But by the time the fifth course was served, his dark looks no longer required effort. Indeed, he had dismissed the pretty Italian countess to his right and was probably doing a very good imitation of an obsessed, glowering fanatic. Was Gwen so good an actress, or was her displeasure with him genuine? She looked to be leaning into Barrington’s touches now, and Alex would have been hard-pressed to distinguish her current smiles from those she had given him on the banks of the Seine, the morning after the adventure at Le Chat Noir.
When dinner was concluded and the party transferred outside for a moonlit boating expedition, he pulled Gwen off Barrington’s arm and into the corner with a very showy sulk.
“Do you know what you’re doing?” he breathed into her ear.
“Of course,” she whispered back, fixing her brow into a thunderous scowl. “I have asked him about all his acquaintances in London. He claims to know almost nobody; says he prefers the society on the Continent.”
“Dear God,” he muttered, “you are not meant to be doing the interrogating. Just—go keep him busy on the lake. I’m going to have a look around the house.”
She drew back very suddenly. “Of course,” she said, coldly and loudly. “I am only a toy to you, no? A very pretty wind-up doll.”
He stared at her, undecided on how to reply. She really was a bit too convincing. Richard had certainly had a flair for drama, which he and Alex had employed to good measure when seeking entertainment during their university days, but he’d never suspected it of Gwen. “Of course not,” he said slowly.
Her frown deepened. “Don’t be stupid,” she said, and he heard the double meaning in it. Don’t apologize to me right now.
He sketched her a cold bow. “I wish you a good evening, then. I do not think I will join your little boating party.”
“You will not be missed,” she said, and turned on her heel, stalking away.
He went directly to their rooms, sitting by the window until he saw the procession of guests wind out through the garden. Gwen walked arm in arm with Barrington. She tripped, and he pulled her closer as he helped her gain her balance.
Alex drew away from the window.
It was only a charade.
And yet . . . Gwen was out to live wildly; he himself had rebuffed her last night; perhaps she grew curious—
Only a charade, God damn it. He took a deep breath and left the room.
The house was laid out in the shape of a shallow C, the lobby and grand staircase at the middle of the house, with its high domed skylight, scoring the building in half. From the little discussion he’d initiated at dinner, he’d managed to solicit the location of every one of the female guests’ bedrooms. That omitted the entire lower half of the C in which his and Gwen’s rooms were located, and a good deal of the upper as well. He thought it likely that all the bedrooms were in the west, which left the bottom floor of the east, as he’d determined earlier, devoted to public rooms: morning room, drawing room, dining room, gallery.
Upstairs to the east was where he needed to go.
He walked toward the moonlit lobby on silent feet, wanting to check on the party in the less reputable drawing room. The merriment had grown muted; after two minutes’ wait, he counted only three male voices inside. The women he was less concerned about; it seemed that they had been hired to entertain whichever guests found themselves without easy company this evening—and the guards as well, in the meantime.
The lobby and the main staircase were too brightly illuminated, so he retreated back in the direction he had come, until he found a door covered in baize and studded with upholstery nails. He could not disapprove of the spread of all English customs. This one had proved useful to him more than once, when seeking subtler ways through a house. At this hour, with the remains of the feast still littering the dining room, and the guests outside, the servants would be more intent on shifting plates to the scullery than spying on matters abovestairs.
He stepped into the servants’ passage and climbed the stairs silently, then took a right, moving, in darkness, toward the other side of the house. Only once did a noise come from the distance, causing him to freeze. Belatedly he realized the grinding sound came from a dumbwaiter. Someone was sending china down from the dining room.
He let himself out into the main hallway of the east wing. Yes, this part of the house was clearly not meant for public consumption: the floors were covered not in silk runners but in a far cheaper but harder-wearing tapestry, and the walls were bare. The latter sank his spirits. If Barrington did not spend much time here, there might be nothing of interest on the property.
Or perhaps Barrington had the same philosophy as Alex, and lived and traveled lightly, carrying only those items deemed essential—in which case Alex very much hoped that one of these doors opened onto a bedroom or a study.
The doors were locked, which did not stop him. He withdrew from his pocket two of Gwen’s hairpins, and made quick work of the first tumbler. In his time, he’d reluctantly been forced to employ an industrial spy or two; sometimes there was no other way to discover what had happened to a shipment that had gone missing overnight, or a contract suddenly lost just before the documents could be notarized. And a few of these men had spared him an hour’s lesson, here and there. He’d never master the art of breaking glass without a sound, but there were few door locks that could faze him.
