He had thought that he was being ironically clever, but she had accepted the idea with such good grace that he was a little ashamed of having calculated so closely. Since she provided such superior service, he would rather be generous than haggle over every pennyworth of value.
Shrugging guilt aside, Gervase gave himself to enjoyment of the brisk autumn air and the teasing conversation of his mistress. Diana was surprisingly well-read, and they became involved in a discussion of Restoration dramatists, a light topic for a bright morning. They had thrice circled the park and were heading back to Charles Street when Diana’s words broke off in the middle of a dissertation on the female playwright Aphra Behn.
Gervase’s mount was a step ahead of hers and he glanced back when her voice broke. Diana had unconsciously tightened her hands on the reins, pulling Phaedra to a stop, and her face was white and strained as she looked down a small cross street. “Is anything wrong?” he asked quickly, responding to an automatic protective instinct.
She swallowed hard and shook her head, but her voice was uneven as she signaled the mare to move forward. “Not really. I just saw a man who”—she searched for a phrase, then ended lamely—“was once rather unpleasant to me.”
Gervase felt his face harden at her remark. So she had seen an old lover. Doubtless London was full of them. His voice cool, he said, “If you placed yourself entirely under my protection, I would have the right to deal with any man who bothers you, but your present position leaves you open to insult.”
She lifted her head, quick color flaring in her cheeks. “I have not asked for your help, my lord.”
“No doubt the dragon who guards you chases off unwanted suitors,” he said acidly.
“The dragon . . . ?”
“Your friend Miss Gainford.”
Diana laughed. “I never thought of her as a dragon, but she would make an elegant one. Or would she be a dragoness?”
Gervase smiled back, his momentary irritation forgotten. Diana had a near-magical ability to disarm, and as they rode on, debating the merits of Aphra Behn, he was calculating how much time he could afford to spend with her before going to Whitehall.
By the time they rode into her stableyard and he had helped her from Phaedra, his hands tarrying on her supple waist, he had decided that Whitehall could damned well wait.
* * *
The Count de Veseul had no trouble following Diana Lindsay and Lord St. Aubyn the few blocks to Charles Street. It was mere chance that the count had happened to see her as he returned home from a long night of illicit business. He had thought about the trollop a great deal since meeting her at the opera and had made discreet inquiries, but she seemed to have disappeared from view after the briefest of appearances on the courtesan scene.
He had been on the verge of instituting a serious search when luck had thrown her right in his path, but then, he had always been lucky. Amusing to see how quickly she had recognized him, and how the blood had drained from her face. She was no less beautiful for being frightened. Quite the contrary.
So St. Aubyn was one of her current lovers; if that didn’t prove his luck, nothing did. The count knew a great deal about St. Aubyn and respected the cool, analytical brilliance of the Englishman’s mind. Indeed, St. Aubyn was the only man in Britain that Veseul feared might expose him, and he was delighted to see the viscount looking like a daft youth with his first woman. How satisfying to know the Englishman was prey to vulgar emotional weakness; the Frenchman had no such frailty.
After the couple entered the elegant town house, Veseul lingered in an alley opposite, imagining what the two were doing upstairs behind that proper Mayfair facade, images flickering through his brain like a lewd dream. It aroused him to think of another man possessing that beautiful wanton. Knowing that man was a British spymaster added asoupçonof decadent excitement. When the count finally took Diana Lindsay, it would take a very long time indeed to satisfy the desire that was accumulating.
The detour made Veseul late for his rendezvous back at the rooms he leased in a large block of flats, a busy place where comings and goings at odd hours were unremarkable. Waiting impatiently was his associate Biron, a weasel-faced man of no style or elegance, but most useful.
After they had discussed the usual business, Veseul pulled a cigar from his desk and trimmed the end as he said casually, “I want you to put someone in the household at seventeen Charles Street.”
Biron regarded him suspiciously. “Who merits such close investigation? Our resources are not unlimited.”
Veseul lit the cigar, then exhaled, watching Biron flinch back from the stream of smoke. “Just a whore, but she has interesting guests. Make sure that whoever you put there is observant, reliable, and of unquestioning loyalty.”
Biron glared, suspecting that his superior’s motives were personal, but he nodded his head stiffly. “It shall be done.”
Biron was an orthodox revolutionary, bound by dogma, and it chafed him to obey an aristocrat of theancien regime.Veseul took malicious amusement in knowing that Biron thought the count should have been sent to Mme. Guillotine in the heady days of the Reign of Terror. The weasel-faced man had a small, unimaginative mind, and for all his revolutionary fervor, he had done less for the cause of France than the aristocrat he despised.
After Biron left, the Frenchman mused for a moment, pleased by the thought that the snare was beginning to tighten around Diana Lindsay, so slowly that she would have no inkling of what lay ahead of her. The count was not like other men, a creature of impatient lust that must be gratified instantly. A connoisseur knew how to wait and savor. He imagined how she would look with her limbs bound to the posts of a bed, her flawless face distorted by the knowledge that there would be no escape.
But he had more important things to do than contemplate what he would do to a whore, be she ever so lovely. Veseul began to write a summary of the information Biron had brought, adding his own comments about the implications before translating the report into a cipher and recopying it.
When he was finished, he folded the sheet very small, then took the heavy brass seal that bore the reversed incisions of the arms of Veseul. Unscrewing the handle revealed a second, secret seal in the form of a bird rising from flames: a phoenix.
Chapter Nine
Diana moved through her daily rounds with a cat-in-the-creampot smile on her face; no amount of intellectual knowledge of loving could match the reality. Gervase was constantly in her thoughts, and not just because of the passion they shared.
The thought of making love with him produced a quickening deep inside her, but his unexpected tenderness drew her most. He was a warm and witty companion, seldom laughing but with a wry, self-mocking smile that was irresistible. With her, he was a different man from his usual cold, commanding presence. She took pride in the fact that she created that difference.
Diana wanted Gervase in her life with a fierceness similar to what she felt for her son: she wanted to be his woman publicly, to sleep all night in his arms and be accepted by his friends. It was a cruel paradox; becoming a courtesan may have tainted her forever, yet they would never have come together had she not entered the harlots’ world.
