The Swordmaster's Mistress: Dangerous Deceptions Book Two Read online

  ‘Indeed?’

  ‘Indeed. Nobody was quite sure what was going on, but something was and they described you as the deus ex machina who ensured that things stayed like that – ambiguous. From the very little Tonkin could glean from Flynn I was more inclined to ask whether you had Italian blood – there was a distinct hint of stilettos behind the arras about the matter.’

  Jared kept his expression bland, despite the urge to snort with laughter at being described as the god in the machine. ‘Knives and an arras, my lord? That is as much Hamlet as Machiavelli. No-one was knifed, you have my assurance.’ Poisoned and shot, yes. Knifed, no.

  ‘I will not ask for details and I know I would get short shrift if did, which is as it should be.’ He shot Jared a sharp glance from beneath unruly eyebrows several shades darker than his hair. ‘Tonkin summed you up as a dangerous man to be on the wrong side of, absolutely loyal and worryingly intelligent. I have great need of a man like that, Mr Hunt, even if you take extreme pains to hide your past.’

  ‘My past?’ Jared lifted one eyebrow. Absolute stillness was as betraying as fidgeting. ‘It is an open book. I was apprenticed in arms to Monsieur Jacques Favel, then, on his recommendation, secured a position as swordmaster and companion to the young Viscount Castledale, later Duke of Calderbrook. I spent almost seven years abroad with him on his travels and have, within the year, returned with him to England.’

  He crossed his legs. ‘His Grace no longer requires a travelling companion and I am therefore free to set up my own salle d’armes.’

  ‘And before your apprenticeship?’

  ‘I hardly think my childhood is relevant, my lord. It was not spent in prison, in a slum or engaged in felony, you have my word.’

  ‘Then why the secrecy?’

  Persistent old bugger, aren’t you? Jared considered ending the interview there and then. He could not afford rumours to spread that he was sensitive about his origins, that there was intriguing tale to be told. ‘Because it is my business, my lord.’ He smiled, taking care that the warmth reached his eyes. ‘A certain mystery is part of my persona, my calling card, if you will. If you chose to employ me I will keep your secrets as close as my own. But if my privacy is a stumbling block for you, then I will remove myself forthwith.’

  He waited. One heartbeat, two… Ah well, I will just have to hope the old man is not a gossip. He placed his hands on the arms of the chair and prepared to stand.

  ‘Fair enough.’ The Viscount waved him back into the seat. ‘Either I trust you, or I do not and I find that I do.’ He picked up a folded paper from the table by his chair and handed it to Jared. ‘That is what I am prepared to pay you, in addition to your expenses.’

  Jared unfolded it and found himself holding a bank draft. An exceedingly large bank draft. He lifted his gaze to meet that of the old man steadily watching him across the few feet between them. ‘And what would I have to do to earn this?’ It seemed to be about half the going rate for assassinating a royal duke or robbing the Bank of England.

  ‘Someone is attempting to kill my wife. Find them and stop them by whatever means necessary.’

  Chapter Two

  Attempted murder. That explained the size of the draft – he was to employ fair means or foul, then. And presumably dispose of the bodies, if any. ‘And what makes you think someone is attempting the life of Lady Northam?’ Jared asked.

  ‘Other than the shot through the open window of her carriage that missed her by an inch, the handrail almost sawn through on the stairs to the tower room that is a favourite retreat of hers, the adder in her sewing basket and the fact that someone feagued her horse with half a root of ginger while she was visiting a tenant?’ Northam enquired.

  Feaguing a horse – stuffing a small piece of ginger into its rectum to literally ginger-up a sluggish or listless animal – was an old horse dealers’ trick, sometimes used on the racecourse. A large quantity used on a placid riding hack with an unsuspecting, elderly, rider could be lethally dangerous.

  ‘It would appear that Lady Northam has had a number of lucky escapes if she has survived that series of attacks. Do you suspect anyone of this?’

  ‘They’d be dead if I did,’ the older man growled, his gnarled knuckles whitening as they clenched on the arms of the chair.

