The Deception of the Emerald Ring

Chapter Twenty-six

Sunlight glistened off the glass sides of the vial, casting faint smudges of red, yellow, and blue along the pale skin of Letty's wrist. Letty gave the glass vial a diagnostic shake and watched sludgy liquid slosh sullenly from one side to the other, coating the glass with a reddish-brown film and smudging her rainbow to shadow.

Letty thrust the vial back at Geoff. "I just don't see the point of it."

Geoff closed her fingers back around the glass, covering them with his own. "It's only as a last recourse."

Even through two pairs of gloves, the pressure of his hand sent a weakening wave of warmth through her, fraught with memory.

Letty made a concerted effort to keep her mind on the matter at hand. "It's not much of a recourse, is it? Even if I manage to get Vaughn to drink something and empty the potion into the glass without his seeing it, I can't imagine it will take effect immediately."

"True." Geoff's fingers tightened momentarily around Letty's before letting go. "But it should at least slow him down. Just take it."

"All right." It seemed easier to accede than argue.

Letty tucked the vial neatly into her reticule, along with a pair of razor-sharp embroidery scissors, a paper of pins, a large paperweight, and a whistle—in case she needed to summon help and found herself unable to muster a suitably loud scream. Letty's demonstration, over the breakfast table, of just how loudly she could scream had resulted in the breakage of several pieces of china and permanent damage to the nerves of more than one housemaid, but had done nothing at all to deter her husband from weighing her down with a motley arsenal of largely useless items.

Even though she really couldn't see what she was going to do with a paper of straight pins—threaten Vaughn with refitting his waistcoats? Perpetrate indignities upon the cut of his coat?—Letty felt a foolish glow as she regarded the jumbled pile in her reticule. A paper of pins and a vial of sleeping potion might not exactly be love poetry, but in their own way they were a far more practical expression of affection. The pen might be mightier than the sword in the poet's parlance, but a sharp point and a loud whistle were far more effective.

Letty fingered the tin whistle fondly before pulling the strings of the reticule tightly shut.

The little bag bulged alarmingly.

"This is all likely unnecessary," said Letty.

"Likely," agreed Geoff, leaning back in his seat and propping one booted ankle on top of the opposite knee.

"If Vaughn is playing a double game, it should be in his interest to maintain his connection with Jane. And he can't maintain his connection with Jane if he attacks me."

"If Jane questions the marquise, Vaughn may be driven to desperate action."

"Vaughn?" Letty made a face. "It's hard to imagine him driven to desperation by anything less dire than dereliction on the part of his tailor."

Geoff grinned, but his amusement was fleeting.

"People thought the same about Percy Blakeney."

"Who was on our side," said Letty.

Geoff crossed his arms and looked down at her. "How does that prove anything at all?"

"It doesn't," said Letty. "But I was hoping you wouldn't notice."

The sheer audacity of it tore a ragged laugh out of Geoff.

"Well, I had to say something. It would be awful for your ego if you got to have the last word all the time."

"Duly chastened," acknowledged Geoff. "But I do get the last word on this. I'm not going to let you go into a potentially dangerous situation unprepared."

With his arms folded and his brows drawn together over the thin bridge of his nose, he exuded determination. The shadow of hair darkening his jaw emphasized the precise planes of his face, lending him a vaguely rakish air, like a Renaissance adventurer or a pirate king, ruthless, accustomed to command.

It was rather nice to have all that determination exerted on her behalf. It made her feel special. Valued. As though he would actually care if something happened to her.

"After all," Geoff finished matter-of-factly, "you are my responsibility."

Letty's warm glow vanished as abruptly as the rainbow refracted through the glass. Responsibility. What a loathsome word. From "responsibility," it was only a short step to "burden," and no one liked a burden. One shouldered burdens; one didn't lavish affection on them. She should know. For a guilty moment, she wondered whether any of her family had ever realized that.

Geoff was looking at her quizzically, clearly waiting for either acquiescence or argument.

If she was a burden, the least she could be was an entertaining one. Letty groped for her earlier bantering tone. "I'm not the one playing with explosives."

"Not yet, at any rate." Reaching into his waistcoat, Geoff drew out a long, thin object. To Letty's startled eyes, it seemed to go on forever. With a flourish, Geoff reversed his grip and presented it to her, handle first.

The handle wasn't unattractive. Chased with silver, the wood had been styled in a graceful curve, polished to the sheen of fine furniture. But no amount of ornament could disguise the deadly purpose of the long steel shaft embedded in the wooden stock, or the curious curved flintlock that arched like a diving mermaid along the top.

