Chapter Nine

By the time Evie arrived at the abandoned theater the next morning, most of the detritus—the burned-out candles, empty tumblers, discarded cigarette ends and the like—had already been carted away.

Only a few of Captain's helpers remained. The venue was one he returned to again and again, so he took care of it like he owned it.

He sat at one of the tables, sleeves rolled up as if he'd only recently stopped work, a newspaper spread out before him. As she drew near, he glanced up. "Evangeline, my dear! Congratulations on a truly superlative performance last night. I hope the duke was suitably impressed."

"Impressed is one word for it." Though the phrase "apoplectic with rage" was even better. After spending the morning so far refusing to think of Harcastle, it irritated her that his name was almost the first word Captain had said to her. "He's no fool. He knows oil of phosphorous when he sees it. There isn't a trick we can pull that he hasn't seen a hundred times before." Then, because she was finished pretending, she added. "As you know very well."

"What about the ectoplasm? That's a showstopper!"

"That nonsense wouldn't fool anyone of any sense, let alone a man like the duke, but you knew that too."

"You're particularly churlish this morning, my dear." He smirked. "Rough night?"

There it was; the sign she'd been looking for. His knowing tone suggested he knew what had been going on between her and Harcastle. He knew because he'd orchestrated the entire thing by somehow gifting the duke her photograph before she'd even met him. Either he didn't know she was onto him or he didn't care.

Whichever it was, she'd had enough, so she sat down facing him and folded her arms on the tabletop. "I need to know what's going on. What are you up to?"

"Up to? Me? I don't know what you mean."

This was the point in the conversation where she'd usually retreat. How convenient for him that she preferred to stay on good terms. Worst of all, he knew she was afraid of him now. He knew and he enjoyed her fear. It amused him.

Something snapped within her. The last thread of her gratitude. Captain might not have given her life, but he'd been a father in other ways. Like a child with an unsatisfactory parent, she'd finally run out of thanks. If she ceased to care whether she displeased him, she had no more use for her long-standing policy of appeasement. Her fear was neither here nor there, a useless emotion she must learn to ignore. And of late she'd had plenty of practice. She'd been terrified of Harcastle, yet she'd faced him down.

If she could dare a duke's wrath, she could dare anything.

"Harcastle has exposed countless mediums. Why would you risk a second, let alone a third and fourth meeting? It makes no sense, unless there's more to it."

He smiled and leaned back in his chair. "Clever girl."

She wanted to slap the smug look from his face. Instead, she lowered her voice, drawing him in. "Why did you give Harcastle my photograph?"

"Which photograph?" he asked with an enigmatic twitch of his lips. He was laughing at her.

"Don't play games with me. I know you arranged for him to have it. What I want to know is why. Why would you want him to see through a lie you helped create?"

For the first time, he looked almost impressed. "I must say, you surprise me. I didn't realize you were so perceptive. As to why , I think a girl clever enough to guess my gambit with the photograph would know the answer already. You tell me."

"It isn't because you want to distract him. This isn't about the spiritualist scam."

"Are you sure? You get the duke on our side and no one can touch us."

She shook her head.

"Use your head, girl. A man like that has a dozen secrets. You find them out and you'll have him in our pockets for the rest of his life."

She almost believed him. She did believe him as far as that went, but she was sure there was more. They were supposed to be partners. They were going to help each other make a living, that's what he'd said when he took her from Miss Rose's years ago. What a fool she'd been to imagine she knew the limit of Captain's ambition.

"Why Harcastle? Why not someone else, someone easier?"

"The bigger the risk, the bigger the payout."

"But it could still be anyone with a lot of money."

"No, it has to be him." With this admission, his false geniality fled and his tone was icy. Even as her stomach knotted, she felt triumphant. At last, she was getting somewhere.

"Why?"

"Because he has to pay, that's why!" he shouted. "Did you let him bed you yet?"

Mind your own damn business . She wasn't silly enough to say the words out loud. The last time she'd seen him this angry was the day he'd caught her posing for the photograph and he'd blacked her eye.

She thought fast. His anger that day had been real which meant the photograph hadn't been part of his original plan for her. Clearly, he'd improvised, turned a liability into an asset. He had reacted to events, which meant he didn't know everything.

"No," she said.

"Good. No sense letting him have you too easy. Men like that want what's denied them. Play your cards right and he'll offer to keep you. When he does, you say yes, understand?"

"He won't ask me."

He regarded her in silence, his expression calculating. She kept her face blank, the way he'd taught her. He knew what her poker face looked like, but if she was lucky, he wouldn't know what it concealed.

"This is what we've been waiting for. This is our chance. The big one."

"What you've been waiting for."

"Don't give me that. Why do you think I took you from Miss Rose? Why do you think I kept you safe from all the men who offered me money for a tumble with you? When it comes to that, why do you think I didn't bed you myself?"

