Chapter 10 #3
I admired him. Not his profession or his position or his usefulness to my plans, but the man himself.
The way he asked questions that were sharper than he knew.
The way he listened to answers with his whole body, leaning forward, eyes narrowed, mouth slightly open, as though the truth were a physical substance he could absorb.
The way his jaw tightened when he suspected he was being lied to.
The scar along his jaw, evidence of a willingness to put himself in danger that belied the careful, methodical quality of his investigative work.
He was, in the language of the stable, a thoroughbred.
Not the most beautiful animal in the field, but the one with the most endurance, the one who would run until his heart burst if you asked him to.
Vivienne would have approved of my assessment.
She taught me to catalogue men the way a naturalist catalogues specimens, identifying their characteristics, classifying their weaknesses, determining the most efficient method of use.
Sebastian was, by her taxonomy, a high-value target: intelligent, principled, and therefore vulnerable to the precise kind of manipulation I had deployed.
But Vivienne would also have warned me about something, and the warning would have gone something like this: never allow yourself to become interested in the specimen.
Interest leads to attachment, and attachment leads to error.
I was interested. I had been interested since the Pemberton evening, and the interest had not diminished.
If anything, last night had intensified it, because last night I had seen something in Sebastian Aldric that I had never seen in any man before.
Not during the act itself, though the act had been instructive. Afterwards. When he had held me.
He had held me. Not grasped or clutched or possessed.
Held, with a gentleness that was entirely at odds with the desperation that had preceded it.
He had wrapped his arms around my back and pulled me against his chest and rested his chin on the crown of my head, and the embrace had been so simply tender that it had taken me a moment to understand what was happening.
Men had held me before, during and after the act, but their embraces had always been possessive, declarations of ownership.
Sebastian's had been something else. An offering.
He had been offering me something, and I did not know what it was, and the not-knowing was a sensation I did not enjoy.
I turned from the window and returned to my desk.
These reflections were unproductive. The seduction had achieved its objective.
Sebastian was compromised. The false leads were ready to be deployed.
The social rehabilitation was proceeding on schedule.
The only remaining variable was the residue, the faint tremor in my control that I had felt during and after the act, and I could manage that tremor the way I managed all uncomfortable sensations: by ignoring it until it went away.
I opened my writing desk and withdrew a sheet of cream-coloured notepaper.
I picked up my pen and composed a short note to Sebastian.
The note was calculated to achieve several objectives simultaneously.
It would remind him of what had happened.
It would establish a tone of casual intimacy that would make future encounters seem natural rather than conspiratorial.
It would embed in his mind the idea that I had initiated the contact, not he, positioning me as the active party and him as the respondent.
"Inspector Aldric," I wrote. "I trust you slept well.
I wished to say that our conversation yesterday was most illuminating, and I hope you will not hesitate to call again should you have further questions about the Earl's affairs.
I believe there may be additional information regarding a business associate in Manchester that might prove relevant to your inquiries, though I am not certain of the details.
Perhaps you might visit at your convenience, and we might discuss it over tea. Yours, C. Blackwood."
I read the note twice. It was perfect. The reference to "our conversation" was sufficiently vague to preserve deniability if the note were intercepted.
The mention of the Manchester business associate planted the first false lead in his mind, preparing him to receive it more readily when I delivered it in person.
The invitation to tea framed the next meeting as a continuation of professional business, normalising the relationship and making it harder for him to refuse.
I sealed the note and addressed it to his lodgings at Great Scotland Yard. Dorothea would deliver it this afternoon.
I stood and crossed the room to the tall mirror that hung between the windows.
I examined my reflection with the same diagnostic attention I brought to everything.
My hair was arranged in its usual morning style, a low chignon secured with jet pins.
My dress was half-mourning grey, high-collared, buttoned to the throat.
My face was composed, my expression neutral, my grey eyes clear and untroubled.
I looked exactly as I wished to look: a woman in control, a woman without secrets, a woman who had spent the previous evening drinking tea and reviewing correspondence rather than seducing a police inspector in her bedroom.
The mirror showed me what I wanted to see. That was its function. I had long ago stopped expecting mirrors to show the truth. They showed only surfaces, and surfaces were what I dealt in.
But beneath the surface, in the territory that no mirror could reach and no audience could observe, something had shifted.
I did not know what it was, and I did not intend to investigate.
Investigation was Sebastian's profession, not mine.
My profession was the construction of surfaces, and the surface I was now constructing was one of perfect composure, untroubled by the events of the previous night, focused entirely on the practical business of estate management and social rehabilitation.
The surface was flawless.
The thing beneath it was not.