  ‘Who might have a motive? Is your family able to offer any suggestions? I have to admit to ignorance about your relatives, my lord. I have been out of the country for too long.’ If someone was attempting to murder the Viscount, then there was a ready-made motive – a title and, judging by the house and that bank draft, no shortage of money to inherit. But an old lady? Why not wait for nature to take its course?

  ‘My sons died in infancy,’ Northam said tightly. ‘I have two daughters, one married, one widowed. Susan is the wife of Sir Hugh Grantford, baronet, and Lucinda, the widow of Viscount Knotley. Susan has a son and two daughters and Lucinda also has a son, now Viscount Knotley, and one daughter.’

  ‘Two grandsons but both of them through the female line.’ Jared took out a small notebook and jotted down the names. ‘Who then is your heir, my lord?’

  ‘My younger brother Claud, who is ailing badly, I fear, and after him, his son Theo. Claud’s first wife gave him no children and he remarried in his late forties. Theo is only twenty three, the same age as my younger grandchildren and still single.’ He hesitated for a moment and Jared looked up, but all Lord Northam said was, ‘I have no other close relatives, although my grandfather had a brother.’

  Jared made a pencil mark against Theo Quenten’s name. There was something there to be followed up. ‘And beyond those two – the ailing brother and the young, unmarried nephew? Your great uncle’s line, for example.’

  ‘I never knew my great uncle because there was some major family falling-out which is such old history that I know none of the causes. His grandson Charles – my second cousin, I suppose – was my contemporary, but he is dead. I think I must have met him perhaps twice in my entire life, both times at funerals. We were civil enough, but the two lines have grown so far apart he might as well have been a complete stranger.

  ‘Oddly, it was his own funeral that was the cause of my meeting Guinnie. She is my second wife, you understand. I had attended the funeral to pay my respects and his son Julian sold me one of their houses – he seemed devilish hard up, to be honest and I felt it my duty to help out. I decided to call in on the place on my way home, see whether I’d bought a pig in a poke or not. Guinnie was at the Red Griffin, the inn in the village.’ He broke off and smiled reminiscently. ‘Strange how fate works, is it not? Anyway, to go back to those distant cousins, there’s just Julian, who married a dull woman I did not take to, although no-one is at their best over the funeral meats. They have children I believe.’

  Setting aside the distant cousins, this was uncomfortably close to the situation Cal had found himself in when his life was under threat, with his heirs his uncle and his cousin, both with a very good motive to murder him. But this could not be about the title. If it was, then Northam himself would be the target, not his wife.

  ‘Have you enemies, my lord, anyone who would seek to avenge themselves for some slight, real or imagined, by hurting your wife?’ Northam was a tough old man, he wouldn’t hold back on saying what he thought or doing what he believed in and that might cause resentments. ‘Or is there anyone who might profit from Lady Northam’s death or who has a grudge against her?’

  ‘No. We have racked our brains, but we can think of no-one, no motive for this.’

  ‘You have discussed it together, then? Lady Northam is aware that she is a target rather than simply believing she has suffered some accidents?’ Many men would have shielded their wives from such a terrifying realisation.

  The Viscount snorted. ‘After she had dispatched the adder with a shoe she remarked that she might have been flattered that her enemy saw her as Cleopatra, if it were not for the fact that she considered the Egyptian queen to have been a singularly foolish woman
.’

  ‘Ah.’ The image of a sweet little white-haired lady vanished, to be replaced with that of a sharp-tongued termagant brandishing a stout boot and muttering over her Shakespeare. ‘What precautions for her safety have you already in place? I assume you want me to find the perpetrator, not act as a bodyguard.’

  ‘Both. I want both.’ Northam thumped his fist on the arm of his chair. ‘Oh yes, I realise that you cannot be in two places at once, Hunt. While she is within this house I have a number of large and reliable footmen outside her door in rotation at all times and there is a pair of armed gamekeepers from my estate keeping guard below stairs, day and night. When my lady goes out, then I will require you to accompany her, whether I am with her or not.’

  ‘I see.’ That should give him time both to investigate and to supervise the construction work. A lady in her seventies, one who had experienced several near-misses from an unknown enemy, was hardly likely to be out on the Town very much, however handy she might be with makeshift weapons. ‘That should be feasible.’ He folded the bank draft again and slid it into his breast pocket.