The first room was a small library, with no desk or chest of drawers to pique his interest. Nevertheless, he did a dutiful scan of the bookshelves. For a man who preferred his springs in France, Barrington appeared an ardent admirer of his home country. He had over a hundred books on the history of England, its natural habitats and geological history, its flora and fauna.
Alex plucked out one of the books. A Natural History of English Sediment. Christ. Could there have been anything more boring?
On the other hand, Gwen would probably deem this far more interesting than his trade journals. He ran an eye again over the volumes on flora and fauna. He sincerely hoped Barrington stuck to seductive flirtations. If he mentioned anything to do with parkland, Gwen would probably jump on the topic like a kitten on catnip, and the Barbary Queen would make a very odd admirer of landscape architects.
Although he supposed that if anyone could pull off such a Barbary Queen, Gwen could.
The thought was so startling that he proved clumsy in refitting the book into its slot.
The book safely stowed, he stood looking at it. She was a chameleon, wasn’t she? He had always suspected she had potential in her. Had been tempted, even, to tease it out of her, once or twice. Had denied himself the urge because she was Richard’s sister, and her path had been set.
But now her path had changed. And still he hesitated, fickle as a cowardly little debutante, as she’d put it.
No, he thought wryly. She’d never called him cowardly.
He reminded himself of what he’d been thinking so intently last night, as he’d watched her stir so sweetly beneath his touch. Humans were not technologies. They did not prove amenable to radical adjustments. Their essential traits always reclaimed them, and hers would pull her back to the narrow path, no matter how much she might come to genuinely revile its constraints. Better, then—honorable—to act on his understanding; to do nothing to prevent her from reclaiming the life she would inevitably be drawn back to.
The logic was sound, of course.
It was also fueled by fear. Old fear. A very specific one.
And, God damn it—if, after all this time, he was going to let fear dictate his actions, then he might as well trade in his lungs right now, and his legs to boot. He might as well be wheeled back to England to suffocate quietly in some cloistered little village rectory. Had he listened to fear, that would have been his life.
And so, too, if he had accepted others’ visions of him.
He had always known that others were wrong about him, but Gwen had only just discovered that others were wrong about her. That was the only difference between them. And yet he’d dismissed her revelation, forcing her to remain within the mold she wished so much to break. And why? Only because it was easier for him that way. Otherwise, were he to take her at her word and behave accordingly, he would have no choice but to confront certain things he had hidden from himself.
What a bloody, self-righteous, blind coward he’d been, last night.
Well, he knew how to rectify that quick enough.
He walked out and tried the next door. This room looked more promising at first glance—a study of some sort, with framed prints on the walls, more of these bloody naturalist’s diagrams, a dozen of them stacked on the desk. The large picture window had a breathtaking view of the ocean, and the moonlight filtering through the window lit the desktop quite clearly. He flipped through the documents. They meant nothing to him. Next to them were notes on—God above, various sorts of vegetation indigenous to Suffolk.
He recalled again the way that Barrington had drawn her closer when she’d stumbled. A sinking feeling was in his stomach. Wouldn’t it be rich with irony if he had inadvertently driven her into the arms of a man who would actually sit down across from her and nod enthusiastically when she started talking of her goddamned gardens? Instead, of course, of making some mocking, juvenile remark about pressing flowers into a scrapbook—
A noise in the hallway made him freeze. He looked quickly around the room, but there were very few places to hide. A handsome wooden screen seemed the best option, not because it provided real cover—it was too finely filigreed to conceal his body entirely—but because it was positioned in the shadows, away from the window, near the door. Opening the door, walking in, a person would have to turn around and peer hard into the darkness until their eyes adjusted before they could distinguish a man standing in the shadows.
He stepped behind it just as the door opened with a soft click. “—been locked,” said Barrington. “How curious. Ah, no matter. Come in, do.”
“Oh, you were telling the truth,” came Gwen’s low voice. Alex pressed himself farther against the wall to still the impulse to leap around and ask her what the hell she thought she was doing, breaking away from the larger group to enter a disused area of the house with this man. Moreover, her consonants had a slight slur to them. Had she drunk more wine at dinner than he’d noticed?