Evie struggled against a sudden surge of nausea. She wanted to scream the obvious answers at him: Because I was a child! Because you raised me! Every muscle in her body strained to get away from him, but she couldn't let him see the effect of his words.

Once again her image of who he was transformed. Everything he'd done for her had been part of a larger calculation. She had always known this to some extent but she hadn't realized until this moment that he didn't care for her at all. She was a means to an end. Nothing more.

"This is why I took you from the brothel. This is why I fed and clothed you and kept you safe. If not for me, you'd be a used-up whore by now. Your loyalty is to me and you'll do as I say. Harcastle will offer for you, if he hasn't already, and you'll say yes. Eventually he'll tire of you, but long before he does, you'll bleed him for every secret, every sin. Understood?"

"Yes," she whispered, her skin crawling. "I understand." And I will never let you hurt him .

∞∞∞

Alex gazed grimly into the ornate mirror while his valet fussed at his clothes, checking for lint and stray wrinkles. He looked without seeing, his thoughts as always focused on her . It troubled him, this single-mindedness where she was concerned.

He'd always been monomaniacal about his work. His fascination with the occult had begun early, perhaps as a reaction to his father's extreme empiricism. At first, he'd been determined to find a genuine medium, but the more he investigated the spiritualist movement, the less he believed in its merit. Each time he'd uncovered a new fraud, his anger had grown until exposing fakes and charlatans had become the entire point, both his reason for living and why he was the best in his field. He was obsessive by nature. Prone to idée fixe. But t his obsession with Evie had no practical purpose and needed conquering, much like his addiction to alcohol.

Doing so would be even more difficult now his affections were engaged. When he'd walked her home from Lord Stein's, he'd admitted he liked her, but the fury he'd felt when he realized she was using oil of phosphorous forced him to acknowledge a deeper truth. He cared about her, a fact he found especially disturbing when he considered that the addition of Evie's name to the list of people he cared about brought the grand total to three. His sister and her husband were the other two.

The people who called him a cold fish—never to his face of course—were right, but he made no apologies. So why, instead of striving to overcome his feelings, had he asked her to become his mistress? Gone were the days when he deluded himself into thinking he'd tire of her quickly. Such a connection would only make things worse. Even so, he couldn't bring himself to fully repent his actions.

He couldn't afford a mistress; that alone was reason enough to retract his offer. Yet he wouldn't, and that was the true source of his regret. That he couldn't bring himself to take the logical, practical course. On the contrary, he fully intended to persist in an action he knew to be folly.

There would be pain too. One day, perhaps a year from now or perhaps less, he would have to choose one of Ellis's heiresses. He couldn't in good conscience continue to keep a mistress when he had a wife whose money he'd be spending to rescue the Harcastle holdings. Giving Evie up would hurt him and perhaps her too. But harder to contemplate was the idea of never having her at all.

Farrell, his valet, disappeared into the dressing room and returned with a top hat under his arm. Alex took it automatically and pretended to consider its fitness since that was what Farrell expected. Before he'd had time to murmur his assent, a knock came at the door.

"Come in."

A footman entered, bearing a silver tray. Placed carefully in its center was Evie's card, a single white rectangle with Miss Evangeline Jones – spiritualist printed neatly in the middle.

"The person insisted on waiting, sir."

Strange how the world turned on a moment. She was here in his father's house. Come to deliver a verdict. Her answer would change everything, one way or another. Alex deposited the hat onto the nearest surface. "Where is she?"

A slight pause was the footman's only betrayal of surprise. "In the main entry, sir."

Alex dismissed the servants and strode briskly to the top of the stairs. There he stopped and took a deep breath. Anticipation knotted his stomach. He couldn't predict what she would say, but his heart lifted because she was here. The very air felt different, crackling with delicious tension.

He was halfway down the grand staircase when he saw her, a small black-clad figure standing amid all the austere grandeur of Harcastle House, dwarfed by the vast expanse of black and white marble flooring, the statue of Aries, and the Doric columns. She looked impossibly vulnerable with her head down, but then as he neared the bottom step, she glanced up and he saw those duelist's eyes.

"Your Grace."

He bowed. "Miss Jones."

"Might we talk?"

"Please." He gestured in the direction of the study. "Allow me." He picked up the small carpetbag at her feet, trying not to think about what its presence might signify, and held the door open for her. She strode inside without looking at him.

Without waiting to be offered a seat, she sat before the desk, obviously expecting him to sit in his father's chair. He did so and found that he minded less now that the portrait had been taken down. It stood with its face to the wall, and soon it would be sold.

"I'd like to concede our wager," she said.

He felt his eyebrows inch upward. For once, he hadn't been able to school his features in time. "Unexpected," he said. "I confess, I didn't think you capable of it."

"And ordinarily you'd be right, but these are special circumstances. The fact is, I need your help."

For the second time in as many minutes, she'd surprised him. "Go on."

"I don't like my work. I never have, though I do take pride in being good at what I do. Giving it up has never been an option. Even if my finances weren't entangled with Mr. Nightingale's, I felt bound to him by gratitude."