  ‘Excellent. You can start at once?’ Without waiting for Jared’s reply the Viscount levered himself to his feet. ‘I wish this to be dealt with urgently.’

  ‘Most understandable, my lord,’ Jared murmured, standing back to allow his new employer to lead the way.

  That proved to be across the hall, up the stairs and, after a tap on a door, into what looked like a lady’s withdrawing room. Peripherally Jared was aware of quiet, almost severe, elegance. In the centre a woman sat at a small desk, sunlight falling on black hair, gold on a raven’s glossy wing.

  ‘My dear, here is Mr Hunt to assist us. Mr Hunt is a swordmaster who will protect you, help us puzzle out this mystery.’

  After a moment Jared remembered to breathe. Then Lady Northam stood up and he forgot again. If this woman was a day over twenty six then he was the Shah of Persia. She was tall, slender, pale-skinned, with big eyes that were shadowed by tension or lack of sleep and a generous mouth that now was set into a tight line.

  He got his breathing under control with the same savage concentration he would have expended in a swordfight and bowed. ‘My lady. I am at your service.’ And at your feet.

  ‘Mr Hunt.’ Her voice held the bite of an east wind and he wondered if he had allowed his instinctive masculine reaction to show, which was unlikely, or whether she was simply unfriendly on principle.

  She is not perfect, he told himself, angry at being made to feel like an awe-struck youth. Her nose was a trifle too long and thin, her height unfashionable, her eyes a disconcerting pale blue, or blueish-grey or perhaps there was green in there… And she was doing nothing to attract, nothing to seduce, merely standing there in the simplest of dark red morning gowns without jewellery or paint or artifice. It was all in his head, this conviction that he was being bewitched or ensorcelled.

  Lord Northam, who must be old enough to be her grandfather – great grandfather, Jared thought savagely – was looking from one to the other with a fond smile for his wife, a look of enquiry for Jared. How the hell had he managed to secure this cold beauty? From her voice, her very presence, she was a lady, trained from her earliest years in deportment and confidence. She was not an actress or a courtesan, dazzled by a title and wealth into making this unequal match.

  Yet somehow, in seconds, she had bewitched him, because otherwise what was he doing feeling distaste at the waste of this Winter-Spring marriage, becoming aroused by this woman? His entire livelihood, often his life itself, relied on his detachment, his control. This woman’s safety would depend on his ability to think dispassionately, act incisively, make life and death decisions in seconds. Besides, she was a married woman.

  She doesn’t like me, he realised. That was no surprise and no matter, either. She had to trust him and obey him in a crisis, but she did not have to like him.

  ‘I will leave you together,’ Lord Northam said, apparently noticing nothing out of the ordinary on either side. ‘I have to consult my man of business over some urgent matters and you will be able to give Mr Hunt all the details of the incidents, will you not, Guinnie my dear? You will not find it upsetting to speak of them?’

  ‘Not at all, my lord.’ Her smile to her husband was immediate, warm. Jared would have sworn it was affectionate and unfeigned. Whether real or not, it transformed her face, made her look even younger and far more vulnerable. Innocent. ‘Do sit down, Mr Hunt.’

  The smile was gone as soon as the door closed behind the Viscount. She sat in an upright chair, her red skirts around her like the petals of a rose against the green brocade of the upholstery.

  Jared selected a comfortable upholstered chair, subtly making the point that he was not a domestic servant, and produced his notebook and a pencil.

  ‘How clerkly of you, Mr Hunt,’ Lady Northam remarked. ‘I had expected swords and pistols from a bodyguard, not jottings.’

  He glanced up, met her gaze. She is deliberately goading me, he thought. Now why should that be? ‘My memory is good, Lady Northam, but there is much information I will need from you. I prefer not to risk any detail being forgotten. I shall begin by being very clerkly indeed and noting your name. Guinnie?’

  ‘Guinevere.’

  Arthur’s wife, the beauty who enchanted the knight Lancelot into betraying his king for a doomed love affair with his queen. He was no knight and this was no queen, he reminded himself and he had no intention of being distracted, whatever the temptation. ‘Your maiden name?’