Barrington put his hand at her waist—far too familiar for a host with a young lady, although just about right for a man with a music hall singer—and guided her to stand in front of the window. In the cold light, her profile was as pale and smooth as marble, her expression lit with clarity. “Oh,” she said softly. “The waves breaking—it’s very beautiful.”
Something ugly stirred in Alex’s gut. She did not look as if she was pretending enjoyment. The view truly enraptured her.
Barrington stepped up behind her. He delicately fingered a stray wisp of her hair. “I am surrounded by beauty,” he murmured. “But nothing so compelling as the woman here before me, right now.”
Alex was going to rip his arm off. Step away from him. Gwen. What the hell are you doing?
She turned toward him, in the process dislodging his hands from her waist and hair—by design, Alex wanted to think, but God damn it, he could not be sure. She gave Barrington a mysterious little smile, perfectly designed to madden a man with its indecipherable promise, and then brushed past him, walking around the room, trailing a casual hand across the furnishings. At the desk, she came to a stop. “Drawings!” she said. “Are you an artist?” She spread out the pages casually.
Barrington followed her and caught up her hand, lifting it to his mouth. “Alas, no. I’ve lacked proper inspiration until now.”
She gave a light, tinkling laugh. “I find that difficult to believe,” she said as she walked onward, letting her hand remain in his as long as possible, until her arm was fully outstretched. Barrington trailed after her rather than release it. She was examining the walls, now—a series of masks hung in a row on the back wall.
If she kept strolling the perimeter, she was going to lead Barrington straight to him.
Turn around, Alex willed her. Leave.
But Barrington was growing bolder now, his hand skating down her rib cage, his head bowing to place a kiss upon the top of her head. It occurred to Alex that her casual stroll was actually not so casual: she was making a circle back toward the door, and had he not been hiding there, her facsimile of interest in the furnishings would have been a very clever route of escape.
But the screen was too damned lovely to ignore.
He saw the moment she spied it. Her mouth opened to make a comment.
And then her eyes met his and flew wide with realization.
He held his breath. He had no idea how his discovery could be smoothed over by talk. An unpleasant conversation followed by eviction never harmed any guest, but the fact that Barrington had armed guards strolling his property did put a different light on matters, greatly diminishing Alex’s hope that they would be turned out with a simple round of scathing words.
He would have to immobilize the man. The prospect would not have bothered him if they’d met in a salle d’armes, or if he’d had proof that Barrington had harmed Gerard. But right now, all he knew was that he disliked the man. And he’d never been particularly interested in punishing people for failing to charm him. He’d left that role to the bullies of the world.
Gwen interrupted his silent deliberations by making a choice of her own. She turned away from him, spinning on the ball of her foot and launching herself directly into Barrington.
For a split second of disbelief, Alex thought she meant to attack the man. Perhaps Barrington had a similar idea; taken off guard, he grunted and staggered a pace backward. But he caught the idea before Alex did—and caught something else, besides. Hauling Gwen up by her arse, he smashed his face into hers.
Well, Alex thought. Well. This was . . . clever of her. A clever distraction.
Her arms twining around his shoulders, she forced Barrington around, putting his back to the door.
Also just to distract him.
Alex was beginning to see this scene through a peculiar red haze.
Gwen loosed a moan, a sound that really did not belong in the hearing of any other man that Alex had or ever would meet, and then clawed her fingers into Barrington’s hair, yanking his head down toward her breasts.
Barrington obliged quite happily.
Her eyes found Alex’s over the man’s shoulders. Go, she mouthed. Go now!
He stared back at her. The little idiot. Did she really think that he was going to slip out of this room and let Barrington have what she had offered to him but he’d been too much of a goddamned unforgivably thickheaded cowardly idiot to take?
Jesus Christ, what had ailed him? This was what he had planned by refusing her, wasn’t it? For her one day to be in some asinine Englishman’s arms, with him apart, elsewhere, claimless, no one to blame for it but himself?
She widened her eyes dramatically. Lifted her hand and pointed emphatically toward the door. And then rotated her hand and made a come-hither crook of her finger.
What the hell did that mean?
Barrington lifted his head. She gave a breathy gasp and pushed his head back down. Now her leg started to wrap around Barrington’s calf.
The meaning of the gesture suddenly penetrated. God above, he was a fool. He slipped out from behind the screen and opened the door, sliding silently into the corridor and pulling the door noiselessly shut behind him. And then he lifted his fist and banged. Once, twice, thrice. No more. Not waiting for an answer, he threw the door open so loudly that it cracked against the jamb.