Letty made no move to take it. She just stared at it.

"It is a firearm," Geoff said helpfully, pressing the handle into her palm.

"I am aware of that." Letty let the piece dangle between thumb and forefinger as she regarded it dubiously. Despite growing up in the country, she hadn't had much to do with guns. Her father wasn't a hunting man. "It's not…"

"Loaded? No."

Relieved, Letty peered down the little hole in the middle. "Then what am I supposed to do with it? Bash Vaughn over the head with the wooden bit?"

Looking pained, Geoff took Letty's wrist and turned the pistol the other way. Even though he had emptied the bullets out himself, the sight of his wife staring down the barrel did nasty things to Geoff's nerves.

"Rule number one, never point it at yourself. Even when it's unloaded," he added, forestalling Letty's next protest.

"This isn't going to fit into my reticule," she pointed out instead, poking the muzzle of the gun into the bag in illustration. "And I'm certainly not hiding it in my bodice."

"I should hope not. I prefer your bodice the way it is." For all that the sentiment was pleasing, there was nothing at all loverlike about Geoff's tone. Nor should there be, Letty reminded herself. They were preparing for a mission, not a tryst.

"Well?" asked Letty briskly. "What am I to do with it? I assume you didn't bring it along merely for its aesthetic value."

"You're not that far off the mark. Think of it as a theatrical prop. You know it's unloaded, and I know it's unloaded, but Vaughn won't."

"Until I pull the trigger and nothing happens."

Letty realized she was being difficult, but she couldn't seem to help herself. Perhaps it had something to do with lack of sleep. Fatigue and surliness generally went hand in hand, and she had not gotten much sleep last night.

Of course, neither had he.

Letty busied herself examining the workmanship of the flintlock.

"It shouldn't come to that," said Geoff soothingly. "You just have to point it at him with the proper air of authority."

"Is this before or after I stick him with my embroidery scissors?"

"Here." Geoff took her hand and rearranged it around the butt of the gun. "Point it at me."

"You must be very sure about those bullets," muttered Letty, but she did as he said. All she had to do was point and look steely-eyed. How hard could it be?

Held by one hand, the pistol was surprisingly heavy, ten inches of solid steel within its innocuous wooden casing. Letty struggled to keep the pistol level as gravity fought her grasp. Gravity won. Her wrist shook as the muzzle began to droop, centimeter by painful centimeter.

Geoff relieved her of the weapon, although whether it was out of pity or because the pistol happened to be pointing straight at a crucial part of his anatomy, Letty couldn't be sure. Letty surreptitiously shook out her wrist, wondering how one little part of her body could feel so much strain.

"It's heavy!" she said indignantly. It all looked so easy in the pictures in the illustrated papers.

"This was the lightest one I could find," said Geoff, leveling the pistol with one hand as though it weighed no more than a lady's fan.

"Show-off," said Letty.

Geoff looked smug.

"You want to grasp the stock with both hands to distribute the weight," he said.

He handed the gun back to her, watching critically as she tried again. Letty's arms felt stiff and awkward in the unaccustomed pose.

"Bend your elbows a bit," Geoff suggested.

Letty's arms shot back into an immediate right angle, one elbow catching Geoff in the stomach.

Geoff winced. "Not quite that much."

Easing closer, he reached around her, rearranging her hands on the stock, one slightly above the other.

"Do you feel the difference?" he asked, jiggling the barrel slightly to make her flex her arms.

"Mm-hmm." Letty's mind, admittedly, wasn't entirely on the pistol. A large part of it had wandered off along far more attractive byways having to do with the pleasant scent of Geoff's cologne, and the intriguing way his muscles moved beneath the fitted seams of his coat as he rearranged her hands on the stock.

"Now sight along the barrel." Letty lifted the pistol, and Geoff's arms went with her. She could feel his cheek brush hers as he leaned closer to inspect her aim. "And pretend to aim."

"Like this?" Letty glanced up over her shoulder.

Geoff wasn't looking at the pistol, or the imaginary target.

"Exactly like that."

Letty forgot that she was holding a heavy pistol; she forgot that her neck was twisted at an odd angle, and that she had a blister on the back of one heel.

Geoff's hands tangled in her hair, pulling her face to his for a quick, hard kiss that sent Letty's ears ringing.

The pistol dropped forgotten from her hands, landing with a thud on the floor of his carriage. In some musty corner of her mind, Letty dimly realized that it was a very good thing that the pistol had not been loaded.