  There was the faintest hesitation. ‘Holroyd.’

  ‘And this is your first marriage, Lady Northam?’

  The hesitation was palpable this time. ‘Yes. No. Not exactly.’

  ‘Which, my lady?’

  ‘Why does it matter? How is this relevant?’ She was pretending anger and distain to cover something else, he realised, raising his gaze from the notebook to study her face. She stared back, chin up. Fear? Possibly. Talking of her past distresses her so she hits out at me to give herself courage.

  ‘Anything may be relevant. I need to understand you, your background, your life now, your past, if I am to discover who wishes you dead.’

  ‘You are forthright, Mr Hunt. Do you not fear I will faint or have the vapours at such direct speaking?’

  ‘No,’ Jared said bluntly. ‘I do not. Your first husband, ma’am?’

  ‘It was a Scottish marriage,’ she snapped.

  ‘That would still be legal here provided it was performed according to Scottish law before witnesses.’ A runaway match, no doubt, if she was so defensive of it.

  ‘It was. But that is irrelevant. My… He is dead.’

  ‘His name, please. And how and when did he die?’

  ‘Francis Willoughby. He fell from a window onto a stone terrace while drunk and broke his skull. He was dead when they reached him. It was almost two years ago.’

  ‘I am very sorry,’ Jared said. ‘It was an accident, I assume?’

  ‘Yes. The coroner was satisfied, although there were no witnesses to the actual fall. As I said, drink had been taken.’

  ‘It must have been very distressing for you. I can imagine your grief.’ Bland statements and clichés like that often had the effect of provoking a response and it worked this time.

  ‘Can you imagine how I felt? You are an unusual man if you can, Mr Hunt.’ Lady Northam turned her head and looked him straight in the eye. ‘Or was that remark intended to be provocative? Yes, I think it was. Very clever.’

  He managed not to wince at her perception, made the movement into a nod.

  ‘No doubt you would prefer not to have to drag this out of me quite as much as I would prefer not to have it dragged,’ she said tartly. ‘Here it is then without the trimmings – I was a foolish girl who fell for a plausible seducer. I ran away with him, my family cut me off, he was infuriated that my dowry was not forthcoming. In other words it is a commonplace story about a commonplace man and a very naive girl
. He was a most unsatisfactory husband and I would have rejoiced to find myself free if I had not found myself with a mountain of obligations and debts.’

  She was pretending a hardness and a sophistication that was alien to her, Jared guessed. ‘A wife is not held responsible for a husband’s debts,’ he said mildly.

  ‘But what she inherits may be entirely dissipated in paying those debts before she can inherit it.’ Lady Northam shrugged. ‘Not that I inherited anything beyond threatening debtors making demands they did not believe I could not meet.’

  ‘Was Lord Northam someone to whom Mr Willoughby owed money?’

  ‘No. This happened near an estate he had newly acquired.’

  ‘I see.’ Of course, the estate he had purchased to help his distant cousins.

  ‘I very much doubt it,’ Guin said. The compelling eyes that seemed able to read her mind narrowed, then Jared Hunt looked back at his notes. This hard-faced stranger thought she had sold herself to an old man as a way out of her troubles. There had been that of course, but there had been far more. More that she had no intention of discussing with a bodyguard. Where had Augustus found him? Jared Hunt was certainly no Bow Street Runner for hire. One look at him with his dark, severe clothing, those penetrating eyes had put her on edge, on the defensive.

  ‘Had your – had Willoughby family, friends?’

  So, he had the sensitivity at least not to call Francis your husband. Perhaps this would be like going to the dentist where the one who got on with it, pulled the painful tooth hard and brutally, was the one who caused least pain in the long run.

  ‘I am not aware of anyone.’ He had told her nothing about a family. I am all alone, Guin darling. You are everything to me, my world. We need no-one else, only each other. It was an effective way of isolating her, controlling her, until she realised there was no-one she could turn to, no friend, no confidante. No help. ‘No-one came forward at the inquest or attended the funeral. There has been nothing in twenty months and yet it was widely publicised at the time.’