Page 72

"Vane offers rather a great deal," she said. "What is he hiding?"

"Gaming debts, naturally. Nothing ruinous. Merely enough to make his steward sigh over the accounts and his wife periodically wonder whether poisoning him would be cheaper than paying them."

Rodrick glanced toward her coat, to the corner of Talleyrand's letter.

"Though Isabelle is hardly entering the marriage without contraband of her own."

Her smile faded, and her gaze, so luminous seconds before, clouded and then closed off altogether.

The carriage slowed. Rodrick had just enough time to regret the remark before the wheels ground to a stop against the curb.

"We are here."

The postilion opened the carriage door as a wiry butler descended the steps to meet them.

"Lord Vane. Lady Vane. We have been expecting you."

Rodrick stepped down first and turned to Louise. "Isabelle, darling."

Her hand entered his. Rodrick helped her from the carriage and placed his palm at the small of her back as they climbed the steps.

The house rose four narrow floors above the street, its pale stone front relieved by tall windows and a black iron balcony over the first floor. The sort of respectable Brussels residence a visiting English lord might rent for a season and a neighbor might forget by Michaelmas.

Inside, the house had been prepared with military efficiency. Calling cards waited on a silver tray. Correspondence addressed to Lord Edmund Vane occupied the desk. A coat in Rodrick's size hung in the vestibule as though Edmund had owned it for years.

Talleyrand had built two lives in Brussels before either occupant crossed the threshold, and Rodrick needed only a few seconds to understand that the house itself was part of the construction. A footman lingered near the stairs and watched with rather more attention than his duties required, while the maid crossing the corridor might have been entirely innocent, which naturally made her just as suspect. He could not know which of them belonged to Talleyrand, so he assumed they all did.

Louise stiffened. Of course she distrusted the entire arrangement. Rodrick pressed his palm more firmly into the small of her back.

The butler inclined his head. "If my lord and lady will follow me, I shall show you to your rooms."

They mounted the stairs together. Rodrick kept his hand where it was, and somewhere between the first and second landings, Louise eased against his arm. Funny that the prospect of spending the night in her room had the opposite effect on his physiology.

At the top of the stairs, the butler stopped where a long corridor branched in opposite directions. "The master's bedchamber is in the west wing, my lord. Lady Vane's suite is to the east."

Louise halted, and her gaze flew to his.

I wish nothing had to change between us.

Her voice returned with such clarity that something pulled beneath his breastbone. He could tell the butler that Lady Vane slept with her husband. The butler would bow, the rooms would be rearranged. Yet Talleyrand would know before nightfall that they were lovers. And just as fast, Louise would become leverage against Rodrick.

Edmund Vane smiled. "Go along, my dear. Three years of marriage ought to entitle you to one evening's peace."

Louise did not smile. "Of course."

The maid led her east. He had to grit his teeth to keep from calling her back. At the far end of the corridor, the maid opened Louise's door. Louise crossed the threshold, then turned.

Her eyes found him immediately.

Rodrick had built a career on giving observers nothing they could use, so he did not let his face betray the impulse to follow her.

Talleyrand did not separate them with a drop of ink. Rodrick did. Talleyrand merely knew exactly which fear would make him do it.

The Trents' drawing room smelled of beeswax, champagne, and old money. Brussels had filled itself with English aristocrats as though war were a theatrical season. Men who had never carried anything heavier than a calling card had cultivated military mustaches. Women wore hussar jackets embroidered in enough gold to feed a cavalry troop.

Yesterday Louise would have wanted to pull the mustaches off. Today she looked at them and felt nothing. Rodrick stood behind her with one hand at the small of her back. She felt that.

Since arriving at the house on Rue Ducale, he had hardly touched her unless someone was watching. The touch at her back now was impeccable. Lord Edmund Vane was steering his beloved wife through a drawing room. A warm palm through silk, familiar pressure placed exactly where a husband's hand ought to rest. Nothing in it belonged to Louise.