Geoff drew back, his hands possessively cupping her shoulders, and stared down into her face. A slight furrow formed above his nose, and his eyes scanned hers as though he were reading a book—a book in a foreign language without a convenient translation at hand.

Letty stared right back, silently willing questions at him.

She wanted to know whether she was more than a responsibility to him. Whether, when he kissed her, he saw her—or her sister. Whether they would go on like this upon their return to England, or whether all their hard-won intimacy would dissolve as soon as they set foot on English soil, like Shakespeare's insubstantial pageants, or fairy gold smuggled into the mortal world only to turn to ash in the harsh light of day.

The door was already open, the steps down, the coachman waiting.

Leaning over, Geoff restored her fallen pistol to her, stock first, putting into the gesture what he hadn't said in words. It smacked of respect—and farewell.

"Be careful," he said simply.

And that was all.

The carriage waited until Letty had mounted the steps to the front door before trundling away down the street.

Letty stood, one hand on the knocker, watching it go, wishing she had said something else. But what? "Be careful?" There was something rather ridiculous about her telling Geoff to be careful, an amateur advising a master. Besides, it was a very poor substitute for what she really wanted to say.

"Be careful" was no substitute for "I love you."

Only one extra word, but as impossible to frame as a word-perfect recitation of the entirety of a Homeric epic. She couldn't declare her love—not only did her pride protest at the notion, but it seemed a hideous sort of imposition to thrust her love unasked on someone who couldn't feel the same way about her. How could he, when he was in love with her sister? It was as ridiculous as a Shakespeare comedy, everyone enamored of the wrong person.

And there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing, except to go on, in a staid and sensible manner, taking what pleasure she could from their companionship and camaraderie.

Much like "be careful," camaraderie made a very poor substitute for love.

"Why didn't you knock?" A pale hand reached out and whisked Letty through the door, putting a pointed period to her unproductive reverie.

"Let's get you costumed, shall we?" said Jane.

Two painful hours later, Letty stood outside Lord Vaughn's Dublin residence, tugging at her cravat.

Like the other great houses that ranged around St. Stephen's Green, Vaughn's Dublin residence was an immense edifice of stone that shone whitely in the sun, new enough that soot had not yet dimmed the luster of the facade. It might not be quite so large as the neighboring Clanwilliam House, or the Whaley mansion, but it would have made at least ten of the little brick house on Henrietta Street.

Letty wondered how Geoff was faring and whether Miss Gwen was as adept with explosive devices as she seemed to think. Sometime after six, he had said, since Emmet was supposed to be dining out, along with his senior staff, at a house in Kilmacud. They would wait till the house was largely empty, and then slip in and detonate the rockets. All perfectly simple. Unless it wasn't.

Letty went back to abusing her cravat.

"Don't fuss with it," said Jane, managing her own hat and cane with the air of one born to them. Her stride was authoritative, her demeanor lordly, and her shirt points would have made Brummell choke with envy. In short, she was the very image of a pink of the ton, setting out for a late-afternoon stroll prior to the evening's dissipations.

Letty glanced down at her own pantaloons. Brummell might choke, but it would be with horror, not envy. Her short, plump figure took to men's fashion about as well as Miss Gwen to humility. Her hips might be suited marvelously well to childbearing but they did nothing for the fit of her pantaloons. Her coat, cut fashionably short at waist and hip before extending behind, did little to cloak the problem. As for other unmanly protuberances, Jane had used lengths of linen to flatten her breasts and thicken her waist, lending Letty's upper half the appearance of an animated barrel of ale.

Beneath her shirt, waistcoat, and coat, she could feel the binding rubbing uncomfortably against her chest, sticky with perspiration. Although the day was mild for mid-July, Letty sweltered beneath her unaccustomed layers and thought longingly of her wardrobe full of light muslin gowns and soft kid half-boots. The stiff leather boots Jane had forced onto her legs cramped her calves and bit into the skin just above her knee every time she ventured a step.

No wonder so many gentlemen preferred to pose nonchalantly against the mantelpiece if it was this painful to move.

"Just keep your chin down," Jane advised, fluffing up Letty's cravat and straightening her shirt points. "And if anyone speaks to you, grunt."

"Grunt?"

"Like this." Jane produced a noise straight from the diaphragm, somewhere between a grumble and a growl. "It is the common masculine coin of communication."

Attempting to emulate her, Letty managed something between a squeak and a cough.

Jane sighed. "Just keep your chin down," she repeated.

"Mmph," said Letty, surreptitiously rubbing her side, where the binding was biting into her flesh.