“You little trollop,” he spat.
Gwen slapped her hands over her mouth and leapt away from Barrington—but rather than springing toward Alex as he’d envisioned, she instead raced to stand behind the desk.
“Oh!” she cried. “Oh, Mr. de Grey—please, it was—not at all what you think!”
“It was exactly what you think,” Barrington said. He yanked down his suit jacket. “What do you mean, poking about up here?”
Alex fixed him with a grim stare. He had no idea what Gwen thought she was achieving by loitering across the room from him. Did she want to witness bloodshed? He felt unusually willing to deliver it. “I will ask you,” he said icily, “the same question. Did I not make it clear that Miss Goodrick is off limits to your attentions?”
Barrington worked up a smirk. “The lady does not seem to agree. Perhaps we should consult her in this matter.”
“Oh!” Gwen put her hands behind her back and looked at her toes. “Oh,” she said softly. She looked up to Alex, eyes woeful, almost pleading. “I’m so sorry, Mr. de Grey. But it is such a hard decision. On the one side, you’ve been everything good to me. On the other, Mr. Barrington . . .” She trailed off and sighed, as if his magnificence were too large to be put into words. “I begin to understand,” she said hesitantly, “why ladies used to insist that knights joust for their attention. If only one victor were left standing . . . it would be so much easier to decide, wouldn’t it?”
For a brief moment, Alex actually felt in sympathy with Barrington: the man’s sneer was fading into a puzzled frown. “Miss Goodrick,” Barrington said, “I would joust any number of men for you, were we knights.”
“But I don’t think you’d win against Alex,” she said pointedly, and gave Alex a sudden urgent look.
Oh, Christ. He understood where she was going with this. He hoped she had a good reason for it. He sighed and cracked his knuckles to loosen them. Fists were not his forte, of course, but the week in Paris had sharpened him up after the laziness of the sea journey.
Barrington reached into his jacket, outright scowling now. “All right, enough,” he said, and as he withdrew his hand, metal glinted in the light. Alex went very still. “I must say, I’m disappointed,” the man continued to Gwen. “I’d hoped you were merely a talented trollop along for the ride.” He lifted the gun, then turned it on Alex. “Time for some truths,” he said evenly. “I waited for you to approach me, but now I begin to think you never intended to do so. Which leads me to ask: what the hell are you doing in my house? Weston wises up, discovers shit where his liver should be? That’s a fine specimen of manhood.”
Alex distantly registered Gwen’s gasp. A cold calm descended, just as it did in the training salon. His thoughts felt clear and sharp. “I have no idea what you mean,” he said flatly. Guns were tricky beasts. A kick could disarm the man or it could cause the gun to discharge. And Gwen had no cover to take.
Barrington gave a sharp laugh. His grip on the gun did not waver. “You think me a fool? I thought I recognized you that first night. Something familiar about the eyes. But it took a bit of inquiring to confirm it. The ruthless Mr. Ramsey. Curious choice of an emissary—I never heard Weston speak highly of you.” His eyes narrowed suddenly. “But if it’s dirty work he’s designing, I can understand the choice.”
Alex sensed some movement from Gwen. Stay still, he willed her. He could not risk looking to her to telegraph the message. He did not want to lead Barrington’s attention back to her. “I’m no emissary of my brother,” he said. Christ. How pathetic that he’d not remembered this truth before bringing Gwen along. He’d risked her, here, thinking himself in aid of his brother, when his brother was—what? The victim of a swindle? Common blackmail? What the hell was going on here? How had Barrington convinced him to part with the lands?
“Then explain yourself,” said Barrington. “Or shall I ask the lady to explain?”
Thoughts of Gerry evaporated. “She knows nothing.” He watched Barrington intently. The man was nervous. The corners of his mouth were twitching. Earlier, Alex had mistaken that tic for a very irritating smile. “And I discuss nothing with a gun trained on me.”
“Forgive my approach,” the other man said dryly. “Your deception does not inspire politesse. Although why I bother, I don’t know. Indeed, why do I bother? Weston is a gutless sack. If he hired you to play the man in his stead—well, I am sorry for you. Would that you had stuck to your own game; I can’t afford distractions right now.”
Instinct was everything. Alex could sense, in the minute shading of the man’s voice, the slightest shift in his posture, that he had made a decision, and it boded no good for anyone. “All right,” he said quietly, intention coiling through him. One single kick—
“You’re an ass,” Gwen burst out, and smashed a pot onto Barrington’s head.
