your most cynical, you must admit the proposition is sound. After all, what better guarantee? You will have as much knowledge about my motives as I will have about yours.”
A pact with the devil. Simple enough. Just sell her soul and spend every day under Le Comte’s watchful eyes, tortured into giving away her father’s dangerous secrets, at every turn threatened with having her father and herself exposed as traitors.
She closed her eyes against the onslaught of panic, conjuring the image of the man she had met at Blackfriars Bridge just hours before. The gaze that missed nothing, a cold hard blue. He even smelled of danger, a scent that overpowered her senses until she couldn’t think.
Her mouth was dry with desperation. Clenching her hands into fists, she charged headlong into the breach. “You promised to give me access to the original score. Blackburn and I will need it to unravel the formula.”
“You’re quite right. Time is running out.” Le Comte settled more comfortably into his chair. “But before I relinquish the score I want to be sure that you have entrapped our Marquess as surely as Delilah ensnared Samson. You do remember the story, Devon?”
A powerful man who was brought to his knees by a dangerously sensual woman. She swallowed the panic in her throat.
“Blackburn will surely find you a beautiful, intriguing woman. More important, he will like nothing more than to think he could steal not one, but two of my prized possessions, the Eroica and my valuable protégée.” Le Comte made a minute adjustment to his extravagant cravat before adding, “Let us just say that the Marquess and I have a certain shared history that adds a piquancy to this situation.”
There was something