"Not quite," said Jane, "but an improvement. A marked improvement."

Rolling her eyes, Letty clambered stiff-legged up the front steps after her, wondering how she got herself into these things. Hers was an ensemble better suited to storming a castle than a peaceful afternoon call. In addition to the boots, binding, and shirt points so starched they could be used to patch the roof, the gun tucked into her waistcoat knocked against her ribs as she moved, and the vial of potion formed a lump just inside her sleeve. The paper of pins and paperweight had remained behind, but the tin whistle was attached to her watch chain and the point of the embroidery scissors teased her palm. Fortunately, the formfitting nature of her pantaloons didn't allow for a knife strapped to her thigh, or she was sure Jane would have handed her one of those, too.

Letty was only surprised that no one had given her a small cannon to take along, just in case. She could have disguised it as a dog and wheeled it on a leash.

At the top of the steps, Jane took the knocker and let it fall with an emphatic rattle. Through the plate glass windows on either side, Letty couldn't discern the slightest sign of movement. In a house of such size, there ought to be a footman watching for visitors, ready to pop open the door. The echoes of the knock faded off across the green, unmatched by any answering noise from within.

Frowning, Jane pushed gently against the door with the head of her walking stick. The door fell easily open, revealing a polished expanse of white marble floor, and a staircase that seemed to stretch up forever, patterned on the underside with white stucco-work on a pale blue background. Following Jane, Letty ventured into the vast hall, feeling suddenly chilled. It wasn't just the eerie silence; it was the celestial cool of the endless motif of pale blue and white, like Olympus in the midst of a frost. The walls and ceiling had all been tinted the same pale blue, frosted with a design of urns and stylized acanthus leaves. The marble floor gleamed as pristinely pale as an untrodden field of snow.

"This is most unusual," murmured Jane.

Letty noticed that Jane readjusted her grip on her cane as she prowled across the hall, every step a measured act.

"Are you sure we have the right house?" Letty asked, lingering by the door. Even the sunlight seemed to shy away from entering the icy room.

"Quite sure."

Jane drew to a halt, her eyes fixed on an invisible spot on the marble floor. Invisible to Letty, at least. With one fluid movement, Jane went down on one knee, touching a gloved finger to the floor. Frowning, she rubbed her thumb and forefinger together, examining the result with all the absorption of a botanist confronted with a rare new specimen.

"Mud. And still damp. Someone—someone wearing boots," Jane amended, squinting at the marks on the floor, "walked across this hallway not long ago."

"That's not exactly remarkable in a house of this size," Letty pointed out pragmatically, reluctantly shutting the door behind her. "The staff must number in the dozens."

"This wasn't a servant," Jane said decisively, rising to her feet.

She had been about to expound further, but any explanation was cut off by a sudden clatter from a nearby room, the unmistakable sound of something fragile shattering.

"Quick," said Jane, pointing her cane like a baton. "The small salon!"

With her boots squeaking, Letty took off after her. Jane, she deduced, must have visited Lord Vaughn before; there was no way the size of the rooms could be determined from their closed doors, and Jane moved with the unerring surety of someone who knew exactly where she meant to go.

Without checking her stride, Jane flung open a pair of double doors frosted with more gleaming white stuccowork.

"Well, well," said Jane softly, coming to an abrupt halt in the doorway.

Skidding to a stop behind her—her boots were new, and the marble hall slippery—Letty leaned sideways to try to see around her. At first, all she saw were fragments of china, scattered across a pastel patterned rug. The china must have been Japanese Imari work, tinted deep red, blue, and black; the fallen fragments looked like flecks of dried blood against the paler shades of the carpet.

There, in the midst of the mess of porcelain shards, a blot stood out against the pale weave. Two blots, arms' width apart. The very pair of boots Jane had predicted in the entryway, smudged about the toe and sides with smears of mud. The boots belonged to Lord Vaughn, who stood among the bits of broken china, his face as pale and set as the plaster frieze lining the walls. Wordlessly, Jane crossed the room toward Vaughn, and Letty finally saw what her companion's body had been blocking.

On a small blue-and-yellow settee, flanked by two low chairs and a small table, reclined Teresa Ballinger, the ci-devant Marquise de Montval.

She was dressed in the stained pantaloons and ill-fitting frock coat of Augustus Ormond, her rough attire an affront to the pristine pastel perfection of the parlor. But it wasn't her clothing that had brought Jane up short.

A thin trickle of blood formed a rusty goatee beneath the marquise's lips, and her eyes were raised to the plasterwork of the ceiling in the unseeing stare of death.