Alex sprang. Barrington staggered a pace and backhanded Gwen.
She fell into the desk, and some low, animalistic, unfamiliar noise ripped from Alex’s throat as he collided with Barrington and took them both to the ground. He seized the man’s wrist and pinned it, evading a knee to his balls on the way. Barrington’s limbs thrashed like an eel’s, but he had no practice in sparring. His grip around the pistol was white-knuckled. If Alex slammed his hand into the floor, if the gun fired, guards would come running. He placed his right knee on the man’s testicles, his left knee on the man’s left arm, and his left hand—yes, by God, you son of a bitch—on the man’s throat, squeezing, squeezing, until Barrington’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body went slack.
Take the gun. Relatch the safety. Gwen, by the desk. Face warm. No visible cuts.
Lashes fluttered.
Alex took a long, shuddering breath. Hand shaking, he cupped her cheek. Jesus God he had come here for goddamned Gerry’s sake and she’d ended up crumpled on the floor. He was going to put a gun to his brother’s head. “Gwen,” he repeated, not recognizing his voice; hoarse, fit only for a thread of sound.
Her eyes came fully open. They rolled immediately to the left. Toward Barrington.
“Forget him.” He helped her into a sitting position. “Look toward the ocean,” he said.
“I’m fine,” she whispered.
“The view is lovely,” he said, and whipped free the cords that tied the curtains away from the window pane.
She cleared her throat. “Alex, the documents—”
“Is the moon full?” he asked. Efficiently he tied Barrington’s wrists together. “I think we were due for a full moon tonight.”
She did not reply. He watched his hands looping the rope over Barrington’s ankles. No blood spilled, but it put him in mind of butchery all the same. He would have hog-tied and gutted this man gladly, whatever Gerry had done to invite this. The kosher style—strung from the heels to slowly bleed out.
His hands began to shake again.
“Yes, it’s a full moon. Are you all right?”
It took a moment for these words to penetrate. “Brilliant,” he said.
“Only that it seems an odd time for small talk, you know.”
He fitted the second cord between the man’s teeth, coiling it around Barrington’s skull twice, then round his neck once, before running it behind his back, drawing the loops of wrist and ankles tight. Barrington wasn’t going anywhere until someone came and found him. If he struggled, he would choke himself.
Let him struggle. Alex dragged him behind the screen for added concealment.
He turned back on a deep breath, preparing to pick Gwen up—his arms already focused on the feel of her, the reassurance of having her completely within his purview. Then he would be able to think again. This rage was so visceral that it numbed one. It lifted the hairs on his neck.
But Gwen was already on her feet, industriously stuffing her reticule with documents. Her quick glance upward ascertained that he was through with Barrington. She held up the reticule.
“These are maps,” she said. “This might explain it.”
He stared at her. “I’m going to carry you out of here,” he said.
She tipped her head, and then, as if only now remembering, touched her cheek where Barrington had hit her. “It’s only my face,” she said. “I can walk.”
“I’m going to carry you,” he repeated.
“But these maps, Alex—”
“Fuck the maps,” he said.
Her eyes widened. She studied him a moment, and then stuck the reticule under her arm. “All right,” she said, and stepped toward him. “I suppose I do feel a bit faint.”
They were halfway down the stairs when Gwen felt Alex’s grip tighten. She lifted her head and spied a guard approaching them. Beneath the shadow cast by the brim of his bowler hat, the leer on his lips bespoke his misapprehension of Alex’s embrace.
“Put me down,” she whispered after the guard had passed them. He had turned in the direction of Barrington’s private wing.
“Just lie back,” Alex said, and his tone was so unaccustomedly harsh that she recoiled. And was pinned, by one large and bullying hand, against his chest, where this hand kept her firmly.
“But if he finds Barrington—”
“We’ll go directly to the stables,” he said under his breath. “Tell the lad to take us to Monte Carlo.”
He carried her through the lobby as if she weighed nothing. The butler opened the door with no remark, clearly accustomed to odd goings-on. Down the short flight of stairs. Now gravel crunched beneath Alex’s footsteps as he walked the path around the house. The moon hung overhead in a star-studded sky so black that it looked depthless.