Alex nodded noncommittally but inwardly he seethed. He didn't like the idea of her bound to anyone but himself. Then, too, the nature of her relationship with Nightingale was nebulous. But he had no right to question her. Not yet anyway.

"In recent weeks, my feelings on this matter have changed." She rose and began to pace. "You've investigated a great many mediums, but what made you take such particular notice of me?"

He shrugged. "You started to become popular. I make it my business to stay informed."

"But you went far beyond that." She stilled in front of him and pinned him with a look. "Be honest. Was it the photograph?"

He held her gaze. "Yes."

"You told me your agents located it for you in Holywell Street. Led there by an anonymous source, I suppose?"

He began to see what she was suggesting. "You think it was Nightingale?"

"I know so. I confronted him this morning."

He retrieved an envelope from the drawer and placed it on the desk before her. "I've been meaning to show you this."

She slid the contents—a single photograph—free of the envelope and studied it in silence for a few minutes. "At least I have most of my clothes on in this one."

"It arrived a few days ago along with the photograph I posed for. I wasn't sure if you knew."

"I didn't." She continued to gaze at the image, her brow furrowed.

"He couldn't have known how I would react to the first photograph. Not the extent of it anyway."

"No, but he's adaptable. He hoped it would distract you but I think this particular ploy worked beyond his wildest dreams. Had you seen Captain—Mr. Nightingale, I mean— before I introduced you?"

"No. What makes you ask?"

"Isn't it obvious?" She frowned in confusion. "He's fixated on you."

"You said yourself he's adaptable. Scams like this are commonplace, though I'll grant you've been ambitious in your choice of target."

" I've been ambitious? No. I knew nothing of this until that day in the carriage."

Her words jibed so perfectly with his wishes that he immediately became suspicious. The fact that he wanted to believe her—longed to believe her, actually—meant he shouldn't trust his own judgment. All along he'd been absorbed by her, so obsessed that he failed to notice he was being manipulated by Nightingale. She claimed she was only a pawn but he couldn't be sure. Instinct urged him to trust her but he'd be a fool to heed it.

"Anyway, that doesn't matter." She waved away his distrust as if it were nothing. "The point is that it's you in particular he wishes to hurt. He even said so. ‘He's got to pay.' That's what he told me this morning."

"Pay for what? I tell you, I'd never seen the man before you introduced us. And pay how?"

"He wants me to become your mistress so I can spy for him. He plans to use what I find out to bleed you dry."

A shrug was all he could muster. The anger he ought to feel was truant. In its place, he found only emptiness.

Evie must have sensed it because she snapped at him. "For goodness sake, Harcastle!"

He couldn't remember the last time anyone had scolded him the way she did. He suspected his sister was often exasperated by him but she rarely allowed it to show. He tried and failed to repress a smile.

Evie rolled her eyes inelegantly and took a deep breath. "Well, I've told you. It's up to you what you do with the information. Forewarned is forearmed and now there's no way he can force me to help him."

"Force you?" Ah, there it was. Anger breaking through the emptiness. "What exactly do you mean by that?"

Her eyes widened. "That's not important."

"Like hell it isn't." He didn't care that she was a deceitful baggage who might or might not be aiding Nightingale even now. If that bastard laid a hand on her in any way, Alex was going to tear his throat out.

"Look, I want to get as far away from Captain as I can, but he thinks he owns me. I can't take five hundred pounds from you, even if you're still willing to give it to me, because he won't accept that. I need to become useless to him, which means you need to win our wager. Publicly. Where Captain can witness it. If you help me, you could keep the money—"

"No, you need the money." He hadn't forgotten her lecture on that score.

"I can't be your mistress, Harcastle."

"No, you can't." Nightingale had made that impossible. If she was telling the truth, he needed to help her, and he wouldn't take her to bed if she was only willing because of gratitude. If she was lying, if this was all part of the plot…

"You can't stay here," he told her. "But I still have my old lodgings. I'll give you the key and escort you there. I'll call on you tomorrow and we'll decide what to do next."

"Harcastle…" Her eyes searched his face. Whatever she'd been hoping to see, it clearly wasn't there. Without conscious thought, he'd shuttered his expression. It was his first instinct whenever he felt threatened. At the beginning of their acquaintance, he'd done it as a matter of course, and he didn't know when he'd stopped. Only now, with his defenses back in place, did he realize he'd abandoned them. Careless, Alex .

Evie gave a sad smile and he felt as though he'd failed her. "It doesn't matter," she said.

Logic told him he'd be a fool to trust her in these circumstances, but a deeper intuition warred against it. Distrusting her felt like a betrayal. His heart against his head. The urge to reassure her was almost overpowering, yet what good would it do? He couldn't change what he was. He doubted her and that was all there was to it.

Nothing either one of them said now would make a difference.

Nothing could be done.

No words would recover what had been stolen.

Nightingale had spoilt what was between them before they'd even met.