Denis signaled to the pugilist at the door, who came forward. The interview was at an end. “I told you about the necklace as a courtesy, Captain. What I do with it is for me to decide. I imagine de la Fontaine will have it in the end.”
“Leave him alone,” I said with heat. “He has lost everything. Let him die in peace.”
Denis’s brows rose the slightest bit. “The Comte de la Fontaine used to be a great tyrant. He is one of the reasons the revolution in France began at all. He fled as soon as the tide began to turn, because he would have been among the first to the guillotine. The cry for his arrest had already gone out.”
“He lost his only son, in our war.”
“Fighting the republican bastards who drove him from his home,” Denis said smoothly.
“Perhaps.” I stood up, finding myself next to the pugilist who’d halted beside my chair. “But he’s had to live thirty years in poverty in the damp of London, and is now a poor relation to his rather thick English son-in-law. That is enough of a punishment for any man, do you not think?”
Again, the look of near amusement. “As you say, Captain. I will keep you informed. Good day.”
**
I knew Denis wanted me to be grateful to him for bothering to tell me about the necklace at all. He also wanted to rub my face in the fact that he’d used everything I’d done in my investigation to further his own wealth and power.
He might be right that de la Fontaine had possessed the same kind of arrogant ruthlessness that Denis himself had now. But the world turned, and it changed, and eventually all tyrants fell to become dust.
I wrote to de la Fontaine, telling him that Denis had the necklace, and suggested he apply to a magistrate I knew who was not in Denis’s network. I then wrote to the magistrate in question, informing Sir Montague Harris of all that had happened, though I kept silent on the roles Mrs. Dale and Lady Clifford had played in the necklace’s loss. After all, they’d only disposed of an inexpensive copy.
I had no way of knowing whether de la Fontaine would act against Denis or end up bargaining with him. Or perhaps drop the matter altogether.
I somehow did not think he’d choose the last recourse, and I was correct. Several days later, Sir Montague replied to me, saying that he’d spoken to de la Fontaine, but that de la Fontaine had not wanted to prosecute either Denis or Lord Clifford.
I received a letter from de la Fontaine himself soon after that. In it he thanked me for my assistance, told me that the necklace had been returned to him, and made a vague suggestion that perhaps we might share fine brandy again one day. Nothing more. Not until months later did I see his son-in-law stand for Parliament and be elected by a landslide. James Denis had won again.
For now, I was finished with the business. I tied the last two threads of the affair the day after I received de la Fontaine’s letter. The first came in the form of a note from Lady Breckenridge, calling in her favor and bidding me to attend her at her home.
Chapter Ten
“Such a delight,” Lady Breckenridge said. “Captain Lacey answers a summons. I hear from Grenville that you do not always comply.”
She’d received me in her sitting room, she wearing a deep blue afternoon dress, its décolletage trimmed with light blue ribbon woven through the darker cloth. The ribbon matched the bandeau in her hair and brought out the blue of her eyes.
She did not invite me to sit down. We stood near the fireplace, the heat from the coals soaking into my bones. I leaned on the walking stick she’d given me, its handle warm under my palm.
“I can be abominably rude at times,” I said.
Lady Breckenridge shrugged, her shrugs as smooth and practiced as Denis’s own. “You do not rush to obey those who seek to command you. Your independence makes people puzzle over you.”
I gave her a wry smile. “They puzzle over why a poor nobody does not hasten to snatch from every hand.”
“Your behavior does give others something to talk about, Lacey.”
“Including you, my lady.”
Her gaze went cool. “I admit to the curiosity, but I choose very carefully to whom I speak about what.”
I believed her. “I beg your pardon,” I said. “I was teasing and meant no censure. You have invited me here to call in your favor. Perhaps you should tell me what it is.”
She smiled. “Have done with it, you mean? I can imagine you wondering like mad what I would ask of you as you rode over from Covent Garden. But you may cease worrying. The task is very simple. I wish for you to meet my son.”
I blinked in surprise. I’d never met Lady Breckenridge’s son, who would be about five by now. The young Viscount Breckenridge stayed with his grandmother in the country much of the time, so I had been told, tucked away with nannies and tutors and other caretakers.
Lady Breckenridge seldom spoke of the boy, but observing her now, I realized that her silence was not because she had no affection for him. I saw in her the same thing I’d seen in Marianne during the Sudbury School problem—a woman who loved desperately and protected fiercely.
I gave her another half bow. “I would be honored, my lady.”