She closed her eyes. From the distance came the dull crash of the tide against the cliffs and the babble of guests somewhere nearer by. The sun had taken its warmth with it; the deep breath she took held a bite more familiar to her in autumn, and the scent of the pepper trees, and Alex: starch from his shirtsleeves, the tang of his sweat. He was a warm, solid presence, the strength in him undeniable. She had the sense of great struggles being waged inside him, but it seemed clear that questions were not going to unlock his tongue. All he wanted from her was to lie still in his grip.
Through her free-floating thoughts, this last observation refused to pass. It stopped squarely at the forefront of her brain. He was gripping her so tightly that she could hardly move. This was what he wanted.
Amazement made her jerk. His hand tightened briefly, as if in warning.
She caught her breath. She felt as though some soundless, enclosing bubble had burst abruptly, baring her senses to a new and altered and far more vibrant scene. His embrace was fierce, unyielding, but also comfortable—more than comfortable. His arms were strong and adept and he wanted them around her.
Heavens, she must be the shallowest woman in the world. She should find no joy in this moment. As adventures went, tonight was an awful and violent entertainment. If the guard found Barrington before they managed to leave the grounds . . .
“All right,” he said quietly, and set her on her feet. “The Monte Carlo party is running late, it seems. Our good fortune.” Taking her hand, he led her around the corner.
A handful of guests in their evening finery stood under the portico, waiting to board Barrington’s carriage. Francesca Rizzardi spotted them immediately. “To the casino?” she called.
“Where else?” Alex sounded suddenly mischievous, playful, eager for a night of good fun.
“Then you’ve arrived just in time!” Signora Rizzardi laughed. “But we’ll have to crush in like sardines!”
“Oh, I’ve no objection to it.” Alex flashed the lady a suggestive smile. “Unless . . .” He turned to Gwen, his mouth quirked, his brow lifted.
She forced her own lips into a smile. “Darling,” she said, and laid a hand on his arm. “So long as I’m crushed into you, I can think of no better way to travel.”
It came out credibly, probably because it wasn’t a lie.
Alex kept his eyes on the house until the carriage turned onto the coast road, which sloped downward past an embankment that blocked his view. He was watching for signs of alarm—as if alarm would make itself so visible. Hell. What did he imagine? An explosion of lights? The sudden howling of dogs? Barrington was not so well equipped. He traveled well-guarded but clearly he had little experience of hostile negotiations. Only a fool invited into his house a man whom he knew to be deceiving him.
Barrington was not the only fool here.
Alex took a long breath. This urge to violence was new to him. It made his muscles jump at odd intervals. He knew how to inflict pain, but until now he’d not understood the possible pleasure in it.
So casually he’d decided to include Gwen in this idiocy. Accepting the invitation to Côte Bleue had seemed harmless. Such an economical way to put Gerard’s matter to rest. In his own mind, profit and cost had been the key considerations. And for Gwen? It would be a lark, a bit of fun, an escapade: such had been the terms in which he’d justified how she might profit by it. Profit. Always profit. Profit and entertainment; money and fun. Such bloodless words—bloodless, and boundless, too. Let the fun never end. May the profits never cease. Money knows no language. Let the world be your oyster. Go, go, go. Run. It had hurt to run as a boy but it never hurt now; he tested himself regularly.
He could have gotten her killed. Gwen’s blood on his hands.
Try to run from that.
Gwen stirred at his side. Her hand settled on his arm, the lightest touch, recalling him to his role. He turned a bland smile onto the company. As the signora had predicted, they had piled in as closely and carelessly as children into a tree house, and about as cheerfully, besides. On the opposite bench, Francesca Rizzardi perched on her husband’s lap, gasping and exclaiming in Italian as every bump in the road threatened to unseat her. Between bumps, she was reading aloud from a newspaper her husband held open for her, some chronicle of doings about Monte Carlo: Lord This had left on the green cloth a total of fifteen thousand dollars, but vowed to have it back within the week; Sir That had suffered similar losses, then made an excellent run at trente et quarante, and now sailed onward to Lazlo forty thousand in the black.
Beside the Rizzardis, Madame D’Argent, a dark-eyed and suspiciously youthful widow, cuddled the wall with a secret smile. Perhaps she knew these news items were nonsense—tales that the casino paid its mouthpieces to publish.
A half hour’s journey lay before them on smooth, new roads. They might well arrive at the casino before Barrington’s men discovered their master. Then the task would be to discover a clever place to hide until morning, when the trains would start running again.
He hadn’t a cent on him and he doubted Gwen did, either. Their letters of credit, made out in their true names, were hidden in their room. And one did not carry coins at a house party without raising eyebrows.
Fleeing in the night like hares from hounds. Her face would be bruising, soon. The only place I’d have a use for you is in bed. He was a fool.
Gwen gave a very convincing giggle—a reply to some joke that Alex had missed. Don’t laugh, he wanted to tell her. She had thrown her right leg atop his left knee upon boarding. She played her role beautifully, and he did not want her next to him. He wanted her as far away from him as possible. The opposite side of the earth. Be safe. Why the hell had she come with him? She had not one lick of sense in her head.
Into Alex’s right side pressed the soft gut of a Spanish gentleman—de Cruz was his name. Shifting on the bench, Alex felt a telltale bulge in the inside pocket of the man’s jacket. “Look there,” he said, putting his finger to the window by de Cruz’s face. “Glorious moon.”
De Cruz looked, surrendering a twenty-franc coin for the privilege.
“It is so amusing,” Signora Rizzardi was opining, “to see the truth of the casino, as compared to those dreadful little notices that the churchmen post at Nice.” She had an elegant bone structure that lent her hazel eyes a faint slant; she put this slant to work in the teasing look she cast Alex. He kissed his fingertips in reply. Mechanical gesture. She fluttered her lashes. “Have you ever read those notices, Mr. de Grey? No? Oh, they are awful; I cannot bear to describe them!”
“Please do,” Gwen said. Her tone was bright; nobody else would notice the rigidly erect posture of her spine, the tension in her shoulders. She had worn a backboard for six years. Whenever she felt uncertain, small or threatened or afraid, her posture was impossibly, painfully perfect. These things he knew about her—things which Gwen did not even suspect he knew—were innumerable. For a man that had understood her so little, Richard had loved her fiercely and talked of her often. And Alex had encouraged him—subtly, continuously. Over the years, what hadn’t he wanted to know?
“No, no, Miss Goodrick! And I recommend you do not look for them. Oh . . . very well. They are lists of recent suicides, men supposedly broken at Monte Carlo’s tables, but you mustn’t believe half of the names. These priests make up the tales to scare people.”
“They do?” Gwen pressed her fingertips to her lips with the appropriate show of shock. She is learning not to gape: so Richard had said. Such are the lessons a lady must learn in lieu of Latin. Her governess warns her she will swallow flies by accident.
Why had he collected these pieces of information? For years, he had collected them; he had tried again and again to force the fragments safely into a picture, the pastel debutante, the standard drawing-room watercolor. But he had never managed to fit them together. And so he had carried them as so many souvenirs—as warnings, as reminders, of how easy it would be, if he did not take care, to fall into the comfortable, easy catatonia inhabited by unimaginative men. And then at some point the souvenirs had shifted in his hands and come to show him the life he might have had, had he been the sort of man she required. But he’d not been able to be that man; he had not wanted to become that sort of man; and this was the certainty that had pulled him back aboard ship—the mantra to which he had listened, as he had watched Southampton retreat, again, for another six months, another season, another year.
“Perhaps they are lies,” the Spaniard said to Francesca Rizzardi. “But I think there must be some truth to these lists, as well.”
“Indeed? But no,” the signora said. “How would such indigents gain entrance to Monte Carlo without the card of admission?”
Gwen sat next to him right now, a warm, breathing presence, her bravery unflagging, as obvious and evident as the smile she wore. And it was a strange and almost unconquerable need in him, like the need to draw air into his lungs, to pull her closer. To hold her still. But he was always the one to leave, because there seemed to be no other choice. To stay would be to lose himself.
His mind turned again to the coast, the receding shoreline. Had she been harmed tonight, no distance ever would have taken him far enough away to find himself again.
“Perhaps they are not indigents to start,” said de Cruz. “Play-fever is real, you know. I have seen it. It can empty the deepest of pockets.”
“Poor souls,” Gwen murmured.
“A weak mind will break beneath any pressure,” the signora retorted. “I cannot spare sympathy for those who sabotage themselves.”
“True, true,” the Spaniard said. “But I truly believe they are not in their own control. Men in the grips of the fever will gladly risk what they can ill afford to lose.”
Of course, Alex thought. They risked what they could not lose because they thought that they would profit by that risk.
When she had fallen tonight something in him had broken—the frame in which he’d kept the pieces of her, perhaps. She had long since shattered the picture he’d tried to build from them.
No profit was worth the risk of losing her again.